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April 2007
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2010.01.30
RACE: Are We So Different?
It’s a simple truth: People are different. Throughout history, these differences have been a source of community strength and personal identity....
It’s a simple truth: People are different. Throughout history, these differences have been a source of community strength and personal identity....
2010.03.15
UC Berkeley New Manager Boot Camp
UC Berkeley's: New Manager Boot Camp- Engaging and inspiring others.- Assembling and retaining the best talent.- Prioritizing and making quality...
UC Berkeley's: New Manager Boot Camp- Engaging and inspiring others.- Assembling and retaining the best talent.- Prioritizing and making quality...
2010.03.06
Singin' in the Rain
Berkeley Playhouse Presents Singin' in the RainMARCH 6 - MARCH 21JULIA MORGAN CENTER FOR THE ARTSGo back to the magic of a 1930’s Hollywood...
Berkeley Playhouse Presents Singin' in the RainMARCH 6 - MARCH 21JULIA MORGAN CENTER FOR THE ARTSGo back to the magic of a 1930’s Hollywood...
Real Estate
The latest hot home properties in the Oakland Area!
The latest hot home properties in the Oakland Area!
Retail
Your Shopping Guide to the Oakland Area!
Your Shopping Guide to the Oakland Area!
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Print this pageIn the Mix
Diverting E-waste from the Dump
Sure, computers, printers, televisions, cell phones and other electronic gadgets can make daily life more convenient, but all these devices also create mountains of toxic trash.A typical computer monitor contains about seven pounds of lead. Carcinogens like cadmium and arsenic as well as other compounds commonly found in electronics all pose threats to the environment if they leach into groundwater or disperse into the air.
The state legislature recognized the growing problem caused by all this electronic detritus and passed legislation in 2003 that made it illegal to toss used electronics into the garbage. While the law has kept a lot of these materials out of landfills, much of it just gets stockpiled in people’s homes because they don’t know what to do with it. According to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, nearly 75 percent of all old electronics are in storage, cluttering up people’s garages and basements. That’s where Oakland’s Universal Waste Management comes in.
The company—Unwaste for short—was one of the first to jump on the opportunity spawned by the new legislation and offer collection and recycling services for so-called e-waste. In addition to being Oakland’s oldest e-waste collector, it’s the only state-licensed recycler in the city. Because it collects and recycles electronics, customers can feel good that their old computers and cell phones will go to a good place when they die, while finding a way to empty out their garages. Except for items like batteries, fluorescent lights and appliances, drop-offs are free.
“We recycle all of it,” says Jake Cherry, Unwaste president and CEO.
Unwaste salvages usable material from the electronics—trace amounts of gold (there’s more gold per square inch in a computer than in a gold mine), silver, copper, plastic and aluminum—and sells it to companies that will use it again. The company also receives a subsidy from the state for what it collects.
The e-waste business has been good to Unwaste. In two years it’s grown from four to 30 employees and is hoping to double that figure this year as it expands into the Los Angeles area. In 2006, Unwaste had $1.8 million in sales, and Cherry predicts he’ll do $5 million this year. In addition to taking drop-offs at the company’s 37th Avenue facility, Unwaste hosts free community drop-off events around the East Bay as well as providing free pickups for corporate and government customers.
“As soon as people find out about us, they keep coming back,” Cherry says.
With Unwaste, Cherry, 33, has recycled the family business. His grandfather and parents were in the recycling business. His father co-founded Berkeley’s Urban Ore and built the country’s first solar-powered apartment building in Oakland. Unwaste is Cherry’s fourth recycling business.
“My charge in life is to recycle stuff,” he says.
And that he does. Since April 2006, Unwaste has diverted more than 3 million pounds of hazardous waste from landfills, or about 750,000 pounds of e-junk each month. For more information on Unwaste and how to use the company’s services, visit www.unwaste.com.
—By Stett Holbroo
IT WAS A HONEY OF AN IDEA THAT CREATED A BUZZ and turned into a success story. “When we launched in 1999, we weren’t thinking this big,” says Herb Houston, talking about the monthly orders for 200 to 300 cases of the tej that he and his wife, Debritu Gebeyehu, brew in their 3,000-square-foot Oakland warehouse and distribute around the Bay Area and to the East Coast.
