Back to the Bay

After visiting San Francisco for two days in 2009 I fell so overwhelmingly in love with the place it became my firm intention to save up all my pennies and buy the city. So far, not enough pennies yet, but I'll keep you updated.

Even in the rain which at last arrived this weekend, San Francisco is visually stunning:

 
 

Coit Tower was illuminated in honour of the San Francisco '49ers' championship game against the New York Giants.

 
 



 
The 1898 Ferry Building- of which more later .
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

California Street by
night and day .

 

 

If you’ve never visited San Francisco before you might- as I did before I went- have unrealistic expectations of what the city is like. For one thing it represents a hefty exception to the rule “California = sun + surf”. You get no surf for the same reason that the city has been one of the world’s busiest seaports for 150 years: San Francisco Bay not so much a bay as a well sheltered cove with an area of up to 1600 square miles (depending on how you measure it). No waves is bad for surfing, apparently. And, being situated on the end of its peninsula, the western edge of San Francisco is about 9 miles further west- i.e. further out to sea- than the coast of Oakland, on the eastern edge of the Bay. Shoved out to sea as it is, San Francisco’s weather is often foggy and damp and considerably more changeable than the Central Coast:

Saturday, 9am

 

Saturday, 10.45 am

Sunday, 12.00

When we came in 2009 we stayed with Stacey’s cousin on the western side of town. Nearby, there was a bakery which embodied two of the most fascinating things about the city. Firstly, the bakery was a Workers’ Cooperative. The city is the most politically active place I’ve been to. While popularly associated with liberal politics (the last time it gave a Republican presidential candidate more than 20% of the vote was 1988) it is often more diverse than that, which makes it an interesting place to spend time. When we were out on Saturday we ran into a pro-choice demo in the morning and a pro-life counter-demo in the afternoon. In between the two we saw living proof that while the First Amendment might guarantee your right to free speech, it does absolutely nothing to protect you from looking like a complete arse once you’ve opened your mouth.

 

While every president has their naysayers, and while in these times President Obama would have no trouble finding people with fair reason to disagree with him, you have to pity the two jackasses on a street corner in North Beach who felt that singing the national anthem (the fourth verse, no less!) lent validity to the point they had tried to make by photoshopping Adolf Hitler’s moustache onto Obama’s portrait. While this blog remains officially apolitical, I don’t feel I’m going too far out on a limb by agreeing with the shocked man in the expensive coat who looked somewhat ruffled, and wandered away muttering “Shameful, shameful!”. Pending, of course, the opening of the Obama administration’s first extermination camps in conquered Canadian territory. Shameful it might be- but it’s interesting that they were there at all. Life’s rich tapestry, and all that.

 

The second thing about the bakery (I digressed…) was that it took its food really damn seriously and produced some of the most remarkable things I’ve ever had with a cup of coffee. One that sticks in the memory was a pecan danish with maple and rosemary syrup. And this applies, more broadly, to the city at large. Just as I’ve never been anywhere so politically aware, I’ve never been anywhere with a higher density of foodies per head of population. Hipsters too, but that’s another song.

The old Ferry Building was close to our base of operations and is totally devoted to artisan food producers. Pictured left is an Italian charcuterie, turning out excellent salami and prosciutto, a traditional butcher selling dry aged beef and quarter-pound hot dogs made of it; the Cowgirl Creamery, whose raclette smells cheesier than any cheese ever did, a small ice-cream and sorbet place knocking out truly chewy gelato and offering cut rates to 49ers fans in team colours before Sunday’s big game, a French patisserie, a Californian olive oil shop, an organic vegetable market, a chocolatier, an artisanal baker, a wild mushroom shop and a lady in a big hat selling posh doughnuts (I can recommend the chocolate and almond cream ones.) There were cookware shops, a large sandwich deli and a juice bar, as well as a noodle stand. Outside, there was a farmers’ market. This, in a building 200 yards long. San Francisco is foodie heaven.

 

Which might go some way towards explaining why Stace and I were so bowled over by  the meal we ate at Campanula on Saturday. The area is well-known for its multitudinous Italian restaurants but there are notable exceptions: the Stinking Rose, whose menu (pictured right) features garlic in every dish.  Campanula features unpretentious modern cuisine. The place is a joy; the atmosphere well-adjusted, the decor unobtrusive and tasteful and the service friendly and professional. The highlights included the lamb meatballs, lightly dressed in a tomato, olive and caper sauce; the wild boar sliders, served on tiny brioche rolls whose cute appearance belied just how boldly flavoured and skillfully prepared they were; the sea bass on a bed of clams and mussels (I can be sure to hate any shellfish I eat four times out of five- these were literally perfect) and the simple, original cocktails. That was just the edited highlights; I don’t want to be a bore. It was quite simply nothing more or less than the  best meal we’ve ever paid for.

