Cookies, Punch and Nekkid Santas!

By Thanksgiving, our Martini March was a wine - soaked memory, so we cast our gaze forward to the Italian Cookie Walk. The Saturday after the turkey stuff-a-thon, Ira, Harald, Jeneva and I met up at Union City BART and headed (ha!) up to San Francisco to pre-cookie the route. We have realized that the pre-whatevering is really important to our HEAD events what with the early closure of one of our burrito joints and the fact that bakeries sometimes have weird hours.

We had a lot of fun on our pre-cookieing but we commited several tactical errors. The first goof we made was to eat lunch before eating cookies. Don't get me wrong - lunch was delicious - we ate at Cap's Corner, a historic restaurant near Beach Blanket Babylon, but it was  muy estupido to eat lunch before visiting eight bakeries. The second mistake was visiting eight bakeries. Even though we just had a nibble at each stop, we were barely able to waddle into the Comstock Saloon and beg for help from Lindsey, an alcohol therapist and dispenser of digestives. Those things really work! We felt good enough to walk the rest of the way to BART and get our flabby butts home.

Armed with the results of our pre-cookieing, we pared our list of bakeries down to four. We figured we'd only visit the places that were historically significant and made their own pastries. Also, they needed to have a specialty. This time, we met Bruce and Pam at BART and headed (ha!) up to the City where we walked up to the Comstock - and guess who was there!!!? Lindsey,  Doctor of Boozology and the Official Bartender of the HEAD Society. At the bar, we met Nancy, Bob and Sharol and a whole bunch of people dressed like Santa. There were Santas all over the streets, on BART, everywhere! We were intrigued, because we thought WE were the coolest group in SF that day, but the Clauses were giving us a run for our money - just with sheer numbers!

We settled down at the bar to wait for Steve, who was still on BART. Lindsey made us some Pisco Punch, a cocktail invented during the Gold Rush in San Francisco. Its really good - kind of a Mikes Hard Lemonade from the Barbary Coast era. We heard from Steve who had arrived in the City and was starting to walk toward the Comstock - just about the same time some of the Santas clued us in that in 45 minutes they were going to try to break the Guiness Book record for naked Santas in Washington Square Park. We told Steve and ordered another round. Seconds later, Steve entered the bar. I had no idea he could move that fast! After we finished our drinks, we bade farewell to fair Lindsey and headed for our first bakery, via Washington Square Park...

...Where we encountered thousands of people dressed as Santa. Key word here is "dressed". There were a few brave, naked souls, lots of women in thongs, some people from Sharol an Bob's church and even a Waldo, but we got tired of waiting around for the group trou dropping and headed for the Italian French Bakery for a little macaroon action. We found out later that we had stumbled into Santacon which will be a HEAD Society outing next year. Second Saturday in December. Mark your calendars.

 The lady at the I&F bakery was charmed by us, but really wanted a report on the naked Santas so we clued her in. Fact is, the only naked Santas we saw looked a lot like Ira and me before the diet. Question: Why don't the pretty people get nekkid? Anyway, we snarfed our macaroons, bought some killer bread, and headed to Mara's on Columbus for canolli. Canolli are, to my mind, a perfect food, combining fried deliciousness and creamy goo, Plus - these ones had chocolate on them. Canolli are said to be a fertility symbol in Italy. What a horny bunch of people...

Next, we made it over to Stella Bakery for sacripantina. It means "sacred little bread" I think it should mean "oral orgasm" because, honestly, its that good... *Sorry, I drifted off there for a minute. After we finished licking the plate, spoon, fingers of the server, and anything else that came close to the sacripantina, we swooned over to Victoria Pastry Company on Vallejo. We chose this place because all of its cookies are wonderful, they serve coffee and they have a bathroom. My favorite cookie at Victoria is a little brown blob that tastes so good you could plotz. They have sacripantina, too!!!

By the time we left Victoria, it was a few minutes after five. We stumbled over to Kearny and Tomasso's Pizza. Tomasso's is the oldest pizza restaurant on the West Coast, it opens at 5pm, and when we got there at 5:15, it was full. We found out why when we got our pizzas - sausage and mushroom and a buratta cheese, cherry tomato, and basil.  OMG - that was some delicious pie!!! By the way, buratta cheese is a mozerella enriched with cream.

The walk back to BART was uneventful, but pretty what with the Christmas lights and all, and we motored back home with our leftover cookies, a loaf of bread and a few drunken Santas. It was a really fun event and we're in the middle of planning our next outing. Keep an eye peeled for  HEAD trip announcements - we'll see you there! Wherever "there" is!

Italian Cookie Walk

 

With the holiday season in full swing, the HEAD Society’s thoughts turn to cookies! And everyone knows that the Italians know their cookies. And where better to find Italian cookies than North Beach? Our next HEAD Trip, the Italian Cookie Walk will head out on a journey of tasty exploration on Saturday, December 10, 2011.

We’ll meet at the Comstock Saloon (155 Columbus Ave. @ Kearny) at 2:30pm. This year the Comstock was selected as the 9^th best cocktail bar in America by GQ Magazine. It’s been a bar since 1907 when it opened as the Andromeda Saloon. It was described as a place where “angling executives, sharp-talking politicians and homesick sailors all rubbed elbows while brazen prostitutes flaunted coquettish charms at the brass rail of the ornate bar.” It is the last of the old Barbary Coast bars still standing (and serving drinks).

The original bar has been restored. It made from a single twenty foot long slab of Cuban mahogany and they serve Pre-Prohibition cocktails including Pisco Punch, Hop Toad and the Martinez (remember that one?).

We’ll take in some pre-walk refreshment before our band of HEAD Trippers sets out on our Italian Cookie Walk. From the Comstock we’ll head up Columbus Avenue into the heart of North Beach Our first stop will be the Italian French Pastry Company (1501 Grant Ave.). This place bakes bread and breadsticks for many San Francisco restaurants in their huge brick oven from the 1920s. They also bake a number of delicious cookies and biscotti but the star of the show is their macaroon – sweet as a kiss with coconut and chocolate.

This wonderful cookie was born in Italy, introduced by Catherine de Medicis chef in 1533. They were served at Catherine’s  wedding. She married the Duc d'Orleans who later became king of France (Henry II). The name "macaroon" has the same origin as that the word "macaroni" - both mean "fine dough".

Next stop? Mara’s Italian Pastry (503 Columbus Ave.) for the house specialty, cannoli. These tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough are filled with a sweet, creamy ricotta filling. Cannoli were first prepared as a treat during Carnevale (a Sicilian version of Mardi Gras). They were also seen as a fertility symbol (those Italians). Cannoli are an essential part of Sicilian cuisine.  The name means "little tube". Italian immigrants brought this treat to America. In Italy, these Sicilian pastry treats are commonly known as "cannoli Siciliani" or, Sicilian cannoli. They range in size from "cannulicchi", no bigger than a finger, to  fist-sized proportions.

A little ways down the street we’ll find our next bakery, Stella Pastry and Café (446 Columbus Ave.). This place has been a San Francisco landmark since it opened in 1942. The house specialty is the Sacripantina, a multilayered cake made with a “pan di spagna” (vanilla sponge cake), zabaione (delicate custard made with egg yolks, sweet butter, Marsala and sherry), cream, and rum. It's like eating a delicious cloud – a cloud full of flavor.

Sacripantina  was created in 1851 by Giovanni Preti in his pastry shop in Genoa. The name was inspired by the character Sacripante in the Italian romantic epic “Orlando Furioso” (“The Frenzy of Orlando” or “Mad Orlando”). Sacripante was a king and leader of knights. He was tormented by his love for Angelica (the most beautiful woman he had ever seen). He wanted her and fought to defend her.

Full yet? I don’t think so because we’ve saved the best for last, Victoria Pastry Company (1362 Stockton St.). Founded by Sicilian immigrants in 1914, Victoria specializes in a dizzying array of Italian cookies, biscotti, tortes and cakes. They still use the original Sicilian recipes and the same brick oven which is now almost 100 years old.  

At this point, we’ll walk around digesting and burning of a calorie or two. As our appetites revive, we’ll head over to Tommaso’s (1042 Kearny St.). Tommaso’s was the first pizzeria on the west coast. It was opened in 1935 by an immigrant family from Naples. They still use the original wood-fired brick pizza oven.

