Slow Food Nation Rocks!

August 21, 2008

I heart long weekends.

On Saturday, Will, Robert, Sue Hee and I met up at Fort Mason for the Slow Food Nation Rocks! concert that was being held in conjunction with the 4-day Slow Food Nation Festival that was taking over San Francisco over the long weekend.

What is the Slow Food Festival about?
Slow Food Nation is a subsidiary non-profit of Slow Food USA and part of the international Slow Food movement. It was created to organize the first-ever American collaborative gathering to unite the growing sustainable food movement and introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair.

The first annual event of Slow Food Nation takes place on Labor Day 2008 in San Francisco with enjoyable, accessible and educational activities for all Americans.

Slow Food Nation is dedicated to creating a framework for deeper environmental connection to our food and aims to inspire and empower Americans to build a food system that is sustainable, healthy and delicious.

The concert was being held in the Great Meadow for two days, but we only got tix for the Saturday as we were more interested in the line-up. We managed to get parking the Marina, and walked over to the Great Meadow around 1 PM, in time to see the last part of Medeski Martin and Wood's set.





The next band was one of my homeland's best, The New Pornographers. They played a great set, which included some of my favorites: "Mass Romantic", "The Laws Have Changed" and "All For Swinging You Around".

In between bands, we enjoyed some great microbrew in biodegradable cups, and yummy food from the vendors (insanely good guacamole and chips!). As expected, a concert that's part of a festival about good food would have good food being sold. Thank goodness.

The next band was one of my all-time favorite bands to see live, Ozomatli. These guys have so much energy, and really get the crowd dancing. Their musicianship is phenomenal.

They also stuck to tradition and ended their show with their acoustic jam in the middle of the crowd (you can see the back of the trumpet and sax players in black):
The headliner was Gnarls Barkley. These guys have killer style. I really like their music, but Cee-Lo's voice suffers in a festival environment, it's hard for him to project.


The concert was over by 7 pm, a perfect all-day event. It was, by far, one of the best outdoor festivals I've been to. Mainly because it was very well-organized and not crowded at all. There was never a line at this festival (for food, drink or very nice port-a-potties), and plenty of room to move about, dance, lay out your blankets and enjoy the sun. I think the long weekend took lots of folks out of town and many SFers may be burnt from last weekend's Outside Lands festival too, which I heard was a bit of a mess.

We headed home to chill out and relax after so much sun. Later in the evening, we joined up with a crew who were hanging out with Ashley, coming through town to see her family in Napa. Check out her hot vixen hair (love it!):


I miss you Ashley! Great to see you and catch up!

TGIF - Labor Day Long Weekend!

August 30, 2008

It's been a long week, with work keeping me on my toes, and finalizing house details. It was great to get to Friday and the long weekend.

Robert came over for dinner and catch-up. After dinner, we headed up the hill to our new house to show Robert the place. We found a nice surprise in the fridge, as the previous owners left us some champagne to celebrate:





Have a great long weekend!

Grown Ups...For Real...

August 28, 2008

So, some of you may have noticed that Will and I have been a bit MIA this past month or so, but the truth is that we've been flirting with the process of becoming real grown ups...adults...in truth, people with mortgages.

Yup, we bought a house. It's in the Castro, just a few blocks from where we live right now. We closed today and got the keys. The most expensive keys we have ever gotten.

To celebrate, we met up with some folks at Reba's for happy hour on her roof deck.






We grabbed some take-out food at Woodhouse Fish Company down the street (Will and I had the 3 oz lobster rolls...delicious!) and did some more socializing before the reality starts settling in that we are now home owners. Yikes!

If you see me anytime soon, don't be surprised if I'm a little stunned. We will be moving in sometime in mid to late-September. Oh, moving, how I hate thee.

The Wayside State

August 25, 2008

Finally the stars aligned and I was actually able to make it to see Chuck perform with his band, The Wayside State. Their gig was at the Make-Out Room, which I made to pretty much on time, after going to see a girly movie with Katharine and JoJo.

What the heck is Chuck doing with that guitar?

The played a good set, one of their songs is called "Fernet", and it made me have flashbacks of ro-sham-bo the night before...oy!

Their next gig is at Thee Parkside on September 14. Check them out if you can, they are rad.

House of Prime Rib

August 24, 2008

On Saturday night, Will and I were back in the city for a triple-date (tri-date!) with Robert, Sue Hee, Tuttle and Susan. Tuttle apparently has some strong feelings about couple dates, so it was a fun "surprise" for him to show up and realize that it was a tri-date. Ha!

The site of the tri-date was the infamous House of Prime Rib. Yes, it's true, it's taken me this long to finally make it for dinner at this superfantastic beef institution. HPR is old-school in it's steakhouse atmosphere and service, with the prime rib carved at your table. I was in heaven.



The prime rib cart:
Carlos, the prime rib carver, making the magic happen:
As Tuttle stated "That man has a PhD in Deliciousness".

I didn't finish my salad, I didn't eat the dinner bread, and managed to have the perfect amount of food for dinner without feeling overstuffed. Success!


After dinner, we mosey-ed down to Martuni's for some post-dinner drinks. First mistake. Second mistake was participating in ro-sham-bo drinking games. Apparently, I suck at ro-sham-bo drinking games. Third mistake...fernet.


Robert's face pretty much sums up fernet:
Dinner was wonderful, post-dinner drinks were fun if not sketchy, and the next day can be summed up in one statment "my head no feel good". Remind me never to play ro-sham-bo with Tuttle.

Mama's In Town!

August 23, 2008

It's been a busy week, after getting back from the motherland, we had some house guests and then my Mama came to town. Family QT!

On Friday night, I went down to Santa Clara to have dinner with the family. The usual suspects of aunts and uncles (from SJ and Oakland) were there, as were cute kiddies.









Some videos of the twins going crazy for "Yo Gabba Gabba", a quirky kids show that the kids love:








On Saturday morning, Will and I went back down to south bay for dim sum with the family at Dynasty in Cupertino, same folks making apperances.













It was great to see my Mama, she'll be back in town in mid-September with my Papa in tow (for a part of the trip). As I always say, it's so nice to be close to my sister and her kids, it makes it so much easier for my folks to come visit us all at the same time. See you in September!