Movie recommendation of the week: Hot Fuzz
Dessert recommendation of the week: Beer float (we used Chambly Noire, but I think St. Peter's Cream Stout or a good chocolate stout would work best).
SF restaurant recommendation of the week: Gialina Pizzeria
Anti-recommendation of the week: Going to mediocre gay dance parties until 3am on a the Thursday before an undoubtedly hard weekend, then going to work the next day. Ouch.
Anti-recommendation of the year: Ignoring snail mail. There may be a hospital bill or two among all the Capital One junk, and if you ignore those they'll send the debt collectors after you.
I'm not pleased with the seemingly exponential acceleration of time. There is so much to do, and the last few years have gone where, exactly?
I've been entertaining the notion of taking a one-week hiatus from l'Internet. Beginning tomorrow, tentatively. Clearly I can't abandon email if I am to remain a vaguely productive member of society, but even excepting email, this would be much, much tougher than Sober Month. If I'm feeling particularly radical, maybe I'll take a break from news entirely and abstain from The Economist, too. Perhaps it will be good for me.
Similarly, M. is trying to give up whiskey after waking up on Saturday morning, hung over and having little recollection of what went on the previous night. "The last thing I remember, we were standing at the bar with the DJ and his girlfriend, and then he handed me another Maker's Mark. What happened after that? How did we get home?"
Blacking out is scary. I did it exactly once my senior year of college, roughly a week before I broke up with my then-boyfriend. According to observers I was uncharacteristically loose-lipped, spilling my own secrets as well as somebody else's. Ever since, I've worked hard to avoid such alcohol-induced amnesia, and succeeded. Whiskey causes M. to black out quite frequently, which is, frankly, grounds for concern. So I welcome his decision to avoid the stuff, even if I'm skeptical that he'll succeed.
Here are some unrelated photos.
These are carnitas sopes:
I recently signed up for a car share service and first used it on Sunday, when we drove to one of the peninsular suburbs partly in order to buy pet supplies but mostly as an excuse to eat these exquisite plates of fatty awesomeness. We'd been in withdrawal for more than a year, sadly. The secret to these particular specimens is their crusts, which are made of a thick corn meal that is doubtless held together with plenty of tasty, tasty lard. M. and I order it with spoonfuls of hot salsa, but even that's not masochistic enough for us, so we brought a raw habanero pepper to dice and add on top of them, too.
Here is a plaster goat that Sam's girlfriend gave to us for safekeeping while she searches for an apartment. The (dumber) cat was terribly frightened of it at first and hid downstairs, cringing, for hours.
M.'s shitty phone finally died over the weekend, leaving this artistic-looking pattern permanently on its screen:
A few weekends ago, when the weather was perfect, M. and I went with his dad and stepmom to see this exhibit at one of the city's big museums. The coffee in the cafe was crap, but I rather liked the design of the cafe itself:
The weather in the city has been perfect, maybe a little above perfect. Last night, instead of eating out, blogging, learning calculus, cooking, reading, harassing cats, or stalking my brother on Myspace, I sat on the porch with M., eating bread with cheese, olives, and duck pate as slowly as possible like a goddamn French person. The difference being that the French probably don't do so while watching South Park on their laptops, but perhaps I underestimate them.
It was all very relaxing. What was very much not relaxing was being awoken at 4am from a deep sleep by the sound of jackhammers--at 4am!--pounding at the sidewalk outside the building. Actually, since I was still delirious from deep sleep, my first thought was something more like "artillery! I'm going to die!" or "North Korea!" or "wailing and gnashing of teeth!", but regardless, it was certainly enough to jolt me awake. It turned out to be the gas and electric company. They jackhammered away for at least half an hour. Isn't there a law against pseudo-governmental monopolies wielding jackhammers in residential neighborhoods at 4am?
Also not relaxing was M.'s bending his bicycle wheel this morning. Now we are condemned to take the rail to work, which is far and away inferior to cycling.
Welcome to the Greatest Dinner of All: March 29, 2007.
M.'s dad and stepmom collected us at work a few hours early, and from there we drove for almost two and a half hours across two and a half counties. It was a beautiful, temperate spring day.
