california dreamin'

The Red Vic is a worker owned and operated movie house on Haight Street where you can see an eclectic mix of films and sit back and enjoy your popcorn in a wooden bowl and your hot chocolate in a ceramic mug.

One night I saw Fish Tank here. It was one of the best films I've seen in a while. A gritty British film about a girl growing up in a housing project and trying to find a way out. It leaves you in a bit of a daze afterwards. The performances are brilliant. A song that features predominantly in the film is California Dreamin'. I knew the Mamas and Papas version but had never heard the Bobby Womack version.....wow, it's amazing. You can listen to it below.

Donuts

It's kind of funny that Canada is known as the land of the donut, I guess because Tim Horton's is such a ubiquitous sight in cities and towns and along stretches of highway. But I find California to have much more variety and presence when it comes to donut shops. On 24th Street in the Mission there are two great donut shops within a five minute walk. The Jelly Donut is a little no-fills place with blissful crullers. You will likely get a few donut-holes tossed in your bag for free. Down the street Dynamo Donuts features such flavours as lemon pistachio, chocolate rosemary almond and banana de leche.

It's the same in LA. You might think oh LA, diet and health food, but no: think donuts. You will see gems straight out of the 50s and 60s, hole in the wall places, and will often see a DONUTS sign tucked in among a jumble of strip mall shops. And there is a world of difference between these homemade donuts and those that are factory made and shipped out to stores.

When in LA my friend and I always try to make a stop at Daily Donuts at the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin in Los Feliz, across from the local library. You could easily walk by this nondescript shop and not know that you are missing out on delectable donuts. When we would go there in the morning there was always a dapper looking man kind of resembling Dexter Gordon at the corner table, reading the paper and bantering with the counterperson. Later my friend saw a magazine article about him, he had many movie roles including Gone with the Wind and played jazz in Paris in the 50s. And maybe right now he is sitting in the sunshine filtering through the plate-glass window and enjoying a coffee and donut.

The Sandwitches

The Sandwitches are a San Francisco trio with a retro garage girl-group sound. Their debut CD is called How to Eat Ambient Sadcake and has lots of great tracks. Music to enjoy as you are waking up with your morning cup of coffee! You can check them out below playing "Back to the Sea" at Amnesia in the Mission...

grand old movie palaces

Of course the thing to do today is watch movies at home on your dvd player or computer but there is nothing like seeing a movie at a grand old movie palace.

One of my most memorable San Francisco movie experiences is seeing Cabaret screened at the Castro Theater- a movie palace built in 1922 featuring a wonderfully ornate interior. Before the show a wurlitzer pipe organ emerged from the middle of the stage and we were treated to a ten minute musical performance before the red curtain parted. You really feel you are there for something special! The packed house cheered for both the opening and closing credits.

Along Mission Street there are a few crumbling old movie palaces that have been totally neglected and are now either empty or like this one below housing a parking lot. The red seats are still packed into the alley next door, a reminder of better movie days. So get out to see a movie sometimes and don't let these places become lost treasures that you can only hear about in memories but not experience!

Garlicky Pesto & Potato Pizza

There is a little rock n roll pizza joint called Escape from New York that makes really good pizza slices. I tried to re-create one of my favorite slices- the You Say Potato- at home, and here is the recipe. I just used packaged greek flatbread instead of making homemade crust but it still turned out pretty tasty!

GARLICKY PESTO & POTATO PIZZA

2 flatbreads or pitas
1/4 cup pesto
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1 medium red or white potato
2 heads of garlic
olive oil, for drizzling
chopped basil

Slice off the top of the garlics and drizzle with olive oil. Wrap in tin foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350. Cool a bit and then peel the cloves.
Cut potato in half and boil in a pot of water for about 20 minutes, until you can pierce it with a fork. Cool a bit and thinly slice.
Spread pesto on the two flatbreads. Scatter most of the mozzarella on top. Add potatoes and garlic cloves and top with the rest of the mozzarella. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Bake on a baking sheet at 350 for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with chopped basil.

listening to a podcast...

For the podcast assignment I went to the New Yorker fiction site and chose to listen to Karen Russell read Carson McCullers' short story "The Jockey" which was published in the magazine in 1941. After the first couple of sentences I realized I had read this story before but kept listening anyways. The story is about a jockey confronting three men- a trainer, a bookie and a rich man- at their dinner table, and their dismissal of him.

I enjoyed listening to Karen Russell discuss the story and McCullers with the fiction editor Deborah Treisman before and after the reading (it was interesting to learn that McCullers divorced her husband after he forged his signature on the back of the cheque she received from the New Yorker for this story!) but I would prefer to read the story in book form. I found if there was a really good passage or description I wanted to read the actual words and go over it again in my mind and as I was doing that the story just keeps going. I guess you could pause and go back but then you lose the flow. So yes, I would prefer to read it. But having said that, I did see some other writers whose work I enjoy in the list of fiction podcasts and will probably go back one day and listen to a couple. Podcasts could be an interesting addition to the library website.


Anyhow, just to end with a San Francisco slant, if its a rainy afternoon and you want to spend awhile with a book (or your ipod and podcasts) and a coffee, try Coffee To The People on Masonic Avenue. They have a selection of books to read if you don't bring your own!

the shoe garden

Alamo Square is best known for its famous postcard view of the Painted Ladies on Steiner Street with the downtown skyline in the background. Tour buses rumble along Hayes Street and stop just long enough for tourists to take their snapshots and then move along. So most people will probably miss seeing the little shoe garden at the top of the sloping hill beneath the trees. Sneakers, heels, boots, all types of footwear nestled among the garden. It is something you could even do in your own garden at home...