Alamo Square Shoe Garden

Today I wanted to show you something we discovered on Saturday. It's called the Alamo Square Shoe Garden and I found it while rushing to the restroom at Alamo Square Park. It surprised me so much that I forgot how badly I needed to go and started snapping pictures and squealing "ooh!" "ooh!" I suspect Jeff thought I was having a "Hilary moment".












This garden is sooooo San Francisco! Doesn't it make you want to start a shoe garden at home?

If you want to learn more about the Alamo Square Shoe Garden check out this article: http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-05-24/home-and-garden/17489639_1_garden-shoes-planted

Hayes Valley

We spent Saturday morning wandering around Hayes Valley. I'd never been there before and it has lots of cute shops and restaurants. The main park there is Alamo Square and surrounding it are the old Victorian homes called The Painted Ladies.

What I want to show you today is a giant statue in a small park on Hayes Street. Isn't she amazing?

SF MOMA

I didn't take many pictures at SFMOMA but here are a few that I had to share with you.

This is Michael and Bubbles (in case you coudn't tell).


This work is by Paul Klee.
At the time it was brought to the museum there was an article about it in Life magazine. The curator at the time wrote the article and received several angry letters from readers. One of them suggested she needed to see an "occulist" if she thought that was a remarkable work of art. Well, lady, it's still at the museum and it's definitely remarkable!

This was part of a contest where artists submitted their take of the Uncle Sam "I want you" slogan. I just like it. :)

Year One!

Today is the one year anniversary for me and Jeff. We spent the weekend in San Francisco, where we first became engaged. I took ten thousand pictures and this week I'll show a few of my favorite pictures every day for you. This is a hardcore promise so check back every day. But, for now, here's a rundown of our weekend:

I had Friday off work and took the train up to the city and went to SFMOMA. While walking there I saw a guy in a business suit riding a skateboard. He was moving too fast for me to get a picture of him though.

At the museum they were having a 75 year museum retrospective. Lots of great photographs, lots of great art that includes Paul Klee, Andy Warhol, Diego Rivera and much much more. I spent two or three hours there until I couldn't absorb any more art. Then I spent close to an hour in the museum store.

Afterwards, I found the Contemporary Jewish Museum. I didn't have the energy to see the exhibits but I did enjoy the store. They had a plastic shofar horn and a placemat with the Jewish zodiac (totally fictional!).

Then I walked to our hotel in Japantown to meet Jeff. I love the hotel we stay at there. The Kabuki Hotel has sliding doors in each room with Japanese figures on them, a Japanese bathtub and a great view of the city. It's located at the end of the Japantown mall and so I was able to take several walks through the mall throughout the weekend. I bought a dollar bill origami book and was tempted to buy several other books, particularly one that made fun of "Engrish" (their word, not mine!). That night we ate dinner at Fresca, a Peruvian restaurant on Fillmore. Yum!

On Saturday we walked to Hayes Valley and I found some amazing artisanal chocolates from Christopher Elbow and we were lucky enough to come across the annual Alamo Square flea market. It was mostly used stuff that people were selling but there were also a few artists and craftspeople that I enjoyed. By the way, I'm going to create some pages on this blog for food and craft vendors that I endorse so keep an eye out for that!

After that we headed to the main event of the weekend - WICKED!!! I've been begging Jeff to take me there ever since it came to San Francisco and our anniversary was the perfect reason to go. I can't even describe how wonderful it was: the costumes, the music, the theater itself was a work of art. I'm so glad I was able to see it before it ended. Plus, I love witches and I'm thinking I might dress as Elphaba for Halloween.

As for this morning, we went to the Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park to see their Carnivorous Plants exhibit. It's inspired me to work on my own balcony garden. I have a few orchids left over from our wedding that I'm not taking very good care of. Now would be an opportune time to bring them back to life.

One Year (Almost)

A week from today marks the first anniversary for Jeff and me.
It seems like just yesterday that I was nervously preparing.

And then down the aisle I went.

