the SPRING 2016 issue
Surplus is a Bay Area lifestyle magazine speaking to conscious participants in the current styles and trends through food, fashion, music, art, and social issues. There's a hundred of everything in the Bay Area, and no two are the same. We believe that you, the creatives and influencers, make this city unique. We believe that we have the energy to make positive impacts and lead by inspiration.
"We’re connected to nature in a more intimate way than most city dwellers." -Sarah Bertram A Dock Called Home pg. 20
the SPRING 2016 issue
Contents
goods
08 Your Perfect Day in the Dogpatch 10 Foolproof Fried Chicken 12 Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice
features 14 Sea Change 24 A Dock Called Home
checkout 30 Solace at Lands' End
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1 MODERN APPEALING CLOTHING 1003 minnesota st www.modernappealingclothing.com mac is a retail shop where you’ll find products of high quality, even for your dog. They’re one of the leading retailers that carry Commes des Garçons in the United States. 2 PICCINO COFFEE BAR 1001 minnesota st www.piccino.com/coffee-bar A cinnamon roll or lemon semolina served on their unique ceramic plates is a sweet morning surprise. 3 WORK SHOP RESIDENCE 833 22nd st www.workshopresidence.com Part retail, part workshop, and part event space, you'll be enveloped by beautiful and functional objects created by local and national artists at the Work Shop Residence.
4 HARD KNOX CAFE 2526 3rd st www.hardknoxcafe.com Have some fried chicken and waffles if you're in for some southern home cooking and hospitality. 5 MR. & MRS. MISCELLANEOUS 699 22nd st (415) 970-0750 An ice cream shop that takes pride in their use of natural & organic ingredients, their unique list of flavors include Frozen “Hot” Chocolate and Black IPA. Don’t be afraid to try their Peanut Butter Malt Balls or Chocolate Chip Cookies either. 6 WARM WATER COVE PARK 24th st At the end of 24th St., you’ll find a patch of green situated amongst industrial buildings. Get a taste of what the Dogpatch was like as you watch cargo ships sail onto the docks.
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g Pelton Cottages On Minnesotta and Tennessee , Pelton Cottages are one of the largest concentrations of buildings in America that still have their architectural foundations in tact.
Street Minnesota
20th Street
22nd Street
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Hell’s Angels Frisco Clubhouse Situated diagonally at the end of Tennessee St. is the Hell’s Angels Frisco Clubhouse. In 1969, members were hired as The Rolling Stones’ security at the Altamont music festival, which infamously marked the end of the 60’s “love and peace” era.
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Irish Hill On 20th and Illinois, the remnants of Irish Hill overlook the bay and neighborhood. It is made up of a mineral called Serpentine, which is California’s state rock.
The Dogpatch Your Perfect Day in
What to eat, drink, and do in SF's fastest growing neighborhood. story by Jireh Datuin
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FOOLPROOF FRIED CHICKEN Julia Lee, aka the Fry Queen, shares her secrets.
by Amy Machanak photographs by Thomas J. Story
few summer foods can trump crisp,
juicy fried chicken. And few cooks can make it as well as Julia Lee, known to her colleagues in the culinary world as the Fry Queen. Lee mastered frying while working on the PBS shows of chefs Martin Yan and Jacques Pépin.
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tip 1 heavy deep pot "I prefer cast iron, plain or enameled. It does a better job of maintaining heat." tip 2 splatter guard Get one with a very fine mesh to trap the oil. Lee's also has little feet on it, so it can rest on a surface without creating a mess.
tip 3 chopstick "I do a chopstick test to check the oil. If the tip sizzles and forms bubbles like Champagne, the oil is ready."
