humility

"Whenever you get ready to give up, think about all of those people and remember that you are blessed. Remember that you are blessed. Remember that in exchange for those blessings, you must give something back. You must reach back and pull someone up. You must bend down and let someone else stand on your shoulders so that they can see a brighter future.

As advocate and activist Marian Wright Edelman says, "Service is the rent we pay for living...it is the true measure, the only measure of our success." So graduates, when things get rough and fear sets in, think of those people who paved the way for you and those who are counting on you to pave the way for them. Never let setbacks or fear dictate the course of your life. Hold on to the possiblity and push beyond the fear. Hold on to the hope that brought you here today, the hope of laborers and immigrants, settlers and slaves, whose blood and sweat built this communty and made it possible for you to sit in these seats.

There are a lot of people in your lives who know a little something about the power of hope. Don't we, parents and grandparents? Look, I know a little something about the power of hope. My husband knows a little something about eh power of hope. You are the hope of Merced and of this nation. And be the realization of our dreams and the hope for the next generation. We believe in you. Thank you so much, and good luck. God bless you all.

-Michelle Obama, UC Merced commencement 2009
(reposted from the SF Chronicle, Insight)

et al

Inspired by Gatesy

Top Twenty-Five List of Things That are Good:
1. Kisses! Kissing in general.
2. Blankies.
3. Striped socks.
4. Peppermint taffy
5. reading Catcher in the Rye, again.
6. Having a toddler come sit next to you, put their head on your chest and fall asleep.
7. Pachabel's Canon in D in Piazza San Marco at 11:30pm by a small string quartet
8. Firepits
9. Impromptu potluck get togethers
10. Singing
11. The Belle-Helene crepe at Ti Couz
12. rockclimbing at Ironworks
13. Watching your date make cute faces at toddlers
14. Walking into a room and knowing you look like THE SHIT.
15. eggnog lattes
16. listening to friend who is an amazing musician play for you/harps
17. walks on the beach at dusk in Bay Area Fall.
18. listening to an orchestra tune
19. sitting in the dark looking at a lit Christmas tree
20. foreign boys who flirt
21. massages
22. singing to, "Shoop" by SaltNPepa with your girls, top of your lungs
23. afternoon naps
24. watching weddings
25. homemade ramen night

Top 25 Things that Are NOT Good:
1. Parking tickets
2. finding moth holes in your merino turtleneck
3. fights with your girlfriends
4. smelly socks
5. moldy bread
6. guys who talk louder on their cell phone as you walk by, cause they want you to think they're important
7. getting lost in West Oakland
8. getting laid off
9. anxiety
10. people who are upset at you for no good reason
11. pushy salespeople
12. judgemental relatives
13. when 'Pushing Daisies' got cancelled
14. when you're looking forward to a movie, like Star Wars, and you go and it SUCKS.
15. finding out the exact thing you were fearing is totally true
16. when nobody will return your phone calls
17. bitchy girls at auditions
18. sore throats
19. undereye bags
20. taking a shower when you have a really bad sunburn
21. taxes
22. bullies
23. ear wax (I guess it's good in theory)
24. waiting a really really really long time to get your food
25. getting stuck standing next to a smelly dude on Muni with a billion people at rush hour

When the spirit moves me...

Just tried to write a post about irritation. Life is too short. There are people that I want to hang out with, some of them I actually got to see today. In the mail today, the thank you card from Ohm and the Bean's wedding last year. A gorgeous collage of sunny, sweet, romantic, beautiful wedding shots. And a funny, belated birthday card. And a paycheck.

Post-doc and I had dinner at Tadich Grill last week. Bittersweet as it all is, we cannot change fate, and I've always treasured an kind, funny, honest, genuine person regardless of relationship status. Great guys come and go; I'm glad to have had some of the best. Once again, I'm glad to have proved how deep I can plumb to get to the core of who I am. Hearts have room to heal and I just hope he's one of those people that sticks. Post-doc is good stuff.

I'm almost clear to go to Greece. Almost.

And I got a new phone today.

Went to see Up last night with my co-workers at Bay Street Emeryville. And Pete Docter was THERE. With the writer of Wall-E.

Up was awesome. I cried THREE times. And the 3-D? Not annoying at all.

I literally went to the bathroom after the movie was out. and came back and was all, "Yeah, that guy DOES look like Pete Docter." He went to go see his own movie! That is cool shit people. Proof!

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Dear Universe,

I don't understand.

