EAT IT, IT'S CIRCULAR

One of the most ridiculous culinary categories is vegan molecular gastronomy, which seems to be popular in Northern Spain. Probably so that Barcelona isn't the only part of the country that benefits from stupid Americans. Here in SF we don't need that. We have both ramen and cioppino. And very much other stuff that's edible, a lot of which can be eaten with one hand while you're scrolling for messages on your phone.

A coworker keeps encouraging me to bring my phone when I'm out of the house, because there might be an emergency. Which I don't, because I'm never stuck with a flat in Placer County and no wild animals or landslides threaten me.


"Hello, nine one one, there is nothing to eat here on Jackson Street below Grant that appeals to me. The situation is desperate. Please send help!"

"Where can I get a Chicago-style hot dog?"


Yeah, um. I have not fallen and cannot get up, and I don't foresee that happening anytime soon. And there is no reason to take the phone with me to the shower anyway.

Late lunch in Chinatown. Chilipaste with eggs and shrimp over rice. Regular tea and Hong Kong milk tea. At a place where they had run out of scallion buns (蔥油包 'chong yau baau'). Which had to be repeated very many times, because apparently that precisely hits the spot right around teatime for many people. Who left desolate. Desolate!

All over San Francisco Chinatown little kiddies are going to bed without their scallion buns. The situation is desperate. Please send help.

Remarkably few of the pedestrians who passed while I was smoking my pipe while waiting for the bookseller were druggies, dubious types, or nutballs. Which is odd -- did we finally cure them? Chase them back to the East Coast?

Later, segueing from a mention of golf, the bookseller said that he was amazed at the process of serving tennis balls. My contribution to that was that the best way to serve them was with a swirl of port wine reduction, sprinkle of fresh chervil, and a little umbrella.
On a square plate to contrast with the roundness.

I try not to watch golf or tennis on teevee. I may be out of the contemporary cultural loop on that. Many tired old fossils spend hours placidly chewing their cud and scratching their balls doing so. Or they mention going to Shelbyville (which was called Morganville at one time), with an onion tied to their belt, which was the style at the time.



The tobacco smoked both in the Peterson sandblast after eating and the Dunhill Bruyere during the wait was G. L. Pease's Embarcadero, which is red Virginia with a little Smyrna, pressed and sliced. Tangy and nuanced. It should totally be in everyone's contemporary cultural loop. Much more so than anything golf or tennis related.
All the finest young fossils agree.



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