San Diego, CA

Inside Michelin-Starred Drew Deckman's 31ThirtyOne in North Park

Published

28 mins ago

August 12, 2024

Inside Michelin-Starred Drew Deckman's 31ThirtyOne in North Park

He’s responsible for one-third of Mexico’s Michelin stars for sustainability and has a regular ole Michelin star, too. He’s a failed baseball umpire. His truck smells like Persian cucumbers and quail. He makes his own wine, his own olive oil, and shucks oysters like a robot. And now, Drew Deckman is finally opening his first restaurant in San Diego, with his son Sam cooking on the line with him and Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove, a partner.

Overhyping restaurants is as gross as it is predictable, puts too much pressure on what is ostensibly a dinner party with a permanent address. But, f*ck it. His arrival here, in this tiny New Yorkian fissure of a restaurant space, is the beginning of a new era for North Park.

31ThirtyOne opens Wednesday, August 14.

Deckman’s existence alone is imposing. He’s 6’6” or 6’13”. Sitting in his office, two days before opening night, he has to duck to not concuss himself on a low part of the ceiling.

“It’s an air duct, so we can’t move it,” he laughs.

On the white board behind him, the words “PRECISION” and “EXECUTION.” Below that, in wobblier script, “I love my dad,” written four or five times. His nine-year-old has been here for this whole process, watching her dad gut a failed restaurant, endure protracted delays, beg mercy from governing bodies that must sign-off before he can serve a single grain.

“I’ve had a shaman come in here twice to cleanse the place,” he says. “She’s coming again Friday.”

His hair, whitish-gray like the coals he cleaned out of his grill under that Baja tree for the last decade at Deckman’s en El Mogor, makes him look snow-topped. He is alpine. He has a constant, slight hunch, either the result of many years leaned over a cutting board in famous places run by famous food names (Paul Bocuse, Jacques Maximin, his mentor Madeleine Kamman) or because he’s trying to un-impose himself. Lower his altitude to relate.

Courtesy of 31ThirtyOne

Last night was his final “friends and family” dinner—dress rehearsals for his staff. Invite-only, free meals served to investors and friends and loved ones. Grateful guinea pigs who are told to expect everything to go wrong and be kind. Friends and families are an exorcism of last fatal mistakes by staff, before the doors fling open to the savage gen-pop of foodieland.

The food was incredible and imperfect. A 14-day, dry-aged ribeye with potato mousseline is steak and potatoes of your dreams, the crust of the steak so good it turns you feral. The Mindful mushrooms (from growers in El Cajon) with kale and smoked bacon are under-seasoned. At one point, the whole ordering system goes dark. The kitchen staff flies blind. A door handle to the restroom keeps falling off. I pass by the kitchen (everyone passes it, it’s wide open in the tiny middle of the place, a laying bare of the process) and he looks mad, ravenous for a little bit of control, a very seasoned and capable captain on a boat with an engine fire.

The next day, I walk in to see how he’s doing. His staff is gathered around him.

“Last night was terrible,” he says to them. “I was terrible. I never want us to get there again. But this is why we do this. If we did a test run and everyone said everything was great, that does us no good.” He makes six or seven metaphors. At one point he holds up a strainer and equates its perfect circle to the gaggle of humans that make up a restaurant organism.

He’s not chiding. He got his college degree in philosophy. He’s doing that.

Michelin-starred chef Drew Deckman who opened 31ThirtyOne in North Park in his Baja Mexico restaurant Deckman's En El Mogor — Courtesy of Deckman’s En El Mogor

It’s such a wild thing to see Deckman here, in a formal kitchen. For years, he’s stood under pine trees in the dry, open wild of Baja, goggles on, smoke billowing around him, giant tongs in hand. I ask him how it feels to be caged again.

“I love it,” he says. “I can handle it now. This was my life for so many years, that decade in Europe. It became my whole life back then, and not in a healthy way. It was 24 hours a day, no ability to have any relationship. I remember distinctly when Bernard Loiseau shot himself because he was afraid he was going to lose a Michelin star. That changed me. I stopped and said, ‘What the fuck are we doing?’”

