Oh, and one more ...

Angel Island still life:

Angel Island souvenirs

In the middle of San Francisco Bay there's a quiet retreat: Angel Island State Park. The Ellis Island of the West, it was the place where thousands of immigrants, mostly Chinese, were quarantined and processed for admission to Gold Mountain, or sent back home. It also was a naval base, with several batteries of guns placed around it to guard the bay.
You can see the island of Alameda on the lower right, separated from Oakland by a narrow estuary. The Bay Bridge runs from Oakland to SF, and you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, a thin line on the left at the mouth of the bay. The Richmond bridge is to the north.

Ferries run daily to the island from San Francisco, carrying both tourists and commuters on their way to Tiburon and Sausalito. Many people bring bikes to the island or rent them (or Segways!) there. There's a nice road that runs all the way around, about five miles' worth. If I were a jogger living in SF, I'd probably go there once in a while for a pleasant change of scenery.

The kids brought their backpacks with a few toys and books and quietly amused themselves on the trip over, while their mom and dad were fully laden with backpacks and a baby buggy holding tent, bottled water, food and a clever cooler box (cardboard, filled with ice in trash bags and frozen bottles, that could be tossed in the campground bin the next day). The campsites have grills, picnic tables with a lockable food cabinet, trash bins, outdoor water spigots and a pit toilet (reasonably clean as outhouses go, but exceedingly stinky).

We considered asking for spare change when the open-sided tour buses passed us on the road.

The campsite was about two miles from the ferry, mostly uphill. Easy for me, coming from high altitude! The oxygen-rich air meant I wasn't even winded on the climbs. The kids had a meltdown or two on the way but made it without completely falling apart.

From the campsite we had a great view of the Richmond bridge and all the bay traffic. This photo was an accident, but it makes me laugh. ("Honey, I was taking a picture!" "Oops, sorry!")
I didn't take a huge amount of photos (need a bigger memory card!) but a few nice pictures of the trees and scenery are nice souvenirs.

Here's San Francisco and Alcatraz, marred somewhat by a dirty lens, alas.

And some trees:
Despite our proximity to civilization, the only night sounds were foghorns and ship horns and some wind. Oh, and some raccoons that came snuffling around after dark.
If you have a chance, you should try camping there yourself. It's not expensive; you'll just need to plan ahead if you want to go on the weekend, since the sites get booked up fast. Try it!

What I'm reading:"The Produce Bible" by Leanne Kitchen"High and Dry" by Robert Nold"Amarcord: Marcella Remembers" by Marcella Hazan

First, two new additions to my reference library. One is a longtime covet, "The Produce Bible" by Leanne Kitchen (career natural or nom de plume?), which is a paperback but still quite hefty. It's full of great info on all kinds of vegetables, how to choose and store them, plus recipes.

The second is brand-new: "High and Dry: Gardening with Cold-Hardy Dryland Plants" by Robert Nold. I've "known" Bob and his wife, Cindy, for years through a local gardening listserv. Bob would maybe object to my saying he knows everything there is to know about gardening in the high desert (which essentially Denver is), but he knows a hell of a lot more than 99 percent of the gardeners around, and he shares his knowledge in this encyclopedic volume.

Cindy is a fantabulous photographer and watercolor illustrator, and she provided the artwork for the book.

I recently had a chance to visit their wonderful garden, 18 years in the making, and they generously offered me a few plants for my own garden. (I've been meaning to post about them one of these days.) Their garden is very similar to what I aspire to create in my own yard. Bob just start a blog, too: High and Dry.

I'm looking forward to putting these books to use in my kitchen and garden!

And then there's this. Someone who knows I like foodie memoirs slipped me an advance copy of "Amarcord: Marcella Remembers" by Marcella Hazan. The subtitle is "The Remarkable Life Story of a Woman Who Started Out Teaching Science in a Small Town in Italy, but Ended Up Teaching America How to Cook Italian." Which is wordy and (I think) superfluous, but does convey the accidental nature of her fame as a cook and cookbook author.