“Martin taught me how to fry, not just chicken but everything,” says Lee, who lives in San Francisco. “Jacques showed me that if you fry correctly, you actually use very little oil—less than if you sauté.” Lee—who teaches at San Francisco’s Tante Marie’s Cooking School and still works with Yan—fries chicken at least once a month. “It’s great right out of the fryer, but also at room temp on a picnic—or ice cold straight from the fridge,” she says. Her career highlight so far? Making f ried chicken for Public Enemy in 2002, at B.B. King’s in Manhattan: “I came back 10 minutes later, and it was just bones.” s
tip 5 tongs Use these not only for getting the pieces of chicken in and out of the pot, but for gently stirring the oil too. "It helps keep the temperature constant."
tip 4 slotted spatula Lee uses this, rather than a slotted spoon, to scoop the chicken out of the oil. "Martin gave it to me years ago. It has a great curve to it and a lot of slots, so it drains well."
tip 6 rack with tray "It allows air to circulate all around, so the chicken stays crisp–versus on a paper towel, where the bottom gets soggy. And be sure to lay the chicken on the rack in a single layer. If it's piled up, it'll steam."
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HABANERO HOT SAUCE Formosa, San Jose, CA formosasauce.comFormo-
sa's 100% natural hot sauce is made from a 30-year old Mexican recipe. Habanero peppers are the main ingredient in this smooth sauce, so you know it’s hot, but the addition of sweet tomatillos and acidic vinegar bring about a wonderful complexity.
Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice Get a taste of the Bay Area with these awesome products. Your tastebuds will thank you. photographed by Jeffery Cross
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DARK HORSE BLEND COFFEE TCHO CHOCOLATES (ASSORTED)
Roast Co. coffee company, Oakland, CA roastco.com
TCHO, Berkeley, CA www.tcho.com TCHO is well known for their artistic, award winning packaging, and their delicious flavor wheel which represents the inherent flavors found in the cacao bean: chocolatey, bright, fruity, floral, earthy, and nutty. Following the West Coast code of honor, all ingredients are sourced according to certified organic and fair trade standards.
GOURMET SEA SALT TRIO: FRENCH GREY, BLACK HAWAIIAN, SHERPA PINK HIMALAYAN
A dark and hefty blend, Dark Horse features chocolate liqueur with suggestions of vanilla extract. There’s a lot of the classic, rich roasty flavor in this cup without sacrificing sweetness or clarity for that overbearing bitterness that accompanies most traditional dark coffees.
San Francisco Salt Co., San Francisco, CA www.sfsalt.com SF Salt company's extensive line of natural sea salts are developed and packaged entirely in San Francisco. Natural salts are sourced from reliable suppliers from all over the world with a mission that aims to harness the power of the ocean to enhance your well-being, from the inside out.
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Monterey Bay has gone from toxic soup to pristine waters supporting sea otters, whales, and a thriving kelp forest. And what we’re learning here might just save our oceans. by peter fish photographs by corey arnold
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stephen palumbi surfs and plays in a rock
band, but mainly he’s a marine biologist. So when he takes a visitor on the trail that winds from Hopkins Marine Station along the rocky shoreline of Monterey Bay, he mostly talks about the bay. Here’s where otters gather, and farther out, that’s where humpback whales tend to feed. As gulls squawk, Palumbi, the marine station’s director, points to a tawny crescent beach crowded with seals and newborn pups. “Seals, seabirds, otters, whales—the bay is better off than at any point in the last 150 years,” he says. A few generations ago this would have been counted a big surprise. Then, Monterey Bay was one of the most polluted places on the Pacific Coast—“an industrial hellhole,” he says. Now it’s a kind of paradise. And one with a remarkable lesson. The dire state of the world’s oceans can make even the most environmentally minded shut down. GARBAGE We’re filling the oceans with trash, most famously in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the vast (twice as big as Texas, per some estimates) coagulation of plastic floating between California and Hawaii. OVERFISHING We’ve taken 90 percent of large fish like shark and swordfish; 85 percent of the world’s fisheries are harvested at capacity or are in decline. HOT WATER Because oceans are absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, marine temperatures are rising—bad news for species evolved to live in cooler waters. ACID SEAS Pollution and climate change can reduce the oxygen in oceans to deadly levels for marine life. They can also raise acidity, which destroys coral reefs; already 20 percent of the world’s reefs have died, with another 60 percent at grave risk.
How did it get better?
