Foggy glasses and chocolate men

Ordering noodle soup can sometimes be a tricky thing. The steam rising from the hot bowl of soup fogs up my glasses and turns everything to a gray misty haze. So, when ordering soup, I have to be prepared with my contacts or willing to suffer through a blurry dinner. Tonight, I was willing to suffer.

I met Jon at his house (secretly hoping that I would meet his roommate to see if she really is as repulsive as he describes her) and we walked to Thai Place II on Divisadero at Page. I ordered the Noodle Tom Yum Soup, which was rice noodles in a soup of ground chicken, fish balls, sliced fish paste, prawns, mung bean sprouts, peanuts, and lime. It smelled heavenly when it arrived, the steam wafting up to my nose and tempting me to plunge my face into it. The noodle soup was just what I wanted, warm and full of flavorful random bits floating around. The noodles required the perfect amount of chewing effort, the prawns were tender, and soup tasted of lime, chili, and peanuts but was just a little too salty. The best part of it, however, was that the dish didn’t fog up my glasses one bit, which allowed me to watch everything going on in the restaurant and outside once I switched spots so that Jon and I were sitting next to each other and both with a full view of the restaurant action.

I returned to my place after dinner and ate the last body parts of the chocolate and butterscotch Christmas figures with a foreign “Demeestere” label that Ward brought with him from New York. St. Nicholas’ chocolate head provided the right amount of sweetness to the night’s meal.

Catching up

Apparently, my blogging frequency wanes every now and again. And, recently, I haven’t been on top of it [read: been swamped with reading essays that make me cringe]. So, sadly, there have been some good meals (and some not so good meals) that have fallen to the wayside. Here’s list of my eats in the past week or so (and, perhaps, there’ll be more description of the more memorable ones to come in the near future):

Friday, November 18
-Mediterranean food from some organic restaurant near work after a scavenger hunt of Japantown: hummus, pita bread, dalmas, spinach pancake thing, a salad made mostly with parsley, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, feta cheese salad, falafel.
-A soggy Nutella and banana crepe.
-Stir-fry broccoli and chicken with brown rice.

Saturday, November 19
-Smart Start cereal.
-Chinese wedding banquet at Legendary Palace in Oakland with about ten courses and old Chinese people singing karaoke (the highlight of which was Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”).

Sunday, November 20
-Pancakes topped with vanilla yogurt and strawberry preserve.
-Thai food with Julie from Ploy II on Haight. We split an eggplant dish and duck curry.

Monday, November 21
-Everything bagel with cream cheese and coffee from my usual work-stop café.
-Leftover broccoli-chicken stir-fry with rice.
-A frozen burrito (it was one of those nights again).

Tuesday, November 22
-Chicken burrito from some taqueria on North Point.
-Thanksgiving potluck with work colleagues and all the usual Thanksgiving items, some with an Asian flare.

Wednesday, November 23
-Smart Start cereal.
-Lunch with Bill at Isobune, where sushi plates floated on little boats in front of us.
-Leftover bread stuffing.

Thursday, November 24
-Thanksgiving marathon eating.

Friday, November 25
-Egg, sausage, corn scramble with mashed potato pancakes, rolls, pecan pie, and coffee.
-Pear cider at Blue Danube.
-Dinner at Burma Superstar with Scott, Ward, Brandi, Ian, and Jeanne: lychee julep, coconut rice, cardamom and cinnamon rice, pumpkin and pork curry, shrimp curry, a noodle dish, tea leaf salad, catfish noodle soup, sesame beef, another beef dish with tomatoes.
-Ice cream and pumpkin pie.

Saturday, November 26
-Thanksgiving leftovers: fried shells and cheese, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, brussel sprouts, carrots, with French limonade
-A smoothie thing and pumpkin cheesecake from the pseudo café at the bottom of the San Francisco Shopping Centre.
-Spicy Thai Kettle Chips and nacho cheese Doritos.
-Dinner at Café Kati with Jeanne: spring rolls, watercress and beat salad, stuffed quail, tilapia with pumpkin gnocchi, chocolate orbit cake, a bottle of pinot noir.

Sunday, November 27
-Eggs and sausage with sweet potato pie.
-Double latte at Momi Toby’s.
-Leftover bean salad and turkey.
-More Kettle Chips and Doritos.
-Bits of turkey carcass as I was making stock.
-Dinner at Minako with Colin, Eleanor, Lisa, and Jeremy: black sea bass with pickles, miso soup, rice, and a salad tossed with tomato and onion dressing.
-Prohibition Speakeasy at Dalva.

