Ah, figures… I’m not on instagram, which is a real pain as a cocktail geek. I guess I owe KRON some attention going forward, particularly if they have text news somewhere.
Thanks!
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Congrats to @theluketsai. His work has always been outstanding. Its great that he’s getting national recognition.
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Elena Kadvany of the SF Chronicle has won a first place award in the Food Writing Portfolio of Society for Features Journalism. MacKenke Chung Fegan, also of the Chron, has won an honorabe mention.
FOOD WRITING PORTFOLIO
Three stories, columns or reviews by the same writer on any food topic.
FIRST: Elena Kadvany, San Francisco Chronicle
Judge’s comments: This portfolio speaks with the fluency of a writer born to report the complexities of a labor lawsuit against a local barbecue empire builder, the extremely personal struggles of a bakery owner watching their working life flash before their eyes in the blink of an MS diagnosis and the choose-your-own-adventure of the truly interactive story of securing a table at the House of Prime Rib. Will I bribe my way into a reservation, or will I follow the frustrating timeline of the rule follower? This writer has the answer, no matter the question.
…
Honorable mention: MacKenzie Chung Fegan, San Francisco Chronicle
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from KABC7 News Bay Area -
Bay Area man selling avocado trees to residents as prices rise with tariffs
Gary Gragg’s True Plant Stories
Vietnamese food in San Jose -
Foods like pho or banh mi are not all there is when it comes to Vietnamese food. As we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, ABC7 News got a taste of San Jose’s various Vietnamese eateries with two insiders. https://abc7ne.ws/4mGrgSS
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People of a certain age will remember that nearly every hippie group house had an avocado pit propped up with toothpicks sprouting in the kitchen. A local friend went a step further after it sprouted and planted it in his yard. The tree is now about 20 feet tall and produces more avocados than he can use, year after year.
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Haha, I remember that avo with the toothpicks. Never actually knew anyone that planted it!
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It helped that he’s in California. The sprouted pits wouldn’t have done very well in upstate NY, where I went to college.
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I grew up in LA and we had an avo tree in our backyard. Went to college in Santa Barbara another big avocado growing area. My memory is that you needed two trees to get a crop. I just get my avocados at the farmers markets these days.
Yes, I’ve been told a male tree needs to be nearby for a female tree to produce.
Someone had a female tree in a sunny area of San Francisco. They said if a male tree had been closer they would have had to remove theirs because too many avocados would have come crashing down on anyone in the backyard.
Yes, I remember that you needed a male and female tree near each other. Who knew there were girl and boy trees…
The birds and the bees knew. 
I was told that the big Canary Palms in SF along Dolores and also The Embarcadero are a mixture of male/female. They said the males have the yellow bunches hanging.
(That’s it, I’ve almost exhausted my botany knowledge)
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Luke Tsai and Thien Pham eat late night at Four Kings at 710 Commercial in SF Chinatown -
If Four Kings has a signature dish, it’s probably the fried squab (i.e., young pigeon), which comes cut into succulent quarters, claws still attached, tiny head staring back at you on the plate. The bird’s bronzed, glistening skin was immaculately crisp, giving away to a burst of soft fat when we bit in. The pink meat was rich and earthy, like duck with an extra bit of oomph. We tore the squab apart with our hands, squeezing lemon over top and dipping each morsel into a dish of tongue-tingling Sichuan-pepper-salt. If you’re bold and willing to work at it a little, even the head makes for good eating — the bits of crispy skin and the sweet, creamy brain in the center.
Part of the excitement at Four Kings comes from covering the table with an abundance of dishes. The new-school Cantonese restaurant is open until 11 p.m. on the weekends in SF Chinatown. (Thien Pham)
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Mike Lim, Best Bay Area Banh Mi.
Duc Huong and Huang Lan in San Jose, Saigon Sandwich in San Francisco, and Banh Mi Ba Le in Oakland
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Groovy! How old do you think the tree is?
I don’t know. I just emailed him.
My friend did in fact sprout the avocado pits in 1978, using “the ol’ hippie trick” (his words) of toothpicks suspending the pits in a glass of water. They potted them a while later, then into the ground in Berkeley in around 1980. They produced mountains of fruit until just a couple of years ago, when a water line leak gave them too much water and they died.
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They can self-pollinate to some degree, though apparently it helps increase the fruit yield to be pollinated by another tree. When I was a kid we had a tree that wasn’t known to be in close proximity to any other avocados and that fruited quite a bit. They were a green avocado variety 5x the size of Hass and at least one year the yield was high enough that my mother sent us out to collect the very ripe fruit wearing our bike helmets, lest we end up brained by avocados raining out of the tree.
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What avocado varieties grow well in the Bay Area, especially in Santa Clara county?
Bee’s Nursery in Sacramento -
Located in the heart of Northern California, Bee’s Nursery specializes in mango trees, avocados, guavas, cherimoya, sapote, dragon fruit, and other exotic fruit trees that thrive in California’s microclimates.
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