Our 7×7 tour of San Francisco Food

Recently, 7×7 magazine published a list of “The Big Eat SF, 100 Things to Eat & Drink before you die“. Kevin and I looked at the list and while we have hit a good number of the restaurants and bars on the list, we hadn’t had exactly what this list. Kevin refuses to allow us to check things off of this list unless we have had exactly what is written on it. For example, #88 Buckwheat crepe and a French Cider at Ti Cous. We have been to Ti Cous several times and all of their savory crepes are buckwheat. They are quite good, but, this isn’t one of our favorite restaurants to frequent. However, we have never had a french cider there. So, Kevin would not let us check this off of the list until we had the french cider. He also won’t let us check something off the list if we both haven’t tried it. Case in point, #10 Baja-style fish tacos at Nick’s Crispy Tacos. I have had these on a number of occasions, but, Kevin had not. So…again, we didn’t cross #10 off of the list.  The only items that we crossed off the list at our first viewing of it were:

#4 Spicy crab and grits at Front Porch – This is actually the only spectacular thing at Front Porch…but, its reason enough to go back.

#17 Tea Leaf Salad at Burma Superstar – I am a big fan of this salad, but, unfortunately, the line is so long at this restaurant that we hardly go.

#22 Vietnamese Roasted Pork Sandwich at Saigon Sandwich – I have bought these for Kevin on numerous occasions while I get a tofu sandwich. The sandwich is $3 and one of my favorite meals in the city.

#25 Loaf of bread straight out of the oven from Tartine. (mmmm… only had this once)

#33 Prime rib at House of Prime Rib (Kevin checked this off, I will never have it)

#35 Salted Caramel Ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery. (not my favorite flavor, but, this is our favorite ice cream place….we take all visitors there)

#40 Cheeseburger at Taylor’s Automatic Refreshers (another one Kevin has had and I won’t ever have)

#46. Chips and Salsa from Papalote (our favorite Mexican place in SF)

#83 Sweet Potato Fries with banana catsup at Poleng Lounge (I was so excited this made the list, I didn’t know people loved them as much as me… banana catsup is authentic Filipino)

#97 Sesame Balls at Yank Sing

#100 Cheese course at Gary Danko (Fantastic!)

Since we got the list, we’ve been trying to hit a few of the places every weekend. It has made our decision making for where to eat a lot easier. We just ask each other… well, what’s on the list? Almost everything that we’ve had on the list has been really phenominal, actually.

#5 Chasu ramen at Katanaya (we had this for dinner tonight, it was the best ramen I’ve had in a long time. Good ramen is hard to find outside of Japan)

#8 Morning Bun at Tartine (we waited 20 mins. in line to get a morning bun and then Tartine was too crowded … as usual, to sit. We ate the buns in our car. They were absolutely delicious. But, this is not worth the wait).

#10 Baja-style fish tacos at Nick’s Crispy Tacos – Kevin has now had these after I’d been eating them for years.

#21 Pizza Margherita at Pizzeria Delfina (Great!!! Their roasted fennel salad with arugula is amazing, as well)

#49 Ginger snaps at Miette (bought these today…they are sweet, rich and yummy. I personally think the cupcakes at Miette are dry and overrated thought)

#55 Milk-roasted pork at L’Osteria Del Forno – Kevin had this two weeks ago and loved it. This is one of the North Beach restaurants that we’ve been going to for years, but, we have never ordered the pork.

#68 Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista – This seems like a very touristy thing to do, but, it was fun. There is a great view of Aquatic Park from the Buena Vista windows.

#80 Apple Fritter at Bob’s Donut – I thought Bob’s was overrated in the past, but, now I know why people love it. The apple fritter was so good!

#88 Buckwheat crepe with French cider at Ti Cous – This was the one thing on the list that we didn’t like. The cider was cold in a small ceramic cup….it just tasted weird.

That is all for now! We are 20% through the list and look forward to many new things in the future.

Newspaper articles become real people

Like most Sunday mornings, I scanned the San Francisco Chronicle while having my morning coffee. On the front page was a story of three cops getting killed in Oakland after a routine traffic stop. I thought this was sad, but, I didn’t continue reading because I honestly don’t like to read really tragic stories.

Later in the day, at Grace Cathedral service, the congregation prayed for the fallen police officers. I said a prayer for them too.

In the afternoon, my sister called me to tell me that one of the police officers killed was a friend of hers from college. He had a wife and a baby. I remembered his name from her many stories of college over a decade ago, now. Suddenly, this story with more death statics in Oakland had a new dimension. I felt so sad…not only for the officers who died and their families, but, for every police officers who are often hate in crime ridden areas of cities like Oakland. So, to all the police officers serving us every day, I say thank you.

Here is a nice article about this here: sfgate article.

White mushrooms cause cancer?