The whole walk is only .8 of a mile. An advance team from the HEAD Society’s crack research unit pre-walked the route. We learned a valuable lesson – eat a light lunch!

Martini Memories

Yes, I know its been a long time since we traveled to Martinez, I've completely sobered up, and I've been meaning to write - I really have...I've been experiencing a bit of blogger's block, though, and I think its because although I only drank one martini (a lemon drop - it was pretty good although very strong but the rim of the glass was coated with sugar! The bar had good sandwiches, too...) I put away a whole lot of wine. Here's what happened:

 Jeneva, Harald and I, thinking we were leading a much larger group, headed out from the bar toward Main Street to  get our glasses and join the Wine Stroll. When I turned around to reconnoiter with the group, I discovered that nobody else was coming with us. Since Jeneva and Harald are two of my very favorite people in the world, this was fine but a little surprising mainly because I really don't think martinis taste all that good...Apparently that was not the majority opinion.

Wine glasses were sold in an art gallery that had some really pretty watercolors and photographs adorning the walls. I got a watercolor still life and Jeneva got a beautiful framed photograph of Yosemite in addition to our glasses. We were tutored on Wine Stroll procedure, ergo - any store displaying purple balloons was a participating store. Each participant served a taste of wine and some hors d'oeuvres.

By the third or fourth store, we had figured out the system - the wine was kept in the back of each shop. This necessitated a thorough examination of all the very cool merchandise by lots of progressively drunker and drunker shoppers. It worked! The shops were awesome and doing a land office business. I totally want to run a store there, now!

Early on, we also noticed that the wines were paired with shops that suited them. For example, the sweet shop served a port. They also gave out samples of their caramel apples. We bought some. We figured that there was no reason to check out the store that was serving Two Buck Chuck, but we kind of just wanted to poke our heads in and say..."Really?"...

The only problem with tasting wine this way (20 small sips - one after another) is that you get really drunk and you can't read any of your notes when you get home. Plus you might try to sing along with the couple from The Lawrence Welk Show in the clock shop and get shushed. And when you meet everybody back at the bar for recon before you go home, you might think it was a really good idea to order two orders of onion rings and eat most of them yourself...sparking a bout of heartburn that could torch a barn.

All in all, it was a really fun HEAD trip and made me appreciate what a cool little berg Martinez is! That and the pre-cookie walk we did with the Westendorfs today made me excited for our next outing - The Italian Christmas Cookie Walk on December 10. It's a lot of walking and you'll need a bag to carry your pastries in, but it is gonna be FUN!!! See you there!

HEAD Society Martini March

HEAD Society Martini March

Saturday, November 5, 2011

3pm

The cocktail is an American creation. Many of these tasty concoctions have roots right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Pisco Punch, Mai Tai and the Martini are all natives. Perhaps the most famous is the Martini. New York and San Francisco both claim to be the birthplace of this drink but little Martinez is the rightful home to this cocktail classic.

Following the California gold rush (sometime between 1862 and 1874), a miner came into Julio Richelieu’s saloon in Martinez. To celebrate his new found wealth, he ordered champagne. None was available but Julio offered him “something better” a “Martinez Special”.

There are two versions of the original recipe:

#1) 4 parts Old Tom Gin (which had a strong juniper flavor), 1 part sweet vermouth, 1 part bitters and cherry elixir.

#2) 2 parts gin, 1 part vermouth, a dash of orange bitters.

Whichever recipe the original followed, the customer loved the drink and ordered a round for the house!

The recipe was published in O.H. Bryon’s 1884 Modern Bartender’s Guide. Three years later Professor Jerry Thomas published it in The Bon Vivant’s Companion: Or How to Mix Drinks. Thomas was perhaps America’s first celebrity bartender. He, of course, claimed credit for the drink while traveling through Martinez.

It is said that the name changed from Martinez to Martini since the “z” was too hard to pronounce after drinking a few.

Julio’s original saloon was at 414 Ferry St. at Marina Vista. For many years it was Amato’s restaurant. Today it is the Royal Thai restaurant. The Royal Thai lacks a full bar so the HEAD Hunters’ recon mission found an appropriate substitute just down a block down at the Ferry Street Station. After close examination, it proved to be a martini-rich environment.

