Yesterday was a good day

I'm walking across Union Square, a bag of marked down shoes in one hand, my cell phone in the other, and I come across a beautiful scene of men and women of all ages, shapes, colors, and sizes dancing a tango to the rythmns and beats of a live band.  I'm smiling at the San Francisco-ness of it all and my cell phone jiggles.  I look down and it's a note from my father, "Let's have an Obama toast on Sunday to celebrate!  It is fitting to combine Mother's day, mom'/ Ann's birthday, with this wonderful moment for America."  Quite suddenly my smile turns to tears.  I am deeply moved.  I am deeply grateful.  16 years ago, Peter and I held a commitment ceremony where my father gave a heartfelt toast about the "real family values" present at this celebration of his son's love for another man.  My father was 16 years ahead of the President.  My 48 year old self tears up thinking about that event, yesterday's email message, and the good fortune I have to have such a father.  My 14 year old self -- he's still in there -- cannot believe what happened yesterday.  That boy could not imagine a day when the President of the United States -- at great political risk -- would stand up for the rights of gay & lesbian people in such an absolute way. That boy could not imagine the overwhelming joy of a moment like yesterday. 

Spring hurts so good

My neck is red.  My hands are dry and chapped.  My palms are sliced and scratched.  My fingernails are filled with earth.  My fingertips are raw and not yet calloused.  My nostrils are dusty.  My back aches and my knees buckle every time I climb the stairs.  Three weekends of solitary construction and creation.  Just me and the dirt and the black spaghetti tube irrigation and the post driver and the chicken wire.  I am the architect of the canals of Tenochitlan.  I am a slave building the aqueducts of Carthage.  I am an eight year old boy losing an afternoon in his Lincoln Logs.

Just me and the seedlings that I nurtured myself.  Nine varietals of heirloom tomatoes whose identities got jumbled in transport.  Pumpkins from Provence.  Eggplant from Japan.  Tomatillos from Oaxaca.  Squash from Martinique.  Kale from Tuscany.  Beans from Calabria.  Basil from Genoa.  Sweet, hot, red, green, orange, and chocolate peppers.   I am the designer of an edible Versailles.  I am the son of the Earth Goddess.  I am a United Farm Worker.  I am a Woody Guthrie song.  I am content.

Okey dokey artichokey

Anyone with a home garden knows the juicy deliciousness of a tomato fresh from the vine.  In the winter, fresh beets eaten right after they are pulled from the ground are not only sweeter, they give you a rush of vitamins and flavor that can make your head spin.  Fresh chard and spinach can give you the same rush.  And nothing beats raspberries picked and eaten as you wander through the berry patch.  Most anything grown in your own garden tastes better, but given farmer's markets and upgraded produce aisles, we can usually find fruits and vegetables that come within shouting distance of the home grown product.  Among the few exceptions are artichokes.  If you want to dip artichokes leaves in butter or aioli, go ahead and buy those big globes at the store, even though home grown and fresh picked artichokes may taste a bit sweeter.  It is next to impossible, however, to find good quality fresh baby artichokes.  Unless you grow them.  For the past month or so, at least once a week and sometimes two, I snap off three or four artichokes the size of a baby's first, trim them, slice them up, soak them in meyer lemon juiced water, dust them with flower, then pan fry them in a little olive oil and butter.  Sometimes I add a thin sliced meyer lemon.  I've tried this with store bought "baby" artichokes but it just doesn't work.  The store bought babies are a bit more like bitter adolescents than the sweet, rich, babies I can grab from my own artichoke shrubs.  In a few weeks, as the weather warms, my artichokes will find their thistle DNA and rush into flowering.  They'll take over their corner of the garden with gangly silver green foliage and purple flowers.  Still worth looking at, but no longer worth eating.  Just in time for the zucchini blossoms -- part of the limited late spring bounty that just can't be bought.

Paris, Peru, Peking, Potrero...Papito

Today at lunch, after a rousing heirloom seed exchange, my friend Kepa and I headed up the hill to the miniature gourmet ghetto at the intersection of Missouri and 18th Street in Potrero Hill.  Our options were not limited.  Mediterranean tapas, upscale French, downscale French, upscale comfort food (Plow), Thai, Korean, pizza...we landed at the relatively new Papitos featuring organic mexican food.  The gimmick is not subtle.  Serve slightly updated, all organic taqueria food and charge 40% more than you can charge down the hill at the corner of 18th and Mission.  I felt like I was back in Mexico City trading value and indigenous atmosphere for printed menus, table service, and arty posters on the walls.  The posters, however, were vintage Air France posters from the 60s advertising the France-Mexico route.  Papito, you see, is part of the network of restaurants that include Chez Papa and Chez Maman on Potrero Hill, Chez Papa Bistro next to the old Mint, and numerous other French restaurants located in every corner of San Francisco.   

