womantraveler

San Francisco "Foodings" - for Your Late Summer List

2011-08-22T20:38:13-07:00

Keeping up with the abundance of San Francisco restaurants, from tried-and-true to start-ups, is a fulltime job, but every few months I'm motivated to share a list of finds for visitors and locals alike. This latest round of suggestions was inspired by the "fooding" trip of my brother/chef Steve Johnson of Rendezvous Central Square in Cambridge, who is a true "food creative" and Bay Area food fan from his frequent forays here, and the views of some other pals who currently make the city and its best restos their home.

Any time of day: Blue Bottle Coffee is the latest rage, and every story is made better by the story behind the story. Imagine a clarinet player who just can't get the morning cup of java right and sets out to solve that riddle - and you yet another successful Bay Area entrepreneur's story. The easiest access point is Blue Bottle in the Ferry Building, but the inside view comes in the alley in now-hip Hayes Valley where Blue Bottle started in a garage at Jessie and Linden streets (just like Apple started down in Silicon Valley). You have to love it at $20-24 a pound, but if like me you are tired of the same-old same old, the pure and succulent flavors, creative verve and colloquial personality makes a Blue Bottle moment a worthy experience (along with the line of fans that comes with it).

Ferry Building: We have a bias for this panoply of organic and specialty food destinations that are original, featuring regional producers, seasonal, distinctive in quality, perhaps a bit chaotic in experience, but what the heck. This is as close to the land as you'll get without renting a car and traipsing out to the North Bay, West Marin and other nearby locations where the real thing is delivered every day by small (or relatively small) producers. If I sound rapturous, then forgive me, because the artisanal quality of Bay Area food producers is beyond belief, and this stop at Market Street and the Embarcadero just under the Bay Bridge offers an excellent sampler to whet your appetite.

Many San Francisco restaurants seem literally carved out of store fronts, including several of these below. They are jam packed every day but don't let that deter you. Check them out in advance and reserve ahead on their websites, Open Table, Urban Spoon Rez or others. Mark these down:

Boulettes Larder: J'adore ce resto! There's something that feels very intimate about this tiny bistro (enlarged by an outdoor seating area) in the Ferry Building, as if you're at the chef's table in a farm in Europe while also in high-energy urban San Francisco. The menu hand picks and combines ingredients in innovative combinations with straightforward style, simplicity and artful confidence.

Bar Jules: Cozy and busy with a handful of daily offerings and a neighborhoody ambiance that welcomes everyone. In Hayes Valley, steps from the Civic Center, opera, ballet, symphony hall and Asian Art Museum.

Flour + Water: Another small space favorite honoring local producers, a James Beard "rising chef" finalist in 2011 and "best new resataurant" finalist in 2010. In the Mission and described by GQ as "sneakily sophisticated."

Contigo: With homage to Spanish and Catalan food, this resto in Noe Valley supports a long list of farmers, ranchers, fishermen and artistans, another example of the rustic blended with the urban kitchen.

Frances: We popped into this hot little spot in the Noe Valley area for appetizers before dinner --and lucked out with a few tastings from the bartender who was checking out a new decanted wine specialty. This is a place where it's said to be tough to get a reservation and we understand why, since it seats only 35 or so guests. Getting there at opening and sitting at the bar was our smart luck. We also had a birds eye view into the kitchen and watched its efficient behaviors. That calamari with grilled Meyer lemon and chermoula spice was to die for while the grilled asparagus promised superb quality across the menu.

Delfina: Back after some years, this icon in the Mission - an Italian-inspired James Beard Award winner - doesn't disappoint. You just have to go there and taste it for yourself! And over off Filmore Street in Pacific Heights, its Pizzeria Delfina (with pizza combos that you'd love to imagine such as "clam pie" and homemade fennel sausage with bell pappers, red onions and more as well as salads and entrees) is smugly popular with residents who quietly treasure their neighborhood gem.

Mohica: I keep returning to this Peruvian resto offering small plates, amazing sushi-grade cebiches (ceviches), paella and a variety of entrees (seafood, beef, poultry and lamb). In the SOMA (South of Market) area not far from the Yerba Buena Gardens and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mohica is busy but unpretentious, a favorite for downtown-living locals and people who work in the area. It's a bit off the beaten path but not something to miss.

