The film follows the finalists in the National Grocers Association Best Bagger Championship, which is exactly what it sounds like, I guess. Also on the program is a short, Leonardo, by Pixar animator Jim Capobianco.

Speaking of the Food Bank, VISA is doubling donations to the group right now. So go to their website and give ‘em some money. The Food Bank is a great community organization.

Two events which should be different:

The Street Food Street Fest, which will happen Saturday from 11 to 7 on Folsom St. between 25th and 26th. Why there? It’s the block where you’ll find La Cocina Community Kitchen, a four year old nonprofit business that incubates community food-oriented businesses run largely by immigrant women. Among the food vendors will be Sabores del Sur and Laiola.

On Saturday and Sunday, visit the San Francisco Zine Fest from 11 to 6, at the Hall of Flowers (known also as the County Fair Building) off Lincoln Way and 9th Avenue in Golden Gate Park. Not just an exhibition, the event features panels of all kinds for DIY publishers, journalists and artists. Admission to the whole event is FREE.

SFGate was on this trend in February. And in fact, if you search for “backyard chicken coops” in Google News, you’ll get dozens of articles from cities across the country. They’re doing it everywhere.

Like most trends, however, it probably started in the Mission District. A friend of mine on Shotwell has been keeping chickens — almost secretly at first, but now more openly as it becomes more widely accepted — for three years.

Just returning from a month away from SF & America and it makes me appreciate it all the more.

- Our weather rocks. I love putting on a hoodie, layering, whatever we do here to manage the slight variations in cold.
- First day back I walked up to a cafe, met a friend, and sat down to a long Scrabble game over beer. It’s a pedestrian city! We enjoy our casual cafes and don’t have weird alcohol restrictions. It’s a small, but urban city! Yay.
- A big cup of coffee and a not-too-sweet cinnamon roll for under $5. Our food is so high quality and so well priced!
- Bought a honeydew melon and oranges, in mid winter, for a few dollars. It was perfect. The oranges are sweet and heavy, the melon was ripe and tasty.
- You can eat so many different ethnic foods, at so many places, for so little.
- Just to wax American, for my relatives at least I have a new appreciation for the opportunities we have here, for its class-less society, for the attempt at least not to judge people by where they came from, who they were, what class or occupation they had. The lack of history is refreshing, and freeing, basically. (In Sweden, you were locked into your father’s occupation up until the late 1800s.)
- For our political process that allows for different parties and interests to come in and out, without fundamentally changing the process, but representing different interests. (From Bush to Obama, may seem revolutionary to international friends, but as a seasoned American, is par for the course- Reagan to Clinton, i.e. but really- how many other countries’ processes can see that change, and support it?)
- For our honest attempts at understanding recent history, for the flourishing journalism and blogging, and for our interest in accountability. (In Russia, you could really have a debate over whether Stalin was a monster. Same with Mao in China, his culpability is debatable. As a small example here, but we’re ready to impeach Blagojevich. For some, without flourishing journalist estates, that may seem hasty.)

Admission: $6; Address: 992 Valencia (at 21^st St).

NB: If you, dear readers, are aware of a good link to a page about Diaz, please post it in the comments.

[Suggestion: enjoy the discussion, and then go drink something organic at Amnesia across the street and north a block. Tonight they feature Gaucho, a “gypsy jazz band.” (Think Django.)]

The Haight Ashbury Improvement Association is taking a much more progressive stance and is in favor of the project. Long story short, if you live anywhere close and have a point of view, the time to speak up is now, and the person to talk to is Ross Mirkarimi. Email him at ross.mirkarimi@sfgov.org .

Statement to HAIA from property owner and developer of 690 Stanyan St. :

On July 17, 2008, at a meeting of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association, we informed those members in attendance that the chances of moving forward with the 690 Stanyan St. Project (proposed are 62 residential units above a full-service grocery store – Whole Foods Market, currently undergoing environmental review by the City and the public) were at best “50 – 50″ and that it is quite likely that this project is on its deathbed. The unreasonable delays in environmental review by the City are causing both the project sponsor and the proposed tenant, Whole Foods Market, to think seriously about whether it is all worth it. We would like to elaborate on our earlier remarks.

A weak economy is coming around to affect San Francisco and there have been huge increases in construction costs over the last 12 months. National grocery chains, like almost all public companies, are re-evaluating the risks of expanding into new markets. The Project’s planning application has been under environmental review by the City for nearly 2 ½ years now, without any sort of schedule for an approval hearing with the Planning Commission and certainly no end to the City planning process in sight.

We have spent nearly $1 Million to date on planning for the project, largely on City fees and consultants chosen by the City to analyze the environmental effects of the project: we have to little to show for it except a stack of heavy draft documents. Thanks mostly to a vocal minority of opponents of the project, we have encountered long delays in publication of a Final EIR and the City has called for new environmental studies to be undertaken involving new data collection, analysis and writing-up (the new studies confirm the conclusions of the original draft EIR). For example, an 18-page letter from the Sierra Club has cost weeks of schedule and thousands of dollars in re-analysis by the City’s highly-paid consultants. This and delays sought by HANC have pushed back any hope of obtaining an approval hearing before the Fall of this year, perhaps even conveniently beyond the November elections. Given this, the earliest that the supermarket could now open for business would be 2011 or 2012. This leads to a likely conclusion that, unless there is a hearing before the Planning Commission soon, there will be no market tenant, no housing and no development of that site in the foreseeable future. The parking lot, of course, would stay open for business.

