Hello from the Mighty East. Soon I'll be home with lots of Iowan and Massachusettsian tales to tell.
But this post is a digression, because I happen to be rather proud of myself, and what's the point of having a blog if you don't get to tell all 15 or so of your readers (you guys are the best!) when you do something you think is worth bragging about?
So . . . I ran 10 miles yesterday! All right in a row, without even stopping to remind my legs what blood circulation feels like. It took forever, but I didn't actually die, so I'm counting it as a triumph.
My favorite place to run is the Smith College track. It's down the road from my mom's house and surrounded by beautiful trees, and it lets me exercise outside while keeping a close eye on distance. The reason I usually run on treadmills—other than the gnarly impact of pavement on my joints—is that I'm terrible at maintaining pace. On city streets, I always start too fast and then get tired before the end.
But treadmills are weird and unnatural, as everyone knows, while running in neatly labeled circles on a slightly rubberized manmade surface is just one step away from nature.
It's only three weeks and counting until the half marathon, so this was an important milestone. I figured it wasn't the best idea to try going twice as far as I'd ever run when there were thousands of other people around to watch me keel over. But 3.1 miles farther than I've ever run . . . that should be okay.
Woo hoo!
September 29, 2006
September 21, 2006
Snapshots
I haven't been living up to this blog title lately in an international way, but I have been strolling around the excellent city where I live, as well as that other prettty town across the water (emphatically not called Frisco by anyone who's spent more than 10 minutes there. You may call it SF or just "the city").
Here are some of the neat things I've seen.
First off, we have the Ferry Building Market, where I've assembled many a gorgeous, overpriced picnic. The peppers at this stand taste as good as they look:
Parking near the Ferry Building is an exercise in frustration. It's not that you can't find a spot—it's just that they all have 30-minute time limits and require a Radio Flyer full of change. Behold the Most Expensive Meter in the Universe:
You can't really see the prices in that shot, but it costs five cents a minute. The Boy and I stood staring at it for about $1 worth of time, giggling to ourselves about how many souls we could buy and sell for the same amount it would cost to leave the car during lunch.
Then we went and parked a mile away in a cheap all-day lot, enjoying every minute of the sunshiny stroll back through the Financial District:
Then we met some friends at Market Bar, where they make killer pancakes but claim to have no bathroom for patrons. I had to stand in the public john line for about three years after drinking all this lovely tea:
But I survived. Mixing with the rabble can be humbling, after all.
The next weekend, I visited another farmers market in Noe Valley, this time to hear my friend Claudia read from her charming children's book, Meerkat Safari. The local cherubs had a blast, especially when she pulled out some animal finger puppets and played them the safari song:
It's hard to top toddler elephant noises on the coolness scale, but this license plate I spotted a few minutes later managed to make my day yet again:
Don't even try to say that doesn't rule.
Next up: Lunch at Fresca with the fabulous Erinia, who came to pay her respects to her former hood. Our food was Peruvian and very photogenic.
lemonade
ceviche
But the crown jewel of the weekend was our trip to my buddy Mr. O's Annual Pork Chop and Mint Julep Festival, now in its 11th decadent year. As Miss E said of the wine—and this could really apply to everything the party had to offer—"It has a very good nose."
I have some photo souvenirs from my side of the bay also, but we'll save those for when I get back from a weeklong jaunt to Iowa and the homestead. Will do my best to write from the road, but I might be too busy napping in the cornfields and celebrating my mom's 60th.
The BCB over 'n' out.
Here are some of the neat things I've seen.
First off, we have the Ferry Building Market, where I've assembled many a gorgeous, overpriced picnic. The peppers at this stand taste as good as they look:
Parking near the Ferry Building is an exercise in frustration. It's not that you can't find a spot—it's just that they all have 30-minute time limits and require a Radio Flyer full of change. Behold the Most Expensive Meter in the Universe:
You can't really see the prices in that shot, but it costs five cents a minute. The Boy and I stood staring at it for about $1 worth of time, giggling to ourselves about how many souls we could buy and sell for the same amount it would cost to leave the car during lunch.
