7X7 Food & Drink Awards

This past Monday night was all about 7X7's Food and Drink Awards party. First I received a cryptic email. Then there was an invite, only for me. Darn, I thought, I am being forced to go solo.

Will I know anyone?

Why was I invited? Was I winning a secret award?

I took public transportation. Plenty of time to read on BART. When I arrived there was a silly red carpet taped to the two feet of slender downtown San Francisco sidewalk. There were dozens of CCA students in their personalized chef jackets waiting for the throngs to enter.

How is it that a school costing almost as much as MIT, that requires its students to wear a uniform, cannot even make jackets for those writing those enormous checks, that actually fit them?

I wasn't on The List. But I had this invite in my hand. It confused all the students. I finally asked them to look into it because they were all looking at each other saying, "Who's on first?"

It's alright, a higher up from The Kuleto Group was also not on The List.

Me and all the other swankily dressed gentlemen took the elevator to the 10th floor.

The place was packed. This is what I saw: a carpeted 1940's Art Deco ballroom with few lights, a wide blood red-carpeted stairway leading elsewhere, many 7X7 magazines, a number of tables with chocolate milk looking martinis, a culinary student army watching the three silent auction tables, a lot of prettily dressed women, too many dark suits.

And then I heard my name. It was Sara Ko from Citizen Cake, my old co-pastry chef, standing there with their new co-pastry chef. I had one question I was asking people all night: "What are you excited about right now?" Sara said she was most excited about opening their new restaurant, Orson, but most especially about the new line of chocolates they're producing for it. While chatting I recognized a few tall people in the darkness.

When we chefs are presented with an outing wherein we do not need to wear our whites, we become hardly recognizable. If we're lucky, there is a woman nearby to say, "you can't leave the house in that!" or we have one suit that has stayed gorgeous for many years because we are hardly ever out of uniform.

The women looked stunning. It's rare people feel the need to dress up in SF. We are a casual city. Fabulous, old school Maitre D's have been complaining about SF for years. But on this silly little Monday night, the women went all out.

Perhaps because the food was so bad, the women knew they were to be the delicious creatures for the evening.

It is for this reason, I chose to photograph their feet & shoes.

Being there alone meant I had a few hearty conversations, but no one to dish with.

First I saw Catherine, but only because her handsome husband is quite a bit taller than the rest of us. It was great to find someone who also didn't know why she was invited. She liked my shoe foto idea. This gave me a bit of confidence. The room was so swanky, so schmoozy, it daunted me a bit.

Then I saw my old boss Elizabeth Falkner. While we discussed her new restaurant, Frankie came along and pinched her ass. (To prove how small the world is, well especially in SF, frankie was a bartender at a place i cooked at almost 15 years ago.)

Then I saw the distinctive figure of the brooding David Kinch. He has a suit I've seen before but covet nonetheless. A French-looking affair with four buttons. Mmmmmm. Go ahead, call me a fag. You wouldn't be the first.

Of course there was the lovely Anne Stoll and her serious husband Craig. She looked like she wanted to dance, he looked content to watch. Arnold Wong stood by in his square shiny shoes, attracting a number of pretty women with his magnetic smile. I always love to chat with him at events. His openness is such a rare delight.

Chris Cosentino held a small audience captive with tales of dried offal. reminding us all that chefs can still be hip, Chris spiked his two-tone hair, carried a beer and wore Upper Playground's take on picnic with Adidas.

Dennis Leary was looking very James Bond by the bar. All Mod Cons in his tight fitting three button suit and close cropped hair. Robbie Lewis had on a hot red zebra striped shirt, open wide to show off his robust chest, and seemed happier and slimmer than I've ever seen him. It appears that leaving a kitchen is still the best way to take the best care of our chefselves.

{We have a saying in the restaurant business: "If you want a vacation, quit your job."}

The award ceremony was introduced by the lithe and sexy Sara Deseran. Well spoken, slightly salty, and altogether wonderful to be around, Ms. Deseran makes being a chef in the Bay Area worth it. After having the extreme pleasure of introducing her at an amazing Literary event, she has crowned me with Princehood. What every perfect gentleman wishes for...

