Biscuit bodhisattva

Anybody who has known me for somewhat longer than 5 minutes knows that I like to cook. I have historically gone in for the strange and oriental pursuits and like to boast that I'm fairly good at it (I like to boast about anything I think I can get away with). It's been more than 15 years since the wife got me that hand hammered wok from the 30 minute infomercial we saw on TV and I'm still spending a large number of Sundays in the kitchen whipping up stir fry and dumplings for the family and occasional stray teenager. Any kid that shows up at my house becomes mine while they are here (usually with my son) and they will always be fed. I get a big kick out of sitting them down at the table and watching them eat. (I like to use them as guinea pigs to try out new things too). We once had a door-to-door salesman show up just as we were sitting down to eat a big Chinese feast. He was young and looked really hungry so I made him sit and eat with us and wouldn't talk business until we were all done. I didn't buy anything from him but he walked away with a full belly. So the other day it was getting close to suppertime and I was wondering what to fix. The idea of having supper at a cheap restaurant was looking good since I'm on vacation and there wasn't anyone here but me and the oldest son, Marsh. As I stood there in my pantry, waffling over the rather bleak selection of supper choices, in walks the other son and one of his friends. I had been hoping to catch him here for a few minutes since I always subcontract out all of my Christmas present wrapping to him and I had fixed his car this morning; so he owed me large, as far as I was concerned. I hit him up about the gifts I needed wrapped and he countered with the excuse that he couldn't because he had a friend over. Not to be outwitted, I immediately volunteered her as well and they were both conscripted into service as gift wrappers. There wasn't a press gang in the King's Navy that could have put those two to work quicker than me. She thought it was fun since she liked to wrap gifts anyway. I thought it was fun too since I wasn't going to have to do it. I like to buy gifts but I'll leave the wrapping for others. I loaded them up with all of my things and just for good measure I also gave them what the wife had left to wrap as well. "Being one of my kids" occasionally is a double edged sword in that you will do some chores.

My belly reminded me that I still hadn't solved the food problem yet and I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to bail out and eat somewhere else. I thought about take-out pizza but remembered that I was facing the jaws of 3 hungry kids plus myself and my wallet was already groaning from Christmas spending. No problem, I'll whip up a batch of spaghetti. Cheap, quick, easy. Big problem: no noodles. I swear I had two big boxes of spaghetti noodles and now they're gone. I looked around for other options and started to get a little nervous. Jeez, I needed to go grocery shopping. We were out of everything. All that was left was the chicken in the refrigerator that had been seasoned for the next day's supper. I was going to make Southern style pan-fried chicken. It was going to be a special meal for the wife. You see, all these years that I spent studying the mysteries of Chinese cooking had left a big void in my ability to cook traditional Southern foods. Recently I had been practicing but the results were not too good. I was hitting the biscuits pretty hard and had been interrogating the older women at work for their secrets to biscuit Nirvana. I would bake up a batch, try them, scrutinize them, then back to the drawing board for more questions and answers. I watched Alton Brown on the food network. I studied recipes for hours on the internet. I discussed protein content in the flour on biscuit forums. Some said it was the type of flour, others mentioned shortening instead of butter, perhaps it was my kneading technique. My boss at work even floored me with the statement that he just bought premade biscuits in the frozen food isle and baked those! Oh, the inhumanity of it all! Imagine it if you will, simply popping a few of those floured hockey pucks into the oven and calling them biscuits! I believe that is still a misdemeanor in some formerly Confederate states. I just can't go on about it. I summed up all of my choices and decided that the best thing to do, considering the circumstances, was to cook tomorrow's feast tonight. The wife would understand. She knows kids too and wouldn't want to see any of them starve to death if they missed one supper. (She also knew about my biscuits). So there it was laid out in front of me. I was going to go all-out, hog wild, and fix a traditional Southern supper. Pan-fried chicken, made from scratch biscuits, mac and cheese, and corn. Only logistical obstacle was that I needed to get that stuff cracking right now. I set to work like a wild man, using my years of experience as an Industrial Engineer performing stop watch time studies to prep and cook everything as efficiently as possible and with the least amount of effort.

You're most likely wondering why I didn't make mention of gravy, that most puritanical object of Southern affection. They say it flows in the veins of all the sons and daughters of the Confederacy. I must admit that gravy is my Achilles heel. I just don't get it. When I make my confession about this shortcoming, I usually get grins and suggestions. "Oh it's so easy". "All you gotta do is..." I listen with a sheepish grin and think back to the day that 3 foot high flames were blazing out of the frying pan the last time I attempted gravy. My insurance agent has written a clause in my homeowner's policy that I am not to be making any gravy in that house or my fire insurance is cancelled.

I think I had it all on the table in about 35 minutes. As I was racing around trying to get it all coordinated and ready, I nearly forgot about the biscuits and pulled them out just in time. Brown but not burned, I was happy. The kids didn't say much, they were too busy stuffing themselves. But I did hear one comment: "These biscuits are so good, just like my Grandma makes". There you have it, the ultimate compliment, the purple heart of cooking, an Oscar: "just like Grandma's".