We’ve now stopped at a bend in the coastal trail, and Stephen Palumbi tells a story. It was 1947, and a college student named Merilyn Derby had just arrived at Hopkins to study marine biology. The day was sunny, the bay was inviting, and Derby grabbed a swimsuit and jumped 16
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in the water. It was cold, recounts Palumbi, but Merilyn expected that. What she didn’t expect came next. “Fish heads,” Palumbi says. “And fish tails. And guts. She jumped out of the water.” That was what Monterey Bay was like for decades: a befouled nightmare. But it wasn’t the bay he saw when he moved here from Harvard in 2002. “It was so beautiful,” he says. “I found myself asking, ‘How did such a big place get ruined? Then how did it get better?’ ” Palumbi began interviewing people like Derby for what became The Death & Life of Monterey Bay, his book (coauthored with Carolyn Sotka) published last year. He learned just how bad Monterey Bay had been. Start with 19th-century fur hunters, who decimated the bay’s sea otter population. Without the otters, sea urchins (the otters’ favorite food) multiplied wildly, devouring the bay’s kelp forests—which led to the demise of the fish and other life that depended on kelp to survive. Next went the bay’s gray and humpback whales, hunted to near extinction, then the abalone. “A collapse of wildlife,” says Palumbi. Just one fish remained in abundance: sardines. When entrepreneurs realized the shiny silver fish could be caught and processed and sold to grocery stores, canneries sprang up along the bay shore. These supplied jobs and inspired one of local boy John
The dire state of the world's oceans can make even the most environmentally minded shut down. Steinbeck’s most famous books, Cannery Row. But as Derby discovered, their industrial waste turned the bay into toxic soup: “They were dumping 100,000 pounds of fish guts and tails and heads into the bay every day,” says Palumbi. The bay’s decline was rapid and seemingly irrevocable. Yet, improbably, it did recover. In part, it healed itself. Once the sardines had been fished out, the canneries closed. Without the canneries, the water became cleaner. That allowed sea urchins and abalone to return; these, in turn, lured the few remaining sea otters up from Big Sur to feed on their favorite foods in Monterey Bay. With fewer sea urchins, the kelp forest sprang back.
The Need for Human Help
Opposite In talks all over the world, Palumbi uses Monterey Bay as an example of how oceans can heal. Right Aquarium director Julie Packard’s next goal: Stem the tide of ocean trash.
Yet that wasn’t the entire story. Palumbi found that at crucial moments the bay has received human help. One heroine stands out: Julia Platt, a marine scientist (the first American woman to earn a doctorate in marine biology) who became mayor of Pacific Grove, California, in 1931. Her training made her understand just how badly the bay had declined. She fought the canneries, and when she lost that battle, turned her energy to establishing the first community-sponsored marine preserve in the country, just offshore from Pacific Grove. It was in this protected zone that, decades later, abalone first reappeared. “Instead of giving up,” says Palumbi, “she said, ‘What else can I do to leave the ocean better than it was before?’” Today, generations afte Platt turned Pacific Grove City Council meetings into marine biology seminars to Features
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“What else can I do to leave the ocean better than it was before?�
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get her preserve established, research institutions dot the Monterey Bay coastline the way wineries dot Napa Valley. Each facility tends to focus on specific kinds of scientific questions. Palumbi’s Hopkins Marine Station studies how marine organisms react to their environment. Long Marine Laboratory zeroes in on marine mammals. Some of the most cutting-edge research occurs at MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), command center for a fleet of robotic vehicles that delve as far as 2 miles down into Monterey Canyon, “past cliffs and to the deep sea floor, the abyssal plain that goes all the way across the Pacific,” says MBARI researcher Jim Barry. The vehicles, he explains, give access to part of the planet that would otherwise be as hard to explore as the surface of Mars. Much of the current research is tied to the crises the Pacific faces. Because Monterey has been studied so thoroughly for so long, it’s an ideal place to determine how quickly climate change is affecting the ocean, by comparing what’s living here now with what lived here, say, 50 years ago. (The answer: more warm-water species now.) Some research may help us manage or mitigate the effects of climate change on the oceans. Working in American Samoa, Palumbi discovered coral reefs that “can survive the hottest Pacific water we know about and still do quite well,” he says, “whereas other corals die at those temperatures.” The heat-resistant reefs are the ones that must be protected from development at all 20
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costs, he argues, because they’ll provide homes for fish even if the other reefs around them are dying. Bay researchers have also changed the way we eat. Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch is among the most effective consumer-awareness programs ever devised: Since its founding in 1999, its 40 million pocket guides and 1 million downloaded smartphone apps have advised North American consumers which fish to buy and which to avoid. And the aquarium successfully pushed for California’s recent ban on the shark fin trade: “A huge victory,” says Julie Packard. “Now we’re starting to look at options on trash—legislation that sets targets for reducing marine plastic waste. I think we can have a huge impact on that.”
