Interview: Derrick Schneider
Summer time and easy living wouldn't be complete without baseball and good eats. We've incorporated a crew of new SFist contributors to guide you through the goodlife in coming months.
Unless you’re some sort of freaked out meatitarian or carb loving fool, you gotta love the produce here. The farmers markets always astound with both their variety and their value. But it’s the variety that sometimes gets us into to trouble. You know that those cardoons are a great idea, but what to do with them? New SFist Derrick was recruited to solve your produce shopping quandaries.
In his weekly column, SFist in the Kitchen, Derrick picks up something up a farmers market and tells you what to do with it. Voila! No more perplexed staring at the dried mandarins or Kohlrabi. If you don’t get enough guidance from Derrick’s SFist posts, make sure to check out his blog, Obsession with Food.
Name
Derrick Schneider
Introduce yourself in one sentence:
Strong earthy notes and underlying fruity characteristics combine with a bright acidity to give an impression of youth belied by the vintage.
Age and Occupation:
34, Programmer/Writer
Home Town
Hmm. I've lived a lot of places, but I guess I consider Visalia, CA to be my home town.
How long have you lived in the Bay Area and Where
I came for college (Cal), um, 16 years ago and I never want to leave. My dad says it took me about 48 hours to realize I had found home; I say it was 48 minutes. I've lived in Berkeley and Oakland, and I consider myself a Berkeley resident despite the Oakland address.
BEST Picture on SFist
I'm partial to Melissa's pics, so I'm going to have make it a tie between the strawberry-white chocolate shot and the rib shot
I wanted to be an SFist contributor because (besides the obvious fame and glory that would be mine):
My column gets me in the kitchen more, with the kinds of ingredients I love: seasonal and fresh from local producers.
You should read my SFist posts because
We live in one of the most agriculturally abundant regions on the planet. We have great produce all year round, and my posts tell you how to take advantage of it. Why cook with rock-hard tomatoes from Chile in the winter?
Favorite website
Bloglines! It's the only way to keep track of all my RSS feeds.
Favorite dot com or local business
I'm a big fan of Cody's Books.
What I'm currently Reading
At any given moment, there's a good chance it's about food or wine. But as I write this, I'm reading the Best American Essays of 2004
Best Deal in San Francisco
El Tonayense Taco Trucks
Favorite mode of transportation
Sitting at home. The go-karts in Mario Kart. Or maybe the snowboards in SSX.
Best Band or Musician to come out of the Bay Area
Frederica von Stade.
Favorite local hangout
Toronado. I love Belgian beers (not as much as I love wine, though!), so I always ask for the full list at this bar. And with a great sausage place next door, who can resist?
SF has the BEST:
Farmer's markets.
You've never lived in SF until:
You've felt the floor rolling under you in an earthquake.
Favorite Bay area politician of past or present:
Barbara Lee speaks for me. Too bad no one listened. And props to Gavin for allowing gay marriage. Too bad no one agreed.
You can tell someone is a local here IF:
Their biggest complaint about the Folsom Street Fair is that it causes a traffic nightmare.
SF would be soooo much better if only:
We had a real public transit system, a la Paris and London.
Best Burrito:
You know, I'm not a burrito fan. They're too big and too messy.
Best Restaurant:
In the City proper? It depends on my mood. Our favorite neighborhood place is Oakland's Jojo. But I left my heart in Yountville.
Favorite author to come out of the bay area:
Oddly, given the amount I read, I couldn't think of any, but I'm a huge fan of Michael Pollan who's currently a prof at Berkeley. Almost no one writes about food as eloquently and thoughtfully as he does. I also really like Dana Gioia's poetry.
Place you always tell visitors to check out:
The Ferry Building market. Sure, it's overpriced, and the produce is precious, but there's no better way to show a tourist what we've got here.
Favorite Bridge in the area:
Oakland Bay Bridge (the current one, not the new design). Not for the traffic, but for the look.
You have two hours and $15 bucks to kill in SF, what are you going to do?
Make my way up to Hog Island at the Ferry Building, and order half a dozen oysters and a glass of Muscadet. If that doesn't fit the budget, maybe I'll just have three oysters.
I have found/sold/bought the following on craigslist:
"Sold" a butcher block.
Question you'd ask if you were doing this interview:
Biggest vice.