Picasso Show Ends in Virginia, Travels to San Francisco

2011-05-13T16:50:04-07:00

Sunday May 15 is the last day for the stunning Picasso exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts(VFMA) in Richmond, before it closes and re-opens in the de Young Museum in San Francisco on June 11. The VFMA will be open until midnight Friday May 13 and Saturday May 14.

"Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris" has been touring only three museums in the U.S. (starting last year in Seattle) while its home museum in Paris is undergoing renovation. The exhibit is singular because it embraces the personal favorites that Picasso kept to shape his own artistic legacy.

Having seen the works in Paris, I found that a new environment provided a fresh way of absorbing them. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, one of the best today in the nation, has expanded dramatically since I lived there in the 1970s -- and the modern new wing is but one example. The deYoung in San Francisco, an exercise both in art and architecture following its post-earthquate reconstruction in Golden Gate Park, will add yet another dimension to the pleasure of experiencing Picasso from June 11 to October 9, 2011.

Curiously I was reminded of my own father's paintings of the era, which I've chronicled in my book about his 1950s watercolors in a Midwestern small town. These two men from vastly different backgrounds were motivated by similar truths but expressed them in wildly different ways -- as I described here after my Richmond visit.

Richmond is a hip Southern city, despite an occasionally overzealous grip on its Confederate roots. Next door to the art museum, you can dive deep into Virginia history -- and in fact much American history -- at the Virginia Historical Society. Under forward-thinking leadership and physical expansion, the museum now promises "cool things inside." It doesn't disappoint on the historical continuum with its faithful rendering of Virginia's contributions to early American history, the Civil War, newspaper and business archives and photographs.

Among my other favorite haunts in Richmond are the always-new ventures in food and wine in some cool spots in the Fan District downtown and the near West End. My friends and I made a repeat visit to Balliceaux in the Fan, not far from these two museums, for an inventive global dining menu -- locally sourced and sustainably farmed products producing plates pulling from Southern cooking, Mediterranean and southern Asia traditions. Check out some of these selections -- crispy brussels sprouts/verbena olives/spiced nuts (appetizer), tandoori fried cauliflower (small plate), seville orange braised pork belly/toasted farro and black garlic/pigeon peas (small plate), potlikker braised catfish with Virginia peanut-cabbage slaw and Chesapeake oyster rice (main dish) and sea salt-grilled farm hen with beluga lentils, lemon cream and Swiss chard. I have to stop writing and go eat!

A View of Thomas Keller's "Farm to Table" Napa Valley

2011-04-22T11:43:47-07:00

There is nothing like a perfect afternoon in Napa Valley, but the bonus was a farm-to-table view of the provisioning for Thomas Keller's restaurants. How remarkable that the individual regarded as the "Number 1 chef in America" would have an acreage of vegetables and herbs across from his French Laundry restaurant (Relais et Chateaux) in Yountville (pictured here) and up the street from Bouchon, his upscale, though less formal, bistro. And it was like a park that we could respectfully walk through.

It's not unusual for chefs to grow their own gardens, as my brother Chef Steve does at Rendezvous Central Square in Cambridge, Mass., a hip and welcoming resto near MIT and Harvard. (His herbs and vegetables grow in boxes on his urban roof.) But seeing this expanse that invited us in added an unexpected dimension to Keller's serious efforts at integrating the environment with the dining experience, not simply building a culinary experience from products trucked in.

Having the visual background and context -- kale, fava beans, savory and dozens more -- established a grounding context for the elegant Bouchon lunch.

Oddly enough for Napa Valley, we were temporarily transported into a recreated French bistro. Napa chic and busy (where a famous LA chef sat comfortably like any patron at the bar). While most dining spaces favor the California style, Bouchon is intentionally Left Bank Paris.

Reading the French titles on the menu, I opted for the Salade de Betteraves (beets) with poached rhubarb greens and hazelnuts in rhubarb vinaigrette (and thin slices of Tomme Dolce cheese, one of my favorites), while Steve chose Salade de Porc et Asperges Blanc (glazed pork belly with white asparagus, pickled cherries and egg yolk with warm bacon vinaigrette). You could call it an elegant eggs and bacon salad. We could have stopped there with no complaints, but the main courses approached -- roasted leg of lamb in a ragout of fresh chick peas, merguez sausage, garden carrots, green garlic and preserved Meyer lemon) for Steve, and I selected my occasional beef splurge -- Poitrine de Boeuf Grillee (grilled richly laden beef brisket) with braised radishes, fava bean and potato confit and tongue vinaigrette. I am still savoring the incredible flavors -- why would I eat anything else today? As we strolled back to our car, we couldn't resist another view of Keller's ample gardens and the July East Coast skies of this extraordinary California day.