Tej, a type of mead, has been popular in eastern Africa for more than a millennium. You’ll know it if you’ve ordered “honey wine” with your meal at any East Bay Ethiopian or Eritrean restaurant. Most likely, what you were served came from Houston and Gebeyehu’s Enat Winery on 81st Avenue.
The couple got their tej recipe from Gebeyehu’s mother, Enat, for whom the winery is named. The ingredients are water, honey and geso (or gesho)—a type of buckhorn the couple get from Ethiopia. “It has no flavor,” says Houston. “It is a natural organic plant that helps with fermentation. We just spent a month in Ethiopia and brought back a supply.” Fermentation takes place in stainless-steel vats. Then there’s racking, filtering and bottling. The whole process takes about six months.
Houston and Gebeyehu use two types of honey—wildflower, for what they call “traditional” tej, which is less sweet than the second style they brew using orange-blossom honey. Many of their customers prefer the sweeter version. Some find both an acquired taste. And watch out. Don’t be deceived by the sweetness. This is no benign brew: Alcohol content is close to 14 percent.
The tej process is pretty much like conventional winemaking, in that the contents of the steel vats are monitored, tasted and adjusted, says Houston, who was CEO of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic for 12 years before the couple’s sweet success. “My wife is the taster.” And him? “I just do what she tells me,” he laughs—with no sting in his words.
Enat Winery tej is available at independent liquor stores and Ethiopian restaurants throughout the Bay Area. Call (510) 632-6629 or visit www.enathoneywine.com.
Bringing your own bag when you go grocery shopping is a simple way to cut down on waste, but it’s easy to forget to take it with you. That’s why many grocery stores offer a credit back on purchases to customers who bring their own bag: It’s a small financial incentive to remember to grab that bag. Albertsons, Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl and Piedmont Grocery give shoppers a 5-cent grocery credit for each bag they bring. Farmer Joe’s gives 1 cent per bag, and Safeway’s policy varies from store to store—most give a 3-cent credit to customers who bring a canvas or paper bag and 1 cent if it’s plastic.
Trader Joe’s takes a different approach, offering customers who bring their own bag a chance to enter a weekly raffle where they can win a $25 Trader Joe’s gift card. The chain started offering the incentive program five years ago as a fun way to encourage people to reuse bags, says Trader Joe’s spokesperson Alison Mochizuki.
Shopper Andrea Mark said the Trader Joe’s drawing was the push she needed to remember to bring her own bag. Now she totes a canvas bag every time she goes shopping—at any store. “It forced me to think about it when I got out of the car,” Mark says.
Other shoppers say they would bring their own bag, with or without any incentive. Julia Turner had a canvas bag with her while shopping at Berkeley Bowl, but didn’t even know the store offered a bag credit. Marcia Dubois says she has brought her own bag for as long as she can remember. She wishes stores would give customers more incentive to do the same by hitting them where it really counts. “Charge people 50 cents for every [store-supplied] bag they use,” Dubois suggests. “That’s something real that they’ll feel. You have to do it through money, otherwise they won’t pay attention.”
OAKLAND MADE
Sweeter Than Wine
IT WAS A HONEY OF AN IDEA THAT CREATED A BUZZ and turned into a success story. “When we launched in 1999, we weren’t thinking this big,” says Herb Houston, talking about the monthly orders for 200 to 300 cases of the tej that he and his wife, Debritu Gebeyehu, brew in their 3,000-square-foot Oakland warehouse and distribute around the Bay Area and to the East Coast.Tej, a type of mead, has been popular in eastern Africa for more than a millennium. You’ll know it if you’ve ordered “honey wine” with your meal at any East Bay Ethiopian or Eritrean restaurant. Most likely, what you were served came from Houston and Gebeyehu’s Enat Winery on 81st Avenue.
The couple got their tej recipe from Gebeyehu’s mother, Enat, for whom the winery is named. The ingredients are water, honey and geso (or gesho)—a type of buckhorn the couple get from Ethiopia. “It has no flavor,” says Houston. “It is a natural organic plant that helps with fermentation. We just spent a month in Ethiopia and brought back a supply.” Fermentation takes place in stainless-steel vats. Then there’s racking, filtering and bottling. The whole process takes about six months.
