A Walkable City

Here is a great excerpt from a book I recently read by Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking. I highly recommend the book to anyone, it's very well-written and engaging, and not half as boring as it sounds! I liked this passage about San Francisco and thought to share it.

<<... A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination. San Francisco has long been called the most European of American cities, a comment more often made than explained. What I think its speakers mean is that San Francisco, in its scale and its street life, keeps alive the idea of a city as a place of unmediated encounters, while most American cities are becoming more like enlarged suburbs, scrupulously controlled and segregated, designed for the noninteractions of motorists shuttling between private places rather than the interactions of pedestrians in public ones. San Francisco has water on three sides and a ridge on the fourth to keep it from sprawling, and several neighborhoods of lively streets. Truly urban density, beautiful buildings, views of the bay and the ocean from the crests of its hills, cafés and bars everywhere, suggest different priorities for space and time than in most American cities, as does the (gentrification-threatened) tradition of artists, poets, and social and political radicals making lives about other things than getting and spending.
...I sauntered over to nearby Golden Gate Park, which lacks the splendor of a wilderness but has given me many compensatory pleasures: musicians practicing in the reverberant pedestrian underpasses, old Chinese women doing martial arts in formation, strolling Russian émigrés murmuring to each other in the velvet slurp of their mother tongue, dog walkers being yanked into the primeval world of canine joys, and access by foot to the shores of the Pacific. That morning, at the park's bandshell, the local radio variety show had joined forces with the 'Watershed Poetry Festival', and I watched for a while. Former poet laureate of the United States Robert Hass was coaching children to read their poetry into the microphone onstage, and some poets I knew were standing in the wings. I went up to say hello to them, and they showed me their brand-new wedding rings and introduced me to more poets, and then I ran into the great California historian Malcolm Margolin, who told me stories that made me laugh. This was the daytime marvel of cities for me: coincidences, the mingling of many kinds of people, poetry given away to strangers under the open sky.>>


Taken alone, this passage sounds a lot like bragging, and one could argue that these things are found in other cities as well (like Central Park in New York). I think the real draw of walking in San Francisco is that you can actually *get* somewhere by walking a reasonable distance, and that during the walk you're greeted by surprising vistas, delightful architecture, amazing plants, trees and birds, inviting cafés and shops, and other walkers. Part of my enthusiasm for the city is its contrast to Chicago and my newness to it -- but I've talked to people who grew up here, and they aren't tired of this place. Each time I go for a walk, I see at least one new thing in the plant world.. a new plant altogether, or a familiar plant doing something I've never seen before (like a geranium large enough to be classified as a vine, rosemary and lavender bushes, and blooming jade). There are different birds here, and you can actually hear them everywhere.. trees are very precious in SF, and you can call a city hotline to have the "tree police" sent out to investigate or stop tree abuse! People overwhelmingly take care of their homes and landscape their tiny yards and even the footprint of tree plantings in the sidewalk. Even though it's the end of December, a lot of plants and trees are still quite lush, and many of the succulents that do so well here are in their blooming season. There's always something to see, hear, smell (it's nice when you can smell the plants and aromatic trees and not the trash) and just plain marvel at. And the important thing about that is not just that it exists, but that this environment is stewarded by people who realize its value and necessity for quality of life.

Views from SFAI

I thought I'd share some images from the campus of SFAI.. I appreciate its departure from the grid-within-a-grid mentality and enjoy the views when I emerge from my A/V cave!

I believe the original building was completed in the 1920s, and the newer part is from the late '60s.  You enter through the courtyard and continue out to the main plaza, which is a big open-air space with a café, gallery and computing lab.  You can also go upstairs to see the amphitheater, the old tower, and just have some alone time.  The views are amazing, you can see the entire East Bay area, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Coit Tower (and Telegraph Hill area) when it's not foggy!

(The Cave)

Entrance:

Courtyard:

New & Old:

Looking Southeast toward Coit Tower:

Main Plaza with skylights for lower floors:

Bike Rack!

There's also a Diego River Mural.. so cool!

Birds & Flowers

Not too much has been happening here.. Vanessa's waiting to get a job offer from Tom Waddell Health Center, and I've been settling into my new job. Our schedules are often at odds, so we've been like ships passing in the night. Now that the semester is over at sfai, I can set my own hours and I have the whole week around Christmas off. We're looking forward to leaving town again and undertaking some much-needed adventures!

Not that sf is bearing on our nerves.. we both comment almost daily how much we love it here, and the weather's been quite gracious compared to the rest of the poor country. When I leave the cave I work in every day, I can take a stroll around the sfai campus and see amazing views of the east bay, coit tower, alcatraz, and the general beauty of this hilly, colorful city (that also has amazing light at nearly any hour). If I'm riding home in the early evening, there are mind-blowing sunsets as I look down the long, flat streets of the Mission that terminate at looming, grassy hills. Or if I'm riding home late at night, the city is quiet, with an autumnal chill that reddens my cheeks, and the clear skies are burgeoning with glittering stars. It's been so long that I've forgotten almost all the constellations.

One thing I've really enjoyed is the little ecosystem outside our apartment windows. The garage roof next door is covered in plants, other neighbors have tasteful decks with trees and lots of plants, and there are several big, old trees that all sorts of birds frequent. There's a little hummingbird family that's quite active, buzzing here and there all day, sitting in a tree branch right outside and singing their little hearts out. I've seen robins, juncos, a pair of beautiful blue scrub-jays, black phoebes, gigantic crows, the usual wrens and sparrows, and today I saw a Cooper's hawk fly through the yard and perch at the top of the tallest tree in our neighbor's yard. We've also had a woodpecker visit the side of the house a few times! It's really delightful to be able to watch all of these creatures from our apartment, and doubly so because most of them are new to me.