The Perils of Business Travel (in a Virtual Company) -- Go Figure!

2011-04-21T08:01:22-07:00

I picked up this terrific read from Ann Handley of Marketing Profs this morning -- an 8-point guide to surviving business travel -- and still catching up from a finished a week of business travel myself, I wanted to share its wise and funny insights.

To her tips, I would add two points:

Always pack a change of business clothing in your carry-on if you are checking luggage. I'll never forget being rerouted from Philly to Newark, but my bag went to Philly and couldn't be delivered until midday the next day. I was in jeans and had a business meeting at 9 am, where suits were the attire. The town where my client worked had no department store. Fortunately I was able to postpone the meeting until lunch (when the luggage arrived in the nick of time).
Invest in a lighter laptop for that airport racing and schlepping, which I just did, especially if you need a real laptop, not an iPAD or such, for your work.

Speaking of O'Hare, last evening my colleague and I had a 30-minute conversation while he sat in a small regional jet for 30 minutes waiting for a gate, with his next flight scheduled only 35 minutes ahead. Finally his plane started moving, but not toward the closest gate -- they took a 10-minute cruise completely around the B and C gates all the way over to the F gates -- he was nearly hysterical! He made his flight with minutes to spare, but this is the stuff of heart attacks...and in today's skies, business travelers live this way constantly.

Reading "The Middle Seat" by Scott McCartney in the Wall Street Journal is my regular business travel therapy. Check this one out -- so who gets the armrest? and other inflight etiquette.

670 Inches of Snow - So Far - in Squaw Valley

2011-03-26T13:08:07-07:00

The more than 670 inches of snow that has accumulated this winter in Squaw Valley and the Lake Tahoe region is hard to imagine -- but it is equivalent to a five-and-a-half story building. And more is on the way. Reportedly some homes across the Lake Tahoe region are nearly buried. So what does that look like anyway? We found one view...

From the San Francisco area, Squaw Valley is a popular day trip -- a drive of 2.5-3 hours, and everyone is taking advantage of it. Rainstorms having been bugging us for weeks, actually months, in the Bay Area; that translates to tons of snowstorms in the Sierra mountains. The auto tire chain rules are strict, and blizzards fueled by high winds can throttle the mountain passes, and I hear from friends that the chain enforcers are truly weary.

Two Christmases ago my son and I spent Christmas at Squaw Valley's vintage Olympic Village Inn -- remodeled since the 1960 Olympics and comfortable though not lavish. On an impulse we found a one-night, two-day package available and spent Christmas Day and the day after on the slopes. We left a sunny Bay Area, encountered the predictable fog in the Sacramento area, and by the time we traveled up the mountain and down into the valley (elevation 6200 feet), it was clear with a temperature hovering around freezing. Not bad. But up on the slopes at elevations between 8200 and 8900 feet it was a different story -- an awesome view from the top of the world across the Sierra one day and a frightening black sky of snow blowing in on the second. Though not much of a skiier myself, I go along for the thrill and the sights that nature delivers.

What I also like about Squaw Valley is that you can eat relatively healthily -- this is California, after all. So it's not all junk and fat foods. For skiers looking for a hearty lunch, I recommend Soupa and Fireside Pizza in the Olympic Village, and for an upscale dinner, the PlumpJack Cafe (California's lieutenant governor and former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is an investor). At Plumpjack (the company also includes a Napa Valley vineyard), the menu offers seasonal regional foods and premier wines and beers (along with the rest of the bar) in a stylish resort ambiance at fine but not over the top prices. Let's face it, a workout on the slopes during the day deserves a splurge evening with the pretty people.

Here are other good spots to check out and some good end of season deals. With more than 50 feet of snow, Squaw Valley confidently predicts skiing through April and is offering some great deals if booked by March 31. And that's no April Fool's joke!

