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Kathy Fang Chef, and Restaurant Owner and TV Personality
Kathy Fang is a renowned Contemporary Chef, On-Air Personality, and a San Francisco native. Kathy’s passion for cooking began as a child in her family’s popular SF restaurant House of Nanking, where her father taught her how to cook. As an adult, Kathy and her father opened Fang Restaurant with Kahty herself as Chef.
S3: Ep 16 Jenny Huston, Food and the Environment
This San Francisco native has championed the intersection of food and nutrition services. Jenny Huston is a trained chef, former catering company owner, and holds degrees in both dietetics and food sciences. Having worked with government and non-profit social enterprises like Project Open Hand in SF, Jenny actively addresses issues of equity, nutrition and social justice within the food industry. She also teaches culinary arts at local community colleges and works with Bay Area Community Services in Oakland, where she established their current farm to table program. We are thrilled to share her wisdom about the intricacies of food’s impact on our society and environment with you this week.
For more information about Jenny, please visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-huston-07a16910
Meet Jenny Huston!
S3: Ep 13 : Lisaruth Elliott and Alemany Farm an Urban Oasis
Lisaruth Elliot is a visual artist, a farmer, and a longtime volunteer who serves on Friends of Alemany Farm Auxiliary. This urban farm, located near the freeway in SF’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, produces food that is donated to food-insecure neighborhoods. Elliot’s devotion to the farm is palpable. She’s attuned to all the nooks and crannies. From the best plants to ward off pests, to the birds that nest in the trees above, this green-thumbed guru’s passion for Alemany Farms is inspiring to witness.
We learned so much about the farm with Lisaruth in our interview, and we’re so excited to share it with you this week.
For more information about Lisaruth and Alemany Farms, please visit:
@lisaruthcreates
http://lisaruthcreates.com
https://alemanyfarm.org/earth-day-on-the-green-april-23/
Meet Lisaruth Elliott!
S3: Ep 10 : Cora Jean’s Old Skool Cafe and Teresa Goines
Teresa Goines is Founder and Executive Director of Old Skool Cafe, a non-profit youth restaurant located in San Francisco’s Bayview District. Once a probation officer in juvenile prison, Teresa realized that locking up kids only perpetuated their troubles. She wanted to give them direction, income, community and purpose. With the help of volunteer chefs and builders, Old Skool Cafe went from a small pop-up in Teresa’s home to a beautiful 1920’s style supper club in an old refurbished church. With velvet curtains and booths to chandeliers and
international soul food, Old Skool Cafe is now a home for both challenged youth and lovers of Soul food alike.
The kids run everything including cooking, cleaning, waiting, and entertainment. The program trains, employs and teaches them leadership and management skills, all the while giving them a new kind of home. Goines’ vision brought Old Skool Cafe to life, but the kids keep it alive. We are very proud to feature her as our guest this week on Beyond the Fog Radio.
For more information about Teresa and Old Skool Cafe, please visit:
https://www.oldskoolcafe.org/
Meet Teresa Goines!
S3: Ep 5: Pete Sittnick and the Waterbar
With over 25 years of experience in the Bay Area’s restaurant business, Pete Sittnick has opened, operated, and supervised more than 20 restaurants in the Bay Area and beyond. From designing innovative Italian eateries to teaching hospitality at USF, Sittnick’s knack for hospitality management has helped create some of the city’s most frequented restaurants.
Most notable are his sister restaurants Waterbar and Epic Steak. One for seafood (Waterbar) and one for meat (Epic Steak, )these restaurants helped transform the city’s Waterfront after the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway. Sharing the same vision as the locals in opening up the Waterfront, Sittnick was determined to make the restaurants look and feel like the rest of the city. Today it is adored by locals and visitors alike, with Sittnick still working hard to support and connect the San Francisco community.
We loved interviewing Pete at the Waterbar this February and hope you enjoy it, too!
For more information of Pete and Water Bar, please visit: https://www.waterbarsf.com/pete-sittnick
Meet Pete Sittnick!
S2: Ep 12: Chef Naizar Mubarak Florio
Season 2 Episode 12: Naizar Mubarak
Naizar Mubarak is a native Sri Lankan who used his love for cooking to find success in the Bay Area’s culinary world. Mubarak began his career at the age of 19 working at the Galle Dutch Fort, a UNIESCO World Heritage site in Sri Lanka. He also worked for American actor and writer Charles G. Hulls, learning from Hull’s private chef how to prepare food for European customers. After emigrating to the Bay Area in 2004, Mubarak worked his way through the ranks at various Oakland restaurants such as Marzano, Garibaldi’s, Bocanova, and the Duck Club. Today, he is the Executive Chef at SF’s favorite Florio Bar & Cafe.
Mubarak’s story would be incomplete without the influence of his mother’s recipes and his native culture’s culinary traditions. In Sri Lanka, everything is done manually and made with fresh, living ingredients. He learned from a young age to use everything he had, and even knew how to mix his own spices. With his mother’s famous recipes and a love of experimenting with different flavors, Naizar gained an edge in the Western culinary world. Throughout the years, he’s been praised for his creativity in blending different cultural flavors. At his restaurant Florio, he makes unique French and Italian dishes with Sri Lankan spices–– recipes that he has become widely known for. Naizar’s cooking is elegant, innovative, and satisfying. To this day, his customers can still be heard exclaiming: “Yumm! What is this?”
Meet Naizar Mubarak!
