Saturday, November 5, 2011

Raining on my Parade

Monday is my birthday. I am going to a restaurant in San Francisco tomorrow for lunch. It is called Boudin Bistro. And it is raining today here at sea level and snowing in the Sierras. Both the Sonora Pass and Tioga Pass in Yosemite are now closed.

I am still excited even though it may be umbrella time. Hope we can see through the windows which look out over the Bay. Boudin is right on the Wharf.   It is actually Boudin Sourdough Bakery and they built an actual restaurant on the top floor to compliment the more casual eatery downstairs. I've been looking at the menu and cannot decided between the Fish and Chips or the Dungeness Crab Mac and Cheese.  I am also eyeing the big platter of cracked crab. Boudin was started in SF in 1849!
Bistro Boudin

Dungeness Crab Mac & Cheese.

Fish and Chips

At this moment I am considering the Anchor Steam Fish and Chips and taking an order of Crab Mac and Cheese home for Monday's dinner. (The frites or fries are super skinny - just like I like them.)

This is a real nostalgia trip. When I lived in the City, my father would go to the Wharf and bring back fresh caught cooked crab for special occasions. We would sit in the kitchen and make a mess while we dipped the "meat" in drawn butter. We didn't have a real claw cracker so we used our nut cracker. We would then soak everything up with Boudin Sourdough bread, Back then they only had the original bakery 6 blocks from us and we would get warm bread right out of the oven at their back door.

Oh, and don't forget a glass of cold Chardonnay tomorrow! I made the mistake of telling my daughter that this is how we celebrated my high school graduation, only we had a bottle of champagne. Guess what she wanted when she graduated from high school? That caused a real problem for me as a Social Worker in the '80s.  In the '60's all my really close friends and I were raised almost identical in the City.  Susan and I invented our first cocktail up at the lake when we were 16 and came out singing "Ta Da!".Wiith Nicole's graduation I didn't even open the champagne until after her school  friends left and it was just family.  I don't know how I missed it my whole childhood, but I found out a few years ago that my school friend Susan's father was Norwegian! I never even questioned why we all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

I have this photo of one of my cousin in Denmark when she was confirmed at 13/14. Big family dinner at a restaurant. All the relatives. And sitting in front of her plate is a bottle of Aakvavit!  Yup, it is a different culture.  Once  you are confirmed you are a responsible person. Not 18, not 21. Confirmed.

It would not work here in melting pot America. People are so immature at 14!  Every child and their familiy needs to be on the exact same page for it to work. Like Susan's family and mine when we were young.

2 comments:

Jono said...

This is helping my appetite come back! And Happy Birthday to you!

Anonymous said...

I love denmark