These people don't have my problem. They FOUND somebody to love them, for a lifetime. Sure, they have issues too, but not the ones that I have. I'm free to marry anyone I like, apparently as long as they have the opposite anatomy of me. ANYONE.

Just 1/2 a century ago, that wasn't possible. Anti-miscegenation laws ran rampant throughout the United States. I could only marry someone that had the opposite anatomy and had the same ethnic genetic code.

But this is love. This is a fight for LOVE. Isn't it hard enough that you make it really really difficult for all of us to find our significant other without making it hard to also say to the world that you love them? Love does not require a Supreme Court decision.

Love is.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

lunch

Just started reading, "Bird by Bird" - Anne Lamott where she mentions that one of the first assignments she ever gives her students is to talk about elementary school lunch time. So I thought I'd take her up on it.

When I was 8, lunch was a weird event. It was indefinitely a status maker or breaker in the grandiose world of elementary school. I think I may have lucked out a tad, since my mom was a teacher - but in general, lunches could mean death or sure survival to the average 7-10 year old.

My best friend Christina always had the best lunches. Her mom would, daily, cut the crusts off her white bread sandwiches and divide it into triangles. Triangles. Not squares or two rectangles, those diagonal cuts would add a whole new dimension to the sandwich. Triangles said you were hip, and gave you plenty of corners to bite off. Christina's mom also used a sweet mayo - which I now know is salad cream, but at the time, I remember thinking, "Aunty Bev's sandwiches always taste better." But that's not where it stopped. Oh no, there weren't just cookies or chips or veggies cut into fun shapes...Chris would whip out her 'My Little Pony' thermos with its blue top and it'd be filled to the brim with...wait for it...Spaghetti-Os.

Saucy, fun shaped and tasty - those lukewarm SpaghettiOs were always part of share time between me and Chris. If anything could have made Christina cooler at age 8, I'm waiting for y'all to tell me. When I was about 12, and sort of missing my elementary best friends (I ended up going to a different middle school), I went to Costo and got a 6 pack of SpaghettiOs. They were disgusting. Too sweet, mushy and saucy, they lived for the next ten years in our kitchen cabinet until they were donated to a food drive. Whatever magical allure Chef Boyardee had for me at age 8 went away the second they weren't served from a plastic thermos any longer.

The best thing about my best friend is that she was generous to a fault. I mean, over the top. I've always been lucky that way. There was never a day when Chris wouldn't share some of her preservative filled pasta or one of her mom's amazing cookies.

On the other hand, my dad's latent creativity and propensity for frugality led to some "interesting" lunches. Cha siu sandwiches...with mayo. Tuna salad with egg salad. (which isn't that bad, per se, but starts to smell 1/2 way through the day) Wheat bread, never white. Too much mayo. Later on, it was salad with lunchmeat and fruit. I think the thing I hated the most was the bananas. I don't know how or why, but bananas ripened faster than a ho stripping at Tommy Lee's house in my bookbag. And then I would ignore them. And they would stay inside my lunchbag indefinitely. Until the stench got to be too much. See, my dad's frugality also meant that nothing was wasted. If you didn't eat it the day before, you had to eat it the next day. Squashy, brown banana when you're 8 is like eating death. Point of fact, I didn't even like bananas until I turned 20. And ate them directly from the fruit bowl instead of the one that had sat inside my lunch bag all day.

Even though I am still very much a child of ritual, my tastes have changed since I was 8. When I was 7-10, the first lunch of every school semester was ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS, egg salad. It was a special request, and school wouldn't have properly started unless my first day of class had an egg salad sandwich and sour cream and onion chips in my lunch bag. I don't know what made me love this squishy, squashy + crunchy combo. The amalgamation of flavors, dehydrated cheese and fat and salt still makes think of the first day of class. I don't even remember when I stopped liking egg salad. And the nouveau comeback of deviled eggs makes me nostalgic for more than gingham tableclothes.

Every now and then, on a Friday, I could convince my father to give me a whole dollar and ten cents for hot lunch - which quite honestly, was a novelty. You would go in the morning, down to the lunch room and put your money into a little envelope on the wall. I think it was the same envelope they used to paste into library books; the lunch room ones were all arranged by class. Manilla with an itemized list glued on top. You'd write your name down and be on your merry way. It almost became a point of pride to eat hot lunch on Friday. Your best friends did it, and if it was pizza? Score. It wasn't til we were 10 that we started to notice that the pizza "crust" was really leftover waffles from the morning. To add insult to injury, they were whole wheat waffles.