 

While that meal was extraordinary, it really underlines just how earnest a business food is in San Francisco that even towards the lower end of the scale, food is taken seriously. A bar on the waterfront does a bit of food; its specialities are barbecue brisket and hot wings. They don’t muck about with napkins there- they have rolls of kitchen paper on every table. Rained in on Sunday evening we ordered the Serpent’s Kiss from Pizza Orgasmica. It’s a pizzeria with its own microbrewery. Next time we come to San Francisco, which might be damp but is never dull, we’ll be torn between what to try out for the first time and what we want to revisit. It’s a dilemma, but the good kind.

American Football

Yes, there has been a break in transmission; no, there is no explanation for it apart from the fact my feet have barely touched the ground since October. I promise, I'll write about Thanksgiving this November; it's a wonderful thing. But January is not the time to discuss it.

So, the Californian winter is in full whatever. Swing is the wrong word, and so, most decidedly, is Flow. There has been barely a drop of rain since I last wrote to you. This is unusual; if California has seasons, then it has a wet season and a dry season.So far, the wet season is decidedly conspicuous by its absence. In a region of vineyards and fruit orchards, where cattle are calving and pastures are dry, this has caused more than one rancher to look skyward and frown at what is essentially a clear blue sky.This is due to change imminently; a cloud-bank the width of the entire state is approaching the coast between Monterrey and San Francisco, according to wunderground.com- bringing some sorely needed moisture.

The winter tides have been spectacular to behold. As the waves approach the shore, the offshore wind peels the crests from the tops of the waves and flings them back out to sea in white arcs. Over the coarse of a day, the sea spray can cut down visibility quite drastically.

 Looking through 12-foot waves never gets boring. This paddle-surfer took 10 minutes to get through the breakers.

On days like this, the waves take out their anger by smashing over the breakwater at Morro Bay. Standing in the wrong place is unwise.

Now, after eight months in the US it wasn't just the frosty mornings, rain and short days I was missing. It's been a good while since I've been to a football match. Now, when I say football, I'm not talking about the American game for men with funny shaped balls. I frankly like watching baseball and basketball but I still have to get used to American football. The exciting bits are exciting, there is obvious skill involved, but the padding's weird compared to, say, Rugby League or Aussie Rules, and I get frustrated by the fact that players are only expected to do one thing well- there are 53 players in an NFL squad, but only 11 on the field, and they swap the entire team in and out depending on whether they're attacking or defending. I dare say I'll get to see a game one day, and I might even enjoy it. But not yet.

Bill Bryson, a writer who left the US for the UK as a young man, compared the baseball he had grown up with and adored, to the football he was surrounded with in Britain, and concluded that it was simply a matter of what you grew up with. It isn't that one game is inherently better than any other, it's just that sports fans tend to grow up with their sport, and it's like growing up with a language. I grew up watching football. 

Actually, not just watching it; I watched it less often than I listened to it on the radio: Metro FM used to  broadcast every Newcastle game live when I was a kid.  I grew used to the calm, authoritative voice of Charles Harrison describing the exploits of Cole, Beardsley and Srnicek, and took for ever to get used to younger, more excitable commentators when Harrison retired. Didn't they realise they didn't have to make it sound more exciting? That to us, listening at home, on a Saturday afternoon or a Wednesday night, with our posters on our walls taken from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, the match was already the most exciting thing happening anywhere in the world?

While I don't remember much about the first football match I went to, I do remember ridiculously irrelevant details. I remember it was against Luton Town in 1992. The internet tells me it was on September 2nd. I knew we won 2-0, and the internet confirms those goals were scored by Lee Clark and David Kelly. Off the top of my head I can tell you that Dad and I sat in the Milburn Stand, ate haggis and chips from the chip shop on Clavering Road in Swalwell before the game and we parked the car in Wellington Street. It was what we- my sister and I- grew up with.

And suddenly, it hasn't been there any more. Traditionally, but not always, teams play at 3pm on Saturday. That's 7am on a Saturday for all of us on Pacific Time. That means I usually catch the live text commentary on the BBC, as well as updates on Twitter, but usually just the second half. Due to rights restrictions I rarely hear radio commentary or see TV highlights. So Stace decided to do something about it.

We sat on a cold evening in Cambria on aluminium bleachers, cheering on the Coast Union Broncos- Stacey's old High School. OK, so Coast Union vs Taft isn't quite Newcastle vs Sunderland, but never mind. The Broncos, in white, worked hard in midfield during the first half while Taft soaked all the pressure up. There was a cynical and vicious central midfielder playing for the blues; I expect he has a bright future in the game; if not, the ballet will take anyone who can get their feet up that high. At half time, Coast took off their most effective, most creative players- a number 8 who had great agility and a number 11 whose strength, power and skill made him quite brilliant. 

All right, it was a cold, misty night in Cambria with no prospect of a pint in the Newcastle Arms before the match. But, the game had its talking points, the lads all played well and it was bloody entertaining. As the Germans say, the ball is still round: football is football wherever you go. As if to prove the point, the referee was just as inconsistently awful as any in the English Premier League; if you go home talking about the dickhead with the whistle, you know you've been to the match.