2011-03-12T07:38:23-08:00

A tsunami advisory continues today for Northern California coasts and harbors. See live action in Santa Cruz yesterday. http://tinyurl.com/4l8qz6p

Tsunami Alerts Continue March 12 in Northern California

2011-03-12T07:33:33-08:00

Another clear cool morning and the Northern California tsunami advisory continues on this Saturday. The greatest danger is for harbors and bays from the Bay Area to the Oregon border including San Francisco and Monterey, with swells 1 to 2 feet above normal, according to the U.S. Weather Service. Yesterday was a tsunami-watching day in Santa Cruz Harbor, where one observer described it as "nothing" -- and suddenly everything started to rise and move around and crash -- then the mysterious waters receded just like that.

San Francisco Chronicle articles and a photo gallery of the tsunami in California can be found here.

Here's a live video of what happened in Santa Cruz harbor yesterday as published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Tsunami in San Francisco March 11, 2010

2011-03-11T19:51:26-08:00

Last night was clear and calm after a day of feisty winds and dense rain showers -- and before the Japanese tsunami arrived more than 11 hours later in San Francisco Bay this morning, charging across the Pacific Ocean at 600 miles per hour. I was returning from a meeting in Oakland across San Francisco Bay last evening when this scene -- photographed here just 14 hours later -- was invisible under the dark skies of a new moon evening. Literally the calm before the storm.
Steven Winter photographed this site at 9:38 am today, recorded for us in the San Francisco Chronicle. Check out this YouTube video that shows it in actual motion. Fortunately there was no damage in this instance.

One of my friends was piloting a fireboat near Sausalito in San Francisco Bay as a succession of tsunami waves -- thought to be at least five -- charged into the Golden Gate between about 8:30 am and 4:30 pm. Most couldn't be seen, like the one above, but at one point, suddenly the energy of the water below the surface became so furious that it was hard to keep control of the boat. A moored sailboat that looked safe in the morning had sunk about two hours later without moving from its post. Such was the subtlety of this extraordinarily powerful phenomenon that stormed below the surface.

According to The New York Times, water that moves at 30 or 40 miles an hour, as these waves did when they inundated northern Japan, has the impact of 1700 pounds -- or a fleet of runaway cars. The kinetic energy of the tsunami waves results in trillions of pounds of water suddenly shifting position. So to be a moored sailboat or a patrolling fireboat take on the extreme disproportions of Moby Dick and the Whale.

What does one talk about when the eerie aura of "dodged a bullet" disaster is in the air? How stuff happens. How unpredictable life is. How cherished life is. How a client crisis that eats up 6 hours of a Friday becomes a blip on the scheme of things. How trite sayings like "smell the roses" and "take deep breaths" have become trite because they are truly wise. How ducks are suddenly swimming not far from the front steps as the tidal basin marsh mysteriously rises a few feet.

And, most memorably for me, how a relatively dull CNN newscast last night suddenly catapulted me into a live video of a catastrophe in motion. I saw it in real-time last night, as I was unwinding from a long day, then mesmerized by the horror-movie wave of water storming across fields and airports, bridges and entire towns. Then today waking up and learning that it was arriving in the neighborhood, so to speak, evacuations 10 miles away at the coast and watchful eyes on the Golden Gate Bridge. The distant international news becomes local news because of our interconnections on this planet. OK, it gets a little spiritual in the cosmic-ness of it all.

I have been a journalist and a writer my entire adult life. I have seen many many things, many tragedies and many phenomenally uplifting experiences. We put on our armor and we dive in to report about it with the most "distance" we can possibly muster. But when something of this magnitude gets so close to home that it can be felt and almost touched, then I truly feel the fragility of things -- how anything important could break at any moment, how we all are connected and how we must truly keep our perspective, our balance, our appreciation of what matters.

Rediscovering Hometowns

2010-10-26T07:55:16-07:00

I returned to my hometown after 50 years -- and wrote a book about it, The Artist's Eye: Vernon P. Johnson's Watercolors of 1950s Small Town America. You couldn't find a more typical small town in America in the 1950s, and my father, an artist, recognized that immediately. He painted more than 100 watercolors of this Midwest community of 15,000 in central Ohio -- in fact, a town officially recognized as a "typical, small American city" by the US State Department. And thanks to my father's visual preservation of that time and place, I went home after many decades to retrieve my legacy.

In the Foreword to The Artist's Eye, American art historian Henry Adams of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art calls my father's portrayal of mid-century life in small town America a vision of a "simpler, more optimistic, more understandable world...a sort of Paradise Lost."