(images pulled from the net)
Dark-Eyed Junco

Acorn Woodpecker

Western Scrub-Jay

Black Phoebe

Anna's Hummingbird

Cooper's Hawk!

I spent all day outside working on my bike.. long story short, I got knocked off my bike last weekend by an SUV driver who failed to see me RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER TRUCK before she took off from a stop sign. My knee got knocked up again, but mostly everything was fine. But my one brake was knocked out of alignment and I didn't have time to fix it all week.. luckily it didn't give out while I rode down the big hills! I took the opportunity to add a much-needed second brake, install my awesome new rack, and change up the handlebar situation. Not having a stand or space indoors to work, I had to lay everything out on the picnic table in the yard and try not to lose anything. I think I know what I'm going to ask for this Christmas...! I got kind of chilled being out all day, but at least it reached 50 (a cold, cloudy 50).. I won't complain!

Oh, and I wanted to share a picture of the beautiful bouquet Vanessa got me.. she felt bad for calling 911 and leaving me on the street after I was hit, so she went to a reputable florist and brought this home for me!


It's really stunning, with delicate little white and purple flowers, berry-laden branches, twigs covered in lichen, green and white kale, eucalyptus with fruits, and lots of other delicious items stuffed together. Quite impressive!

And finally, last weekend I helped our neighbor-florist decorate a wedding in a schmancy mansion in the schmancy part of town.. here's a nice image of what we did:


There were 700 roses and nearly as many candles on the tables, and the altar pieces were really neat concoctions of lichen- and white berry-laden branches and balls of white roses. It all came together really nicely, but it was stressful to say the least.

A Weekend of Firsts

First First: My first job in San Francisco.. I was offered a job as an AV Technician at the SF Art Institute! I'm excited to work at another awesome school, and the staff seems similar to the folks I miss so much at SAIC.. personable, handy, and reliable, among many other positive traits.

Second First: My first bike ride outside of SF, first time north of the city, first giant hills, first time going reallyeffingfast, and first long ride since (well, I can't really remember.. maybe the 30-something-mile ride I took with Duane over the summer?). That's a lot of firsts for one event! I'm pretty sure the ride was around 75 miles including getting to and from home.. and considering that I shipped my last bike from Chicago at the end of September, didn't ride at all for three weeks, and have only gone on a couple of short non-challenging rides since, I'm surprised that I didn't die. I definitely felt out-of-shape from my normal tiring point, but I did a lot better than you might think I would. I could've worked my way up to a ride like this, but sometimes I like to just jump into things.

Nine of us rode out at 10am on Sunday, and about half were on their fixed gear bikes. I did alright through the parks, over the bridge, and through Sausalito, but on the first really big climb my muscles started to fail me. I persisted though, shifted down and just kept going up. I thought I'd be on my own since everyone else managed to make it up like champions, but it was a cool group and they were all waiting for me.

That was the case for the rest of the climbs.. at some point my muscles just hit a wall and wouldn't really go up anymore. I'd make it about thirty feet, then a cramp would hit my thigh and I'd have to get off and stretch. It really sucked. But the rest of the group, it turns out, was having fun at the top, monkeying around and showing off tattoos, taking silly pictures and stuff. It gave them a chance to get refreshed, but by the time I rolled up panting they were ready to take off again and leave me in the dust some more!

I have to say those climbs were worth it though, because we zoomed down the other side. "Of course..." you're saying to yourself, but if you've never zoomed down a hill on your bike before like me, you don't quite understand. It's crazy! I guess it's kind of how skiing feels, because the roads wind down the hills. I think my bike appreciated the chance to be let loose after being so shamed by my pathetic ascents!

Practice makes perfect though, so I'm going to take advantage of my optionally-hilly commute to Russian Hill on the other side of the city. Maybe I can regain some dignity in the eyes of my peers. I did make sure to blurt out "Chicago" a lot so that maybe someone would understand that I don't know what a hill is, or how to ride up one. My grace period is expiring soon, though. Can you believe I've been here for almost two months?!

Anyway, here's a terrain snapshot of the bike route.. keep in mind that it was 'there and back'.

Handmade Yum!

I've been hankerin' for some veggie burgers lately, but not just any veggie burger. You know that some are so-so and some are downright gross, as far as store-bought patties go. My favorite in that realm are the whole-grain Morningstar Original, which don't try to be like a meat at all. You can see the grains, beans and veggies and I've had them with a vast range of toppings from the standards to the gourmet.

A long time ago, I had a similar needling craving for a good whole-grain burger and went recipe-hunting in my cookbooks and the internet. No single recipe was what I had in mind, so I hybridized probably three or four to create one of those unique batches of unbelievable goodness that can never be replicated. I froze them and they lasted me for a couple of months, but once they were gone they were gone for good. All that I remember now is that they had garbanzos, rice, oats, and some dill. Definitely not enough to make them again, and a sad remnant of a memory of some of the best veggie burgers I've ever eaten!

This time, I approached my homemade veggie burger recipe in a similar fashion, but I decided to record the process here for anyone else that might share my whole-grain preference. I searched through recipes to pick out the ingredients and prep methods that made the most sense to me, but this time I didn't turn up anything appealing. The closest thing was on 101 cookbooks but Heidi calls for ingredients I wasn't really excited about, plus processing everything a lot more than I wanted. I did get the great idea of using steamed sprouted beans rather than canned, which made a huge difference in the taste of my burgers. I highly recommend it if you have the time and think ahead (or can find sprouted beans at the store like I did).

