Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

Rach got here on Monday and we had those big salads I was talking about last Sunday, topped with everything in the fridge, plus leftovers. Tabouli, beets, egg, leftover shrimp and steak, red wine vinegar vinaigrette made with scallions, because I had no garlic.

On Tuesday I went to a reception at a library conference and then to the Terrace to meet Rach, who was there for a Scouting with her work colleagues. She’s the co-director of the Internet Scout Project, so “scout” + “outing” = “scouting”. haha. She walked and I biked, and we got home on the late side and hungry, so I made a quick veggie stir fry with ramen noodles – kohlrabi, onion, carrots, broccoli, snap peas, green beans.

On Wednesday for dinner I made myself a beet and egg salad in honor of my mom’s 11th yahrzeit. Last year I had broccoli, and cheese and crackers, with salad on the side, and watched Shoot Me, about Elaine Stritch; the year before, a friend who’s husband had just died suddenly came for dinner, and we had chicken salad and squash casserole, and pie.  Then I made a peach galette, so I could eat a little after my salad supper, and Mark could have some too, when he got back from Chicago. I froze bananas in the morning, so I could whiz them up in the food processor for the just-one-ingredient banana ice cream that’s all over the Internet – I used almond butter and a little almond extract. Mark opted for regular vanilla with his pie. And I finally made the scallion pancakes – I’d had the dough for them in the fridge since the prior weekend. I rolled them out after the pie, while it was baking, and froze them.

On Thursday we went to see Elvis Costello. They played like 2 1/2 hours straight – 31 songs, new, old, covers, acoustic and electric, a few Elvis solo, a few just Elvis & his piano player Steve Nieve. I made southern summer squash casserole, where you steam the squash and mash it with butter and sugar and then mix in diced onions and bake it until it’s a little crusty – it’s delicious. I’ve always used the recipe from a cookbook I have that’s all musician’s recipes, and looks like it’s more common for the casserole to have a cracker crumb topping and cheese – mine has none of that. I thawed the giant ham that’s been in the freezer since December and we had ham sandwiches, too, for a quick dinner before the show.

On Friday, we went to APT for Pride & Prejudice. I got a coupon for cheap tickets for volunteering at the art fair. I had a big lunch, the Southwest pizza special from Sunroom Café (and I didn’t see my old friend Julie back in the kitchen – maybe she’s finally left there) – a thin crust pizza – they were cooking them on the grill – topped with chicken and salsa and avocado and Jack cheese. I brought home half of it, and Mark had that for super. I had some of the peach galette, and finished the banana ice cream. The show was really good – but long. They figured out a way to compress the action by having actors walk across the stage reciting the gossip. Looks like the adaptation for the stage was originally done in Milwaukee, by someone named Joseph Hanreddy, who was the artistic director of the Milwaukee Rep.

The deeps of summer, when I just want to hang out on the porch and read and drink iced coffee in shorts and flip flops. Or even – dare I say it – go on vacation, like everyone else.

But instead, I am swamped with work, 28 students in internships to supervise via an online course, and another 26 to be welcomed, and taught, at the new students bootcamp in two weeks, so syllabi to write, course assignments to figure out, and oh yea, lectures and exercises.

Good thing we’re going to TIFF in September this year, and I think we got a really nice place to stay, so I have that to look forward to.

It’d be nice to have more time for cooking summer food, too, except I guess I’d need more eaters, but that’s a slightly different problem.

I got a nice CSA box yesterday, and I just ate a very vegetable-focused lunch – tabouli, made with cucumbers and parsley from last week’s box, eaten scooped up in cucumber “boats” – hunks of seeded cucumbers – and roasted beets, followed by a handful of sugarsnaps from yesterday’s box.

The list of stuff I got yesterday – I was a little disappointed to get the sugarsnaps instead of tomato – but they are sweet as can be

My list is not as pretty as this picture that Food52 posted of someone’s box – mmmm peaches …

Nor as pretty as this picture my friend Nettie posted of her breakfast this morning, but hey, there’s a computer in there so maybe she’s working too.

