It appears that New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman is ready to trade in the Big Apple for the Golden State full time. This fall, Bittman will be appointed to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism while simultaneously crafting his new online video series, California Matters.
Each four-seven minute episode of the YouTube series, which premiered on June 8, tackles different food-related topics from foraging in Berkeley to large farm pesticides in the Central Valley to labor laws in Los Angeles. Bittman’s causal aesthetic and big New York persona play a big part in why the series has already become a viral hit.
“I wanted to find people who are doing interesting things and talk to them,” says Bittman. “I thought we could make their work more easily and widely understood. And I think we succeeded.”
In the first episode, we see Bittman on an urban foraging tour of Berkeley and Oakland with UC Berkeley professors Philip Stark and Tom Carlson, who show Bittman just how many weeds growing out of East Bay sidewalks can be picked, (rinsed!) and then eaten.
Watch it for yourself below:
