Spoiled in San Francisco

Yep, we're back from a quick trip to San Francisco, one week from start to finish, but it was well worth it, and much needed! Seemingly every minute was booked seeing friends and eating our favorite foods: Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, All-American brunch, All-American hamburgers and margaritas, and so on and so forth!  We arrived in the evening and headed straight to our favorite neighborhood bar to eat what is, I think the best burger anywhere! The Kezar on Cole and Carl in the heart of Cole Valley is our favorite place to grab a burger and a margarita.  Herradura silver, fresh-squeezed lime juice and cointreau! Life was very very good after two of those and a burger, we headed back to our friend Angelo's place and crashed.  When you live in southern France, I can't tell you how great it is to be in a crowded bar on a Friday night, people eating and drinking and talking loudly.  It really feels like home, like you're back in the land of the living! That is to say, it's pretty quiet and not so hip here in Saint Quentin la Poterie!!!

Other highlights were a leisurely morning at the San Francisco Farmer's Market, we bought a few pints of blueberries and ate them on the spot (another thing we don't see at our markets here.) -(The inside of the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market is pictured.) A great lunch of Dim Sum at Yank Sing, we love Tong Kiang most of all, but since we were downtown, we decided to be more practical, and everything was delicious!  We overloaded on sushi and burritos and Thai food.  Those are the things you miss when you are living in France, really great Asian and Mexican! We had drinks at the new hip winebar called CAV next door to Zuni, and then went for a great soul food meal at Farmer Brown's a restaurant in downtown that features organic and sustainable products from African-American farmers in the Bay Area.  The fried chicken and BBQ ribs were to die for! (Pictured are Matt, Rhonda a good friend and Thomas, a colleague of Matt's in SF for work.)

We were even invited to dinner at Joanne Weir's house! She and her good friend Gary Danko cooked us dinner!! Can you imagine?  It was pretty flattering to arrive and have Joanne and Gary cooking away in the kitchen! Joe Erhlich, Joanne's boyfriend was kept busy filling our glasses with champagne! We had the most beautiful vegetables that had been shipped to her from Ohio, lamb spit-roasted in her fireplace, and homemade creme fraiche ice cream with fresh cherries! Amazing.

All in all, it was a great trip, and a really nice break.  This morning we were up at 5:30 to head out to the vineyards and take advantage of the cool morning air.  It's been in the upper 80's, which isn't that hot, but when you're out in the sun for a long time, it's hot enough.  Now I'm back catching up on all that I missed last week and starting to prepare for bottling.  Ordering boxes, bottles, and corks;  deciding on some important label changes/improvements; trying to figure out if we can get the "garage" where we store the bottles cemented before we bottle.  This would be a huge improvement on last year!  Currently the floor is river rock, which is great for humidity, but not so great when you need to move a whole palate of wine.  Currently we move it box by box! So if we can get a cement truck and someone with some knowledge of how to pour a floor evenly, we are going to do it before we bottle. Bottling has to take place before harvest, since we don't have enough tank capacity to ferment the new vintage while the old vintage is still there!   So, you can see, it was good to have a week off before everything gets really crazy again..... 

Comments

[Daddo]

Glad you're back, Mimi. I'm envious of your wonderful trip to SF. See you soon, but not soon enuf.
Daddo

[Joan kling]

Sounds like a week full of FUN!! Must be taking a little adjusting to get back to the "real world."

[Joan kling]

Sounds like a week full of FUN!! Must be taking a little adjusting to get back to the "real world."

[Steven Lanum]

Gee, the Kezar is only a few blocks from me and I've never had a burger there! Looks like you were here at the same time as David Lebovitz and here I am getting SF tips from a couple of residents of France. Strange. Your dinner chez Joanne certainly sounds intriguing--glad you had a nice visit.