Dogpatch Day, San Francisco

Last week involved a lot of anxious stressfulness, an increasingly frustrating waiting game with other peoples' busy schedules (I hate it when my work is dependent on others, but such is the nature of things, and I recognize that it's a two-way street), trudging through work feeling as though I was wading through quicksand mud pits, and then ultimately feeling as though nothing got done. Sigh, I'm sure we all have these weeks! Thankfully, I have awesome friends who will kidnap me and force me to take a day's vacation doing fun things, like hanging out in the Dogpatch district in San Francisco, eating awesome food, and seeing grand musicals!

The Dogpatch neighborhood is probably one of the places in SF that I go to most commonly. It's a warehouse district, near the water by the Bay, and it houses many of the professional kitchens of the local bakeries as well as prop studios and photography studios within two big blocks of each other. Many of our sated magazine shoots happen there. But, funnily enough, as much time as I've spent in this neighborhood, I've never gotten to take a day and enjoy it as a visitor, so this was a treat. We started the day with brunch at Serpentine, which was so hipstery cool with its industrial-y feel and fancy gin bottles lined up behind the counter that I felt like a total country bumpkin in comparison. But no matter! The food was good--and the fried lemon slices on top of my eggs benedict were a stroke of genius. I've never seen (or thought of) anything like it.

Then we had an hour or so after brunch and before our matinee show to get to, so I took my friends to Flora Grubb Nursery, which is one of my favorite new discoveries in SF. I have no green thumb myself, but I love getting lost in the gardens here, with all of the succulents growing out of every corner, in desks, in old rust-bucket, reclaimed cars, on walls, in wreaths this time of year!, in terrariums. The rose geranium plant that I got here months ago is still alive and kicking, which is impressive given my impressive talent of killing even the most resilient of plants. (also, there was a cute kitty on premises, which is always a plus.)

Then we were off to see the Lion King! in all of its African drumming and Zulu-speaking glory. I'd seen it before many, many years ago, but that was before I'd started studying linguistics, and it was fun to watch it again with new knowledge about African languages in mind.

Finally, we ended the day back in the Dogpatch, living it up with crema catalina ice cream (lime custard + burnt orange caramel) and crispy Valrhona chocolate pearls (and poodles! and sunsets!) at Mr. & Mrs. Miscellaneous.

I have a recipe idea that's been burning in the back of my brain that I want to share soon, but it's just a matter of finding some time in the kitchen to make it come to life! Sigh. Hopefully this week, so that it's in time to make it onto Thanksgiving tables..

--
Photos are from both the iPhone using the ShakeIt Photo App and the dSLR.