The Test is Over

On Monday, for the first time in nearly 10 months, I woke up in San Francisco.

Yes, before we left for Italy, we signed a lease on a flat in Noe Valley. Timing-wise, it was ridiculous. We went to Italy for two weeks, came back and immediately started packing.  But despite the work that moving inevitably involves (even when you hire movers and have parents to help), I’ve been pretty blissed out about being back in the City.

It’s just so darn pretty here. Instead of riding BART alongside highways and over industrial areas, I take the J Church now which takes an almost comically lovely route past Victorian homes and along the brilliant green Dolores Park where you get a view of the city skyline.

I’m inspired by this city in a way I didn’t adequately appreciate until I didn’t live here.

But this isn’t meant to be a list of all that I prefer about San Francisco. In fact, thanks to Julia Child’s book, My Life in France, I’m thinking more positively about Oakland.

Despite the title, My Life in France isn’t just about France. In the book, Julia and her husband, Paul, also live in Germany, Norway and the U.S. and I couldn’t help but notice that she found something to appreciate about every place she lived.

She acknowledged that France was her true home (she called it her ‘spiritual home’ but I loathe the word spiritual), but in Germany, she relished the sausages and the beer. In Norway, she appreciated the excellent fish. And, of course, in France, she delighted in almost everything.

Reading her enthusiasm for all the places she lived encouraged me think a little differently about my life in Oakland. It wasn’t my ideal home, but there were things I liked about it.

My bike rides may never be as idyllic as they were in the East Bay, riding through lower Rockridge and down the wide, leafy Elmwood streets. Even the short ride to the Temescal Farmers Market went down quiet streets lined with mostly charming little houses. And I really appreciated being just a quick bike-ride away from a decent farmers market.

I’ll miss being able to pop into Bakesale Betty for one of their excellent fried chicken sandwiches (I made sure to have one before moving). I still want to try more of their pies since I liked the blueberry pie we had on the Fourth of July (and I especially liked that we were able to spontaneously bike over and pick up a pie on a holiday).

For more fried chicken, I’d love to go back to Brown Sugar Kitchen, a great, old-diner feeling place in the midst of a very industrial area. I really liked the combination of  fried chicken, a cornmeal waffle and apple cider-syrup: fat, salt and sugar all on one plate.

La Farine is no Tartine, but it was convenient and rarely crowded and there’s a certain comfort in knowing that a slice of lemon cheesecake is just a few blocks away.

Aside from food, service in the East Bay was often unbelievably nice. Even though Bakesale Betty often had Tartine-style lines, there was none of the Tartine-style attitude or indifference.

One of the things that initially drew me to the East Bay was the Craftsman homes (in fact, it still calls me. On returning to Oakland since the move, I still thought to myself, “This looks like a nice place to live.”)  But I didn’t realize how many stunning Art Deco buildings are in downtown Oakland, like the green I. Magnin building.

I’m tempted to joke about the Fox theater sign (what city needs a giant neon sign to tell you where you are?!), but the truth is, it’s awesome. I also love the Tribune sign and tower. It feels like something out of a comic book.

There’s a small part of me that feels like perhaps we didn’t give the East Bay the chance it deserved, but I mostly feel like we knew immediately that it wasn’t right for us and the nearly 10 months we spent there were plenty.

The differences are immediate. The hardware store in our SF neighborhood is open on Sundays, and the corner market is open at 10:30pm. Across the street, a chef picks vegetables from a rooftop garden. A man sits on the corner and plays guitar at night.

That first morning back in SF, I woke up coughing and congested so I stayed home from work. I sat on the couch, left by the movers in the middle of the living room, surrounded by boxes and packing material and a ladder. From my landlord’s basement recording studio, I could hear the faint sounds of bluegrass music. I could hear the J Church streetcar clatter down Church Street. To some people, maybe these sounds would be disruptive. But to my ears, it was the happy sound of other people, of life, nearby.

Rave: Oakland! video

“It’s crappy here, and that makes it authentic!”  That pretty much sums it up.