John sent me this New Yorker cartoon this morning, and it’s pretty much how I feel – I may be back at work but I’m still thinking about California vacation, and the final Dead shows.

Today’s Daily Cartoon by Tom Toro. #TNYcartoons

A photo posted by The New Yorker (@newyorkermag) on Jul 8, 2015 at 8:12am PDT

Our last day in Californa, Friday, after our big road trip of Thursday, we decided that what we needed to do was work a little bit and then go out and find a good breakfast. We went to Zazie, in Cole Valley, a newly gentrifying neighborhood next the the Haight. I almost let a snarky Yelp-er put me off the place, but I looked around more, and found out that it’s woman-owned, been there since 1992, and pays a living wage rather than taking tips. The enclosed back patio where they seated us was about the most pleasant place to sit and eat I’d been to in San Francisco, all of which would’ve made it worth it even if the food had only been ok, instead of the delicious that it was. I had skillet eggs – fried eggs on top of a corn cake, with spicy tomato sauce and spinach, and avocado on top of the eggs, all served in a little cast iron pan. And garlicky fried potatoes. And a big pot of tea. They had all kinds of sophisticated-looking brunch drinks, mimosas and Bloody Mary’s and things with grapefruit juice and lavender syrup and champagne, and because it was the Friday of a holiday weekend almost everyone was indulging, but I felt a little over-indulged from Ad Lib the night before so stuck to the tea.

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We went back to the hotel, by way of shopping at Britex and See’s Candies, and got packed, and by then it was time to head out for our last California adventure, Opera at the Ballpark. Which was pretty amazing – The Marriage of Figaro, broadcast in high-def on the scoreboard at the ballpark, from the San Francisco opera house. The sound was decent for stadium sound. Instead of suits and dresses and champagne flutes, all these people in jeans & t-shirts eating hot dogs and garlic fries. Plus even though we sat in the bleachers it was a sky box level, so nice bathrooms. 

We traveled all day the 4th, so sort of missed any festivities, and fireworks.

Sunday morning we had an omelet with zucchini butter and spicy tomato sauce (made from my last two cartons of frozen diced tomatoes from last summer)  and the ends of whole wheat bread and bacon. And fruit –  strawberries and cherries and banana that I biked over to Whole Foods for. Then Mark went back to Chicago and I worked.

To make up, I ordered the last Grateful Dead show ever, on pay per view, on Sunday evening. So I got to see a few fireworks that way. I have all three shows in my iTunes now, too. Listening to Bird Song, from the 4th.

On Tuesday first thing, we moved rooms, a nicer room for the vacation portion of our stay. Although the shower leaks like a sieve.

We took the cable car towards North Beach, so that we could get focaccia for breakfast, and visit City Lights books, and generally be tourists. The focaccia was from this hole in the wall bakery that Jenny recommended, that she said was “scarey good”. Completely accurate. Perfect eaten on a park bench with a bottle of water & iced coffee.

We walked along the Embarcadero, stopped in at the Ferry Building again, but didn’t buy anything. More stuff was open than when we’d been there Monday night, but the farmers market was packing up – it was 2:00.

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We went back to the room, rinsed off in the leaky shower, and dressed a little better (purple linen Flax dress seemed appropriate hippie-chic for me) for our early dinner at Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley. Mark’s fitbit said we went 10 miles.

Chez Panisse has a no cell phone use at the table policy, so I didn’t take any pictures of the food – although the lady sitting next to us, who was dining alone, was pretty much on her phone the entire time.

We both started with the Chez Panisse salad, the one with the baked goat cheese, then I had the beef and Mark had the chicken. Both entrees came with lots of vegetables – mine had battered and fried spring onions, delicious, but hard to cut, spinach, sugarsnaps, shelly peas – the chicken had beans and kale and okra. We split a peach melba for dessert. Everything was perfect except the hard to cut onions, and the water that we were served was tepid – served in lovely etched glasses, from a pretty bottle, but tepid. Bothered Mark more than me.

We went to see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl at a nice old theater, the California. It was nice to settle in after a big dinner, knowing my $4 BART ticket back was safe in my pocket to get me home.

