The Omnivorous Fish

I spent one of the more interesting nights I’ve had in a long time getting in everyone’s way at Della Fattoria, a stellar bakery in Petaluma, California, up in Sonoma County. It means “from the farm,” or even more accurately, “from the family farm” or at least “small farm.” And let me tell you, it is ON the farm. To get to the bakery, you drive down a long dirt path through rows of vines and past the throng of sheep and dogs to the barn where the bakery is housed.

I met Kathleen Weber, one of the owners and founders, at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market (in San Francisco) a few months back and she told me about her oven, a huge wood-fired number custom made for them. As many of you know, I have been toying with the idea of opening a pizzeria for about 20 years now, and have yet to work with a wood-fired oven, so when I heard about Kathleen’s, I had to see it.

I met Kathleen at the farm in the afternoon, much better than the 8PM or so start time I was expecting, and I jumped right in, setting up boards, shaping, racking, but mainly just trying to stay out of the way.

After a few hours of dough work, Aaron, Kathleen’s son/Oven Guy Extraordinaire, began to get the oven ready. Interestingly, this mainly involves cooling the floor of the oven using such high-tech methods as sheet pans with wet towels on them, a wet mop and spraying water into the oven’s crown. He does, however, monitor the temperature with an infrared thermometer, the only real gadget in the place.

I will say right now that pictures on this site look best in Safari. I’m working on that.

Steaming the oven

Loading the oven

I just liked this

Unloading the oven

Loading the corners

More unloading

The belly of the beast

Slashing the loaves

Onto the cooling racks

More loading

The bread

As you’ve noticed, most of the images are blurred. This is either because everyone is moving so fast, or because I am moving so fast to stay out of their way. This is what a bakery is all about, constant, economic motion. After 10 years or so working in bakeries, I have to say it was a great priveliege to work with this crew.

Special thanks to Dave who mixed all the doughs; Scotty- training but kicking butt on the oven unloading; Kashaya who kept him running (and kept me from hanging myself while chopping 20 pounds of figs); Lucas, who after cutting and shaping all afternoon spent the evening nipple-deep in olives; Peter, backing up the oven loading; Aaron, who is a master oven guy; and Kathleen, who forced them all to put up with me for the evening. Bravi fornai!

There’s something about the block of 18th Street in San Francisco between Guerrero and Oakwood. Maybe it’s the ancient spirit of the Mission, maybe it’s something in the water, maybe Jimmy Hoffa’s body is under Bi Rite, I’m not quite sure what it is, but some of the best things to eat in the city are right there.

On the corner of 18th is Tartine, which is a bakery and café in a big space, yet the tables and chairs are jammed inexplicably into a New York corner. Thanks to California’s progressive ideas about the sale of booze, it’s a proper café, where you can get anything from OJ to a bottle of wine to enjoy with your goodies, savory or sweet. In fact, the kids at the next table over came for a bottle of wine and three glasses to while away the afternoon discussing Marxism. It was so undergrad.

Huge, unsubtle but delicious croissants come in plain; (Niman Ranch) ham and gruyere; chocolate and other permutations (though be warned; they cook them dark). Tarts, cakes, cookies, quiches, quick and yeast breads all make appearances, and I have to say they range from pretty good to underwear-changing good. Lemon lovers look out for the lemon meringue cake; a baked Alaska filled with lemon curd. Cute hipster kids swarm both in front of and behind the counters from which they make excellent coffee (though SF has some of the oldest hipsters I’ve ever seen).

The Bay Area, I must say, has the most consistently good coffee from the greatest number of independents than any city I have ever been (calm down, Seattle, I haven’t been there- yet).

Speaking of places I hadn’t been, I took a suggestion and went to dinner at Delfina, almost next door. It looks like your typical urban hip place, easily transported to New York, LA, Philly, Chicago or Boston, with distressed metal this and marble that. I didn’t take note of too much of the décor since I was flying solo and ate at the bar, but I did have a nice view of the open kitchen and the very young, mostly cute crew behind the line.

It was an absolute madhouse when I got there at 9, but being a party of one, I snagged the end seat at the bar, next to two completely odious 20-something women that were there to see, be seen and eat expensive food they don’t deserve before going home to vomit it up. The advantage to eating so late (and planning to eat everything in the place) is that you get to watch the place slow down and see how the machine contracts to its slower pace. I have always been fascinated by the operation of restaurants, and this process is perhaps the most interesting bit of theater.

At any rate, I sat down and was brought some dense-crumbed, crusty, but noticeably cold bread, and remarkably good butter, anointed with one of the new salts that all the cool kids have. This was soon followed by mint tagliatelle with porcini. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well, so does string theory, but it’s not. This pasta was the kind of pasta that grandmothers make, but flecked with fresh mint, in a butter sauce light enough to keep you hungry, inundated with paper thin shavings of boletus edulis that kicked you in the teeth when you bit into them. The whole thing was earth, sex and light-colored sin in my mouth, and I regretted getting the half portion one bite in. Since, however, details haunt me, I have to note that I scratched down ‘tagliatelle’ in my notebook, and the website confirms that’s what the menu had written on it, and it is a free country, but in reality what I was served is tagliarini. No harm no foul.

With this, I drank a Gavi from Villa Sparini, one of a few half bottles available on the short but functional wine list. I was struggling between it and a colline they had by the glass, and the bartender’s rec was right-on. It had just the right amount of citrus to lighten it up.

Next I had quail stuffed with sausage and fennel, a little polenta and a brown, nectarous sauce made of stock and vin santo. It was one of those dishes which is merely excellent, that is to say, I wasn’t annoyed by the lengthy list of ingredients or put off by dubious combinations. I had a red wine with this that was being served by the glass after much discussion with the bartender, but I was having much too good a time by then to write anything down.

Delfina is one of those places where everybody loves food. Everyone who works there wants to talk about the wine list and the ingredients and they genuinely want you to have a good time. Unlike the clientele, I observed no posturing. I started talking to the bartender, a mysteriously beautiful young woman who lit up to chat about the minutiae of Gavi. And I got to hear her story since, like New York, nobody is from San Francisco, so everybody has a story.

Then I had cheese, which I will quote right from their website:

Wrinkled pagliarina with marcona almonds
Piemonte- cow, sheep, and goat milks
Moliterno tartufato with housemade quince paste
Sardegna- sheep’s milk
Parmigiano Reggiano with saba
Blu del Moncensio with brachetto gelatina
Piemonte - cow’s milk
Tumin rutulin with wildflower honey
Piemonte- goat’s milk

They were mostly fantastic, and the braccheto gelatina kind of haunts me still. By this point I had fallen completely in love with the bartender, and was overwhelmed emotionally and gastronomically by a big pedestal-dish of strawberry ice cream she put in front of me. It was rich and cold and ambrosial and frankly almost surreal. It was like sitting at the bar chatting with a giant strawberry breathing strawberry breath on you, inundating you with his strawberry presence. It was smooth and subtle, yet frosty and poignant. It was perhaps the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life.

Delfina. Go there. Fall in love.

Delfina Restaurant
3621 18th Street
San Francisco, CA
415.552.4055