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Cooks, Illustrated

The Finer Points of Four Foodie Kitchens

Anya Fernald and Renato Sardo use their Jack London Square kitchen for major feasts.

Mitch Tobias

     We’ve seen them all before: picture-perfect kitchens that, for all their fancy finishes, shiny appliances and other bells and whistles, look as if they’re more commonly used to serve takeout than to cook a homemade meal.
     But here in the Bay Area, where for many a trip to the farmers market is a regular part of the weekend routine and artisanal ingredients are de rigueur, appreciating good food—and often preparing it ourselves—is a way of life. To that end, we invite you to feast your eyes on these four fabulous kitchens that cater to their cooks.

#1 Italian Dressings

     To classify Anya Fernald and Renato Sardo as “hardcore foodies” might still be something of an understatement.
     Fernald—who in 2008 served as the executive director of Slow Food Nation in San Francisco—recently launched LiveCulture (liveculture.com), a consulting company dedicated to furthering sustainable food and agriculture. She is currently organizing Oakland’s upcoming Eat Real Festival (eatrealfest.com) and will appear as a judge on the Food Network reality show The Next Iron Chef this fall.
     Sardo—a native of Italy and former executive director of Slow Food International—is the food consultant to Jack London Market, the Ferry Building-esque food hall slated to open in Jack London Square in April 2010.
     The couple met and married in Italy while they were both working for Slow Food International. In 2005 they moved to Jack London Square, where they now own a 1920s plumbing-warehouse-turned-residential-loft.
     Though the kitchen had good bones—including a huge, granite-topped island with a built-in range and a stainless steel hood—when they arrived, “it had been finished by a developer to sell it,” Fernald says, recalling ugly cabinet hardware and bright red walls. And so they repainted and swapped out the hardware. They added more cabinets to take advantage of hollow space left empty beneath the island and installed a pot rack. They commissioned a dining table: “I love impromptu dinner parties, so a friend designed a pair of tables that fit together in multiple ways,” Fernald says. “We can seat 20 people when we place them end to end.” (The tables, which are by Dino Rossi of Assemblage Workshop, also provide ample surface area for Fernald’s more extreme culinary adventures, which annually involve canning, pickling, sausage-making and buying a whole pig to make salami, pancetta and other cured meats.)
      The pièce de résistance, however, was just delivered this spring. Now one of the first things you see upon entering the couple’s home is their custom-built pizza oven, Fernald’s favorite new toy. Made by Pacific Coast Brick Ovens in Sacramento and placed on casters for mobility, it’s not a typical kitchen appliance. But Fernald and Sardo aren’t typical cooks.

#2 In the Zone

     When Alameda residents Neil and Nannette Geller set out to remodel their kitchen in 2008, Neil Geller had commercial zoning on the brain. A professional chef with more than a decade of experience (he’s currently a chef at Wired magazine and has done stints at such San Francisco restaurants as Paragon, Farallon and Scala’s Bistro), Geller had grown accustomed to the specialized workstations (for food prep, plating, etc.) found in commercial kitchens and dreamed of creating a similar setup at home.
     The challenge? Fitting his lofty ambitions into the kitchen’s small footprint. With only 121 square feet to work with, the Gellers spent months redrawing plans and sourcing appliances, countertops and custom cabinetry.
     Geller wanted the smallest fridge he could find and two ovens, but with cabinet and counter space at a premium, there was no room for the typical, vertically stacked arrangement.
      To keep costs reasonable, the couple served as their own general contractors—“Watching HGTV was our only prior experience,” Geller says—and Nannette Geller, a freelance accountant, bartered her bookkeeping skills for building materials when possible.
      After settling on a stove—a cobalt blue, duel-fuel Aga Legacy that fits a professional five-burner gas cooktop, two electric ovens and a broiler into a compact 36-inch footprint—Geller’s “zones” began to materialize.
      Behind the stove, a motorized Electrolux downdraft—which rises at the touch of a button and hides within a custom-built stainless steel housing when not in use—eliminates the need for a hood. Prep work occurs to the right of the cooktop; to the left, a stainless steel counter provides a durable surface that can withstand everything from the grip of a clamped-on pasta machine to a piping-hot pot. Below it, a deep, stainless steel–lined drawer ensures that Geller’s varied array of oils, vinegars and sauces is within easy reach.
      The sink—under which hide the pullout trash, recycling and compost bins—is centrally located, allowing two to work in respective zones on opposite sides. Pots and pans hang above the sink on a matching rack Geller built out of piping and flanges from the hardware store.
      Overall, there’s an astonishing amount of both form and function packed into the room. A floor-to-ceiling pantry just off the main space houses surplus equipment and dry goods, while a narrow strip of chalkboard keeps menus and shopping lists in view. The adjoining bar, pieced together from leftover strips of the new hardwood floor, allows guests to enjoy a drink while the chef works his magic. It’s a classic case of good things in small packages, to be sure.

