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November 30, 2006
Ode to November
Oh NaBloPoMo
taking photos and writing
every single day
Turkey day and first
full month of unemployment
not too much to say
But I've learned that life
goes on even when I don't
have a job per se
Thanks, M. Kennedy!
for sharing your idea
and letting us play
November's over
blog-posting month is done but
I won't go away
I guess I should find
some form of work since writing
bad haikus don't pay
November 29, 2006
The Play Area
I drove up to the Suisun Valley today to shop at farm stands and unknown wineries. In the last couple months I've been exploring parts of the Bay Area I've never been to, since I have the time, and since I could never drag Dave to most of these places on a weekend. I mean, Fremont? Martinez? Not exactly go-to destinations. But interesting to me anyway.
I have had excellent Afghan food in Fremont (the real reason I drove there) and picked through antique shops in Niles, where Charlie Chaplin made several films. In Sunol I saw the Water Temple (from a distance, because I got there 15 minutes after it closed). In Martinez I visited the waterfront which I had only ever seen from a very high bridge that crosses over it. I found my way to Pleasant Hill and admired the north side of Mt. Diablo in the sunset, a stunning vista from any angle.
I've figured out how to get from South San Francisco to Pacifica without using Highway 1, and then back a different way.
Today I found a giant rooster and bought limes for ten cents each.
Any suggestions for places to visit within an hour's drive?
November 28, 2006
What's for dinner
ariel: I'm making hominy-potato chowdah with BACON
ariel: as part of Use What's In The Cupboard Week
dave: f yeah!
dave: i've been wondering all afternoon what you will make for dinner
That last part is music to my ears. I have not yet gotten tired of making dinner every night, and Dave has not yet tired of my cooking, so I guess we're still in the honeymoon phase of Ariel Cooks Dinner Every Single Night. I've gotta say that I enjoy cooking dinner much more than I enjoyed whatever it was I used to do at work after 5pm. It was always urgent, and usually something that I was doing on behalf of colleagues two time zones ahead who had already gone home. I don't miss it.
I've had this can of hominy in the cupboard for ages. It looks like it's about 50 years old, but I'd put its age at 5 to 7 years. I dug it out of the very back of the cupboard and decided to make my mom's hominy-corn chowder. But! The recipe is still lost along with everything else on my hard drive. Luckily there was a similar chowder recipe on the can.
Also in the spirit of Use What's In The Cupboard/In The Fridge/Already Open Week, as I made the soup I drank the rest of the bottle of wine I opened the night before. Cheers to being thrifty!
November 27, 2006
Stanyan Street
The upside of living at the top of a big hill is views like this one. The downside is getting up the hill once, twice, three times a day on foot or two wheels. The photo doesn't really do justice to the grade -- the last block leading to where I took this photo is close to a 20% incline.
It has now been a week since my PowerBook crashed. Anyone who emailed me important information last Sunday or Mondayish, I am not ignoring you, I just lost your email (I hope temporarily) (this means you, Deb). I am still wrestling with the directory-damage monkeys in my machine, and I hope to get it working again in the next couple of days. The reason it's taking so long is that I DON'T HAVE A BACKUP. Please, don't be me: back up your important stuff. Photos, recipes, email, personal documents, these are the things I'm trying to salvage. (Luckily all the music files are on another drive. But I need to back those up, too.)
But at least my data is still here -- what if someone had simply stolen the computer? It would all be long gone.
So go, now, to frys.com or Amazon and buy yourself a nice big hard drive -- plenty are on sale for the holidays. And back that data up. Consider this advice your holiday gift from me.
November 26, 2006
Biking for bucks
A week ago today we were in the park watching cyclocross, and now I'm watching the rain outside and pining for that beautiful weather.
There's this funny game you see at cross races. People put a dollar in an empty beer can or bottle and set it on the course. The racers, who make several laps of the same course, try to grab the money as they ride by. Yeah, they lean way down to the ground while they're pedaling. I have tried to pick up a water bottle off the ground while riding, and it's really difficult.
This game is highly entertaining for spectators. During the women's race, I heard that people were putting $20s into the bottles. I was watching at another part of the course, but from the roars and cheers, I'm guessing some of the women hit the jackpot.