In the end, I just decided to start with the essential grains and veggies I wanted (beans, rice, oats, carrots and mushrooms) and winged it. There were a few dicey moments when it came to forming patties and browning them in the pan -- but I remembered that you have to process some of the beans to release their starches and liquids to form a good binder. Luckily we have a hand blender, so that was short work right in the mixing bowl. I included this step in the recipe below!

These burgers are decidedly not vegan, but they could be made so, and easily I think. My vegan friends can chime in here, but I presume that you could replace the smoky cheese flavor with toasted nuts (or liquid smoke, even?), and the egg with vegan binders like egg replacer mix or pastes with corn starch, nutritional yeast, or agar.

So what was the ultimate result? Pretty darned good. I yielded 8 patties altogether, the first two being crumbly and the rest (pictured above) turned out well after I figured out the bean-processing trick to hold them together. I tried the crumbly ones to see if they were worth continuing to cook, and I couldn't stop eating them... so I'm sure the "good" ones are even better! We will definitely be rewarded for a hard day's work at dinner tonight. Speaking of, I'd better get my behind out to the garden to finish replacing the soil in our planter and get the rest of our greens in!


Sasha's Handmade Whole-Grain Veggie Burgers
2 cups various sprouted legumes (garbanzo, adzuki, peas, lentil)
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup raw quick-cook oats
1/2 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 carrot, grated
1/3 cup smoked swiss cheese, grated
3/4 to 1 cup mushrooms (like baby 'bellas) chopped
2 Tablespoons cider vinegar
3 Tablespoons mustard (whole grain, dijon or a mix)
2 teaspoons capers (soaked for 5 minutes to release the salt)
2-3 eggs, beaten
salt and pepper
butter or oil for cooking
some flour for forming the patties

While the rice is cooking, prepare the legumes and veggies. Steam the sprouted legumes for about ten minutes, then rinse. Put about 3/4 of the legumes in a food processor (or be crafty with your hand blender!) and puree into a slightly chunky paste. Remove the paste, then roughly chop the remaining 1/4 of the legumes -- this will help them stay in the patties.

Heat a bit of butter or oil on medium-high heat and cook the onion and garlic until they start to go clear (but before the garlic burns!). Add the mushrooms and cook until their juices just start to run. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Start soaking the capers now if you haven't already and they'll be ready to drain by the time you: Grate the carrot and cheese into a large mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 teaspoon each, but I'm not big on saltiness). Stir the liquid into the carrots and cheese to combine.

If you're as slow as I am, the brown rice should be done cooking right about now. Add 1 cup of it to the bowl with carrots and cheese, and stir to combine while the cheese melts a bit (you just don't want it to become a big lump). Add the mushroom mix, the legumes (paste and chopped), and the raw oats. Give it a stir to combine, then add the beaten egg and mix it all up until it's a semi-goopy mess. If the batter is too runny, add some oats; if it's too dry, add another egg. If the batter is too hot to handle and form patties, cover and let the bowl sit in the fridge for a while.

Oil a pan (you can use the onion/mushroom one) and heat it on medium. Flour your hands, and scoop out a handful of batter to form into a patty. It won't be super-easy, but the more you handle it the more it'll stick to you and fall apart -- just give it a good squeeze, form the sides and drop it in the pan. Brown one side, and as it cooks the binder will set so flipping will be easy. You know it's time to flip when you can scoot the patty without it sticking to the pan. Brown the other side, then serve.

If you're fridging or freezing, set the patty on a pan or wire rack to cool, then wrap in wax or parchment paper, then foil. They won't stick together or get too frostbitten this way. To reheat, you can stick them in a toaster oven or heat them in a pan with some cooking oil.

Topping Ideas
I'm going to eat mine with some avocado and chile powder, and I'll try some grated raw beets and ginger with lemon on another. Mayo and mustard are always good, or try them with tapenade (a chopped olive spread), pesto, marinated artichokes, roasted red peppers or winter squash, or topped with some cooked greens like beet greens, chard, or kale.

Addition Ideas
Next time I think I'll try adding some nuts like sunflower seeds or toasted walnuts -- pistachios would probably be quite yummy. I'd also try more spices like paprika, thyme, or cumin.


Here's a little treat if you've made it all the way through this recipe..

"Which of these things is not like the other? Which of these things just doesn't belong? Can you tell which thing is not like others, by the time I finish my song?"

T-Day Has Transpired

Who knew these things actually exist?! I certainly didn't. Our neighbor Caty brought them home from the flower market (she's a floral designer and gets special access to the special stuff), and they went bad pretty quickly. These shots were taken right before their ultimate demise. It was a little nerve-wracking to have them around, they're so poisonous... but so cool!



My Thanksgiving dinner was composed of leftovers (at least yummy homemade ones): a delicious pear, olive medley, gorgeous nuts and dried cherries, various cheeses, quinoa salad, a green salad with roasted fennel, and sparkling cider that I didn't realize was non-alcoholic until after it was home.. at least I had some Prosecco to shake things up (all by myself).....


And here is Carmen, the neighbor's kitty, at the kitty spa in our bedroom. Domesticated animals really don't know how well they have it.. I tried to make her watch Planet Earth so she could appreciate her regular meals and generally doting (spoiled) existence, but she was too busy attacking my feet because I wasn't focusing my full attention on her.


Fast forward to Saturday morning... I finally got up the nerve to attempt biking to the Alemany Market. It's cheap and full of great stuff, but in a hard-to-reach part of town -- you either bike through heavy, confusing traffic or a hilly, confusing neighborhood. By some miracle, I found my way there without bombing down a hill and losing my brakes (though I was cursing my bike, still set up for Chicago topography with a high gear ratio and a single brake). I had to heave my return load up a long hill, which was embarrassing and not so fun. Actually, that's the third time in the last two weeks I've had to do that. More on that later, though.