And met the love of my life at the altar:

And then it was time to party!

If I have time I'll post some more wedding pictures this week!

Napa wedding

A couple of weekends ago Jeff and I went to a wedding up in Napa. I had never been to Napa valley before (hey, I'm not a wine drinker, ok!?) and was excited to check out the area.

Before the wedding we went to downtown Napa where we discovered the Oxbow Market.


It's kind of a smaller version of the Ferry Building with several different vendors selling artisan foods. We started with gluten-free empanadas (Jeff is allergic to wheat so this was great) and then I went a little crazy buying chocolates, breads, cheeses and anything else I could fit in our cooler. I also had some awesome ice cream from Three Twins Ice Cream shop. If you think their name is silly check out some of their offerings:

We then took a walk downtown to check out the newly renovated river walk. They have a series of new buildings with high-end cuisine including a restaurant owned by Matsuharu Morimoto from Food Network's Iron Chef America.

After that, we had to get ready for the wedding which was located on a small vineyard up in the hills of Napa. It was a small wedding with a sunflower and honey theme. The ring bearer was their cute little dog Rudy.

The give-aways were small honey jars with custom labels and I might have taken a few more than my allotment. The food was excellent and they had cupcakes for dessert instead of a wedding cake. Yum!

After dinner we hit the dance floor to burn off some of that yummy food.

The only down side of that day was that our shuttle driver got lost and arrived a half hour late to pick us up. Apparently the people after us waited more than an hour before giving up and calling a cab for a $90 ride home. Fortunately, they squeezed several people into the cab with them!

The next day we went back to the winery (we drove this time) for breakfast which included frittatas and an assortment of fruit.

Then we drove up to Calistoga to check out the downtown. I had originally wanted to see the geyser but was told at the wedding it wasn't all that great. Maybe some other time though. We ate at Brennan's where I tried my first raw oyster - and loved it! Jeff bought some wine and then we hit the road again.

Our next stop was Mecca, er... Yountville where we stopped at The French Laundry. If you're not familiar with The French Laundry, it's owned by Thomas Keller and is considered one of the best restaurants in the U.S., if not the world. You have to make reservations at least two months in advance though and expect to pay a minimum of $200 for one of their 9-course prix fixe meals. No, we didn't eat there, but I did wander around to check out the property. Even though the building had no signage, a couple of tourist buses stopped and people were taking pictures all over the place. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who does stuff like that.

Across the street was their garden/small farm. I absolutely love kitchen gardens so I was in complete heaven. I probably walked the whole garden twice and examined every plant they had before reluctantly going back to the car and leaving for home.

The day after we returned home I went straight to Barnes & Noble and picked up Thomas Keller's gigantic cook book, Ad Hoc. I've been reading it meticulously for days now and have warned the cats not to even look at it funny. I store it in the cabinet though, just in case.

Ferry Building and More

A few weeks ago Jeff and I went to San Francisco to visit the Ferry Building and have Dim Sum, something I've never had before. Since it was a Saturday, their Farmers' Market was outside. I love love love Farmers' Markets! They have wonderful food and you can connect with the food vendors and farmers.

Here is the view inside the Ferry Building:

There is a ton of fun food shops in the Ferry Building. One that was featured on the Food Network is Boccalone, they offer these ridiculously fun cones filled with shaved pork slices, of all things:

After the Ferry Building (actually, in between - we went back later on) we went to Yank Sing, listed in the Michelin Guide as the gold standard of dim sum. I've never had dim sum before and let me tell you - it was absolutely incredible. They kept coming and coming with more and more food: Pork buns, duck, shrimp rolls, etc. I couldn't eat it all but I sure wanted to.

Here is the outside of the restaurant. It features a waterfall that pours from the top of the building to the floor several stories below.

One word of advice if you go to Yank Sing: Go with as many people as you can find! That way you can sample as many dishes as possible without getting overly stuffed (if that's possible).

After Yank Sing we needed to walk off all that food so we went up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. Here are a few pictures from our climb: