San Francisco Full of Clichés But Still Magical

Visiting the seals at Pier 39

San Francisco is one of the most eclectic cities in the US, and it’s packed with far too many breathtaking things to see in only 4 days. Steve was attending a conference so I was on my own to explore.  However, we did have Monday morning together. Both of us have been several times before so it was fairly easy to narrow down our morning and my adventures for the rest of the week.

The first thing we did was grab a packed cable car, so we had to hang onto the outside, but that’s truly the best way of experiencing a cable car ride. You can see more because you don’t have anyone in front of you. We wandered the Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 area and, of course, visited the seals, which is a must. Our stroll through Ghiradelli Square didn’t tempt us too much because we each had only one bite sized chocolate.

Main street of Chinatown

On previous visits, I had wandered the streets of Chinatown but never did much more than a tiny bit of shopping and hurrying past the dead ducks and other fowl hanging in the windows. This time I took a walking tour of Chinatown. Linda, our tour guide, is Chinese American and had grown up there, so she was able to give us an inside track on day-to-day experiences. 

One of the highlights was a visit to a Chinese pharmacy to see where the shelves were stocked with all sorts of weird and wonderful ingredients used in numerous remedies. A pre-packaged soup mix that Linda pointed out had a main ingredient of dried cicadas; we could see them through the clear wrapper. Oh, and later, when we visited the market there were basins of live frogs and turtles waiting to be purchased for dinner!!

Hand made fortune cookies

Another favorite was the fortune cookie factory, which I would never have found on my own. We had to walk down a very nondescript alley to find this tiny little space with only a small sign out front. While we were there, there was only one woman who was folding hot circles of pastry, inserting the fortunes and then folding them into the cookie shapes that everyone recognizes. We got to taste samples and also got to read some of the fortunes, including some of the “adult” fortunes (printed on pink paper).

After an enjoyable and educational tea-tasting, I walked to Old St. Mary’s Cathedral for a free noontime concert. I found it by accident, and it was an hour filled with stunning violin, cello and piano music. The performers, from Scotland and Russia, were so professional; I would gladly have paid $50 or more for a ticket.

Several hours were spent that afternoon wandering the Asian Art Museum. There were so many things to see, but my main purpose was to see the world’s oldest dated Buddha. It can be dated back to 338 according to an inscription at the base.  There are older Buddha statues, and I’m sure that Steve and I have seen plenty in China and Japan, but this one is actually dated!

Wednesday dawned foggy and gray, but I had a day trip planned to Sonoma and Napa Valley so I didn’t care what the weather was like. Our coach driver acted as a tour guide on the way to the first winery, and as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, he filled every moment with facts about it. It was good to be reminded of its’ history, and even though it’s one of the most photographed bridges in the world; I didn’t take a photo this trip.

Vines soaking up the sun

We visited 3 different wineries, not only learning about the history of wine making in California but learning about the different methods of growing the grapes. The Nicholson Ranch Winery was our first stop, and the fog was just starting to lift so that we could see the vines off in the distance. After a brief history and a little tour of this family-owned artisan winery, our first tasting began at 10.30.

Our second stop was the Madonna Estate where we learned about their organically grown grapes and the “dry farming” of the vines,  meaning they only rely on the natural rainfall to water the vines. The winery combines traditional and modern techniques of making the wine, so we saw both oak and steel barrels.

Oak barrels

The whites

After the two morning tastings, we stopped at a lovely little town for some much-needed lunch. Eating lunch while sitting  in the warm 70° F sunshine was perfect but soon we were headed to another winery. Our third and final winery for the day was the Sutter Home Winery. Most of us already knew about Sutter Home’s White Zinfandel but we also learned that it was discovered by accident when one of the family members was told to “not waste a drop”. Some of the juice from their premium Zinfandel red wine was bled off before fermentation. This juice was fermented separately into a dry almost white wine. The winery was established in the 1800’s, and it has become the second largest, independent family-run winery in the US.

Trees reach the sky!

Thursday dawned foggy and gray again, but this morning I was off to see Muir Woods. It’s less than an hour from San Francisco and the drive to the park is up a very windy steep road.  The park is where you can see giant redwood trees - not the ginormous ones that you see in Sequoia National Park. Still very impressive, it’s a stunningly beautiful, quiet and calm hike through these giants.

I had the option of returning to San Francisco on the bus or taking a ferry from Sausalito. I chose the ferry so the bus dropped me at the wharf on its’ way back. I had an hour to wait for the ferry, so I sat and soaked up the sun. The weather was perfect, and the ferry ride gave me views of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown San Francisco and the surrounding hills. I was so thrilled that I had chosen to take the ferry back – it definitely beat sitting on a coach for another hour!

Alcatraz Island

San Francisco has always been one of my favorite cities and this trip just added to the magic!

More photos can be found at this link

https://plus.google.com/photos/102840684536112573599/albums/6114639639611586129?authkey=CIPX4MWXver5owE

Seeing Red

February is American Heart Association Month, but I’ve been seeing red for the past two and a half months! Not the meaning that immediately comes to mind when someone says they see red, but skeins and skeins of red yarn. A couple of years ago, I knitted some scarves for American Heart Association’s “Heart Scarves” project that provides red scarves to women who are just coming out of heart surgery. 

I genuinely believe it’s a great project so around the middle of November, I decided I would participate again. In my search for information about this year’s WomenHeart HeartScarves project, I also found a project in Chicago called Little Hats, Big Hearts. This other project raises awareness of congenital heart defects, the most common type of birth defect in the US. A group of volunteers was asking people to knit red baby hats in “premie” and newborn sizes so they can give a red hat to every baby born in Chicago’s participating hospitals during February. 

