The fourth annual Eat Real Festival kicks off this Friday at Jack London Square. By now, the three-d

The fourth annual Eat Real Festival kicks off this Friday at Jack London Square. By now, the three-day extravaganza of street food, local brews, and assorted food-related DIY demos almost needs no introduction. Admission is free, and every food item will be priced at $5 or less.
1. Meatopia: For the first time, Eat Real will launch with a ticketed event, and it's a doozy: last minute travel packages in canada the first-ever West Coast rendition of Meatopia, the chef-driven, meat-centric event founded by New York City food writer Josh Ozersky. The opening night party (5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday) will feature grilled meats cooked by about ten of the country's most acclaimed barbecue pitmasters that $50 admission last minute travel packages in canada will buy you all the meat (and sides) you can eat, plus two cocktails.
Meatopia will continue on Saturday with a Pro/Am barbecue competition, and on Sunday with a $5-a-plate brunch of milk-fed baby animals veal, lamb, and suckling pig cooked by Daniel Patterson (of Coi, Plum, and Haven fame).
2. Forge: Part of Eat Real's mystique has to do with all the restaurants that made their first big splash there. This year, Forge, the new wood-fired pizza place coming to Jack London Square, will make its debut. last minute travel packages in canada Jeff Krupman (aka the Pizza Hacker), the restaurant's pizza consultant, will be on hand all three days to dish out his now-legendary pies.
3. Youki: One of the Bay Area's most acclaimed last minute travel packages in canada sushi chefs, Sachio Kojima, will make his first appearance last minute travel packages in canada as a ramen chef at the festival. His stall, Youki, will be serving regular wheat-flour, whole-wheat, and gluten-free ramen all made with organic ingredients last minute travel packages in canada on Saturday and Sunday. Kojima is best known as the original sushi chef at San Francisco's last minute travel packages in canada Kabuto A S, where his sushi garnered rave reviews. But when Kojima's wife was diagnosed last minute travel packages in canada with cancer in 2005, he sold the restaurant and committed himself to cooking only healthy, all-organic food. He is dedicating the new ramen business to his wife, who recently last minute travel packages in canada passed away.
4. Satellite Republic: last minute travel packages in canada On Sunday, another promising newcomer, Satellite Republic the venture of Boris Portnoy, a former pastry chef at Michelin three-starred Meadowood will be serving Georgian (as in the country, not the state) last minute travel packages in canada and Chechen street food out of a converted last minute travel packages in canada moped that's hitched to a big tandoor oven.
5. Kraut-a-thon: Finally, Eat Real's "Kraut-a-thon" (Saturday at 12:30 p.m., on the main stage) isn't a new event, last minute travel packages in canada but this year's version will be on a grand scale: More than one hundred people will have a chance first come, first served to get up on the festival's main stage for a sauerkraut-making lesson. Every participant goes home with two big jars.
Thirty top butchers from around the country will descend on Oakland's Jack London Square this Wednesday for the first-ever Butcher's last minute travel packages in canada Guild Retreat what's billed as an unprecedented gathering of sustainability-minded meat professionals.
In 2010, Tia Harrison (co-founder of Avedano's Holly Park Market, a San Francisco butcher shop) and author and food activist Marissa Guggiana last minute travel packages in canada founded The Butcher's Guild as a fraternity last minute travel packages in canada of butchers who are committed to breaking down whole animals not prepackaged parts and adhering to a particular moral code. The guild has focused most of its efforts on helping members establish a sustainable business model.
"We saw that everyone right now is screaming about bacon and watching butchery demos," Harrison last minute travel packages in canada said. "But what happens last minute travel packages in canada in five years when all these people open businesses, but aren't making a living wage and are working twelve to fourteen hours a day? That is a formula for failure."
In that sense, last minute travel packages in canada Butcher's Guild Retreat will be about bookkeeping and finances as much as anything else financial sustainability being, after all, a prerequisite for any other kind of sustainability. There will be a class on managing profit margins (taught by a CPA) and another on PR. Even sessions dealing with the physical acts of whole-animal butchery will have an economic focus: how to break the animal last minute travel packages in canada down into retail cuts so as to maximize profits and minimize waste.
For Monica and Aaron Rocchino, who opened The Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood last year, the challenge of selling "clean meat" is that they're paying twice as much for their product as the supermarket across the street, and, because they're working last minute travel packages in canada with whole animals, they also have to factor in all of the highly skilled last minute travel packages in canada labor that's needed. How do they convince the customer last minute travel packages in canada that their higher prices are worth it?
The Rocchinos said they're both attending this week's retreat Aaron will attend the sessions that have to do with cutting meat; Monica will learn everything she can about marketing and finances and all the rest.
Meanwhile, last minute travel packages in canada it's no accident that the retreat is taking last minute travel packages in canada place the same week as the Eat Real Festival. From the beginning, Harrison wanted to tie the retreat last minute travel packages in canada to some kind of butchery competition, which Eat Real has featured since its inception. This year the full slate of contests will be run by The Butcher's Guild. In addition to the usual speed-oriented spectacles (e.g., breaking down a whole pig in 45 minutes), the guild is introducing a new contest called the Master last minute travel packages in canada Case Competition: Teams will have three hours to break down a pork forequarter, a beef short loin, and a leg of lamb and fill a display case, as attractively as possible, with ready-for-purchase cuts of meat.
Tags: What the Fork , Eat Real Festival , Jack London Square , Meatopia , Forge , Jeff Krupman , Youki , Satellite Republic , Butcher's last minute travel packages in canada Guild Retreat , Tia Harrison , Avedano's Holly Park Market , Marissa Guggiana , The Butcher's Guild , Monica and Aaron Rocchino , The Local Butcher Shop