[San Francisco at dusk, January 2012.]

The other night after work I walked home because I’d sat still all day and my legs were twitching to move through the cool clear almost-dark. It was sort of a last-minute decision; I was waiting for the light to change on my way to the bus, looked over to the right, and saw the early-evening-but-not-yet-sunset light. My feet seemed to turn away from the clutch of commuters of their own accord, setting themselves firmly up the (slight) hill on Bush Street before I registered what was happening. I wasn’t sure where the walk would take me – having walked home previous times I’ve gone up the fairly dirty and unaesthetic Market Street before splitting off west into my neighborhood – but it didn’t much matter. I simply wanted to go.

It’s about two and a half miles from work door to apartment door (aka, home), which isn’t so long really. It felt even shorter as I hiked along past little shops and grubby, tucked-away bars with funny names, laundromats and dry cleaners and churches interspersed with various healing centers (this is SF, after all) and corner markets. I wondered a little over some of the names and thought that the apartment buildings looked so nice but would it be loud in this neighborhood? I thought about what I’d make for dinner. I clenched with anxiety over a few things but pushed them away. I tried not to obsess over did my ITB twinge as I passed the Chinatown gate or is that hypochondria and instead looked out over my city, blue in the waning light. The light in San Francisco is sort of magical I think. There’s nothing else like it.

California shimmers in the sun, it’s true, and has been particularly shimmery this month. Weeks like the ones we’ve had — drought worries notwithstanding, it’s a gorgeous spell of days that’s a sort of time out of time — are to be savored even as we anxiously eye the water table. When real summer rolls around, thick with fog and the drip-drip-drip of water from the redwood leaves onto the ferns, we’re more likely to closet ourselves away with tea and Mozart’s Mass in C- and lots of wool blankets and warm things to eat. Or maybe that’s just me. Summer of the heart? Oh, that comes at the most unexpected times here and we’ll take it when we can.

Right now is a strange season. It’s the very mid of mid-winters but the sun shines and shines relentlessly without even a wisp of fog. I know it is brilliant and gorgeous and polishing the rocks and sand out at Baker Beach, and along the coastal trail that winds from the Palace of the Legion of Honor (you can get a surprisingly good lunch there, just to note) to Land’s End even as I type this. We went out there on Saturday and lazed a bit in the sun and ate the last of the Christmas cookies from Maine and it didn’t feel one bit like January. All the way out to Ocean Beach past the Bath ruins and the Cliff House the sun burned with fierce purpose. The tide was out and the beach, when we peered round the blinding glare, was wider even than at its usual. I am projecting myself there today, would trade the olive trees outside the window for that empty and booming beach just for an hour. A girl can dream …

[Pacific Ocean looking Southwest from the Sutro Baths, January 2012.]

I was talking about San Francisco this morning with my mum-in-law as we ate leftover berry muffins. I kept getting up to put away dishes and gather up the stuff I needed for the day, always with an eye on the clock (though I ended up being late in anyway) and always with an ear tuned to the conversation. There’s so little I know of my city, though I have – and do – make attempts to learn more; I saw an old photograph of the Cliff House this weekend at the museum that has prompted this bit of San Francisco wistful nostalgia for how-it-was. Dirt roads and houses of ill repute and filthy gold miners swinging through town to spend their hard-scrabbled nuggets on whisky and all – I would take it for a week, just to see.

San Francisco was once: gleaming with hope and teeming with horses and trolleys. Ships sailed in and out of the bay and there was no bridge yet (if you have ever seen that Ansel Adams photograph, “Golden Gate Before the Bridge,” you’ll know how strange and different it would have been to our modern eyes accustomed now to seeing that great span). Way out at the edge of town, in what is now the Sunset District, the few people who did start building houses found themselves thwarted by sandstorms when they planted gardens. The tram line ran out there and the tracks were often covered by drifting sand; still, I bet for a kid it was a fantastic place to live. All that empty space along the beach for hiding out and rambling, whichever you chose.

We munched on our muffins and sipped our cups of tea and I could almost see it out the window. Many buildings in my neighborhood – one of which, sadly, burned in fire just before Christmas – are so old they have stood for over 100 years. I love that about the city, that there are still so many houses and structures that survived the great 1906 earthquake and devastating fire. I love that nature is so close here. Perched on the edge of the Pacific, I sometimes think when the earth gives another, inevitable massive heave we’ll slide right into the ocean with hardly a splash. In the meantime we marvel over raccoons in Alamo Square Park and hope to catch a glimpse of the coyotes near the Buffalo Pasture (err — I do) and take walks home that remind us that we humans should tread lighter on the earth. We are the impermanent part of the universe after all, and perhaps in 1000 years San Francisco will be deserted and sand will once again drift over the train tracks along with a wayward grizzly bear come down from the north.

