Towse: views from the hill

My camera died a horrible death last week, more bang than whimper. I’ve had a week full of oh-I-wish-I-had-my-camera moments. Finally checked through last weekend’s ads on Thursday, setting up a spreadsheet, sorting out which digital cameras with what number of megapixels cost what where. Checked online at PC magazine for “what are the top ten digital cameras.” Checked prices online and settled on Staples. Ordered the camera Thursday afternoon. Camera delivered to our doorstep yesterday.

Made the initial setup — wristcord, batteries, time, date, &c. — while we were waiting down at Washington Square Park for the 30 bus, which would take us out to the Marina and the Golden Gate YC for an afternoon wedding. Took blurry pictures at the wedding. Took pictures of the sunrise this morning. Ran out of memory. Sussed out how to pop the SD card in the camera. Sun rose. Sussed out how to offload the pictures.

I really need to read the manual today and learn how to use the camera.

Nikon CoolPix 5600. CoolPix? What kind of name is that?

Looking up from the paper, I couldn’t miss seeing it. With a Coast Guard ship escort and a gaggle of gawkers watching, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) cruised past the Hill with all hands on deck, at attention. The USS Abraham Lincoln is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the one that served as the “Mission Accomplished” backdrop. Impressive sight.

Why are they in town? How long will they be here? No mention in the paper or on the Web that I could find, but then in this town, TPTB might not want to give the placard carrying protesters any advance warning.

If my dear ol’ Concord Eye-Q 4060 4.0 Mp digital camera hadn’t died a sorry death a week or so ago, I’d’ve had a nice click of the Abe. As it is, the replacement camera I ordered over the Web yesterday won’t arrive until some time today.

A friend (with whom I’d been discussing the recent review in Northside of David Kinch’s Manresa restaurant) asked, “Did you read Daniel Patterson’s “To the Moon, Alice?” in The New York Times? Super-nice mention of David Kinch towards the end of the story.”

I hadn’t read the Patterson article, so I tracked it down. Note: NYTimes registration required. If you don’t want to register, use bugmenot.com.

This is what I told my correspondent:

Seemed an odd piece. Patterson sounds a bit cranky. Sounds like he’s putting down all those fresh-ingredients people and puffing the cutting edged-ness of whatever retaurant space he’s about to open.

And it also sounds like he has a slight “no one appreciates my cutting edged-ness” chip on his shoulder.

His remarks re Alice Waters are of a double-edged variety.

What really happened at Frisson?

We never got there while Patterson was there. (We’d never had an opportunity to eat at Elisabeth Daniel either, for that matter.)

Frisson opened in August 2004, iirc, and we intended to eat there but hadn’t got around to it. (We still haven’t eaten at Michael Mina either and it’s been open for almost a year now. Slackers be we.)

By March 2005, Patterson had left and Sarah Schafer, who’d been his chef de cuisine, was put in charge. We made reservations as a show of support and booked for what happened to be Easter.

The Easter dinner was okay fine, but it was a fixed menu for the evening, which I thought was just a bit odd. We went back again because the restaurant had had some raves and I thought the Easter dinner had not, perhaps, shown it in its best light.

I order what was billed as a pork rib, which turned out to be a thick =dry= pork chop, so thick I couldn’t cut it with the knife at my place. I had to flag down the wait staff and ask for a steak knife or something. They had none (none!), I was told, but our guy went off to the flatware drawer and found me a “newer” knife, which he promised would be sharper. It was. Slightly. I could at least cut the meat. But still. …

The dinner was so-so and we haven’t been back and don’t intend to.

We are booked for a dinner next week at Masa’s — where we haven’t been since before they remodeled years back. 2001 maybe? We’ll see what the new chef, Gregory Short, (new since, like, January?) is doing.

The dinner is a Dee Vine Wines event where Dee Vine Wines will be pouring German wines from a cellar they just acquired. The wines are gratis to accompany dinner in hopes, more likely than not, that some (or even one!) of us will fall in love and buy up their newest score: “the single greatest collection of Trockenbeerenauslesen ever offered for sale. The entire collection of 1,964 bottles has a combined oechsle totaling over 50,000 degrees.”

Well, I don’t know German wines much at all. Trockenbeerenauslesen? oechsle? Huh? We’re learning, though, and this dinner is more an exploration of German wines and a return to Masa’s than anything. Masa’s will be serving seared foie as one of the courses so what’s not to like?

[tangent]

The first time I had seared foie gras was at Château de Roumégouse, Rocamadour, France. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Honest. The next time I had seared foie was when we happened into Masa’s a year or two later. Oh my! I don’t have to fly to France to eat this stuff!

Luke Sung at Isa has the absolute !!best!! seared foie gras in the city. In June, he pairs it with grilled white peaches.

… my …

Luke always serves his seared foie with some sort of fruit and a slice of custard brioche. Brilliant! You can sop up all the juices and enjoy every last bit.

… well!

[ahem]

[/tangent]

Daniel Patterson’s NYT piece struck me as whiny. Glad he had good things to say about Manresa.

I’ll be interested to see what Patterson comes up with, with this new restaurant he’s planning, and I’ll be interested to see if Masa’s is better than it was the last time we were there, many moons ago.