Here we are, driving across the bridge:
Here is a view of the city from the north of the bay:
A field of mustard grass:
M.'s stepmom talking about the punk-rock aesthetic, whilst M. and I try to listen instead of drooling stupidly like cavepeople and fantasizing about dinner:
Napa vineyards:
Finally, we arrived in Y-ville, drove down a quaint, unassuming road, and parked in front of this rather modest-looking restaurant. Across from it there was this field, which contains a small vegetable garden. We were theorizing that the F.L. people grow some ingredients there; I suppose it's possible.
Here three of us are, grinning like idiots.
The sign is pretty much the only way you can tell what kind of establishment you're walking into. Otherwise, I would have guessed it was a Mexican-American War Re-enactment Society or something of the kind.
We walked around to the side of the restaurant, where there was a small courtyard and a cluster of small buildings--the restaurant itself, the kitchen (or was that an extension of the main building?), and the wine cellar. I wanted to walk around the courtyard for a few moments, but one of the staff must have been peeping through the window and waiting for people to arrive, because the hostess opened the door and invited us inside right away.
We followed the hostess upstairs, past a very small, very classy anteroom, and to our table. Our table was in a small side-room containing one table of four (ours) and two tables of two.
Here is the fancy napkin with its napkin-holder (I'm sure there's some kind of pretentious French name for it). This was for keeping. The restaurant's phone number is helpfully printed in back, you know, for last-minute reservations or something.
And here's the unspoilt bread-plate with a bread/butter knife:
This flower arrangement was on our table.
Here's the menu, or, more accurately, the chef's tasting menu. There was also a lighter, more vegetable-based menu, but I didn't take a picture of it and didn't order it. We had to choose one or the other. From there what we ate was basically fixed, except where there was a pair of dishes between the line breaks and we had to choose between them. If you look at the bigger version of the photo, you'll notice how whoever writes the menu (Keller?) is seriously infatuated with quotation marks.
This ridiculous, imported water was "complimentary." I do admit it tasted unusually refreshing.
First, the waiter--a friendly, extremely professional, grey-haired man--served us two "amuse-bouches" to begin our meal. I didn't get any pictures of these, but I'll link to other pictures on the web. The first was a small bowl (one each) of gruyere "gougères." Not bad. The second was a "cornet" of salmon tartare. Tragically, the cornets were filled with red onion-infused freme fraiche, so I reluctantly donated mine to M.
The first course was probably the most perfect of them all:
"Oysters and Pearls": "Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters and White Sturgeon Caviar
It's pretty much impossible to describe how awesome this dish was. I'd never tasted sturgeon caviar before, but I can see why it's so expensive. The oysters were about a zillion times tastier than any I'd ever eaten, small and delicate and almost buttery. The tapioca was a perfect pairing. Pure genius. This dish was so good, in fact, that I scraped every last bit from the bowl, even though the tapioca had chives in it. Chives and onions are typically deal-breakers for me, so this pretty much constitutes objective proof of the appetizer's flawlessness.
I think this bread arrived after the oysters. Once again, the bread was perfect. It came along with two kinds of butter (you can see one in the background): one was a fatty, unsalted, French butter; the other was a salted variety produced on a farm in Vermont that has only seven cows. (We definitely appreciated the over-the-top storytelling that accompanied the food.)
Beginning about now, I started taking pictures on a camera setting that produced speckled and discolored images. I tried to fix them in photoshop, but some of them are just crap photos that no amount of editing can save. Just to warn you.
The second course of the evening was foie gras terrine with cashew butter and brioche. We had to pay a hefty supplement for it, but given where we were, why the hell not. Along with it, we also ordered a half-bottle of dry Hungarian Tokaji (upper right of photo below), which was, unsurprisingly, delicious. The brioche was thick but airy as hell, and after I'd consumed half of it, the waiter whisked it away and replaced it with another because it was "getting cold."
The foie portion was actually quite large, and the terrine went along well with the cashews. Again, this was not shocking.
Moulard Duck "Foie Gras en Terrine": Cara Cara Orange "Supremes," Roasted Cashew Butter, Celery Branch and Toasted "Brioche"
Here is a closer, but still discolored shot of the foie gras:
The foie came along with a platter of three salts, so we could try all of them and choose whichever best "suited our palates." The one on the upper right was a coarse salt mined in Brittany. The one on the upper left was found at the depths of a copper mine in Montana. The one on the bottom was extracted from the waters of the Sea of Japan. A+ for storytelling!
The third course was a raw hamachi (yellowtail) dish with dungeness crab and vegetables. Very, very good. Soft, buttery hamachi; great crab; great rice; the "yuzu emulsion" sauce was tasty, too. Of everything on there, though, I thought the asparagus was the most perfect. This picture came out particularly discolored:
"Sashimi" of Japanese "Hamachi": Dungeness Crab, Sacramento Delta Green Asparagus, "Akita Komachi" Rice and Yuzu Emulsion
M.'s stepmom ordered the halibut instead; I didn't taste it, so I can't say anything about it. My guess is that it was good.
Fillet of Atlantic Halibut "Poche au Lait": Steelhead Trout Roe, Crispy Potatoes, Dill "Creme Fraiche," Pickled Red Onions and Watercress Puree
More is coming later; there's no way I'm finishing this today.
After the foie gras came the lobster with bacon, pureed truffle, and black truffle medallions. I don't think I need to convince anyone how delicious this was, so just look at it:
Sweet Butter-poached Maine Lobster Tail: Applewood-smoked Bacon, Black Truffle Puree and "Coulis de Pimente d'Espelette"
And here's the wine we drank with most of the meal, a Californian pinot produced on a tiny vineyard of only a few acres:
The next course was the least outstanding, which is not to say that it would not have been the most outstanding at almost any other restaurant. It was a rabbit dish, and the rabbit itself was drier and less flavorful than I would have liked. However, the gravy and accompanying vegetables were fantastic.
Surloin of Devil's Gulch Ranch Rabbit: Baby Globe Artichokes, Spring Garlic, Sweet Carrots and "Sauce Barigoule"
Next came the primary (or so I think) main course, beef (or, rather, "boeuf") with chanterelles. I've posted two pictures of this because each is inadequate in its own special way.
Snake River Farm "Calotte de Boeuf Grillee": Hen-of-the-Woods Mushrooms, Swiss Chard and Dijon Mustard "Croutons"
My two criticisms of this dish are matters of personal taste. First, the croutons contained chives so I had to donate them to M. Second, mustard is not my favorite flavor and I found that if I put too much on the beef (and especially the mushrooms and chard) it was overpowering. However, these criticisms are minor beside the perfection of the beef. The cows that it came from were hybrids of American Angus and Japanese Kobe animals; the treatment of the cows and, later, of the meat, was likewise a hybrid between those of Angus and Kobe beefs. The result was a slice of meat that was delicately marbled, tender yet slightly gamey at the same time.
Then, a cheese dish:
Jasper Hill "Winnemere": "Choucroute," Granny Smith Apples and Blis Maple Syrup
Here is a link to a blog post whose author thinks this cheese is the "best [s/he's] tasted in years." I think the so-called Choucroute is the fancy sauerkraut above the cheese. The Winnemere was indeed very good, reminding me perhaps of a high-end Camembert (with the caveat that I've only eaten Camembert a couple of times, so I may be completely off). The maple syrup, so our waiter informed us, was aged in whiskey barrels somewhere in New England. The best single item on this plate, though, was the slice of Granny Smith apple, which was about twice as tasty as I'd ever expected an apple to be capable of.
Here is some French bread that arrived between courses:
Now, for the first of several desserts--not a sorbet or a sherbert, but a sherbet.
Field Rhubarb Sherbet: Cardamom-scented "Frangipane" and Cream Yogurt
The sherbet was the second-best dessert, and considering the absolute best (which I'll get to soon), that's high praise. It was both tangy, in a sweet-and-sour sort of way, and creamy-thick.
After the sherbet, the waiter asked if we wanted any coffee or tea. I thought it was odd that they offered us coffee before bringing out the bulk of the desserts; maybe it's a high-end thing. Anyway, I asked for espresso. Thus I violated two of my personal taboos: no caffeine at night, since I'm kind of an insomniac without the help of stimulants; and no plain coffee, because I find the taste so strong that I need to temper it with milk and sugar (i.e., I'm a huge pussy who orders hazelnut lattes). But once again, I reminded myself of where I was. So I ordered the espresso anyway.
It came in a dainty white cup that sat atop a "floating" saucer.