S2: Ep 4 China Live and China Town with George Chen
China Live and Chinatown with George Chen
Whatever your idea is of Chinese food, throw it out. This week’s episode will have you astonished by the executive chef and owner of China Live, Eight Tables, Shanghai 1939 and the Betelnut restaurants–– George Chen. Together with his wife Cindy Wong, Chen runs 16 restaurants in the United States and China, boasting culinary experiences that are award-winning and one of a kind. TIME Magazine named Eight Tables one of the “World’s Greatest Places 2018, 100 destinations to experience right now.” Betelnut, Chen’s first restaurant, was also nominated for a James Beard Award for the Best New Restaurant in America in 1995 (the “Oscar’s of the culinary world.)
Chen spent many of his early years working for top restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco. During his time attending UC Berkeley, Chen worked at The Mandarin under the mentorship of Madame Cecelia Chiang, a lifelong friend of his. Because of his culinary expertise and impact on San Francisco’s culinary world, we were so excited when we received a YES to interview George Chen. We at Beyond the Fog Radio love all things food, and George helped us give you a wonderful opportunity for an inside peek into his world.
Please meet George Chen!
Ep: 20 Chef Arnold Eric Wong
Arnold Eric Wong
Our guest this week is a chef, restaurant and two-time bar owner, a baker, a cheesemaker, and a beloved San Francisco native. Arnold Eric Wong has been a leading revolutionary in San Francisco culinary innovation for more than two decades. He studied at the California Culinary Academy, and after opening his first restaurant EOS Restaurant and Wine Bar in Cole Valley, Wong went on to be rated as one of five “Rising Star Chefs of the Year under 30” by the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2000, Wong opened his second and also very successful restaurant Bacar. Since then, he’s opened two excellent bars: The Treasury in one of San Francisco’s notable Beaux Arts skyscrapers in 2016, and The Beehive, a 60’s style cocktail bar that, according to him, “exudes modern Mad Men vibes.”
Wong’s culinary expertise extends beyond restaurants and bars to also bakeries and cheesemaking. In 1994, Wong founded a wholesale artisanal bakery called Raison D’etre. Starting in the deli of his family’s corner grocery store Ashbury Market, Wong and his brother Richard continued to cultivate the bakery into a South San Francisco facility that now delivers pastries to Peet’s Coffee and Tea nationwide as well as local independent markets and cafes. Likewise, Wong has invested himself in cheesemaking and founded Joyfull Bakery through his family business. Their products include parmesan cheese crisps that can be found in grocery stores like Whole Foods, Raley’s, Safeway, Andronico’s and more nationwide.
Arnold has received acclaim on both a national and international scale from reputable sources like The New York Times, USA Today, Wine Spectator and more. Nevertheless, he is a humble and kind man who is very family and community oriented. Throughout his work, Wong strives to maintain integrity and attention to detail in order to make his customers feel as if they are home.
Meet Arnold Eric Wong!
Ep 17: David Katznelson Haight & Divisadero
Ep 17: David Katznelson and Haight & Divisadero
The best way to describe GRAMMY-nominated producer and San Francisco native David Katznelson is “larger than life.”
The 30-plus-year music industry veteran is the Executive Director of Reboot, founder of the independent Birdman Records label, and board member of the Stern Grove Music Festival. David worked for Bill Graham Presents in high school and was former Vice President of A&R at Warner Bros. Records; today, he has a podcast, a daily newsletter called “The Signal,” and an upcoming first-of-its-kind double album box set.
Just as there’s no one on Earth quite like David, there‘s no place on Earth quite like the neighborhood of Haight & Divisadero — where soul and rock & roll music meet. And who better to tell the story of the neighborhood than David himself?
Meet David Katznelson!
Ep 16: Sheila Von Driska & SOMA
Shelia Von Driska is the owner and founder of White Space, a full service creative design and advertising agency located in SOMA in San Francisco. SOMA, or South of Market, was historically an industrial neighborhood, full of almost exclusively warehouse buildings. During the 90s it became a hotspot for boutique design and advertising agencies to set up shop. Shelia moved into an industrial loft space in SOMA in the 90s and built her career and her company in this incredible neighborhood. Meet Shelia Von Driska!
Ep 15: Chef Rob Zaborny
This week we bring you our conversation with Rob Zaborny, long time San Francisco resident, and celebrated chef. Originally from New York, Rob moved to San Francisco in 1980 and never looked back. Although he has a great love of traveling all over the world, he especially loves to call the Bay Area home.
Ep 11: David Lei & Chinatown
Many people, tourists and San Franciscans alike, think of Chinatown as restaurants and knickknacks, and don’t recognize Chinatown for the culturally rich, deeply historical, and close knit community it is. It is a neighborhood as resilient as its people, both of which have faced turmoil and struggle in their histories.
Ep 10: Chef David Lawerence
Our hosts are excited to share with you their lovely long lunch on Battery Street at Piperade with Chef David Lawrence. Chef Lawrence is the co-owner and Chef at the famed 1300 Fillmore, now located at the San Francisco International Airport, and closed temporarily due to Covid.
Prior to making his culinary mark in the Bay Area, Chef David Lawrence received formal training in his native London, where he worked under two of England's most celebrated chefs, the Roux Brothers. Working alongside them at five of their restaurants, Lawrence quickly advanced from apprentice to sous chef before his experience led him to the United States where he took the helm in a number of prestigious kitchens. Chef Lawrence is a charismatic, charming, kind man with a heart of gold; he engages with everyone from his staff to his patrons because he loves being with people, and most of all, he truly just loves cooking. And it shows in his food.
Meet Chef David Lawrence!
Ep 05: John Konstin & Union Square
John’s Grill has been an essential San Francisco restaurant since it opened in 1908. John Konstin spoke to us about his neighborhood, Union Square, and his restaurant, John’s Grill, which has been in his family since the 1960s.