It's risky to return to the place you grew up, especially if it's been a long time. Whether a small town, a suburban community or a big city, it will have changed. Your memory plays tricks, hoping it's what it was, and the reality of today throws you off initially at what it no longer is. But the challenge is to go deeper to rediscover the enduring value that sustains its fabric today and has made you who you are -- and that's a truly rewarding experience.

To wit: One of the men's clothing stores is now a coffee shop with lattes, gourmet sandwiches and tables where students and business people work on their laptops or a regular group of women gather to play mah-jong. The family-run department stores are gone, beat down by box-style chains out on the edge of town. Yesterday I learned that a major fire on one of the downtown blocks had gutted a building we used to remember as the S.S. Kresge Co., the five-and-dime store of our youth, another blow yet fortunately contained to one building. The hangout drug store-movie theater-donut shop block has been torn down for a bank. The ranch-style home my parents built has several additions and a pool -- and another house is situated next door in the vacant lot where we played by the creek. The old diner is a nostalgic new diner with stellar collectibles and relics of mid-century entertaining us on the walls.

Yet below the surface is much, much more: The community spirit fosters smart, caring business and political leaders who are educating new generations of children and attracting new industries. Passionate volunteers lead efforts to preserve and share the area's more than 200 years of rich cultural and visual history, keep the arts available to the community and ensure access to the lovely rivers, streams and forests that shape the environment. The population is stable, with families who've stayed for generations, and those who have left and been replaced by new ones. And the county fair, a summer ritual for more than 100 years, remains an annual tradition the last week of July.

Having lived in more than a dozen communities in my lifetime, from the East Coast to the West Coast, and for a spell in France, I respect Thomas Wolfe's declaration that you can't go home again. But I would also argue that statement alone is short-sighted. Each place also becomes a part of who you are today. Acknowledging those characteristics, sometimes by digging below the surface, makes it possible -- and meaningful -- to reconnect. Not only to reconnect, but to find your anchors and say, "thank you."

That's what I experienced over the past three years returning to Mount Vernon, Ohio, in heartland America, to tell its story through my father's paintings of the 1950s. The story of life in these small towns is a story that many of us Baby Boomers know very well, wherever we live. That indelible fabric is an inescapable part of who we are today.

To Layover or Not?

2010-10-15T05:00:00-07:00

Stranded in the airport and the choice has to be made for the woman business traveler -- wait out a series of successive standbys to get to your destination or pull the plug, get a room and start over the next morning? Sometimes you have a choice. Here's what I've learned.

That "up in the air" (aka George Clooney) feeling can take over -- and you lose perspective -- buffeted from one destination and deadline to another, one business gig to the next. When do you put your feet back on the ground and stand firmly in the time zone of the moment? That's what jet lag does, keeping you out of focus and zapping your energy, especially if you're among those of us who travel a lot but don't have the highest-level frequent flyer status. I'm writing from Chicago, where I arrived nearly 6 hours ago from Paris, with a supposed 1.5-hour layover to San Francisco, and my body clock says it's tomorrow.

Learning #1 -- don't make an international transfer from O'Hare again if I can avoid it. Walking a couple of miles underground to go through domestic security was the pits after crossing an ocean (as Meg Ryan stressed emphatically in the movie French Kiss) and exacerbated by the jaded United reps (they seem to collect in Chicago). Sadly they could care less about your experience, even though you're struggling a bit while trying to navigate the various steps between international and domestic transfers.

Learning #2 -- sometimes you have to stop, rest up and start over the next day. That was my decision after an 8.5 hours from Europe (easy), a 1-hour line in domestic United security (dreadful), flight postponed indefinitely for "a mechanical" (x-rated), one especially helpful Red Carpet Club agent (thank you!) and the prospects of one rolling waitlist after another. United may safely claim to be #1 on "ontime arrivals," but I doubt those metrics cover all the cancelled flights. So, with some history, I made the call --booked a room and took an early flight the next morning to start the week off productively.

I checked into the Chicago O'Hare Hilton, stretched out, took food in, emailed and blogged -- and, relatively quickly, crashed. As Peter Finch screamed in the movie Network -- "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" That's called taking care of yourself.

Learning #3 -- pack a change of underwear and change of clothing essentials in your carry on. I didn't, but fortunately hotel room hair dryers and complimentary shampoos are terrific tools in an emergency. I was fresh as a Monday morning the next day.

Learning #4 -- it was satisfying to take back some control from the so-called "friendly skies" of United.