the talk

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Suparvadee Vigil (far right) teaches thai cooking to two students.

Just like Mother still makes

a new cooking school fires a shot across the bow of our celebrity-chef culture.
Is it a coincidence that so many professional chefs around hereat the top of the heap is James Syhabout of both elegant Commis and down-home Hawker Farecite their mother as their main influence? Jennifer Lpez and Abby Sturges didnt think so, which is why they went straight to the source to start their ethnic cookingclass company, culture kitchen sf. At home, these chefs are just Mom, Lpez says, but in their classes, theyre the experts. The venture was adopted last spring by the Silicon Valley incubator company 500 Startups, and began offering courses on the Peninsula. Last month, it relaunched in San Francisco. Meet some of the teacher-chefs and hear what they think even sophisticated local foodies need to learn about authentic ethnic cuisine. n oliVia Martin for DetaIlS aND claSS ScheDuleS, Go to culturekItcheNSf.com
the aMateur ProS

Suchitra rangnekar
froM: mumbai, india What aMeriCanS Dont knoW: northern and southern indian food are prominent in the united states, but people hardly know anything about west and east india. theres more to indian food than chicken tikka masala! SiGnature DiSh: Crab curry

Paloma Salazar
froM: guadalajara, mexico What aMeriCanS Dont knoW: the flavor of american mexican food is not right. For example, enchiladas are made with tomatoes in restaurants, but in traditional enchiladas you dont put tomatoes in the dishyou place them on top. SiGnature DiSh: Chiles en nogada

Baraka abdalhadi
froM: baghdad, iraq What aMeriCanS Dont knoW: a lot! most dont know that kebabs and dolmas are iraqi, and that much iraqi food is very old, so some recipes can take five or six hours to make, which is too long for our modern culture. SiGnature DiSh: Dolmas

linh nguyen
froM: saigon, Vietnam What aMeriCanS Dont knoW: most Vietnamese people think americans wont eat fish sauce, so they leave it out or choose dishes that dont have it. if you do like it, put it out there that fish sauce is a-ok! SiGnature DiSh: egg rolls

fIlm

What David finchers next remake should be

Whats weird about David fincher remaking the Girl with the Dragon tattoo (in theaters December 21) is that we actually want to see it. basically, its easy to get over the remake gag reflex when the remaker in question is the onetime marin dweller who rose through local film fixtures like Industrial light & magic to become the almighty auteur of such artful chillers as Se7en, fight club, and the Social Network . Plus, Dragons setup suits finchers pervy predilections all too well: In an atmosphere foul with family secrets, sexual violence, and murder, a dubiously disgraced muckraker (Daniel craig) and a disturbed goth-chick computer hacker (rooney mara) form an unlikely crime-solving alliance. but as long as fincher is now in the remake racket, why not stick closer to home? after all, movies like the Game and Zodiac show that finchers at his best when skulking through the streets of San francisco. he really ought to just go ahead and remake Vertigo. true, any filmmakers attempt to clamber back up the lofty tower of San francisco cinema seems like absurd hubris. but fincher, with his brooding-to-cheeky mood swings and technically calculated methods, is as much hitchcocks heir as anybody. lets remember, too, what Vertigo is about: an appealing, acrophobic basket case detective stalks a woman until he becomes totally obsessed with her, then watches her die, then becomes obsessed with turning another woman into her. Not such a far cry from the cyclical sadism inflicted upon Stieg larssons lisbeth Salander. and does not the Dragon tattoo tagline, evil shall with evil be expelled, suggest a sort of circular thinking that might also abet spiraling down into clammy delirium through San franciscos hills? and, of course, Vertigo is ambrosially romantic but also enduringly creepy (see finchers the curious case of benjamin button). that plus a preposterous plot (see the Game) that doesnt really matter because the films really about the nature of obsession, anyway (see Zodiac), equals something that maybe only David fincher can do.
n Jonathan kiefer

l e F t : C o u r t e sy o F C u lt u r e k i tC h e n s F

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san francisco December 2011