In the meantime, we are here. And when here we must fortify, and there are some days when oatmeal simply won’t do. Instead, muffins. I know it seems like all I do is bake and little else — I swear I have been cooking dinner nearly every night, even if very simple like last night which was just roasted potatoes and cauliflower and chickpeas with garlic and spinach and a piece of salmon baked in white wine and lemon juice and vegetable broth and then, YES, a chocolate-chocolate cake — but it is my wont it seems. Sunday morning I slid out from under the pile of the NY Times and whisked together a batter as quickly as possible using what I had on hand – the best muffins yet. I used a little whole wheat pastry flour here, some slivered almonds, more cinnamon than is usual, and brown sugar. They turned out dense and not-too-sweet and moist and a little crunchy and full of summer – perfect for this strange winter season and for meanderings of both body and spirit.

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The other night I did something I hadn’t in far too long: I baked banana bread — err, muffins — from a standby recipe. I’ve been poking around ye olde blog a bit lately, trying to spruce it up a little and paring down, too — and realized a few things. 1. I haven’t been documenting my meals nearly as often as I used to (nor as often as I’d like) and 2. Some Many of my recipes definitely are worth a revisit.

It’s funny how it happens — you make something over and over and over again until you’ve almost memorized the quantities of ingredients (see: my vegan chocolate cake). You make it for friends, family, to send away. And then, you stop. You move on to something else or get distracted by the flash of the new and shiny. Or maybe you get bored — I do, sometimes, when I make the same thing over and over again, and after all there are so many recipes in the world and so very, very little time to attend to them all … You get the gist.

[Also worth mentioning: Does the tried-and-true make for a good story? Perhaps not. Yet the tried-and-true is thus because it is tried -- and also true. There's no shame in having steadfast recipes upon which to rely; I just worry sometimes that I'll tire my dinner guests (or baked-goods recipients) with the same old same old. Anyway, a little experimentation often makes things better; at the very least it makes them different — not always a bad thing. So occasionally I'll take an old faithful and turn what was once familiar, sweet, and true into something else — much like, actually, my current relationship (but that's another story for another time. Also another story coming soon: the gluten-free, to-die-for brownies I baked Saturday night. Who knew flourless could be so good?).]

One night last week the wind picked up a bit after work and I felt pretty chilly, wanting only wool socks and to turn on the oven. (An aside, the weather has been completely screwy here in the Bay Area lately: warm/hot and sunny, with clear blue skies now for over a week. I am not complaining) Also, I was thinking potassium because I was slated to run a half-marathon at the weekend and was craving lots of vitamins and protein in preparation. (Another aside: the amount of quinoa and tofu and vegetables I’ve been eating lately is out of control, and there seems to be no end in sight.) So then: banana muffins, but with a twist. I resurrected my once favorite recipe for banana bread and made a few changes, swapping whole wheat pastry flour for half of the all-purpose, adding a bit of cardamom, and upping the ante with melted butter instead of vegetable oil.

In a word: Perfect.

About that run — this past Sunday I woke up in the dark early-morning hours to run my third long-distance race in a year. It was a beautiful day — warm and sunny — and the course took us through Golden Gate Park down to the Great Ocean Highway for about five miles (endless, it seemed) before looping back into the park to finish. I must admit I did not train as well as I could have, and I purposefully was not running for time because of it. I must also admit that it was pretty hard, and today my muscles are still a bit sore (though not terribly so, and I am not terribly unhappy about it).

Around mile six I felt the first hunger pangs strike, and began fantasizing about what kind of food I would eat when I finished. When I do a long run, I almost always crave salt, and I knew I had a big bag of Kettle Chips Salt & Pepper waiting for me at home in the kitchen cabinet (what I would have given for a few as we rounded the turn at mile 10, with three+ long miles still to go!). I thought about what I’d have for brunch later on (eggs, toast, potatoes — filling things for my empty belly, maybe even a mimosa, COFFEE), and what I planned to make for dinner.

As I ran along through the miles, the Pacific Ocean crashing and blazing in the sun to my right, I began to think more elaborately: would an avocado mousse be strange or delicious? It had been a long time since I’d made any sort of soufflé; put that on the mental list for soonish. What kinds of things would I grow if I had a garden of my own (heirloom tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries — fruit! — potatoes, lettuces, herbs) and what I would make with them. I considered and discarded several options for the lunch and dinner parties I’m giving this weekend (both on the same day, because I am a wee bit nuts), which helped miles 8-10 speed by quite handily.