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November 25, 2006
Mushrooms, mushrooms, everywhere
Sara and I went to the Farmers Market this morning, not knowing that this weekend is the Ferry Building Fungus Festival. For the occasion, the usual vendors had added all sorts of fungal delight to their foods, like truffle salt on popcorn (yum!) and some sort of mushroom cheesecake (um) and even mushroom-flavored chocolates. Interesting.
I had mushrooms on my list anyway, but just the plain brown kind, for making Hungarian mushroom soup. I highly recommend it.
November 24, 2006
Cranberry-apple tart with extra bike lube
This was my contribution to our friends' Thanksgiving feast yesterday. Pictured before it went into the oven, of course, because it was prettier before the contents bubbled out all over the crust.
Making this tart, I cooked with shortening for the first time ever. I am a prolific baker, but I've always avoided shortening and made sub-par pie crusts using butter. There is just no way to make a great, flaky pie crust with only butter.
So I finally caved, trans fats be damned, and bought some Crisco Sticks. The stuff looks like something I squirt out of a tube and use on my bike. It definitely does not look like food. Even more disturbing is the warning on the package: "Not intended for use as a spread." Um, yeah, and my Pedro's Syn Grease goes better on my bike pedal threads than on whole-wheat toast.
November 23, 2006
Gratitude
I am thankful for Dave; our families; friends who love and support me; good health; tea with milk and sugar; the ability to run, swim, bike, walk, hike, and enjoy the outdoors; and the results of this year's national election.
I am also grateful for our sweet old car. I drove a Ford Escape yesterday while our little coche was in for routine maintenance. I hated it. Driving that thing, I felt completely isolated from the world around me, and not totally in control, like I was at the helm of a shrimp trawler. And that's a small SUV. Definitely not for me.
It's 9:30am, which means it's time for me to break out the bourbon. Happy Thanksgiving!
(In case you're wondering, it's for making bourbon balls, not for drinking. Well, mostly for bourbon balls.)
(Which reminds me... damn. All of my family recipes are on the still-not-recovered computer. ARGH!)
November 22, 2006
Giving thanks to the man upstairs
I learned yesterday that our upstairs neighbor is an Apple-certified technician. This comes in very handy when the hard drive on one's beloved PowerBook suffers an acute failure and the machine won't boot.
My computer, my precious gem, may be screwed. It turns out that your internal hard drive should never be more than 80% full for the machine to be happy. And it certainly shouldn't always be 99% full, like mine is. Damn digital photos.
It also turns out that BACKING UP IS A GOOD THING. My most recent backups are over a year old. I know better.
The drive is so full that even the disk-repair utilities can't deal with it. The data is there, we've seen it; we just have to figure out how to get it off safely. "The data" being all of my photos and 13 years worth of email. Among other things.
Steve spent three hours with me last night booting in open-firmware mode and trying to get my machine to act like an external drive and zapping PRAM and using terminal mode to see the data unix-style. We're not in the clear yet, but I believe that everything will be OK. Repeat after me: Everything will be OK.
November 21, 2006
House bound
Last night Dave asked me, "Are you a housewife now?" He used the term kind of jokingly -- I hope -- but I had to admit the answer is yes. Homemaker. Not employed outside the home. (Or inside, for that matter.) Between jobs.
When I quit my job over a month ago, I had another one lined up. But I changed my mind about it, and decided to take my time finding another one. So now I am without a paycheck. I have plenty to do; it's great having all of my time be my own. But it is a little weird not having the structure of a 9-to-5 job. I started my first real job two days after graduating from college nine years ago and have been employed full-time since then, with the exception of a few weeks when we moved from Chicago to San Francisco.
Being around the house today gave me the opportunity to meet the garbage collector this morning. His truck's hydraulic system blew a hose and he was stranded for an hour waiting for the hazmat crew to come clean up the mess.
Having time at home also gave me the luxury of being able to investigate the funny smell in the kitchen. I narrowed it down to the garbage disposal in the sink. The rubber flappy things that cover the drain were hiding a layer of odiferous scum. I donned sturdy gloves and tried to clean out underneath them. The whole endeavor had a rather gynecological feel. I'm not sure if the problem has been corrected. But I never would have spent my precious weekend time scraping slime out of the drain back when I was working full-time and also training a lot.
On the other hand, maybe the fact that I ran outside to chat with the garbage collector indicates that I need a little more daily human contact. You think?
November 20, 2006
San Francisco is known for absurdity
...But I think this is the craziest thing in the city.
