I watched the “San Francisco” episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations the other night. I thought I’d jot down my thoughts.
It was a bit strange watching this episode. Most of the other episodes have been in locales I haven’t lived in or visited, and it was quite a gear switch to be watching Tony on my home turf.
Tony visited some good places, but I was surprised he visited some other places that I consider mediocre. However, opinions on food are subjective, so I can’t say with affirmation that there is right or wrong here. I was also a bit amazed he didn’t visit other places I thought he would or should. In retrospect, I am placated that he missed some really good places, because that means they’ll stay good. Few things kill a good bar or restaurant more than a cameo in a television show.
I noticed he had martinis at not one, but three different places during the course of the show. That was a bit of a let-down for me, because San Francisco is such a revolutionary cocktail town – where’s the diversity in the cocktails? OK, so he had some lychee martinis at R&G Lounge, but of all the cocktail offerings in San Francisco, why lychee martinis? And Tony, you were less than a hour from the most popular wine country in the US and you didn’t go to one wine bar?
There was something quite “off” about Tony in this episode, I thought. He didn’t seem as into the whole thing this time. Who knows, maybe he was tired, maybe he was bored, maybe he didn’t want to exploit all of San Francisco’s true secrets, or maybe it was all the martinis and the sandwich as big as Giada de Laurentiis’ head.
I found out there’s a group that hosts Movie Nights on Saturdays in various locations around the SF Bay Area. I called the Film Night in the Park people to ask if they could turn on the subtitles when they show movies (they project them off a DVD) and they told me “we only only use the DVD subtitles when it’s a foreign language film or in sing alongs during the music.”
I pointed out that this was an event being held on City-owned property (a public park) and it should be accessible, and they said “send us an email and I’ll pass it to the Advisory board” and then hung up on me.
I emailed Catherine Stefani, who works for the office of Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier in SF City Hall. (Alioto-Pier is disabled and is a huge advocate for the disabled.)
She responded to my email in ten minutes, which is very impressive. She said:
Thank you again Kathryn for emailing us about this. I spoke with the Film in the Park people and it seems they feel subtitles would “diminish the experience for non-deaf people.” The Supervisor will introduce a resolution about this on Tuesday to make subtitles a requirement. We’ll keep you informed.
She followed up again on Friday:
I contacted the City Attorney about this and we realized that the ordinance we passed re: closed captioning in public places already addresses this situation. I am going to call the event organizers to let them know and to make them aware of the civil and criminal penalties outlined in the legislation.
During my lunch break today, I popped over to the Crocker Galleria Farmer’s Market to pick up some potatoes and leeks for the nettle soup I am making this evening. I bumped into some coworkers having lunch there, and it came up in conversation that one of them thought the farmer’s market was too expensive, and that he preferred to shop at Safeway as he thought it was cheaper. When I got back to the office, I looked up the prices on Safeway.com and sent him the following email:
Making nettle soup tonight, so all I needed was potatoes and leeks, but here’s how the prices compare:
Farmer’s Market:
4 lbs organic Yukon Golds – $4
2 large organic leeks – $2
Tax – $0
Total: $6
Safeway:
4 lbs Yukon Golds: $7.98
2 leeks: $5.98
Tax – $1.19
Total: $15.15
Packaged goods like cheese, olive oil, smoked fish, etc tend to be expensive, but produce is quite often dirt-cheap. Prices on breads/baked goods, eggs, and apple cider vary from market to market but aren’t too outrageous.
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