Tea for one

Tea for one

Tea is the second most popular drink in the world (water is first). Nothing to it; simply drop a few tea leaves into a pot, add hot water and enjoy. Or so it would seem. Actually, tea is sort of a Zen-like endeavour that can best be described as a journey with no end. The proper marriage of two simple ingredients has endless variations. Water is the first ingredient and thankfully the only variation is the temperature. The freaks will argue that the water must come from a running stream and cannot be bottled or (God fobid) come from a tap. I believe the most over-the-top example of water collection is the tea water that was gathered for an empress in China from the dew of plum blossoms in the mountains every morning (it's true). For the moment, I'll just get my water out of the tap, thank you very much. I can't taste the chlorine in it thanks to my filter. Maybe not good enough for the Empress of China but good enough for me. Tea water temp. can (and should) vary from boiled to just slightly warmer than tepid. It all depends on the next ingredient, the tea itself. The same tea will taste vastly different depending on the temperature of the water it is steeped in. I opened a package of "Sencha", a Japanese green tea and became a little worried when I saw it. The leaves were tiny. It smelled different that the other teas I had been drinking. When I tried it, I hated it. Tasted awful. Besides being tenacious, I am pretty cheap, so I wasn't about to throw it away or give up on it. Pretty good combination for a tea drinker. So I started experimenting with this stuff. The first thing I did was to heat the water less. In order to heat water anything less than boiling requires careful observation of the water as it heats in the kettle. I think that some kettles act different than others. I've got a cast iron kettle and it acts differently than my old tin one. Anyway; I had read in "The Tao of Tea", one of the great Tea classics, that tea water was to be heated to various degrees that were described by the size of the bubbles in the kettle. "When the bubbles are the size of shrimps eyes" is the temp. for white teas. "Bubbles the size of crab's eyes" is the setting for green teas. I think that "bubbles the size of fish eyes' is the setting for oolong and black teas but since I don't drink much of these, I don't pay attention to that one. Anybody out there ever seen a shrimp's eye? Or a crab's eye for that matter? Not lately, I'm sure. Well, it's a fun thing for me to tell others about anyway. Gives the whole experience a little bit of mystery to it. So, as I watched my water in the kettle for a crab's eye sighting, I noticed that the size of the bubbles does indeed change depending on the water temperature. Oh, I could get all technological on it and stick a digital thermometer in the water to indicate the ideal temperature but sometimes I prefer the old ways. Besides, who wants to stand there with a probe in their hand when all they have to do is look for the crab's eyes right? I started to pull the kettle off the stove earlier and earlier, noticing the behaviour of the bubbles and the water itself until I got the hang of this fish eye stuff. There is one other sign, which is most difficult and elusive to look for and that is "at the first breath of the water", meaning when you see just a faint wisp of steam from the pot. I don't usually catch that one. I believe it has more to do with the ambient temperature in the room anyway. So, as I progressed to catching crab's eyes, to shrimp's eyes, I noticed that the tea was starting to taste a little better. Tea should feel "silky" on your tongue. You will know what I mean if you get the temperature low enough. When everything comes together, the taste difference is dramatic. I've noticed that some teas are actually sweet, others have a wonderful woody taste, and others simply are hard to describe in words but they do taste good. It's possible to compare tea tasting in the same light as wine tasting. I had a tea in one of Sanfrancisco's Chinatown tea shops that was so good it didn't even taste like tea. It was fantastic. It was also $700/lb. yikes.

So I've determined that water temperature plays a big part in the preparation of tea. I think that this is of primary importance, the other variables are of lesser concern but merit discussion anyway. The amount of tea placed in the pot also determines taste but this runs in conjunction with the steeping time. Add too much tea and you better decrease the steeping time. Too little and let it sit longer. It's all about balance. I believe that the taste of the tea will be different depending on how much is in the pot. Take two pots of tea, side by side, one with too much tea and the other with not quite so much. Let them both steep, one for a little while longer than the other (the one with the lesser amount of tea in it) and they won't taste at all the same. I prefer to fix a pot of tea with the intention of only using the leaves once. Some like to throw the leaves in there and pour the water over them mulitple times, letting the tea steep longer after each pour.

So what's left? Why, the tea of course! Every tea has it's own method of preparation. The water temp/steeping time/quantity of tea leaves is different for each one. It took me nearly the entire jar of that Japanese Sencha tea to figure out how to correctly make it (at least to where I liked the taste). I went from hating it at the beginning, to loving it in the end. It really was wonderful stuff and taught me tea preparation. I need to dig around in my tea stash and see if there's another bag of that stuff hidden in there.

Man's best friend

So there I was, sitting in my easy chair, chatting with cupcake, quietly discussing our upcoming date on Friday. Scooter was on the couch sleeping and, after a fashion, woke up to jump in my lap for his daily visit and back massage . He had that friendly look in his eyes, as dog's do when everyone is home and they insist on being the center of attention. He usually won't come to me unless I call him so I was rather enjoying his uninvited company. I knew all he really wanted was his back scratched but I didn't mind being used. Petting a dog is very therapeutic and tends to make me forget my worries easily. 30 seconds into our little nightly visit and Scooter pukes all over my lap! K A T H Y!!! GET THIS LITTLE BLANKETY FRICKIN" SOB OUT OF HERE BEFORE I DROP KICK HIM INTO THE NEXT COUNTY!!!!! I guess we'll try it again tomorrow night.

Sanfrancisco day 7

Fisherman’s wharf

Our last full day in Sanfrancisco and all we had left to do was to take a tour of the bay. I was a little worried that we had run out of things to do. The guide book that I bought said to avoid the wharf because it was too touristy and did not capture the real feel of the city. At the end of the day I was in disagreement with the tour book about the wharf. It turned out that we had all kinds of things to do and see. We started out on the tour boat. It was a little hokey; what with our “tour guide” being Captain Nemo and some other silly characters. It was informative though, and the cruise around the bay was very nice. If I had another day I think we would have sailed across the bay to the tiny town of Salsilito. It was recommended by Captain Nemo as a fun place to spend the day shopping and looking around. We saw Alcatraz island. Pretty creepy even from just the boat. Here again, the tour book said it wasn’t worth going to but I think I would have liked to walked around on it anyway. We got to sail right underneath the golden gate bridge, then turned around and headed back. I think the whole tour was something less than 2 hours. I’ve left a few pics here of sights from the boat and one of Kathy in her scarf. She now looked just like the rest of the local Sanfrancisco hens. A good many of them were wearing scarfs. I bought that one for her in Chinatown, of course.