#3 Science Fare

      In 2000, when Alex Hozven and Kevin Farley first purchased their Berkeley home—then a crumbling, rundown fixer-upper—the defining feature of their miniscule “total dump” of a kitchen was the water heater next to the fridge.
      Now a serene, fully renovated space with nary a water heater in sight, the family-friendly zone doubles as a test lab where Hozven and Farley, who have two sons, make everything from homemade cheese to umeshu—a plum wine made by infusing shochu, a distilled barley spirit, with green umeboshi plums. And though you wouldn’t know it by looking at the place, they’ve got heirloom cabbage to thank for it.
      Hozven and Farley are the owners and founders of Cultured (culturedpickleshop.com), an organic mom-and-pop pickle shop based in Berkeley. The retail space is only three years old, but the two have been peddling their small-batch sauerkraut and pickled vegetables at Bay Area farmers markets for years. Eventually, what started as a hobby while Hozven was pregnant with the couple’s now-12-year-old son evolved into a full-fledged business that now supports the family.
      For two self-proclaimed Japan-o-philes who over the years have taught themselves—through rigorous trial and error—to grow and harvest organic sprouts and wheatgrass and to make sprouted bread and miso, fermented and pickled foods were a natural next step. “When I get really interested in something, I like to master it,” Hozven says.
      The couple’s resulting appreciation for all the work that goes into producing an artisanal product eventually shaped their kitchen design, too. Farley notes that when they gutted the place in 2003, they renovated with durable, artful, high-quality and locally made components.
      These efforts are evident throughout, from the doors and windows by Frameworks in Oakland to the cabinetry by Oakland-based cabinetmaker Alan Kaplan. All of the family’s glassware and some light fixtures were made by Lee Miltier of Photosynthesis (photosynthesis.cc). “If it’s glass in this house, he made it,” Farley says. Farley’s brother Kelly, a ceramicist, made their dinnerware.
      At one end of the galley-style space, a potter’s bench topped with a butcher block serves as the primary workspace. At the other, a bar-cum-experimentation-station sits adjacent to the fridge, its slate countertop dappled with faint, acid-etched rings (remnants of the research and development phase of Cultured’s Kombucha operation). These days, the spot serves as HQ for Hozven’s recent entry into the world of artisanal spirits. As of late, she’s been making her own bitters.
      “I like to play,” Hozven says. “Why buy it if you can make it yourself?”
 

