30 June 2005

New favorite bumper sticker:

Practice Compassionate Impeachment

26 June 2005

The weekend:

Farmers’ market report: apricots, strawberries, chicken, eggs, zucchini, a Pullman loaf from della Fattoria, and a bunch of thyme (in blossom).

I cleaned up around here Saturday afternoon. I love my shredder.

A nap and then a quick visit to the gym.

I rode around the Castro for a half-hour with a friend looking for parking and then we scored with the perfect spot at 17th and Noe (after lying to a police officer to let us in the barricaded area (“We have our own parking spot on Downey Street. Honest!”)). We almost collided with the Dyke March at one point, but avoided that misogynistic tragedy.

Sushi, then drinks amongst the gay elders at Twin Peaks, and a little stroll among the 100,000 tourists filling the Castro. I think all the good San Franciscans stay home for Pink Saturday.

Sunday I saw the parade for a few minutes with my sister and her g.f.

I hurried over to my parents to help my mother cook. It was a blissful 80. I picked apricots and plums off the trees in the backyard, washed and waxed my car, did two loads of laundry, picked a big bowlful of basil leaves for pesto from the plot near the peach tree, and used the rotisserie on the fancy new gas grill (there went my inheritance) to make a lovely roast beef. Maybe I could get used to the suburban life.

My sisters and their families and some cousins came over for dinner. Lots of little kids.

My little nephew now calls me Uncle Car-Car, so I’m happy.

23 June 2005

My straight crush came over last night for another cooking lesson. We made a bean soup and linguine with pesto. Homemade pesto. Homemade, handmade pesto. Homemade, handmade pesto made with a mortar and pestle. I helped him prep all the ingredients, and showed him how to use my big stone mortar and pestle, and set him to work. He did a great job. The kitchen still smelled of basil and garlic when I got up this morning. We drank a not unpalatable screw-top rosé (French), and I sent him home with the leftovers.

I’m finally putting some of what I learned in school to practical use. I’m helping one of our disabled clients fill out the forms for a breach of contract action. He’s representing himself, but I’m running interference with the court forms. I’m not planning to work there next fall, but I’d be happy to come back in every week or so to help the client out.

And I have a date next week! It’s someone who contacted me through Friendster. He’s opinionated about food (but in the right way), so he’s passed the first hurdle.

19 June 2005

It has been a long week. I worked seven days at my four various jobs. I’ve been to four programs in as many days at the film festival. The opening night film and party were fun, but not memorable, perhaps because my companion and I started out by having three fast martinis at Twin Peaks beforehand. None of the other films have been very interesting; with the possible exception of the Ned Rorem documentary I saw this morning.  More fun was an hour or two reading the papers and sunbathing in Dolores Park amongst the gays. I’m glad that hairless chests and flat abs have gone out of fashion. I’m spending the day mostly alone. I’ve only had one (short) conversation, and don’t plan to have many more.

I cooked last night at the restaurant: twice-baked spinach soufflés. They were green and fluffy and nutmeggy, thanks to prodigal quantities of egg whites and spinach and nutmeg. I love improvising a successful dish off an old recipe for something else. In just three or so hours, I had to prepare 60 ramekins with butter and parmesan; wash, dry, and wilt two big boxes of spinach; make a thick but tasty béchamel from two pounds of butter, six cups of flour and 18 cups of milk; drain, squeeze and hand-chop all that spinach; separate over five dozen eggs; whip the whites; fold them into half the batter; bake all them puppies in bain marie, and unmold them all for service; and then prepare some peas, onions, and zucchini as a little garnish. Between the first seating and our dinner break, I had to bake another batch of sixty for the second seating. I had help from our new intern (on summer vacation from grad school at Harvard), but he’s so new and I was so pressed for time that I completed his tasks for him. He’s experienced enough to know how to pick up hot things (like the ramekins waiting to be unmolded) without burning himself. I got quite a bit of green batter splattered on myself by about 5 o’clock, which is, of course, when the owner of the restaurant paid her visit. I ducked out and changed into a fresh white jacket so that I could say hello.

12 June 2005

Well, where are we?

After a short workday on Friday, I hung out with a friend who was in town for my surprise birthday party on Saturday (which wasn’t much of a surprise, since I had been included on the Evite invitation three weeks ago).

Up early for the Saturday farmers’ market: apricots, sour cherries, zucchini, beef, boysenberries, eggs, bread. Then a little bit of sun in Dolores Park, the gym, a nap, and my party, which was loads of fun. Too many gin martinis, perhaps, but my $7 thrift-store shirt was mistaken for Gucci by more than one of the gays.

Up early again on Sunday to drive up to Sonoma to help cook a luncheon on the vegetable farm. With no traffic, I was in the deep countryside in 40 minutes from my house. It’s so beautiful up there, and so nice to cook with vegetables and herbs that were picked that morning. Several of the guests, all wealthy and successful lawyers, said it was the best lunch they’d ever had. The farmer tends the vineyards from which the wine we served was made, so everything but the shrimp and the lamb was local. Very local. Even the chickens had lived their short lives there. The house is just an old shack with a tin roof and wide wrap-around porch, but it holds a grand piano and a 10-burner restaurant stove. Everything in the kitchen is furniture—nothing is built in, and most of it was made from ancient redwood salvaged from an old water tank up the hill. The dishes and the Bosch dishwasher sit in a big freestanding cabinet. The big porcelain sink is actually in a freestanding cabinet of its own. What appears to be a counter next to it (with an 8-foot-long butcher-block top) is really just a long table, and the prep island is a very sturdy, tall table. The farmer’s brother made all of it. It’s great cooking on a farm. When I needed chives, I just walked off the porch, past the guests and their tumblers of rosé, to the chive patch and snipped what I needed.  It's the kind of living that money can't buy.

I stopped at El Rio on the way home, but to no avail, perhaps because the big bunch of flowers in the romance corner of my apartment proved too top heavy for the vase and tipped over while I was gone. Or else we had a small earthquake.

10 June 2005

I survived my birthday. Can’t believe how OLD I am. We had a great dinner at the restaurant (details to follow). And yesterday we just lazed around and ate. We went to the AIDS Memorial Grove and the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park; we went to the Pork Store for breakfast. We went to the gym, Café Flore for lunch, then we had massages.  And then we picked up my little straight friend and brought him for burritos and drinks in the Mission. A very lovely two days off. Details later. I’m running late for work.