I got some great market finds! I somehow crammed all of this into a single pannier!


A HUGE, beautiful bunch of Swiss chard...


... perfect beets with intact greens, and a giant stalk of brussels sprouts...


... and this GIANT loaf of sourdough bread. Usually there are people lined up three or four vendors down to get bread from this place, so I decided to take advantage of the decreased holiday weekend traffic to see what all the excitement is about. Haven't tried it yet, but I did get a cinnamon twist for breakfast and it was pretty good. A little dry, but I think it would've been better accompanied with a beverage.


I caught it!


I will smite thee!

Snail Porn!

Whoa.. this is worth a third post for the day.

If you haven't seen Microcosmos yet, or for that matter, any French nature documentary, you're living in a sad little cave and cannot claim to have seen anything great.

Wow, I just got all Mark Bittman on you!

See March of the Penguins and Winged Migration if you can. The camerawork is really astounding, and the departure from Discovery Channel narration is maybe frustrating at first but quite pensive in the end. As you can see from the clip above, these are not your average nature documentaries....

Go Ask Alice!

A second post today, inspired by (slow) food and foodies.. One of the many things that I love about my new home is the enthusiasm and respect for food. It happened naturally here, because a good portion of the country's produce is grown in California, and because the state has a long history of people demanding that their environment be treated properly. We've enjoyed eating at a variety of restaurants where we could tell that the produce was fresh, and each dish was crafted by following the flavor of the ingredients, and either indulging curiosity or upholding tradition in the combinations. To eat food like this is invigorating and, I think, healing -- having grown up in a food culture where convenience and affordability were utmost (understandably -- let's discuss that in-depth in another entry?), it's akin to the surprise of finding oneself in a beautiful, undiscovered pocket of the world. Beyond that, I'm not sure how else to describe eating truly fresh food, you'll just have to do it yourself (on a visit?!).

I mentioned in my previous post that I brought home some cheeses, and I tucked into them for a late afternoon snack, having only had a quick bite of lunch between shopping runs on the bike. I more or less blindly chose the cheese I got at the store.. I already had soft local goat cheese at home, so I went for a semi-hard cow's milk and a soft washed-rind French cheese. I like to try new things to find out what they taste like, but it's frustrating at times because I lack the solid foundation of knowledge that helps one make informed decisions, and the random manner in which I try things doesn't help to develop that foundation! Anyway, I laid out some bread, olives, Mahon Mitica (the cow's milk cheese), Pont L'Eveque, (the stinky French), and a generous scoop of Harley Farms' Apricot Pistachio goat cheese that we picked up on the last leg of my birthday tour. Now, each of these cheeses is pretty different in their ingredients, method of creation, taste and feel. The Mahon Mitica is chewy and salty, with a thin, dark edible rind. It was a bit overwhelming in large bites, but I liked its strength and ate a couple of black olives and bits of bread to break it up. The Pont L'Eveque is an ancient food -- it's based on a cheese made at least since the 12th century, and is traditionally eaten as a dessert cheese. This doesn't mean that it's sweet like a brie (although it looks and feels much like one).. au contraire! It's a pungent cheese that smells like mold to those used to fresh-smelling cheeses. Once you get it in your mouth, though, the creamy, earthy pate (inside) is wonderful, and the slightly chewy rind brings it together. I ate it with some bread, punctuated by oil-cured green olives.. definitely exercised those savory and bitter areas of my palate! And finally I indulged in the apricot-pistachio goat cheese. You can tell those goats are happy, because they make the best cheese ever! The sweet, tangy and juicy dried apricots liven up the thickness of the cheese, and the ground pistachio layer lends a welcome dose of earthiness to remind you where it comes from! I would eat this cheese all day, every day if I could. Good thing I don't have to go all the way to the farm to get it -- it's carried at a few local grocers'.. so dangerous.

During this foray into unknown cheeses, I roasted up my sugar pie pumpkin and sat down to start reading Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. I may have mentioned Alice Waters before.. she's a living legend, though one I hadn't heard of until shortly before I moved here. She founded Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, and unwittingly started a food revolution by seeking out the best, freshest produce and finding it at local farms. So all of the food served at the restaurant is made with produce gotten directly from farmers.. not such a mind-blowing idea, is it? Isn't that what all of our children's books show us, and isn't that how we imagine our food coming to us? Sadly, fresh food that doesn't contribute to the destruction of the planet is something that most Americans have to seek out, and usually a trip to the supermarket or a meal at a restaurant showcases produce that was raised using chemicals, picked early, and treated with chemicals to artificially ripen them while being shipped halfway round the world, using lots of petroleum on the way.

Alice Waters found that the only way to get produce worth using in cuisine was to get it locally (within 100 miles is her rule of thumb) and from the people who raised it. Since she had a restaurant, it was easier for her to develop relationships with farmers, but she also frequented farmers' markets, which you and I can also visit. Here in SF, we're lucky to have two farmers' markets every week, year-round, filled with a plethora of fruits, vegetables and other goodies, and great varieties of them. It's kind of like heaven here, so there's little wonder that good food is totally integrated into daily life. The argument that many people set forth is that their climate isn't perfect like California's. I know that in Chicago, we had farmers' markets from spring through fall, but of course nothing can be harvested fresh over the winter. Alice Waters suggests that plenty of the produce harvested during the growing season can be preserved, and that the change in what's available orients one in time and place, giving a greater sense of awareness in how we live and where our food comes from. Being a recent inhabitant of a non-temperate climate, I'm of the opinion that it's easier said than done. Who doesn't crave an orange in the depths of February to stave off that feeling of never-ending, bone-chilling, soul-crushing cold? Who wants to figure out nine months' worth of recipes for the dozens of jars of tomatoes and zucchini that the Midwest bestowed upon us long ago? But Alice's manifesto is serious stuff, and our health, well-being, and very planet could certainly use something serious. Here's what she says in the introduction to The Art of Simple Food:


Eat locally and sustainably. Learn where your food comes from and how it is produced. Seek out a diverse variety of vegetables and fruits from small, local producers who take care of the land. Buy eggs, meat and fish from producers whose practices are organic, humane, and environmentally sound.

