San Francisco Pt. 3

Today will concern the our initial day in San Francisco. It will be briefer than other posts. We were tired and it was a bit of a gray day. It seemed as if the landmarks of Seattle had merely changed for the sky looked exactly the same. Regardless we had a good time. Our hosts, Jill and her boyfriend Jade, gave us a walking tour of their neighborhood (near Golden Gate Park and the famed and drug-addled Haight-Ashbury) after a wonderful breakfast of homemade (Jade-made) crepes, which were delicious. We had been to SF before but didn't make it to Golden Gate Park and only saw a little bit of the Haight. The Haight itself is known for its Beat and Hippie constituency back in their heyday, the 50's and 60's. Now, though, it seems it has partly gentrified and partly become a sad advertisement for its famed anti-consumerist former inhabitants (a store covered in one too many peace signs and selling bad crepes comes to mind). Despite the bad, it still houses some great bookstores and boutiques as well as an amazing plant culture. I became quite taken with the plants that took over this part of the city. Jades and other Succulents flourished on sidewalks and porches. It was, for me, truly beautiful.

We ended up heading towards de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The building itself was a work of art on its own, as you will see. Anne and I, being Bank of America users, got in free by some great luck. The museum's tower looks out over the whole city, which despite being clouded over was beautiful. Then we perused the art downstairs, including an exhibition of Amish quilts that I found very cool in their own right. There was a good deal of great art, most interesting of which, in my opinion, was the work by the artists of the Bay area such as Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and David Park. This was the highlight of our day. Plus, the sun began to peek its head from the clouds and the clouds gave way to blue. This was nice.

The highlight of our night was a restaurant that I had been dreaming of since my last SF experience, three years before. The restaurant is called Dosa, located in the Mission District of San Francisco. Indian food varies greatly from region to region. A lot of Indian food hails from the Northern Indian tradition. This restaurant was of the Southern tradition, which is mostly vegetarian and uses dosa (rice and lentil flour crepes) as a vehicle for tastiness. In my mind, this is the best region for Indian food. It was delicious but I have no pictures. Also not pictured is our full-bellied stroll to a bar in the "deep Mission" (i.e. part of the Mission less subjected to gentrification than other parts and therefore covered in neon-lit nail parlors and authentically and prominently Mexican bars) where we drank a few beers and couldn't keep from watching the muted cheesy horror flicks on the TV in the corner. Then sleep. A long day, well-spent.

 

So many plants.

More after the jump~

Interlude Accompanied By Pressure Cooker

To momentarily deflect attention from my increasingly distant San Francisco visit, I will take a moment to praise the culinary efforts of my trusty pressure cooker by way of the presentation (with obligatory photos) of the meal I quickly made up last evening. I will not name it for to do so would be to diminish it to some easily identifiable and therefore hum-drum existence. It, like much in life, is a construction of parts, of which none can lay absolute claim for its eventual resulting texture and flavor, in the way that a swingset is a swingset and not a metal tube or a plastic seat. My rhetoric, I am aware, is becoming ridiculous (though true).

These parts are: 1 cup dry brown rice (Basmati), 2 cups dry red lentils, two medium orange carrots (chopped), one medium russet potato (chopped), half of a yellow onion (diced coarsely), five to eight cloves of garlic (minced), three-fourths of a bag of frozen spinach, fourth cup of olive oil or so, splash of balsalmic vinegar, fourth cup of sesame seeds (ground fresh), some nutritional yeast, maybe fourth cup sugar, five cups of water, one cup soy milk and spices (details forthcoming).

The spices I used are the following: mixed peppercorns, cumin seed, black mustard seed, asafoetida a.k.a. hing (interesting history behind this special spice), curry leaf, coriander seed, toasted lentils, cayenne powder and coconut. Hence this bowl of spices:

 

More after the jump~

San Francisco Pt. 2

This second installment of Northern California, going along in an intentionally non-chronological order, concerns our last full day in that beautiful and sunny city, because I want to. We were left to our own devices that day (these devices, in this case, being our own feet and wavering senses of direction) and Jill parted with us in the Fisherman's Wharf area (which according to this website is the suckiest part of Frisco, and I agree). Before our paths diverged, we went to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, which features an enormous clock tower front and center and sits right at the edge of the water. This former ferry terminal now is host to shops and restaurants inside, which center around local and sustainable fare, and a three-day-a-week farmer's market just in front. As some of the pictures will attest, there were shops dedicated to meat and lard, "Tasty Salted Pig Parts," fresh baked breads, gelato, fresh mushrooms and mushroom growing kits, as well as newspapers and assorted tourist detritus.