But Friday was almost always the day to get something with mashed potatoes and gravy. Synthetic mashed potatoes and weird gelatinous gravy and cubed turkey. The coup was if you got served tater tots (Thursday was tater tot day). Tater tots and a oddly pressed burger with ketchup and some overcooked veg were delicious served out of those pastel plastic trays that you had to stand in line for and get from the lunch lady.

Lunch isn't the same anymore. These days, you still wait in line, but it's for a gut busting burrito or oily Chinese food or a overpriced salad. But I wonder if this is where my love of mac and cheese or french bread pizza comes from. The feeling that something synthetic, pre-prepared and overly seasoned is somehow better. And sometimes, I yearn for the days when I was happiest eating a triangle of sandwich and some sweetened canned pasta.

don't make me knife you.

Dear Universe:

I'm fucking pissed. I'm tired of this "busy" business. Or this "professor post-doc" business. I'm tired of you putting quite lovely, intelligent and caring men in my life and then taking them away. It's almost worse than putting crappy guys in my life. At least with those, I have an excuse to kick them to the curb and have them outted as douches to the entire community. With the good guys, they're trying to please you too and they think the way to do that is to drop me. I'm tired of not being in a healthy, supportive, loving, relationship, not having a ring and not having a house or kids. Stop dangling the carrots. I've had quite enough of your crap.

If you had a manual for how to get through relationships, you omitted mine in the orientation. Or when you passed out the list to get one, you passed by my row. And you automatically handed it to the clique of mean girls in the row behind me. The ones who had been putting gum in my hair, laughing at my haircut and calling me fat. And you gave them the cream of the crop? Um, HELLO?! Not in the least bit fair.

Stop shoving the wedding announcements, engagement photos, diamond rings and baby pictures into my eyeline. Especially when the girl is a self-absorbed bully or the guy is a cheater and a-hole. (my friends, that's genuine love, that's ok. But if you can get them to stop complaining about their relationships and also recognize that I'm HURT that I'm not in one, so I can't really rejoice in their coupledom, can you run that by them?) Stop offering up these ridiculous guys who catcall or think they're being slick when they leer and flirt. If all they want is the ego boost, they need to look elsewhere, I'm through with that.

What happened? Is this for the 38 year old that I never went out with again? Or the 39 year old whom I didn't have anything in common with so I never called him back? The guy who asked me out because he lusts after everything in a skirt but didn't have any one real thing in common with me? Or because you really do like my ex's depressed, obsessive-compulsive psychopath of an ex-girlfriend better? Is this for the time I pushed my brother off the bed when he was 6? Or when we didn't talk to one of our friends for a month because we thought she was being arrogant? The times that I didn't give my spare change to the homeless for another crack rock? The shopping sprees? WHAT?!

You owe me. You owe me for all the times I bit my tongue, took the critique, watched as my exes cheated, flirted and generally neglected me. I have been a GOOD girl. I have been a GOOD woman. I have had patience, faith and fortitude. I have treated people fairly and with love. I've washed my dishes, bought birthday presents and baked cookies. I've taken classes, read books and seen lifecoaches. At least tell me what's wrong so I can fix it. You've put up this non-communication wall so that you hold all the cards and I'm helpless. I've tried your STUPID methods and all of them are SHITTY, so tell me what you need me to do because you're dumb.

I DESERVE a good man. The best, in fact, so deal with it and write it into your schedule. And it's about FUCKING time that you gave it up, because frankly I am about to take a machete to your kneecaps.

And I'm gonna go to Greece. You'd better make that happen too.
Me.

ps. Battle Royale, wtf? That was some seriously messed up shiznit.

no use wind

Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off
the aspen tree a month too soon.
No use wind. All you succeed
in doing is making music, the noise
of failure growing beautiful.
-Bill Holm, "August in Waterton, Alberta"

Still reading, "Bird by Bird" - still voraciously quoting.

But you can't get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don't have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses taht we were told not to go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in - then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home. - Anne Lamott

*art is by RobDario...cool no?

ojai

Oh BTW...hello if you accidentally (or purposely) clicked on over here from Richie's blog. What's up? I forgot the power of the interwebs means that you can totally look up yourself and find out where you've been linked or written about.

If you're new here; please feel free to poke around, but I don't write anything NEARLY as coherent or cohesive as Richie does. I have a lot of varying interests of varying levels of involvement or experience. I do a little theater, a little design, a little shopping, a little food, a little introspection, a little spiritual. In other words, I'm a jack of all trades but a master of none.