I also loved the idea of this project, so I immediately went out and bought 4 skeins of red yarn, downloaded some patterns and started my first hat. I’d never knitted on circular needles before so this was my first attempt to understand how to connect the rows, and keep track of them. I’d also never knitted on tiny number 2 and 3 needles so this was another a new experience.

Some of the hat patterns were easier than others and by the time I was on my fourth skein, I had settled on two favorites and I was much faster than when I started. I ended up sending sixteen hats to the volunteer organizer the first of January so the hats could be washed, sterilized and distributed by the first of February.

With the baby hats finished, I started on scarves for the WomenHeart program. I now have two finished, and I’m working on my third. I wish I could say that since these are on much bigger needles, they go faster, but that isn’t the case. As the scarf reaches thirty inches, you realize you are a little less than half way, and you believe you’ll never finish. 

At least I don’t have a deadline for this project because, unfortunately, there are thousands of women who have heart surgery every day.

Here is where I get on my soapbox about awareness of heart disease in women. There are many more women than men who have died from heart disease and stroke since 1984. And an alarming fact is that fewer women than men survive their first heart attack. Around 55,000 more women than men have a stroke each year! Few women know the signs of a heart attack because the signs are different from those experienced by men.

Another alarming fact is that more women die each year from heart disease than from breast cancer. Yet, we never hear about these statistics and the American Heart Association gets almost no publicity. I’ve looked into how effectively donations are handled by different associations, and AHA has a very high percentage of donations going to the actual prevention of heart disease and stroke and very little going towards advertising. Maybe that’s why death in women has decreased by more than 30 percent in the past 10 years.

February is coming up in just a week, and it’s American Heart Month. On February 6th, it’s national Wear Red Day! This year will mark the twelfth annual recognized day and it’s gaining in popularity. I’d like to encourage you to participate.

February also marks one month since you made your new year’s resolutions. If resolving to break the barriers against heart disease and strokes in women wasn’t on your list, it’s not too late to make this a priority! At least become familiar with women’s signs of heart attack.

Clean Eating is Trendy!

According to a few websites that I’ve recently visited, “clean eating” is extremely trendy now. Not that either of us are trend setters but I think some trendy things are worth trying. 

 Another year, another diet resolution? I can’t believe the number of diet commercials flooding every TV station, and if you believe any of them, their magical pill will “melt your fat quickly and easily”! Our "diet pills" are vegetables.

One of Steve's passions

Steve and I each relished our Christmas food!  I love my turkey and stuffing and Steve’s passion for traditional English Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies is legendary. We found both -- Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies -- at a World Market and we also found some imported Stilton cheese. The Stilton went perfectly with a bottle of port that had been maturing in our cupboard following our move from the UK to Maryland and then on to Texas.

At least one a day!

We relished every taste of all of these holiday goodies but not to excess. We then agreed that we would endeavor to eat healthier for a while. I can’t say that it is a diet, but more of a “clean, whole foods” way of eating.  No, we are not buying all of our food at Whole Foods; we’ve just cut out all processed foods. The change means excluding all white foods except cauliflower and onions, and very little dairy (as in no yogurt because it all has high sugar content). Two of our indulgences are a small bit of cheese occasionally and a limited amount of dark chocolate. We are eating plenty of fish and very lean protein, lots of green veggies, little to no sugar and lots of water. We have no condiments such as mayo, ketchup or mustard, and I make our salad dressing with just vinegar, olive oil, and a few herbs. It truly is a very easy simple way of eating. And if you think about it, didn’t our ancestors eat this way before foods of every kind became “instant”?

This is most of our food shopping

Shopping to prepare for "clean eating" requires more planning than just browsing and picking up whatever strikes your fancy. We’ve realized that shopping is now more frequent since everything is fresh but so far that hasn’t been a problem. You might think that these extra trips to stock up are breaking our bank, but this isn’t the case. In fact, trips to the supermarket are a lot more organized and quicker. There are entire aisles that we can skip such as cereal, bread, pasta, rice and processed packaged items, junk (i.e. chips, crackers, all snack items) and sugary drinks (not that we’ve ever drunk them). Our main focus is on a couple of pounds of spring mix and some green veggies. Cooking our meals is a lot easier too because it’s simply a matter of grilling a bit of protein and steaming the veggies. Simple, quick and effortless and the clean up is fairly painless too.

We even indulged in happy hour last Friday evening, and both of us were ‘way over the top’ virtuous. We ate a little bit of cheese dip and then only a side salad, which was our dinner for the whole evening. We each only had one drink, a low-carb beer for Steve and a red wine for me.  I’m wondering just how long this degree of virtuousness can actually last!

We have a Thai cooking class coming up tonight that we booked before deciding on our “clean eating” regime so we’ve been trying to be extra good the past couple of days. We’ll be making Phad Thai, Green Coconut Curry, and a spicy shrimp dish. The Phad Thai and Green Coconut Curry are two of Steve favorites, and the shrimp is one of mine. I’ve agreed to give him my Pad Thai so that I can have his shrimp.

This trend doesn’t mean that you have to go completely mad and do all of your shopping at the uber trendy Whole Foods. But if you have the extra money and want to go that route, have a look at this link and then decide whether it is really worth it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-maclean/surviving-whole-foods_b_3895583.html

"You are what you eat - so

don't be Fast, Cheap, Easy or Fake!"           unknown

Happy eating in 2015, whatever you choose to eat!