Houston and Gebeyehu use two types of honey—wildflower, for what they call “traditional” tej, which is less sweet than the second style they brew using orange-blossom honey. Many of their customers prefer the sweeter version. Some find both an acquired taste. And watch out. Don’t be deceived by the sweetness. This is no benign brew: Alcohol content is close to 14 percent.
The tej process is pretty much like conventional winemaking, in that the contents of the steel vats are monitored, tasted and adjusted, says Houston, who was CEO of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic for 12 years before the couple’s sweet success. “My wife is the taster.” And him? “I just do what she tells me,” he laughs—with no sting in his words.
Enat Winery tej is available at independent liquor stores and Ethiopian restaurants throughout the Bay Area. Call (510) 632-6629 or visit www.enathoneywine.com.
—By Wanda Hennig
BRING YOUR OWN BAG
Bringing your own bag when you go grocery shopping is a simple way to cut down on waste, but it’s easy to forget to take it with you. That’s why many grocery stores offer a credit back on purchases to customers who bring their own bag: It’s a small financial incentive to remember to grab that bag. Albertsons, Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl and Piedmont Grocery give shoppers a 5-cent grocery credit for each bag they bring. Farmer Joe’s gives 1 cent per bag, and Safeway’s policy varies from store to store—most give a 3-cent credit to customers who bring a canvas or paper bag and 1 cent if it’s plastic.Trader Joe’s takes a different approach, offering customers who bring their own bag a chance to enter a weekly raffle where they can win a $25 Trader Joe’s gift card. The chain started offering the incentive program five years ago as a fun way to encourage people to reuse bags, says Trader Joe’s spokesperson Alison Mochizuki.
Shopper Andrea Mark said the Trader Joe’s drawing was the push she needed to remember to bring her own bag. Now she totes a canvas bag every time she goes shopping—at any store. “It forced me to think about it when I got out of the car,” Mark says.
Other shoppers say they would bring their own bag, with or without any incentive. Julia Turner had a canvas bag with her while shopping at Berkeley Bowl, but didn’t even know the store offered a bag credit. Marcia Dubois says she has brought her own bag for as long as she can remember. She wishes stores would give customers more incentive to do the same by hitting them where it really counts. “Charge people 50 cents for every [store-supplied] bag they use,” Dubois suggests. “That’s something real that they’ll feel. You have to do it through money, otherwise they won’t pay attention.”
—By Rebecca Guyon
A charming hideaway on Shattuck just north of Alcatraz, Nomad Cafe—in business since 2003—is a popular gathering place for local musicians, writers, artists and other creative folk. Not only does the always-packed venue offer rotating art exhibits, regular music concerts and free wireless Internet access for laptops (drawing a crowd of aspiring authors and screenwriters), but it also serves up a menu of fresh salads, tasty sandwiches and fair-trade coffee—with 95 percent of the waste diverted through recycling and composting.
Moreover, everything about the Nomad building’s construction, from on-demand tankless water heaters to hydronic heating systems, is environmentally sound. These added sustainability bonuses have grabbed the attention of local cafe-hoppers and environmental activists alike. Not long after Nomad opened its doors, California’s Waste Reduction Award Program, or WRAP, honored the cafe as one of the top 10 businesses in California going above and beyond the call of ecological duty.
“The Nomad is a hub for neighborhood green activists,” says Stephen Cataldo, a permanent fixture at the cafe, as well as founder/director of SpaceShare, which organizes carpools throughout the country. For “Nomads” like Cataldo, the venue is also a good place to meet that special someone—like Cataldo’s girlfriend, Rachel, whom he met sharing a table at the cafe last year.
Considering the Nomad’s success in promoting environmental sustainability, artistic expression and local community, founder and owner Christopher Waters is pleased with how the cafe has grown over the past four years. “We’re moving forward into a future of positive change, and spreading the message that change is good,” he notes. “Change creates opportunity, and opportunity creates hope.”
Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave., (510) 595-5344, info@nomadcafe.net.