All of these were distractions to the burning question of why am I doing this to myself, again?

When I ran my first marathon back in October 2005, I ate what was probably my weight in Boca Burgers over the course of a few months. After I did a long run, often even before I took a shower, I’d slap one in the microwave, toast a bagel, strap an ice pack securely to my knee, then pile on cheese, avocado, and mayonnaise before devouring in about two seconds. On my longest excursions, on country roads that seemed to go on forever, I’d promise myself a smoothie, or a big pile of portabello mushrooms as a reward for logging the miles. Last fall when I was training for the Nike marathon here in San Francisco, I mostly drank chocolate milk and slurped down a bowl of hot, brothy noodle soup after long runs. Food became even more pleasurable because I was so hungry all the time, my appetite sharpened by my body’s exertion.

While 13.1 miles is certainly nothing much compared to 26.2, it still burns a lot of calories, and after the race was over I was predictably starving. I made my way home, showered, drank lots of water and a delicious soy latte, and went to beloved Zazie for brunch, whereupon I immediately ordered a mimosa with freshly-squeezed orange juice — orange juice that may well have been the most delicious orange juice ever consumed — to toast my run as well as the beauty of the day (80 degrees at least, people. Early spring has come to SF.). Then I ate a bowl of curried butternut squash soup, a poached egg, and potatoes. Satiated for the moment, I came home to pack up the peanut butter cookies and gluten-free brownies I’d made for a friend’s super bowl gathering. I may have had a banana-chocolate muffin.

Today I am still a bit sore, but the feeling of accomplishment lingers. I don’t think I’ll go for an avocado mousse anytime soon, but I have my eye on a green garlic soufflé that will be on an upcoming menu for sure. I surely don’t need to run a half-marathon to treat myself to decadent dishes, but I think they taste all the more delicious for the effort made to get there.

This recipe is quite basic, but if you use a lot of bananas it’s elevated to something a bit beyond the ordinary. Moist, sweet but not too, with a solid crumb from the whole wheat flour, a nice crunch from the walnuts, and a hint of richness from the butter, it’s a bread to soothe the soul — and nourish the hungry belly.

A trick to keep in mind is one I picked up ages ago; it’s both thrifty and practical: when your bananas start to turn — as they inevitably might — or you can’t stand the thought of eating any more, throw ‘em in the freezer to save for making banana bread at your leisure. I read somewhere it’s best to remove the skin before doing so, but I often forget to do this, and the bananas freeze up just fine skin-on. Defrost for about 15 minutes (the other night I put in the oven for about 3 minutes until they softened — careful, though, because you don’t want to cook them) before using.

Serve as is, or toasted with a bit of butter or margarine, and a hot cup of tea — pre-run not required.

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[Birthday cake, sliced, October 2010.]

Friends, I did it. And it was HARD. Rain and wind and fog and no sun at all the whole way, not even a flash of it, and we started in the dark. But if it was so hard (oh, Lake Merced, let me not see you again for a long, long time, please) it was also amazing: Around mile 10 the course swept out of the Presidio and down past the Cliff House and suddenly there was the Pacific Ocean spread out before us like a flag with the waves crashing and churning onto the beach. I have run a decent amount of road races in various cities and each has its own particular specialness; for me, to run 26 (.2) miles in San Francisco, was a sort of belated homecoming (and oh yeah: there are way more hills here than, say, Washington, DC — but then again, the Pacific Ocean.) and it felt so. good. So even during the absolute worst parts (the pouring rain out at the lake; mile 23; that last 1/2-mile) I kept thinking about how very, very fortunate I am to live here — and it eased the pain more than just a little bit.

This is what I did: Sunday morning woke up at about 5:30 after 7 hours or so of sleep, gulped a lot of water, ate a bagel-and-peanut-butter with delicious jam from Maine (thanks E+K), made sure I had all my ‘gu’ stowed away and my timing chip safely affixed, left the house in the pre-7a darkness — and then I ran 26.2 miles. I ran. 26.2. Miles. I look at the number, and my knees ache, and my muscles are tight and sore, and my stomach is still slightly unhappy with me, and I know that I did it, but I can hardly believe it. Every time I get up, it hurts. When I walk, it hurts. (Almost) everything hurts! Still, my belated runner’s high persists and I found myself this afternoon contemplating doing another one at some point (sorry, mom). I felt this after I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, too, which was not nearly as brutal as this one and so I think I must admit I am a crazy runner type. There are worse things.