I was reading one of my health magazines today and there  was a feature on all of the health benefits of different types of mushrooms from Shitakes, morels, oyster mushrooms and finally, our friendly standard, the white button mushroom.  However, the article said that you shouldn’t eat white button mushrooms or portabellos raw (not that I ever wanted to eat a thick rubbery portabello raw). Most health related news doesn’t surprise me after reading these types of magazines for about a decade. However, I had never heard this warning before. Apparently, these mushrooms have some carcinogens that get cooked away.  I researched this a bit more online and found that there are conflicting studies. While most people agree that there are carcinogens in white mushrooms, some studies say that only two out of the three carcinogens found in white mushrooms get cooked off.  (online article) Ahhh… everything seems to cause cancer these days. So, do I keep eating white mushrooms? Its likely…

Our Wedding Album

It only took a little over two years, but, we finally have a wedding album. The first year after our wedding, I searched every scrapbook/craft store for the perfect album to scrapbook our wedding. I actually still have a bag of wedding related items in a bag next to my desk that has been waiting to be arranged in a scrapbook. But, eventually, I gave up on the idea of scrapbooking. I have scrapbooked for many years, but, with our digital age, I’ve moved away from the traditional scrapbooks.

Instead, I decided to go with a digital photo book that I created on MyPublisher. This was a lot easier than scrapbooking. I used MyPublisher templates as well as creating some of my own in Photoshop. The book still took me about six months to create, but, I finally finished last week!  The book was ordered and it arrived today as a beautiful brown leather album

Here’s a bad picture of it from my iphone:

Support the “Serve America Act”

I get the occasional email from Habitat for Humanity about different volunteer opportunities, I’ll be honest, sometimes I read them and sometimes I don’t. This past week, I got one that mentioned support for the Serve America Act. I was curious, so, I kept on reading. This act that was introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and Senator Orrin Hatch does the following:

• For Students, Increase Service Early in Life: Service early in life will put more and more youth on a path to a lifetime of service. The legislation will improve opportunities for young people in low income, high-need communities to engage in service to improve their own communities.
• For Working Adults, Encourage Employers to Let Employees Serve, by establishing a tax incentive for employers who allow employees to take paid leave for full-time service.
• For Retirees, Value Their Skills and Make Service Work for Them. Many retiring citizens are ready,willing, and able to be involved in service and have skills the public needs – but none of the current service programs are structured with their needs in mind. The legislation will enhance incentives for retirees to give a year of service through the Corps, and will establish “Encore Fellowships” to help retirees who wish to transition to longer-term public service.
• For Americans of All Ages, Increase Volunteering. Not all Americans can make a significant time commitment to service, but many volunteer in other ways. The legislation will expand the volunteer poolby establishing a “Volunteer Generation Fund” to help nonprofit organizations recruit and manage more volunteers.

There are a host of other services that will be provided and a summary can be found here.

I particularly loved the bulleted points above because of some experiences that I’ve had in volunteering over the past decade. While volunteering in New Orleans for a week,  I met various young people from Americorps who devoted a year or more of their life to volunteering. They got paid an average of $9/day, which was usually used for incindentals like shampoo, deoderant etc. I found out that some Americorps don’t get their housing costs fully covered, so, they can’t always afford to stay to do their volunteer service. This seemed absurd to me. If someone was able and willing to serve, their food and housing should be paid for, at minimum.

Plus, the tax credit offered to companies for allowing their employees to volunteer would be fantastic. When I worked at Macromedia (before Adobe’s purchase), we had two volunteer days a year. So, you didn’t feel guilty about taking a couple of days to do service, it was one of the company’s goals. At Adobe, while they do promote service, I used my own sabatical time and paid my own costs to fly to New Orleans and volunteer for a week. It would have been nice if the company at least offered that time off to me where I didn’t have to take it from my vacation days.

Anyways, I could go on and on about why this act will help people in America by promoting volunteerism, but, to cut it short, here’s how you can support the act. Just click here and sign a letter to be sent to your congress person.

Lazy Hair

For a while I was growing my hair. For one thing, I didn’t like the place I normally had it cut, so, I didn’t want to go back. Second, I just thought I’d give long hair a try… something different. I figured that I would cut it again come spring. Everyone wants something new for Spring…

But, having longer hair seems to be a lot of trouble. In winter, when its cold outside, my wet hair outside was freezing. I am certainly too lazy to blow dry it until its dry. So, for a few months now, my hair has been in a low maintenance pony tail about 80% of the time. Finally, after my bangs were starting to get in my left eye and I was finding way too many hairs clogging up our shower, I went for a cut.

I chopped off about four inches of hair and my hair is once again a short bob. Its low maintenance, lazy hair. I’m still getting used to the loss of length, but, it definitely feels more me.