My name is kept on the DL for personal reasons, leave me a comment with your email and I'll be more than happy to divulge trade secrets.
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(sigh) FB2B by the way. Sweaty people from Alameda, Concord, Lafayette and Burlingame all up in my grill, dressing like morons and clogging my streets - I'm glad you did a 12k walk in 85+ degree weather dressed like Sponge Bob. Suckers.
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OMG...emo bloggers. STOP!! Seriously, life is meant to be lived!! Have a good time - eat good food, go out in the sunshine, listen to good music and rock out, only hang out with the people that make you go to your happy place. Yes, you just got out of college, yes the economy blows, yes you might be living with your parents or that girl might not be in love with you the way you are with her or you sit around thinking that life has handed you roadblocks instead of doorways.

And trust me, that's just YOU.

And what I mean is that what you're feeling is important, but not as important as what you decide to do with that. You can stay stuck in feeling that your depression is the most important thing on earth. Or that no one will love you. Or that everything would be perfect in your life if he would just love you the way you need to be loved. Or that you will stay stuck where you are. Believe me, I get it. I have those days too - I'm not perfect. Far from it.

But you gotta dig yourself out of your own hole.
love isn't love unless they love you back.
your song is beautiful when you're the one singing

less IS more

Broke these bad boys in today at Wicked. Walked from the house to the bank to the train and then around the Orpheum. Um...and they are COMFORTABLE! This is such a new development for me. I'm so used to my shoes being ridiculously uncomfortable upon first try, that these sweet little wedges were a revelation. But my toesies are still intact and no shin splints. Might be the new go-to footwear. Added plus? I got them thrifted for $17.50. And they were brand new Steve Madden. w00t!
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Here's a question for those of you who are interested in those sorts of things (in light of the above blurb, slightly hypocritical):

Do you feel that in the current economy, you've been doing so much downsizing (of expenses, consumption etc.) that when you actually do some legitimate spending/eating...you start to feel sick?

So today, I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum as a belated b-day present from my aunt. The tickets were balcony, but they were center front row - so they were totally awesome. As an early b-day present for my cousin, I got us both hoodies. And then afterwards we went to Max's for dinner. And I literally felt sort of sick eating there. Not that the food isn't great, but there's just so much of it. And I thought about all the consumption I've been doing this weekend. Friday had a carbo load glut with pizza and garlic bread at lunch, cake afterwards and then goat cheese stuffed beignets for dinner. Saturday was sitting on my ass and included lots of noodles and potato salad. I literally feel like I have to consume only water for the next couple of days. And purge myself of purses and shoes.

I've gotten used to the minimalism of the past few months. Of the simplicity of no coffee or a simple house drip. Of not eating the breakfast pastries. Of walking to work every day. Of saving instead of spending. Of conserving instead of wasting. Of asking myself, "Do you NEED this?" and if the answer is "no" then passing on it.

And genuinely enjoying the new thrifty me.

And yet, I find myself slowly falling into my old patterns of spending too much and not saving enough. Eating out. Shopping, spending way too much on overpriced items. And feeling, for lack of a better word, disgusted with myself. I know we all need to allow ourselves our little luxuries. But hey, if my parents could do without, so can I. It's ok to order a salad for dinner if that's all I feel like eating. (Especially if someone else is paying) It's ok to spend the entire day drinking water from the tap. And it's ok to not have the same things that my friends have. Because if they're going to judge me on what shoes I wear, what bag I carry or what clothes I have on my back - they probably weren't good friends in the first place.

I need to go back to the feeling of need. Instead of the feeling of want.

Be a singer, be a lover...

The trailer for Nine is up!



Watch in Super HD on Apple.com

It's not horrific, but then again, Judi Dench and Daniel Day-Lewis? That's friggin' fantastic. But if that's Stephanie Necrophorus in that white beaded go-go dress? I'm gonna shit a brick.

Relevance and Beauty

So I'm of half a mind right now to post this video. Because quite honestly, I'm not in love with this speaker as I am with so many of the TED lectures. But what I am intrigued and inspired by, is the message; the inherent codependency..or rather, the rationale of comparing the analytical and intuitive, when really - neither can exist without the other. That Art and Science are not two different fields of academia, but rather, there exists in every mathematical equation an elegance and artistic quality, just as in every orchestral composition or dance piece, an element of the sciences. That they two -both art and science (or intuitive and analytical) must co-exist within the other's distinct category. We as humans have distinguished for the benefit of our analytical brains made-up differences between what we call the arts (poetry, music, dance, theater, literature, painting and other media arts) and the sciences (all the -ology/ies + -osophy/ies), when there is just as much beauty in a finely developed model of DNA as there is physical and theoretical data underneath a symphonic work.