Café Kati

It’s hard to tell the owner and chef of a restaurant that you’re not going to eat at his place after he’s come out into the cold to regale you with a story of intelligentsia secret knocks. That’s what happened to Jeanne and me.

We walked to Café Kati, a place that my friend Connie had wanted to take me to before she moved to Boston, to look at the menu. We had many eating options along Fillmore and wanted to make sure we scoped all of them out before settling. This was going to be her last meal in San Francisco for a while so it had to be spectacular.

As we stood outside the window of Café Kati to read the menu, Kirk Webber, the chef and proprietor, opened the door in his chef’s suit and proceeded to chat us up. It’s a marketing tool employed at various restaurants, most notably the ones in North Beach, where the human touch is supposed to convince passersby that they are suddenly hungry for whatever food is served within. But, with Kirk, it was different. It didn’t feel like a catcall from some greasy-haired Italian man trying to woo me with his garlicy noodles. It felt like he really wanted to welcome us to his restaurant, to make us a guest in his home, and to simply create a pleasant dining experience for us.

We followed Kirk inside. He introduced us to Jen (the new hostess who had been working for only a week), his girlfriend who was sitting at the bar and whose name I forgot although I sat next to her and chatted with her for almost the entirety of our meal, and to the kitchen staff as he gave us a tour of the place. Jeanne wondered how often he gave tours of the place and if the kitchen staff knew that this was his deal with young women who were virgins to his restaurant (this, apparently, is common chef behavior, according to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential).

The restaurant was dark, warm, and crowded with people in suits with ties and nice makeup (I felt embarrassingly underdressed in my bedtime tank top, jeans with a grease stain, and holey Chucks). Kirk poured us glasses of fruity pinot noir as he sat us at the bar and Jen set our places.

Jeanne and I were still studying the menu, trying to decide what to get, when a plate of spring rolls appeared before us. It was their Vietnamese style mango spring rolls with dipthong sauce. Not only did they look spectacular cut into pieces to reveal the colorful orange and green inside and topped with fried bean thread, but they were delicious. The rice wrapper was chewy yet soft. The mint was a refreshing contrast to the spicy kick of the sauce the crept up on my tongue.

The appetizer that we chose was the beet salad with watercress dressed with a caramelized shallot and sherry vinaigrette, blue cheese, and candied walnuts. It was an artistically deconstructed salad, with rounds of white beet stacked on top of each other at one end of the long rectangular dish and a small mound of bright green watercress on the other with the walnuts and cheese meeting in the middle. The watercress was fresh and crisp, and the dressing was full-flavored and rich while maintaining a certain lightness. The white beets were an interesting sight, simply for the fact that I had never seen beets that color before. They tasted just like the red kind and were perfectly tender. The cheese and nuts were the highlights of the dish though. The cheese was creamy, salty, and smooth, a sharp contrast that worked well with the crunchy sweetness of the walnut.

Our entrees included the tilapia with wild mushrooms, pumpkin gnocchi, spinach, and porcini mushrooms and the wild rice stuffed quail with Chinese broccoli, foie gras, sweet potatoes, and a port pomegranate sauce. The filets of tilapia were flakey and just a little crisp around the edges, but a bit too salty for my taste. The pumpkin gnocchi, however, was fantastic. They were little pale orange pillows of buttery smooth delicateness that simply melted away in my mouth.

I was not as big of a fan for Jeanne’s quail though. The rice stuffing was a bit hard to chew and grainy. It was too much work for my mouth without a big payoff in taste. The quail was tasty though and I could have eaten Chinese broccoli all night long.

Jeanne and I had planned to save room for dessert (Jen had assured us that there were to-go boxes) but we cleaned our plates and mopped up every last drop of sauce. Still, we said we would look at a dessert menu. We were just about to place our order for the chocolate orbit cake when a huge waft of chocolate hit me. Kirk had plopped down a huge dish with a sizable chocolate mousse-looking mound on one side and a scoop of vanilla ice cream that sat atop a cookie on the other behind our menu. Kirk really was a magician with food, complete with the ability to read minds. This chocolate “cake” was made only with egg, butter, and chocolate and was more of a mousse than a cake. With each bite, I felt my bridesmaid dress get tighter and tighter. The dessert was incredibly rich and decadent. We asked Jen if she had tried it yet, and when she said no, we insisted that she grab a fork and she did, mmm-ing at the wonder just as we did.