If you go to youtube, you get to read whiny posts by Oaklanders who are put out by this video. I should have expected it since people in Oakland get so defensive about being negatively compared to San Francisco, and yet, they repeatedly compare Oakland to San Francisco, striving to find ways that Oakland is “better”.

When  we moved here, almost everyone we met mentioned was quick to point out that “Parking is easier here than in SF”, or “It’s warmer here than SF.”  This actually made me start to believe Getrude Stein’s famous quote “there’s no there there” in Oakland.  Parking and warm weather don’t make a city. Sacramento also has easy parking and warm weather. So does Modesto.

What makes Oakland special? What makes an Oaklander love where they live (aside from that it’s not SF)? I’m still trying to figure it out.

Bookmarked: Farm Blogs

One of the things I miss about belonging to a community supported agriculture (CSA) program was the newsletter that came with our bi-weekly produce box. The newsletter detailed all the little things that the farm had done to get our food to us that week — how the weather had impacted the crops, or how a broken tractor affected the farm’s ability to harvest in time. It put my food in a larger context.

But I’ve found that I can get that same insight into life on the farm by reading farm blogs.

I get to see what crops look like when they are newly planted and also when they are harvested. I can see how the animals are raised and what the animals eat. I get a true appreciation for the work involved in producing food.

Reading about what it takes to grow food and raise animals also offers a much-needed reminder that the farms we imagine, Old MacDonald’s farm from nursery school, diverse farms with animals on pasture still exist.

Here are some of my favorites:

Eatwell Farms

Eatwell is a truly diversified and progressive farm near Davis. Their blog is updated daily and covers everything from what they’re planting and harvesting to how they are irrigating their fields — even how the farm puts San Francisco’s compost to use.

Eatwell seems to always be working on something new to bring to the market and the blog is a way to hear about what we can look forward to. After all, this is the farm that brought locally grown wheat and a grinder (!) to the Ferry Building so we could grind our own flour. From the blog, I learned that the farm will have new grain CSA with fresh, local cornmeal, barley and other grains.

Riverdog Farms

I didn’t know much about Riverdog Farms until facing a 172 pound Riverdog hog at the Fatted Calf’s Basic Pig Butchery class. Riverdog doesn’t come to the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market, but they do bring produce to the Saturday Berkeley farmers market.

Given the Fatted Calf class, I know firsthand how delicious Riverdog pigs can be but their Hog Blog showed me why their hogs taste so good: they’re on pasture, they eat well and their pigs are crossbred with a truly freakish looking wild boar.

Riverdog’s chickens have their own blog  Coop Scoop. The gorgeous pictures take you through a day in the life of a Riverdog chicken, from pecking around in the oat grass to their mobile super coop.

Ghost Town Farm

Eatwell and Riverdog are established farms with acres of agricultural land. They both have CSA programs and go to many farmers markets. But Ghost Town Farm is different: it’s in Oakland, in a truly urban environment. It’s not a business as much as it is a way of life for Novella Carpenter who details how she becomes a farmer on her blog. Her new book Farm City is on my summer reading list. I can’t wait to read more about how she got started, and what she’s learned about farming in a city.

Rave: Rainbow Grocery

The longer I live in the East Bay, the more I miss Rainbow Grocery.

I’d expected to miss my beloved little BiRite, but I figured we’d find plenty of alternatives to Rainbow. After all, Rainbow is an old school health food store, and I figured that by moving closer to Berkeley, I’d be closer to the country’s original health food stores, probably still run by aging hippies.

But I’ve been sorely disappointed in the East Bay’s grocery stores. Even the famed Berkeley Bowl left me cold. Sure it has a huge produce section, but I get my produce at the farmers market, and aside from produce, I found little to distinguish the Bowl from any other grocery store.

I do appreciate that many East Bay markets carry local foods, but they’re often priced far higher than San Francisco stores do (or even the farmers markets). Straus milk at the grocery store closest to our East Bay home is twice what BiRite charges (and BiRite isn’t exactly known for their low prices). They also charge $11 for a pack of Primavera tamales that we can get at the farmers market for $8.