It never ceases to amaze me how hours and hours of running can somehow pass by in a flash — I remember some moments particularly, like the girl in front of me wearing all orange (including an orange tutu) and a sign that read Next to Giants, this is Torture, and that first hill around mile 5 going up to the bridge when I thought god damn I got 21 more to go of this. And suddenly it was mile 8 and I ate orange slices, and then it was 11 and people were screaming and cheering as we went into Golden Gate Park and I picked up speed and let momentum carry me a ways, and then it was half-way and my personal cheering squad materialized, and then it was 15 and I put my ipod on (first time in a race ever) and my funky little mix was just perfect, and then it was 16 and there were only 10 left and I saw parts of the park I’d never seen before, and then it was pouring rain along the Great Ocean Highway and my hands were so cold and I ate a Clif protein bar (peanut butter), and then it was 22 and my calves started cramping up so badly I could barely walk, and then it was the chocolate mile and I said to myself OK, finish this b**ch. You got it. (you find you talk to yourself a lot on these long runs), and then it was 24 and back on the highway with the finish in sight.

I looked at the ocean, then, and said to myself Remember this. Take it in and savor it all. Because, god, this city is beautiful. This place is so beautiful, even in the fog and wind and rain (in a way, the weather was fitting, since I have always run and trained in all sorts of weather — even snow in Norway, once, and the heavy heat of DC summers), and I am so lucky that my body, even if slower than it used to be, can do this, when so many cannot. I guess this is one of the reasons we do this: Because we can, and it is a way to honor that. To honor life. I thought about my cousin and gave her the last two miles, because she will never get to and I wish she could’ve at least had the chance. I pushed those miles hard. A nice girl picked me up with about 100 yards to go when I started fading, and we ran the last bit together, sprinting almost, and then it was done DONE, with my support team right there to hug me at the end. It was awesome.

Thank you all, so much, for your support — virtual and otherwise. I swear it does help, to know you have a little cheering squad behind you.

I’ll leave you with a slice, by way of my own virtual thanks, of my delicious birthday cake (Alice Waters’ chocolate cake recipe, o’course; and please do make it, and as often as possible). Tonight I’ve put my running shoes away for little while and am stretching out my deliciously sore muscles and drinking lots of water and eating mom’s vegetable soup (and buttery little lemon-poppyseed shortbread cookies, homemade in Maine) resting my exhausted body and feeling grateful that I was able to run all that way. I am lucky, and I know it.

Back soon.

ps: Here is the Chronicle article about the race. It was the 2010 Nike Women’s Marathon and if you ever consider doing a marathon, I highly recommend this one. The support is amazing along the way (think happy and energized volunteers despite the rain, music every few miles, lots of food), and the course is absolutely beautiful, winding through a lot of gorgeous parts of San Francisco (and despite the early hills there are surprisingly a great deal of flat parts). The race also benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an extremely worthy cause. And while the run is open to both men and women, it’s really geared toward women — which is a pretty cool thing, not to mention you get a PINK finisher’s t-shirt and a pretty pretty necklace from Tiffany’s. (Though also to note: it’s very popular and you have to enter your name into a random drawing to gain entrance.)

[Near Arch Rock, July 2010.]

OK. It’s pretty cold here. It’s cold and this morning when I went for a pre-7 a.m. run I could see my breath steaming ahead of me in the fog; I shook drops off of my hair at the turnaround. It’s 53 degrees cold, give or take the slight wind chill factor, and I do not mean to complain really just … it’s July 20th. Dreams of true summer tumble through my head: days at the beach, baking out the last vestiges of winter; cherries eaten while lounging in a hammock in the backyard; ice-cold glasses of lemonade; soft-serve ice cream (!). I do not want to do any of these things right now. Right now I am wearing a scarf and a warm sweater.

July in San Francisco makes you question your entire existence and whether or not you truly want to live here — and if you don’t, then who are you (“you” in this case decidedly meaning “me”) anyway, you who profess to love California with every bit of yourself, including but not limited to the city by the bay? Could you really hack the East Coast again (no)? Can’t you just suck it up (yes, but not without a tiny bit of whinging)?

So rather than sink too far down into the existential crisis that this city in summer inevitably engenders, this weekend I got out of town — to West Marin, specifically, where I often bolt to escape the endless grey gloom (truthfully I would like to go there every day but, y’know, work and suchlike). Also there was a dog I needed to see, a few gin and tonics to drink, some bay leaves to crush under my feet. Not to say there isn’t fog out there, too, but somehow it doesn’t feel as desperate. And you’re almost guaranteed to find at least a few hours of sunshine.

[In the woods, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, July 2010.]