Back from the tour boat we walked along the waterfront and took in all the sights. The famous walruses on Pier 39 were there. I wasn’t impressed. I had more fun looking at all of the boats along the way. There were quite a few fishing boats there of all sizes and shapes. They were in varying degrees of seaworthiness too. A couple looked like they were about to sink right there at the pier. We came upon the very last of the Liberty ships from WWII that was on display. We didn’t go on it. There was a submarine from WWII there as well. I’ve been on a couple of these before so we didn’t take the tour. We did tour several boats that were moored along another pier though. There was a very large sailboat named the Balclutha that we spent a couple of hours on. Very neat ship. It was used to haul timber to Australia then used to haul salmon from Alaska. It was huge. There was also a large steam powered tugboat named Hercules that we walked thru. The tours were fun.

For lunch we stopped at a large bar with very lousy service but pretty good food. Then it was more sight seeing. There were all kinds of shops and street vendors selling mostly jewelry and portrait painting. The guide book said that the food along the waterfront was way overpriced. I disagreed again. I felt like it was way overpriced in the whole city. We never did get a bargain on any food.

At the opposite end of the wharf is what is known as the Ferry building. We looked around in it for awhile and what do you know, there was a tea shop there. Imperial Tea Court. (Okay, I knew about it already but I wasn’t letting on). We had tea in what I figured was the closest thing to an authentic Chinese tea house as could be had on the North American continent. The tea was served in gaiwans, which is a Chinese cup with a lid and a saucer, not the tea pot most are accustomed to. We enjoyed it as best we could but considering we were a little hot from the long walk, it would have been better to have something cold instead of hot tea. Oh well, I had to do everything and time was really running out on us. I picked up a tea decanter while we were there and actually restrained myself from buying any more tea. I had already shelled out over $150 for about ½ pound of the stuff in Chinatown a few days earlier.

The street car ride back to the hotel was interesting. We were packed in that thing like sardines. This was the same line that had passed us a day or two ago and left us to hoof it back thru North Beach.

We did some shopping and looking around in a huge mall when we got back to Union square. The mall must have had 10 floors. I gave up and gave out after about 5. We saw so much that we just couldn’t take it anymore. We even ran into another tea shop. It was about that time that I had had all I could take. A slick talking salesgirl tried to sell us some hand lotion or something that was supposed to be the fountain of youth but we managed to get out of there without buying any. She wasted about 45 minutes of our time too. I wasn’t too happy about that but she wouldn’t let us go and Kathy isn’t the type to just walk away like me. There was a leather shop that we wandered into that was having a fashion show. We were invited to stay for it and were even offered champaigne but when I saw the prices on that stuff, we beat a trail out of there. Way out of my price range. The girl that spoke to us looked like a plastic surgeon’s worst nightmare. She had every plastic surgery operation you could think of and they all turned out the same: terrible. She didn’t even look human but at least she was very friendly to us. This place had a couple of young girls at the entrance standing around looking pretty with next to nothing on too. The things they will do to separate you from your money. Unbelievable.

That evening finished our adventure. The next morning we packed and headed over to the bagel shop for breakfast and a packed lunch then it was time to wag all of those suitcases around until we got to the airport. I have never been so happy to be able to dump those things off. I humped them from the hotel to the train thru downtown Union Square, then thru the airport terminal to the tram, and finally to the ticket counter at the airline. I couldn’t believe that we managed to fit all of the junk we had bought into those suitcases. It’s a shame that you have to bring your own food onto the plane but air travel just isn’t the experience it used to be. It’s horrible and I doubt it will ever get any better.

Well, seven fun days of shopping and sight seeing complete! Our 25^th wedding anniversary gift to each other was little more than a dream fantasy two years ago when we first started talking about it and I’m glad that we saw it thru. We started planning for this about 9 or 10 months prior to leaving. I also never thought that we would actually go. When it was getting close to time to be making reservations I threw out the idea of Plan B to Florida instead but Kathy really wanted Sanfrancisco. A couple of days after getting back, I asked her if she would like to do it again and she said “Hell no!” I think I might have walked her too much. She was a trooper though, never complained a bit the entire time, even when I screwed up the streetcar schedule a few times.

Sanfrancisco day 6

The Sanfrancisco Zoo and the Hang Ah tea room.

Day 6 of our adventure saw us heading to the zoo. I had high hopes for it since SF is such a large city and the bigger cities usually have the better zoos. Well, it turned out to be less than stellar. It wasn’t really much better than any other zoo I had ever been to. I’ll post a few pictures just for fun anyway. On the way there, I started to get a little cocky with the transit system and nearly had us going in the opposite direction that we should have gone. Lucky for me, we were saved by yet another local resident who pointed us in the right direction. I just love those locals. They have got to be the friendliest people on the planet. The zoo is a long ride from where we were staying so we got to see quite a few sites on the way to it. Mostly, it was “how the other half lived”. We went thru a few areas that looked pretty grim. I was glad the train didn’t stop at any of the scary places.

As I said, there isn’t much to report about the zoo. The pictures tell the story well enough. When we got back to our room I wanted to take another crack at Chinatown and specifically, the Hang Ah tea room. I told Kathy I wanted to head over there to get some dim sum since the last time we were there all we had was tea. While there, another local mentioned to us that the Hang ah had the very best dim sum in all of Chinatown. A pretty big boast since there had to be at least 500 Chinese restaurants in the city but I had started to put a lot of trust in the locals and if he said it was the best, then that was good enough for me. We headed out with my assurance that we wouldn’t have to do a lot of walking since we were both tired from hoofing it around all day at the zoo. My perceived familiarality of the MUNI transit system was faulty again. The street I wanted to go up didn’t have the street car line I thought it did so I told her we would just have to walk a little bit to the next bus stop. Trouble was there wasn’t a next bus stop. We got to within eyesight of the Chinatown gate and I said we might just as well walk it in. The road was steep and we had already gone many blocks and Kathy was winded. Then something else hit me. Just where had I seen this place? I wasn’t sure. We walked around while I tried to find a landmark to get my bearings but it wasn’t happening. Further and further and no dim sum. It was very late on Sunday afternoon and I was getting worried that they would shut Chinatown down on us before we had a chance to eat. I was getting pretty worried about Kathy so I resorted to leaving her in one spot where she could rest while I ran up ahead and scouted around for our destination. I eventually found it and dragged her up one last steep hill before we got to the alley where it was located. In we went, panting and red-faced, for the prize at the end of the line.

