Yam Snacks

Yams - they're not just for breakfast anymore.  What? You don't eat baked yams for breakfast? You think they're reserved for Thanksgiving, as a second-tier side dish?  And, you concede, quite nice as sweet potato fries?
Well, they are quite nice as a snack, too.  As soon as the days begin to shorten and cool, I find myself craving orange food, and yams most of all.  First I'll dip a toe into autumn with one or two baked and enjoyed as a reminder, like the first cup of warm spiced apple cider.  But soon I'm baking whole sheets, and taking one to the office each day to eat as second-breakfast or as my mid-afternoon snack.  My favorite toppings are butter and a little salt.  The options for dressing them up, however, are limited only by time and imagination.

Yucca Sticks

The innovative brunch menu at Limon, a Peruvian, Latin-fusion restaurant in San Francisco's Mission District, includes appetizers like ceviche, entrees, salads, and a few tempting side dishes.  Since we love crispy, garlicky Cuban yucca, we had to try Limon's take on the tuber.

Elegant presentation was only the first notable difference.  With a very light frying and no garlic or salt, the crispy-outside, almost soft-inside sticks worked beautifully with the two dip options.

At home I will still prepare yucca my way, mainly to complement black beans and rice. But this positive experience with a different approach to a basically bland starchy vegetable has broadened by thinking about what makes it yummy.  Now I understand that being a savory host for garlic is not nearly the limit of its potential.

Basket Bounty

What could be lovelier to find on one's doorstep?

Gluten-free Pizza

Since dropping 80+% of the wheat I used to eat out of my diet, pizza has become a rare treat.  So rare that I never bother with bad pizza any more. Which, until recently meant saving up all my 'wheat points' for the occasional splurge at a really good local spot, like Rainbow Pizza (semi-deep dish) or Applewood (not deep, but not thin crust, either).

Then I stumbled into an Amici's Pizza, a nice local chain. All I wanted was a sense of whether their 'East Coast style' translated to a pie good enough to indulge in. To my amazement, the first item I spied in the heavenly smelling pizzeria was a gluten-free menu.  The real deal - ingredients and prep space kept separate, so that folks with celiac (or otherwise more strict than I) have more assurance of their safety.

But the real test came this weekend, when I returned as a party of three (OK, with 2 guests, not with a giant appetite).  We ordered drinks (soft drinks and gluten-free beer available), no salad or other sides, and two pizzas.  All the gluten-frees are 12-inch, which may help the kitchen keep them segregated from the 4 sizes available on the standard menu.  Were they pricey? Yes. Were they worth it? Oh, yes.

I still won't be eating pizza as casually as I used to, but now I can really enjoy it without worrying about the  side effects.  And I will, soon.  There's a whole menu to work through.

Prop 26 - Unsafe at Any Speed

Do you know what a food inspector does? And what restaurant conditions would be like if they didn't?

I really enjoy eating out; and I don't mind that restaurants have to pay an annual permit fee to local governments to cover the cost of regular inspections. Of course that cost of doing business is passed on to me. And so is the benefit of not getting food poisoning.

Does my local government follow standards to set that fee, and spend it on the service it promises to provide with it (as required by California law)?  If I'm unsure and interested, I can find out.

Do I want to be forced to vote every time that program, or thousands of others run by the County, my city, or the state need to re-authorize or adjust their fee structure in order to keep providing health and safety services to my community?  Nope.

Eat out. Enjoy the benefits of good governance (as the Canadians call it), and vote no on CA Prop 26.