Oh and I did chase the sun and it was grand: a 10-mile hike up and down the back trails of the National Seashore (I made sandwiches with lots of cheese and avocado and hummus on Acme’s whole wheat walnut bread) with a wee picnic perched on the rocks near Arch Rock, lots of petting the dog, lots of coffee but perhaps not quite enough tea, homemade granola, the New York Times crossword, watching the mist burn off the ridge from across the bay, a beer on the deck, Limantour just before sunset, the light blue and sweet and perfectly clear — pretty much, the kind of weekend I needed so awfully.

(Again I must reiterate that West Marin has my heart part and parcel and I couldn’t even tell you anymore what it is exactly — just that it is. It is my place.)

August. August and it will be better, I told myself this morning as I do every year, and it’s true and soon I will forget I ever cursed the cold, but darn it right now it is so hard to get out of bed in the morning. I would like to stamp my foot in small protest. And definitely get out of town more often.

Luckily, plums await me on my counter to be folded into a sort of cornmeal-torte-cake to take to a wee dinner party tomorrow. (Though after last month’s massive cake-baking I swore I’d never bake again I find I have done so at least once a week since I got back: a red velvet cake for a friend’s birthday, another 1-2-3-4 cake with coffee butter cream for my coworker’s birthday, dog biscuits, a few batches of oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, a pound cake heavy with butter and run through with plums.) The oven and my wool socks will keep me warm enough.

[Dinner, July 2010.]

Sunday night I cooked, late, after Limantour — the way I often end up doing out there, hungrily and using up whatever I find in the fridge; and often I come with stuff I’d make again and again — with a g&t to tide me through and the fire going in the other room: pasta mixed with sauteed garlic, chopped onion, mushrooms, red pepper, spinach, all swirled with a bit of cream and butter and Parmesan and lots of black pepper. It was quick and easy and delicious and just right for the end of the weekend. I wished I’d made more. Then I helped put the dishes away though I swear I could’ve fallen asleep on my feet right there.

Last night I came home not too late but a bit on the sleepy side after the long work day, and it was still, infernally, grey (we didn’t see the sun once all afternoon). I kept thinking about that dinner. I wanted it again. And I wanted to add peas. So I treated myself: I cooked linguine and while it simmered I chopped a red onion and sauteed it with a good amount of olive oil. I added a few shiitake mushrooms, a chopped red bell pepper, baby spinach, a generous handful of peas. I liberally doused the vegetables with the pasta water (this is a great trick, especially if you’re adding cheese; it serves to bind everything together) and slipped in a bit of milk, a tiny wedge of butter, a good sprinkling of Parmesan. When I added the pasta I turned up the heat and stirred and it all came together to form a sort of ersatz sauce, no tomatoes necessary.

It was just what I wanted.

Dear July, July, 53-degree days and all, I am trying. I am trying to hold on ’til next month when I shall revisit my enduring love affair with San Francisco and spend not a few Saturdays at the beach. I’ll take it all back, I’ll swoon and promise, I’ll eat tomatoes in ridiculous quantities, I’ll do anything.

Meanwhile, this week I have a tiny dinner to plan, a deadline to meet, miles to run, and am fixated on sweet potato fries for some reason, although sweet potatoes are entirely out of season. This fog, I think, does funny things to the brain.

Linguine with Summer Vegetables and Cream
Milk, half-and-half, cream — all would work here. You only want a little bit anyway.

Serves 2-4.

Linguine, for as many as you’re serving
1 red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
8 mushrooms (white, shiitake …), sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 head spinach, washed and roughly chopped
1 cup (or more) English peas
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons cream
1/4 cup Parmesan
olive oil
salt and black pepper (to taste, but I like a lot of pepper in this)
basil, fresh or dried
Other additions: handful grape or cherry tomatoes, shallots, green beans, pine nuts …

Prepare the pasta.

Meanwhile, sautee the onion and garlic in 2 Tb. of olive oil over medium heat until soft. Add the mushrooms and a splash of the pasta water and cook until they release their juices. Add the pepper lower the heat; cook for about 5 minutes, adding water as necessary. Add the spinach and cook until wilted.

Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the Parmesan and about 2 Tb. of pasta water, stir well. Add the cream and season with salt and pepper. Add the pasta and stir well to combine. Add the basil, as much as you like.

Serve very hot with lots of Parmesan.

[From my window, August 2009.]

Here, there is sun. There’s been sun for almost a whole week — minus a day ago when the fog was back in full force — and light wind and a clear sky. The sky in fact has been that sheer, deep blue of late summer, swept clean of clouds to be left bare and shining. Indian Summer I think is peering round the corners and showing a flash of a smile though it’s not here yet (but soon, very) — this of course means ever more sun and the kind of stolen days that make you never want to live anywhere else but San Francisco, the air charged with the coming of fall.