The Hang Ah isn’t known for its décor. Inside it is all plastic dinnerware and colors. The white walls are trimmed in green and orange. By green and orange I mean bright, plastic green and bright, plastic orange. It is tiny. The dining room couldn’t have been much bigger than two typical bedrooms. We got the same waitress as last time and she was really happy to see us. A Chinese girl (imagine that in Chinatown), and had come over from China to get work. She was from Guangdong, I think. We chatted with her the entire time we were there. She had no concept of America from a geographical standpoint. She didn’t know where Alabama was and I don’t believe she had ever looked at an atlas of the country. I guess I am just more interested in geography than the average bear. I encountered the same thing with a guy I met on the wine tour who was from South Africa. He didn’t know anything geographic about the United States. He didn’t even know where Florida was and this guy was studying to get his PHD. Heck, at least a hick like me knows where Cape Town is.

Dim sum at the Hang Ah is a little different that what is considered traditional. You order what you want, and then they bring it to you instead of wheeling it up on a cart and tossing it out at you. Everything we tried was fantastic. The rabbit shaped dumplings were the best. They looked just like little bunnies right down to the ears and tiny eyes. Almost too good to eat. I had read that this place was the first dim sum house in Chinatown and had been in existence since the 20’s, I think. There were even pictures of Chinatown beauty pageants from years ago hung on the walls. I was disappointed in the tea. It was served in that all too familiar, stainless steel pot that is the epitome of Chinese restaurant tea. I have eaten in hundreds of Chinese places, from crummy, run-down hole in the walls, to really fancy ones and except for one place, they all have that same sad looking disgrace of a tea pot. Lucky for me that my favorite place back home serves me tea on a nice ceramic one like God and Buddha intended. We stuffed ourselves then said goodbye to the waitress. If I ever get back to Sanfrancisco, I believe this place will be my first stop.

For the ride home, we caught what appeared to be the last street car out of Chinatown. It was getting late and they were starting to roll up the sidewalks. I finally got my directions right and found the original car line I had wanted to use so the walk was quite short. It was barely 6:30 in the evening and Chinatown was getting very quite and dark. Kind of fitting to see it this way since we would not be coming back for the rest of our stay.

Sanfrancisco day 5

Japantown

Day 5 of our big vacation and today was destination Japantown. We headed out on the MUNI transit system and got off waaaay too soon. I must have misfigured our stop off point and we had to walk for a while to get there. This area was very nice. I found out later that Japantown is bordered by Pacific Heights which is one of the most upscale areas in Sanfrancisco. We hiked on in and I was taken back a bit with the area. It was pretty demure compared to Chinatown with all it’s glitz and tinsel. There were no throngs of tourists. No mobs of Japanese people going to the market to get the best deal on fish. It was pretty quiet. We poked around in a few places and didn’t see much until we came to the Soko hardware store. Oh my, this was my kind of place. They had tons of woodworking tools and many of them were Japanese tools. I picked over everything 3 times before going downstairs and getting overwhelmed all over again with all of the kitchen wares they had for sale. Nothing touristy about this place. They just had a lot of Japanese stuff. We looked around and I told Kathy we would come back to pick up some goodies I had my eye on.

We nosed around a little more, into a couple of small shops and a grocery store but we were mainly looking for the Japanese mall. When we found it, it wasn’t like what you would expect from a mall. There was not really any parking and it looked like it was tiny. Once we got inside, we found out that it was fairly good sized. Every store in this place was Japanese, right down to the Japanese dollar store. That place was hilarious. We looked thru furniture stores, antique stores, even a drug store. I started to blow off the drugstore as a waste of time but the more I looked, the more interested I became. There were literally tons of items in there for sale that you would never get in any regular drug store. The antiques were amazing, and the prices matched. I didn’t even know what half of that stuff was but it was expensive. In the tour guide I had bought there was a couple of sentences about a restaurant in Japantown that was one of the most authentic ones in all of Sanfrancisco. I didn’t have much faith that we would find it but we ran right into it. It was in the mall and had to be the smallest restaurant I have ever seen. It was more like a café and only had about a dozen tables, half of which were out in the walk area of the mall. I showed the small write-up about the place to the waitress and she took it back to the kitchen for them to see it as well. I asked her to have them sign my book but they refused, stating that they couldn’t duplicate the owner’s signature. I felt bad about that but I guess it was some sort of Japanese thing. While we were there an older gentleman struck up a conversation with us (the typical friendly as heck Sanfranciscan). He asked us why we were there and we told him we were celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary. He was impressed and said that it was unusual to find anyone that had been married for that long anymore. He said that he and his husband had been married for 20 years themselves and …………….????? (insert loud record needle scratching across the entire album here). Well, we both smiled kind of sheepishly and said that was “great” that they had been together for that long and prayed there would be no more details on the “marriage”. He caught us totally off guard because he just talked and acted so normal. His “husband” came prancing over a while later and we knew who wore the pants in the family at that point. He had been haggling for a piece of expensive jewelry next door and was a giddy as a little school girl about it. It was only going to cost $1,000 and he had been working on the owner (a friend of his) for quite a while to get it to that price. The older guy said that he had all of his money tied up in jewelry since he was afraid to invest in anything else. Evidentally, the guy was quite wealthy. I’d be wealthy too if I never had any kids. Anyway, the conversation was pleasant and entertaining, especially watching the faggy one skip back and forth from the jewelry store. He wasn’t the least bit interested in eating his lunch and left his “husband” to fend for himself. Oh well. We left the little café, after having completely enjoyed our wonderful lunch, and spent a couple more hours exploring the mall. I stuck my head in a sushi restaurant where the food goes around a huge table in little boats. The smell nearly knocked me over but I would have tried it anyway. That mall turned out to be bigger than I could guess and we took in every bit of it. There were many Japanese restaurants. If I ever go back to Sanfrancisco, I just might stay in Japantown. It was really neat. Out of the mall and back to Soko hardware for my goodies. I bought two Japanese chisels and a Japanese saw. I also bought my souvinear tea pot. It was so different that I couldn’t resist. I had looked at easily over 500 tea pots and bought one from a hardware store, of all places. This one was unusual because of it’s texture and color. I like the shape too. Kind of small and really rough on the outside.

