Even before I downed the first of several cups of Peet’s from my $30 Melitta FastBrew this morning I was slapped in the face with the smug arrogance of a cookbook promotion in my inbox offering me a chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime chance to “Live the Tartine Way” for two days by entering a sweepstakes.
Maybe I’m still stuck in the Larraburu Way or the Graffeo Way, but for all my 55 years of trying to absorb the San Francisco experience I’ve yet to feel the need to enter Tartine’s sacred premises (though I’ve had their breads and not been impressed) to feel I’ve really lived, nor have I yet availed myself of the services of AFAR, Good Eggs, or Hedley & Bennett (whoever the hell they are).
Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe "The “Tartine Way” is not tied to San Francisco, but is some Middle Kingdom, halfway between San Francisco and Heaven. Perhaps someone can explain what living “the Tartine Way” is and why I should aspire to it.
Why are we attacking Tartine? I don’t see any “smug arrogance” in their offer, but only in the presumption that we in HO are somehow superior to those who may be fans of Tartine (not me). Different strokes for different folks. Would you have been happier if they had said the Chez Panisse way or the Cafe Zuni way, etc? Or the China Live way? I read it as fairly harmless promotion of just one artisanal SF spot. Sure, I don’t shop at Williams Sonoma, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge others who do.
I’d suggest you are tone deaf to not find it arrogant that someone would suggest that their brand constitutes a way of life to aspire to, be they Tartine or Trump.
I’m not judging anyone here other than the nouveau Taoist advertising geniuses who wrote the copy.
I wonder how many people who are Tartine fans would tell you that it defines them and their their “Way.”
"Elisabeth Prueitt is the cofounder of San Francisco’s acclaimed Tartine Bakery and Tartine Manufactory. Her latest cookbook, Tartine All Day, tackles recipes of all stripes—breakfast, lunch, dinner, an afternoon pastry break.
There are so many approachable recipes in the book, and we just love it. We also love her hometown and got together with Elisabeth to design an exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime San Francisco weekend. But instead of going on the trip ourselves (we seriously want to!), we’re giving it away to a lucky TASTE reader.
The winner will receive:
Two round-trip vouchers from JetBlue*
Dinner for two from Tartine Manufactory
Two nights’ stay in a San Francisco hotel
$500 shopping spree from Williams-Sonoma
Apron from Hedley & Bennett
Box of snacks from GoodEggs
Subscriptions and San Francisco travel guide from AFAR
Enter to win!"
I think you are reading too much into this. Where do they say any more than that they like Tartine and like SF? Whoever wins the prize can take the plane ticket and the hotels and do whatever they want, there is no spiel they have to sit through where somebody sells them something.
We must try to avoid projecting our feelings of hostility. It is not the Tartine way! Eat Bread, Be Happy
Well judging on the one Tartine cookbook I have, to live the Tartine way you would have to do nothing but cook all day. The recipes are impossibly long and require ingredients you have to make (like burned breadcumbs and fermented whatever) so I haven’t made anything from it yet, though I love their bread (had some with a salad for dinner) and the restaurant.
The New York Times’ review of the Tartine Manufactury sheds some light on “The Tartine Way:”
“On a recent weekday afternoon, the sunlit space was full of good-looking people in expensive T-shirts drinking highlighter-yellow turmeric kefir.”
This description is accompanied by a photograph of a crowd that’s whiter than a Donald Trump rally; this in a town where Caucasians are a minority.
It’s described as “a 5,000-square-food bread factory that includes a pastry shop, restaurant, ice-cream parlor and coffee shop” and, it could be added, flies the gluten-free flag high (sort of a Geekaly, I guess). It’s located in an inaccessible industrial area warehouse where, fortunately, no taquerias were harmed in its production, but could be plunked down in any urban area, like Brooklyn (where Liz Prueitt is from) with an inferiority complex. (Ironically, the one time I visited neighboring Heath Ceramics it was hosting a display of “Brooklyn-made” products.)
The “Tartine Way” may feel right to the gray hoodie set, but manufactured constructs like the Tartine Manufactory have about as much to do with San Francisco as Dollywood.
Yeah I think you might be reading just a biiiiit too much into this ad copy. Then again I am a member of the “gray hoodie set” (I am in fact wearing a gray hoodie as I type this. I own other colors of hoodie as well but I know what you mean).
It’s a bakery and restaurant. Tartine the bakery has been here for fifteen years and I would argue by virtue of their influence and the quality of their product is very much a part of San Francisco food culture. They make excellent bread, and their morning buns are worth waiting in line for.
Hmmm…is this the San Francisco 2017 version of that great early scene in Robin William’s first film, “Moscow On The Hudson”? He’s coming home from work, sees a line, and trudges over to join it. After a few minutes, he taps the shoulder of the guy in front of him and asks, “What are we waiting for?”
Does she make tortillas? Because I’ve yet to have a gluten free tortilla that I could take more than one bite before separating the contents inside from said tortilla.
