How To Win Friends and Influence People, Slow Food Style!

From an article in the New York Times:

“I don’t know if it’s going to be the youthful, happening Woodstock
they want it to be, but it certainly has the potential,” said Corby
Kummer, a food columnist, book author and Slow Food board member. “It
will be a failure if it is only well-dressed people over 35 from the
Bay Area treating it as if it’s another Ferry Plaza Farmers Market” — a
reference to the place where well-fed San Franciscans and celebrity
farmers chat over perfect peaches and soft, ripe cheese.

Rancho Gordo at the Movies: Baby Mama

If you happened to wonder why Baby Mama is the number one movie in the country right now, I think I can frankly say it’s because the film features Rancho Gordo beans. There’s an outside scene with Steve Martin arguing with Tina Fey and you can clearly see our super-photogenic packages of beans!

Hollywood is fickle but there’s also a chance the beans will be in future films about underground street fighting and food blogging. Really!

Call Harry Winston! I wonder if this year they’ll have to create a special category for us at the Academy Awards. I wonder if I wonder….

Rancho Gordo beans in New York Magazine

It’s a small but very nice entry about our beans in current issue of New York magazine. Link.

Good Food in Mexico City

The first time I was in Mexico City, I wasn’t in love with the food I found in restaurants. To be fair, I had just come from Oaxaca where I don’t think I put anything less than stellar in my mouth. The best thing I ate in Mexico City was some kind of fried masa treat with cheese and chiles that I had right on the street outside of a Metro station. I still dream about it. But there were lots of uninspired meals and I realize now it was mostly because I didn’t know where to go.
I wish I’d had a copy of Nicholas Gilman’s Good Food in Mexico City back then. I’ve know Nick from the online food boards for years so when I knew I was going to be in Mexico City this last January, I made it point to meet him in person.

Nick took me to

El Tizoncito, which is one of the many places written up in his book. The afternoon went by in flash but I do remember some outstanding salsas and charro beans.
What I like best about Nick’s book is that it’s opinionated and yet very straight forward. I used it for the entire trip and it didn’t once let me down. I’ve shown it to friends who know Mexico City well and they can’t wait to pick it apart and show me places he’s missed but then they find he’s covered them. I have to assume my friends feel very protective and territorial about Mexico City, or I have some nasty friends. Either way, Good Food in Mexico City passes with flying colors.

Rancho Gordo in Domino Magazine

We thought our recent media lovefest was over. Well, it turns out the icing on the cake is a nice feature on Spicy Heirloom Bean Chili in Domino magazine that features five of our best heritage varieties.
To make things easier for our new friends from Domino, we made a sampler of all the beans needed for the recipe.
Click here to see the 5 bean sample.
Click here to see the recipe from Domino magazine.

Stock Update:
Some very good news fans of the Marrow beans: they’re back! We’ve just finished cleaning a new batch and found more than we thought we had. It’s not unlimited but we should be good for awhile, hopefully until the fall. 
Some very bad news is that we are out of Yellow Indian Woman and we need to save any leftover stock for seed. We’re also running low on Flageolet and Black Nightfall.

Rancho Gordo on The Saveur 100

Thanks for all your nice comments and emails regarding the Saveur 100. You can imagine how flattered we are and how much new work is coming poor Joan’s way. It’s like Christmas all over again here at the warehouse.

I don’t know if the list is any particular order but we’re going to go ahead and assume that "number two" means we’re at the top of the list.

Food + Wine Magazine’s Maple-Glazed Beans

I get asked a lot about baked beans, but being a native Californian, I’m more helpful with things like Drunken Beans or refrieds. The January issue of Food + Wine magazine has a wonderful dish that takes the best of the baked bean tradition and matches it with some great heirlooms, and mentions Rancho Gordo as well. I can tell you what I’m doing this weekend…

Maple-Glazed Beans
from Food + Wine Magazine, January 2008

Ingredients

    * 1 pound yellow eye or navy beans, soaked overnight and drained
    * 2 cloves
    * 1 small onion, sliced 1/2 inch thick
    * 2 bay leaves
    * 1/2 pound meaty bacon, fat side scored
    * 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
    * 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
    * 2 teaspoons dry mustard
    * 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon ketchup
    * 2 teaspoons kosher salt
    * 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions

   1. Preheat the oven to 325°. In a large pot, cover the beans with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, skimming occasionally, until the skins peel back when you blow on them, about 1 hour. Reserve 4 cups of the cooking liquid and drain the beans.
   2. Transfer the beans to a 10-by-13-inch baking dish. Stick the cloves in a slice of onion; nestle the onion slices, bay leaves and bacon, fat side up, among the beans.
   3. In a bowl, whisk 2 cups of the reserved cooking liquid with the maple syrup, Worcestershire, dry mustard, 1/4 cup of the ketchup and 1 teaspoon of the salt; pour over the beans and bake for 3 hours.
   4. Stir the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt into 1 cup of the cooking liquid; pour over the beans and bake for 1 1/2 hours longer.
   5. Whisk the remaining cooking liquid and ketchup with the Dijon mustard and pour over the beans. Bake for 1 1/2 hours longer, until the beans are richly browned. Let stand for 15 minutes. Discard the cloves and bay leaves, and serve.

Recipe by Marcia Kiesel
From 100 Tastes to Try in ‘08
This recipe originally appeared in January, 2008.

©2008 Food and Wine. Reproduced here without permission.

Food + Wine Magazine’s Maple-Glazed Beans

I get asked a lot about baked beans, but being a native Californian, I’m more helpful with things like Drunken Beans or refrieds. The January issue of Food + Wine magazine has a wonderful dish that takes the best of the baked bean tradition and matches it with some great heirlooms, and mentions Rancho Gordo as well. I can tell you what I’m doing this weekend…

Maple-Glazed Beans
from Food + Wine Magazine, January 2008

Ingredients

    * 1 pound yellow eye or navy beans, soaked overnight and drained
    * 2 cloves
    * 1 small onion, sliced 1/2 inch thick
    * 2 bay leaves
    * 1/2 pound meaty bacon, fat side scored
    * 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
    * 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
    * 2 teaspoons dry mustard
    * 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon ketchup
    * 2 teaspoons kosher salt
    * 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions

   1. Preheat the oven to 325°. In a large pot, cover the beans with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, skimming occasionally, until the skins peel back when you blow on them, about 1 hour. Reserve 4 cups of the cooking liquid and drain the beans.
   2. Transfer the beans to a 10-by-13-inch baking dish. Stick the cloves in a slice of onion; nestle the onion slices, bay leaves and bacon, fat side up, among the beans.
   3. In a bowl, whisk 2 cups of the reserved cooking liquid with the maple syrup, Worcestershire, dry mustard, 1/4 cup of the ketchup and 1 teaspoon of the salt; pour over the beans and bake for 3 hours.
   4. Stir the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt into 1 cup of the cooking liquid; pour over the beans and bake for 1 1/2 hours longer.
   5. Whisk the remaining cooking liquid and ketchup with the Dijon mustard and pour over the beans. Bake for 1 1/2 hours longer, until the beans are richly browned. Let stand for 15 minutes. Discard the cloves and bay leaves, and serve.

Recipe by Marcia Kiesel
From 100 Tastes to Try in ‘08
This recipe originally appeared in January, 2008.

©2008 Food and Wine. Reproduced here without permission.

Rancho Gordo in Gourmet

Wow.  A customer at the farmers market asked me about Gourmet magazine and I smiled and didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then another customer mentioned seeing the beans in Gourmet, and then another. Was it true? Guess what? Yes!

"Delicious bites of history." I couldn’t have said it better myself. Clearly I’m proud, but it’s even more gratifying that people "get" what we’re doing with the heritage beans and indigenous foods. I can only tell you what is was like in the beginning, going to farmers markets by myself, sometimes doing six a week and having to explain over and over that these were heirloom beans, not fancy nuts. And yes, you need to cook them. A lot of people, including friends, thought I was insane for doing this but I knew deep inside this was the right thing once I figured out how to tell the story. Having my friend Joan Taramasso come on board, at first to just help bag beans, and now running Operations, initially  seemed like an indulgence (we laugh a lot, eat well and listen to good music here at the warehouse) but now I see it’s been one of the essential reasons for the success.

We had no idea this was coming. What’s even wilder is the press we’re supposed to be getting in January, followed by the release of my book on beans next fall. Really, how lucky can you get?

Daniel Patterson on Heirloom Vegetables

San Francisco’s wonderful writing chef, Daniel Patterson of Coi, has written a great article on heirloom varieties for San Francisco magazine (Ocotber 2007). I’m flattered to be mentioned and of course have been walking around with a swollen head.

You can read Daniel’s article online or wait for the inevitable book. He’s a compelling writer and a good listener.