But it’s summer still on the calendar and thus time still is behaving in its very summery way, with drawn-out afternoons riding cable cars up and down San Francisco’s sloping streets and long runs in the sun down to Ocean Beach and back home again to leave me sweaty and starving. It’s summer still even if it’s not hot hot in the city — though, please, a few days here and there I would take so awfully gladly — and that wind-scrubbed sky proves it.

Lately there have been blueberries, baked into a cake or eaten by the handful or stirred into Greek yogurt. There have been blowy nights when the screens rattle in their sills and my apartment feels like a ship at sea with its quiet creak and boom (note: I do not mind this one bit. I like to feel, especially when it’s foggy, that I am not so tethered to these city streets but in fact am sailing serenely on up the coast to land, perhaps, at Drake’s Beach or further north at Fort Ross). There have been tomatoes in so many permutations: sliced into salads, cooked down into sauce with purple onions, folded into tarts, eaten like little candies. There has been iced coffee and tea in the mornings.

Last night there was hummus and not-so-great dolmades with an old friend and then there was a cup of hot chocolate on Fillmore that was really just melted bittersweet cacao thinned with the littlest bit of water — chocolate distilled into deliciously thick, sludgy concentrate. He had a homemade marshmallow perched atop his while I took a float of whipped cream at the last minute and could barely finish a half cup it was so rich. When we left the cafe the wind had picked up again, and I wished I’d worn my down vest.

Next weekend there is a trip to the mountains and tomorrow there is a trip to West Marin for coffee and maybe the farmers’ market, too. There is still time for gin-and-tonics before the time change, plums eaten sweet and soft, plans for weddings along a river with copious amounts of cupcakes, and letting my mind wander to what I might make for Thanksgiving this year (a new version of an apple pie, for sure, and a cranberry cake).

But right now — here, in this moment — there is sun. It’s Friday and the weekend stretches ahead for sleeping-in and pesto-eating and who knows what else.

[At home, Sebastopol, July 2009.]

I was up at my parents’ house this weekend – my house, really, though I don’t live there anymore — and got to thinking about the idea of comfort: what it means, what it is, how we find it. I think I started thinking about this during dinner Saturday night because my mom made what I consider to be a classic comfort meal: mashed potatoes, little green beans cooked crisp in olive oil and salt, portabello mushrooms sauteed soft and pliable (the vegetarian version, perhaps, of steak). Mostly it was the mashed potatoes that did it; really, is there anything more comforting than mashed potatoes? We exclaimed over how we so rarely eat them and why not? Life is too short not to indulge in these little decadent bits every so often.

I do love mashed potatoes, you know. If it’s been a long day — and if the fog has settled in very determinedly — I’ll come and home wanting not much else than to make a fluffy pot of spuds. I’ll turn on the classical or classic rock station, depending on my mood, then peel, slice, and cook red and/or new potatoes until soft, drain them, and lace them liberally with butter (hey! This is supposed to be comfort food, after all!) and milk (lighter version involves olive oil and soy milk and yes, it does actually taste pretty darn good). I salt them well and eat them either with a chickpea-spinach stirfry or a slab of tofu and some sort of vegetable. But what I’m really after is those melting, salty, wholly satisfying potatoes.

Comfort comes in all forms — it can come with the ease of talking to an old, beloved friend unexpectedly, and though you haven’t spoke in ages it’s like no time has passed. It can come in one of your best girlfriend’s mac-and-cheese or the lasagna with which she sends you home after a dinner party. It can come in the swipe of a sweet black lab’s tongue or the knowledge that your best friend will always answer the phone when you call (and if he’s sleeping, his wife will pick up instead and that’s its own lovely pleasure). It can be the spaghetti you cook in lots of good, Clover butter from the county in which you grew up, sprinkled liberally with pepper and a bit more salt and as much parmesan as you can stand; healthful it’s not, but it doesn’t matter because it tastes so darn good. It can come via cupcakes your mom bakes you (and the avocados she always has on hand when you come to visit) or the way you’ll always have a gin and tonic with lemon when you visit the house in the woods, Tomales Bay shining bare and still out the tall windows, predictable and there and home.

In short, the search for comfort is one of familiarity and memory wound into a shimmering coil of favorite meals and wistful longing. Its seeking-out is something that is a constant — patient and watchful, that solid undercurrent of desire.