IN THE SCENE
The Waste-Free Zone
A charming hideaway on Shattuck just north of Alcatraz, Nomad Cafe—in business since 2003—is a popular gathering place for local musicians, writers, artists and other creative folk. Not only does the always-packed venue offer rotating art exhibits, regular music concerts and free wireless Internet access for laptops (drawing a crowd of aspiring authors and screenwriters), but it also serves up a menu of fresh salads, tasty sandwiches and fair-trade coffee—with 95 percent of the waste diverted through recycling and composting.Moreover, everything about the Nomad building’s construction, from on-demand tankless water heaters to hydronic heating systems, is environmentally sound. These added sustainability bonuses have grabbed the attention of local cafe-hoppers and environmental activists alike. Not long after Nomad opened its doors, California’s Waste Reduction Award Program, or WRAP, honored the cafe as one of the top 10 businesses in California going above and beyond the call of ecological duty.
“The Nomad is a hub for neighborhood green activists,” says Stephen Cataldo, a permanent fixture at the cafe, as well as founder/director of SpaceShare, which organizes carpools throughout the country. For “Nomads” like Cataldo, the venue is also a good place to meet that special someone—like Cataldo’s girlfriend, Rachel, whom he met sharing a table at the cafe last year.
Considering the Nomad’s success in promoting environmental sustainability, artistic expression and local community, founder and owner Christopher Waters is pleased with how the cafe has grown over the past four years. “We’re moving forward into a future of positive change, and spreading the message that change is good,” he notes. “Change creates opportunity, and opportunity creates hope.”
Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave., (510) 595-5344, info@nomadcafe.net.
—By Loolwa Khazzoom
Give Jenny Hurth a sow’s ear and chances are she’ll make a silk purse out of it. Literally. “The idea of making nice things from garbage inspires me,” says the supercreative Oaklander who has been pleasantly overwhelmed by the demand for her novel range of functional fashion bags made from discarded vinyl trade banners.
It all began during a visit to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse (4695 Telegraph Ave., www.east-bay-depot.org) when Hurth spotted an enormous vinyl sign—and her green antennae quivered. “Vinyl is extremely toxic to produce, and it doesn’t decompose. It just sits inert in the landfill,” she explains.
This committed recycler bought the sign for $3, used a portion to cover her mom’s patio umbrella and cut and stitched some bags with the rest.
Her interest piqued, Hurth called San Francisco’s Moscone Center to see what they did with the banners created for trade shows, which are often tossed after only three or four days’ use. They offered her a bunch, and she made more bags, which she displayed alongside her quilts—her primary artistic passion—at an open house. People loved the quilts. But they bought the bags.
Now that news of Hurth’s trendy fashion statements has spread, she gets calls from companies offering her their banners. Some are works of art in themselves. For example, when I visited her basement studio, she had made a batch of bags from Orinda Shakespeare Festival banners—created and used by BART to promote taking the train to the summer-time event.
This truly inventive bag lady also recycles cereal boxes for her product tags and business cards. “I really am committed to creating with garbage!” she confirms. Ultimately, she would love to see canvas (rather than vinyl) used for trade and advertising banners. Meanwhile, she is doing her bit to make sure that the vinyl is at least put to good use—creatively recycled and turned into art.
“SPUDWARE” SOUNDS LIKE AN OUTFIT FOR MR. POTATO HEAD. But since Oakland’s “Greenware Ordinance” kicked into effect on Jan. 1, the term is increasingly recognized for what it is: cutting-edge cutlery made of potato-starch-based plastic. All disposable food-service containers sold in this city are now supposed to be biodegradable, and that’s bringing a lot more attention to all of our take-out products.
On a sunny Sunday in January, Oakland City Councilwoman Jean Quan strode through the Montclair Farmers Market, chatting with constituents and handing out fliers to vendors. “You can’t use that Styrofoam anymore,” she admonished a local bakery salesman, while handing him a list of FAQs about the ordinance. Among the items on the list of alternatives to polystyrene are “bioplastics” (eg. Spudware, Vegware, Cereplast, etc.), coated and uncoated paper products, and that very recyclable household staple, aluminum foil.
One of the problems with polystyrene has been that its light weight makes it prone to flying around, thus more likely to wind up as litter in East Bay waterways. Officials hope the new rules will decrease the amount of junk that’s blowing in the wind. But, of course, restaurants don’t package your lunch in Styrofoam because the boxes are easily airborne, or because they like the way they squeak; they do it because it’s cheap. So, the ordinance-mandated change in products allows vendors to put a surcharge on take-out meals packaged in compostable cardboard.
