My Dad Makes Amazing Pizza

On a recent house-hunting marathon up to Connecticut we took a swing through Ossining, NY on the way back. My father owns a pizza place (Sal's Pizza), which makes some of the best pizza I've ever had. Their dough is to die for. 

After treating ourselves to some of the specialty flavors—including bbq chicken ranch, buffalo chicken, and their tasty original pizza—we got to watch my dad make some pies too. This is him getting started on a regular-size original pie.

Beyond Downtown San Francisco

Now that I have a little more time to spend outside of work I was able to catch up with some friends that I've been meaning to see.  I caught the correct train in the right direction and got off at the right stop without mishap and even got a seat and got in some knitting.
I was a little early so I got to people watch outside the train until Sarah walked up at the appointed time.  After a little indecision we decided to go to a place we thought would be Oaxacan, but turned out to be Salvadoran instead.  But that turned out to be ok, because after a peek at Cafe Platano's delicious sounding menu we were sold.

While waiting for Alain, Sarah and I poured over the menu and had everything picked out before he arrived.  Although we didn't even make it off the small plates menu.  We made excellent choices including: fried platanos, fried yuca, an avocado salad, pastelitos, corn tamales and of course pupusas.  Sadly as often happens with food I was to excited to remember to take and pictures of anything.  But it was great to catch up with Sarah and Alain, to get a glimpse of their neighborhood, and to help them find a tasty new place to eat. 

Creme Brulee Cart

After my successful choice yesterday, the guys were willing to take my suggestion when I wanted to look for another cart from the list Todd found in November so we went over to the Creme Brulee Cart on Market at Sutter street. 

Unlike many of the places on the list, the creme brulee is really sold from a tiny cart, not a truck so we almost missed it.  There is just one guy at this cart which is really like a cooler with wheels.  When you make your order he takes out these small foil cups, sprinkles sugar on the top, torches it, adds more sugar, torches it again and then if you're not planning to eat it right away he puts a little lid on it.

I opted for the "Yes Please" which has balsamic glazed strawberries in a nutella custard.  It was amazing.  It could have been overwhelming but the proportions were just right and the moderate serving size was just right for a post lunch snack.

Curry Up Now

In November, for my birthday (for which I have a back post queued up), Todd planned out a wonderful trip to San Francisco. I don't want to steal too much content from that post, but although the trip centered around the amazing Cavalia show, Todd came up with a number of other exciting things to do. One of which involved tracking down reportedly delicious food with mobile places of businesses based on this article.  We picked and found Curry Up Now on our very first afternoon and discovered that at least this cart was even better than the article purported. 

Fast forward to today for lunch when I suggested this to my coworkers.  We were almost frightened off by the enormous line, but it moved quickly and it was worth it.  The food was every bit as good as I hoped and remembered, particularly the fresh and perfectly fried samosas which are good enough to eat without any condiments.  To further prove my point, we all decided no to head straight into food coma so we all saved some of our food for later, but by 5pm the guys polished off their leftovers and there was serious samosa envy.  Score 1 for Olivia's lunch suggestions!

After Work Adventures in SF

This is the first post in a while that lives up to the name of this blog: I'm currently waiting to fly home on a redeye.  I've been coming to San Francisco three days a week for six out of the last seven weeks and tonight is the first time I've had time after work to do anything not work related.

Here is my cute little swatch.

My first stop was this yarn store I've been stalking for a few weeks. On my way to work each day I walk through the Union Square and Chinatown areas and one day I looked up to see a bright red sigh that read "Yarn." When I looked it up I discovered that it actually belonged to ArtFibers and that each day they stay open until 6pm.  I also perused their blog and found some of their patterns that I really liked.  As matter of fact I happen to be wearing a shawl collared sweater today when this caught my eye.  I'd nipped in right before they closed at 6, but Roxanne was nice enough to let me pet all the luscious swatches and then whip up a mini swatch of a purply maroon to see if that would be a good color for the collar and cuffs of the cropped jacket.

This is my swatch next to the sample of the body yarn. 
This picture really doesn't do justice to the rich colors of the yarn.

We thought it picked up enough of the colors in the multicolored main body that I should go ahead and use it.  The next step will be for me to go back next week when Roxanne will even adjust the pattern for my measurements and help me to figure out how much yarn I'll need.  And they are having a 15% off anniversary sale.  How nice is that!

After my fiber fix I had an nice little side trip to Victoria's Secret where I actually managed to use a couple of those coupons that turn up periodically in the mail and usually end up in the trash.  Don't think to hard about this - I bought something sensible. 

For my next stop I revisited a place Todd and I ended up at by accident during our trip in the fall: Lori's Diner.  I stopped by just to look at the menu and was lured in by the mozzarella sticks.  Then once I sat down at the table I decided to be adventurous and ordered the BBQ ranch salad too.  I turned out to be worth the gamble as it was a lightly dressed pile of crunchy (romaine) and healthy (mixed) greens with a zippy ranch/bbq dressing and nearly a whole avocado hidden under the entire chicken breast and the yummy dollop of shoestring onions.  

I know I should have had some self-restraint , but I ended up indulging and having a banana split to round things out.  The bananas, strawberries and cherries make this healthy right.  Anyway, I made a valiant effort and reduced their generous portion to this:

The nice people at Lori's even let me use their wireless internet and didn't seem to mind when I whipped out my laptop and monopolized a table for almost three hours (don't worry I left a very nice tip).  Now I just have a few more hours to kill until wheels up....