We were given a simple explanation of the SF Muni train system, by which we were to travel back for dinner, and then the aforementioned devices of ours took over. We traveled around in the Fisherman's Wharf area for a bit, passing the entryway for the Alcatraz tour and stopping in at a sourdough bakery called Boudin (they made their breads into various shapes and sizes such as a larger boule and an alligator) where we got a large sourdough wheat to bring home and a small one to eat as we walked. Sourdough has a special stake in San Francisco for nowhere else is there the same bacteria floating around in the fog-laden air. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is key to the sourdough starters there and it supposedly imbues these breads with a sourness not found outside the city. We chewed on the bread and honestly were not impressed. No extra sourness that I could detect. Maybe there is a secret place we didn't go.

Chewing mindlessly and wandering about the Wharf area, we began to feel like everything around us was merely high-priced San Francisco advertisements -- shirts with Golden Gates hanging from awnings, chain restaurants, street performers whose allure only works on tourists -- and we quickly made flight towards Coit Tower, a defining landmark which would bring us into North Beach and closer to City Lights Bookstore. We didn't go to Coit Tower since we went last visit, but found our way out of the tourist trap nicely. Before reaching City Lights Bookstore (the place of Beat legend and publisher of many a Ginsberg poem) we stumbled upon two churches of classical enormity and style. The first was the church wherein Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married called Saints Peter and Paul Church. The other church was less about the church and more about the section attached to its hip. Inside there was the city's as well as the national Shrine of Francis of Assisi, which was a 75% reproduction of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. The man inside who showed us around and explained the history (as well as the papal decree which would absolve all who entered that they never see Hell i.e. us) we found out was a Knight of St. Francis as outed by a young and overly zealous Catholic boy who knew all the ins and outs of the transportation of religious iconic statuary. 


Now that we would never see Hell, we walked a little lighter on our toes. It took some time to locate it, but we finally found City Lights. We searched the shelves lazily but were really hoping for used books which they didn't have. Quickly soaking up the history of the place, including the basement section where I could feel the quiet energy of jazz poetry spoken live 50 years prior bouncing off the walls, many people clapping with their fingers. We left and didn't get far. Next door was a bar. It was called Vesuvio and it felt good to know that Beat legends such as Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady spent nights writing and drinking there. I got Merlot. Anne got beer. It was around 3 o' clock and the sun poured in on us where we sat upstairs. Regulars lined the bar and spoke about things we didn't understand in grizzled happy voices. It was fun.


After this, a little buzzed, wine-toothed and sun-touched, we walked to the train and went back for some amazing soup Jill created, which we accompanied with bread from the bakery around the corner and some Portuguese beer that was $5.99 a six pack at the wine shop. Our night finished at a bar with some strangers where our team got second place on Trivia Night. 

 

Beauty.

More after the jump ~

San Francisco Pt. 1

I quite recently vacationed in the beautiful city of San Francisco. It was terrifically soothing and ultimately the antidote to former stresses which lived still in the damp suit of Seattle. Girlfriend Anne and I enjoyed a nearly perfect California week, only given to one day of precipitation. Not bad. As we did quite a lot of things, I will segment it into appropriately short portions. They will not occur in any particular order but they will all concern San Francisco or its outlying areas.
One day we set off to see some redwoods (precisely the Coast Redwoods) at the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which is the home to the largest continuous stand of ancient Coast Redwoods south of San Francisco. It takes much driving on winding roads to get there and as long as you don't sit in the back seat (like me) you won't feel dizzy and weird (like I did). Getting there, we paid the people and ate some of the snacks we brought. In a sort of random way, one of many trails was chosen and we walked around and up to the top of a little mountain where we could see the ocean or, more precisely, imagine the ocean sitting beyond the fog. We imagined it was gorgeous. Along the way I took many pictures of strange things I couldn't always identify.

 

Enormous.

  

More after the jump~

The Best Shucking Time

Oysters. Sake. Three men. The Waterfront. I could think of nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon. I was accompanied by the Cains, a motley pair born from the same woman, for a leisurely and, in part, aimless stroll about the avenues of Downtown Seattle on this somewhat sunny and absolutely perfect day. We found our way, as is customary, to a wonderful place of Asian delights called Uwajimaya in the International District south of Downtown. For seafood, there is no better place I know of. Further, their sake diversity is unmatched. While there we picked up a dozen Olympia oysters and a dozen Quilcene oysters (from the upper Hood Canal fjord). In addition we each picked up a personal sized sake, all of different brands, and a jar of MSG-less kimchi. Plus one lemon and some hot sauce begged from a food stand in Uwajimaya. Then we set off and found a perfectly empty pier with benches and a great view of the partly clouded Olympic mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a beautiful time. Simple. Sating. Cheap.

 

Train tracks. 

The notorious Cain brothers.

 

Olympic Peninsula from our sweet little benches on the waterfront.

More after the jump~