And so he went free-range. He got work on fishing boats in Hawaii, then Mexico. When he saw how much biomass was being thrown back into the oceans, he got a bigger perspective on food. Deckman’s, and now 31ThirtyOne, is the reflection of that. All produce and greens are from San Diego farms. Oysters from Baja. Food of its place.

“At some point, you get so close to it all you can see is a single dot on the page,” he says of the unhealthy side of the chef obsession, The Bear–type kitchen life. “Then you back away and you see all these other dots that make up the bigger picture. When you’re only seeing that dot it’s all ego. In the beginning it was all about me. I thought I was the best thing since beer in a can. But you can only be a dick so long until people won’t answer your phone calls. As I moved away from the kitchen and found other things. I had to stand back from the fire. And then you realize it’s not about you. There are all these people holding up the ship. So stop trying to be the ship and be the water.”

That’s why there are no titles in his kitchen at 31ThirtyOne. No hierarchy. “We’re all just cooks, we’re all just bartenders and servers.”

At one point in opening 31ThirtyOne, he was so deep in blueprints and permitting applications and sheetrock contractors, he couldn’t see the vision of what the food would be. “My PR team kept saying, ‘What do you mean you don’t have a menu? Do you realize you open in a month?’”

So after construction crews had gone home, he sat alone in the kitchen in the dark and tried to see it. “I sat there for 45 minutes to an hour every night,” he says. “And it finally started to come.”

Wednesday, we’ll see what came.

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San Diego, CA

Padres Daily: Some things to clean up; remembering ’21

Published

8 hours ago

August 12, 2024

Press Room

Padres Daily: Some things to clean up; remembering ’21

Good morning from Miami,

Even as the Padres once again demonstrated their greatest virtue, their greatest weakness showed up.

You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres fell behind by five runs yesterday and almost came all the way back before losing 7-6 to the Marlins.

The sole loss on their six-game road trip was completed only after an apparent home run by Ha-Seong Kim with two outs in the ninth inning was overturned.

And, yes, Dylan Cease had an off day. And so did the defense.

But those are not recurring issues.

Middle relievers surrendering crucial runs is.

The Padres were within a run, at 5-4 in yesterday’s seventh inning, when Yuki Matsui gave up a two-run homer.

The Padres relievers charged with not letting little deficits become big ones have failed time and again.

If you weren’t appreciative before this trip for what A.J. Preller was able to perpetrate at the trade deadline, you weren’t paying attention. If you’re not appreciative now, you must be a Dodgers fan.

It could be argued that as many as five of the Padres’ seven consecutive victories from Saturday to Saturday could have/would have been losses if not for Preller having acquired some combination of Jason Adam, Bryan Hoeing and Tanner Scott at the deadline.

As has been noted in this space — and by some players — the Padres would be well served to score early and/or often and not have to keep coming back to win games. Further, they have gotten just two quality starts in their past 12 games.

These tight contests are forcing their bullpen to work overtime. And the reality is, while winning four straight games by coming back in the final two innings is impressive, it is also a little bit lucky.

They won those games with big hits and a retooled bullpen, not to mention a couple fine plays by Manny Machado. But they were preilously close to losing all of them as well.

All this to say, as good as the Padres have been, they have some things to tighten up.

Update, flashback

Here is the state of the National League wild-card race:

You want another reason to appreciate what happened at the trade deadline?

You might recall it was not that long ago that a Padres team cratered at this point in the season.

Three years ago yesterday, the Padres dropped the finale of a series against the Marlins after winning the first two games. The Padres were 16 games above .500 and sat in the second of what were at the time two wild-card playoff spots, 4½ games ahead of the Reds.

What ensued was one the worst collapses in the history of Major League Baseball, as the Padres closed with a 12-34 record to finish the season 79-83. Just three times since the formation of the American Association in 1882 had a team with a winning record with 46 games to play have a worse record than the 12-34 mark the Padres posted.