As I never drink espresso plain, I can't really compare this one with other espressos. But since I was capable of drinking it, and even enjoying it, I would guess that it compares quite favorably.
Next came the final dessert that is listed on the menu, a creative chocolate-white chocolate-pistachio-passion fruit thingamajig:
"Pave de Chocolat Blanc au the Vert": Pistachio "Pain de Genes," Passion Fruit Jelly and Bitter Chocolate Sauce
I confess that by now, I was utterly full. As a result, I probably appreciated dishes this late in the dinner a little less than I should have. That said, I still think this dessert tasted less exciting than it looked. Which is not to say that it did not taste exciting, or that my taste buds didn't enjoy it in defiance of my stomach, which was growing increasingly uncomfortable.
I think I was also plagued by a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-table mentality, given that everyone else had chosen something else (a substitution off the vegetarian menu) that involved far more chocolate. Real, not white, chocolate. And chocolate cake cooked in Cabernet. I tasted a bit, too, and indeed I preferred it to my own dish. Here's an oblique picture of M.'s dessert, but I won't write its bequestionmarked name underneath since I don't have a photo of the vegetarian menu:
But that wasn't all! At this point a few servers whisked away our plates and brought us a new round of sex-segregated desserts. The "ladies" each got a small lavender-infused creme brulee:
And the "gentlemen" each got this Meyer lemon pot de creme:
Of course M. and I switched at mid-dessert so we could try both. And holy shit, the creme brulee was good, but it paled in comparison to the pot de creme. This was the second undeniably perfect dish of the evening. Desserts aren't supposed to be this good, certainly not desserts as plain-looking as this one. I'm not even going to write any more about it, lest I tarnish its perfection with my words.
Yes, there's more.
In spite of my fullness, I bravely kept eating as the waiters brought out what seemed like an endless line of small desserts. First, chocolate-and-caramel-covered macadamia nuts:
These were great, but sadly I only ate one before the waiter took them away. Second, a tower of candies:
And here's M.'s dad looking amused that I'm taking a picture of him eating candies.
While at the restaurant I had a chance to eat only one of these candies, a chocolate bonbon from the bottom "level." Don't worry, though--for a moment I gave my inner tackiness free rein and dumped all of the uneaten (as opposed to the eaten?) wrapped candies into my purse. I ate them the following day. The lemon candy, in the center "level," was pleasantly reminiscent of the pot de creme. Which is to say, it was phenomenal.
Here was another tidbit; I want to say it was called tulle:
Finally, the waiter came around with a platter of chocolates arranged in rows according to type. As full as I was, I did the right thing and made sure to take one of each. Was this undecorous? Probably, and both the waiter and M.'s dad laughed at me. M. then emulated me, however, not wanting to miss out.
If I remember correctly, the flavors of the chocolates were: caramel, dark chocolate, peanut butter, banana, coffee, white chocolate, and praline. I can't recall which was which, though. I remember only that the banana and the caramel were the best.
Finally, they didn't let us leave without giving us a bag of gourmet shortbread cookies. For later, of course--there was no way any of us could eat them after all those chocolates. When I came home from work the following day and found that a cat (the dumber one) had pulled it down from the counter, ripped the plastic open, and munched on a few of the cookies, leaving his disease-ridden cat slobber on it, I nearly strangled him. But instead I threw him out of the room and ate most of the cookies, anyway.
Finally, the end. Now it's 3:30am, and this took a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. If this were a restaurant review, I'd recommend this place heartily. But in this case I don't think a recommendation is necessary. FL will do fine without it.
"Let's Party" brand prepared crab snacks: yum!
In other news--
(1) I just spent an hour and a half organizing pictures on flickr
(2) My flatmate is an alcoholic
(3) A hoodlum in a low rider and a tophat rolled down his window while I was biking up a steep hill to ask if I had any Grey Poupon
(4) M. and I will spend most of this weekend entertaining his mother and her boyfriend
and
(5) Within the next few weeks I will probably learn what I'm going to do with the next two years of my life.
It was the high-school party weekend I never had. Namely, it would have been much cooler and more appropriate ten years ago; and besides, I feel way too old for this stuff now.
First, our big raucous house party was shut down by the cops. The cops! Policemen with flashlights! We think they were looking for drugs, since it was fairly early Friday evening in a youthful neighborhood, making their "noise complaint" justification ring somewhat false. Or maybe they were trolling for seventeen-year-olds sneaking shots of Jagermeister. Regardless, we clearly weren't doing anything illegal, but they stormed through anyway and ordered us all to go home.
Amusingly, hardly anyone listened to them. People held their ground and stared back dumbly. From what I heard, the cops resorted to threatening the apartment's residents: "We're going to wait outside in the car, and if we hear the music come back on we reserve the right to arrest everyone in the building!"
It was equally amusing how Sam (bartender flatmate) and some of the other party-throwers reacted to the shutdown: they turned off the music and smoked weed instead. Take that, power-tripping agents of state coersion.
Earlier in the party, before the cops, I actually ran into someone I knew in high school. And not only someone who went to school with me, but my old nemesis, my first-ever true enemy: the only person, as far as I know, who has called me a "frigid bitch." The guy had his reasons--I readily admit that he was the inspiration of an unflattering comic I drew for over three years. He was outraged when he found out about it. So, talking to him now, 500 miles and six years removed from high school, was jarring. And creepily reminiscent of the "best" days of my life. (Those are supposed to be high school, right?)
Also, this being a Valentine's Day party, I was hit on by:
1. A friend's forty-year old boss
2. A thuggish-looking white stoner who invited my boyfriend to "do some doses" in the park the following day
3. A nondescript drunk who called me "Darling" and then asked to kiss me
while my boyfriend was standing less than two feet away
4. One friendly and mostly agreeable person. What amused me was the following exchange:
Him: Will you give me your number?
Me: I have a boyfriend.
Him: So what? I have a girlfriend.
Me: Sorry, I don't have a number.
---
The following day, Saturday, consisted of varying levels of stupor. M. and Rockstar Friend woke up painfully early to get bloody marys at this place. I slept in. By late afternoon, though, we were all out at this bar for a barleywine festival (note: barleywine is far stronger than beer), followed by dinner at one of our favorite local sushi bars.
This dinner was notable because Rockstar Friend came along. Rockstar Friend, beyond being accident-prone, is a huge sack of neuroses. One of his many lifelong obsessions has been strict veganism. His veganism was not based on any ethical decision, but instead on a control-freak fastidiousness and, from what I've gleaned from M., an odd compulsion to inconvenience himself and others as much as possible. But in a rather charming way, if that makes any sense.
Rockstar Friend had been vegan since early childhood. But last weekend, for whatever reason, he decided that it was time for him to try sushi. Raw fish, of all things! We sat agog and watched him eat: uni (sea urchin gonads) with a raw quail egg; monkfish liver; toro (fatty tuna belly); fatty salmon belly; fatty hamachi (yellowtail) belly; dungeness crab; and albacore. He said he loved everything except the crab and egg.
From there, we continued to our ex-flatmate Hans's birthday celebration at an after hours club where M., Sam, and Rockstar Friend were scheduled to DJ the opening set. I've been to several of these after-hours clubs--a.k.a. speakeasies--in the last six months, and they always make me think of supply and demand. This is a young, childless town, and there are always thousands of people willing to pay lots of money for the chance to drink and dance 'til dawn. And it's clear that on the other end, there are plenty of people willing to buy space in old office buildings, pad the walls, seal the windows, and trade risk for good money. I wonder how many speakeasy owners pay off the police in exchange for being left alone. In my opinion, such regulations are moronic as well as draconian. (Today's theme: fuck da po-lice! rah-rah-rah!)
In a continuation of today's other theme, "high school party weekend I never had," our next stop was an honest-to-god RAVE. I had nothing to do with it; Rockstar Friend's younger sister led us there. While I suspect that the previous after-hours club had made some arrangements with the local authorities, this place clearly had no such deal. The taxi dropped us off at a freeway underpass with nothing in sight. It was a bad neighborhood, and no one was around. We walked cautiously along a dark, eerily quiet road with no sidewalk, and eventually came upon a cluster of ramshackle, graffitoed, seemingly abandoned industrial buildings. Walking closer, we heard the boom-boom-boom of heavy bass coming from inside.
The doormen--or door-boys, more like--crouched nervously in the entrance. They were uncomfortable about letting us in. Maybe we were too clean, looked too much like narcs. When they finally did open the door, they warned us to slip in quickly and not let too much noise leak out.
