Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/623506
I n 1960, Joyce Goldstein moved from Italy to San Francisco for aesthetic reasons, as the land- scape reminded her of Umbria. She promptly became part of the Bay Area food scene, spending three years working as the chef at Chez Panisse's upstairs Café and running the seminal restaurant Square One from 1984 to 1996. Her menu was multicultural and changed daily according to the seasons, a novel idea at the time. In 1993, the James Beard Foundation named her Best Chef: California. She has written more than two dozen cookbooks and also authored Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness, which takes readers from its early beginnings to a time when farm-to-table, foraging, and fusion cooking had become part of the national vocabulary. She currently works as a consultant to the restaurant and food industry. Here she talks with Specialty Food Magazine about how the parched state is responding to the four-year drought, among other topics. What changes have you seen chefs and food producers making because of the drought you're experiencing? Last year we had a warm winter and cold spring plus the drought, a triple whammy for farmers. All the cycles are off, completely unpredictable. So produce that normally shows up in April showed up in March. Everything was early. For many producers, the season was incredibly short. We have cherries for six to seven weeks and this year we only had them for three or four. I started seeing pomegranates in August when it's normally September or October. The California food pioneer talks about new menu trends, why tipping needs to go away, and how the state's drought is impacting everything. BY JULIE BESONEN Joyce Goldstein on Resiliency and Revolution q&a 104 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com