Yeah it’s still the same Can’t you feel the pain When the needle hits the vein Ain’t nothing like the real thing Yesterday, I ran across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. At Vista Point, where you can actually see how ridiculously photogenic San Francisco can be, and how clever it was of Irving Morrow [...]
I grew up in a 1984 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. The Cadillac was once the American car’s American car, a car designed for riding cross-country highways like Route 66 in comfort, and the Coupe de Ville was the last model before Cadillac started downsizing and redesigning its iconic lines. I remember when my grandfather bought [...]
Generally speaking, when one is searching for some sort of sustainability-related activity or service in the Bay Area, the problem is never finding said activity or service, but choosing which of fifty, say, purveyors of hand-raised organic cricket-fed cruelty-free cockscombs is the one for you. So it is with choosing a Bay Area CSA, that [...]
It was unseasonably hot. That must have been the reason my grandmother walked down the aging basement stairs and out of the open garage door and traveled a block to the corner store, holding my three-year-old hand in hers. The giddy excitement of the moment still stays with me; the black night sky, like a [...]
Once upon a time, two people got married and had a baby (in approximately that order) and settled in the Cole Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. They were very greedy. They ate things like Wendy’s bacon cheeseburgers and Domino’s Pizza and one of them insisted on frequenting Red Lobster for her birthday. They thought The [...]
This is how to make collard greens. First, my grandfather drives his truck to the Alemany Farmer’s Market. My grandfather chooses a bunch of taut, bitter leaves, and he puts money in the dirt-caked, stubby-fingered hand of the farmer who planted the seeds, and he brings home the collards to my grandmother to cook. But [...]
I was raised to believe I could keep bad things from happening to me, as a woman, if I just followed certain rules. The women in my life, trying, no doubt, to protect me, taught me these rules. When a woman was abducted and killed while leaving a nighttime party in a miniskirt, I was [...]
This Columbus Day, while some protest and others laud the discovery of America – and some dispute if a land with inhabitants can even be discovered – I’m going to take a break from all the controversy and celebrate another, lesser-known explorer: my grandfather, Jewell ‘Burt’ Burton. If Columbus discovered Hispaniola, Burt discovered America. When [...]
I am a traitor. I have betrayed the bread I love. In my universe, Acme challah is impossible to acquire. Methods of obtaining it include 1) finding my husband during the day and convincing him to walk ten blocks to the Ferry Building on his lunch hour or 2) going to the Ferry Building myself. [...]
The first rule of challah wars is: don’t start a challah war if you’re not prepared to learn some awful truths about the bread you hold most dear. We have been going to Arizmendi Bakery, a wonderful and magic place, a cooperative where happy people who love to bake produce happy breads that are delicious [...]
