Food
“I put love into this food,” said Lawana Wyatt, who has worked with food services in Oakland for the past 13 years, as she instructed a member of her staff on how much food to add to each plate when the students arrived. Although Wyatt is enthusiastic about school lunch on any given day, she knew that Thursday’s meal was really something special. “It’s not every day that we can get organic food,” she said. “I think it’s a good idea. I really hope the kids come.”
The Temescal location of Tara’s Organic Ice Cream, a New Mexico-born ice creamery serves all natural, locally made treats with unlikely flavors. Ever heard of garam marsala ice cream? How about basil? Or blueberry mint? You can try those and more at Tara’s. Check out these videos to learn more.
Oakland Unified School District officials believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day—so important that they’re now serving it twice. In an effort to increase the number of students who eat breakfast at school, the district has begun implementing an additional breakfast option called “Second Chance Breakfast.”
Members of the public burst into applause at the Oakland City Council’s Tuesday meeting when council members unanimously agreed to allow use of eminent domain to bring a large grocery store to West Oakland. “I’m tired of Oakland residents continuing to subsidize the surrounding cities at our expense,” councilmember Larry Reid said.
Think your Chardonnay has an oaky aftertaste? Try Oakland’s! Wine connoisseurs may focus on the vines of Napa County when touring California, but this weekend one group of out-of-towners found out the East Bay has a few wineries of its own.
They squawk, they eat your scraps, they lay your breakfast, they bathe themselves with dirt: what more could you ask from backyard tenants?
The gloomy weather and a short-lived drizzle couldn’t deter the eaters and drinkers on Sunday afternoon as they sampled gourmet delicacies, fine wines and desserts on the rooftop of the Kaiser Center in Downtown Oakland for the 28th annual “A Taste of California—Up on the Roof.”
Like many successful businesses, Oakland-based Blue Bottle Coffee started small. Owner James Freeman, a classically trained clarinetist, began by roasting coffee beans on a baking sheet in his own oven. But now, eight years later, Blue Bottle is big time.
Many of the food trucks we see cruising around Oakland, like Jon’s Street Eats and Seoul on Wheels, post up in Emeryville during the lunch rush. In addition to being full of office parks with lots of hungry customers, Emeryville also has a streamlined permitting process that makes it easier for these mobile restaurants to park, cook and serve. But this may all change. According to an article in SF Weekly’s SFoodie blog, the Emeryville City Council is looking at…