I promised a recap of the rest of the work trip in San Francisco.
Work was work. I spent far too much time inside when the weather was lovely over a long weekend. Really there’s not a lot more that can be said about that.
Outside of work, though, I did have a nice time. We didn’t really get to explore much of the city, but we did hit a couple of places (most of which involved food) I thought I’d share:
- I ate breakfast outside at that same café I found the first morning. I also ate lunch there one day. Some days I had company; other days I ate alone with my book. All of them were lovely.
- One night, after gorging on wonderful Indian food, at a restaurant whose name I can’t recall, Amani pointed us to a Cold Stone Creamery. Normally, I’m not a huge fan, but this night, the cold, creamy dessert really hit just right. (If you’re unfamiliar with the chain, you start with a base ice cream flavor and then mix in toppings to create your own unique flavors.) I got a vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips and raspberry sauce swirled in. Yum! I totally ate the whole thing.
- We ate dinner one night at a raw food vegan restaurant called Café Gratitude, recommended by one of Suzanne‘s friends. A meat eater, he’d nonetheless given the restaurant rave reviews, so we caught a cab to the Mission district and gave it a shot.
The restaurant is inately Californian new age — the sort of place that makes Middle America distrust vegetarians. At one point, one of the waitresses came over to ask us, in complete earnestness, “What are you going to do today to promote your self worth?” Dishes have cheesy names, like I am Delightful and I am Lusciously Awake, but the food is terrific.
Heather, Suzanne, and I split a guacamole dip as an appetizer and then Heather and I shared both a grain bowl (complete with kim chee (fermented cabbage), sea greens, and black rice) and a “pizza.” I’d considered not getting the pizza, because, having grown up amongst Sicilians, I am very picky about it. I’m glad I didn’t give in to this temptation, though, because calling it a pizza was laughable. Really, it was salad on a cracker. But it was a fantastically delicious salad on a cracker, and that’s the important thing. The rice bowl was also quite tasty, but I preferred the salad on a cracker. We concluded with dessert, but I picked the dud in the bunch with a fruit cobbler. Heather’s vegan chocolate mousse and Suzanne’s pecan pie were much better. I was never so happy to realize I had chocolate (cooked and made with milk!) in my room as after that misstep.
- I also ate at David’s Delicatessen, a Jewish deli/restaurant about halfway between my hotel and where I was working. My cheese blintz was lovely and I finished the meal with a coconut macaroon. Yum!
- Finally, after the convention was over, Suzanne taught our coworker Cee-Cee how to knit and the three of us caught the BART over to Imagiknit to check out the local yarn selection. After witnessing an arrest as we were getting off the metro and walking about a mile (it seemed like longer, getting there), we spent quite a while fondling yarn and leafing through patterns. The staff was friendly and the stock impressive. There were plenty of things I’d never seen in person and an extensive array of fibers, colors, and weights — something for everyone, really.
At first, I walked away empty-handed, but in the end I went back inside and came out with a skein of Bouton d’Or Ksar in glacier, a pale blue yarn made of half merino-half camel. Yep, camel! We then headed back to the hotel where we sat in the lobby lounge knitting and snacking and drinking while Suzanne and Cee-Cee waited for their red-eye flights.
Flying out the next morning, I did myself (and you) a disservice by packing my camera into the overhead bin. We were leaving just at sunrise and the Bay was foggy as we took off from Oakland. But as we followed the coast north and cleared the fog, the Golden Gate Bridge came into sight in all its glory. It was breathtaking — and you’ll just have to take my word on it. At the other end of the flight, we flew over what had to have been Skyline Drive. And if it wasn’t, well, let’s pretend. After all, I have no photographic proof that declares it to be anything else.
All in all, not a bad trip. I ate lots of yummy places and came home with souvenir yarn. If only I’d managed to squeeze in a massage…