The Impact is in the Heart
Never discount the power of beauty. Monterey Bay was saved in large part because Julia Platt and her voters judged it beautiful enough to merit saving. Today the bay’s scientists and conservationists hope they can spark similar passion to save all the planet’s oceans. Says Packard, “Growing up, I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time in rural California. So I had a real connection to the outdoors. Now I realize that when you’re talking about nature, you’re talking about the ocean—because most of nature is the ocean.” The trick, she continues, is to make people feel how vital the oceans are to their lives. “At first we thought the aquarium was
going to be all about conveying facts to people, and they would understand them. Now we realize what’s important is the emotional impact—what you feel when you see our huge sunfish or the cathedral light of our kelp forest exhibit. The biggest impact is in the heart, not the head.” Palumbi is heading back on the trail toward Hopkins Marine Station. It’s later in the afternoon now. The bay sparkles. He talks about the ways Monterey Bay and the research done here can affect the rest of the world. “I tend to be an optimistic person,” he says. The changes the oceans are experiencing are grave, alterations not experienced in the last 50 million years. But, Palumbi says, we still have a chance, if we can halt the things we do that are damaging the atmosphere and so damaging the oceans. “I go all over the world and give talks about the problems the ocean faces,” he says. “And then I come back here. There are so many places where you can say, ‘Oh, this got bad, and then that got bad.’ But Monterey Bay is one of those rare and special places where the tape ran backward. Where you can see things get better. It helps to have a good example.” s
The trick is to make people feel how vital the oceans are to their lives.
Bottom Nearly 2 million people a year take in Monterey Bay Aquarium’s eco exhibits.
Cormorants up close from a rental kayak.
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GET A NERD’SEYE VIEW
How to see the same creatures and ocean features the Monterey Bay scientists study— on land or out on the water MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM The best in the world, with mesmerizing exhibits of sea otters, jellyfish, and more. New this summer: Cindy’s Waterfront cafe from star chef Cindy Pawlcyn. montereybayaquarium.org. MONTEREY BAY NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY EXPLORATION CENTER This year-old center lets you explore a two-story version of the Monterey Submarine Canyon; the deck has a fine view of Santa Cruz Wharf and the bay. montereybay. noaa.gov ELKHORN SLOUGH NATIONAL ESTUARINE RESEARCH RESERVE One of the largest tidal marshes in California, a haven for egrets, herons, and sea lions, all easily seen from reserve trails or a kayak. elkhornslough.org KAYAK TOURS Nothing gets you closer to the bay’s marine life than a kayak. Outfitters include Monterey Bay Kayaks (montereybaykayaks. com), Kayak Connection (kayakconnection.com), and Adventures by the Sea (adventuresbythesea.com). MBARI July 20 is the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s annual open house—the one day you can see its impressive fleet of robotic underwater vehicles. mbari.org. LONG MARINE LAB/SEYMOUR MARINE DISCOVERY CENTER This center in Santa Cruz has one of the world’s largest whale skeletons, plus guided tours on which you see the lab’s two on-site dolphins. seymourcenter.ucsc.edu. WHALE-WATCHING Humpback and blue whales frequent the bay from May into December; grays from December to April. Outfitters include Monterey Bay Whale Watch (gowhales.com) and Princess Monterey Whale Watching (montereywhalewatching.com).
