This is why SF needs Pearl's Kitchen

Our recent rantings about the challenges of finding schmaltz and kosher meat in San Francisco spark curiosity in my Aunt Julie who lives outside of D.C. in Olney, Maryland. She wondered, are things different on the east coast? Well after a quick stop at her regular old local supermarket, she realized the answer is most definitely yes. It seems that kosher deli food is readily available everywhere you look. And just to rub it in, she took pictures of the deli counter at her local Giant Supermarket.

This is the brand of kosher chicken they sell at Trader  Joe's here. But TJ's definitely doesn't carry Schmaltz.

Kosher corned beef for $7.99/lb. Don't even talk to me about this.

 Noodle Kugel at the supermarket! 

You think Safeway or Whole Foods would ever stock Pearl's Kitchen kugel?

 

Six different types of knishes!

Dill and half sour pickles. 

You can definitely get good dill pickles around here, but a perfect half sour is hard to find. Pearl's Kitchen will be developing a perfect recipe for these come summer when the cukes are in season.

 

Black and White cookies. 

We like to outsource these from our favorite bakery, Sweetface Sweets, if we can persuade her to bake some Jewish deli treats!

So the moral of the story is that you can probably hunt down decent versions of the above items if you spend a lot of time looking and driving to the ends of the earth here in the SF bay area. But nobody is bringing these goodies to your local street corner except Pearl's Kitchen. So come out and grab a taste next time we're serving. Together we can achieve a world where San Franciscan's can find six different types of knishes by just logging onto their twitter account.

Schmaltz

When my dad talks about Schmaltz his eyes kind of glaze over and he gets this funny look like he's talking about a long lost love. What he's really talking about is rendered chicken fat. And the thing is, it's not just my wacky dad who feels adoration for the stuff most people throw out of their roast chicken. Anyone who grew up eating food cooked in schmaltz wishfully remembers the days before reduced sodium packaged turkey breasts and nonfat half & half (how is that even possible?) Arteries shmarteries; Pearl's Kitchen is committed to learning the art of using rendered chicken fat.

So I called Aunt Ethel, my grandfather's sister who's the last living relative of that generation from the Bronx side of my family. Not surprisingly she lives in Florida and was watching Turner Classic Movies when she answered the phone. So we talked schmaltz (and chicken liver and matzoh balls.) She wearily emphasized that once I cooked with schmaltz nothing would ever taste as good again. But she qualified that by saying that I must eat it in moderation, because of course, its bad for your arteries. She politely didn't focus on the fat ass ramification.

One of the biggest challenges for me has been finding enough chicken fat to render. I've called my meat market in the Mission who only carries rendered duck fat for $7/lb. I went into Whole Foods and they told me they absolutely do not carry rendered chicken or goose fat and there's no place in the city to get any. Yeah right. Whole Foods Shmole Foods.

Most whole chickens these days don't have much fat on them, but Aunt Ethel said you need to find an old chicken which she kept calling a fowl. Somehow I think they don't sell old chickens anymore.  I just found this blog which says you can use all the skin on the chicken to create your schmaltz. I had been under the impression you needed to get only the pure soft white pockets of fat you find. But naturally, when you fry chicken skin you're gonna get a lot of fat and so I'll definitely try it.

What I have right now is the fat scrapped off two batches of chicken soup that I recently made. This could be enough for a batch of matzoh balls. I also know that there's a guy at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market who makes schmaltz and sells it in quaint looking jars which probably cost like 20 bucks. And I called Israel Kosher Meats who also sells homemade schmaltz. But of course I called on Friday evening at 6pm and she sounded like she wanted to say...."Ummm hello, its Shabbot, this is a kosher freaking shop, I'm not supposed to answer the phone, who the hell are you to be looking for schmaltz, you shouldn't be on the phone either!" So maybe we'll pop over there on Sunday when they reopen.

A confession about rye bread and how I will redeem myself

An essential part of our current menu is the homemade rye bread that flanks our corned beef. Although I hate to admit it, until recently I never really liked rye bread. Before I continue this confession, I will make very clear that it is Lauren who is writing this post. I wouldn't want to taint Jon's reputation.