Then we went and parked a mile away in a cheap all-day lot, enjoying every minute of the sunshiny stroll back through the Financial District:
Then we met some friends at Market Bar, where they make killer pancakes but claim to have no bathroom for patrons. I had to stand in the public john line for about three years after drinking all this lovely tea:
But I survived. Mixing with the rabble can be humbling, after all.
The next weekend, I visited another farmers market in Noe Valley, this time to hear my friend Claudia read from her charming children's book, Meerkat Safari. The local cherubs had a blast, especially when she pulled out some animal finger puppets and played them the safari song:
It's hard to top toddler elephant noises on the coolness scale, but this license plate I spotted a few minutes later managed to make my day yet again:
Don't even try to say that doesn't rule.
Next up: Lunch at Fresca with the fabulous Erinia, who came to pay her respects to her former hood. Our food was Peruvian and very photogenic.
lemonade
ceviche
But the crown jewel of the weekend was our trip to my buddy Mr. O's Annual Pork Chop and Mint Julep Festival, now in its 11th decadent year. As Miss E said of the wine—and this could really apply to everything the party had to offer—"It has a very good nose."
I have some photo souvenirs from my side of the bay also, but we'll save those for when I get back from a weeklong jaunt to Iowa and the homestead. Will do my best to write from the road, but I might be too busy napping in the cornfields and celebrating my mom's 60th.
The BCB over 'n' out.
September 15, 2006
FDA deems all food unsafe
OK, not all food.
But this New York Times piece offers some dire warnings about what can happen to me if I continue to eat bagged spinach. Which I cooked up with some garlic and cilantro last night, thank you very much, and it was quite tasty.
It's just . . . come on. I'm already a vegetarian, which is supposed to eliminate the need to worry about heart disease, mad cow disease, and anything else you might get from a Jack in the Box burger. Including (I thought) E.coli. How very wrong I was.
At least there's a silver lining. It's this quote from the article:
Asked if consumers should also avoid bagged salads, Dr. Acheson answered somewhat tentatively, saying, “At this point, there is nothing to implicate bagged salad.”
Am the only one who thinks that's hilarious? I keep picturing bagged salad in a chair somewhere in an undisclosed location, bright spotlight in its eyes, stammering through the roughshod questioning and brutal interrogation tactics of U.S. government officials.
Huh. Maybe it's not that funny after all.
But this New York Times piece offers some dire warnings about what can happen to me if I continue to eat bagged spinach. Which I cooked up with some garlic and cilantro last night, thank you very much, and it was quite tasty.
It's just . . . come on. I'm already a vegetarian, which is supposed to eliminate the need to worry about heart disease, mad cow disease, and anything else you might get from a Jack in the Box burger. Including (I thought) E.coli. How very wrong I was.
At least there's a silver lining. It's this quote from the article:
Asked if consumers should also avoid bagged salads, Dr. Acheson answered somewhat tentatively, saying, “At this point, there is nothing to implicate bagged salad.”
Am the only one who thinks that's hilarious? I keep picturing bagged salad in a chair somewhere in an undisclosed location, bright spotlight in its eyes, stammering through the roughshod questioning and brutal interrogation tactics of U.S. government officials.
Huh. Maybe it's not that funny after all.
September 11, 2006
15 minutes
Continuous Peasant played our biggest show ever last night, opening for the Silver Jews at Mezzanine on the other side of the bridge.
Only about .03% of the packed house was there to see us, but it was still pretty amazing to look out over a sea of faces filling a space that big. I'm probably the world's worst estimator, so I won't even try—but Mezzanine's website says the club can hold up to 1,000 people, and it looked close to full from our vantage point. Wow.
The sound system was insane, meaning really clear but really loud, so I couldn't hear much of anything while we were playing. But the set felt tight enough (especially considering our lineup morphs all the time and we only had a few practices with the whole cast before the show), and we had a great time. Many truckloads of adrenalin whizzing through peasant veins.
Just to top it all off: I found out today that Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Jurassic 5 have all played that club, three key members of the hip-hop canon in my record collection. Wow. Standing in the footprints of giants. I like it.