As our meal was winding down, we tried to figure out why we were treated so well. During the span of our two-hour meal, we learned the life of Kirk (how he started cooking at age 13, moved from Orange County to San Francisco to study at the California Culinary Academy, started Café Kati at the age of 23, was married for 22 years to a woman ten years his senior and recently divorced, has a 12 year old son whose dating life consists of holding hands, how he’d been almost killed twice in the past two years, how he lost his sense of smell and considered closing Café Kati until his power to smell miraculously returned), we met the entire restaurant staff, we chatted about my work and even attempted at providing an on-spot counseling session, and we got treated to tons of delicious food. For such an established restaurant, it seemed as if they were going above and beyond to expand their clientele base. In the end, we figured that it was because we were young, attractive, Asian women.

Thanksgorging

I am thankful for all the wonderful kids who stopped by the Hickory House to celebrate our first ever urban family Thanksgiving. Jeanne, Scott, and I managed an impressive menu and even had time to look domestic in heels and taffeta (no pearls this time around). Here was our feast:

-Turkey brined in salt water, lemon juice, bay leaves, chili flakes, and cayenne pepper and stuffed with carrots, celery, onions, and thyme
-Roasted brussel sprouts with bacon and apples
-Stuffing with caramelized onions, bacon, and apples
-Roasted carrots
-Mashed potatoes with tons of cheese, butter, and cream
-Rolls baked by Scott’s pastry chef friend Jonathan
-Bean salad and carrot cake made by Jon
-Cornbread dressing, shells and cheese, and sweet potato pie from Quressa
-Sauteed corn with red bell pepper
-Sauteed spinach with pine nuts
-Pecan pie from Bakesale Betty thanks to Eleanor
-Pumpkin pie that was too spicy (my mis-measuring)
-The most delicious gravy ever (I’d bathe in it if I could)
-Sausages
-Coffee and vanilla ice cream
-Appetizers of olives and cheese
-Wine thanks to almost everyone who stepped through our doors

I am also thankful for all the people who I was able to convince to take home leftovers.

Cafe Lombard

Café Lombard looks like it could be a great place to have a meal. Its unassuming front gives way to lush-looking green velvet armchairs inside and flowers of the plastic varietals on every table.

I went there on a lunchtime adventure in hopes of finding a new favorite lunch spot. When I stepped through the doors, I felt like turning around back into the bright sun. I was the only person in the whole large space other than the Asian lady who acted as hostess, waitress, and chef. But, I stuck it out and chose my own seat among the many empty tables.

After shouting my order of a spinach omelet with cheddar cheese and homefries to the only other person in the place, I settled in for the long haul. As there was no one else to watch and I didn’t want to continue shouting a conversation across the room to the hostess/waitress/chef, I pulled out my book and read as easy listening music (I think turned on just for me) poured out of the speakers.

My food arrived very promptly and steaming. The omelet was huge, taking up half the plate. The first bite burned my mouth, it was so hot. The time it took for it to travel from the skillet to my mouth must have been less than minute. The chef didn’t skimp on the cheese, as it was oozing out of egg and gave the omelet a nice, creamy consistency. There was good amount of spinach too, turning the omelet nearly completely green. It was a decent omelet.

The homefries, however, were a different story. They were too salty and had no crisp, crunchy bits. They seemed like homefries that came out of a bag label Ore-Ida.

I finished all I could eat of the omelet and homefries, as I watched the hostess/waitress/chef lady ready all the place settings, wondering if the polite thing to do would be to talk to her and wondering if there would diners to use all those forks laid out so very nicely.

Nothing special

Today’s meals so far:

Breakfast
Non-fat vanilla yogurt with Go Lean Crunch sprinkled on top and an apple.

Lunch
Leftover penne with bolognaise sauce.

Madrone

When we got to The Independent last night to see Ben Lee and his brand of Australian folk earnestness, we almost doubled the size of the crowd. It was that early and that empty.

Rather than drink overpriced beer out of plastic cups, we went to down the street to Madrone to wait it out. It was our first time there, and I liked it. Lounge-y, laid-back, and just dark enough. Large, overstuffed armchairs and huge trunks that acted as tables crowded the floor. Lining the walls were photographs of various sizes, objects, and hues that stood out in the half-dark.

And, the best part yet, it was still happy hour at 9PM. Also, for locals with a local ID (darn, DMV for not changing the address on my driver’s license), there are super discounts during the week.

With a couple of vodka tonics in me, I was set to clap my hands and fake singing along.

Sour coffee

I’m drinking coffee that tastes like ash and strangely sour. The First Cup Café ran out of my usual organic French roast and so I opted for the Colombian medium body instead. Definitely, not as good. But I’m tired and my eyes are drooping close and it’s another six hours before I can go home to nap.

Gastroporn

For those who watch the Food Network as slightly obsessively as I do (how I do love the geeky coolness of Elton Brown), there's a fun article in the October issue of Harper's that compares the Food Network's programming to pornography.

[Warning about the article: If you have a slight distaste for Rachel Ray, as I do, be wary when reading.]

Black tie burrito

Taqueria Cancun seems to be my late-night Mexican food haunt. I somehow always manage to end up there after shows, parties, aimless drinking. And, it never disappoints.

This time, the show was at Bottom of the Hill. Toby and I were to meet a friend of his afterward in the Mission but we ended up at Cancun eating a quesadilla instead. We shared a chicken one with everything, knowing that a whole one for each would be too much so late at night. The chicken inside wasn’t the grilled version that I prefer but the other kind, the wet one. It was fine, but it made the grilled tortilla a tad soggy.

Sitting next to me was a man in a tuxedo with a burrito. When I commented on the fanciness of his attire and how I suddenly felt underdressed, he told us that he and his female companion had just gotten married. I was skeptical and they weren’t really married, just getting food after a black tie event. They asked about Toby and me, and believed us when we said that we’d been together since the eighth grade. Silly folks.

The big bull

El Toro on Valencia and 17th has ridiculously large tacos, so large that I don’t even know if they can be rightly called tacos. There’s no way to pick up the tortillas, nonetheless be able to fold it in half into the familiar half circle shape.

I ordered one super taco and it was, indeed, a super taco. Loaded on top of the two corn tortillas were beans, two large spoonfuls of grilled chicken, a mountain of shredded lettuce, a pile of shredded cheese, spicy salsa, sour cream, guacamole, a slice of onion, and jalapeño peppers. It also came with a side of chips, which acted nicely as a means of transporting the food to my mouth.

It was sadly disappointing when I had to leave taco behind. I couldn’t finish it. It was too big, but a great meal for about $3.

Sticky love

If love came in a foil baking pan, it might be called Sticky Date Pudding. I took one home after having lunch with Eleanor and Toby at Bakesale Betty (happily enough, my second time there in less than a week) and shared it with Jon and Shari as we watched a dreadfully boring movie that put us all to sleep on the couch.

After following the warming instructions and having the house smell sweetly of baked treats, we sliced it up, spooned caramel sauce over the top, scooped up vanilla ice cream to go on the side, and dug in. The first bite was incredible. The pudding, which wasn’t like pudding at all but really a cake, was moist, not too sweet, with a hint of autumn spices. The caramel sauce was a great sidekick, adding a touch of extra sweetness and richness to the cake. (The sauce is fabulous just on its own too—probably the best caramel sauce I’ve ever tasted.) And the ice cream’s cold and smooth texture balanced out the warm density of the cake.

If only true love could be so sweet and easy to purchase.

Thanksgiving trial run

I spent all of Sunday cooking, testing recipes for Thanksgiving and making a bolognaise sauce. Here’s the rundown.

Roasted Carrot and Beet Salad
Toss carrots cut diagonally with some olive oil and salt. Put them on a baking sheet to cook in the oven for about 40 minutes, until they come about tender and sweet. (I couldn’t help eating almost half of them.)

Wrap the beets in some wax paper and then in foil. Place them in the oven to roast with the carrots for about 50 minutes. When they’re cooled, peel and dice them into large cubes.

Make a quick vinaigrette with lemon juice and olive oil. Chop some cilantro. And toss all the ingredients together.

A good salad, but not all too Thanksgiving-y.

Roasted Acorn Squash
Cut the acorn squashes into wedges, drizzle with a little bit of olive oil, and sprinkle with a touch of salt. Place them in the oven to roast for about 35 minutes and then brush with some melted butter.

The squash was tender and sweet but the peel, which I didn’t take off, tasted just vaguely bitter. And, the squash wedges were not so good after being heated in the microwave the next day.