We just have to start to admit to ourselves, the days of valuing one over the other are through, because one cannot exist without the other, science and art are natural partners. In the days of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, one was not considered a "whole" person unless they had equal and thorough knowledge of: the Classics, Astrology, Physics, Socrates, Euclid, Greek, Latin, Dance, Deportment, Etiquette and Poetry as well as a musical instrument and adeptness at some sport. These days, many people are content just to be good at one thing. And one might argue that it takes a lifetime of commitment and dedication to get "good" at just one thing. And yet, I ask you, where is your balance then? How do you balance your light and your dark? If you are purely analytical or purely intuitive, what parts of life are you missing out on because you either listen too much to your head or your heart. You are made up of BOTH, and you as a human being must determine how much of each to use.




Science is what makes art Beautiful and Art is what makes science relevant.

On seeing.

Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.
-Anne Lamott, "Bird by Bird"

there it is.

Happy Mother's Day! Hope that everyone had a good one.
We went to Sam's Chowder House in Pacifica...or Half Moon Bay...or El Granada..well, it's on the way to Half Moon Bay.For the last couple of years, my parents have been making a tradition of heading down to Half Moon Bay for Mother's Day Brunch, but due to the most recent disappointments in both Cetrella and Pasta Moon, this year they opted for Sam's Chowder House, just up the road in El Granada on Hwy 1. Sam's is pretty much your typical neighborhood seafood restaurant focused on good food and fresh flavors - the executive chef, Lewis Rossman puts his emphasis on seasonal, local and sustainable food. The emphasis is California classic - using good ingredients negates the need for heavy sauces. Chowders have less cream, and freshness takes precedence over richness. (Plus, Rossman is sort of a hottie, we saw him while we were there. Cu-ute)
Don't let the exterior of the restaurant scare you away. While rather pedestrian looking from the outside, inside -the hardwood floors, outdoor seating and large open oyster bar and kitchen are refreshingly modern. This is most definitely a family place (kids abound everywhere), but would also be a good destination date restaurant with the beach a few steps away and outdoor firepits and deck overlooking the seashore making for a romantic quiet spot.
House drinks on tap sounded interesting (esp. the limeade with Hangar One vodka), but I had coffee. Starters were: Oysters Rockerfeller and Polenta Fries - ahhh, sorry, forgot to take pics of this. Oysters Rockerfeller is a pretty classic preparation; baked oysters with cream, cheese and spinach. There are five to an order, and they're pretty darn delicious, especially with the house sourdough. We also had an order of the polenta fries, which were tasty - thick cut sticks of polenta about an inch around and 6in. long, piping hot and cheesy. But as there were only 4 of them to an order, probably not something I'll plan on ordering again.
Entrees:I had Sam's World Famous Lobster Roll. Apparently voted one of the 5 best sandwiches in the world by some Food Network contest, this would probably be on my list of one of the things to eat again before I die. An entire buttery roll stuffed full of lobster meat, mixed with a little bit of celery, dill and more butter - served with kettle chips and coleslaw. While in New England, the lobster roll is traditionally served on a hot dog bun, Sam's does them one better and serves their roll on a crusty, soft, white roll number. I can't even tell you what this tastes like other than a freshly made bakery bun. It's to DIE for. Every bite of that crispy, greasy roll with the sweet lobster meat and crunchy celery made me want to gasp. It was THAT good. And you have to eat it all together. I was delicately picking at the spare pieces of lobster with my fork, until I picked up the sandwich and took a proper bite. After that, I didn't want to share. But I did. Sprinkle some malt vinegar on those chips and you're good to GO!Mymymy ended up ordering a bowl of the New England clam chowder and the poke. I didn't get a taste of the chowder, but it looked good. The quality of the fish in the poke was incredibly fresh, but everything was overpowered by the tortilla chips which I think were house made. They were really..."corny" and the delicateness of the tuna and any marinade was lost behind the overwhelming fried corn taste of the chips. I think scooping up a bite with my potato chips would have made more sense. Mr. Jones just got the fish and chips that were served with the same coleslaw that my lobster roll came with. Again, it looked like he enjoyed the dish. The fish looked well cooked and the fries crispy. Then again, how hard is it to screw up fish and chips?
The Germ ended up ordering the grilled escolar with white beans and cabbage. The only part he didn't like was the black olive tapenade on top. He took a couple of bites and told me, "I wish I knew what he was trying to accomplish with this dish." And I snagged and bite and sort of agreed. I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be going on. The escolar is a lovely piece of fish - juicy and oily. It was grilled nicely and kept it's flavors, both the natural juices and the smoke from the grill. The white beans were huge and tasted fine, but there seemed to be something missing. I wanted either a citrus acid in there or a fattiness - from pancetta maybe, that was just missing. Lastly was the summer berry pudding. A concoction of cake, fresh summer berries with a swath of sweetened creme fraiche (or marscapone) on top with a sprinkling of crystalized orange peel on top. All four of us split this as we were pretty stuffed from everything else. (and the 2.5 loaves of bread we tore through) It was light and quite delicate in taste, even though the berry flavors were bright, I didn't feel like I was eating a gut bomb of food. As a summer pudding, it was quite delicious and not as heavy as a cake or piece of pie.