The Ferry Street Station is located at 600 Ferry Street in Martinez. It’s in the historic McMahon-Telfer Building which was built in 1914. It replaced the Curry Livery Stable and Social Hall that burned in 1904. The Royal Theatre was upstairs and the upper hall was used for prize fight arenas, dances and traveling shows. According to the crack HEAD Research team there’s been a bar on this block since the 1890s.

Martinez History Timeline

Since time and memorial, the  Karkin peoples lived and thrived in this area.

1824 – The area becomes part of a 17,000 acre land grant awarded to Don Ygnacio Martinez for services rendered to the Royal Spanish and Mexican armies.

1847 – General Mariano Vallejo grants permission for Dr. Robert Semple, a dentist and Lieutenant in the Bear Flag Revolt, to operate a ferry across the Carquinez Straight to Benicia.

1849 – A town springs up near the ferry to serve gold seekers heading for the Mother Lode. It’s named Martinez.

1851 – The California legislature recognizes Martinez as the first town in the District of Contra Costa (later Contra Costa County).

1869 – Dr. John Strentzel (later John Muir’s father-in-law) develops a method for keeping pears fresh when shipped long distances by rail.

1870 – Italian and Portuguese immigrants arrive in Martinez. A vineyards are planted and fishing industry is born.

1862 -1874 – The Martini is born! Bartender Julio Richelieo makes the first “Martinez Special”.

1877 – The Trans-Continental Railroad arrives in Martinez.

1879 – The Christian Brothers open a school and plant a vineyard.

1880 – John Muir marries Louisa Strentzel in Martinez.

1882 – 12 fish canneries now operate in Martinez.

1899 – The Santa Fe Railroad arrives in Martinez.

1901 – Martinez establishes an 11pm closing time for town saloons.

1914 – Joe DiMaggio, Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, is born in Martinez.

1915 – Shell Oil opens a refinery.

1930 – A railroad bridge across the Carquinez Straight is completed.

1957 – Martinez’s fishing industry comes to an end as Sacramento River and Delta waters are closed to commercial fishing.

1962 – Ferry service from Martinez to Benica (that started in 1847) is discontinued as a highway bridge is completed.

MARTINEZ MARTINI MARCH

Yesterday, El Sueno and I got up at the crack of 9:00 and tossed around ideas on what to do, when to do it and, most importantly, what to eat when we were doing it…Ok, now that sounds dirty, but you get what I mean. After all, you are a HEAD Society member!

Anyway, we decided it was a perfect day to pre-Martini the November 5 trail (also, I needed to make a trip to the teacher store to San Leandro which is about halfway there and it was greener to combine trips…”Greener? Why not take the train?” you ask, “It goes right to downtown Martinez!” To which we reply, “We checked into that, but Amtrak costs $18 per person EACH WAY to go from Fremont to Martinez and we love all you HEAD Trippers, but that’s a LOT of cash to drop on an investigational adventure! That said, we’ll be happy to meet you at the train station on the actual Martini Day. Martinez is a tiny town and it’s only a short walk from anywhere to anywhere else there. Carpooling is also an option…) So we hopped in the car and headed north.

An hour (or so) later, we arrived in the teeny, tiny town of Martinez. In only a minute we found that the home of the original Martini, now a Thai restaurant, was closed on Sundays. On peeking through the window, we noticed that there is not a full bar there, so we were unlikely to get Martinis with our pad thai. We started scouting the street for substitute bars.

There were two that we thought might fit the bill until we heard crashing and yelling sounds coming out of one (might’ve just been a dropped tray, might have been a homicide, we didn’t wait for details.) There were two sweaty guys in motorcycle leathers having a political discussion in front of the other one. They raised some good points, but they were really sweaty and we didn’t want to go there. So we chose the Ferry Street Station for our Martinez Martinis. It meets out stringent requirements for HEAD appropriateness. It has a full bar, beer, wine, a clean bathroom and bar food. Plus there are big flat screen TVs so those who choose to do so can sit in the bar enjoying Martinis, beer and college football while the rest of us walk around and peruse the myriad…

ANTIQUE SHOPS that line all the adjacent streets! Ladies! This is gonna be fun! Clear your calendars (and your credit card bills) I smell a shopping trip. And a Head Trip. Oooh – a martini-fueled shopping trip…See you on the 5^th!