A big loophole in the new law is that vendors can still use certain non-recyclable plastics in place of Styrofoam. Nonetheless, by encouraging restaurants and customers to recycle and compost, and by banning a highly polluting product, the Greenware Ordinance is a big step in the city’s plan to eliminate waste by 2020. For more information on recycling, call the City of Oakland Recycles Hotline at 238-SAVE. For green food-service supplies, check out www.oaklandgreenware.com—the products are as perfect for family picnics as they are for businesses.
ABOUT A RECYCLER
Modern-Day Bag Lady
Give Jenny Hurth a sow’s ear and chances are she’ll make a silk purse out of it. Literally. “The idea of making nice things from garbage inspires me,” says the supercreative Oaklander who has been pleasantly overwhelmed by the demand for her novel range of functional fashion bags made from discarded vinyl trade banners. It all began during a visit to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse (4695 Telegraph Ave., www.east-bay-depot.org) when Hurth spotted an enormous vinyl sign—and her green antennae quivered. “Vinyl is extremely toxic to produce, and it doesn’t decompose. It just sits inert in the landfill,” she explains.
This committed recycler bought the sign for $3, used a portion to cover her mom’s patio umbrella and cut and stitched some bags with the rest.
Her interest piqued, Hurth called San Francisco’s Moscone Center to see what they did with the banners created for trade shows, which are often tossed after only three or four days’ use. They offered her a bunch, and she made more bags, which she displayed alongside her quilts—her primary artistic passion—at an open house. People loved the quilts. But they bought the bags.
Now that news of Hurth’s trendy fashion statements has spread, she gets calls from companies offering her their banners. Some are works of art in themselves. For example, when I visited her basement studio, she had made a batch of bags from Orinda Shakespeare Festival banners—created and used by BART to promote taking the train to the summer-time event.
This truly inventive bag lady also recycles cereal boxes for her product tags and business cards. “I really am committed to creating with garbage!” she confirms. Ultimately, she would love to see canvas (rather than vinyl) used for trade and advertising banners. Meanwhile, she is doing her bit to make sure that the vinyl is at least put to good use—creatively recycled and turned into art.
—By Wanda Hennig
JENNY ONLINE
See Jenny Hurth’s bags online at www.jennyhurth.com. To contact her call (510) 653-1072. To see a display of her quilts and bags, visit the Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland (Jack London Square).GREENTOGO
“SPUDWARE” SOUNDS LIKE AN OUTFIT FOR MR. POTATO HEAD. But since Oakland’s “Greenware Ordinance” kicked into effect on Jan. 1, the term is increasingly recognized for what it is: cutting-edge cutlery made of potato-starch-based plastic. All disposable food-service containers sold in this city are now supposed to be biodegradable, and that’s bringing a lot more attention to all of our take-out products.On a sunny Sunday in January, Oakland City Councilwoman Jean Quan strode through the Montclair Farmers Market, chatting with constituents and handing out fliers to vendors. “You can’t use that Styrofoam anymore,” she admonished a local bakery salesman, while handing him a list of FAQs about the ordinance. Among the items on the list of alternatives to polystyrene are “bioplastics” (eg. Spudware, Vegware, Cereplast, etc.), coated and uncoated paper products, and that very recyclable household staple, aluminum foil.
One of the problems with polystyrene has been that its light weight makes it prone to flying around, thus more likely to wind up as litter in East Bay waterways. Officials hope the new rules will decrease the amount of junk that’s blowing in the wind. But, of course, restaurants don’t package your lunch in Styrofoam because the boxes are easily airborne, or because they like the way they squeak; they do it because it’s cheap. So, the ordinance-mandated change in products allows vendors to put a surcharge on take-out meals packaged in compostable cardboard.
A big loophole in the new law is that vendors can still use certain non-recyclable plastics in place of Styrofoam. Nonetheless, by encouraging restaurants and customers to recycle and compost, and by banning a highly polluting product, the Greenware Ordinance is a big step in the city’s plan to eliminate waste by 2020. For more information on recycling, call the City of Oakland Recycles Hotline at 238-SAVE. For green food-service supplies, check out www.oaklandgreenware.com—the products are as perfect for family picnics as they are for businesses.
–By Jessica Hilberman
WHEN FORMER PRISON GUARD KEMBA SHAKUR MOVED TO OAKLAND IN 1998, she was shocked to find that Soledad was better landscaped than her new neighborhood. Taking the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or SLUG, as her model, Shakur began a campaign to create a tree canopy in her neighborhood, hoping to improve the air, as well as the landscape.
