A quiet night at the laundromat, as I type away on my iPad standing up because some irksome young girl is sitting on the bench. Normally I have no qualms about sitting next to 20-something females, but it’s hard to type away a commentary about them on your iPad while sitting two inches away from them. I have to admit there’s a vicarious thrill of doing that, but not tonight. Tonight I just want to get my darks and lights out of here and go home to make dinner.

Lately I have been lucky enough that I can afford to drop my laundry off with the very nice Chinese couple at the end of my block. They say hello to me on the street and asked about my job prospects when I was unemployed. Hearing "Yoo fine job ye?" from a four foot tall Asian woman was somehow heart warming despite the bitter part of my brain that said she was just worried a bout her bottom line. These days though when I go into their storefront, they're happy and polite as always and know exactly where my shirts are. It's a tiny thing in the grand order of life, but for one that I am grateful.

Tonight though I'm doing my undies and sheets and towels myself because I blew my budget over the holidays and need to be frugal before I'm forced to dip into my savings just to eat. That giant jar of quarters of my dresser thumbs its nose at me and screeches "ONEPERCENTER!!!! Do you own damn laundry!" in a voice that is oddly just like my mothers forcing me to admit that the one of the many reason I hate doing laundry at a landromat is out of laziness.

Normally there is an epic cast of characters streaming through here. Tonight it's just the one girl (who's wearing amazing shoes, by the way). There's also the one guy who has dragged his clothes in here in an Ikea bag. Headphones almost surgically inserted into his ear canals, he shoves all of it in one of the super machines. His laundry soap is Dawn… and his shoes are appalling.

I know that a lot of students live in my area. The same students who will push up the cost of living in this neighborhood if they stay and become young professionals demanding more high end services for them and their inevitable stroller bound offspring. It's already happened in the 6 years I've lived here. There's a young family in my building that I have overheard going through the joys of potty training (also known as begging and pleading). The crack den...ooops, I mean the low end laundromat on Haight and Pierce closed and a couple of other low end stores have shut up shop. Buildings are getting painted and remade. My favorite building, known as the Pink Palace, sat empty for years. Yet a couple of months ago, construction started on the interior and I can assume that condos will be going in there. I think it's a good thing over all, but I just really hope they keep it pink.

A cute guy in his late 20’s comes in talking into an ear bud and pulls his laundry out of a dryer. He wants an order of sesame chicken, an egg roll, mushu pork and two diet cokes. I now know where he lives as he gives the person on the other end of the phone his address. He’s cute and I feel like a dirty old man as I watch his tight butt leave with his clothes. This leaves the girl with good taste in shoes and me alone, together, ignoring each other, again.

She eventually gets up and wanders over to transfer her clothes out of a machine and into a dryer while another girl in a violet hoodie comes with an empty backpack and begins to dump her clothes into that with out folding them. Maybe she has mushu pork waiting for her at home.

The thing that has gotten to me lately about doing my laundry here is that I'm easily 20 years older than most of them. There is part of me that always questions where I went wrong in my life that I don't live in an apartment or house with a washer/dryer in it. On the surface it's a litany of errors and mistakes and judgments and bad choices. In reality, it's probably not that unusual. I at least have the option, most of the time, to drop mine off with nice Asian immigrants less that 100 yards from my front door.

The girl with the violet backpack heaves it onto her shoulders with a huff and waddles out like a sherpa on her way to Everest for the summer. Outside I hear some woman laughing in such a way that she sounds a little deranged.

But then a fire truck blasts by and destroys the quiet of the evening. It's an unusually warm and dry one for this time of year in San Francisco. So I take my iPad outside and sit on the bench under the tree that still has holiday lights in it. This is the kind of weather I love to gloat about to friends on the east coast as they bundle and shiver their way through the winter. Usually though we're in the middle of rainy season and most everyone is wondering if we're back in a drought. Others worry about fires in the hills. Given California's history with wild fires, they have reason to be nervous. But tonight, I'm outside enjoying the relative peace of my gentrifying neighborhood.

