Happy anniversary to me!

Today marks the one year anniversary of Susan’s Daily Eats. What started as a kind gesture at an 826 workshop turned into a year-long chronicle of my eating escapades. I didn’t think this blog would get this far. I thought maybe I’d be able to write for two months tops. A year was unfathomable. So far, this food blog has been my longest committed relationship with anything.

Like all relationships, we’ve had our ups and downs. There were the meals of stale Wavy Lays, the nights when the food I ate just wouldn’t stay down, and, of course, the candy bar breakfasts. But for every dinner eaten standing up in the glow of the refrigerator light bulb there has been a ritual LA homecoming In-n-Out meal, a discovery of sticky love, and an evening at the ballgame. It’s a give and take.

This blog has grown too, just as I have, trying to figure itself out, sorting out its style and purpose, attempting to capture its essence. I first started writing with the intention on journaling everything I ate, from all the Cliff Bar meals to popping random fruit lying about into my mouth, as a take on the pretentious food reviews that abound. But, somehow, in the evolution of bloggery, I’ve been guilty of pretentious food writing myself. I’m still trying to figure things out and find a point to things, and am learning that I don’t really have to.

And, finally, in celebration of this momentous event, I invited everyone to send in a submission of a memorable eating experience. Here is the crème de la crème. (If you still want to send something in, that’s cool too. It’s never too late.) With the accent of the late Julia Child, I say, bon appetite.



Bring Me Meat

I met Jon more than a year ago at 826, where he volunteered drawing half walruses, half aliens, and half fairy princesses for children and where I watched his interactions with the kiddies cautiously. When I moved on, he asked me to lunch and I remember that day in North Beach well. Since then, we’ve had countless meals together. Here’s his questionable account of one.

Every meal with Susan has been an exciting, often glamorous and always sensuous experience. There was the time Susan found an earlobe in her cabbage salsa at Feniqui's, the altercation we got into with our waiter when he grabbed Susan's purse in an effort to obtain a more generous tip, or even the pizza we ordered that came two days late. But by far the most memorable experience was the dinner we had in Potrero Hill at Bring Me Meat.

An all meat-oriented restaurant, Bring Me Meat had been on our list of places to go for weeks. We were to meet at Teddington's for drinks beforehand, but after waiting for half an hour, Susan was nowhere to be found. Was she ditching me? Did she hate me for some reason? Was she dead? I called her cell repeatedly, but got nothing. She probably wasn't dead, but you never know. If she was, I wouldn't be one of the people they'd call.

Starving, and with an hour having passed, I decided I'd go to Bring Me Meat with or without Susan. Not surprisingly they didn't have a wait and I was able to get a booth, all to myself. I also had a waitress, the short and indistinguishably foreign Loaf (pronounced Loof) all to myself. It seemed there were almost no other customers in the place, except for an old man in the corner who didn't seem to be eating or drinking anything, though frequently required the attention of my lonely Loaf.

I'd taken a corner booth, with a view of the door, though slightly obscured by some foliage. So when Susan came in with a strange man in tow, she didn't see me. The growingly unfaithful Loaf seated them in the booth adjacent to mine. Susan, with her back to me, seemed completely unaware of my presence, or even that we were supposed to be eating together. Who was this man? She couldn't have mistaken him for me, he looked nothing like me.

I leaned in, eavesdropping on their conversation like a character in an episode of Three's Company. From what I was able to discern, his name was Martin and they'd met through Craigslist. This was their first date and Susan seemed less than enthused, though Martin was quite excited and utterly unaware of her lack of interest. He blathered on for a while, talking about his truck, his ex-girlfriend and his "awesome job at Radio Shack" for far too long. Too long, actually, for me to be able to say anything to them.

It had been about 15 minutes that I'd been sitting there. If I were to get up and say hello, Susan would wonder why I'd been there so long without saying anything. And worst of all, the meatshake that Loaf had given me, felt as though it had gone straight through me. I had to pee so bad, and going to the bathroom would meaning passing right by Susan's booth. There was nothing immediately visible that would work as a disguise, and Loaf wasn't willing to distract them for me. Maybe if I could wait them out, if I could hold it long enough, everything would be okay. But they'd only just gotten their appetizer (chilled lamb rolls). Why was the service in a place with no customers so slow anyway?