Eat seasonally. Choose food in season. Even where the growing season is short, organic gardening and farming can extend it: greens can be grown in cold frames and greenhouses, and there are always local foods that can be stored, dried, and canned for the winter months. Eating seasonally inspires your menus, gives you a sense of time and place, and rewards you with the most flavorful food.

Shop at farmers' markets. Farmers' markets create communities that value diversity, honesty, seasonality, locality, sustainability, and beauty. Get to know the people who grow your food. Think of yourself as a partner with the farmers, learning from them and working with them.

Plant a garden. It is deeply satisfying to eat food you have grown yourself, in your own backyard or in a community garden. Even a pot of herbs on your windowsill can transform your cooking and connect you to the changing seasons, as can foraging for wild foods and harvesting fruit from farms that allow you to pick your own. Learn what the edible landscape has to offer.

Conserve, compost, and recycle. Take your own basket to the market. Reuse whatever packaging you can. Keep a compost bucket nearby when you cook to recycle kitchen scraps. The more you conserve, the less you waste, the better you feel.

Cook simply, engaging all your senses. Plan uncomplicated meals. Let things taste of what they are. Enjoy cooking as a sensory pleasure: touch, listen, watch, smell, and, above all, taste. Taste as you go. Keep tasting and keep practicing and discovering.

Cook together. Include your family and friends, and especially children. When children grow, cook, and serve food, they want to eat it. The hands-on experience of gardening and cooking teaches children the value and pleasure of good food almost effortlessly.

Eat together. No matter how modest the meal, create a special place to sit down together, and set the table with care and respect. Savor the ritual of the table. Mealtime is a time for empathy and generosity, a time to nourish and communicate.

Remember food is precious. Good food can only come from good ingredients. Its proper price includes the cost of preserving the environment and paying fairly for the labor of the people who produce it. Food should never be taken for granted.


Well! That's quite the antithesis of the average household habits in this country, but these practices are being adopted by a growing number of people here and around the world. Some are organized, subscribing to the Slow Food movement, and others are simply interested in improving their quality of life and/or doing something tangible about our environmental crisis. Some people do all of the things listed above, and some do what they can fit into their habits and budgets. Keep in mind that as food awareness spreads, the ways to participate are becoming more widely available and more affordable. In Chicago, we got weekly organic, local produce through a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) organization, and there are a lot to choose from there! The Chicago Reader probably has an online archive of its recommended CSA's, and it devotes a cover story each late winter to give people a head-start in choosing a CSA for the growing season. There are many farmers' markets throughout the city, and even my parents started visiting their local market (I'm so proud of them!) Some CSA's even encourage their members to visit the farms and offer events like apple-picking or cooking with the produce.. and most areas have some kind of local produce that can be picked. Around Chicago, we had apples, blueberries, pumpkins, and christmas trees (and probably a lot more that I didn't know much about).

A funny story I just read in another blog was Alice Waters' appearance on ABC's The View. Alice is a quiet, small lady, and Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar were interviewing her.. long story short, there was a roasted chicken on the table and Joy asked, "Can't you shove a beer can in the chicken's vagina and cook it that way?" The producers were either completely clueless, or they planned that sharp dichotomy like expert critics.

The moral of the post is this: Think more about your food! Start looking at what's available, then look again and decide what is healthiest for you and our environment. Think of food as an adventure, not an obligation. Have fun picking out recipes.. try something new because you've never eaten it before, or bring home that beautiful piece of produce and figure out something to do with it (if you don't just eat it outright!).

In doing research on the Mahon Mitica cheese earlier, I came across gastrokid, a blog that talks about raising your kids to be interested in food. A couple of entries were based on letting the kids pick out something from the grocery, then trying it and giving it a little 'review'. This engages them in what they're seeing at the store, makes them aware of what they like and eventually adventurous enough to try new things because it's like a game, and develops their food sense by describing what they eat. And if your kid isn't quite into, you can trick them again: Hey, you're a shark! Pick out some fish! I'm a T-Rex, what do I eat? (I'm secretly planning to do my shopping in this manner from now on.) Oh, and here's a video clip I just found of a guy from gastrokid talking about getting kids to eat different foods on CNN.

Phew! I didn't think that would be so long. But now my pumpkin is cooled enough for me to handle, and it's getting on toward dinner time (leftovers again.. how do two people manage to have so many leftovers?) Wish me luck with the pie, I haven't taken on a recipe with so much from-scratch-ness in a long time! Good luck with your meals, too!

Countdown to T-Day

Well, not much is happening here.. My commitment to Thanksgiving this year is negligible, but there are a couple of exciting things happening. I might get to see Sara, our roommate from Chicago. She moved to Portland when we moved to SF, and will be visiting some friends here this week! Another friend, Rihoko, mentioned a while ago that she might also be visiting.. it would be nice to catch up with her, too. Carmen, our neighbor's cat, is keeping me company again this week, and I'll also be checking in on the four other cats (and kittens!) staying in the building. Our people are away for the holiday, so we're going to have fun while everyone else deals with flying!