I'm about a third of the way through and really enjoying it. She has an interesting history of a very early childhood in Egypt, then formative years (including during WWII) in a small town in Italy, then marriage to an American (with roots in that town), a move to America, then back to Italy ... that's where I am now in her story.

Until she married, she had never cooked anything but pig mash! But she has strong memories of all the delicious country foods of her childhood, which helped inform her cooking once she got married and started to learn.

Aside from the food, her story is interesting in itself, and she tells it well. I presume she had someone working with her on the book, as she did not learn English until she was in her 20s. Or if she wrote herself, her English is as flawless as her cooking. Her story flows easily and her voice comes through in the writing.

The book is due out in October. If you like memoirs, good stories and food, this is one to watch out for.

Dinner at Sweet Fingers, San Leandro, Calif.

When I was in San Francisco last week, the Sergeant wanted to check out a Jamaican place in San Leandro that he'd read about in the East Bay Express: Sweet Fingers. (East Bay Express is similar in format and content to Denver's Westword; it's part of the same chain.) On a Saturday night, it's a quick drive from Alameda, and there is plenty of street parking nearby.

The place is unprepossessing outside, and inside it's your basic bar/restaurant setup, bar along one side and a couple rows of tables on the other. Don't sit at the two-top closest to the door; the door chime on the wall there will drive you crazy. We moved farther down.
You might be greeted by Blondie, who is just about the friendliest waitress you could ever hope to meet. Seriously, every other word out of her mouth was "honey" or "sweetie" or "love," said with a big, genuine grin. As you can see from the pictures, she's very enthusiastic and energetic!

We started with an order of fried plantains. You get some with your meal, but I wanted a bunch because I like them very much. We also ordered the homemade ginger beer, which will knock your socks off. Very good!

For entrees, I had the coconut shrimp, which was luscious and coconutty, with some fresh thyme sprigs on top. The Sergeant ordered the curried goat. Both came with beans and rice.
Both were filling and very tasty. The Sergeant ate all of his goat. I ate most of the plantains, so I had to bring home some leftovers. I wish I'd saved room for the navy bean pie, but we'll try that on another visit.

As we were finishing our meal, a band set up on a small stage in the corner. (One speaker snafu during the sound check nearly blew our eardrums out.) Thursdays are poetry night, Fridays feature a DJ and dancing, and Saturdays are for Blade's Band, a trio of guitar, bass, drums and guest singers (essentially open mic). The entertainment starts at 9, so if you want to check it out, plan your dinnertime accordingly. We only heard a couple of songs (one being more hiphop than reggae, with a guest singer doing the lyrics), so I couldn't attest to the quality, but it looked like they were having a good time.

If you want to try some good Jamaican food in the Bay Area, check it out!

Sweet Fingers
464 E 14th Street
San Leandro, CA 94577
510-553-9869

Cat found!

What is it? No. 14

Click on the photo to see the answer!

The danger of running out of TP

That quick run to Costco can get expensive! Though I got a lot of staples, too. The frivolous stuff is for the cow-orkers. We're all about snackin'.

Getting growed

You may remember the wee bean sprout of two weeks ago. While unlikely to reach the proportions of Jack's ladder to the clouds, it and its siblings are no less magical to me.

Especially since they came from a bag of beans meant for eating, not planting.
The daisies in front are blooming. They have powdery mildew, alas (which surprisingly thrives in low humidity). I will spray them with some baking soda in water.
I need to deadhead the roses, too. I only had one rose at my old place, planted in the last year; I like them but they intimidate me. These seem to be thriving, though.
The echinacea sure is pretty, even before it blooms.
The sea-holly-like plant on June 8 looked pretty when it was all green, but looks even nicer when the blooms turn blue. This is some kind of eryngium, as Karen pointed out. Sea holly is in the same family, and that may even be what this is, despite its landlocked location.
It's quite thistly and bristly, so best planted where you won't need to reach around it or brush past it. It's quite vigorous, too, very bushy and about 4 feet tall. I like that it's so unusual!

