Food
At his family-owned halal market Thursday morning, Temur Khwaja cut and marinated chicken and lamb for kebab at Marwa Market & Grill. “We need to prepare for First Friday tomorrow,” said Khwaja, anticipation in his voice, sweat on his brow. Local businesses and restaurants in the Koreatown Northgate (KONO) neighborhood are preparing for the relaunching of the Oakland First Fridays festival tonight. First Fridays is a monthly street festival held by KONO Community Benefit District. Eighteen months after the pandemic…
Hundreds of animal rights protesters marched in San Francisco Saturday afternoon to demand the end of factory farming, chanting, “Humane slaughter is a lie! Animals do not want to die!” “We believe in a world where every animal, every human being is treated with decency and kindness,” Wayne Hsiung, founder of animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, told a crowd in Dolores Park. The protest aimed to raise awareness for animal rights, recruit more people to join the effort, and…
Out of the back of a green Dodge pickup, the Muffin Man has been feeding underserved communities in Oakland for almost two decades. His truck is loaded with crates of canned food, baked goods, pet food; jars of spices, fruits, vegetables, dairy products; various meats, sweets, bread, and even flowers. Jack Dice distributes the bounty in Oakland neighborhoods, where he is known as the “Muffin Man” because he leads a group of volunteers called The Muffin People. They collect food…
With a baby boy on her hip, GaQuayla Lagrone arrived in Oakland in 2014 looking for a fresh start. She had served a year and a half in federal prison in San Diego for a nonviolent crime. “I came up here not knowing my left from my right,” she said. Today, Lagrone, 37, is one of four people with similar stories who were chosen as future co-owners of the food truck business Soul On A Roll, which opened Friday with…
Restaurants are set to reopen for indoor dining, but owners are divided between health concerns and business interests
Vegan soul restaurants are thriving and bringing diversity to the Bay Area’s food scene, challenging the misconception that vegan food is boring.
In the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), all students have access to school breakfast, lunch and supper through the Community Eligibility Provision, which is a federal program that allows schools in high-poverty areas to serve food to students without collecting money from them or asking them to apply. This robust access to food serves a critical need for students during the school week. According to the OUSD’s website, the school nutrition services provide approximately 7,500 breakfasts, 20,000 lunches, 10,00 snacks…
Although food insecurity—the formal term for being unable to reliably access and afford nutritious food—is on the decline in California, it’s on the rise for senior citizens.
At Bishop O’Dowd High School in the Oakland hills, gardener Ned Lange is making small-batch vermicompost from the school’s food scraps. He takes scraps like leafy greens, peels, and stems that won’t make it into the cooked lunch, and blends them into a smoothie that he feeds into an 8-by-4-foot corrugated steel bin that is home to 100 pounds of worms. He lifts the roof off and carefully peels back pages of damp newspaper that are beginning to disintegrate. Underneath,…