Speaking of, Vanessa finally arrived in Louisville after spending the night in the Atlanta airport.. due to (I believe) a wrinkle in the universe, she waited at the wrong gate and missed her connecting flight yesterday. I hope she catches up on some rest today and enjoys the deep-fried turkey she hasn't stopped talking about since she decided to go!

I went to the store this morning to get a couple more survival supplies for the week, and came back with some cheeses I've never tried before, sparkling cider and prosecco in case I need to bring something to a T-Day feast, ingredients for a pumpkin pie made with hazelnuts and coconut milk (and puree from a real pumpkin!) from a recipe on 101 cookbooks, my favorite food blog.

I decided to treat myself to a recommended bottle of Oloroso sherry to complement the pie! I'll probably be prepping the crust and puree today, then putting the pie together tomorrow. Oh, and the crust will be made from my new Tartine cookbook.. that's the bakery where my birthday cake was from, everything we've had there is heavenly (dessert-wise, anyway). Exciting, indeed!

Otherwise, I'll probably be working on my dozens of little projects that have been forming themselves and keeping me busy since I've moved. Oh, and I finally got my workspace set up, so that will make things a lot easier! I got a solid wood countertop on the cheap from Ikea and used the legs from the desk I already had (that doesn't really work anywhere in our apt.).. I had to rig up a system that put the work surface at the same height as the drafting table, so cutting through a 4-inch beam with a hacksaw and using my crappy battery-powered drill stretched the project to an all-day, tiresome affair. And at the end, I had to flip the darned thing myself! Lucky I didn't pull or break anything or die.. Well, I did break a lamp in the process, but I think I can fix that....

A bunch of FLOR samples are on their way to make a cheap but colorful rug, and I'll probably put a few things on the wall to make it a little more cheery. Fun! Functional!

And to end, please send me any extra karma or luck or good thoughts.. I'm finally getting some responses from job applications and I hope something works out soon!

Busy Bees!

My birthday has now been in celebration mode for a month! First we went to Costanoa for a lovely overnight of 'camping' and hiking, then a visit to Harley Farms, a goat dairy in Pescadero, dinner at Range, and last night we ate a beautiful lemon meringue cake from Tartine.. I think that's all the birthday-ing I'll get this year! Now it's time for me to begin cooking up a proper shin-dig for Vanessa's birthday in January!

It's amazing to me that we were able to do all of this without going very far -- all of our trips have been only an hour's drive away, and the food is a minor walk from home. We do so much more here, and it really has an effect on our moods and our outlooks. We were both feeling a little antsy the other day (I from having sat in front of the computer for a few days job-hunting), so we hopped on our bikes and rode for 15 minutes to the Golden Gate Park Botanic Garden. There are majestic, grand old trees there twisting upward amid the fog, we walked through the primitive plantings of ferns, cycads, and horsetails, saw a pair of quails gathering food (or nesting materials?), two fat squirrels that walked right up to us, and we basked in the rich smells of eucalyptus, pine, fragrant flowers, and ocean mist. Then we happened upon a Japanese restaurant that served us more food than would fit on our table and the steamy miso warmed us up. We weren't quite ready to go home yet, but not in the most energetic mood, so we watched out for a café to stop in for a while. We found Café du Soleil in Lower Haight, which was a quiet, charming place with warm wainscoting, plenty of tables, an extensive (and affordable!) menu and French-speaking staff. I think I know where we'll be studying French from now on...!


In other news, we're finally almost settled in to our liking in the apartment. I planted some lettuces in our garden box outside (which is only half-planted because we didn't get enough soil.. oops!), we got a tv and some speakers, some rugs, a nice shelf with doors to store our linens upstairs (there's only one closet, which is in our bedroom, so lots of things have been in floating piles or cardboard boxes..), and I'm going to put together another work surface for a craft area today. Hopefully it'll be great for bag-making, clothes-making, print-making and book-making!

And as a post-script, I'll add these great pictures of costumes found in our home *after* Halloween:


Our neighbor Jen (who works at ReadyMade mag - yeah!) enticing us to join a clothing swap down the hall....

Vanessa sporting her fashionable eye patch, plundered from our local pirate shop to help her bothersome case of pink eye (oh, that pesky ER and its communicable diseases!) Our local pirate shop, by the way, is just that -- 826 Valencia is McSweeney's storefront featuring pirate booty of all sorts to raise money for the writing workshops it hosts for kids in SF. It sure came in handy!

Ready Thyself for The Church Burner

Our friend Eman is one of those people everyone wishes they were born as: a genius who needs only to pick up a knife and sauté pan to make delicious food at the second-best-rated restaurant in SF; who needs only to start moving his hips and become a swing dance instructor; who needs only to pick up a torch and pieces of tubing to make the most amazing bike ever.

This is The Church Burner, so named by myself for the purpose of this post because when Eman debuted it on SFFixed, the discussion developed into a playful conversation about how its new owner, Mia, should give it a name.. and, well, the frame lends itself to darkness. Someone designed a sticker that says "this bike is a church burner" in gothic font, playing on the famous 'this bike is a pipe bomb' sticker. The best comment by far on the thread was by Mia, saying that she'll have to give up posting to the internet because she'll have to write everything in blood from now on. If you're not into bikes or into death metal (somehow the two go together like bread and butter), it may fall a little flat for you. I'm sure you have fascinating interests, but I'm not sure if we can continue being friends if you don't appreciate bikes and death metal.

Anyway, now you should be sufficiently prepared:
So yeah, Eman just whips this stuff out. We're all mystified. Pretty soon we'll all voluntarily worship him as a god and he can add Cult Leader to his already-impressive list of accomplishments. Next in his queue should be bike painting: D+D in San Lorenzo did this frame beautifully, though.

Happiness

When was the last time you saw Vanessa this cheery?

PLANTS!