Today, Shakur is known as the founder of Urban Releaf, the organization responsible for 80 percent of the trees planted in Oakland each year. The nonprofit group, which also works with at-risk youth who plant and care for trees, and has a branch in Richmond, has more than 8,500 trees under its green belt.
And if those numbers aren’t impressive enough, consider this: In a 1.8 square mile of West Oakland, where three freeways intersect and diesel pollution is 90 percent higher than average, tree cover is less than 6 percent. But with Urban Releaf’s work, it’s on the rise. (For health and safety, the U.S. Forest Service recommends a minimum of 10 percent.) UC Davis researchers have been tracking Urban Releaf’s work in this neighborhood, and estimate that the 1,800 trees they have planted in the area have drastically improved air quality by reducing particulate matter. In addition, the organization is helping the water supply by preventing 9 million gallons of contaminated water from flowing into an important watershed. Instead of simply washing pollution from the street into the Bay, water can evaporate back into the air from the surface of leaves, and the trees breathe the carbon dioxide created by the heavy traffic.
But trees are good for more than just air and water; they’re good for business—and for the soul. According to Urban Releaf’s outreach coordinator, Ashley Du Val, tree canopy helps people de-stress and leads to lower blood pressure. Even hospital patients with trees in their view recover faster than those overlooking, say, the parking lot. She says studies show they also increase property values and help attract shoppers to business districts—consumers are willing to pay more and shop longer in areas with good tree cover. So if you know of a naked median or an unadorned parking lot, now you know who to call.
To volunteer, make a donation or request that a tree be planted in front of your property, call (510) 601-9062, or visit www.urbanreleaf.org.
URBAN RELEAF
WHEN FORMER PRISON GUARD KEMBA SHAKUR MOVED TO OAKLAND IN 1998, she was shocked to find that Soledad was better landscaped than her new neighborhood. Taking the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or SLUG, as her model, Shakur began a campaign to create a tree canopy in her neighborhood, hoping to improve the air, as well as the landscape.Today, Shakur is known as the founder of Urban Releaf, the organization responsible for 80 percent of the trees planted in Oakland each year. The nonprofit group, which also works with at-risk youth who plant and care for trees, and has a branch in Richmond, has more than 8,500 trees under its green belt.
And if those numbers aren’t impressive enough, consider this: In a 1.8 square mile of West Oakland, where three freeways intersect and diesel pollution is 90 percent higher than average, tree cover is less than 6 percent. But with Urban Releaf’s work, it’s on the rise. (For health and safety, the U.S. Forest Service recommends a minimum of 10 percent.) UC Davis researchers have been tracking Urban Releaf’s work in this neighborhood, and estimate that the 1,800 trees they have planted in the area have drastically improved air quality by reducing particulate matter. In addition, the organization is helping the water supply by preventing 9 million gallons of contaminated water from flowing into an important watershed. Instead of simply washing pollution from the street into the Bay, water can evaporate back into the air from the surface of leaves, and the trees breathe the carbon dioxide created by the heavy traffic.
But trees are good for more than just air and water; they’re good for business—and for the soul. According to Urban Releaf’s outreach coordinator, Ashley Du Val, tree canopy helps people de-stress and leads to lower blood pressure. Even hospital patients with trees in their view recover faster than those overlooking, say, the parking lot. She says studies show they also increase property values and help attract shoppers to business districts—consumers are willing to pay more and shop longer in areas with good tree cover. So if you know of a naked median or an unadorned parking lot, now you know who to call.
To volunteer, make a donation or request that a tree be planted in front of your property, call (510) 601-9062, or visit www.urbanreleaf.org.
—By Jessica Hilberman
DIALOGUES
From restaurateur to celebrity chef, author and broadcast personality, Narsai David has his hands in everything edible. In fact, the yard surrounding his Berkeley home is a testament to the bounty you can bring in with a well-tended garden, and, oh, regular shopping trips to the Berkeley Bowl.
Tell me about this Chinese quince in your front yard.
One year we had fruit that was 8 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. It looked so bizarre hanging on the vine, you couldn’t imagine what held it
up. It’s not considered edible, it’s so astringent and harsh. But I finally made a wine out of it.