Of course, I could try to go to a different store that charges less, but most stores close right around the time that I’m getting off BART. (This could be another post: why do so many places in the East Bay close so early? Grocery stores close at 7pm on weekdays (earlier on weekends!) and even many restaurants close by 9pm. Is this because the E.B. is packed full of families and kids are put to bed by 9pm? Please explain.)

Rainbow is different: it’s open until 9pm; it stocks lots of local foods and it charges less for them. You’ll find food from some of the same farmers that come to the Ferry Building Farmers Market: produce from Knoll Farms, Rancho Gordo beans (in bulk and cheaper than anywhere I’ve seen), St. Benoit yogurt  (again cheaper!), raviolis from The Pasta Shop (in bulk!), Primavera tamales.

Rainbow’s bulk section is unparalleled. You can get nearly any grain, legume, dried pasta, chocolate chips, olive oil, vinegars, tea, even salt in bulk. Their bulk selection goes beyond food, though: you can also get organic liquid soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, and laundry detergent. It made it easy to make ‘greener’ choices. We brought home far less packaging when we shopped there. Our pantry was transformed from disposable to reusable. We threw out less, too, by simply refilling a container of hand soap, for example, instead of buying a whole new bottle.

If you haven’t been to Rainbow yet, a few words of warning: it’s not Whole Foods. It’s a basically a warehouse, the floors are concrete, the cashiers may have dreads and aren’t likely to chat with you, they don’t sell any meat, and it’s in an absolutely hideous location (South of Market, under the freeway) — a place I hate to walk or drive.  But you should go there. I mistakenly avoided Rainbow for years for exactly these reasons, but now I struggle to live without it.

Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies

Living in the East Bay got a little better for me once I got a bike.

Mr. WholeHog has long wanted me to get a bike, but I just couldn’t imagine biking up and down San Francisco’s massive hills. Here in the flatlands, though, a bike makes sense and it’s also made some of the things that I haven’t liked about the East Bay seem like attributes, like how flat it is.

From the front windows of our SF apartment, I could see Sutro Tower and the fog pouring over Twin Peaks. Our back deck looked out towards Liberty Hill and the sky-scrapers of downtown.

From our East Bay home, the front windows simply show the house across the street. The back windows look into someone else’s backyard. It’s a little claustrophobic, but it certainly makes for easy biking. I hardly have to shift gears because there are so few inclines or declines. (Of course I haven’t specifically headed towards the hills, but that’s just it: here one can avoid hills. In SF, I’d simply be trying to avoid the biggest hills).

The East Bay is also more spread out than SF. Commercial areas are separated by large residential stretches and businesses tend to close earlier than I’m accustomed to (grocery stores that close at 7pm, say). As a result, we were driving more than we wanted to.  But now that we both have bikes, we’re getting back to a more car-free life.

The pace is slower, too. Pedestrians wait to cross on the light, even when there are no cars coming, and I never see anyone jay-walk. Cars will wait for the light to turn green rather than making a right-on-red.

Maybe because people are in their cars more or at home tending their gardens or their kids, I don’t see many people on the street. When we moved, I was reminded of the time my sister and her girlfriend visited SF from New York City and were baffled by the lack of people on SF’s city streets. Compared to NYC, SF was sleepy to them. I feel just like them at times in the East Bay. I peered out the windows endlessly when we first moved here, hoping to see someone walk by.

But deserted suburban streets and a more leisurely pace have helped me adjust to being back on a bike. I rarely have to maneuver around pedestrians or cars.

Living in the ‘burbs has given me time to get used to riding again, and time to gradually adapt to biking near moving vehicles — all skills I’ll need when we’re back in the City.

And On Back to Springtime

Maybe it’s all the sunlight and the shock of springtime greenery after these (admittedly mild) winter months, or maybe it’s that wedding planning is very soon going to turn into wedding-happening, but these days, I feel like I’m coming out of a fog, as if I’ve been hibernating and am just now starting to be back in the world.