I was irresistibly inspired to add some plants to our home yesterday.. the weather was so great, it made me feel alive and want to be surrounded by other live things. There are plants literally everywhere here, and not just clovers and weedy grasses.. there are giant lavender and rosemary bushes in every other yard and business sidewalk planting area, there are huge jade plants growing beneath trees in the sidewalk, there are many different kinds of trees on every block, leaves and flowers I've never seen before, palms and banana plants, dozens of flowering vines, and of course the succulents.. so many varieties of succulents like the giant ones growing in yards and spilling over retention walls, in little pots by themselves or in big community pots, in cafes, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, hallways, windowsills... everywhere!

I walked into our neighbor's apartment yesterday to find their cat, who's been keeping me company lately, and saw the impressive collection of plants populating their home. It was enough to tip me over the edge, so I put my shoes on and walked over to my new favorite place in the city, Paxton Gate.

I'd already been there the day before because I managed to glue one of our open-air orchid pots together, and I thought a nice air plant would do well in it. I got one for the pot, and picked up another and chose a little stick nest for it.

Tillandsias gather nutrients from the air with the grey-green fuzz on their leaves. Their "roots" are only structural and keep them stabilized once they've found a home. They just need to be soaked once a week in water to feed them if they don't live outside. Once a tillandsia flowers, the main plant starts to die off as the flowers wilt, and new baby plants start growing off of it.


I should explain that Paxton Gate is a really neat collection of natural specimens -- plants, shells, eggs, rocks, skeletons, taxidermied things, insect cases, books of illustrations, and other cool gift stuff. They keep a compelling mix of plants like the tillandsias, orchids, bromeliads, succulents, ferns, indoor trees, carnivorous plants, and bonsai. If you know me at all, you can imagine the look I get on my face when I'm poking around here.. it's so cool!

When I went to get the tillandsias, I only had to pop into the front door, take a hard right and focus on the air plant display, then move ten feet to the register and out the door again. I escaped safely, with only my intended quarry in hand (well, I did get an extra one, but it's so awesome!). Yesterday, however, I entered with that dangerous, heady mix of inspiration, ecstasy due to perfect weather, and relaxed abandon. Having fully studied the air plants the day before, I strolled to the back of the store to their plant room and outdoor garden. I quickly found about eighteen plants I wanted to bring home, but I knew I could neither afford them all nor carry them all home.... So I narrowed it down to my favorite four (two in each hand works, right?) and found pots for each of them. Luckily, their prices were reasonable so I didn't have to leave feeling too ashamed! Here's the run-down of the exciting plants I chose:

The Tank Bromeliad:
















This little guy is really amazing. It sits in a shallow dish, and is attached to a rock which soaks up some water. Water is mainly kept in its 'tank' at the top of the plant, where flowers bloom once it reaches maturity. You've probably seen these at a botanic garden or at the zoo in tropical rooms. They can become pretty large!



The Shade Plants:
















Yes, there is a little bit of shade in our apartment.. I guess the area I placed them in isn't even fully shaded, because they get morning light for about an hour. But at least it's shielded from the intense afternoon light, which gives me a sunburn if I sit at the table too long!

The fern-like plant isn't a fern or a palm; it's a Cycad, which is native to eastern Mexico. It's also known as a Cardboard Plant, I'm guessing because its leaves are stiff, and at the suggestion feel kind of like thick paper stock. I like this one so much because of its base.. it reminds me of a giant prehistoric fern! And the big soft leafy plant is just that.. big, soft, and leafy! I love it!


The New Crassula:





















I found a nice Crassula succulent (at the back), which just looks really cool to me. It's similar to a jade, and the more sunlight it gets, the more red the edges of its leaves become. I think it looks like a coral.. I was really excited to find this one!

For now it's with the other succulents but they love the hot sun and little water.. so I might move it to a less intense location sooner than later.






















We're also fostering a beautiful ficus which belongs to our generous neighbors Sascha and Elizabeth (the same ones who have the cat and the plant collection). The ficus was inhabiting the hallway by a window, and it was looking a little under-loved so I took it outside for a trim and a shower. I was bringing it back inside when they commented that they'd been in a period of neglecting it (oops, I didn't know it was theirs!) and that the hallway was brighter without it. I offered to keep it in our place, and they were happy to oblige. Yay! Now we can partially hide the ugly lamp base! Oh, and help partition our big room containing four spaces....

It seems like all I can do is imagine what plants I could put into our empty corners and various surfaces. A big fern on top of the fridge, a pot of succulents at the top of the stairs, some ferns in the bathroom, orchids in the bedroom, a vine on the big dining room lamp, hanging pots from the random hooks in the ceiling, teeny pots of succulents on the bookshelves.... Luckily if we ever do achieve such a full house, the plants here don't require a lot of attention!

Oh, California!

Okay. This is why I moved. Today. It's perfectly perfect -- hot sun, cool gentle breeze, clear deep blue sky, flowering dwarf citrus trees, new lettuce growing outside, plants everywhere indoors.. I could sunbathe on my living room floor. And it's November 2nd. This is completely normal.