As a child (and actually even as a young adult) when the family went out for deli, I always asked for white bread with my corned beef. The whole family would look away, intensely embarrassed and pretend I wasn't related to them. They'd crack jokes and the waitress would look personally offended while telling me they don't carry white bread, but could probably make a sandwich with challah. That worked for me and I'd eat my warm corned beef with mayo on challah. (Yes I said mayo-- but I won't digress.)

 Pearl's Kitchen Corned Beef Sandwich

                                                                                                Photo by Nina Lao
But rest assure I would never ever subject anyone to my horrific preferences. So of course you will not find any white bread or mayo at Pearl's Kitchen cart. What you will find is some fresh baked rye bread filled with lots of caraway seeds and a fabulous mustard slurry.

 Which leads to my latest challenge- baking rye bread to redeem myself from the sins of my youth. Currently I use a bread maker to bake the bread we sell. It has been turning out delicious, but I do aspire to make rye bread the more traditional way, using a sour dough starter rather than yeast. A sour dough starter is just flour and water which you "feed" daily with more flour and water. This mixture ferments and through a chemical reaction becomes the substance which makes the dough rise. Each time you make bread in this way, you use a portion of your starter and save some. Then you feed the original more and so on. This can go on for many years. The Boudin Bakery in San Francisco calls their starter the "mother dough" and has been using it since 1849!

A Sourdough Starter

So I met this guy named Danny who recently started an organization named Sour Flour, which aims to "build a community through bread." I tend to like people who have lofty goals they aim to achieve through food. And ya know what, he's really doing it. I spoke to him for a bit at a recent street food vendor party we attended, and a week later I was in his house with two other people learning how to make baguettes! For free I may add. I had considered taking a very expensive course at a well respected baking school, but will now be able to put that off and learn from Danny. 

The Sour Flour Business Plan

What I learned in my first bread making class:

1. I need to get better at math.
2. Science hurts my brain.
3. A fresh sour dough baguette with homemade garlic butter makes me very happy.

Joking aside, I really did learn a lot, helped make 13 baguettes, met some cool people, and plan to continue my training. There is a lot of science and math which can be modified like crazy to make the perfect loaf.  I'm just going to start by just adding some water to some flour and hope to see the little bubbles that tell me the chemical reaction which I don't understand is working. Then I'll call Danny and ask him what to do next.

The Launch

We have officially launched Pearl's Kitchen, the aim of which is to bring grandma's Jewish kitchen to the streets! The grandma at hand is Pearl, shown left playing with a wind chime. She was a wonderful cook and we just felt that San Francisco would really benefit from a re-creation of her kitchen, albeit on a folding table in a city park (for now.)

Pearl's Kitchen will explore the cooking regime of this one particular Jewish grandmother as well as recipes enjoyed by Jewish families everywhere. We will also be delving into the Jewish Deli world, which is currently the focus of a very interesting debate here in the Bay Area. What is an authentic Jewish Deli? How does it jive with the goal of serving people organic, sustainable food. Is this a valid debate or is this just the type of thing that New Yorkers point to and laugh as they bite into their delicious "authentic" pastrami sandwiches. We will see.

"We" are Jon and Lauren, who love food and are very excited to join the vibrant underground food scene in SF. Currently both of us are gainfully employed at full time day jobs, but we're gonna do our darnedest to cook and serve up yummy grub in our free time as often as possible. We've already met an amazing group of talented cooks who are out there serving interesting food on street corners, in art galleries and in parks.

This blog will serve as a journal of this experience. Part diary of a street food business, part cookbook, part musings of Jewish food and the underground food scene of which Pearl's Kitchen hopes to become an integral part.

We've signed on with all the requisite social networking outlets, so check us out on Twitter and Facebook, or do things the old fashion way and email us. We'll let you know when we're out next so you can come get some corned beef sandwiches or noodle kugel!