Oh! I knew there was something else I wanted to say. The Northside article [a review of Manresa] mentioned the laid back staff at Manresa. She made some remark about other less laid back staff.

I don’t know who exactly she might’ve been thinking of, but fwiw, our experience at Gary Danko was good food, high price, starchy staff. The staff was too starchy and didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves. Relax. Enjoy your job. We like the staff attitude at Manresa.

Gary Danko is another place we won’t be back to. Good to go to once and see what all the buzz is about, but did you love it? This city has 3000+ table restaurants. Why go some place that didn’t strike you as wonderful when there are so many other places to choose from?

Same sort of price range as Gary Danko? I’d opt for Rubicon any day of the week. (Well, of course, unless it’s Sunday, when Rubicon is closed. …)

Jerry Brown has a blog, but he’s being a real slacker about keeping it current.

[Hattip to Thomas Hawk who has piccies from the Ferry Building hoohah yesterday including, yes, one of Jerry Brown.]

Hie thee over to FogBay and check out the photographs — 164 photographs, with commentary, as of this second. More to come, I hope. The last photo is dated July. More photos! More photos!

Beautiful photographs. Interesting and informative commentary. I hadn’t, for example, despite living in the neighborhood and walking by frequently, realized the address for Sts. Peter and Paul is 666 Filbert.

Walking back home from the SPUR luncheon yesterday, we stopped off at the new Cody’s Books at 2 Stockton Street, near Market and bought some books.

Support your local independent bookseller.

His nibs picked up a mappish book of Venice for when we’ll be there next spring. I picked up a signed copy of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking because I’d read John Leonard’s review in The New York Review of Books and good things at Chekhov’s Mistress.

These were books we didn’t truly need, but according to The Chron, Andrew Ross is taking a huge gamble, opening this 22K sq ft, two-level bookstore near Union Square (estimated cost over $3.5 million) when his two Berkeley Cody’s haven’t shown a profit for the past two years.

Hunker down? Or go for broke and put a bookstore where Planet Hollywood fizzled out? Ross decided to go for broke, and we hope that others will flock to his gamble and keep him in business.

We’re glad to see Cody’s in San Francisco.

Support your local independent bookseller.

Update: Yow. Am I au courant or what?

Article in this week’s Time Magazine on Cody’s on Stockton — said magazine pushed through the slot with the rest of today’s mail.

We weren’t invited to dine (or lunch) with Charles Philip Arthur George, but we have been out and about the last couple days.

Last Sunday night was the second annual North Beach Citizens’ Community Recognition Award Dinner at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club (1636 Stockton St.). The dinner benefits North Beach Citizens, a homeless-relief project started by Francis Ford Coppola five years ago. For some reason their Web site isn’t available right now. Hence, the substitute link.

This year’s honoree was Mary Risley, aka Tante Marie of Tante Marie’s Cooking School and founder of Food Runners, a nonprofit that picks up and delivers food that would otherwise be thrown away. Food Runners picked up and delivered 109,425 pounds of food in October. Amazing. And it all started with Mary Risley’s vision back in 1987.

Yesterday we went to the 2005 Silver SPUR Awards Luncheon benefiting the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association which honored four San Franciscans who have made a difference: Ruth Felt, David J. Sanchez, Jr., Ph.D., Roselyne (Cissy) Swig, and Chuck Turner.

The event was held at Moscone Center West (corner of Fourth & Howard streets) and was sold out and over sold out. Our friend Kirby’s table was numbered 30.5 (30.5?!?), as the organizers squeezed in just a few more tables to accomodate the crush of people.

We walked over because we need the exercise and because it’s always a pain to park your car. We checked through all the exhibits and posters. Saw the proposed layout for the controversial development of Piers 27-31, and when the barrier tape was dropped, found our seat at a table hosted by neighbors up on Montgomery. Anne, one of the aforesaid neighbors, is on the SPUR Board with Kirby and sixty-three other board members.

The room was a-buzz with something like 1300 people in attendance, including our neighbor down the hill, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is agin the Mills project, and folks from America True, who are for it. America True will, if the project gets built, be providing marine activities, including regattas, sailing lessons for youngsters, and more.

A motley crowd it was.

Balls, bouncy balls, a quarter million bouncy balls, were bouncing down Filbert Street and Kearny and Sanchez and elsewhere in the city in late July this year. Why were the balls bouncing?

Watch the Sony BRAVIA commercial. “Color like no other. …”

The BRAVIA site offers background and pictures and the advert itself. High or low speed connect. Brief or extended version. The music is Heartbeats by José Gonzales.

Caution: The extended version takes forever to load, even at cable modem speed. Bandwidth problems at Sony’s end? I imagine so.

sepiatone, who worked on the filming, has a nice set of photos up on flickr.

Bouncing balls in July and the Icer Air Ski and Snowboard Jump schlussing down Fillmore in September. The Blue Angels roaring overhead in October during Fleet Week. The KPFA-sponsored Margo St. James Hookers Ball at Pier 23 over the Halloween weekend to benefit the St. James Infirmary and Sex Workers Outreach Project – USA.

Is this a great little town or what?