1st Major Head Trip - The Dawn of El Sueno

Well, I've been tasked with reviewing HEAD activities. As co-Grand Poobah, I take this responsibility very seriously and so I decided to wait to write this until I sobered up and was able to piece together a majority of the evening before I sat down at the keyboard...And here I am, one week later.

The evening began, for Ira, Joan, Jeneva and me on BART, where we encountered a weird guy who paced around the car until he tried swinging from the overhead straps and nearly ended up in our laps. I was cowering, but Jeneva was ready to kick his ass which is one of the many reasons I'm proud to call her my friend. We figured the dude was probably on meth. We got off BART at 16th & Mission in San Francisco and walked a couple of blocks up to The Monk's Kettle, a really nice bar/restaurant which had amazing looking food and where we would have stayed to eat had we not been on a burrito crawl.

We met up with Steve, Robin, and Annie and had a few beers (Jeneva and I had wine because we're middle aged women and that's what we like dammit!). The place was crowded but we found space at the bar where Jeneva and I discovered we could still get a young man to give us his phone number (OK, I showed him a picture of my daughter and said it was for her - but still...Jeneva and I got game!) Once we established that we were the whole group, we ambled down to La Cumbre and ordered burritos. The shrimp burrito was delish but strangely lacking in shrimp, the chips were good and we were joined by Nancy! After we finished our burritos and used the facitities, we bid adieu to the lady with the big tits in the painting and headed southeast to El Faro with a stop in a really cool vintage furniture store where I could live happily ever after. On the way there, we saw Meth Man from BART, ranting around the street...

Its about a seven block walk between burritos and we were anxiously awaiting our next course. When we got there, we discovered a weakness in our HEAD planning which we will remedy before the next outing. El Faro closed at 7:00. We got there at 7:15. What kind of burrito joint in the Mission closes at 7:00?! Clearly not one relevant to the HEAD Society. Plus, when we pre-burritoed the route, I thought that La Cumbre had a far superior burrito. It was fresher and didn't taste of lard (which tastes good but is kind of a cheat in my opinion).

No problemo! Off we marched to the Homestead (4th oldest bar in SF). We found a table in the back and ordered beers (wine for me and Jeneva) and peanuts. Deb, the bar manager and Ira's twin (separated at birth) wasn't there, but that was OK because the place was crowded and she wouldn't have had time to talk anyway. We ate a LOT of peanuts because most of us had gone easy on the burritos at La Cumbre, figuring we would be eating more at El Faro so we were a little hungry.

It was funny, because the Giants game was on in each of the places we ate/drank, so we got a sort of strobe version of their win (it was a week ago - they were still in the hunt...!) The Homestead is pretty cool, because its old, they have nude pictures all over the walls, and they allow dogs to come in! We met a Bedroom Slipper named Milo, a Border Collie named Zolo, and a Hound of the Baskervilles named Sweet Pea. Honestly, Sweet Pea was a full breed English Mastiff and the most enormous dog I have ever petted and tried to steal. You'd have to use a backhoe to clean up after him, though, so maybe its good I didn't succeed...but still...

We walked back to BART and decided to go to the 16th St. station instead of Civic Center which was closer because it was better to walk through a crummy area than a shitty area. We got back on the train and headed home. Next to us sat a young man with a bag. As we motored along he reached in his bag and pulled out lip gloss and an eyelash curler which he used with more expertise than I ever have. I surmised he was gay and therefore I felt unthreatened so I started talking to him. He told me that he was a nurse and that the guy over there was really cute!

The guy he was looking at was Ira!!! I said that he was talking about my hubby and he laughed. He seemed to think I was kidding. I moved back over to sit next to Ira when the young man (Enrique) asked if any of us spoke Spanish. Joan did so he told her that Ira was so cute - his dream ("El Sueno") and a bunch of other things I didn't understand. On the way out of the car, (in Hayward thank you Lord!) he gave Ira's a shoulder a squeeze. The cool thing about the whole thing was that now we have a new nickname for Ira. He is El Sueno. It suits him.