An outdoor ice-skating rink. It is open from November until right after New Year's. The average temperature at that time hovers around 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
They park a giant truck next to the Embarcadero Center fountain to power the cooling coils that freeze the water that makes the ice. Which I am sure is contributing to the hole in the ozone layer right now, as I type.
But! We get to skate on ice, outdoors, under the palm trees.
November 19, 2006
Cross in the park
It was a nice day in the park for a cyclocross race. My friends Marissa and Brian both raced today in the Bay Area Super Prestige Series. It was Marissa's first cross race!
She kicked ass, even riding a too-small borrowed mountain bike. Several of us have decided that we want to add cyclocross bikes to our stables. They combine the best aspects of a road bike and a mountain bike into a fast, fun-looking ride. (Yes, I know, I can't even be bothered to ride the bikes I have, I don't need another bike. But! Fun!)
Dave convinced me to ride my bike to the race instead of walking the three miles. It was the first time I've ridden my road bike (gasp!) since Ironman Wisconsin. Which was ten weeks ago, my friends.
I have actually ridden my other bike since then -- once. At the Sentinel Triathlon. I have become a slacker. Or, more precisely, a non-cyclist.
There was also a cross-country regional championship going on at a nearby field:
It was a good day for racing. And even better for watching!
November 18, 2006
Not a lot of holiday cheer to go around
Today you get forlorn Christmas decorations because I am feeling kind of blah. Is it just me, or does anyone else find this giant glittery bow to be really depressing? And, of course, way premature? It's from a mall parking lot. Big surprise.
The engine light on our car blinked on today. You may recall that we just spent $500 on various wheel-related repairs. Groan.
And I am hungover. Triathletes can party, man. After the cafe hosting our club's year-end party kicked us out at 10pm, we moved the festivities to someone's apartment. I didn't get home until after 1am. I am too old for this behavior. Still feeling a little icky.
On the bright side, at the award ceremony, our triathlon club coordinator presented me with the Early Bird Award. Which is hilarious. The description reads "Because I have heard even though you can't form a sentence or dress yourself before 8am, you are the most dedicated early morning training partner EVER!" My ironman partner in crime Marissa had something to do with this award.
I am going to watch Marissa race in a cyclocross event tomorrow. I'm thanking my lucky stars, though, that her race isn't until 2pm. If it were at, say, 8am, I don't know if I'd be a dedicated enough spectator to get up that early.
November 17, 2006
November is Pomegran-tastic
Every November since the beginning of time, my mom and two friends have cooked up enough pomegranate jelly to fulfill the needs an entire town of 30,000 people for a year. I'd call this team the Pomegrannies, but Mom would kill me. The other two ladies are actually grandmothers. But my mom is not, YET!, and it's all our fault. But I digress.
They made 84 jars of jelly this year. By my calculation, that requires 14 boxes of powdered pectin and about 31 pounds of sugar, or 70 cups. That's 53,900 calories in just the sugar! The 50 or so cups of hand-squeezed pomegranate juice -- at least 100 pomegranates, but they didn't count -- add another 10,000 or so calories. My math tells me that's about 760 calories per jar. I have about eight jars sitting on my kitchen counter right now. Hmmm.
The jars will be decorated with festive ribbons or maybe some rustic raffia and distributed at Thanksgiving dinners, holiday parties, and office gift exchanges; they will be tucked under Christmas trees and Hanukkah bushes (OK, not) and into stockings and gift baskets.
When I was in high school and spent my time reading counterculture lit mags and publishing a zine and keeping up with my punk pen pals, I heard about a woman who was doing a mail-art project. She would send a small, empty glass jar to anyone who promised to fill it with something local and mail it back to her. She got hundreds of jars filled with dirt, broken glass, sand, pebbles, pond water, dead bugs, seaweed, handwritten notes, pee, candle wax, that sort of stuff. I filled my jar with pomegranate jelly and tied a scrap of ribbon around the cap. When she mailed a photo of the finished work, out of the hundreds of jars stacked on shelves on a wall, I could easily pick out the ribbon on my little jar of something local.
My mom entered her jelly into the LA County Fair competition once, but I told her, "Mom, all 271 jars of pomegranate jelly entered into the competition were made with the exact same recipe with pomegranates grown in the same Southern California smog. How do you think the judges decide which one is best? PAYOLA!" She did not win. I was not surprised. Even though I do think the Pomegrannies' jelly is the absolute best in the land.