The guy we were talking to at the café told us to head over a few streets to Filmore because the shopping was supposed to be real good. We went the opposite of what I think he really suggested and ended up in a not so nice part of town. It felt like we were in the “hood” and we weren’t liking it so we went back. My plans to take a certain MUNI bus line were foiled when I found out that the street only went one way. I would have to find another route back. No matter, there was a little park just up the road that I wanted to see. The traveler’s guide said it was nice even though the guy at the restaurant said it wasn’t worth looking at and there wasn’t anything up there.

The walk up the street started out nicely. Lots of neat little stores to window shop in. Problem was, the street was getting steeper, and steeper, and even steeper. The farther we walked, the more strenuous it became. I knew where the park was, it just seemed to be more out of reach than I had anticipated. I was getting a little worried about my sidekick too. She was trucking along, not complaining a bit, but I knew she was running out of gas. We had to stop to rest many times before we got to this mountain park and I do believe the oxygen up there was a little thinner than down in Japantown. When the edge of the park was in sight, the hill was really steep, so much that I was a little concerned about our chances of making it. We troopered on like a couple of Mt. Everest sherpas and finally made our base camp at the edge of the park. Along the way we stopped and chatted with another local while we caught our breath. Friendly as always, she was pleasant and well spoken. Originally from Pennsylvania and quite happy to have that state in her rear view mirror to boot. At the park entrance, the steps were nearly straight up and looked to be about 2 stories high. This was beginning to get to be more trouble than it was worth but I was going all the way regardless. We trogged up the stairs and scaled our way to what I initially thought was the summit of this place. Turns out there was another area that was even higher but first we had a nice rest on a park bench.

In front of the park benches was a children’s playground. There was a small birthday party being held for a little girl. She looked to be about 5 or 6 years old, in a pretty dress that could have been a ball room gown, barefoot, with long blonde hair that was tangled from the wind. There were 4 or 5 of them in all, running around and laughing, taking a bite of cake that their mother was holding for them when they got the notion, then racing off for more fun. I watched them while I was still panting from our hiking ordeal, figuring that the steep streets didn’t even affect the locals, and amazed that these little kids had so much energy and joy. The whole scene didn’t look right to me. It was windy, a little cold, and the air was wet with a slight fog. Looking around it was obvious that we were on one of the highest points in the city. The view of Sanfrancisco bay was ours at a glance. And right in the middle of it there were these little munchkins, racing around barefoot in their fancy dresses, as the birthday party drew to a close. There was some cake left and I was wondering if they would offer any to us. We weren’t too close to the party but I wanted some cake and some more Sanfranciscan conversation. The little ones were rounded up while a couple of parents exchanged contact information. Everyone was thin. I couldn’t imagine being overweight in this part of town. In the city a car is not really necessary but even with a great public transportation system, there is going to be a vast amount of walking. The party faded off and we began to notice another curiosity in the park; there were several really nice looking dogs being walked by their owners. It was a dog show. Petigreed and neatly groomed, we watched all manner of fancy pets paraded thru the area. I wanted to make the final assault on this mountain park in order to reach the highest point, so after a 30 minute rest we continued on. It wasn’t too bad to the top. There was a small forest up there with some huge trees. We walked around and admired the view, a little curious about the young couple snuggled together on the ground all wrapped up in a blanket in a never ending embrace. After a while we decided to head out of the park but we kept hearing very funny noises from the trees. They sounded like monkeys, or at least something we had never heard before. After several minutes of puzzling, the mystery was solved when a dozen birds flew out of the trees. They were some sort of parrot or cockatiel that was native to the area, told to us by a lady we ran into down the path. There was a large hawk way up high in a tree that would just sit there and never fly off. The other birds were not happy with the situation and were squalking loudly. The lady told us that the hawk was part of a mated pair that had a nest and tried to raise babies. The babies died and one of the hawks flew away. The other one had been sitting in the very top of a tree, preening itself for days without flying. She was worried that it wasn’t eating and was going to die. She had been watching the hawks for a long time. We chatted with this lady for over 30 minutes before finally leaving the park. It was a steep downhill walk but certainly was easier than it was going up. My plan was to head to the waterfront and maybe check out the Ferry building before it got too late. We walked several blocks and admired the architecture along the way. There were some large, spectacular houses in this area. Halfway down the mountain we spotted a cable car and jumped on and rode it all the way to the end of the line. From there we looked around the waterfront and Ferry building a little and decided to get home since it was getting late. I was getting pretty cocky with the street car system by now so we headed to a stop and waited for one to pick us up. About the time we saw one coming, it was already passing us by! The stupid driver even waved at us. I couldn’t believe it. That line would have dropped us right off next to the hotel and here we were, stranded. I thought that maybe it only stopped at that place at certain times of the day so it was time to start hoofing it back. That was going to be quite a bit of hoofing too. We walked (uphill again) for several blocks to try and find another street car line that would take us home. I had a general idea of where we were but didn’t realize it was that far to the hotel. Before we knew it, we were right in the middle of the red light district. Hoochie coochie bars and adult night clubs everywhere. By shear luck, we also ran right into a restaurant that was supposed to have really good Italian food. It was called “A Tu Tu Qua”. The wine country tour guide had told us about this place a couple of days before. We went in and had supper. Two appetizers, a small pizza, and two glasses of wine for $70. Jeez. I felt like my wallet had been molested. Anyway, the food was very good and it was unique. The pizza didn’t even have sauce on it. I made a new plan for our trip back to the hotel and it looked like it was going to take us thru Chinatown again. I realized that we had landed in North Beach which borders Chinatown on the North side. Just outside the restaurant was an all Chinese band. They were playing Chinese instruments that had that funny kazoo/whiny sound. The band was pretty large with about 12 people in all. They weren’t half bad and drew a pretty decent crowd. Kathy got right up next to them and admired their weird looking instruments. Some of them only had 1 or 2 strings. A little farther along Chinatown and we managed to catch a street car back home. This was by far our most adventurous day and was my favorite. We slept good that night since I guessed we must have walked several miles in all that day.

