🌁 Cooking The Clement Street Farmer's Market

Good morning readers! Welcome to The Fogline, a newsletter created to share our love for the city we live in and to promote community connection. We aim to give you the scoop on neighborhood events, tasty new pop-ups and restaurants, and spots to gather, play, shop, and enjoy this beautiful city we share.

In today’s news:

The Clement Street Farmer’s Market is open on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Clement Street between Arguello Boulevard and 4th Avenue. In the past I’ve enjoyed strolling through the market, buying strawberries in the summer, and sometimes buying a breakfast sandwich or taco from the prepared food stands before grabbing a neighborhood coffee. I never looked too closely at the ingredient options for making full meals.

Recently, however, I discovered the meats at Root Down Farm and have been truly impressed by their taste and quality. They also had the lowest price per pound at the market ($11 per pound) on my shopping day. This past Sunday, with the promise of nicer weather and power in my apartment (thanks, PG&E, for nothing), I decided to work on perfecting a Pad Kra Pao recipe I’d made a few times before using Root Down Farm ground pork.

I also bought some Aji Lucento Peruvian peppers from Stepladder Ranch & Creamery in Cambria, California, in lieu of traditional Thai chilies. The vendor assured me these were plenty spicy, and she was right!

With that purchase completed, I headed down the street to New May Wah to grab some Thai basil (since holy basil wasn’t available), and then home to start cooking. Technically changing the basil type changes the recipe to Pad Horapa. So do use holy basil if you want authentic Pad Kra Pao. I’m a humble home cook, and I take liberties to make life easier. The recipe comes from hungryinthailand.com. It comes together quickly and the heat can be dialed up or down easily. I ended up using just about a ¼ of the cut peppers.

I ground fresh garlic cloves and the peppers in a mortar and pestle, sauteed them in the pan with oil, and then cooked the raw ground pork for a few minutes on medium-high heat. I then added the liquid mixture of soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce, and fish sauce and cooked until combined.

Then I turned off the heat and stirred in the Thai basil. I served the dish over jasmine rice with an over-easy fried egg. This dish turned out rich, flavorful, warm, and spicy, and I will definitely be using those aji peppers again!

When most of San Francisco was still in holiday mode on December 26th, a different type of gathering was taking place at Neck of the Woods in the Inner Richmond. Flipabeat Club hosted Wav Forum, a monthly showcase that's become an important part of the city's beat scene. The format is simple: open aux. Bring your beats, sign up on the whiteboard, and get your slot.

I arrived around 9:30PM to find a pair of young beatmakers on stage playing what sounded like J Dilla-inspired productions. After a few tracks, one grabbed the mic and started rapping over the beats, transitioning the event from producer showcase to hip hop concert. The open aux format gave them the freedom to experiment and try different approaches to see what moved the crowd.

The vibe is completely different from a typical club night. The venue wasn’t packed to capacity, it was more intimate and intentional. You can chill at the bar or sit at a high-top table, grab a beer, and just nod your head to the beats. The wooden interior of Neck of the Woods makes it feel more like a living room than a nightclub, and the fireplace visuals on the side TVs added to that cozy feeling. The crowd here was actively listening, genuinely wanting to hear the other producers' work and maybe pick up some tips and techniques.

Later came performances by SIREBEEZ and RAYMADEGLORY, both from Oakland, who brought more of a boom-bap sound. RAYMADEGLORY mentioned he's only 17 and just getting started. This was the first all-ages Wav Forum. It reminded me of Return of the Cypher at Boom Boom Room, where anyone from 16 to 65 could sign up to rap, and the crowd supported everyone who stepped up. Wav Forum captures that same welcoming approach, just for beatmakers instead of rappers.

If you want to get a better feel for this event, there is a flipabeat YouTube channel with recordings of many of the performances. This video is an example of what you might see.

If you want to nod your head to some beats or maybe showcase your own skills, Wav Forum is held every fourth Friday at Neck of the Woods on 6th and Clement.

We stopped by Padoca Cafe on Geary Boulevard between Collins and Woods Street to check out the drinks and Brazilian treats on the menu. We hadn’t visited the space since it operated as Sunstream Coffee, but the business has been running as Padoca since March 2024. In Brazilian Portuguese, padoca is a slang term for a neighborhood bakery. The cafe serves strong coffee without bitterness, açaí bowls, smoothies, Brazilian pantry items, and delicious baked treats. We tried the empada with chicken, green olives, and corn, the coxinha stuffed with creamy shredded chicken and dipped in malagueta pepper hot sauce, and, for something sweet, the enroladinho de queijo. Everything we tried was absolutely delicious, and we’re already looking forward to returning to try more pastries.