November 16, 2006
Running. It's like riding a bike. Sort of.
If you read this site over the summer, you know that approximately 100% of what I wrote about (give or take a couple percent) was related to triathlon, running, training, racing, riding my bike, crashing my bike, and eating and sleeping so that I could train some more.
If you've only been reading since November 1, this is probably a surprise to you. I haven't mentioned my usual athletic endeavors once this month.
That's because my last workout was on October 31. Right before I dropped off my car for some quick repairs, I ran four miles. A day or two later, I got sick with a hellish cold, and only now am I recovered enough to work my lungs and get my heart rate up.
I reminisced about the summer's training this morning as I drove Dave to work (poor Dave... he did get a ride, but he also had to listen to my good-old-days talk). Three months ago at 9am on a Thursday morning, I'd be walking into work after getting up at 5am, taking the train to the gym, doing a two-hour spin-run workout, showering, drying my hair and catching a bus to the office.
So this morning, after dropping Dave off, I drove myself to the gym. I put on my running shoes, hoping to go for 20 minutes without enduring too much of the nasty cough that is still driving me nuts. I ended up lasting a very slow 40 minutes. I finished tired but very, very happy. My legs will be sore tomorrow.
I stopped by the pool on the way back to the locker room to admire the new (and very noticeable) red, white and blue lane markers. A YMCA staffer on the other side of the pool windows made fun of me for gazing longingly at the pool and not just getting the hell in for a swim. Fine! I said. Fine then! I'll go for a swim.
I thought ten minutes in the pool would be nice, an easy 500 meters. Half an hour later, I was still swimming. It was awesome. Swimming can be fun! And relaxing! Especially when you're not counting laps.
This came just in time. My triathlon club's year-end party is this Friday. Now I won't feel like a total impostor.
November 15, 2006
Making Tracks
Tractors scraped the top layer of sand off Ocean Beach yesterday after a big sewage spill.
But even more significant is the fact that I put in my contact lenses today. After two weeks wearing glasses. I have been sick FOREVER. And today, I put in my damn contacts and went outside. Halle-frickin-lujah.
November 14, 2006
El Capitan
Earlier this year Dave and I visited a cousin of mine and his family in Colorado. While we were looking for something in the basement, he showed me boxes and boxes of beautiful engraved stamps, whole, unperforated blocks, carefully encased in archival glassine envelopes. They were from our grandpa, he said. A lot of them were quite valuable. He mentioned a couple of blocks that were missing from the collection and wondered if my dad might have them. I promised to look into it the next time I was at my parents' house.
When I visited my folks a couple of weeks ago, my dad's response to the story was, "My father never collected stamps. Those were mine!" Heh.
My mom had carefully set aside three notebooks filled with single stamps, but the only entire block I found was this set of one-cent Yosemite stamps from 1934. It's part of a series commemorating national parks. The engraving is gorgeous. I have always had a thing for fine engraving and printing and I want nothing more than to run my fingertips over the tiny lines of raised ink on this stamp block. But I won't, because I know that's not the philatelically correct thing to do. Even though these stamps aren't terribly valuable, I will keep my greasy fingerprints off them.
I was thrilled to find this particular block because I love Yosemite. I'm sure it has a special place in the heart of everyone who has ever been there. Yosemite is reminiscent of Disneyland in the summer months, but in the last few years Dave and I have discovered that it is heavenly in the winter. The crowds are much, much smaller and mellower and the quiet is surreal. Many of the trails are inaccessible, but those that are open are magical when you have them mostly to yourselves.
Yosemite Valley last December. See the entire photo set.
November 13, 2006
Just don't call me A-hole, whatever you do
Some names people have called me over the years:
Ariel, A, Edien, AP, arielr, April, Pumpkin, Carrot Top, Pumpkin Head, Erin, Oreo, Red, Big Red, The Tall One, Erica, Drops Like a Rock, NKDK42C, Bigfoot.
The only names I answer to these days:
Ariel, AP.
The correct way to pronounce my first name:
Now you know.
November 12, 2006
Geriatric Jack
Halloween was 13 days ago.
I'm used to seeing Christmas decorations way past their expiration date. But this just seems so... sad.
If you look at the photos on flickr tagged "moldy," most of the recent photos are of rotting pumpkins. Awesome!
The word "moldy" always makes me think of New Zealand, and the many conversations we had there with both Kiwis and non-Kiwis regarding the correct pronunciation of "Maori."