The kids at the door were high out of their minds on something. "Ten dollars each," they said. "Or seven."
M. was much bigger than them. "There are a bunch of us here. How about you charge us a group rate?"
"Um, whaddya got?"
There were six of us. We counted the money in our pockets. "Twenty-four bucks."
"All right, that's fine."
It's hard to describe how silly this rave was; sadly, my camera was dead at the time, so there are no pictures. But there were crazy hippies of all ages running around on various kinds of drugs. Punky high school kids mingled with fat, topless, dreadlocked, middle-aged flower children. The "music" in the main room was unbelievably bad, and the drugged-out dancing was even more so. At least there was cheap, decent, home-brewed beer.
While M. stood in line for the beer, I leaned back on a table. One of the hippies immediately saw me and wagged her finger.
"Please don't sit on the table. I spent HOURS arranging all the leaflets and flyers on there and I don't want to have to fix it up again."
I stood up. "Sorry. I didn't realize there was anything on the table."
"Yeah, I mean, I would really appreciate it if people would keep off."
"Ok. I understand."
"It just took SO much time and effort to set it up like that."
"Ok."
Once the hippie left me alone I turned around to see what was on the table. It was piles and piles of graphic vegan propaganda. And it could not have taken more than a few minutes to arrange. Then again, who knows what drugs she was on.
Later, a small, teenage Chinese girl with limited English skills started hitting on Rockstar Friend. "I like music," she told him. "I like boys." That's when he decided it was time to go, so we all walked back to the quiet underpass to try our luck with passing cabs. The first cabbie refused to pick us up, apparently suspecting we were up to no good. But the second one happily took the fare, and we were home by an easy 5 o'clock. In bed probably by 6.
---
Unfortunately, Rockstar Friend decided to wake us up at 11 the next morning for bloody marys and brunch. I don't understand why he hates sleep so much, but I went along grumbling.
Randomly-chosen morals of the story:
1. High-school party weekends can be fun, but mostly I prefer moderation
2. Vegans are usually lame, except for Rockstar Friend
3. Paternalistic regulation sucks
4. Some people still live in the '90s
5. Fuck da po-lice
6. There will always be hippies in this city
7. Bloody marys are best made with horseradish, habanero peppers, limes, and olives
8. Not mentioned in the post, but one secret to a really good grilled cheese sandwich is to sprinkle parmesan cheese on the bread before frying it in butter.
Forgive me for this meandering novella of a post. I can't concentrate on work, and I badly need a break from reading about politics.
I think I will follow this with pictures. I have a glut of them; I took 500 over the weekend.
They made me change to New Blogger, but not without a fight. I expect that New Blogger will suck--maybe even more than Old Blogger. Maybe I will move to Wordpress.
M. and I had a lavish Valentine's Day dinner last night, and not because either of us cares a whit about Valentine's Day. My French flatmate left for France this morning, so she and her husband shared a good-bye dinner last night, monopolizing the common space. M. is a spendthrift, so he saw this as a convenient excuse to make a last-minute reservation at a Japanese restaurant. (To him, almost everything is an excuse to make a reservation at a Japanese restaurant.) And it turned out to be a great dinner involving a lot of daiginjo sake.
We came home shortly before midnight, drunk on sake, which is in my opinion the best kind of drunk.
"Let's watch some South Park and go to bed," I proposed. My sleep has been atrocious recently--erratic, restless, and insufficient. I have been showing up to work hours late and tired, too: not exactly a recipe for health and happiness. Or for continued employment, for that matter. So, the thought of going to bed at a reasonable hour was quite appealing.
"No, first I need to play records for a while," M. said, and did.
Clearly vetoed, I sat down at the computer and decided to write in this blog. I am not sure what I would have written last night--only that it would have been highly incoherent and neurotic and maybe even entertaining--but alas! My blogging ambitions were quashed by New Blogger's stubborn insistence that I switch over, the intricacies of said switch-over being hopelessly confusing at the time. Upon which I gave up, roved mindlessly around the Internet, and stumbled upon this video clip of what is possibly the worst TV programming that I have ever seen.
The moral of this story is that New Blogger kills dreams.
But since I am stuck with it now I may as well use it to tag my posts with stupid labels.