Brussell Sprouts with Toasted Walnuts
Score the brussel sprouts at the bottom and boil them for about seven minutes. When they’re done, drain them well. Then, melt some butter and toss in some minced garlic. Add the brussel spouts, a squeeze of lemon, and some toasted walnuts. Stir.

This one was a disappointment, but mostly because the brussel sprouts were undercooked. My fear of overcooked and soggy vegetables got the better of me. However, I did try this again later in the week, this time cutting the brussel sprouts in half and cooking them fully. Much better the second time around.

Buttermilk Onion Rolls
I forgot what went into this, the proportions, and the order but when it all was finished the rolls looked like cinnamon rolls with cinnamon swirl replaced by caramelized onions.

I was quite impressed with this. I don’t attempt breads much as yeast scares me slightly but this was came out better than I would have hoped for, except that the bottoms were a little bit too toasty brown. They looked light and fluffy, and they were too.

Chocolate Ginger Cake
Once again, I don’t remember what went into this and of what proportions but there was chocolate, ginger, flour, butter, molasses, brown sugar, cinnamon, and the other usual baking suspects.

I didn’t have a bundt pan so used a 13x9 Pyrex dish instead. The cake looked very flat, no taller than your standard brownie, and sad. The ginger was rather overwhelming too but that was probably because I was overzealous grating the ginger into the saucier. It was also a bit grainy and medicinal tasting. It wasn’t totally bad but will need some adjusting if I’m planning to serve this to friends on a non-trial run basis.

Bolognaise Sauce
Basically, it’s celery, carrots, mushroom, onions, garlic, a touch of milk, white wine, ground beef, and tomatoes cooked together for hours. (Yes, bolognaise is traditionally a meat sauce but I like mushrooms. And, yes, the milk sounds a bit odd, but it adds a touch of creaminess.)

This wasn’t a Thanksgiving trial run but was something I knew I would have to the time to let simmer away for hours as I cooked around it on the back burner. And it simmered for five or six hours, creating a lush texture and rich flavors. The meat and vegetables simmered so long, releasing their natural flavors and melding together that I barely had to add any salt. I stood by the oven spooning sauce into my mouth.

Bakesale Betty

Recently, I’ve been having doubts about having moved across the Bay to San Francisco. Sure, San Francisco is great and I probably won’t be leaving anytime soon, but there’s a little part of me that yearns for the East Bay and its slightly warmer weather, Oakland hipsters, and, now, Bakesale Betty.

Bakesale Betty sits at the corner of Telegraph and 51st in what has been deemed the new up-and-coming district of Oakland. Large windows reveal the open kitchen, where bakers and woman in a blue wig can been seen working and chatting up the customers. And, if you look carefully, you can even see Eleanor in the back, in her own dark corner, frying chicken.

Mo and I went to visit her, as well as to get a late lunch, Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by lots of smiling faces, from both customers and employees, and it felt like we entered some mystical land where freshly baked sweets make ugly bruises and bad hair days disappear. People sat on miniature stools that lined the windowed walls. A couple ate on a baking sheet. Cakes were displayed on retro-looking ironing boards. And everyone looked happy to be there.

After getting our bearings and figuring out where the menu was, we placed our order. I got a fried chicken sandwich and Mo got a pressed tomato and cheese one on wheat. We were given a pecan shortbread cookie, which tasted like nuts rolled in butter, while we waited.

When they finally called “Mo,” they brought our food out to us on a baking sheet and set it on one of the taller stools. We sat around it and opened up our paper packages. Betty’s husband Michael set paper cups on our tray, poured us water, and told me that I would need it for the spiciness of the sandwich. But I didn’t need the water. The sandwich was good but not all that spicy despite the bits of jalapeño pepper sprinkled throughout the coleslaw that topped the chicken. The coleslaw was a marvel, light and crisp in its vinegar dressing. And the chicken was perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside but tender and moist within, with the right amount of seasoning and not a hint of grease. I was sad to see the last bite of my sandwich disappear.

As Mo and I were eyeing the counter contemplating what to get next, two little triangles of lemon bars on paper wrappers appeared on our tray. I didn’t see it arrive but found no reason not to eat it. The lemon custard was tart and sweet, which was a great balance to the buttery crust. We wondered what else would come our way if we stayed long enough.

