Month: March 2006

Monday Dinner Club

Olivetto.JPG
Dinner Club + Sue at Oliveto

The left coast branch of Rectors and those with a few degrees of separation, convene occasionally to try new restaurants, revisit certain favorites, or even partake of one another’s cooking and hospitality. We like this.

Sue Berard, Eric’s mother-in-law, was in town recently so we dragged her along for a Dinner Club at Oliveto, in the toney Rockridge section of Oakland. Carol and I had been there, with Eric; I think about the time Paul Bertolli, the original chef/owner was passing the spoon to Paul Canales, the current chef. Paul Bertolli, who was the original chef at Chez Panisse, is now focused on his new salumi business, Fra”Mani. National distribution should begin this spring or summer, so keep an eye out for it.
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The Furminator

furminator.JPGCarol gave me this dog comb thing for Christmas. She said it was supposed to massage my dog, and pamper him while I freed my home of wandering dog hair. It seems to work! Thank you Carol. love Corky

Don’t Come Knocking. A Review

There’s a stark black screen with two bright white, luminous, almost pulsating, roundish images where eyes would be if the screen were a face. The titles come in to the lower left in a fat serif typeface. Daylight comes swiftly and the white images become blue sky through openings in a rock formation of Monument Valley, Utah. It’s the kind of photograph Wim Wenders might include in one of his photography books of the West. The camera slowly pans around 360 °and then tilts downward to expose an ugly array of white trailers, booms and trolleys of a movie setup. A horse with rider gallops at speed out of the valley, up an incline through the red rock and disappears over the horizon. That is Howard Spence (Sam Shepard), an over the hill movie star cowboy, coming off a binge of drugs, booze and debauchery. Two whores are still in his trailer.
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Markie’s New Shirts

markies new shirtsYou remember Markie’s New Shoes, don”t you? Of course you do.

On that January day when Carol and I went shopping and Dine About Towning and museuming, we stopped into a store called Mix on Sutter at Grant. They told us that Marimekko is due to celebrate their 50th anniversary and will have new colors for their shirts. She said they were due in February. I left my number and she said that she would call me when they come in.
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Mâche Pit

mache

Now that it’s after Candlemas, things in our hoophouse are really taking off.

Candlemas is celebrated as “Groundhog Day” in the U.S, and is thought to be the ancient marking of the point between Winter solstice and the Vernal equinox; according to Wikipedia, in France, “Candlemas (French: La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes, which must be eaten only after eight p.m. If the cook can flip a crêpe while holding a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the coming year…” Did you and Valerie flip your crêpes, Bro?

One of the hardiest of the greens we grow through the winter are these cute little tufts of buttery soft green called “mâche” or “corn salad” which are starting to bolt in the early spring heat. (Our unheated hoophouse will often get 40 to 50 °F above the outside temp, which now can be a blazing 40 or 50 °F at mid-day — you do the math…)
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Survivor Pool

I heard about an interesting variation on the radio this morning called a Survivor Pool.

What you do is pick a team to win on each day of play. If they win, you live to pick the next day. If they lose, you’re out. You can only pick a team one time, so beware of picking the high seeds too early.

Just for the hell of it, for openers, Thursday, I’ll take Marquette over Alabama.

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Hoops Hopes?

I haven’t been paying close enough attention to confidently predict the outcome of most of the NCAA tourny games, but I’m willing to take a stab at picking a final four group. Anybody interested in posting their final four teams — no wager, just for grins?

For scoring, I’m thinking that you would get a point for each game your final four team wins up to reaching the FF; i.e. each pick that ends up making it to the FF would be worth four points; sixteen possible points available. If one of your teams loses before the FF, you would still get the points from their wins (if they had any…)

Submit your picks as comments, and I’ll update this entry with the standings as we move “up the ladder.”

FF PICKS AFTER Final Game:

Marc: 14 points
Duke – UCLA – UConn – Villanova

Dr. B: 8 points
BC – Duke – Kansas – UConn

Eric: 6 points
Duke – Gonzaga – UNC – OSU
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Day Tripper

Livermore Valley

livermore_valley

Last weekend I wanted to go on a day trip and Carol hrrrumphed that, so she agreed I could put a trip to the Livermore Valley wine country on the calendar for this Sunday.

Saturday, after Farmers Market, I”m making my breakfast and it’s a beautiful day and sposta be shitty on Sunday with lots of rain and I sez to Carol, “Lets go to Livermore today,” and she hrrrumphed that she’s doing laundry and stuff. So I say I”ll do laundry tomorrow, we gotta get out of the house once in a while.

So, we”re off. It’s a shot down the I-580 speedway, which goes south and then east. I”d never been to Livermore. It’s always featured on the TV weather report and usually for being totally hot in the summer, the antithesis of San Francisco, I”m thinking parched and dry. Actually, it has the knobby green hills like Sonoma County, but these are smaller.
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The Big Oyster

The Big Oyster…and I don’t mean Marc…

The Big Oyster is the title of Mark Kurlansky’s new book which shucks the long and complex story of this bi-valve from between the crusted shells of history. Kurlansky’s last book was Cod, which did the same thing for that significant fish, primarily as a lens for the history of North America, and it appears he focuses primarily on oysters in New York City in this new book, at least according to the New York Times review.

Oysters also happened to be a subject of the Boston Globe’s food section this week, which follows a Wellfleet oyster shucker to the national oyster shucking championships in Miami.
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