Sanfrancisco day 4 a few more pics

A few more pics of the Japanese Garden

Sanfrancisco day 4

Day 4 saw us heading to the Asian Art museum. On the way there we ran into a small street fair that can be best described only as a Persian bazaar. We checked out the bazaar, Kathy bought an orange dress so she could look like a hippy local, and we proceeded on our way towards the museum. It was about what you could expect out of any museum with the exception that it was all slanted towards ancient China, Japan, and other Eastern/Middle Eastern countries. The big exception to the everyday happenings of a museum was the special Samauri exhibit. There were several Samauri coats of armor on display as well as swords and other artifacts in a few special rooms. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in that section and had to pay extra to get to it. It was worth it though. After the museum I decided that I wanted to head over to Golden Gate Park and take a look at the Japanese Garden there and hopefully find the Japanese tea house. We had lunch at Munch Haven (our new favorite restaurant and a local hangout) then jumped on a street car after I worked out the logistics of the next destination. We had no sooner got on the street car when Kathy realized that she had forgotten her camera at Munchies (I started calling it Munchies instead of Munch Haven because I like that name better). We argued and fussed for a couple of stops then jumped off the street car to hoof it back to Munchies in what I was positive was a futile attempt to recover her camera. I told her over and over that it was gone and that was that. Well, when she dashed in there after it the guy who waited on us had it behind the camera and already was getting it out when she walked in. Very nice people in that town. I was amazed that it hadn’t grown legs and walked right out of there.

Onward to Golden Gate Park we grabbed the next street car and got off at the entrance. Golden Gate Park is a mighty big piece of real estate and it was getting sort of late afternoonish on us. We had some serious hiking to do so we put it in high gear and proceeded to march our way thru it in search of the elusive Japanese garden. We finally got to it after what seemed to be a couple of miles walk. What do you know; they charged admission. Another chance to clip a poor tourist. $10 got us both in. It is a very nice place. The pictures will tell the story. We found the tea house too. It was small and pretty Spartan. I really liked it. We sat down outside on the edge of the seating area and ordered tea for two. A tiny Japanese girl dressed in a kimono and those wooden, cloggy, looking Japanese shoes brought us a pot of tea. I found out that in Sanfrancisco, the Japanese made the best tea overall, at least as far as restaurants are concerned. I can’t compare their tea to the tea we had in Chinatown at the tea shop, but then again, that was the best tea I had ever had in my life. $700/lb tea is wonderful tea and it had better be for that price. Anyway, we also got some Japanese snacks with our tea. I would have fell in love with this little tea house if it weren’t for the fact that it was packed to the brim with people. I doubt most of them truly understood what tea was all about. They were too busy stuffing themselves full of those snacks. I was looking for a very quiet place to enjoy the scenery and relax. The tea was supposed to just be the final, perfect, accompaniment to my enjoyment. The surprise at the end of the tea house fantasy was a bill for $8.25. Yikes. If I were to calculate out how much tea they put in that pot I bet it would come out to be $400/lb anyway. Oh well, I’m not going to have tea in a Japanese tea house like this back home so I sucked it up and forked over the cash.

By this time we had seen everything in the Japanese garden and decided to get out of the park before dark. I had read scary things about the park after dark and I didn’t want to find out how true they were. We grabbed another bus and headed out for our next adventure. On the way to the park we went right thru the Haight Ashbury district. We wanted to get some T-shirts for family so we got off on the main drag and proceeded to go shopping, possibly hoping to get a glimpse of either a real hippie or maybe Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead (that would have been a miracle since Jerry has passed away but hey, this was where he was from). We didn’t see any hippies to speak of but we saw all manner of touristy, hippie wannabe shops. It was 1965 and it was all for sale. The 60’s stuff was vastly overpriced junk that didn’t impress either of us. We tried a few stores and didn’t see anything that turned us on until we wound up in a T shirt shop. Kathy bought two T shirts for the princely sum of $56. I nearly lost it and the shop owner had to have heard me complaining about the exhorbitant cost. I walked out of the shop, knowing no good was going to come out of my bitching and decided to see if I could tell where this mythical Haight Ashbury corner was. After about 5 whole minutes of puzzling, I realized that I was standing on the very corner of Haight and Ashbury itself. Pretty neat. People were taking pictures of the street sign and everything. And we even got some authentic T shirts to commemorate the occasion. Further down the street we encountered a “Hemp shop”. Everything in the place was made out of hemp. There was a sign when you first walked in warning you not to ask if they sold dope, pot, mary jane, weed, marijuana, and a dozen other names for it. I got a kick out of that. I spotted a wallet (also made out of hemp) for $12 and bought it. This same wallet was $18 at the Persion bazaar and I prided myself on actually getting one over on some touristy vendor thief during our stay. I came to within a nickel of buying that wallet at the bazaar. I had seen them on the internet and they looked like they would hold up well so I was glad I got it.