What happened to February? I asked Mr. WholeHog recently. I don’t  remember it. It passed in a flurry of rain and wedding invites, days spent unpacking in the East Bay and desperately missing SF. I realized how overwhelmed I’d become when my mom said, “The wedding is going to be fun”. Until that point, I hadn’t  allowed myself to even think about it being fun. It was just something that needed to be done.

But I’m happy to say that today, at least, I feel giddy. Maybe it’s that all the wedding stuff is nearly done and I feel lighter without that to-do list haunting me. Some people talk about being depressed after their weddings but at this point, I am so looking forward to getting back to our life: to hikes and camping, to cooking and trying new restaurants, to exploring new neighborhoods and planning our fall trip overseas.

Or maybe I’ve got spring fever. The trees on my walk to BART have transformed from skeletal to lush. Certain blocks in our tree-filled neighborhood glow with new-growth-green. There’s just no way to watch plants seemingly erupt from the dirt and trees explode into blossoms not see this time of year as a fresh start.

The farmers market is always my best seasonal reminder but each year, I’m surprised at how early spring produce arrives. In early March, when the trees were still bare, the market was full of  asparagus, fava beans, artichokes and pea shoots. Amazingly, this weekend brought the first strawberries of the year.

With the move and the wedding, our meals have often been simple, but all this bright new produce has led us back to some of our favorite recipes from one of our very favorite cookbooks, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

Truly one of the cheeriest-looking dishes is Zuni’s take on carbonara: those bright Marin Sun eggs make for such a sunny dish, speckled with Fatted Calf bacon and green fava beans (instead of peas). With the asparagus, we turned once again to Zuni for the super easy pancetta, asparagus and rice soup. The artichoke recipe takes the most time but it’s worth it: halved ‘chokes are massaged with salt and oil and nestled in a bed of yellow onions, lemon, mint and olives.

Of course, the promise of free time and the good food of springtime help boost ones mood but let’s be honest: a healthy dose of giddiness is just a drink away. And we’ve been doing a lot of drinking these past few weeks (all necessary wedding preparation, I can assure you).

May I suggest that if you are going to procrastinate on one part of your wedding, put off deciding on your wine. We’ve spent many of these pre-wedding nights getting looped on wine. (A taste is not nearly enough to make a decision. You’ll want to know if you like this wine after one glass, and what about after two?). One night, we ate pizza with sparkling wine. I loved that.

The extra wine consumption feels indulgent and decadent and yet the wedding makes this one of the few times in life when drinking can also be considered productive. How can you decide what wines to bring to your wedding unless you try them? So try them all. Try them often. And try them late.

Setting My Sights

Until we moved, I didn’t realize how much I relied on my SF staples — the places that soothed me, fed me or kept me entertained. I have no such places in the East Bay yet. No favorite walks or restaurants or shops or neighborhoods.

But I did come to the Eastside with a decent list of places to go and restaurants to try, and when I’ve felt lost without my usual routines these last few weeks, it’s helped to remember the things I’d like to do with this year in the East Bay, like:

• Pie – The EB happily has many pie options (Sweet Adeline, Fat Apples, Bakesale Betty) and I plan to try them all.
• Good Mexican food – Apparently, it exists!
• Breakfast – Will anything beat our old trips to the SF Blue Bottle Cafe? One can hope.
• Camino – Restaurant (like so many East Bay restaurants) run by a Chez Panisse alum.
• Brown Sugar Kitchen – Southern food with a local/organic focus (AND Blue Bottle Coffee).
• Ici – Something has to fill the giant Birite Creamery void.
• Parkway Theater – Food, drinks and movies under one roof.
• Wine tasting at Rosenblum’s Alameda tasting room (wouldn’t mind popping into Hangar One either).
• Cheeseboard/Arizmendi
• Hike – We’ve explored the wilds of the North Bay far more than the East Bay. I’d like to climb Mt. Diablo and explore some of the may parks in this neck of the woods.
• Stroll the Hood(s)- Neighborhood walks were a favorite past time in the City, I hope it proves fruitful here too. Our impromptu stroll through Elmood recently was lovely.
• BBQ – We finally have enough outdoor space to get a barbecue and start grilling.