There were myriad issues with that ’21 team that are not present this year.

The biggest problem — by far — that season was a lack of pitching depth. The rotation was hit by a rash of injuries, the bullpen was overworked, and the trade deadline provided no real reinforcements.

So that the Padres feel good enough about their starting rotation that they sent Randy Vásquez to Triple-A on Saturday and have the aforementioned new bullpen pieces should be the biggest comforts when pondering this season’s final 43 games.

Cease’s struggle

Cease wasn’t blaming his subpar start yesterday on his truncated start Tuesday.

After allowing the Marlins five runs (two earned) in the first two innings, Cease said he wasn’t rusty as a result of rain having cut short his start five days earlier in Pittsburgh after one inning and 14 pitches.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I got good practice in. I think it was just one of those games. … I felt good going into it. I just wasn’t quite as crisp as I have been.”

Cease ended up completing five innings without any further damage, which did allow the Padres to chip away at a fixed deficit.

Even now, Cease has a 1.33 ERA over his past seven starts (40⅔ innings).

For all his excellence, however, yesterday was not entirely an anomaly. It was the fourth start this season in which he has allowed five or more runs in five or fewer innings.

Reynolds makes it to Miami

Hoeing and Scott, who the Padres got from the Marlins on July 30, spent portions of the weekend catching up with former teammates.

Yesterday, Sean Reynolds joined them, talking and laughing before the game with Marlins coaches and former minor-league teammates.

Then he went out and faced the team that drafted him in 2016 as a first baseman and moved him to pitcher in 2021.

“The journey to get to that mound was pretty incredible and definitely not how I saw my first time pitching in that stadium unfolding,” he said.

Reynolds, who was in Triple-A when he was acquired by the Padres along with Garrett Cooper at last year’s trade deadline, made his major league debut for the Padres on July 14. He was optioned July 28 and recalled yesterday, arriving in Miami a few hours before the game.

He worked a scoreless sixth inning, stranding a runner at third by striking out the final two batters, before yielding a single at the start of the seventh and being replaced by Matsui.

Round 3?

Machado struck out to end the eighth inning in consecutive games against Aroldis Chapman last week in Pittsburgh.

The first one ended on a 105 mph sinker than Chapman threw to the inside edge of the strike zone, freezing Machado, who then shook his head and grinned as Chapman looked back at him smiling.

Manny Machado was left speechless by this Aroldis Chapman 104.7 MPH fastball 😮 pic.twitter.com/w8opxiHUIO
— MLB (@MLB) August 8, 2024
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“He dotted that 105,” Machado said before leaving Pittsburgh. “I mean, you gotta give your respect to that. I mean … there’s nothing you can do with that pitch right there.”

In their faceoff Thursday, Chapman got ahead with two splitters, one of them a called strike on a pitch up and away. Then he missed with a 101 mph sinker and Machado fouled off a 103 mph sinker before swinging over a splitter.

“That was tough (Wednesday),” Machado said. “And then he came (Thursday) and threw me a couple splits — one that was off the zone. But whatever, I’ll get my rematch next week.”

Next week is now. The Pirates are at Petco Park the next three days.

Tidbits

Jackson Merrill was 0-for-4 yesterday, bringing an end to his hitting streak after six games. But he reached on a fielder’s choice and scored in a seventh consecutive game.
Luis Arraez was 3-for-4 and has eight hits in 20 at-bats during a four-game hitting streak.
David Peralta was 1-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. He is 7-for-16 with three doubles during a four-game hitting streak.
A day after he stranded two inherited runners and went on to work 2⅓ scoreless innings, Jhony Brito was optioned to Triple-A. The Padres needed to fortify the bullpen, so Reynolds was recalled.
Joe Musgrove will make his first start since May 26 tonight. I wrote yesterday (here) about some alterations Musgrove has made in his delivery to alleviate stress on his elbow.

All right, that’s it for me. Early flight this morning and then a Musgrove Monday night.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Originally Published: August 12, 2024 at 6:30 a.m.