And we got a tour of the kitchen. Eleanor showed us the large oven and her dark chicken frying nook. We saw racks of pumpkin bread and chocolate cake. I kept asking her if it was okay for us to be there, feeling like I didn’t want to somehow mess up the baking genius that was underway, but she said it was fine, and Betty and Michael seemed glad to have us there, watching them work and label cake boxes with hearts drawn with a Sharpie.

We left Bakesale Betty happy and full, with goodies in hand. (After a long deliberation, Mo got a pumpkin cake for his housemates and I got a chocolate chip cookie just for me.) I feel many visits to the East Bay, if just for Bakesale Betty, are in the future.

Why not a biscuit?

The Frog Hollow folks at the Ferry Building farmer’s market are some of my favorite. Throughout the summer they would stand plopping samples of mouthwatering peaches (I’m salivating right now as I type) and jewel-like plums onto my palm so that I could slurp up its vibrant summer flavors. But this morning there were no peaches, no plums. There were preserves instead. Feeling disappointed, I didn’t venture too much closer to their stall and turned inside to get a pastry instead.

The cheddar and scallion scone they make is a good scone. The outside is firm and crisp, while the instead is moist, flakey, and airy. All things a good scone should be. And, I was surprised at how the cheddar and scallion worked well together in a scone, something that I would not normally associate with being savory. Neither the cheddar nor scallion was overpowering, yet their presence was definitely noticeable.

As I wondered through the Ferry Building eating my scone, I wondered why it wasn’t a biscuit.

Non-eats but food related

It’s a quiet Friday night with loud music. Scott’s in Florida and I’m reading food magazines in bed, trying to figure out what to conjure up for my first Thanksgiving not taking place in LA. [To those of you coming to Urban Family Thanksgiving at the Hickory House: send me food requests, recipes, tasty tips; I’m doing trial cooking in the next few weeks.] Flipping through the current issue of Ready Made, a book review caught my eye. Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth by Tucker Shaw chronicles the year-long history of the food that journeyed into Mr. Shaw’s mouth. I had laid that out as one of the original goals of this blog (but to journal all the food that entered my mouth, not Mr. Shaw’s)--if only I wasn’t so easily distracted.

Also, as a side note to the Ready Made issue, check out Yosh’s spread in there for which Colin got a food stylist credit. (Disappointingly, there was no mention of my posing as Yosh for our pre-photo shoot the day before.)

Hot chocolate

I’m sitting at the kitchen table cluttered with cooking utensils in clear glass vases, a plastic Jack-o-lantern stuffed with lemongrass stalks, the rice cooker that my mom bought me for my first apartment years ago, CDs that we never listen to, a bag of semi-stale tortilla chips, and realizing that this is the first time I’ve sat at my kitchen table to write.

Also, sitting at my side, is my snowflake mug emptied of its contents. It was filled with a minty hot chocolate that tasted grainy and slightly bitter at the end. I remembered it not tasting like that before.

Dining on desserts

Tuesday’s leftover desserts became all of Wednesday’s meals. I had half of a custard filled pastry for breakfast, an éclair for lunch, and a canoli for dinner.

Curry galore

It was Scott’s turn to make dinner this week for Brandi, and he also invited Jon and another friend over too. He was going to make “a shit-load of curry.” And he did.

It was a yummy concoction of chicken, lentils, spinach, and raisins over jasmine rice (the mice got to the basmati and this, I believed, would be a better accompaniment with the curry than the brown Calrose). Scott chopped, minced, and measured as I sat, watched, and drank a bottle of Harp, occasionally and half-heartedly, asking if I could help. He had me stir pots.

When it was all done and our house smelled heavily of curry even after opening all the windows so that I then had to turn on the heat, it turned out that there would only be three for dinner—Scott, Jon, and me. The ladies decided to bail, which was disappointing as both Scott and I wanted to play yenta. So the three of us ate curry on the floor around the coffee table and mocked photos of Jon’s roommate.

I remembered to leave room for dessert this time too, since Jon had brought over some lovely looking pastries.

First Cup Café

I love the folks at the First Cup Café on Van Ness. They’re my second home. I jump off the bus, and they’re there with everything I need for the day. They have organic French roast, cheese and everything bagels perfectly toasted so that they’re crunchy outside but chewy within, and sandwiches on toasted French rolls with peppercini. And, the people who run the place are nice too, smiling as I come in and waving goodbye to me when I leave.