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On Wednesday, we had a breakfast meeting with another librarian, the woman who is taking on chairing the LITA Program Planning Committee after I cycle off. Her hotel is close to ours, and there’re a bunch of diners around here, so we got breakfast at one of them. Good, but nothing really special.

Then we figured the buses and light rail and took a bus to Golden Gate Park to see the JMW Turner show at the De Young Museum.

After Turner, we stood in front of the David Hockney Yorkshire countryside video piece through its whole 12 minute cycle. Then we ate pastries in the museum cafe, and walked around in Golden Gate Park, and saw birds and turtles and plants. We took the light rail back – it smelled better than the bus.

We had Henry’s Hunan, the one on Sansome, for dinner – onion cake, dumplings, dry-cooked green beans, and Hunan shrimp. Then we walked home through China town.

I think Thursday – our big road adventure – and Friday – are going to have to get their own posts.

I’m in San Francisco for the librarians’ conference.

Because we were flying out of Midway, on separate flights, because UW-Madison’s and the ALA’s Concur systems wouldn’t let Mark & I book together, I went as far as Chicago on Wednesday. We went out for burgers with John, and as I was getting on the L to go home, we got a text from Emma that Al had left his iPhone in a cab. Sent him the info for our joint account, for getting a new phone; exhorted him to do Find my iPhone and turn it off. Worried about how exposed my data might be, from his phone …. And there was a happy ending: Al’s good fortune was that his phone was found by an Australian tourist, who started calling his favorites and got Emma. Al had the phone back by after work on Thursday.

Mark had a direct flight to San Francisco on Southwest. I had a stop on Minneapolis on Delta. Delta kindly turned my 3-hour layover (lay away, as Al used to call it) into a 4-hour one, and then it stretched to almost 5-hours – first we were leaving at 5:45, then 6:36, then 6:54. I decided I might as well buy a $50 day pass for the Delta Sky Club – by the time I bought wifi and food in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, it probably would’ve been $30, anyhow. I got a bunch of grading done in my online course, and rewarded myself with a glass of wine and a cookie.

Finally made it to San Fran, and had a pleasant – but expensive – cab ride in from the airport. I had a Greek taxi driver, and after I had told him I was here for the librarian’s conference, he asked how hard it would be to start a book club – for Greek books. What he really wants is a book exchange, so I told him about the Little Free Libraries. We talked about what a big weekend it was for San Francisco, Gay Pride, baseball, 30,000 librarians, Grateful Dead. He had come to the US in 1963, and said he guessed it was the hippie days here back then, but he kind of liked it better than today. “People talked to each other, and not their phones”. I didn’t mention that I was supposed to go to one of the Dead shows, but as we were driving I was thinking I’ll be able to do this – navigate my way in a zipcar to Levi Stadium.

It was still dark on Friday morning and I was lying in our hotel bed when I realized that I’d left the dead tickets and my parking pass on the shelf at home.

I cursed for awhile, looked up FedEx rates and services on my phone, and then texted the neighbor who is feeding the cats to see if she could FedEx the tickets to my hotel.

She texted right back, went to our house, called, and I talked her through where the tickets were. By the time Mark had left for conference – he’s going earlier than I have to, to set stuff up – she had texted back that the tickets should be at my hotel by noon tomorrow, $59. Cheaper than the cab ride from the airport.

Let’s hope this one is a happy ending, too. I keep comparing this to our last TIFF trip when I forgot my passport, and had to get it sent. That was a real shitshow to get to me – but it was international, and we were staying at an AirBNB without a hotel front desk to receive the package, like I have now. We’ll see.

Whoo hoo – I’m going – maybe by myself, but I’m going!

FedEx-ed dead tickets

Thanks God for helpful neighbors, and FedEx. Maybe it all makes sense, since one of my last remaining Dead shirts is a black sweatshirt that on one side has an old FedEx logo, but it says DeadEx, and on the back it says, “when you absolutely positively have to be there every night”. I wear it for cookie baking during cookie season. Not finding any images of it on the Internetz; I’ll have to take one myself later.