Before and after were almost as fun as being onstage. They had a plush greenroom setup upstairs in the back, with two sitting/dressing rooms, a mini kitchen, and a comfy lounge with a huge flatscreen view of the stage and a balcony overlooking the club floor, so you could perch on a stool and watch everyone entering down below. There were big ice buckets full of water and beer, a bunch of security guys, and a fleet of attentive skinny kids in black with tousled hair who kept coming by to see if we needed anything.
Monotonix came on after us. My blood sugar was reaching the level where I get grumpy and confused, so I went to find a late dinner with friends and missed most of their set. From what I did see, they were entertaining but certifiable. The hairy little lead singer crowd-surfed, scaled a stair railing, and ran around the audience poking pretty women and shrieking—all during the first song. My vote went to Thai food instead.
When we got back, the Silver Jews were playing. I don't know much about them, but every music person I've met out here has a take on the band ranging from respect to worship, so I figured they must have something special going on.
We only stayed for a few songs (it was midnight on a Sunday, after all), but I think I get it. They're a group of normal but preternaturally thoughtful-looking people who write contemplative poetry, set it loosely to melody, then play it with a quiet but definitive personality that speaks to a range of people and moods. It was like watching a conversation between the band and the audience, if they were friends that went way back.
A thousand people listening that attentively—and with that much familiarity—can only be what every fledgling rockstar dreams about.
Only about .03% of the packed house was there to see us, but it was still pretty amazing to look out over a sea of faces filling a space that big. I'm probably the world's worst estimator, so I won't even try—but Mezzanine's website says the club can hold up to 1,000 people, and it looked close to full from our vantage point. Wow.
The sound system was insane, meaning really clear but really loud, so I couldn't hear much of anything while we were playing. But the set felt tight enough (especially considering our lineup morphs all the time and we only had a few practices with the whole cast before the show), and we had a great time. Many truckloads of adrenalin whizzing through peasant veins.
Just to top it all off: I found out today that Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Jurassic 5 have all played that club, three key members of the hip-hop canon in my record collection. Wow. Standing in the footprints of giants. I like it.
Before and after were almost as fun as being onstage. They had a plush greenroom setup upstairs in the back, with two sitting/dressing rooms, a mini kitchen, and a comfy lounge with a huge flatscreen view of the stage and a balcony overlooking the club floor, so you could perch on a stool and watch everyone entering down below. There were big ice buckets full of water and beer, a bunch of security guys, and a fleet of attentive skinny kids in black with tousled hair who kept coming by to see if we needed anything.
Monotonix came on after us. My blood sugar was reaching the level where I get grumpy and confused, so I went to find a late dinner with friends and missed most of their set. From what I did see, they were entertaining but certifiable. The hairy little lead singer crowd-surfed, scaled a stair railing, and ran around the audience poking pretty women and shrieking—all during the first song. My vote went to Thai food instead.
When we got back, the Silver Jews were playing. I don't know much about them, but every music person I've met out here has a take on the band ranging from respect to worship, so I figured they must have something special going on.
We only stayed for a few songs (it was midnight on a Sunday, after all), but I think I get it. They're a group of normal but preternaturally thoughtful-looking people who write contemplative poetry, set it loosely to melody, then play it with a quiet but definitive personality that speaks to a range of people and moods. It was like watching a conversation between the band and the audience, if they were friends that went way back.
A thousand people listening that attentively—and with that much familiarity—can only be what every fledgling rockstar dreams about.
September 03, 2006
Locally Grown: Introduction
I have dinner out a couple of times a week, on average, but never in my neighborhood. If I'm that close to home, then I'm close enough to my kitchen to cook. That probably sounds either noble or crazy, depending on what type of eater you are, but I decided today that it's high time I explore what's cooking in my corner of North Oakland.
Starting tonight until whenever I'm done, I plan to try a new restaurant in my hood every week or so. The only rules are:
1. No chains (sorry, Col. Sanders).
2. Lunch or dinner only. Cafés are a whole separate universe, and I drank it dry when I was a full-time freelancer.
3. Each place will get a mini review of five words or less (I'll put them in red italics and parentheses so they're easy to spot), plus a longer review if I'm feeling inspired.