November 11, 2006
Hungry?
You should have seen this sandwich. A crowd gathered at the already busy farmer's market this morning to watch this woman make lunch for the people working at her stand. She split a loaf of bread and smothered it with an entire tub of garlic-herb quark (a creamy cheese). Then she topped it with several sliced avocadoes, sweet peppers, arugula, cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkling of lavender salt. Everyone cheered when she closed it.
"Who gets to eat it?" I asked. "Everyone who's been here since 5am," she said. Oh man, it looked good.
Wandering the farmer's market really makes you appreciate your sense of smell. Thank god mine is back.
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November 10, 2006
A story about junk
Our DVD player died a few weeks ago. We quickly replaced it with a $60 model from Target, which sent me careening down a wistful road of technology nostalgia. Remember the days when buying a DVD player (or CD player, VCR, TV, even a telephone) was a big commitment? When we'd pore over Consumer Reports to see which small appliance was the most reliable, most durable, had the best repair history? The dead DVD player probably cost us $250 several years ago, and it was a purchase we agonized over. Buying its replacement was more like picking up a pack of light bulbs and tossing it into the big red cart along with the paper towels and toothpaste.
Electronics are so inexpensive and so cheaply made these days that they seem disposable. But did you know that it's illegal in California to put electronics in the trash? Electronic waste -- computers and monitors, stereos, microwaves, batteries, cell phones, and even fluorescent bulbs -- contains heavy metals that leach into groundwater when left to decay in landfills.
There are various scheduled recycling days around the city, but as a San Francisco resident I can personally recycle up to 30 items per month at the city dump. Never having been to the dump, and being curious about it, and also dying for a reason to leave the house without infecting other humans, I drove down there the other day to check it out.
There was a line of a dozen or so contractors' pickups piled with debris and big diesel trucks waiting to recycle scrap metal. I pulled my little Toyota Camry into the queue and waited. And waited. Then I realized that these trucks were waiting to pay dumping charges or to get paid for their scrap metal, so I drove around to the front of the line, risking the ire of many construction workers.
I was waved onto the scale to register my goods. The man in the little booth gave my little car a once-over and peered around to the back to see if I was hauling anything. "All I have is a DVD player and a cell phone," I told him. "That's all?" he asked, as if to say, "Who the hell drives all the way out here to unload a couple of gadgets?" He took my license plate number, gave me a receipt and directed me to some big bins full of junked computers.
I gingerly put my items (DVD player, remote, ancient flip phone, charger, phone charger) on the pile. And I wondered whether all of those computers, TVs and CRTs would be responsibly disassembled and disarmed or whether they'd end up in a third-world country where god knows what would happen to them and their hazardous innards. I guess I'll never know.
Grossing you out all month long
Thanks to Suzanne at CUSS & Other Rants for reviewing the NaBloPoMo "I" blogs and singling out my bug and pig truck photos for Best Disgusting (non-porn) Picture(s) on the Internet. Maybe I should have posted the photo of my big toenail falling off three months after Ironman Coeur d'Alene after all.
November 9, 2006
Basement beastie
I discovered this critter cowering in the corner of my laundry sink the other day. We used to call these potato bugs, but I have learned that they are not bugs and they do not hunt potatoes. The jerusalem cricket (technically not a true cricket either) eats rotting stuff and drums its abdomen against the ground to attract mates. Sexy!
Sara, you still feel like reaching for a bag of crunchy snacks?
The much smaller critters that have invaded my respiratory system are still wreaking havoc. I am still sick, still feel like blah, and am possibly entering the realm of sinus infection. Uggggh.
November 8, 2006
Election night
My sister did not win. The incumbent she was trying to unseat prevailed. But as my dad says, even Abraham Lincoln lost his first election.
I personally have very little interest in local politics. My sister inherited the gene from my mom, who has been active in local politics in our Southern California home town for decades, including stints on the city council and as mayor. My mom can make a room full of strangers think they're her best friends, and she can explain bond issues so clearly that a third-grader could understand. These are not skills I will ever have, but my sister is on her way.
Seeing my sister work the room at her election-night party was weird and enlightening to me. This was not the Alix I know. She was totally in her element. She was aglow. And when she got up to speak to the crowd, everyone could tell that she had loved every stressful minute of the campaign. She vowed to run again in four years. She made us all very proud.
She has found her calling, and she's very lucky about that.