Just to keep it real, there are downsides to San Francisco. Last night, Vanessa and I walked down the street to pick up a pizza, and the four or five blocks of our side street were jammed with traffic that instigated constant jaw-droppingly aggressive and dangerous stunts such as pulling onto the sidewalk in order to turn around to grab a parking spot, speeding down the wrong side of the street past a car waiting to park or turn if the heavens opened up and there was an oncoming-traffic-free moment, near dooring of several cyclists, and ambulance clusterf*&^$. When we tried crossing the four-lane Mission Street, the car on the far right southbound lane decided to jump through the crosswalk, into cross traffic, to pull a u-turn and speed through the crosswalk again on the northbound side of the street. If I hadn't REALLY wanted to finish my ginger ale, that can would've been splattered all over that douchebag's car (or lap, if I could've managed to aim so well). Rather than the gun violence Vanessa treated in Chicago, the vast majority of emergencies in SF are car-related: high-speed accidents on the freeway, multi-car pile-ups, car vs. pedestrian, car vs. motorcycle, car vs. bike, fatal moped accidents when it's foggy and the street is slippery.. and on. Most frightening is the frequency of fatal and grossly traumatic accidents that involve cars pinning pedestrians to poles, other cars, or buildings. Vanessa has a habit of looking like an exposed rabbit while we're out walking, because there's no safe place unless we're behind a solid row of parked cars. I think it's because the streets are so narrow here, the city allows vehicles to park all the way to the corner (reducing visibility significantly), it's so darned hilly that it's hard to stop at all those pesky stop signs, the blocks are really short, and there's just way more car traffic than there should be for a city this size (and supposedly so environmentally aware). It all just adds up to potentially dangerous situations everywhere, although I generally feel much safer and at ease riding my bike here than in Chicago. Fewer horns and slower speeds, I think.

But don't let the dangers worry you.. I swear, if I made it through Chicago I can make it here!

Ok, ok.. just let me do this once:
So, uh, how's the weather there? Awww, gross. Sorry! It's like 70 degrees and sunny here! Yeah, I'm painting some chairs on the patio and I'm gonna go get some plants later. Wish you were here!

(Remember, we're open for visits anytime)

Earthquake!

So, I just experienced my first earthquake! We'd just finished a big Italian dinner and some lip-synching to Aretha Franklin.. and the floor started shaking! Vanessa said, "Is that the dishwasher?" And I said, "No! It's an EARTHQUAKE!!!" with a giant grin on my face. Stuff around the room was shaking visibly, and it felt to me like standing up while the school bus is in motion. It only lasted about a minute.

I was elated, but Vanessa kind of freaked out. She shot downstairs and looked out the front door, where she met our neighbor, Caty, who was in a bath robe, hair towel, and face mask. She was getting ready to attend an event, and looked a little nervous that she'd get caught in a catastrophe in that state! I sat at the top of the stairs while they talked, and Caty told us that our building survived the big earthquakes in 1906 and 1989 because we're on bedrock. So unless the neighborhood catches fire or the whole peninsula falls into the ocean, I think we'll be okay. My favorite quote of the month, by Caty: "This is California, girls! Ride it!" We love her.

I was so excited because I've been psyched out several times every day trying to figure out if the shaking I'm feeling is a little tremor or just my heart turning over like it's prone to do. Of course, I've been paying acute attention to these things, being new here and aware of SF's reputation, and it didn't help to read that the area experiences over 10,000 minor earthquakes every year. Most times when I think I feel a tremor, I'm laying in bed waking up, and I feel the mattress shake (as if Vanessa's moving slightly, but I'm actually alone). So it was somewhat climactic to know that an earthquake was DEFINITELY happening and to confirm my suspicions. I didn't feel scared at all, it was just a new experience and it was pretty exciting.

According to AP: "The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and struck shortly after 8 p.m., about 9 miles northeast of San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Residents reported feeling the quake, which lasted about a minute, as far east as Sacramento and as far north as Sonoma in California wine country."

Well, Hello There

Let me break it down for you. First, the name. Squashimi?, some of you might be asking. My dear friend Chris Lacio once called me Squash, because it was easier and more fun to say than Sasha. And some of my favorite food is sashimi, a convenient play off my preferred nickname. Put them together and what do you have? Squashimi!

Second, the title. Adventures in California. Hm. Sounds kind of like a comic book, maybe a little too inflated for its own good.. Well, as most of my friends and family know, I have recently relocated to San Francisco from Chicago. There's a big difference on many levels, from geography to culture, and from population to flora and fauna. It's a difference that I needed in my life, and in the roughly three weeks I've been here, I already feel a huge weight lifted from my formerly curmudgeon-like soul. Every day has become a potential for adventures, and you'll find out how and why (at least for myself) in this blog. I've got a few great examples already!

Third, the motivation. I want to keep in touch with the friends and family I left, and share my experiences because they mean so much to me. Not to make everyone want to move here (well, maybe a little, but only because we miss you so much already!).. just to keep up, offer some inspiration to visit, and hopefully share in all of the fun stuff I do. I'll be honest - I was a grumpy kid in Chicago, and I knew it. I didn't really have anything nice to say, so I mostly kept to myself. I fell out of touch with my family, and with a lot of friends.. or didn't even make a very solid connection, though I realized how great each of them were to have around. So maybe this is a way to redeem myself (oh, internet therapy!), to share the good stuff I'm finally capable of sharing.

Fourth, the contents. I've been having a lot of wonderful experiences in and around San Francisco, and I'm always excited to tell someone about them. I take pictures because pretty much everywhere I look there's something I've never seen before or a breathtaking view. My old passions of food and writing and art are being awakened. I have a wonderful person in my life, who I think is going to stick around for a while. Hopefully there will be a little bit of everything at first, and maybe this forum will come to a focus eventually. For now, I've been excited thinking about posting pictures of our new apartment, recipes we try out and food philosophy on the west coast, info about San Francisco and the cool people/collectives/shops/orgs/etc. that can be found here, progress reports on my new birdwatching/naturalist hobby, and of course travelogues of our many planned trips around California.

I welcome you to my new home on the interweb.. I hope it helps to keep us connected, and I invite you to share your experiences as well. I'm looking forward to linking my friends' spaces, so send me your preferred info for posts. Hooray!