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San Diego, CA

San Diego Teen Returns From Chetz v'Keshet Trip to Israel – San Diego Jewish World

Published

15 hours ago

August 12, 2024

Press Room

San Diego Teen Returns From Chetz v'Keshet Trip to Israel – San Diego Jewish World

By Barrett Holman Leak

SAN DIEGO — There is much turmoil in the world, especially in the Middle East, but youth from San Diego and around North America are not letting it stop them from seeing and experiencing the land of Israel for themselves.

Chetz v’Keshet (Arrow and Bow), by HaTzofim (Scouts) North America is a renowned program for Jewish teens aged 14-18 from the USA and the UK, offering participants a transformative experience filled with exploration, learning, and cultural immersion.

I spoke with Hila Baruch, 15, who relocated to San Diego with her family from Israel when she was six. The Carmel Valley teen recently returned from her Chetz v’Keshet (CVK) experience this summer and shared that it was a life-changing, transformative experience.

Hani Reuveni, HaTzofim CVK National Director, stresses the importance of Jewish teens having this experience: “Now more than ever, it’s crucial to demonstrate our support for Israel. The participants of CVK 2024 are not only having the time of their lives but also learning, exploring, and forging new friendships”

The success of CVK 2024 sets the stage for registration opening for the 2025 program, For more information and to register for the 2025 program, click here.

*
Barrett Holman Leak is an author, educator, and community organizer.

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San Diego, CA

San Diego Padres Rookie Passes Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer on Historic List

Published

22 hours ago

August 11, 2024

Press Room

San Diego Padres Rookie Passes Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer on Historic List

San Diego Padres’ rookie Jackson Merrill passed Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. in some elite baseball history on Saturday by hitting yet another clutch home run.

Per @StatsCentre on social media:

Most home runs in a season – Rookie centre fielder 21 or younger:
30- Mike Trout (2012)
28- Julio Rodriguez (2022)
20- Willie Mays (1951)
19- Michael Harris II (2022)
17- @Padres Jackson Merrill (2024 via 1 in today’s win vs MIA)
16- Ken Griffey Jr. (1989)
14- Rick Monday (1967)

Considering that Griffey Jr. is one of the best players in baseball history, that is something very impressive by the Padres rookie, who only converted to the outfield this season. He helped the team in a big way by moving to the outfield after the trades of Juan Soto and Trent Grisham this past offseason. The Padres are currently sitting in a playoff spot in the National League in part because of his stellar play.

As for Junior? He has one of the best resumes there is.

Griffey spent 22 years in the big leagues with the Mariners, Reds and White Sox. One of the most popular players to ever play the game, he hit 630 career home runs. He was a 13-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glover, a seven-time Silver Slugger and a former MVP.

He was a lifetime .284 hitter, who graced the covers of video games, magazines and starred in movies like “Little Big League.”

Though he never made the World Series, he was a dominant playoff performer, hitting .290 in 18 career games in October. He had six home runs in those games. The 1995 Mariners run to the American League Championship Series is largely credited with saving baseball in the city.

NEW PODCAST IS OUT: The latest episode of the “Refuse to Lose” podcast is out as Brady Farkas talks about the series loss against the Detroit Tigers, Mitch Haniger’s final at-bat and the continued conversation about the future of Scott Servais. Patrick Dubuque, the leader of Baseball Prospectus, joins the show as well. CLICK HERE:

FORMER ALL-STAR SIGNS WITH CONTENDER: Jean Segura, who made an All-Star Game with the Mariners in 2018, has signed on with a World Series contender. CLICK HERE:

M’s SHUTOUT STREAK: The Mariners have shut out the Mets for two consecutive games. How rare is that? CLICK HERE:

Continue to follow our Inside the Mariners coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and by following Teren Kowatsch and Brady Farkas on “X” @Teren_Kowatsch and @wdevradiobrady. You can subscribe to the “Refuse to Lose” podcast by clicking HERE:

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