When did you first show an interest in cooking?
Ever since I was a kid. If my mother had had any daughters, my life would have turned out differently, because with the old country tradition, the girl would be in the kitchen helping mom. But my mother had three sons, so all of us were in the kitchen helping mom.
Do you do most of the cooking or does your wife, Venus, help out?
For regular everyday cooking, it’s usually whoever gets home first. We both like to cook. On the nights we eat home alone, more often than not it will be a strictly vegetarian meal. It sort of gives our body a chance to catch up from what we’re doing to it the rest of the time.
You make your own wine and have your own line of gourmet food. Do you have any other artsy talents?
I make my own bow ties. Our son gave me a couple of bow ties in London one year. I learned how to tie them and I really enjoyed them. When they started wearing out I went looking for bow ties, and it wasn’t easy to find them. So I thought, “Why not make one?” My wife had this portable Singer sewing machine in the attic, and she threaded it for me and showed me how to use it. This is not rocket science, folks. It’s only two dimensions.
Do you go all out when you entertain?
Dinners are always sort of elaborate. I figure if you’re going to go to the trouble of putting on a dinner, and you’re inviting good friends, why not do it up right? Here is a menu I printed up for friends: After the stand-up appetizers, they sat down to two different caviars that we made ourselves. The main course was an Assyrian rack of lamb, basmati pilaf with truffles, and asparagus with brown butter, and we used an Australian dry cornbread that I made.
With dinners like that, how do you decide who makes the cut?
Obviously we have a lot of friends, and we can’t have them all here at the same time, but we keep a folder with the names of friends, and we try to put together groups of people that we would like to see together.
Still, it must be exhausting being a gourmet cook. Are you ever tempted to just pop something in the microwave?
What’s a microwave? I have never owned a microwave. It’s a quick way to boil water but I can boil a cup of water in that little tea kettle.
DIALOGUES
Narsai David
Celebrity Chef
From restaurateur to celebrity chef, author and broadcast personality, Narsai David has his hands in everything edible. In fact, the yard surrounding his Berkeley home is a testament to the bounty you can bring in with a well-tended garden, and, oh, regular shopping trips to the Berkeley Bowl.
Tell me about this Chinese quince in your front yard.
One year we had fruit that was 8 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. It looked so bizarre hanging on the vine, you couldn’t imagine what held it
up. It’s not considered edible, it’s so astringent and harsh. But I finally made a wine out of it.When did you first show an interest in cooking?
Ever since I was a kid. If my mother had had any daughters, my life would have turned out differently, because with the old country tradition, the girl would be in the kitchen helping mom. But my mother had three sons, so all of us were in the kitchen helping mom.
Do you do most of the cooking or does your wife, Venus, help out?
For regular everyday cooking, it’s usually whoever gets home first. We both like to cook. On the nights we eat home alone, more often than not it will be a strictly vegetarian meal. It sort of gives our body a chance to catch up from what we’re doing to it the rest of the time.
You make your own wine and have your own line of gourmet food. Do you have any other artsy talents?
I make my own bow ties. Our son gave me a couple of bow ties in London one year. I learned how to tie them and I really enjoyed them. When they started wearing out I went looking for bow ties, and it wasn’t easy to find them. So I thought, “Why not make one?” My wife had this portable Singer sewing machine in the attic, and she threaded it for me and showed me how to use it. This is not rocket science, folks. It’s only two dimensions.
Do you go all out when you entertain?
Dinners are always sort of elaborate. I figure if you’re going to go to the trouble of putting on a dinner, and you’re inviting good friends, why not do it up right? Here is a menu I printed up for friends: After the stand-up appetizers, they sat down to two different caviars that we made ourselves. The main course was an Assyrian rack of lamb, basmati pilaf with truffles, and asparagus with brown butter, and we used an Australian dry cornbread that I made.
With dinners like that, how do you decide who makes the cut?
Obviously we have a lot of friends, and we can’t have them all here at the same time, but we keep a folder with the names of friends, and we try to put together groups of people that we would like to see together.
Still, it must be exhausting being a gourmet cook. Are you ever tempted to just pop something in the microwave?
What’s a microwave? I have never owned a microwave. It’s a quick way to boil water but I can boil a cup of water in that little tea kettle.
—By Ginny Prior
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