The French roots of Papito are not revealed in the menu, the kitchen crew, or the decor, but the wait staff is borrowed directly from Chez Papa's network of French and Quebecois hotties of both genders.  The mostly local, neighborhood clientele notice that the wait staff speak accented English, but most probably don't bother wondering if the accents come from Mazatlan, Madrid, Montreal, or Montepellier.  They just care if their ceviche appetizer comes before their duck confit quesadilla (duck confit? shouldn't that give away the restaurant's French origins?).  

As Kepa and I enjoyed our guacamole and selection of three different salsas (none of them spicy enough for my tastes), the diners next to us ordered their food from the lithe brunette server.  The diners were of Asian persuasion in their fifties or early sixties, chatting enthusiastically with each other in unaccented, Northern Californian English.  When the server asked them for their order, the female guest spoke first in fluid Spanish, "Tacos de camarones, ponga la salsa al lado, y una limonada por favor..."  (Shrimp tacos with salsa on the side and a lemonade please.)  The server flashed her a bewildered look.  "I am sorry, I am French.  I don't speak Spanish. Where are you from?"  Turns out the woman was from Peru.  Spanish was her first language.  

Stereotypes be damned.  Servers in taquerias named Papito who speak with accented English don't speak Spanish.  They sass back to their bosses in French. Asians are not from Asia.  Some are from the Andes and speak Spanish as well as they speak English.  And the bald guy from San Mateo is capable of eavesdropping on everyone.  Capable of it.  And enjoying every moment.

In search of Irish cuisine

I am sure in Dublin there are some innovative chefs deconstructing traditional Irish food to create brilliant dishes like corned beef infused foam injected into "ravioli" made from cabbage leaves.  In San Francisco they're doing Irish-Eritrean fusion at food truck called Eiretrea (I am not making that up).  That said, an internet search for "gourmet irish cuisine" came up relatively empty.  All of the recipes for Irish stew, corned beef and cabbage, and champ (mashed potatoes) sounded fine, but none of them sounded all that unusual or interesting.  Not prepared to invent nouveau Irish cuisine on my own (my foam maker is on the fritz), I gave in and made a solid, decent, hearty meal centered around the color green and a little inspiration from my web research.   We started with miniature potato pancakes, mixed with parsley (for the green) and cheddar cheese, served with green tomato jam as a garnish.  To go with the pancakes, we invented two cocktails.  The first, a midori-bitters-Irish whiskey concoction that I would not recommend.  The second, a vodka martini with a kiss of Midori achieved its green goal and slid down a bit more easily than the first experiment.  The main meal was something you might have at a quaint pub down a wooded lane outside of Killarney.  A lamb stew braised in Guinness Stout (highly recommended).  Champ (mashed potatoes, with chopped bacon, leeks, and spring onions).  Sauteed kale.  Steamed broccoli.  For dessert, I channeled my inner Mrs. Patmore (Downton Abbey's cook) and made a trifle sort of thing: lady fingers soaked in Irish whiskey, a layer of rhubarb compote (it was green rhubarb), a layer of lightly sweetened whipped cream (with a zest of lime), repeated, then topped with shaved almonds.  Not bad.  That said, I don't think I'll be booking any trips to Dublin soon.

Awfully good Cauliflower

It's usually the neglected item on the crudite plate.  Bulbous dull-white florettes whose primary purpose, other than color scheme diversity, are as a delivery mechanism for blue cheese dip.  We pick around the poor cauliflower and likely throw most of it into the compost.  I have never been a big fan of what the French call chou-fleur (cabbage flower), but nonetheless I decided to plant it in my winter garden this year.  Home grown vegetables always taste better, but sometimes home grown vegetables are a completely different and better beast, so to speak.  Home grown tomatoes explode with perfect sweet-acid balance.  Freshly harvested artichokes are among the best things ever to pass my palette.  Cauliflower, usually bland and boring, when picked fresh, offers up flavors that are rich, earthy and spicy.  I've had it dipped in a warm dip of garlic/anchovy/olive oil/butter.  In a vegetable curry the cauliflower added to the flavor profile, instead of just soaking up the other spices.  And I found exquisite simplicity in a gratin of chopped cauliflower and gruyere cheese.  My cauliflower harvest is over, but I will no longer sneer at it when it shows up on my plate.  Even the usual bland piece of cauliflower dipped in Ranch dressing will likely stir the memory of my new favorite winter vegetable.