November 7, 2006
I hate being sick, part 2. Also, vote! or don't.
Hardly an appetizing photo, I know. But appetizing doesn't really matter to me since I haven't been able to taste anything since late Saturday.
My Jewish mother actually brought this chicken soup to me. Even though it's Healthy Choice, it still has nearly a gram of sodium per can. Is there something magic about salt that makes a cold feel better? Perhaps the rehydrated vegetable nano-particles have healing powers.
On a much more interesting topic, the reason my mom is in town is that my big sister is running for office here in San Francisco! So if you live in District 8 (which includes the Castro, Noe Valley, Glen Park, parts of the Mission), vote for her! Unless you're one of those conscientious non-voters, which, fine, be that way, but don't complain to me if the Castro Halloween party goes haywire again next year.
I am grateful that my polling place is across the street. It's probably the only time I'll be leaving the house today.
November 6, 2006
Someone stop me
What's better than grape jelly?* Jelly made from wine. Zinfandel jelly. It actually tastes quite a bit like the pomegranate stuff my mom has made every November since time began. With a wee alcoholic kick.
On my dining room table:
- 14 jars of pumpkin butter
- 7 jars of mango chutney
- 5 jars of red wine jelly
- 6 jars of tamarind chutney
- 4 jars of pomegranate syrup
In a typically overambitious moment, I decided to make the tamarind chutney and the pomegranate syrup at the same time. Juicing pomegranates creates a mess like a blood-spattered abattoir, and a slab of tamarind pulp soaking in warm water looks exactly like a bowl of raw sewage. Use your imagination to place both of these scenes in my white kitchen sink.
You should have heard my mom flip out when she saw the precious labels I made for the jars. She had total label envy. My friends will not be surprised to hear that making the labels was half the fun for me. I get my crafty fix via Quark XPress.
As soon as I can find some blood oranges, I'm going to make marmalade. Then that's IT, I swear. No more canning. For a few months, at least.
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*OK, just about anything is better than grape jelly. Ick.
November 5, 2006
Cold, cold, go away
I have been sick four times this year. The first time was over a weekend in January, while my mom was visiting. We went to see Beach Blanket Babylon and my nose-blowing generated a pile of soggy kleenex and cocktail napkins to rival the size of the show's famous hats. For nearly a month in February and March I was housebound with a horrible cold, and I went the longest I have gone without exercising in six years. (I did, on the other hand, get to watch most of the winter Olympics.) Then I had another rhinoviral attack in June, the consequences of which were that my weeklong cycling trip in Colorado was accompanied by frequent rib-splitting coughing fits.
And now, in November, I am sick with another cold. I am a healthy person! I exercise and I eat well and I wash my hands as neurotically as a surgeon with OCD! Why do I keep catching colds?
I often blame public transit, but I haven't been subjected to a twice-daily dose of bus or train germs in three weeks. Hey, waitaminute -- I did ride the 43 bus way too many times in the process of getting my car fixed. Hmm.
At any rate, I'm sick of it. Sick of blowing my nose, sick of not being able to taste or smell, sick of wishing I were asleep but not being able to sleep because I can't breathe through my nose. When I woke up this morning -- er, opened my eyes, since I was never really asleep -- Dave commented on the huge pile of kleenex on the floor next to the bed. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm generally healthy; it is just a little virus. But it still sucks.
November 4, 2006
Where good food goes to die
Nearly every Saturday all summer, and winter, and pretty much for the four years before that, too, I got up early and spent most of the day riding my bike. Since racing in Ironman Wisconsin in September, I haven't spent a single Saturday on the bike. Which affords me the luxury of attending the Saturday Farmer's Market at the Ferry Plaza.
San Francisco is a food lover's paradise. And the Ferry Building marketplace, the indoor food market that operates seven days a week, is a great place to drop a bundle on local produce, cheese, chocolate, ice cream, and bread in 30 minutes flat. Or to pick up a $40 bottle of olive oil or some American-farmed sturgeon roe caviar or an $8,000 antique butcher block.
So when it's actually time for the farmer's market, hordes of people descend on this place and the hundred or so vendors that set up outside. Thrifty shoppers go to the Alemany market or the Civic Center or one of the many suburban markets. Those of us who don't mind spending $10 on chips and salsa come to the Ferry Plaza. (It was homemade tortilla chips and organic heirloom-tomato salsa. Delicious!)