What's blooming in your garden?

Silly kitchen gadget No. 10

"Cook up to seven eggs exactly how you like them. Vari-Cook(tm) technology allows eggs within the same batch to be cooked differently – soft, medium or hard-boiled."

Who is this made for? The Waltons? The Dionnes? The Bradfords? The Camdens? There's a fertility joke in here somewhere ...

(Edit: But wait! There's more! From the company website: "The unit also features a unique poaching tray with 3 joined elliptical shaped cups; a tribute to Julia Child, who preferred a similarly shaped holder when poaching eggs."

Which begs the question: WWJD?)

Poodle meetup

We had a poodle meetup today at the Rocky Mountain Agility Center in Arvada. Really nice facility! There were, I dunno, may 25 poodles there? Anyway, they had a good time!
Sophie says, "I was just guarding the food! Really!"
Handing out treats.
Did someone say "treats"??? (That's Sophie on the left.)
Sophie liked the puppy.
She slept well afterward. No need for walk tonight.

Poodle party!

Steps backward, steps forward

You go out of town and take time to recover, and next thing you know, you're overrun.
I've been weeding different spots around the house every day since my return, but I should have started with the vegetable garden instead of leaving it until today. Eek! Really should've mulched.

Anyone have a favorite mulch for vegetables?

Luckily, some of these weeds are actually edible. Thanks to a couple of recent posts by doggybloggy at Chez What? I feel more confident cooking up some of that ubiquitous purslane, or verdolagas (click for his recipe, with video!):
And lamb's quarters.
The arugula is soldiering on despite an infestation of flea beetles. Any good ideas for dealing with them organically?
They don't prevent me from harvesting and eating the stuff, in any case. I had a big salad of it a couple of days ago.

On the positive side, I was excited to see that some of the tomato plants are setting fruit!

	Clockwise from the upper left, that's Early Girl, Amish Paste and Stupice (thanks, Susan!).

The peppers are also flowering.
That's a thai bird chile on the left, and paprika on the right.

I got a lot of the weeds out in a marathon session, which left me pretty exhausted, since it followed marathon sessions of weeding the flagstone patio and then all the way around the sidewalk.

(Where I was horrified to find some caltrop burr plants at the corner that had to go immediately. That's a picture of the burrs at right. They will puncture a bicycle tire or make your dog go lame. The "caltrop" has an interesting history. I wrote about it here.)

So I'm tired! And I didn't do any of the flagstone-laying I had planned for today. Oh well. Something got accomplished.

Dialin' and drinkin'

A three-hour nap is a very good thing. I didn't accomplish much else today, beyond the obligatory daily weeding (it never ends). And a nice walk at sunset with Sophie, when it had cooled off a bit.

I did get one thing fixed, or rather, Frank did. That's Frank on the left, tracking down the source of my phone troubles. Not too hard: The neighbors cross the alley had some work done on their house, and someone left all the wires exposed, covered only by an orange plastic bag. It's been that way for months, but I didn't realize that was my phone line running through there, too.

Just in the last couple of weeks my landline started going out, but intermittently. Of course when the repair guy would check it, it would be working fine. (And no one noticed the orange bag.) Today it was out for good, and Frank fixed it. I hope for good.

That calls for a drink! A mojito, natch.
This was at Brandon's Pub, where I met some cow-orkers late this evening. I hadn't been there before. It's a little loud, but the seating is comfy (we were gathered around a low table, with leather armchairs, ottomans and a banquette). They have really BIG TVS, too, if you like that.

There was some weird drama with the staff, though. It took about a half-hour to get my drink, first because the waitress didn't see me come in, then because she had some screaming argument with her boyfriend and stormed out and the bartender took off, too. Huh?
Not that the place was very busy, but the poor waitress who had just finished her shift got dragged back in, and a customer stepped behind the bar to mix the drinks.

Frankly, this mojito was terrible. I don't know what went into it. But because no one knew how to work the register, it was free. Woohoo! We left the waitress a big tip.