Tonight the fog is back and I had a long day so I made something for dinner that used to soothe my sore muscles after a long run four years ago when I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon: a portabello mushroom salad, piled high with all sorts of vegetables and avocado, and a baked potato. For a chilly Monday in San Francisco — along with a beer — it was just the thing. I was indeed comforted a bit, and felt better able to face the week ahead. I pulled on my wool socks, happily thought about my nightly cup of tea, and tucked in.

[Saturday night dinner, July 2009.]

So along those lines, a few things that regularly bring me comfort (a.k.a. things I like a lot):

- A Friday night with no plans when I can meander home after work, maybe with a stop at the library to stock up on new reads and old favorites. Or if I’m feeling particularly flush, maybe I’ll get Out the Door vegetarian spring rolls and a grapefruit soda to take home and savor with a movie on netflix.

- Friday nights in general when I know I can sleep in until at least the very decadent hour of 9 a.m. the next morning when I’ll then wake to stretch luxuriously and just lie in bed for a few minutes anticipating my first cup of coffee and the farmers’ market visit.

- The smell of pancakes on Sunday mornings at my parents’ house when my dad has gotten up before the rest of us to cook breakfast. Or when I come sleepily into the kitchen and my mom has made me coffee and asks if I’d like French toast (with a little orange juice in the mix to make it perfectly tart-sweet).

- Spending the weekend with a kindred spirit, complete with coffee and dogs and talking about books.

- Beethoven’s 9th, that quiet beginning and the bits of piano that sing out and touch your heart they are so beautiful.

- Scrambled eggs with feta and tomato.

- The way a liter of water tastes after running 6 miles along the backroads in the sun; that sweet anticipation.

- Amelie

- A cat curled up close in the bend of my knees as I go to sleep (and knowing s/he’ll wake me in the middle of the night to go out. You know how cats are.).

- The way an old friend writes me and always, always addresses the emails to “NS.”

- Going lap swimming with my dad in the pool downtown where I took my first swim lessons 25 years ago.

- The way the air smells in Pt. Reyes, like sun and salt and sea.

- … and how it smells in West County, too, of earth and damp grass and the cows come in to be milked.

- When my brother calls me just to say hi.

- The start to “Dancing in the Dark” and how when it comes on the radio it makes me think of summer and hot afternoons at the beach and how I’d maybe like to have a beer.

- Grilled cheese on whole wheat bread with the sharpest of sharp cheddars.

– The first bite of a crisp, perfect apple.

- Clementines in December.

- The ‘inappropriate pour’ with a certain friend at a certain dive in North Beach to which she introduced me when I first moved to San Francisco.

- My mom’s good chard-potato lasagna.

- One-half of a cold cucumber dipped in salt, reminding me of Greece and the northern mountains.

… and lots more.

What means comfort to you?

[Looking toward Limantour, March 2009.]

This weekend the weather turned into summer here in San Francisco, or at least the kind of summer I always wish for: sunny, nearly hot, a warm breeze brushing through the screen to ruffle the Sunday paper spread out across my kitchen table. It was a weekend for g&ts on the deck but in the absence of that I settled for iced cranberry juice and savored every drop. There was a salad of roasted beets and greens, stirfries involving whole wheat couscous and asparagus, strawberries sliced thin and fine, a tiny bit of ice cream.

I don’t know how long this weather will last, or where it came from, but it was like the city’s dream of summer, and I enjoyed every shining moment.

The only trouble, though, with such a brilliant few days, is that’s it’s nearly impossible to imagine the week ahead — anyhow it’s a short week for me (four days only!) and there is lots of fun awaiting me next weekend so I can’t complain too much. It’s just that this sort of weather makes me long for a vacation — anywhere, really, will do as long as there are plenty of potato chips and water is involved. All weekend I wished I could go to Santa Cruz and sit on the beach and then ride the roller coaster and then maybe have an ice cream cone to eat quickly before it melted away. Summer, summer, summer! — so close I’m already clamoring for it.

[Keyhoe, fog, November 2008. Photo by Randy.]

I’ve realized that whenever I plan a trip, even if it’s just up north an hour or two, I always have to make sure it involves swimming. Recently I’ve been going lap swimming with my dad at the outdoor pool in Sebastopol every so often and I’d nearly forgotten how much I love that chlorine-tinged blue, scattered with bits of leaves and the pine needles that have blown in from the adjacent park. I love running but to swim long and steady is a whole other animal: my muscles go loose and warm and my arms flash in and out of the water (if I’m lucky it’ll be raining, because swimming in a heated outdoor pool while cold mist drifts down and you know if you can just eek out that mile a cup of tea at the end will taste better than any cup of tea ever) is a private, particular pleasure.

