The Challenge: Brunching with Tourists

On a Sunday not too long ago, I ventured somewhere few native San Franciscans dare: Fisherman's Wharf.

A miracle had occurred. The fog parted just long enough for me to meet my friend KC for some French/German bicyclist dodging a nice walk at Fort Mason. When I jumped out of my cab in workout gear, the driver said, "Have a nice run!" No, no I did not correct him. KC and I had a good laugh about this. Running? Us?

After some sunshine and fresh air, we wandered over to the Buena Vista Cafe, ogling the massive line of tourists willing to pay $6 to ride the cable car (nuts). We partook of the legendary Irish coffees, and ordered up some pretty standard brunch fare. The food itself is not particularly amazing, although stuff anything with Dungeness crab and I'm pretty happy. But the Irish coffees without a doubt deserve their reputation. A thick layer of cream floats pristinely over the murky libations beneath. The glass is warm; the coffee hot, and the rum warms you throat to belly to fingertips.

The whole experience made me think of my dad, who loved to swim in the bay when he lived here during the 80's. The Buena Vista Cafe is just across from the two big swim clubs, the Dolphin club and the South End club. I imagine that after taking a plunge in 55 degree saltwater, an Irish coffee and some unassuming eggs and sourdough toast would seriously hit the spot. I'm not going to do it, but you're welcome to try.

KC remarked that there seems to be a good mix of tourists and locals. The tables are large and seem to often get shared, and just as we were getting our check an older couple sat down next to us. They told us they had met in San Francisco 42 years ago, and remembered when you could only order three different entrees at the Buena Vista, none of them good, and the Irish coffees cost 75 cents. They also expressed amazement that the cable car went all the way through to the wharf, "now." We gently allowed as how our generation doesn't really take the cable car. I think it was a good learning experience, all around.

It made me wonder a bit about all these bars cropping up around the city, serving things out of mason jars, digging up vintage recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book. Don't get me wrong, I eat that stuff up. But the Buena Vista doesn't have to feign mid-century cool. The Buena Vista was actually here mid century, and at the beginning of the century, and at the end of the century, for that matter. There's something to be said for that.

The Challenge: A Bit Gingery

Next up on the Challenge is Miette, one of the maaaaany entries on the list that calls the Ferry Building home. My office is all of six blocks from the Ferry Building, which is great if you feel like picking up some heirloom tomatoes on a Tuesday, or sampling some Korean tacos on a Thursday. Actually, I don't go as often as I should. Actually, I eat lunch at my desk most days, whilst working reading etiquette columns on the New York Times. (Brushes aside some keyboard crumbs of guilt.)

BUT, if you're in the middle of an afternoon slump, and you're pretty sure there is not one more inspirational sentence you can possibly write about juice (because let's face it, once you've used "sweet," "tart," and "refreshing," it tends to go downhill from there), what better than a jaunt to the waterfront?! Especially if there are gingersnaps involved.

I have often partaken of the pristine little cupcakes from Miette, but shockingly had passed over the gingersnap option. No more. These are large, thin disks, with prettily scalloped edges. At first super crunchy, they give at the last moment with a sugary confection bend. The spice hits hard at the end. They'd probably be delicious alongside a masala chai, but with so much character on their own, it's hard to beat a straight-up English breakfast tea, taken with milk. These are keyboard crumbs of a higher order.

And now I quote Stephen on ginger biscuits (please read with an English accent):

"What, you've never had a ginger biscuit? No, they're not a cookie. They're like a biscuit, but a bit more crunchy, a bit more gingery. . .. You know. Like a ginger biscuit."

The Challenge: Something Boozy in the Financial District

For round one of tackling the 7 x7 list, I did a quick scan to see what was near my office. Publishing types tend to be very easily persuaded into an afterwork drink. We seem to always end up traipsing to North Beach's 15 Romolo, which is happy-hour cheap, and has a knock-your-socks-off Pimm's Cup. I have a hard time asking any more of a bar. But as it turned out, there are a couple of top-notch cocktails we've been neglecting in our very own neighborhood. Like, within two blocks of the office. Outrageous.

The first was Bix, which is a seriously classy joint, with booths, atmospheric lighting, a second story, and live jazz in the evenings (although we were too early for that). We bellied up to the mahogany bar and ordered gin martinis and tartare. The salmon was fresh, lightly dressed, and exquisite, but I think the steak really stole the show, as the bartender makes a presentation of scraping up artful lines of mustard and capers and mixing it up in front of you. At $12 a cocktail it better be good--but it is so good! And the gin martini is a serious drink. Serious enough that after just one you'll get slightly lost going over to your friend's house for dinner. Your friend whose apartment you've already been to. . . twice. These things happen. I'd happily repeat the experience.