The girl with nice shoes comes out and crosses the street and walks away, leaving me alone to silently type away about her behind her back. My mind suddenly goes blank while watching a woman walk her tiny dog up the block. There's nothing significant about them, but they capture my attention anyway. Something about the way the dog walks isn't right. As they come under the light of the tree I notice the dog has only three legs. She's walking slowly to let it go at its own pace. We give each other a quick smile before she turns around and takes the dog back the way she came. The dogs tail is whipping ferociously in happiness as he hops down the street behind her. "Come on you..." I hear her say but by then they have wandered back into the dark and I tell myself the same thing because its time to go inside and fold my underwear and sheets and socks.

Another woman comes in with a large yellow comforter shoved under her arm. She's waifishly thin and boyish. She tries to stuff it into a top loader before realizing it won't fit. She looks around and sees one of the bigger machines is empty. She bends over and peers inside it carefully before shoving the yellow monstrosity inside it. She slams the door closed and mutters "damnit" before running out, leaving her comforter in the machine. I keep folding. She comes back a few minutes later with soap and quarters. Apparently not enough quarters because she goes and fights with the change machine for a minute before getting enough to set her machine off.

While dumping soap into her machine, the boy with the ear buds surgically implanted in his ears comes in and takes his stuff out of the washer next to hers. She leaves and her belt clanks and chinks as she walks.

As I'm folding, I discover my favorite merino wool sweater has gotten mixed up in the rest of my clothes. The body is fine but I can see that the sleeves have diminished considerably in the heat of the dryer. I love this sweater. I got it at the Barneys Basement Sale in New York for $25 many years ago and it's one of those pieces that never went out of style. I'm mildly heartbroken about it. I fold it gently and plow through the rest of it. It’s only a sweater but it was one I liked wearing and it made me feel a little elegant.

As I fold, I look at the condition of everything. These sheets are old and while they used to be white, there are places that haven't been fully white in a while. This t-shirt is too small for me and I really only wear it under other things. These socks lost their elastic a while ago. This red flannel shirt is only in the laundry because I discovered it shoved under my bed, forgotten. This pair of underwear is being held together by a force of nature not understood by modern physics. They all need to go. I try to donate what I can to the Good Will on South Van Ness because they have a fabric recycling program without having an overtly homophobic gospel on their lips. It may be time to take a big load of stuff to them.

The t-shirt holds memories though. I bought it on my first trip to San Francisco and a week later wore it on my first trip to Provincetown over ten years ago. As I leaned up against a pillar in a bar, trying to look like the kind of guy who didn't care about getting cruised, all while desperate to get cruised, a man walked up a looked at the logo on the t-shirt and said "So who's the big bear?" I looked him in the eye and coldly said "I am." In my head I was jubilant that I managed to come up with such cool answer. He gave me the once over before stifling a short laugh and said "Good answer" as he walked away. I was rather crushed. But that was a long time ago and I was a different person then. Today I'd work harder to be nicer... while having the same response. As for the t-shirt, it barely fits over my middle-aged tummy these days and I’m not exactly comfortable calling myself "Big Bear" lately because of the size of that tummy.

I finish folding and once again break the laws of physics by getting everything the bag at once. As I leave I almost slam into the man with the ear buds as he is walking in with his Ikea bags. I say excuse me as pleasantly as I can as he coldly and harshly says "Sorry". I sling the bag over my shoulder like my own Sherpa and head out in the night under the stars in the tree to go home and make dinner…which I promptly spill all over my shirt requiring more laundry.

With the majority of the holidays behind us, we find our refrigerator quite literally over flowing with food. We’re grateful for the bounty, but need to use up some of the raw ingredients before they go bad which is where the idea for this pizza came from. It uses some local pears and a chunk of smoked mozzarella that never quite made it onto a holiday cheese board. The pears are very ripe and we wanted to use them in a way that accented their sweetness while also letting the smokiness of the cheese shine through.