We made it home and immediately started planning our next outing. We will be checking out the origin if the martini in Martinez (really!).  Of course, Jeneva and I like wine so we'll probably opt out of martinis after the first several...or so. Also, we're planning a Christmas Italian cookie walk in mid December. Watch your email and/or Facebook, El Sueno will be in touch...

THE GREAT BURRITO QUEST

As the story goes, the burrito began as street food during the Mexican Revolution. Sometime between 1910 and 1921, Juan Mendes sold tacos from a donkey cart in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Cuidad Juarez. To keep his tacos warm, Juan began wrapping his food inside large homemade flour tortillas. He referred to his treats as “food of the burrito”, In Spanish burrito means “little donkey”. Think of Juan’s cart as one of the original food trucks.

The name, burrito, may have referred to the appearance of the new food. Either it looked like a donkey’s ear or resembled the rolled bed blankets the animals carried on their backs. Which ever the case, burritos quickly became a hit.

The original burritos were small, thin and contained only one or two ingredients (meat, potato, beans, cheese or chili relleno).

The burrito’s popularity spread into the American Southwest, Texas and across to California but not south into Mexico. In Mexico they are a regional food of the north of the country. Beyond the boarder region, burritos are commonly known as tacos de harina meaning wheat flour tacos.

By the 1930s the burrito had migrated out of Cuidad Juarez to Tucson, Arizona and west to Los Angeles. They arrived in the City of Angles in 1923 when they were featured at the famous El Cholo Spanish Café. The term burrito first appeared in print in a 1934 newspaper article and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1958.

In California, where burritos are king, we are divided north and south. The SoCal-sytle resembles Juan’s original burrito. These are thin, simple and don’t contain rice. This was how burritos were served until the 1960s when the NorCal-style was born. The NorCal or Mission-style burrito is a plump, hefty appetite crusher filled with meat, rice, beans and salsa. Soon sour cream and guacamole found their way into these tasty, foil-wrapped monsters.

The origin of the first Mission burrito is worth investigating and luckily the HEAD Society needs go no further than San Francisco’s Mission District (Mission burrito. Get it?). There are two taquerias claiming to have produced first of the line.

Story #1 – On September 26, 1961, a group of hungry firefighters stopped by El Faro (the Lighthouse) on Folsome Street. The owner, Febronio Ontiveros, created something special. His giant burrito became a hit and the style spread far and wide.

Story #2 – On September 29, 1969, a small taqueria on Valencia Street abandoned the thin, simple burrito and rolled up a new “little donkey” that broke with the past. That taqueria, La Cumbre (the best, the peak) is credited with launching a culinary movement.

Who has the best burrito? Who was first? The HEAD Society is taking this historical mystery head-on!

                            

Join us on Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 5:30pm to begin the quest. HEAD Society members will gather at the Monk’s Kettle (3141 16^th Street, on the corner of Albion between Valencia & Guerrero). It’s just a short walk from the Mission & 16^th BART station. Monk’s Kettle has 25 beers on tap. Need I say more?

At around 6pm, we’ll walk down to Valencia Street and into La Cumbre (515 Valencia St.) for our first taste of history. Next stop will be El Faro (2399 Folsome St.). We’ll walk down Valencia to 20^th and follow it to the corner of Folsome. It’s about .8 of a mile or about a 12-15 minute walk. Consider it urban hiking or exercise to build your appetite.

After we finish burritoizing, we’ll stroll one short block down Folsome Street to 2301and retire into The Homestead to discuss our results. The Homestead is San Francisco’s 4^th oldest saloon which opened in 1902. It survived Prohibition by ignoring it. Our kind of place. If you can’t make the whole journey, join us anywhere along the path. HEAD Society membership cards will be distributed.

Pre- Burrito-ing

I have always gotten a huge kick out of different kinds of work jargon. In my former field, we talked about play-based programs, age appropriate activities and hands on learning. My neighbors, who are both cops use their own work jargon which mostly consists of numbers "528?" "Totally!" and word spelling to throw off their five year old. "Dude is a total Adam Henry..." Jargon is a convenient way to shorthand a conversation and a way to speak privately in a crowd. Plus, it helps pass time in boring meetings because you can play Buzzword Bingo and win valuable prizes!