All in all, I really liked Sam's Chowder House and spending the day with the fam. It capped off a great weekend that started with Bi-Rite ice cream and Keane on Friday night (I hung out with the Krantz who had an extra ticket due to illness) and chillin' with some of the Niners, then a beautiful Saturday in class tackling some Sondheim and then onto Sam's with some Star Trek afterwards.
Go see Star Trek, it's frickin' AWESOME, btw. The special effects are crazy good and Zachary Quinto as Spock...well, wufh, let's just say - SEXY. Sexy Spock. That's amazing, because Chris Pine is really cute, but Quinto...aiyiyi. And thankfully Winona Ryder has a minimal amount of screen time. Just...go see it, John Cho, Simon Pegg and Zoe Saldana also make fantastic character choices.

Which goes to show...even alone, we're not lonely. We're never really alone unless we chose to be.
please god, let me not be jinxing this: "I'm not the same, I am afraid. I'm scared to death, to love the way i once did. If I surrender would it hurt me like it did back then? ...maybe it's time to let him in, start my heart over and let this new chapter begin. with him. well, there it is...yes, there it is." - Keys, Scott Alan

PSA

I'm sort of tired of people alternately fetish-sing then hating on Asian girls (even me).

Get over your own damn insecurities.

STFU already.

Even me.

Spring..again. huzzah!

Welcome back Spring! We missed ya. Oof, I took this on my walk to work the other day and there was a dude playing cello at the fountain and it was so gorgeous and 70s and peaceful and umph...happiness. I did NOT want to go to work on this day. I wanted to sit my ass on the grass and sunbathe and be funemployed - so I pretended for about 15 minutes. But then I remembered...I like shoes.

So much good stuff has been going on! I'm still finding new and inspirational books to read, it's a little sick and I need to stop cause my brain is going to essplode. By the way, today's Wayne Dyer is AWESOME.

Surround Yourself with High-Energy People

Choose to be in close proximity to people who are empowering, who appeal to your sense of connection to intention, who see the greatness in you, who feel connected to God, and who live a life that gives evidence that Spirit has found celebration through them.

So I'm still reading the Twyla Tharp book and in chunks when I can really take the time to absorb all the fantastic bits. I really feel like it's NOT pleasure reading. It's almost like reading something for class, and every word that she writes is so amazing that I need to literally set aside time to read it. I tried reading it in a little gap before work one day and ended up being pissed at myself that I had to stop because I was getting so into it. So I'm only about 1/3 of the way through. What's still so interesting to me about what I consider "New York" artists is the sense of restraint and restriction that I feel so many of them still live their lives by. It's as if one of the requirements to be a real artist is to eat/sleep and socialize very little. I understand dedication, but eschewing lunch? That's a little wickety whack to me.
I also started reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott after finding it in my parent's library. I went through the first 65 pages last night and had to stop in order to write a lunch room entry. It's ridiculously good. Bird by Bird is a writer's musing on the art of writing, and you will get absolutely absorbed into the stories. One part manual, one part autobiography and one part inspirational tome, Bird by Bird makes me want to be a writer, which is crazy cause girl-don't-need-to-do-more-than-she-doin'-right-now, but hey, here's to dreaming. This poem just hits all the right spots for me:

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.
-Wendell Barry, "The Wild Rose"

And then there's THIS book. I was looking in the quasi-career section today because I left about an hour early for class and I was thinking of writing a book like this (yes, please ignore all the 180s I've done during this one blog post alone) and picked it up. I'm glad that someone FINALLY wrote about the reality of relationships - that there are sinks of dirty dishes and times when you want to throttle your partner to death and it's OK. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't and the REALITY of realtionships doesn't mean that right after you get married you walk into happy fairy fluffy cotton candy magic sprinkles land. I've been in horrid relationships and I've been completely content and satisfied single, it's just about perspective, I suppose. I think one of the most single important lessons that I've learned about love is, no matter how short or long, it's always worth it. So don't ever turn it away just because it'll end. Everything ends, it just matters what you make of it while it's there. You are here to love, so LOVE.

so sayeth the cup.

"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life." - Anne Morriss

native

I've been reading some SF-centric blogs and realized, that as a native, I've never posted my favorite things about being a native. Here goes:

• the long ass pier close to the ferry plaza
• new castro farmer's market. totally chi-chi, poo poo, but I got the most fabulous raspberry square there today from the pastisserie stand. delicious
• stern grove summer concerts, all day picnics - amazing
• golden gate bakery egg custard tarts
• ocean beach
• fillmore street jazz festival
• new steinhart - that whole building is amazing from the rainforest dome to the basement waterway and green roof. spectacular.
• el toyanese trucks
• Mission Street Food
• samovar
• Cafe Du Nord and Slims
• Blue Bottle Coffee + Philz
• mission street murals
• haight street craziness
• ti couz
• ambiance
• The F line cars - though they run slower than molasses
• and somewhat begrudgingly...Gavin.
• CounterPULSE
• pizzetta 211
• wondercon
• the darkroom
• bi-rite creamery and the indian ice cream parlor on valencia and polly ann's
  
• the CNY parade and treasure hunt
  
• Also see: OnlyInSF
  

Salt House

Short post: this food made me want to dance in my seat. And I did.

Long post: So after my dad's quite charming admission of, "Hey, we're busy on Friday night." and hopeful plans with others that fell through, I decided to call up the guys and we busted a move down to Salt House for my ACTUAL b-day.

I completely forget where I got the idea from to head to Salt House, but I have a feeling it may have been from Joey's Flickr (she takes some of the best food pictures I've ever seen) - I like how the web description of their website starts, "From the same jackasses that brought you Town Hall..."



Well, I dunno about jackasses, but I have to say, this was some of the best food I'd had in quite some time. Nopa was good, this was FANTASTIC. That's not to say it wasn't all fun and games. It was pure living hell trying to drive the 10 blocks from Potrero Hill to SOMA - mainly we kept trying to skirt the commuters in the rain, but at one point Nim and I ended up driving the wrong way past what we thought were a bunch of parked cars. It wasn't til we saw the turn arrows in OUR lane facing the wrong direction that we were all, "OH! Whoops!!" and "ahhaa! Holy crap!" We did get quite good parking, as all the spots open up at 6pm on the street. The bathrooms at Salt House are unfortunately shared with the nightclub next door and are therefore cleaned appropriate to the clientele. And the happy hour bar definitely deserves the bomb for the noise level - note to designers, industrial design equals many many hard surfaces for sound to reverberate off of. But other than that...

Service: first of all, OUTSTANDING from beginning to end. Even though I think we had two separate servers and the restaurant was incredibly busy. We're talking stress level busy. But all the staff was amazingly attentive, made great suggestions, never overbearing or stuck-up. Perfect. The open kitchen and cool oyster shucking area were also great attractions to watch while we noshed on homemade pickles and the pain de mie.

First courses:
Trio of Fois Gras
So Ohm was the one who ordered this, and I'm becoming quite impressed with his expensives tastes lately. He's also the one that ordered a glass of 12 year old Glenlivet. Moward, Nim and I had no idea what the difference between a single malt and a distilled malt was (same barrel vs. different barrel) so we amused ourselves by looking it up on Wikipedia.
The fois was quite good (and it's soon to be banned in California, stupid PETA people) and included a torchon of fois - which was basically a terrine of pate - but it was so smooth and rich that I closed my eyes when eating it. A seared piece of the liver served over a kumquat compote and a smoked duck breast salad. Ok, I was all for the pate and the smoked duck. In fact, the latter packed quite a smoky kick, but one piece was PERFECT. The kumquat compote tasted a bit like marmalade, so I stuck to the smear of quince paste on the side.
This photo combines our other two appetizers: in the background a nicely mild rinded goat cheese with more of the quince paste, sliced green apple and red pears with crostini. I had a bit of each and this plate was simple but deceivingly delicious. The fruit was perfectly ripened and went well with the mellow cheese, crisp crostini and the intensely flavored paste.