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On a recent trip I also picked up some Arkansas Black apples and sugar pie pumpkins, the latter which I turned into pumpkin butter. And some freshly made tamales, which are expensive ($9 for 4) but cheaper than getting them in a restaurant. Also something called "salmon candy," which is not too much unlike pig candy.
I bet you didn't know someone named a mushroom farm after me.
November 3, 2006
Perfect omelette
The gentleman taking my order at Hamburger Haven on Tuesday morning seemed dismayed when I requested an all-egg-white omelette. "Our eggs are very good," he said with a slight frown. I deferred and took my omelette with whole eggs, no cheese. And I'm glad I did.
Look at that perfectly cooked blanket of eggs. It was full of tasty sauteed mushrooms and nothing else. No leeks or feta or heirloom tomatoes or ham or goat cheese or preserved lemons or baby spinach or smoked salmon or hand-picked rosemary or creme fraiche. Just a plain and simple omelette. Divine. And I was starving after dropping off my car and then walking about two miles before I found this place. Luckily, this was before I encountered the pig truck.
The potatoes, on the other hand, were a little greasy.
November 2, 2006
Cheese crunchies
It all started Tuesday. No, it all started Sunday. I was winding up a trip to visit family down in Southern California. I wanted to hit the road early Sunday morning, but my car had a flat tire. So I waited until the Firestone tire shop opened at 9am, got the tire repaired ($25), and was on my way.
I drove 410 miles on that tire. On Monday it was flat again.
On Tuesday I took the car in to re-repair ($0, because there was no way I was paying again) or replace ($60) the tire. But when the guys at the Firestone shop here in SF took it off, they noticed that one of the lugs was about to break ($70). Also, the axle boot thingamajig on that side was broken and would soon become a safety issue ($150 for new axle, $150 labor). I authorized the repair over the phone. I had walked down the street for breakfast ($6), since the initial work was only supposed to take an hour or two. When I got back to the tire shop, they told me it would be another three hours at least, but that it would be done that night. I took a bus home ($0 with monthly pass).
At 5pm they called because a drive shaft bearing somethingorother was stuck and just wouldn't come out. They wouldn't have it done that night. Wednesday morning for sure.
Wednesday morning I waited around for them to call. I had errands to run and shopping to do. Around 1pm they finally called; the car was ready. I took a bus there and picked up the car ($496 -- ouch). Within one block of leaving the shop I noticed deep rattling noises. Noises that made me wonder if catastrophe would strike the next time I hit a pothole or took a tight turn. In my car-unsavvy imagination, I thought that maybe they had forgotten to put the lug nuts back on, and the wheel was just waiting to pop off like a loose tinker toy.
I drove straight back to the tire shop, where they decided to replace the part they had just replaced. Again. It would take at least another three hours. I groaned and rolled my eyes and gnashed my teeth.
I walked to the nearby Trader Joe's and did my grocery shopping ($77). My debit card was declined for no apparent reason. Sigh.
I didn't have to wait long for a bus home -- finally, I thought, I am getting a break today! I was two-thirds of the way home when I realized that my house keys were still in the car. Which was still at the tire shop.
I got off the bus and hailed a cab ($17). I had the driver take me (and my groceries) back to the tire shop, where I retrieved my house keys, and then home.
Which brings me to cheese crunchies. I grabbed a bag of these ($2) while waiting in line, hungry and pissed, at Trader Joe's. Someone please take them away before I polish off the whole damn bag.
November 1, 2006
Vegetarians, close your eyes
Meatatarians might also want to look away. This is how your pork arrives at the market. Tossed, headless, in the back of a big truck. It does on Clement Street, anyway. I had an unexpected amount of leisure time on Clement while my car was being tinkered with, so I went into all the Asian groceries between Funston and Arguello, a stretch of about twelve blocks. I was jaywalking when I encountered the back of this truck, unattended, full of pig carcasses.
Inside a live-fish market nearby, crabs clawed at each other in a cardboard box while clams squirted water on them from a tub above. I couldn't identify a few species, maybe a conch or some large sea snail? A variety of fish swam in murky acrylic tanks behind the counter while I peered into some plastic bins on the floor that were draped with netting. Live frogs. The netting kept them from hopping out. $4.29 per pound. Do they weigh them while they're still alive? How?
It was interesting to be on Clement on a weekday, when the locals do their own shopping. On the weekends it's a zoo. Figuratively, of course.