Another hop on Sanfrancisco’s famous MUNI public transportation system and we found ourselves once again in the hustle and bustle of Union Square. If I had to do this trip again, I would not stay downtown. I think I would stay in Japantown which is where we journeyed to the very next day.

Sanfrancisco vacation day 3 a few more pics

Sanfrancisco vacation day 3

Wine tour

Day 3 was our day to take the wine tour. It was going to be great. They would pick us up in front of the hotel and drive us around all day and if we had too much wine, well it just didn’t matter. I picked out a company that only took out small numbers of people. Our group was only about a baker’s dozen and we all fit just fine in the touring van. The tour guide was friendly and chatted all the way to the Napa and Sonoma valleys, pointing out sights and attractions that we would have easily missed if we had gone up there ourselves. The other couples that were with us were a pretty diversified bunch. We had people from London, South Africa, Canada, Georgia, Mexico, and of course us from Alabama.

It is only a short drive from downtown to wine country. Very rural with grapes growing on every hillside. It was also quiet and the weather was warmer than in the city. We pulled up to the first winery and they immediately started pouring wine down us. There were 5 different ones to try at this place and I bellied right up to the bar to get my share. The hostess told us that the type of wine we would be having had a real “smokey” taste to it. When I tried it I changed “smokey” to “aged in a rubber tire”. Yuck. It was Sangeovese wine and I had never had it. I hated it and told the hostess that it tasted weird. I wanted to say it tasted like it had been made in an old inner tube but just barely managed to keep my mouth shut. She didn’t like my comment and pretty much gave me the cold shoulder after that. As I get older, I have learned to keep my mouth shut. The problem is that I don’t yet have the ability. Oh well, at least I told her the truth. I didn’t care for this winery and decided that they were just trying to sell us a bunch of overpriced tire fodder. The area was very nice and it was easy to get caught up in the wine making business, seeing that it was such nice scenery and looked to be a very laid back, quiet way to make a living. We pushed on to the second winery and everything was a little different. We were all seated at a large table together instead of a bar. The hostess poured everyone’s wine then described to us what we would be tasting. She said the first one tasted like grapefruit. It did. Very good stuff. The next one was supposed to taste like cherries and it did. Loved it. The others were pretty much a spot on to what she described we would be tasting. The name of the winery was Jacuzzi, just like the Jacuzzi bath tubs. The winery was owned by the same people who invented the Jacuzzi, thus the name. Neat. I’ve seen Jacuzzi wine in the store and said to myself that I would never buy something just for it’s silly name. I went looking for it the other day and couldn’t find any. I’ll turn some up one of these days.

The last winery was one that was more of a large production outfit. Our tour group was combined with two others from the same company and we all went on a complete tour of the facility. The guide was well versed in his job and described the process in great detail. At the end of the tour we had our wine tasting. The wine that they made was sparkling wine, which is like champaign but can’t be called that because it does not come from the Champaign region of France. I didn’t care, it was very good. He told us what we would taste, and like the other winery, his description was right on the money. After the tasting, people were allowed to ask questions. One question in particular caught my attention. There was a couple who were trying to decide what alloy of stainless steel the wine vats were made out of. He asked the guide if it was 304 or 316. The guide said that the answer to that question was beyond his scope of knowledge but since he was a former machinist, he knew what they were talking about. I thought it was a really dumb question and figured that the people who had asked it probably owned a machine shop in Michigan and that was their only point of reference. Oh well, some people. Also kind of made me wonder what a machinist was doing at a winery conducting tours. I figured he got laid off during the downturn in the economy.

We had lunch in a very small café that was in a tiny town in the Napa valley. The name of the town was Sonoma, not to be confused with the Sonoma valley which was pointed out to us. The food was very upscale and we enjoyed it. After lunch we were allowed to walk around town for about 45 minutes and we had fun looking in all the small shops. It was a pretty touristy place, like just about everywhere we had been while in the city but we enjoyed poking around and exploring none the less. The town didn’t look to be more than a few square blocks in size. I really love those tiny cafes, some of them had seating outdoors and it was really nice to just enjoy the lovely weather with a meal.

We were the last ones to be dropped off at the end of the day. I didn’t care for the reminders to tip the host but I gave her a pretty good amount anyway.

Sanfrancisco vacation day 2

Chinatown!

Day two saw us heading to Chinatown. We started off our day by walking down market street, threading our way thru the homeless people to a little café called Munch Haven. Breakfast was wonderful but expensive. This little place was really neat. Tiny, and inhabited by locals, it wasn’t too busy. We felt like we had found a place that wasn’t touristy. We were in a section of the city known as “The Tenderloin”. I had read horror stories about the Tenderloin and even early in the morning, I knew they weren’t kidding about it.

Back up Market street we got in line to ride a cable car for Chinatown. It was early so there wasn’t a big line. The conductor was calling for people who were going to work to get in the front of the line. The tourists would have to wait. The cable car ride was slow but fun, nothing I would ride unless I needed to really get somewhere. We jumped off and walked several blocks to Chinatown.