Comstock Saloon has such a good reputation we were a little worried about getting seats, but sneaking in on a Tuesday night just after work, we were able to nab a cushy booth. Comstock definitely plays up the saloon, with waistcoated bartenders, tiled floors, an odd contraption that turns the ceiling fans, and so on. Manhattans and pickled eggs are the recommended order, which opened my eyes to one of the beauties of the challenge, namely, that it's good incentive to try things that you'd never ordinarily pick out on a menu. I don't know about you, but I kind of doubt that pickled eggs with oyster sauce would have really leapt out at me. But delightful they were; crisp rye toasts, dollops of briny dressing, topped with thin slices of hard boiled egg, with a nice vinegary zing. The Manhattan is also a man's drink. At first sip, I was aghast that my grandfather drank these every day (against doctor's orders, if memory serves correctly). At second sip, you start to ease into it.

And now, just because I'm an English major and we can get away with this sort of thing, I'll leave you with a quote from Lucky Jim by the great Sir Kingsley Amis. Please note the common themes of mid-twentieth century charm, drinking, and pickles:

“Pocketing the eightpence change from his two florins, Dixon shoved one of the stemmed glasses along to Margaret. They were sitting at the bar of the Oak Lounge in a large roadside hotel not far from Welch’s house. From this seat Dixon felt he could recoup himself a little for the expensiveness of the drinks by eating steadily through the potato crisps, gherkins, and red, green, and amber cocktail onions provided by the ambiguous management. He began eating the largest surviving gherkin and thought how lucky he was that so much of the emotional business of the evening had been transacted without involving him directly.”

The Challenge: Eating One's Way Through 'Frisco

Every year San Francisco's 7 x 7 magazine posts a list of 100 Things to Try Before You Die. It's a collection of crave-worthy foodie experiences around the city. So I've formed a resolution (da-da-dah-dahh!!) to eat my way through the list.

What's that, you say? It can't be done before January when they're coming out with the next list, anyways? Well, if this is true, then all I have to say is that I intend to fail fat, happy, and trying. And if August seems to you an unseasonable time of year to be undertaking resolutions, I suggest you take a trip to San Francisco in the next two weeks to enjoy some stereotypically wintry fog (don't worry, I won't inflict you with the Mark Twain quote again.)

And so we begin. I checked off those entries I had already conquered: carnitas at La Taqueria, morning bun from Tartine, margherita from Pizzeria D, baby octopus at La Ciccia, salted caramel ice cream from Bi-Rite, dosa from, well, Dosa, a pint from the Monk's Kettle, sesame balls from Yank Sing (God bless them), crepes and cider from Ti Couz, Korean tacos from Namu, and fried chicken and waffles from Little Skillet. Which brings us to. . . 89 entries left to tackle.

Realization number one: apparently I only eat at restaurants in my immediate neighborhoods. We'll work on it.

Conversations Overheard at Work

And now, we present to you a new segment titled Conversations Overheard at Work! Working on cookbooks is really fun. In addition to getting to look at pictures of cheese whenever you want to, people tend to have a lot of serious conversations which sometimes sound strange out of context. I've been compiling a collection of snippets which amused me. Hope you enjoy!

"We need to talk. They're really upset about the cornichons."

"No, they're not happy with that. We need less of a minty green. More of an arugula-y green."

[Publisher]: "Yeah, sandwiches are like a really big thing these days, right?"

[Editor 1]: "Sandwiches are like, really big right now. Like, huge."

[Editor 2]: "Seriously, you guys. Huge."

"I mean, seriously. People freaking know how to toast nuts."

"And then just write something about, you know, firesides, bacon. . . you know what I mean."

"I really need to talk to you about waffles."

"Oh my god you guys, we need to meet so I can tell you about this salad I had yesterday!"

[Discussing a current baking trend, so-called "cake pops."] "Are you serious? They mash up cake and frosting? That is absolutely disgusting. If any of my friends ever asked me to make that, I'd tell them where they can put a cake pop."

"So if you could just, say, draft a list of every food adjective you can think of, that would be perfect. Great. Thanks!"

"Ugh. I am so sick of reading soup recipes. It's like, put some vegetables in a pan. Saute them. Puree them. Don't puree them. Figure it out."

"Just add some freaking watercress and we'll call it a day."

"Ooh 'wooden spoon'! I love that. That's adorable."

"Actually, he felt really strongly about the Douglas fir tips."

"Well, you know me and kale."

"I mean, really? That's the third occurrence of dandelion greens."

"I think it would be really nice to have a friendly offal in there."

Cheese Envy

Having spent a great deal of time bashing my head against the fact that no, clotted cream can not in fact be found in satisfactory form in San Francisco, I devolve into a sniveling fit of despair. I've recently come back from three weeks of travel in England and France, and as expected, it's a bit of a letdown. I find myself pouting in grocery stores. I stomp a foot and declare there is no more bitter form of disappointment than standing in front of your neighborhood cheese counter. (What do you mean, there are only three types of chevre?!! You call yourself a cheesemonger? I can't even smell your Camembert!) It's a pretty serious case of greener pastures. I want to live there, not here! I want what they eat, not mine! Everything is better over there, everything lacks luster over here. I whine, I pout; in short, I want vacation never to end.

Never mind that if I actually lived in Europe, I'm sure I would miss buttermilk nearly as violently as Fortnum's finest Devonshire. My imagination has not crept so far as to a Saturday morning without tangy, tender-crumbed pancakes. It equally ignores Thanksgivings without turkey and yams, and skips blithely over California summers filled with carne asada, avocados, and Mexicoke.

Fiction-lovers fall into this trap. We love worlds other than our own. As a reader, one of my favorite things is to crawl between the pages into someone else's life. There are innumerable places to explore and retreat into, and whenever you finish or tire of one, there is always another volume on the shelf to unfurl before you. A reader's curiosity is perhaps not so different from a traveler's itch, in both instances, there's a certain measure of healthy discontent. It is a life of endless sampling, never quite sated.

But for those of us who really can't get over the clotted cream thing (it's seriously just not as good!), well, there is of course one other option. It is not for the faint of heart. You'll need to set aside a large portion of your weekend, store up some patience, and brace yourself for the deprecating comments of practical people like boyfriends.

Homemade Clotted Cream

Honest-to-goodness English clotted cream, hailing from Devon or Cornwall, is made from unpasteurized milk, which is why nothing that travels over the Atlantic in a jar will be anywhere near as absolutely wonderful. If you have access to unpasteurized cream, by all means, use it.

1 pint organic heavy cream, such as Straus Family Creamery

1 quart organic whole milk

Pour the cream and milk into a large, heavy pot or saucepan that will moderate heat well (a trusty Le Creuset Dutch oven does the trick). Cover the pot and place it somewhere cool, but near the stove, and let stand for several hours, until the cream rises to the top.

Gently transfer the pot onto the stove, disturbing the upper layer of cream as little as possible. Warm over the lowest possible heat, for about an hour. Do NOT allow the milk to simmer. When the surface has developed a butter yellow skin and starts to crinkle, turn off the heat, cover the pot again, and let stand at cool room temperature, overnight or up to 24 hours.

Skim off the top layer of yellow skin and cream into a small bowl. Place this in the refrigerator, and chill until thickened. Certain sources claimed this would take a few hours, but my cream didn't really set up and take on the proper blobby, thick-but-spreadable consistency until it had sat in the fridge for another 24 hours. (I know. I told you! Not for the faint of heart.)

The remaining milk can be used for baking, which is great! Because you ought to start whipping up some scones right about now. I put currants in mine. However the spirit moves you.

Finally, at long last, put the kettle on. Sit down with your warm scones. Slather them with hard-won clotted cream, and top with curd, jam, marmalade, what have you. Finally, don't forget crack open a novel. Because, let me assure you--where your reading might fail to transport you, 55 percent butterfat indubitably will succeed.

Pencil Love

I dearly love a freshly sharpened pencil. The industrious grinding sound. The whiff of shavings and lead. The sharp slice of the first stroke on the first page.

My youngest brother Bruce (Norman Bruce Duffett III) got me an electric pencil sharpener this Christmas. I had put it on my list for two years running, but somehow no one seemed to take the entry seriously. I got lucky, however. The Christmas Eve frenzy set in, and I walked into the kitchen to witness my other brother, Jason, fielding an emergency phone call.

"Becky. Do you have a guide book on France?"

"Ooh! Tell Bruce I really want a pencil sharpener."

Jason stares.

"Please? I don't want any guide books."

"But aren't you going to France?" Blank look.

"I just really want a pencil sharpener! Why does nobody want to get me a pencil sharpener? Tell him they're cheap."

My wish was granted, because, surprise! The next morning I unwrapped a shiny, bullet-shaped gem, which now greets me in the office every morning.

At first, my coworkers were a bit distressed. One of the Julias asked me if I was doing some light drilling at my desk. No, not I! I am sharpening pencils! I introduced her to my new friend. I explained that my younger brother, Norman Bruce Duffett III, was the source. Julia gets this. We once bonded over the joys of lining up new rubber erasers in a straight row.

Now she and various others stop by occasionally for a grind. Designers, I've come to learn, are prodigious users of manual pencils. Honestly, I would expect no less. Designers are tremendously cool people. One of my favorite designers has a Depression-era glass jar on her desk, filled with pretty pencils. Things like this make it clear to me why the rest of us will never be able to keep up with designers.

I suspect that new school supplies are so immensely gratifying because of the sense of possibility. When you sit down with a freshly sharpened pencil in the morning, you can tackle anything (or at least any sentence) the world has to throw at you. Misused comma? I'm on it. Making every word count? You betcha. To quote the Stanford Writing Center: Saving the world, one thesis at a time.

One of my favorite parts of my job is that I actually get to work with paper and pencil. I love it when someone drops a stack of pages on my desk, and I get to spend the remainder of the afternoon not looking at a screen. I think very many people today are deprived this simple pleasure. Of reading. And writing. By hand. Moreover, one of the biggest delights of making books is that you're actually making books. Meaning that after months of thinking about something, and working on something, that something actually shows up on your desk, bound and printed and gorgeous. And you get to hold that something up and say, Hey! I helped make that.

And so, this morning, as I did when I was eight years old, I select my weapon. I sharpen it to within a point of its life. I line up my erasers, and take my seat. I consider the page with a wild surmise, silent above a peak--and then I really get down to scribbling.