The article is packed full of disturbing quotes like, “cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly”.

And if inserting bacon in your nostril isn’t weird enough, the piece quotes a doctor who explained in 1953 that the nasal tampon isn’t a quick fix: “”Salt pork placed in the nose and allowed to remain there for about five days has been used but the method is rather old-fashioned“. FIVE DAYS?

But it’s easy to connect to Glen Park from Noe Valley. If you keep walking south, you’ll likely soon find yourself in Glen Park village. (If you want directions, from 30th street turn left on to Chenery — and you’ll pass this wacky carnival-themed front yard on the way).

There’s plenty to do in Glen Park — have pizza at Gialina or walk through Glen Park canyon — but lately, my favorite part of Glen Park is its hidden lanes.

While many San Francisco neighborhoods are known for their stairways, Glen Park has charming little dirt roads that bisect certain blocks. Poppy Lane, for example, runs from Conrad Street to Diamond Street, and my favorite is Ohlone Way, which runs between Sussex and Surrey streets. The lanes are quiet and car-free, but the best part about them is that they feel like secret shortcuts.

Even if you know these hidden lanes are nearby, it can be hard to find them. It’s easy to get off-track in the winding streets of Glen Park. But if you are heading to Ohlone Way, one tell-tale sign is ornately painted red-and-black house that is across the street from the Sussex entrance.

Last year, I felt like I had little to show for the year, but 2011 brought too many things to write about in one post. Thankfully most of the highlights were already documented here: I traveled; I grew vegetables and harvested my own meat; I worked at the farmers market, and two weeks before the end of the year, I became a home owner.

Douro Valley, Portugal

2011 On the Road
Spain and Portugal weren’t the best places I’ve ever been to, but our fall trip reestablished how important travel is. I also returned to Mexico for the first time in at least 10 years.

There were good local trips, too. I went on a new favorite hike in Point Reyes and for our second anniversary, Mr. WholeHog and I stayed at Glen Oaks in Big Sur, reminding me how much I love finding places to stay that have a little style.

Big Sur

2011 At the Table
Travel brought new food experiences, too. I loved my monthly farm school breakfast in Sonoma: a Fremont Diner ham biscuit with their homemade jam. I loved buying (and eating) freshly made tortillas at the tortilleria in San Pancho, Mexico. And I’m still blown away by how the delicious the food was in Porto.

Thanks to an 18 Reasons tasting during SF Beer Week, 2011 was a year of beer. The tasting introduced me to Biere de Miel and Shipyard’s Smashed Pumpkin. I also loved Almanac‘s local and seasonal beers, Speakeasy’s Butchertown, a super dark-colored beer that tastes just like an IPA, and Belgium’s Rodenbach Grand Cru (love that slightly sour taste).

2011 On Film
There’s no doubt in my mind about the best movie of the year: Bill Cunningham NY. The movie really inspired me and I think about it constantly. I also liked Midnight in Paris, the only new-release I saw in the theater. But there was so much more on film than just movies. I’m still laughing about Stephen Colbert’s British imitation (jump straight to the five-minute mark), and god bless the Beastie Boys for their cameo-filled video, Make Some Noise. I needed that.

I spent the most screen time watching a webcam on a red-tailed hawk nest in Washington Square where over a few months, I watched as a hawk hatched, ate rodents, and eventually fledged.

Pip

2011 Bookmobile
2011 started out with such great reads. I loved Abraham Verghese’s epic Cutting for Stone and I enjoyed Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, a quiet little story about a woman leaving her small town Ireland and making her own way in Brooklyn. But I was disappointed in Frazen’s Freedom, Lethem’s Chronic City and Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

The New Yorker continued to have some of my very favorite reads of the year, including the recent short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank“. And I love, love, love Lucky Peach. I’m still thinking about the piece on authenticity from the first issue.

2011 Soundtrack
I would be completely clueless about music if it weren’t for Mr. WholeHog. It was through him that I actually listened to a few of 2011′s albums. Wilco came back into my life (and my earbuds) with A Whole Love and I particularly loved REM’s “Oh My Heart“, but the album that got the most play last year was Gillian Welch’s The Harrow & The Harvest. It really resonated with this time in my life (“Everybody’s buying little baby clothes”).