#4 Back to Basics

     Good ingredients, treated simply. In the kitchen of Issa Eismont and Amie Bailey, this is the golden rule. Dedicated home cooks who’ve always shared a passion for food—Eismont describes the courtship that kicked off their 15-year marriage as “a series of culinary one-upmanships”—the kitchen is truly the heart of their West Oakland home.
      Friendly competition aside, the couple’s cooking styles complement one another well. They make dinner at home almost every night, where Eismont usually handles the meal and Bailey owns dessert. (An aspiring pastry chef, Bailey has been accepted to Tante Marie’s Cooking School in San Francisco and will attend its professional pastry course this fall.) Though they don’t specialize in a particular cuisine and enjoying making all kinds of dishes—from Argentinean guiso to Bailey’s “killer fried chicken”—each boasts a signature comfort-food claim to fame: Bailey is the queen of chicken and dumplings, Eismont the master of spicy macaroni and cheese.
      Because they are currently renters, the cookbook-collecting pair has learned to tread lightly when modifying a room to meet their needs. “As long as we’re improving the space and making it more comfortable to use, we’ll take a few liberties,” Bailey says. Here, their first order of business was to paint the walls a welcoming shade of Tiffany Blue. Then they lined the walls with multiple sets of freestanding shelves to hold their extensive, well-stocked pantry, various kitchen tools and massive cookbook library—which itself is a sight to be seen.
      The kitchen is by no means a minimalist space. Bowls of fresh produce, bottles of wine and even more cookbooks inhabit every flat surface. For Bailey, that’s a good thing. “It’s warm, it’s inviting and it’s our way of making an old Victorian kitchen work with our modern food sensibilities,” she says. “It’s easier to work when you can see what you have on hand. If something’s in a drawer or a jar, it’s out of sight, out of mind.”
      Above all, Bailey boils her culinary philosophy down to this: “Food is about connection. It’s not about showing off. When the kitchen becomes a gathering place, you know you’re doing something right.” She and Eismont have the gathering part down: Every Wednesday the couple hosts a weekly dinner party for friends who take turns making the meal.
      The couple’s only major complaint about their kitchen? There’s little room left to actually eat.

Survey Says

More on Our Foodies, Their Kitchens and Their Lifestyle

Anya Fernald and Renato Sardo (answered by Anya)

What's your favorite thing to make?
Anything I can cook in a terra cotta pot.

What object in your kitchen or kitchen feature can you not live without?
Plenty of space for people to loiter about. Also, running water.

What's always in your pantry or fridge?
Renato makes a sauce base—soffritto—from cooked-down carrots, onions and celery. We always have that on hand and use it in just about everything; it cuts down on cooking time and makes everything taste better.

What’s missing from your kitchen that you wish you had?
A window that looks out into a vegetable garden, with a window box of herbs I could reach right out and pluck. That, and a tandoor oven.

What's your favorite "foodie" quality of the East Bay?
The incredible food in the urban enclaves throughout the East Bay—I particularly love the chaat and Afghan places in Fremont.

Amie Bailey and Issa Eismont (answered by Amie)

What's your favorite thing to make?
Anything I haven’t made before. There is a certain thrill in putting together new flavors or using a new technique, especially one that you’ve dreamed up yourself and aren’t entirely sure is going to work.

What object in your kitchen or kitchen feature can you not live without?
The KitchenAid stand up mixer. It’s true love.

What's always in your pantry or fridge?
A cold bottle of champagne, because it’s always good to be prepared to celebrate, and sometimes those bubbles are just the thing to redeem a day.

What’s missing from your kitchen that you wish you had?
I would love to have more windows, and a place to sit and eat. Our kitchen is very dark and set up like a railroad apartment; it would benefit from a little natural light and place to put your tuckus while eating.

What's your favorite "foodie" quality of the East Bay?
That I can get pretty much any flavor I want, from Thai to Greek, from French to Brazilian. I also adore that it all comes in a jumble, that there is a Goldilock’s bakery (a Filipino institution) in the Mission, and that some of the best burritos available in Oakland are found in Chinatown.

Neil and Nanette Geller (answered by Neil)

What's your favorite thing to make?
Anything that is fresh and seasonal.

What object in your kitchen or kitchen feature can you not live without?
The two separate ovens in my Aga range.

What's always in your pantry or fridge?
Good butter, good Champagne and local artisan cheeses.

What’s missing from your kitchen that you wish you had?
More space so I could build a pizza oven!

What's your favorite "foodie" quality of the East Bay?
The Marketplace in Alameda and all the great new restaurants in the East Bay that are quickly becoming destinations.

Alex Hozven and Kevin Farley (answered by Alex)

What's your favorite thing to make?
Traditional Japanese food with a large assortment of obscure homemade Japanese pickles.

What object in your kitchen or kitchen feature can you not live without?
Our Vitamix blender.

What's always in your pantry or fridge?
At least four kinds of miso.

What’s missing from your kitchen that you wish you had?
A much larger refrigerator.

What's your favorite "foodie" quality of the East Bay?
The Berkeley Farmers Markets.