V(w)hat, so you think this is a profession now? It seems somebody has taken the life pursuit of so many Brooklyn-raised bubbies and established it with this name: deli researcher. And the best one is coming to Berkeley’s own Saul’s Deli! Get your pastrami on this Saturday. Details below:

David Sax, Canadian-raised researcher of delicatessens, will hit Saul’s at 4 p.m. as part of his book signing tour. Saul’s is known for its eco-friendly beef practices and real quality sh*t, generally. A “tasting plate” will be in circulation.

Need we say more?

Saul’s is located at 1475 Shattuck Avenue, across from the Safeway.

Image Source: PlaysWithFood under Creative Commons.
What’ll Happen This Saturday When The Lower East Side Meets the East Bay at Saul’s Deli? [SF Weekly]

Nope, sorry folks, no Victoria Beckham in sight. But keep reading! The North Berkeley 7th Annual Spice of Life Festival is today. In place of a snooty fembot, you get fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Seems like a fair trade.

The spices start simmering 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Shattuck from Virginia to Rose Street. This will include demos from local chefs, gourmet street food, a farmers’ market, art exhibitions, farm animals, jazz bands, bossa nova, and something frighteningly referred to as “‘green’ coffin decorating.”

It’s enough to make anyone curious. At the very least it should be a nice airing-out of the city’s artsy types–a chance to see them in their full yarn-weaving, group-hugging, spice-making, hemp-sewing glory. And heck, while you’re at it, you might as well enjoy the spices. After all, North Berkeley spice is the spice of life. (And if that isn’t the proverb, it damn well should be.)

So this Sunday, dust off your coffin and come learn how to make it environmentally friendly. This may well be the last chance you get.

Image source: jaycross under Creative Commons
North Berkeley 7th Annual Spice of Life Festival this Sunday Oct 4 [San Francisco Examiner]

Not to be out-free crapped by its competition, Ye Olde Coffee of the Astronomical Dollars and Ubiquitous Mermaid is offering free pastries tomorrow morning. On the off-chance you’re confused by our (incredibly unnecessary) epithet, we’re talking about Starbucks.

The catch(es)? You’ve got to get there before 10:30. In the a.m. Yeah. For those of you still reading, the other catches are that you have to buy a beverage and you have to present this ticket in order to get your purportedly healthier-than-ever-before carbo-licious treat. Worth it to get out of bed before noon? Possibly. Actually healthy? Probably not.

Image Source: Leonard John Matthews under Creative Commons
Free Pastries at Starbucks next Tuesday Morning [InBerkeley]
Free Pastry Ticket [Starbucks]

You can enjoy a free showing of Food, Inc. in Berkeley next week.

The documentary explores food issues in America, and while it seems pretty likely to make you depressed/paranoid about all your past and future food choices, we’re still not ones to turn down a free screening.

The screening will take place at the Elmwood 6 Theatre at 7:30 on July 15, and similar ones are taking place throughout the nation.

Image Source: 2rms’ under Creative Commons
Food, Inc. [Chipotle]
Hungry for Change [Food, Inc.]
Earlier: Read About Science

The international fun doesn’t end with comestibles. There will also be a main stage where “Grammy-nominated music sensation Johnny Polanco and his renowned LA salsa band” will be spicing up the general atmosphere, while a smattering of other world music and dance styles will be represented elsewhere.

And if world music still isn’t your cup of tea, don’t forget why you’re actually there–the food. In other words, if you attend the Berkeley Interntaional Food Festival and you leave without stuffing your face, you’ve done something horribly, horribly wrong.

Berkeley International Food Festival [Website]

In Berkeley’s got a detailed write-up of the new openings on Elmwood’s College Avenue. There are currently four vacant spaces in the block between Russell Street and Ashby Avenue, three of which are gearing up for some business. Sometime soon, expect to see:

- Summer Kitchen Bake Shop (in the place next to Your Basic Bird, the pet shop)
- a new cafe somehow possibly linked to the people of Cafe Fanny (in the shuttered Elmwood Pharmacy)
- a clothing store for an Oakland fashion designer (in the other half of the old hardware store)

Maybe, in the near future, Elmwood won’t be known just for its ice cream.

Image Source: pixieclipx under Creative Commons
Recession, what recession? in the Elmwood [In Berkeley]

This is the borderline existential dilemma posed by CampusMunch, a new service operated by two entrepreneurial seniors. They’ll deliver food from a few Asian Ghet–er, Durant Food Court (we have got to stop doing that … ) staples, in addition to several others, including Northside pilgrimage-worthy Cheeseboard. Of course, you can order online, but make no mistake–you still have to answer the door.

Campus Much [YouTube]
Service Delivers Local Eats to Students [Daily Cal]

So every year the Daily Cal does the Best of Berkeley. And every year the ill-informed freshmen (no offense … OK, maybe a little) vote for some craptastic place like Gypsy’s for best Italian food in Berkeley. This time, we’re going to, er, “suggest” ideas for Best of Berkeley categories so that finally someplace/someone halfway decent and totally deserving of college students’ attention will win the coveted categories. Please!