Every profession has jargon, but I've gotta say my favorite all time phrase came out of my husband's mouth one day when I asked him what was on tap at work that day. "I'm going to Hayward Shoreline" he said. "Really? How come? " I asked, because it was out of the ordinary. "I've got a birdwalk there on Friday and I want to pre-bird the trail". I started giggling "Pre-bird?"yuk, yuk, yuk "What do you do, wire their little feet to the branches?" Hahahahahahaa. Just as I started running for the bathroom, he explained " No - I just want to see what's there so I'm prepared for questions" "Oh," I said, "that makes sense"

So, when he suggested a trip to The City to do recon for the HEAD Society's September burrito event, I said "We're gonna pre-burrito the trail?" And we did. We hopped on BART and headed to the 16th and Mission station then walked to La Cumbre. This is a cheefully decorated restaurant with a painting on the wall of a woman with huge tits on a battlefield. Judging by the painting, she either really likes the battlefield or its cold there. There's some other art on the wall, a huge menu, and a salsa bar. Also a clean bathroom.

We shared a burrito then set out for El Faro which was not too El Faro away. The only thing was that  we went to 2239 Folsom. It wasn't there - a PG&E substation was. Confused, we rechecked our map and then I said "Well, Dyslexia Boy, you think maybe you reversed some numbers?" Ira pulled out his phone and said "Let's find someplace out of the glare so we can see the screen on this thing." We looked up and there on the corner was the Homestead Bar - the 4th oldest bar in the City!!! We went in, shared a beer, met Deb who is Ira's twin separated from him at birth. While I was in the bathroom, he told her about the HEAD Society and she showed him the binder she had full of maps, documents and photos of the place through the years. We decided to end the September event there.

On we meandered to 2399 Folsom and El Faro. Gotta say, the place is dank but we were there to try the food not the atmosphere. It seemed a little dicey since there was taped up broken glass over the food but we put the Society over our personal safety and ordered a burrito. Well obviously we survived since we got home and I'm writing this, but I just want you all to know what lengths we will go to provide you with a quality HEAD experience. You are welcome.

Remember - watch out for more HEAD Society alerts. Keep September 17 open, and be ready for some FUN!!!  We may even create some jargon of our own...

HEAD Rush

So Ira and I have organized this new HEAD Society. We are not traditionally organized people, but, hey, this involves food, booze and history so it practically organizes itself! Anyway, most of our outings are going to be well planned out, thoroughly researched excursions. Key word here is most. Last week Ira was looking for good baseball bars in the area and he stumbled upon the fact that "Gino and Carlo Cocktail Lounge" on Green Street in San Francisco had been voted the "best bar in the City to watch the Giants play road games". I don't know who votes on these things, probably the people who drink there, but we decided to give the place a try.

Bright and early last Sunday morning, we got up showered and dressed, then headed (HA!) over to BART and up to the Montgomery Station in SF. Our goal was to get to the bar (which opens at 6 am.) about 10:00 so we could see the whole game and maybe squeeze into a seat. Our boys were playing in Miami, and the game started at 1:10 their time so...10:10 local. Vogelsong was pitching, the Giants needed a win, we were ready! We tromped through the Financial District to Columbus. The Fin. Dist. is weird when its deserted as it is on a Sunday when all the money grubbers are in bars watching baseball games, but I digress. Up Columbus to Green which was easy to find because we had pizza at Tommy Boys' Pizza when we were in the throes of our Pizza Quest and its on Green. Right next to Gino & Carlo!

Ever since that movie, everybody talks about their "bucket list". What was the name of that movie? Well I have a bucket list which mostly involves working at See's (just one day - please - they let you eat all the chocolate you want) and visiting Ireland. However, there are a few lesser things I'd like to accomplish. One of them is to be pointed out to a tour group as an attraction. I was in my complete Giant's mufti ( hat, sweatshirt, Lincecum tee, and orange and black shoes) waiting for Ira to take a picture of the bar when a tour group went by on Segways. I was  staring at the group, mouth agape, trying to come up with a word for just how nerdy you have to be to take a Segway tour when the tour guide gestured at me and said "There's a Giants fan". I smiled serenely and waved, kind of a royal wave, kind of a "Damn, I'm waving at a Segway tour " wave. Then Ira finished taking his pic and we entered the bar.