And then came the powerhouse Cat Cora. At the mike with the booming voice trained to be heard over the cacophony of a busy kitchen, Cat announced all the winners.

Some of them were obvious, a few were refreshing. Winners received a small gold pig for their efforts.

Perhaps next year they will get the PA system thing down so that all the winners could say a little something. Gary Danko won overall best restaurant and I was glad to see him demand a little space and a microphone to say some good words about his diners and staff. And than, to the happiness of all revelers, he shouted, "And now, come on, let's PAR-TAY!!!"

To remind you all that I'm human, I did make a tiny faux pas...

When Elizabeth won her award, Citizen Cake won for best desserts in SF, she wanted to thank her immediate staff who were in the audience. But there was no microphone. So she leaned over and held the tiny mike clipped to Cat Cora's dress. Well, at her cleavage. Later there was much joking about how Elizabeth was reaching for Ms. Cora's breast, which of course she wasn't.

I said, to Ms. Cora, "Well don't worry, everyone knows you're not gay!"

But she is. On my BART ride home I would read the February 7X7 issue where the awards are listed. In an interview with Sara Deseran, Cat Cora talks about her partner Jennifer.

Of course Cat Cora, with her deep, buttery, Southern accent, just laughed and said something silly instead of admonishing me the way a pc San Franciscan would surely have taken the opportunity to do.

All in all it was a fun night and an adventure. I was introduced to the infamous Jan Birnbaum and was therefore graced with his seductive Baton Rouge voice and humour. I wouldn't be the first to say he and Mark Franz are set to open some new restaurants in SF at the end of this year.

I like 7X7 magazine. And not just because they did a feature on me a few years ago. They're a lively magazine for a slightly saucier, more adventurous crowd than San Francisco Magazine. I've always said SF needs more press to cover restaurants and chefs. In NYC there are so many competing news sources, even the small fry chefs on the up and up get mentioned.

And this is the way the food in any one city can be varied. When they all get press, not merely the ones copying each other for what little (lazy) reporting there is to be done on each of them.

Here here for shaking things up a bit! Going on strange and mysterious adventures alone! Running into old colleagues and dressing up in sharp threads!

I hope you enjoy the feet as much as I did.

Comments

[jeanne bee]

Ok the whole dressy shoe photo theme is wicked cool!
SWAK XX

[sara Deseran]

you are the funniest shuna. love love love it. you pegged everyone. and the shoes! i'm going to pass this on to the whole office. you're a stud..ette.

[Tea]

Wow, who knew there were so many swanky pairs of shoes in this city! What a fun write up, Shuna.

[kat]

ahhh...the undercover foot photographer. sweet. ;-)

[Elle]

What a great way to absorb a swank event with the shoe photos. Great shoes, too. Loved your photo of the lady in dotted dress with striped shoes on (slightly) dotted carpet. Sounds like you had fun, too.

[Luisa]

Those shoe photos are fantastic. Great idea!

[Lori S.]

Super-fun photos!

[Stephanie]

Oh, boo hoo! This made me miss SF and the fabulous food scene there even more than ever. I miss you, especially from snowbound upstate NY where I am right now. But I'll be back in California in April for UC Santa Cruz's organic-farming apprenticeship--can't wait to see you and all the other fab food folks!

[Jeanne]

What a cool idea! The next party I go to I think I'll focus on fabulous footwear instead of persuading people to smile ;-) Those stripy shoes are the BEST - I think we need a list of stockists :) Glad you had such a fab evening.

[Jane]

I'm pretty sure Cat Cora told me about her husband when I worked with her. Is her partner one of business?

[shuna fish lydon]

Hello Jane,

well according to those who have read this post and know her as of late, I was the last to know! that said, there are many people I know who have dated men and women and many on the wide wide transgendered scale, so I say, to each their own identifier at the moment.

Mostly I thought it was funny that I said those words to her personally at an event for a magazine that had only just interviewed her where she mentioned her partner, Jennifer!

Since we queers are not allowed to marry legally, "oartner" is the only term we can use to tell the world how serious we are about our lovers...