Out and Back

"East is East, and West is San Francisco"~O.Henry

A rough start

Our plane was delayed for a couple of hours due to storms on the Tundra late last week. While it's not such a big deal normally, when you're due to arrive at 11:30 PM PT but then arrive at 1:30 AM PT is tough. Especially when your wonderful friends are picking you up at the airport and it's 2 time zones behind you. Add that to a crabby flight attendant and a guy behind you that "doesn't feel well, at all," right after you take off, it makes it for loads-O-fun. Several hours of sleep and a delish breakfast the next morning erased all from the night before to start off a very fun filled and relaxing long weekend with friends.


Previously I stayed in the Cottage but this time I made my way up in the world (literally) and stayed in the Aerie (upper left door), a private location reserved only for special guest (thanks Suzanne and Terry, it was wonderful!) I had my own apartment, which was very remminicient of our first, to myself, where I could leisurely eat huge bowls of fresh fruit without having to share, drink tea and do whatever I pleased...which included wandering the garden in the early morning.









"The San Francisco Bay Area is the playpen of countercultures." ~R. Z. Sheppard, Time magazine

Where else but San Francisco...

do you see a pair of ruby red, patent leather jazz shoes go walking past you while you thaw out in the car for a few? on. a. man.

Follow that up with a couple DELISH blood orange margarita's at Harry's Bar (on Fillmore) and dinner at Via Veneto...and you have one great evening!

Saturday we meandered on over to the Ferry Building and the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market (I'm always a sucker for farmer's markets)...and I say meandered since first we lost keys, then the parking places at BART with all of the bird poop, the ring stand waylaid us for quite some time and FINALLY we got to the market, all while having a great time. We found the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes and basil (which ended up being a HUGE part of our dinner, along with the outstanding Duckhorn wine), wonderful cherries and rose sugar (I'm going to come up with a martini to use it! I promise to post the recipe later). Starving, we had a yummy BLT at Lulu Petite and desert at Miette (Ker, we didn't see Al this time). And while a particular tourist (not moi, of course) was extremely rude at Miette's counter she did add a lot of colorful commentary and amusement to our weekend.

Time at the store is always detrimental to my pocketbook but oh so wonderful for the soul and stack of gifts to give! I'm not going to bore you (ha!) with the deets on all the products, but I was able to knock off Father's day, a graduation gift, some birthdays, misc and great things for CiBaby and myself, of course.

Sunday was filled with Dim Sum at Legendary Palace in Oakland and wandering through the markets. I wanted to pick up some lotus root to try and make T-Daddy's most favorite thing he had in China, but I wasn't sure how well it would travel, with me that is. There were a lot of really interesting ingredients there, some I recognized and have use, some I haven't. We had a bit of Peets, watch a great flick (Once, very cute), had wonderful wine, great conversation and great friends.

Monday we ventured on up to Napa Valley. We made a few quick stops but ultimately ended up in St. Helena. It is such a beautiful town. The car registered a mere 97F degrees...we feared all of my lovely chocolate would melt into an unrecognizable puddle before bringing it home and presenting it. As there is no such thing as having too much chocolate, we stopped at Woodhouse Chocolate and got some extremely decadent morsels. On to the Duckhorn Vineyard (pictured) for some sampling. I highly recommend the 2005 Duckhorn Vineyards Napa Valley Merlot and the 2005 Goldeneye Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, both superb flavor.



"San Francisco has only one drawback. ''Tis hard to leave"Rudyard Kipling

An exciting finish

As if the whole long weekend wasn't fun and exciting enough, our trip back into the city from Napa Valley took MUCH longer than we had anticipate. We raced under the Golden Gate bridge, through SF and made it to the airport JUST in time. I've done a lot of traveling in my time but never, ever have I gotten to the airport with only 25 minutes until departure. Thankfully it was a quiet time and I got through check-in and security in no time. It was a good thing I was wearing my running flip-flops.

Once we were in the air I was able to russel up some free wine for myself and one of my row mates from the very nice male flight attendant using my feminine wiles and my handy-dandy watermelon hair clip. We sipped Chardonnay and ate delicious chocolate. What an end to a great trip.

It was a wonderful trip, filled with memories I will treasure forever...and just what the doctor ordered. Thanks C and B! (and T-Daddy for organizing it)

Much love, XXXOOO .