My Cheese, My People

Cheap Girl, our favorite neighborhood artist, reminded us about Cowgirl Creamery’s cheese library. As a cheese eater with a library degree, I have a somewhat prurient interest in this library of cheese.

We live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Actually, I take that back: we live in San Francisco. I’ll specify so you don’t think we live in Tiburon or Pittsburg (shiver).

Finally out here, I feel as if I’ve found my food people. Every other place I’ve lived, I have been the most obnoxiously picky food person in town. Here we have cheese counters where you can samples dozens before making a purchase. There’s even one (in Berkeley) where you have to queue up and get a ticket.

My favorite cheese is Vermont Shepherd, and I never would have found it had the cheese educator at Cowgirl not given me seven free samples before I found this, the most perfect cheese ever, which is only made from May through October when sheep graze on minty clover.

Meat as Strategy

So the Times is reporting on a culture shift in women’s first-date eating habits.

Former vegetarian/Smiths-album-owning Martha Wilkie (nee Flach) wanted to appear “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic” on her match.com profile, so she mentioned meat twice and later chowed on steak frites on a first date with her future husband.

Uh, I don’t know. On my first date with a crazy scientist, way back in 1998 (ahead of the curve!), I had steak and he had a salad. He also had a roll of $50’s, no job, visible track marks, and the same address as his parents, so probably I should have spent a bit of time discerning if he would be a good mate instead of neurotically planning how to appear like an beer-drinking, steak-eating, fun-luvin’ Kate Hudson.

But the fun times we had!

Kika’s Treats

Bi-Rite, my neighborhood old timey grocery shop, recently installed a wall of chocolate, which features the usual suspects like Guittard and Recchiuti, as well as interesting selections from smaller local chocolatiers Michael Mischer Chocolates and Charles Chocolates.

I immediately noticed the chocolate-covered graham crackers from Kika’s Treats, which seemed to rival my confectionary holy grail: Bridgewater Chocolate’s grahams covered with lime cream and dark chocolate. When I was touring regional potato chip plants and chocolate factories (good old days!), I stopped in at Bridgewater and was crushed to discover that visitors were only allowed into the outlet shop. For shame!

No lime cream here: Kika’s crackers taste like they are coated in butter and a pinch of salt, then dipped in the most delicious dark chocolate ever. Simple, elegant, bone-shatteringly delicious.

In a fancy home magazine like Domino, they’d probably recommend that you leave these on a vintage modern nightstand as a thoughtful treat for houseguests. But since I live in a studio in San Francisco, I’ll just eat ‘em all myself.

I Married a Mick

Tonight was Irish Heritage night at the Giants. I went with Chief. We wore native costumes. It was fun.

My beanie was the gift with purchase. True to my Irish heritage, I got too drunk to remember the game. No, not really. That was a cheap racist joke at the expense of a silenced and oppressed people. Sorry. Thank God they’re all too drunk to read this. Especially because a drunk Irishman has a wicked temper!

Woohoo! I must still be a little high from all the whiskey fumes around me in the bleachers. Those half naked dudes with the Irish flags painted on their chests and heads were just sweating out the hard stuff!

Comestibles we ingested:

• garlic fries
• cheese steak
• turkey burger
• bud lites
• margaritas
• irish coffees

Resisted:

• Churros
• Ice cream on a stick
• Hot dogs
• More margaritas
• The inexplicable draw of orange tank tops with “SF Giants” emblazoned across the tits

Also, the pussy pitcher from Washington walked Barry all night. We were there to see history, not to watch you chicken out. Thanks for trying to ruin everyone’s night. Pussy. You’re just lucky we still have the best park.

Me gusta

I like shoes, sure. But I like food even better than I like shoes. So allow me to turn your attention to the culinary delight that is the Popeye’s biscuit.

It was my friend Sonya, of People Reading, who first described to me the charms of the Popeye’s biscuit. At a low point, she lingered at the door early one morning, waiting for the restaurant to open so she could get her fix.

On my way to interview Matthew yesterday, I thought, “Hm…haven’t eaten anything today. What would be satisfying, yet portable? Delicious and cheap? Available on the walk from Mission to Potrero Hill?”

BISCUIT.

“Hola,” I say to the Chinese guy behind the register.
“Biscuit. A llevar?” he says, knowing my story.

One second later, the Popeye’s biscuit: buttery, warm, and crumbly, served with a packet of honey.

I do have a stupendous buttermilk biscuit recipe, but that takes time, effort, and buttermilk. When you’re on the go and only a warm disc of caloric goodness will do, try the Popeye’s biscuit. We won’t tell.