The following are the categories we care most about. Nominate your own favorites in the comments and remember to vote on the BoB site. Voting ends Saturday, April 11 at 2 a.m. and the Best of Berkeley issue will be published on Thursday, April 16.

Best Campus Eccentric
* “Sather Gate guy who does weird shit at noon.” You know the one: dressed in skirts and goggles with gray hair and sometimes that trippy umbrella. Man, what he does is art.

Best Place to Have Sex
* The correct answer is “someone else’s bed.” No clean-up on your behalf. And please, none of this Main Stacks BS. None of you have ever had the balls to do it there anyhow.

Best Sandwich
* Gregoire. It’s across from the now defunct Elephant Pharmacy, and the sandwiches are a slice of France in your mouth. Menu changes monthly, so put down your Cheese ‘N Stuff now.

Best Coffee
* Nefeli Caffe. If you know anything about espresso, you know Free Speech Movement Cafe and Caffe Strada suck so hard at making a decent shot. Go for Nefeli, which is up on north side and uses Illy espresso. Yali’s is a close second, and it also uses Illy.

Best Frozen Dessert
* Ici. Full disclosure: We work here, but we work here because the ice cream is toe-curling good. Yogurt Park will taste like powdered child’s play after you’ve visited Ici.

Best Pastries/Bakery
* La Farine. It’s really far away on Solano Avenue (there’s one in Oakland on College Avenue), but they get everything right. Try the morning bun.

Best Bagel
* Anything but Noah’s. ‘Nuff said.

Best Falafel
* Sunrise Deli. Crisp on the outside and orgasmic inside.

Best Pizza
* Cheeseboard or Zachary’s. If you say anything else, we will hunt you down.

Best Blog
* Come on, don’t make us say it.

Best Overall Restaurant
* Some place you’ve actually been. How many of you have really been to Chez Panisse? We thought so.

Best Ethiopian Food
* Cafe Colucci. So it’s in Oakland. Who cares?

Best Indian Food
* Either Vik’s Chaat Corner or Ajanta. Those restuarants with “curry” in their names do not compare.

Best Italian Food
* For the love of all things sacred, anything but Gypsy’s. Let us know there is hope in humanity yet.

Best of Berkeley [Daily Cal]

According to Gothamist–yet another “Ist” blog–Bourdain and Waters are set to duke it out, face to face, at a forum for gourmet heavyweights in May. We certainly look forward to hearing about this one. It promises to be a real ”food fight.” (Ha! Take that, Gothamist! Or … not.) 

Update: More Waters-bashing on NPR.  Wow, things are getting way more intense than we anticipated, up in here. 

Image Source: davidsilver under Creative Commons
Anthony Bourdain Talks Alice Watersgate [Gothamist], via Eater SF 
Waters Backlash, Cont. [Eater SF]
Earlier: Alice Serves Mouthwatering Cuisine in D.C., Sparks Blog-oversy

Not only did Berkeley’s most famously awesome foodie raise some major cash-monies for Washington charity organizations by cooking up (presumably) delicious noms for some D.C. do-gooders–er, eat-gooders, in any case–but she also kinda, maybe saved-ish someone from choking.

“How exactly does one kinda, maybe save-ish someone?” you ask. Simple, really. You see someone who is choking (in this case, cookbook author Joan Nathan) and then you go find someone (in this case, celebrity chef Tom Colicchio) who knows the Heimlich maneuver and then they save the choking person. Now, before you start weighing the woman down with mental (or actual) medals of honor, you may want to consider an interesting point that one SFist commenter phrased perhaps a bit more bluntly than we would have:

“Let me get this straight. Alice Waters has owned a restaurant for like the last 200 years and she has never learned the Heimlich Maneuver. Is she retarded?”

Fair point–but, then again, the woman had people begging to pay $500 for her dinner, so she must be doing something right. Anyway, in another Alice Waters-bashing twist to this semi-ongoing saga, Eater SF posted about celebrity chef-gone-foul-mouthed-rogue Anthony Bourdain’s interview with DCist in which he said,

“Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me … There’s something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic.”

Um … yikes? Fortunately, SFist came to our green lady’s defense (ish) yesterday with another post on the situation. So, maybe we can look forward to an retaliatory interview with Waters on DCist’s West coast counterpart? Eh, we’re leaning on the side of “nope.” But, hey, what do you think? Team Waters or Bourdain? Or is this whole hullabaloo too blog-cestuous for general interest, anyhow? Hm. We’re going to go ponder this and other important life questions over some day-old Thai Basil right now …

*See what we did there? Mouthwatering? Because her name’s Alice Waters? No, no! Don’t cry! It wasn’t that bad, was it?

Image Source: Neeta Lind under Creative Commons
Berkeley Chef Takes Part in D.C. Dining Benefit [Daily Cal]