All the while, our District 5 Supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi, has expressed little or no interest in pushing this project forward. He denies being in opposition to the project although the warmth of his feelings depend greatly on the audience for his remarks. Instead he queries other grocery vendors regarding their interest in occupying the old Cala Foods building; while his allies more actively work in opposition to the project. If the Supervisor is opposed to the project, that is his prerogative, but he should clearly articulate his reasons why, particularly in an election season, in order to convince his constituents that his position is the right one. If he is supportive of having a full-service grocery store for the area then he needs to take a leadership role in carrying the project forward, lobbying city staff and prominent people, pushing them along a little in order to get the project ready for its approval hearing as quickly as possible: this is the essence of the role of a District Supervisor. The Supervisor’s inaction and lack of leadership on this issue serves the same result as actively opposing it. Unfortunately it appears that he has cast his lot with HANC and the handful of opponents to the project but does not have the integrity to admit this to his constituents.

We ask only that you make your feelings known to our District Supervisor and ask that he provide leadership for our community, that trying to hide in the shadows is not an acceptable way for him to represent our opinions.

Thank you.
Mark J. Brennan for 690 Stanyan St. LLC

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I’m hardly breaking new ground by reviewing Zuni, but more and more, I’ve run into people who’ve lived in San Francisco for at least a couple of years and have never eaten there. My advice: invite some out-of-town guests to visit and take them to Zuni.

Zuni Café
1658 Market Street (btwn. Franklin and Gough)
415.552.2522

• What kind of food is it? Fresh, sustainably grown / harvested ingredients prepared in French and Italian styles.
• What can you get to drink? Full bar with some spins on classic cocktails (I like the balsamic bloody mary), a one-sheet wine list with a good breadth of choices, nice selection of non-alcoholic beverages.
• Would you eat there again? I do. Probably too frequently.
• Would you eat there once a week (or more)? Short answer: Absolutely. Longer answer: It’s a little pricey for weekly dining. That being said, you can spend under $30 by getting a burger and plate of shoestring fries. Unfortunately, they only serve the burger at lunch or after 10 p.m., but it’s completely worth altering your plans to eat at those times. The burger is wonderful.
• Would you go out of your way to eat there? Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.
• Would you recommend the place to your friends? I have and will continue to do so.
• Would you take your parents there? The in-laws, even. I’d suggest going after 10 p.m., perhaps after a night at the symphony. Order the caesar salad and some raw oysters to start and the roasted chicken (Sweet Jesus, the chicken!), a burger and fries for entrées. Depending on how much you like your in-laws, I’d also advise a bottle (or three) of wine.
• Would you take a first date there? Absolutely. I’m not going to get along with any girl who doesn’t like the food here.
• Would you take kids? I suppose. Point of fact: the children I’ve seen eating at Zuni are some of the most well-behaved I’ve ever seen. My deepest thanks to those parents.
• Do they take reservations? Yes, and I would highly recommend making them. However, the limited bar seating is first-come, first-served and the full menu is available there.

What more can I say? I’ve never had a bad meal at Zuni. In fact, one night a couple of years ago, they made a truffle burger (hamburger patty studded with chunks of black truffle) that might have been one of my most transcendent burger experiences. I check the menu for that burger to this day.

Before you protest about a totally positive review, I must admit, the chicken was a touch dry the last time I had it, which merely brought it down to the level of a normal restaurant’s instead of head-and-shoulders better as is typical. But, for my money, Zuni is consistently one of the best eateries in The City and will continue to be one of my must-dine-if-you’re-in-San-Francisco restaurants.

The Asian Art Museum hosts their Matcha event series on the first Thursday of every month, from 5 to 9 in the evening. Tomorrow’s event is devoted to Healing Arts. Naturally there will be tables devoted to acupuncture, herbalism, cupping, shiatsu, Qi Gong and the like, but there will also be other, more everyday forms of the healing arts on offer: live music, tea drinking, gazing at artworks, socializing, and the imbibing of cocktails. (In moderation!) Admission is $5 after 5 PM. If you’ve never been there: it’s on Larkin, right next door to Main Library.

Cyrus sits mere steps from Healdsburg Square which itself is mere minutes from dozens of wineries and tasting rooms. And what better way to end a long afternoon of tasting (and spitting, of course) wine than to sit down with an eight-course tasting menu with accompanying wine flight?

To the questions, then…

Cyrus
29 North Street
Healdsburg, CA
707.433.3311

• What kind of food is it? Contemporary French-Cal, complete with Champagne / caviar cart and cheese course.
• What can you get to drink? Full bar with cocktails like the Rhubarbarella, dictionary-thick wine list.
• Would you eat there again? Absolutely. You’re paying, right?
• Would you eat there once a week (or more)? I’ll need to discuss that with my financial advisor.
• Would you go out of your way to eat there? It’s in Healdsburg. I have no choice but to go out of my way to eat there.
• Would you recommend the place to your friends? Yes. The trust-fund friends, at least.
• Would you take your parents there? We did. They enjoyed it immensely. I believe the words “life experience” were used.
• Would you take a first date there? That’s one hell of a first date. I was unaware that Scarlett Johansson was interested in dating me.
• Would you take kids? No. Please, no.
• Do they take reservations? They’re recommended, in fact. However, there is some lovely bar seating available, and you can enjoy many of the menu items without actually sitting down for a full dinner.

Dinner at Cyrus was a stellar dining experience, simple as that. The setting was lovely, the service wonderful, the food delightful. If you’re looking for a splurge restaurant, you could do much, much worse than this little gem nestled along Wine Country’s road less travelled. You could not do much better.