Bagna Cauda
Finely chop a head of garlic (more or less)
Finely chop one can of anchovies
Heat one cup of olive oil in a small sauce pan
Add the garlic and anchovies, cook over medium heat until the anchovies are dissolved and the garlic is softened (be careful not to allow the garlic to brown or burn)
Add half a stick of butter
Heat until mixture hits a strong, steady simmer

Bring the mixture to the table (use a small chafing dish or fondue pot if you have one).

Enjoy with an array of raw or parboiled vegetables: carrots, broccoli (parboil), asparagus (parboil), red peppers, AND cauliflower.

Cauliflower curry
Heat a little oil (olive or safflower) or ghee if you have it in a sauce pan
Add:
One onion, finely chopped
Two shallots, finely chopped
Garlic (optional)
Curry spices to your taste

Cook over  until onions and shallots are soft

Add:
One large carrot, diced
One red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

Cook until the peppers are loose and soft

Add:
One head cauliflower, coarsely chopped (one inch chunks)

Cook for about 3-4 minutes on high heat, stirring/tossing constantly, until cauliflower is soft and is thoroughly covered with the spices.

Add:
One cup chicken broth OR
One cup light coconut milk
Up to one cup water (to achieve your desired consistency, don't add too much or you'll regret it)
Bring to a simmer

Serve over rice

Optional additions once the base of the stew is complete:
Chick peas
Tofu
Diced boneless chicken breast (cooked)


Cauliflower Gratin
Finely dice one head of cauliflower
Toss with 1/2 cup milk
Add to a buttered baking dish
Top with small dots of butter
Cover in grated Gruyere cheese
Bake uncovered in a 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until cauliflower is soft

Rice-a-rena, the San Francisco Treat

A series of errands lead me to various corners of San Francisco this cool, sparkly morning.  I started south of Market where we dropped Peter's car off to be serviced and encountered a power outage.  Without traffic lights, each intersection became an awkward dance of the hesitant.  Drivers seemed to forget the basics of stop sign etiquette.  You go first...no me...no you...okay me...wait you...  Eventually, we wound our way through one way streets to one that would lead us across Market for me to drop Peter at his French class in the Tenderloin.  A few minutes early, we waited outside his teacher's apartment on what we call our "stake outs."  Self-consciously we wonder if we look like under cover cops (in an orange Honda Element), as we watch a steady stream of neighborhood characters.  Transvestite prostitutes walking confidently to their favorite corner.  Unbathed men projecting drug dealer/pimp energy skulking slowly in the entrances of tenement apartment buildings and SROs.  And the occasional junkie shuffling zombie-like past our car windows.  At 7:45 Peter exits the car and I move on to the Wells Fargo ATM at the mood-lit Safeway on Market followed by the used-to-be an ARCO gas station at Castro.  Cash in my pocket, gas in my tank, I roll down 18th Street towards the Mission towards my ultimate goal of a cafe where I can recaffeinate and do a little writing.   As I approach Church Street, I get caught behind my latest pet peeve: a car driving well below the speed limit, missing their right of way turn at Stop signs, remaining parked at green lights until the last minute.  Obviously someone texting or playing Words with Friends while they drive.  Vehicular manslaughter in-waiting.  My state of annoyance is lifted when I look out at the tennis courts in Dolores Park and see a dozen elderly Chinese doing a vigorous Tai Chi on one of the courts.  In unison they stretch their arms forward, palms facing up.  They cross arms to opposite shoulder.  They reach their hands to grab their buttocks and swivel their hips in a gentle, geriatric rotation.  And then they all leap forward in unison.  Oh my God.  Is it the Hokey Pokey?  No, it's the Macarena.  Or, in this case, it's the Tai Chi version.  I'll call it the Rice-a-rena.   Maybe it's the newest thing in Shanghai, but I bet not.  Only in Dolores Park.  Only in San Francisco has the graceful, elegance of morning Tai Chi been fused with 1990s dance craze once named by VH-1 as the "greatest one hit wonder of all time."