We opted to use Mario Battali’s pizza dough recipe here. We’ve used it in the past for sweeter pizzas and felt that the wine and honey flavor would compliment the other ingredients. Pay close attention to the instructions here so the gluten in your dough doesn’t make it too chewy. If your dough begins to act like a rubber band while pushing it out, let it rest in a warm spot for a few minutes.


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After a few weeks of over indulging, we’ve begun to feel like we need to eat healthier even though we still have a few days left before the season is over. That’s what we were thinking this afternoon when we were at Golden Grocery on Church St in SF and noticed they were selling whole trout that had been boned and scaled but still with their heads and tails on. Some people find head-on fish to be off putting but we like to buy them for one reason. After roasting them, we throw the heads and tails in a container in the freezer to be used in fish stock later.

We picked up two of them along with everything else we needed for our Holiday meals this week end. We roasted them simply by filling the insides with some salt and pepper, olive oil and some lemon and parsley. We put them on a parchment lined baking sheet and roasted them for 25 minutes at 375. They made a really nice lunch to nibble on while working at home.
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If you’re looking for an elegant addition to your Holiday menu, adding a soup course is often an easy way to add something stylish and flavorful. This soup accomplishes that while still being rustic and uses seasonal ingredients easily found at your farmers market.
We spent the morning strolling through the Heart of the City Farmers Market today where we found plenty of varieties of pears available. You want one that is very ripe and juicy for the most flavor, and in this instance we found some Bartlett pears just ready for the taking.
We were also really happy to see chanterelle mushrooms the size of a fist that we were told came right out of Marin County. While not cheap, we wanted a creamy nutty mushroom to balance the rest of the flavors we were planning on using.
The other nice thing about this soup is that you can make it ahead, chill it to let the flavors meld together and then reheat the day of your dinner. In fact, it’s a great soup for any festive occasion when pears are in season.

This recipe makes enough for at least 6 people.
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Fall in the Bay area means an abundance of beets at the farmers markets. Recently, we found some softball-sized specimens at the Ferry Building that we roasted off for a salad. Afterwards, we had three large roasted beets left over and wanted to use them in a way that was different. We started with the idea of mashing and eventually came up with the idea to put them in a soufflé.

Soufflés have a reputation of being impossible to make but with a deliberate and careful approach, aren’t that hard. Ours produced a hot pink batter that baked off to a beautiful vermillion. The earthiness of the beets really paired beautifully with goat cheese and the parmesan topping produced a satisfying crunchy crust. To finish, we mixed some horseradish with crème fraiche to serve on top.



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Despite sunny summer like weather this past weekend in San Francisco, we found ourselves in the mood for something more autumnal. One of our favorite cooking techniques is braising tough cuts of beef for hours in vegetables and wine and we were unable to come up with an excuse not to launch into a dish more associated with chilly fall days. The smell filled the house and made the weekend seem all the more relaxing.

We bought two beef shanks from Marin Sun Farms at the Ferry Building Farmers Market and to fortify the sauce, we used a tomato ragout that we had made during the week with some overripe heirlooms and some chilis. Once they were nestled in the crock-pot for the afternoon, it was just a matter of taking a leisurely nap, making polenta and waiting. The results were tender and unctuous and worth the extended cooking time.



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Here in Northern California, we’re seeing the tail end of heirloom tomato season. You can still find several varieties at farmers markets, but you might also spy discounted bins for the damaged or less attractive ones. We overheard one vendor at the Ferry Building tell someone “We’re going to keep putting them out until some one complains.”

We snagged a few anyway last weekend at the Divisadero Farmers Market intending to throw them in a salad. But as often happens these days, life intruded and they sat in the fridge all week. It got to the point of using them or losing them to the compost bin.

Wanting to use them to highlight their sweetness, we opted to throw them in a tart. Since tomatoes are mostly water, we realized that a couple of extra steps were required to keep the pastry from getting soggy. We also decided to use up the goat curd that we had snagged from the Achadinha Cheese Company and crumbled that on top. This produced a sweet and savory combination that was a pleasure paired with crème fraiche fortified scrambled eggs for a relaxed week end breakfast



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