San Francisco

In the early 1970's I lived in San Francisco! Some of my most vivid memories are of the music (concerts in Golden Gate Park and at the Filmore) and the food! Although money was really tight, I did try to sneak in the occasional crab cocktail and of course there was always sour dough bread. During this time San Francisco was an integral part of the food revolution which changed the way we ate with the creation of California Cuisine. This fusion style of preparing food combined cooking styles from all over the world while putting the emphasis on fresh, locally grown ingredients. Patio and window gardens sprung up like weeds. It was during this time that I really became aware of what I was eating. I became a vegetarian (although I never really ate a lot of meat anyway) and started my first vegetable garden...... growing juicy red tomatoes, plump colorful peppers and sweet peas in pots on the back porch. As Charles Dickens said "...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." well, these are some of the things I thought about as we were flying and as always, landing in San Francisco was magical.

The first thing we did after landing, and.....I mean the first thing, before unpacking or even checking in to the hotel) was to go to Fisherman's Wharf and eat crab cocktails. Oh, not just one dainty little crab cocktail, we ate our weight in crab......then started on the clam chowder and quickly moved on to sour dough bread! We were on a mission, to eat as much crab, chowder and sour dough as we could.






Then we checked into our hotel, unpacked and went to dinner! Dinner was on the lighter side, just a salad...well, a Crab Louie Salad at Alioto's.

The next night was whole Dungess Crab at Scomas.

At this point you would think I would be sick of crab, but I can eat the same thing over and over without getting tired of it. Years ago while vacationing in Puerto Vallarta Mexico I ate shrimp for 12 days straight! Partially because camaron is one of the few Spanish words I knew and also because it was so good! Well, anyway, you get the point we ate a lot of crab!


San Francisco fills me up spiritually as well, like water in the Ocean or Stars in the sky on a clear night. It feeds my soul as well as my stomach...

peace.

Next stop Carmel, Monterey and Big Sur