But, as it turned out, December’s calls to the police in this small, foothill town were ultimately a spectacular display of insanity, from the call about a murderous transsexual Taliban on the loose to the caller who reported that God (or Jehovah) was in town and driving a taxi.

11:19 a.m. — A caller from the southbound ramp of the highway reported a man patrolling the ramp in hopes of locating the Central Intelligence Agency.

2:47 p.m. — A caller reported that someone stole his Mason jar last week. At 8:47 p.m., he called back to tell officers that if he was killed that he would like to leave all his property to his daughter.

2:37 a.m. — A caller reported that all his friends are against him.

2:51 a.m. — A caller reported that a woman was screaming at her because her computer wouldn’t work.

7:19 a.m. — A caller  reported an intruder locked in the downstairs’ bathroom. Officers cleared the house and made contact with the intruder, who was determined to be a visiting member of the caller’s family from out of state.

7:43 p.m. — A caller reported several inflatable Christmas decorations were slashed with a knife and destroyed.

8:52 a.m. — A man reported a woman tried to kill him by putting heroin in his coffee. He said he didn’t go the hospital because his system is immune to heroin. He also reported that God or Jehovah drove him home in a taxi.

10:59 a.m. — A woman reported that every time she parks her car, someone puts a hole in her tire.

4:11 a.m. — A woman reported a transsexual or cross-dresser stole her Hello Kitty purse, and had been trying to murder her for years. She then claimed it was the Taliban and hung up.

1:15 p.m. — A caller reported a concern about an ostrich.

9:23 p.m. — A woman reported drinking two large Jaegermeisters and thinking she might die. She was transported to the hospital.

11:07 p.m. — A woman reported violence and verbal abuse. On callback, she said the kids were getting excited about Christmas.

12:12 p.m. — A woman reported her son missing since Dec. 9, when he left for Yosemite to find the lunar eclipse. She called later to report his return.

9:20 p.m. — A man reported being assaulted by a “hillbilly” in a cowboy hat.

4:22 p.m. — An extremely drunken man reported being raped and then laughed. He agreed not to call again.

3:38 p.m. — A woman reported a burning bottom. She was advised to call her physician.

8:01 a.m. — A caller reported a transient who, despite requests not to return, frequently stops by to clog the toilet. An officer advised the man to stay away.
7:25 a.m. — A caller reported vandalism to a vehicle. The caller also reported finding a blue pumpkin in the back seat.

This year, I made my usual donations to This American Life and the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, as well as a donation to the San Francisco Food Bank, and I also supported three new organizations:

Food Corps
I first heard about Food Corps in Mark Bittman’s New York Times column earlier this year. Food Corps connects volunteers to serve in areas in the U.S. with high obesity rates and/or areas with less access to fresh food (so-called food deserts). Volunteers help build gardens, teach nutrition and work to improve school lunches.  As Bittman wrote “for less than a million bucks of our money we are getting a program that will start to roll back the $147 billion it costs us each year to deal with the health consequences of obesity.”

Wholesome Wave
A common complaint about eating locally grown produce is that it’s expensive, but this organization aims to change that by make fresh food available to everyone. One of its accomplishments has been to double the value of food stamps that are used at farmers markets which helps support local farmers and get better food to those in need.

Farmer Veteran Coalition
Another organization that supports two worthy goals is the Farmer Veteran Coalition which helps returning service men and women get farming jobs. This brings much-needed employment options to veterans and it helps grow a new generation of farmers.  Bon Appetit Management Company shared some incredible pictures and stories here.

Other Worthy Organizations

2010 – A Christmas Way of Living

• The Trevor Project
• Alemany Farm
• Film Noir Foundation
• CUESA

2009 – Help to Make the Season Bright

• CitySlicker Farms
• Urban Tilth
• Quesada Gardens Initiative
• UrbanSprouts
• The Food Pantry
• CHEFS

2008 – A Time for Gifts and Giving

• La Cocina
• Glide 
• The Family Giving Tree
• NothingButNets.net

2007 – Come on Y’All It’s Time to Get Nice

• Heifer International
• Chez Panisse Foundation
• Food Runners
• InsideOUT Writers
• 826Valencia
• Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
• DonorsChoose 

There’s many different posters all featuring different areas of the city, like North Beach, Aquatic Park, Market Street, Japantown, and others. The posteres aren’t cheap ($139 unframed, $239 framed) but they are something that you can’t find just anywhere.

At Renegade Craft Fair this past weekend, I ran across a few other great (and more affordable) SF and California-focused gift ideas:

• Local bag makers, Rickshaw Bags, had a version of their ‘musette’ canvas bag printed with an eye-catching graphic of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s not on their website site, but Rickshaw says they have the Golden Gate bags in their retail shop.
• Dave Marcoullier was selling gorgeous wood pieces, featuring SF’s skyline, SF’s neighborhood map and even one of MUNI.
• My other favorite Renegade find this year was this gorgeous I Love You California print from local 3 Fish Studios.

My San Francisco (and California)  gift ideas from previous years -

• 2010 – SF CA Gift Guide
• 2009 – Frisco Christmas
• 2009 – Have Yourself a Local Little Christmas (Favorite SF stores)
• 2007 – Local Farmers Market Gifts
• 2007 – SF Made Gift Ideas

But now that I’ve signed the last papers for our home purchase (!) and worked my last farmers market for the year, I plan to spend this last week enjoying what’s left of this holiday season. Although I missed this year’s Noir City Christmas at the Castro theater, there’s still time to stop by some of my favorite local stores, to walk through the dark city streets and admire the lights and decor, and to do some holiday drinking. Tis at least one of the reasons for the season.

This year, Mr. WholeHog has Christmas eve off so we’ll get to drive up to our home towns together and if the weather holds up, we’ll count the hawks we see on the drive, just like I used to do with my parents when I was a kid and we’d drive down to SF on Christmas Day.

Because we’re crazy for Primavera and because eating Primavera’s chile relleno en nogada has become one of our shared holiday traditions, we’ll also be making a detour through Sonoma on our way up to the foothills this year, so we can stop at El Molino Central to get our holiday fix.

This not to say that I took the idea of killing a turkey lightly (I didn’t) or that I was excited about killing an animal (I wasn’t). But I do want know as much as possible about where my food comes from and while I’ve gone on farm tours to see how animals are raised, it’s rare to get the opportunity to see how an animal goes from the pasture to the plate.  So when a local farm offered the chance to participate in a turkey ‘harvest’, I signed up.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, an animal dies in order for us to eat meat. It can be easy to ignore that trade-off since so few of us have to do or even see the kill, but the trade-off exists and I wanted to see for myself if I was really comfortable with it. I assumed I could kill the turkey — as a meat eater, I felt in a way like it was my duty to kill it — but I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about myself afterwards or how I’d feel about meat.

And the farm’s instructions were sobering: it said we should bring shoes that could get dirty and a sharp knife. But although I was wearing old shoes and I’d had Mr. WholeHog sharpen my knife, I was worried on that rainy Sunday morning as I drove out to Marin with my sister. I worried that my knife wasn’t sharp enough. I worried that I’d mess it up somehow and cause the bird to suffer unnecessarily. I worried that it would be violent, that the bird would be in distress.

But as it turned out, the bird was calm. It stood still when I draped the net over it to separate it from the other turkeys. It didn’t make any attempt to run away as the farmer showed me how to gently crouch on it, using my knees to keeping its wings close to its body. Although I was afraid of its beak, the turkey didn’t try to peck me when I reached for its head, and it didn’t resist at all when I exposed its neck. There was no discernible reaction from the turkey even when I made the first cut through the thick bumpy skin on the neck (the farmers said this cut blood to the brain and caused the bird to pass out) or the second, fatal cut.

I’d thought a lot about the actual killing, but I learned that the harder part was being there with the bird as its body shut down. Since I was sitting with the bird, essentially sitting on the bird, I could feel its muscles contract, its wings try to flap, and its whole body briefly convulse before it was still. It was an intense process to sit through it, especially knowing that I’d put this process in motion, but it felt right to be there. I’d taken the turkey’s life; the least I could do was be there with it as it died.

One of the two farmers was there with me, helping me at every stage of the process — showing me where to cut, even loaning me his knife, and checking to make sure my cuts were sufficient. Afterwards, he helped me pick up the bird by its feet. “It’s meat now,” he said.

But the bird didn’t start to look like meat until after it had been dipped in a vat of hot water and my sister and I started to take off the feathers.  It was surprisingly intimate to pluck the bird. We had to go over the bird’s whole, still-warm body, raising its wings in order to remove the soft, downy feathers underneath and turning it over carefully to remove the thicker feathers from its back.

We’d harvested the turkeys in in groups of two so a farmer could be there alongside each harvester, but we all gathered around one big table to pluck the birds. Despite the tedious work and the odd smell of cooked feathers, there was a communal feeling at the work table. As we talked and passed around the pliers necessary to remove the large, thick feathers from the birds’ wings, I thought about how there were likely people and small farms across the country who were spending this Sunday before Thanksgiving the same way I was, with wet feathers on their hands and a little blood on their jeans.

Without its feathers, our turkey began to look more like what you’d buy at the store, although our bird still had its head and its bloody neck, its brown, scaly feet, and its guts. My sister bravely took on the work of gutting our bird, removing the feet and head and then carefully separating the skin and the throat from the neck before cutting the neck off. Then she took out the crop, a balloon-like organ where turkeys store food, and the farmer showed us that we could still feel the grain and leaves the bird had eaten that morning. Finally, she pulled out the innards: gizzard, heart, liver, intestines and lungs. We washed the bird, weighed it, and we were done.

It had taken half of a day to transform the turkey from a living bird into the star of our Thanksgiving dinner. And the time, skill and attention it had taken to harvest the bird made me realize that the the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving meal is special — not because it was brined or rubbed with butter and herbs, but because someone raised the bird, killed it, and prepared it for us to cook. The experience made me think about how most of us devote practically a whole day to cooking our Thanksgiving turkey, but until the harvest, I’d spent very little time considering what it took to get that bird from its coop to our home. I had no idea what the process looked like, sounded like, felt like or smelled like; now those senses are what I remember most about the experience.

Some predicted that the experience of killing my own turkey would turn me into a vegetarian, but I thoroughly enjoyed my Thanksgiving turkey this year. Our bird had incredible flavor and texture (I’ve found that heritage birds tend not to have that dry, cotton-y texture.) But what has changed for me is that now when I see turkey or chicken on a menu, there’s a moment where I think about the bird. And I don’t think in terms of breasts, thighs or wings, instead I think about the odd smell of wet feathers, about the feel of its thick-skinned neck. These thoughts don’t make me reconsider ordering chicken or turkey, but they do make me feel more aware of the bird before it was meat.

I’ve chosen not to include the farm’s name here because I know there are people out there who don’t approve of any animal death, but contact me or leave a comment if you want the info. The farm took incredibly good care of us, loaning us rain gear and helping us with the emotional and physical work of the day.  They told us right off the bat that we didn’t have to do anything we weren’t comfortable with. The farm also took incredibly good care of the birds themselves. The turkeys had spent their lives outside with room to spread their wings and pasture to scratch around in.

Fighting was also a theme for the month with food fights (spaghetti), name calling (“hillbilly whore”) and the usual neighborly threats (with baseball bats).

• 3:39 p.m. — A caller reported a man screaming and fighting with a chainlink fence.
• 9:28 a.m. — A woman reported someone had written “hillbilly whore” on her gate in green chalk. She gave the name of a suspect, against whom she has a restraining order.
• 8:16 p.m. — A caller reported receiving a phone call from a woman who spoke in a “sexual” tone and asked to speak to the youngest male in the residence.
• 12:30 p.m. — A boy reported being underage and drinking, and said he wanted to go to jail because he heard it was cool. He could not be located.
• 12:53 p.m. — A woman reported her crawlspace door had been tampered with and her neighbor makes “hoo-dau” sounds when she is outside. She also reported the hospital claims she called them 22 times regarding what kind of meds her housemaid was on.
• 9:32 p.m. — A caller reported a man was “raging” on meth. He was arrested on suspicion of battery, damaging a phone line and possessing a controlled substance.
• 5 p.m. — A caller reported a domestic dispute; both parties had spaghetti all over them.
• 8:22 a.m. — A caller reported someone wrote “rackball” on a vehicle and on a retaining wall.
• 6:07 p.m. — A caller reported possible drug activity. The people were doing their laundry.
• 9:11 p.m. — A man reported his daughter misdialed the phone, then admitted he didn’t have a daughter and was drunk.
• 7:08 p.m. — A caller reported an extremely drunken woman in a wheelchair was too impaired to care for a child, who was released to the care of a relative.
• 12:22 p.m. — A caller from reported a bloated stomach.
• 12:04 a.m. — A caller reported a group of drunken men came to his son’s window and asked if he wanted to buy some marijuana.
• 12:46 p.m. – A caller reported a small missile in front of her house, with a red stick coming out the top of it. The caller said the missile was on her door step and she didn’t want to touch it. An officer responded and determined the missile was a Nerf children’s toy projectile.
• 1:58 p.m. – A caller at a local park reported the “definitive smell of marijuana” at the skate park and requested an officer drive through the area to look for anything suspicious.
• 2:02 p.m. — A woman reported her neighbor was banging on her door. At 6:43 p.m., the other woman reported she tried to apologize and the first woman wielded a baseball bat at her.

We stopped at Arizmendi on 9th Avenue, where we are still recognized as regulars, and took our pastries up to the top of the hill at 14th Avenue and Moraga. From this vantage point, you can see the SF skyline and also the ocean. You can see Golden Gate Park — and how it divides the western side of the City — as well as part of the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see all the pastel-colored ticky tacky that makes up so much of the Outer Sunset. In short, it’s a lovely place to be on a bright, clear day.

“I love where we live,” Mr. WholeHog said that morning.

And he said it again as our flight path home crossed over Marin and we could clearly see the long arm of Point Reyes from the plane’s window.

This is one of the many delights of travel: it makes me look at my city with fresh eyes and it often reminds me what I love about where I live. Travel has the magic ability to make even the most routine elements of life seem new again. After just two weeks away, I marveled at aspects of SF that I normally take for granted. For example, have you seen our sidewalks? We have incredible sidewalks. They are wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, they are generally free of feces, and you almost never see scooters driving on our sidewalks.

Or the air in SF. Have you noticed that it’s remarkably clean and fresh? That it isn’t permeated with cigarette smoke and diesel fumes? (After a month away from SF, my sister said the air seemed almost sweet to her).

Absence didn’t make me fonder for everything about SF, however. Waiting for MUNI was even more enraging after I’d spent two weeks riding public transit in different cities and countries where I’d never had to wait more than 4 minutes for a train. In Barcelona, a sign on the platform counted down to the next train: 2 minutes, 1 minute 30 seconds, 1 minute. MUNI predictions don’t often count down. It may tell you a train is coming in 5 minutes, then 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 4 minutes, 4 minutes — until you’ve ended up waiting 15 minutes for a train that you’d been led to believe was just 5 minutes away.

But although SF (and the U.S. in general) still has lots of room for improvement when it comes to transit, I mostly came back with a renewed appreciation for SF. On those first days back, I relished the crisp mornings that melted into almost-too-warm afternoons. I battled my jetlag with strong, delicious coffee. I walked around the farmers market at the end of October amazed that there were still corn and tomatoes available. I had a bowl of radicchio with wheatberries, roasted beets, feta cheese and dressed in an oregano viniagrette at Cane Rosso — precisely the sort of food that I miss when I’m traveling.

I kept my camera in my purse and took pictures of SF as if I were a tourist during my first week back. All the pictures in this post were taken that first week as I stopped to admire the sunset out my office window, the city skyline seen from out on the bay, or the sun rise at the Ferry Building as I was setting up for the farmers market on Saturday.

On our first morning at home, I found myself awake too early. I was lying in bed and hoping I’d fall back asleep when there was an earthquake. And if I had any doubts about where I was, I knew then that I was back on the San Andreas fault line.