Right at the Chinatown gate we strolled in and found out that we were a little early. It was dead in the water. All the stores had not opened yet. Not to worry, I had been studying up on Chinatown and I knew that the REAL Chinatown was on Stockton street a block over. We hiked up the hill to Stockton just as it was awakening. The open air markets are a real blast to your eyes, ears, and nose. Especially your nose. I smelled things and had no idea what they could possibly be. I’m not taking wonderful smells either. It was pretty funky. Kind of a fishy, herby, weird sort of thing. There were lots of shops selling herbal remedies that were dried roots, fungus, mushrooms, and God knows what else. The idea is to tell the doctor at the counter what is ailing you then he prepares a concoction of these dried mysteries and you go home and brew a tea out of it. Drink the tea and hope that it doesn’t kill you in the process, then you are cured. I didn’t buy any. There were lots of Chinese people, mostly elderly, buying groceries and meat at the open markets. We strolled thru and saw butchers cutting up fresh pork, fish markets where the fish were laying out in the open and still wiggling, and even saw an old woman who had a large fish in a cardboard box that she was trying to sell to everyone who walked by. Sort of a miniature yard sale. It was cut up in weird sections and looked a little scary. There was no behind the scenes food preparation going on either. Everything was done right in front of you. The butcher shop was really something. All those people hacking away at the carcasses right in the open. The little shops had just about everything imaginable for sale and it was pretty hard to negotiate the narrow isles. I really enjoyed the Chinese restaurant supply places and wanted to buy everything I touched but there was no way I would have been able to pack it for the trip home. I will get these things on the internet one of these days. One item that I really wanted to bring home was a teapot to remember the occasion. I’m becoming sort of a collector of these silly things and have amassed about a dozen or so. I only really need a couple to brew just about any kind of tea. I must have looked at over 1,000 teapots of all sizes and shapes. I saw teapots that would hold over 5 gallons of tea to tiny ones that would hold only about 1 ounce. I just couldn’t find one that was really “me” though. Towards the end of the day I told Kathy that I thought I would try getting a tea pot in Japantown another day instead. After buzzing thru the area I began to notice that the majority of the stores were either grocery/vegetable markets, restaurants, herb stores, or junk shops. There wasn’t a large variety. We did notice a pet shop in the area but it had went out of business. I won’t try and spin a joke about Chinese restaurants and pet shops but it’s tempting. We were pretty tired from running around looking in all of the shops and decided we would try our luck at lunch. Kathy picked out a dim sum house that looked pretty nice and it turned out to be yummy. We were seated at a very large table that could have held a dozen people. There were others at our table and they must have thought we looked pretty out of place in there since we were the only two white folks in the place. It was packed too. I took that to be a good sign. The food was really good and we ate our fill. After a while, an elderly lady at our table struck up a conversation with us. She was friendly, like all the people in the city, but her English was only slightly better than our Chinese. Anyway, Kathy enjoyed talking with her. She asked how much our bill was and we told her around $20. She said we got out of there pretty good. The dim sum was a little different than what I was used to but it was great. I had some Chinese broccoli that was wonderful. We also had pot stickers, custard muffins, and other things that I can’t even name. The best thing about this place was that you didn’t ask for tea, they just put down a pot right in front of you. I was disappointed that it came in that ugly stainless steel pot just like at home but I guess that is the North American standard for Chinese restaurant tea pots. One lady who was bringing the dim sum out in carts would get right behind me and yell what she had in Chinese. I didn’t know what her game was but she made me jump more than once. Once out of the restaurant we continued on our way to discover new treasures.

The very next place we came to was an authentic tea shop. It was tiny and we were the only people in there. The entire shop was about the size of an average bedroom. We sat down at the little counter and talked with the owner for about an hour about tea. He served us several varieties and we all had a great time sipping tea and talking about everything. We came out of there with over $150 worth of tea and that was for only two 8 ounce bags. This stuff was EXPENSIVE. It was also very good. He let us sample a very high grade of tea that sold for $700 a pound. I have never had tea that good. The taste was unlike any other tea I have ever had and to say the least, it was incredible. I learned a lot about tea that day. The owner’s wife also gave us a couple of small bags of tea as gifts. The tea shop visit turned out to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the day.

We wandered around for a couple more hours and saw a little more of the real thing. We went past the Hang ah tea room and I told Kathy we would come back another day for tea. I will discuss the merits of the Hang ah tea room in a future blog. Right past this place (we were in a small alley) we peered into a room that was filled with people playing Mah Jong. No way we were getting in there (it was packed) but I felt like this was part of real Chinatown life. Kathy was afraid we were going to get mugged in the alley so we pressed on. We also found a lovely park that was full of Chinese people playing a game that I think is called “Go”. It kind of looks like checkers but the playing pieces are placed on the intersections of the squares and not in the square itself. It was a very popular game and there would be two guys playing and about a dozen watching them. It could have been the national championships for all we knew. Kathy asked a man if she could take his picture but he pointed to some others. I told her that people don’t always like to have their picture taken. Could have been that there was just a little bit of gambling going on and I figured that they didn’t want to advertise themselves.

Back on the street, we plowed our way thru the rest of Chinatown. I wanted to find the fortune cookie factory but never could locate it. Try as I might, it eluded us for the entire visit. Kathy wasn’t as enthusiastic about finding it as I was but it really wasn’t a “holy grail” type of thing for me anyway. I just wanted to see how they made the stupid things. Chinatown is really “tinsely”, brightly lit, and full of tourists on the main drag and we ended our trip where we started. At the end of the day I told Kathy that I was in “sensory overload” and couldn’t take it anymore. It was just too much to see.

As far as I could tell, we pretty much covered nearly every square inch of Chinatown except for that stupid fortune cookie factory. We even got to the outer limits and saw some of North Beach. This area is Italian and we switched from ducks and pieces of barbequed pork hanging in the windows to the smell of coffee and garlic. We didn’t take too many pictures in Chinatown. I was so intent on seeing everything that I just dragged my poor wife around at high speed and wouldn’t hardly let her stop long enough to snap many pictures. She took nearly all of the pictures on the trip and did a great job with them.