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After struggling to find the perfect home in San Francisco’s tough market, one couple took to the water.
BY MIRANDA CROWELL PHOTOGRAPHS BY THOMAS J. STORY
After struggling to find the perfect home in San Francisco’s tough market, one couple took to the water.
The furniture is a mix of modern and rustic; the couple bought the teak tables on their honeymoon in Bali.
"Every time you come home, it feels like you’ve left the city and entered a little sanctuary." Sarah and Kimo Bertram prepared to move into their new home, they weren’t thinking about packing or paint colors. They were thinking about the Titanic. “We worried that the place we’d sunk our savings into could just…sink,” says Kimo. But much to the couple’s relief, their floating house successfully made its way out of dry dock and was soon tethered to its permanent home in San Francisco’s Mission Creek, where the Bertrams now live with their daughter, Mary. The small community of floating homes feels more like a fishing village than an urban neighborhood—even in the shadow of new condo developments and construction cranes. “Every time you come home, it feels like you’ve left the city and entered a little sanctuary,” says Kimo. He and Sarah are a short bike ride away from their jobs, in the hotel business and solar power industry. A two-line Craigslist posting drew the couple to the dock in 2010. They’d placed 26
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several losing bids on houses in the city and wanted a break from the hunt; a short-term rental on a houseboat seemed just the thing. The creaky wooden structure that they toured had noinsulation. It leaked. They offered to buy it on the spot. As self-described “water people” (Kimo surfs and Sarah grew up sailing), “we never stopped to wonder, Does this make sense?” Sarah says. For two years, the couple shivered through life on the houseboat while planning and eventually building their new home. The architect they hired for the project, Robert Nebolon, hadn’t designed a floating home before but had worked on waterfront houses. That was close enough. “It’s hard to find an architect who does this kind of thing,” says Kimo, laughing. The Bertrams and Nebolon quickly agreed on a “shipping container modern” look for the home. Nebolon clad the exterior in prefinished metal siding, designed a factory-style
“sawtooth” roof (a series of windowed ridges), and installed casement windows up to the ceiling so the place is bathed in light. For the interior, the couple mixed natural elements like knotty cypress floors and rawedge teak furnishings with hits of color. “I wanted to feel connected to the city’s industrial past, but I didn’t want to feel like I was living in a warehouse,” Sarah says. The only limit to decorating was the hull’s dimensions—about 18 by 42 feet. “We had to come up with smart ways to pack the box,” says Nebolon. Benches flip open for stashing Mary’s toys, for example, and the couple’s bed rests on cabinets. Initially, they worried the weight of their furnishings would tip the home in one direction or another. But “unless we buy a grand piano, it’s no big deal,” says Sarah. “For the most part, it was like decorating any other house.” Of course, living on a dock is not like living just anywhere. For the Bertrams, grocery
The dramatic spiral staircase gets light from the windows alongside and above it. Features
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shopping can mean driving their little boat over to the Ferry Building farmers’ market. Sea lions might show up when the couple barbecue on their deck. Most recently, they constructed a hot tub—in a boat. “Kimo convinced me we needed it to teach Mary to swim,” says Sarah. When the World Series was in town, the family drove the hot tub up the shoreline and listened to the game outside the stadium. Even more novel than a hot-tub boat is the community they’ve joined at the marina—the “ragtag Navy,” as Nebolon calls it. “There’s an engineer, a tech start-up guy, a retiree who fishes all day,” says Kimo. “What we have in common is a real connection to the water.” The group gets together to maintain the dock, plant in the community garden, or host an aquatic version of a block party: “The other night, we watched a brass band, with our neighbor playing trumpet, float down the creek on a vessel another friend made,” Sarah says. It was the kind of experience that reminded them why they’ll never leave. “We have no intention of moving,” says Kimo. “Ever." s
The lights pick up on the industrial feel, while the teak countertop and yellow cabinets warm up the space.
The shower doors in the master bathroom echo the casement windows throughout the house. Features
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Solace at Lands' End andrew acacio, a photogra-
pher from Alameda, finds peace at Lands' End-“I like going there to get away from the city and to see the ocean.�
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