Another thing on my bucket list was have a drink in a dark bar. I always wanted to go into one of those bars that looks like night on the inside even though its high noon and sunny outside. Gino and Carlo is just such a bar.  Inside there were several men with Duane Kuiper hair hunched over bar stools, a "rode hard put up wet" looking bartender, a box of free donuts (!), several tables, Ira and me. The only light came from two very nice flat screen tvs mounted high on the wall at either end of the bar which were beaming the Giants vs. Marlins into our midst. It was heaven. In fact, if I wasn't already married, I'd have the ceremony in the pool room in the back and the reception in the bar during a Giants/Phillies game where the G-Men crush the Little Ponies. Hey, our 35th anniversary is coming up...!

Squeezing in didn't end up to be a problem - not many people will go to a bar that early, I guess, but its their loss - the Bloody Marys were delish, the people were bleary-eyed but nice as can be, and the Giants won the game. Plus there were free donuts. We didn't have any, but we did share a couple of Anchor Steam beers, which is on tap in G&C and tastes a lot better that way. I also finished the crossword puzzle and read the New York Times during the commercials. Pretty high end for a dive bar. Which this place totally was. With good tvs and free donuts. I want to live there.

After the game we stopped for lunch at Caffe Greco on Columbus - delicious pannini and salad - then headed back to BART and home. We had a great time, I'm calling it a HEAD rush since it was so impromptu. Future HEAD trips will be engineered for more planning time  - like our burrito - a - thon
in September - See you then!

Let's Get The Party Started!

Northern California is America's Culinary Mecca

The San Francisco Bay Area is the epicenter at the heart of Northern California’s food universe. It is a magical place where food, drink and history all come together. It was here that a hearty band of explorers (well, it was actually Liz and me) came together at the Buena Vista Café on Irish Coffee Day but more about that later.

Native Americans, Spanish explorers, Russian trappers and Mexican settlers all brought their own food heritage to California's table. Widely dispersed across Nor Cal, these different cuisines had little interaction and no fusion. Things might have progressed very slowly if it we not for James Marshall who was building a sawmill for John Sutter. That’s right, January 24, 1848, is when Marshall found some bits of shiny metal and soon his discovery sparked the California Gold Rush.

The world rushed in and in the early 1850s, the Bay Area was filled with, mostly, young men seeking their fortune. Not just Americans but gold fever drew 49ers from Peru, Hawaii, Australia, China, Europe and just about everywhere else.

The new arrivals needed places to eat, drink and enjoy diversions. Remember I mentioned they were mostly young men? Well there weren’t many women available so the Argonauts flocked to saloons and houses of ill repute. It was a question of supply and demand and bars and brothels sprung up everywhere.

Suddenly the customers had lots of choices and innovative businessmen and women needed an edge, pretty girls just weren’t enough. They found this “added value” in their kitchens. The free lunch became that added attraction – California food fusion exploded across the region.

When gold seeking Americans arrived they found themselves in a new world filled with many pleasures, both carnal and culinary. They were released from the old (East Coast) idea that food was a basic of survival, just nourishment, nothing more. Now in this new place filled with new ideas and a diversity of people, eating became a pleasurable experience necessary to nourish both body and soul.

Surveys show that eating out is America's No. 1 hobby and San Francisco is the nation's No. 1 restaurant town, ahead of New York City or New Orleans.

Northern California has given a long and tasty list of food and drink treasures to the world. Here are just a few:

• Cioppino
• Sourdough Bread
• Pisco Punch
• Eggo Waffles
• Popsicles
• The Mai Tai
• Green Goddess Salad Dressing
• It’s Its
• The Martini
• Steam Beer
• Hangtown Fry
• Chicken Tetrazzini
• Crab Louis
• Joe’s Special
• Irish Coffee

Speaking of Irish Coffee, another one of San Francisco’s gifts to the world, Liz and I ventured up to the famous Buena Vista Café to celebrate and found a new organization, the Historical Eating and Drinking Society. The HEAD Society will bring together food history, some local wanderlust and a chance to explore, eat and drink.

Irish Coffee Day - July 28th