Then Susan called. Susan? That's what my phone said. Looking over at her, she clearly wasn't on the phone. I answered in hushed tones. "Hello?" It was indeed Susan, asking where I was. She'd been at Teddington's for the past half hour waiting for me. She'd gotten there at 6:30, the time we'd agreed to meet, unlike the much earlier and completely incorrect time I'd shown up. But if Susan was there, who was the imposter next to me? I stood up, walking over to get a closer look. It seems that my Susan was more of a stranger I'd never met before, than she was a friend of mine. From across the restaurant, without my glasses, I'd mistaken this woman (who I was now staring at, quite blatantly, from only two feet away), for Susan.

Walking away without a word, I sat back down and resumed my conversation with the real Susan. I explained what had just happened, to which she exclaimed, "What, do we all look the same to you?" I told her that I had to pee and then needed to ask out a girl named Loaf. Unfortunately, after my trip to the bathroom, Loaf's shift had ended, she'd vanished, Fake Susan had abandoned her date and I was left with a restaurant of lonely men and a bill to pay.



Shucking Virgin

Karen moved to New York for graduate school just about a year and a half ago. But, we’d been living hundreds of miles apart from each other for years. We’ve only eaten together a handful of times over the last several years, so I try to make each occasion something special. Her submission is an account of one of those times.

I rarely have the pleasure of dining with Susan. It probably has something to do with the fact that we live on opposite sides of the country.

Susan did take me oyster shucking once. This was about a year ago. After some discussion/debate about whether or not we should even go, we picked up some IPAs, baguettes and cheese from the local Andronico's and hit the road.

We were heading to some place where you could shuck your own freshly harvested oysters and all Susan talked about on the ride was the minionette. When we arrived at the oyster spot, Susan looked perplexed. It wasn't at all like what she had remembered it to be. And when we approached the oyster guy to buy our oysters, Susan asked about the minionette accompaniment. He had no clue. Nonetheless, we purchased about 50lbs of oysters for just the two of us. Why not, really? And a shucker. We also got limes and Tapatio hot sauce.

I was a shucker virgin, but Susan was more than gentle and kind and showed me the proper technique. She actually did most of the shucking. I had neither her forearm strength nor shucking experience. The oysters were amazingly fresh and tasty. No accompaniment needed at all. We probably had about 10lbs worth of oysters each, plus beer, bread and cheese.

With our stomachs more than sufficiently full and shells piled embarrassingly around us, we decided it was time to go home. Susan finally realized that this oyster place was not the same one she had visited before, with the minionette, which was actually just down the road. She duly noted that for her next visit. We packed up and made our way back on PCH. The sun was setting across the Pacific and I commented on how amazing it was to end the day in such a beautiful way. At this point, Susan asked, "What, you've never seen a f**cking sunset before?"


Shucking Virgins Revisited

Apparently, I like to shuck, and Jeanne and Justin learned that on one of their visits. Justin also learned that afternoon in Marin that he shouldn’t eat raw shellfish and then let me drive along windy roads. Jeanne, on the other hand, was a trooper. That’s why I like her and can’t wait for her to visit again for another gastronomic gorging. Here's Jeanne's account of the shuck of her life.

Susan likes to shuck. And she shucks with everyone… I don’t know who she was with for her first time but I know she shucked with Karen before she shucked with me and Justin. What a shucker!

Justin and I was a couple of shucking virgins but Susan was a pro. We prepped for our afternoon of shucking by picking up some wine and bread from the market and stopped by Cowgirl Creamery to get some cheese and sandwiches. By the time we got to Tamales Bay, we were all ready for a good shuck. We bought a ton of fresh oysters, Tapatio, and some limes, and were set for some good-old, down and dirty shucking.

Susan taught us the proper technique of oyster shucking (see Image 1) and was patient with Justin who was reluctant to slurping down the tasty bivalve (see Image 2). After some persuading, he finally joined Susan and me in eating our fill of oysters. By the end of the day, Justin and I could shuck with the best of them (see Image 3). Unfortunately for Justin, he shouldn’t have let us talk him into eating so many oysters because on the ride home, he had to lie down in the backseat and take a few Dramamine. We had to pull over too (see Image 4).


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