But next was the POUTINE. Poutine is a Canadian import. Generally, it is a dish of french fries with a sizeable handful of cheese curds, smothered in brown gravy. The Salt House version is a bit more refined with the excellent fries served with a melted layer of white cheddar, parsley and then spooned on top, tableside, a wine enriched short rib gravy. Knock my head off now and take me to paradise, I want to eat this when I die. You'd think the combination would be gross, but it's delicious. Once you have a taste, you don't want to stop.

As Mike said, looking first at the poutine and then at the fois gras: "I like that we're eating at both ends of the dining spectrum." (heh, that's how we roll)

Entrees:
Nim and I both had the lamb loin. This was absolutely the most fantastic lamb I'd had in a really long time. Each piece was moist and flavorful, with a great sear on the outside and a gorgeous pink color on the inside. Even though the serving looks small, because each bite packs a lot of flavor, you don't feel like you're missing out. I also liked the little bits up at the top corner. It made me feel like I really did get all of the lamb that was available.
The lamb was served atop a turnip fennel puree and fresh English peas and a red wine demi glace. Each of the items complimented the richness of the lamb well: the freshness of the peas, the sweet mellowness of the puree and the tangier sweetness of the sauce. But the perfect accompaniment, to me, were the four little braised lamb shank stuffed ravioli that came with the dish. The flavors of each of these was so incredibly layered that ever time I ate one, I started dancing in my chair. I can't really describe the flavor other than an explosion of sweet, well spiced, juicy shreds of meat inside a perfectly al dente pasta.


Then there was Moward's seared halibut on top of peas and carrots with a pork reduction drizzled around the side and slices of braised pork belly on the side.
The flavors were quite amazing. And as Moward said:
"I like it when my fish is served with PORK." (I guess it would defeat the purpose if you were Catholic, but otherwise the flavors work really well)

Background: Ohm had himself a more subdued entree of white polenta and spring veggies. He said that the combination was really well balanced. Nim kept calling it risotto.

The Bean said her entree of seared tuna was excellent. I think what made me the most curious was the combination of veggies - arugula and whole nutty grains underneath were visually really interesting - although taste wise I would have been really curious. The Bean also noted that the sauce drizzled around the edge of the plate was too salty.





Dessert: Mmm...my favorite course.

Banana cream pie with creme fraiche top, medjool date caramel, fresh bananas and butter pastry served with homemade nutter butters.

This was the favorite of both Moward and Ohm. I really enjoyed this dessert; especially since the creme fraiche atop the pastry was so refreshing.




Next up was the hazelnut chocolate pot de creme: this dessert was silky and unctous. I love when you tell the texture and consistency of a dish just by dipping your spoon in. This was like eating a gorgeous silky pie filling. Note the cocoa nibs atop the whipped cream. I liked the salty hazelnut layer as a good match to the richer and mellowed chocolate layer.
This was a very deceptive dessert, you would think that you only had about two spoonfuls, when in reality, it was so addictive that you ended up having about six.


We also shared the cookie platter out of which the chocolate chip was the best and the oatmeal raisin a close second. The oatmeal raisin had a ton of nutmeg in it which I really enjoyed, but the other three cookies seemed like afterthoughts. The texture was overcooked and the macaroon was...well I think I don't like coconut that much.

But at the bottom of the photo? The caramel bread pudding with sauteed pears and rum sauce pooled at the bottom of the bowl? My hands down favorite. The vanilla ice cream on top just made everything in this bowl a PERFECT bite. I would come back to Salt House just for dessert and just for this one dish. Again, this was one of these dishes that had me dancing in my seat.

Classic American food with a twist. Everything coming out of this kichen looked and smelled amazing. Service was wonderful and the bill was pretty reasonable. Afterwards we headed back to Ohm and the Bean's place where we proceeded to watch 3-4 episodes of the Venture Bros and I slept on the couch. Thus endeth a wonderful b-day weekend.

Salt House
Category: American (New)

Neighborhood: SOMA
545 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94104

(415) 543-8900

www.salthousesf.com