4. "My hood" means anywhere within 20 minutes of my house by foot.
It was going to be 10 minutes, but that would limit my options to the handful on my actual corner, plus the Elmwood district. There's a short main drag in Elmwood with a small collection of great low-key places, including delicious La Mediterranée (get the Middle Eastern plate), but I've already tried them all over the years. This experiment is aimed at finding some new gems.
The list of places within a few blocks of my corner includes: Mitama, Grasshopper (pricey and overrated), Saysetha Thai (mountains of noodles), and Café Colucci (slow but yummy). A little further north, over the Berkeley border, are Café Valparaiso, Sconehenge, Solé, and La Familia Taqueria. I'll have to bring in the carnivorous reserve troops to try the parade of Korean barbecue places between here and Temescal.
Brunch digression: RIP to Hideaway, a tasty breakfast place with a pretty outdoor garden that closed while I was in France. I was so excited to live a block away that I dashed over there the day after I moved in. The windows were whitewashed and barren. My only consolation was finding myself just a lazy half-hour walk from a mind-blowing breakfast at La Note or the bustling Thai temple Sunday brunch in Berkeley. (A special shoutout to La Farine bakery on College Ave. for their buttery pastries, hearty breads, and charming little website.)
In Temescal, my former hood and still home to my favorite café, there's a longer list of places to sample: La Calaca Loca (friendly, no black beans), Café Pippo, Genova Deli (big piles of meat), Asmara, Bakesale Betty (best. scones. ever.), Doña Tomas (upscale and fabulous Mexican), Milano Pizza, Pico Paco Taqueria, Tanjia, Your Own Black Muslim Bakery (creepy politics, great pies), Lanesplitter (decent pizza and beer), Pyung Change Soft Tofu House (I like my tofu firm), and Pizzaiolo. I'll add others as I remember or notice them.
Here's to keeping my belly local, at least part of the time.
Starting tonight until whenever I'm done, I plan to try a new restaurant in my hood every week or so. The only rules are:
1. No chains (sorry, Col. Sanders).
2. Lunch or dinner only. Cafés are a whole separate universe, and I drank it dry when I was a full-time freelancer.
3. Each place will get a mini review of five words or less (I'll put them in red italics and parentheses so they're easy to spot), plus a longer review if I'm feeling inspired.
4. "My hood" means anywhere within 20 minutes of my house by foot.
It was going to be 10 minutes, but that would limit my options to the handful on my actual corner, plus the Elmwood district. There's a short main drag in Elmwood with a small collection of great low-key places, including delicious La Mediterranée (get the Middle Eastern plate), but I've already tried them all over the years. This experiment is aimed at finding some new gems.
The list of places within a few blocks of my corner includes: Mitama, Grasshopper (pricey and overrated), Saysetha Thai (mountains of noodles), and Café Colucci (slow but yummy). A little further north, over the Berkeley border, are Café Valparaiso, Sconehenge, Solé, and La Familia Taqueria. I'll have to bring in the carnivorous reserve troops to try the parade of Korean barbecue places between here and Temescal.
Brunch digression: RIP to Hideaway, a tasty breakfast place with a pretty outdoor garden that closed while I was in France. I was so excited to live a block away that I dashed over there the day after I moved in. The windows were whitewashed and barren. My only consolation was finding myself just a lazy half-hour walk from a mind-blowing breakfast at La Note or the bustling Thai temple Sunday brunch in Berkeley. (A special shoutout to La Farine bakery on College Ave. for their buttery pastries, hearty breads, and charming little website.)
In Temescal, my former hood and still home to my favorite café, there's a longer list of places to sample: La Calaca Loca (friendly, no black beans), Café Pippo, Genova Deli (big piles of meat), Asmara, Bakesale Betty (best. scones. ever.), Doña Tomas (upscale and fabulous Mexican), Milano Pizza, Pico Paco Taqueria, Tanjia, Your Own Black Muslim Bakery (creepy politics, great pies), Lanesplitter (decent pizza and beer), Pyung Change Soft Tofu House (I like my tofu firm), and Pizzaiolo. I'll add others as I remember or notice them.
Here's to keeping my belly local, at least part of the time.
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