But vacation swimming — now, that’s a whole other story. Vacation swimming means swimming for fun, not exercise (mostly), in a body of water untainted by chemicals. Vacation swimming was the kind of swimming I wanted this weekend: maybe in a river that with a slow current, brown water against the brown hills, coolness lingering under the sun-tipped surface. Or maybe in the Mediterranean, with goggles firmly afixed in order to dive deep under the waves in search of the fish you can’t see because the reflection of the blazing white heat of the sun dazzles so much you’re nearly blinded and they are too fast. Or maybe in the frigid waters of Lake Tenaya — all from snow melt so that you’re cold for hours afterward even bundled into sweaters.

[Beets, April 2009.]

Unfortunately after all there was no swimming for me, neither for exercise nor for lazy drifting afternoons, though I dreamed of it and woke wishing for water. Still, I did have a few hours in the hot sun and pretended it was the beach in August, though there was no sand to slip between my toes and no salt-water to dry sticky and sweet on my arms. I didn’t eat soft serve but I did make lemon-tahini sauce and roasted a pile of beets just because they sounded good to have on a late Sunday afternoon.

There’s something dreamy, after all, about roasting vegetables on the tail end of a weekend. I can’t explain it exactly, but I love to turn on the oven in the quiet hours when mostly everyone is either returning home from a few days in the sun or starting to think about the week ahead, even if reluctantly; drizzling a few potatoes or spears of asparagus or even a whole mess of farmers’ market finds with good olive oil for a barley-thickened soup somehow helps ease me past the Sunday night blues. (Well, maybe just the littlest bit.)

So yesterday afternoon I thought about Heart’s Desire and wished I could be dipping my toes in the water there. I remembered Tomales Bay and a still, hot September when my dad and I kayaked nearly all the way to Hog’s Island (next time. Maybe.) and saw a whale not a hundred feet from us, turning and blowing and thrilling and scaring me out of my mind all at once. I wondered if it was hot in Marin — how could it not be, it was so hot in the city — and started wishing very hard to be out on the bay with the sun in my eyes and a sand bar to run up upon with the kayak, tumbling out onto the softness and sweeping under the skin of the water to burst up with it weighting down my hair and running into my eyes.

I thought about summer and places to visit and how if I end up not going anywhere this summer besides California (frugality lately is trumping my need for adventure) that really wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all: perhaps we’ll go kayak again after promising to do it for so long, or I’ll finally take advantage of the generous neighbors and spend a whole day making plum preserves, tomato jelly, pack up lemons in salt or sugar and bake cakes and eat blackberries by the handful, as many as I can stuff into my mouth at once. All afternoon I thought about summer and Pt. Reyes and the way the bay trees stand straight and tall in windless August afternoons before the fog comes in and you think it will never cool off but then it does, the breeze a sigh to blow away all the heavy heat — and I’m ashamed to admit I found myself wishing the next few months away.

But then I smelled my beets roasting, filling my apartment with their buttery, earthy scent and suddenly didn’t mind April too much. Summer, my favorite season, will arrive soon enough and it’s best I appreciate these little unexpected weekends when they come. Spring is beautiful, too, its markets brimming with green and the last holdover apples from fall and the unexpected rainstorm to tide the fields over until they turn golden all too soon.

Often we wonder constantly about the next thing, the next meal, the unknown future that can both terrify and satisfy. Sometimes it’s important to take an hour to sit on the roof in the sun with the paper and a glass of cold water listening to the birds call and chatter to each other, simply being there in that very present moment and nothing else. And sometimes it’s important to save Sunday afternoons for slow roasting — beets, or dreams.

[First strawberries of spring, March 2009.]

It’s spring.

I went back to the Fillmore Farmers’ Market this morning after a too-long hiatus (baby, I’ll never cheat on you again, no, I swear) and it kind of blew my mind. I wandered around in a half-daze, dazzled by the new strawberries, asparagus for $2 a bunch, radishes plump and bursting. I went to my favorite guy and could not help telling him “It’s beautiful! All of this!” because, honestly, it was: crinkly bunches of red and green chard, spinach by the handful, celeriac rugged and stained with dirt, fat carrots cuddling up to each other in wide baskets, leeks, green green green in wide swaths across the tables.

“Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot.”

“No, seriously,” I said. “It’s all gorgeous. Wow.”

Then he told me this year he’ll have fingerling potatoes, all kinds, and I felt like I’d dissolve into the rain right there. I love fingerling potatoes and the farm from which I used to buy them doesn’t come to that market anymore; I’ve been sorely missing them for well over a year. Now, however, if I can just hold on ’til the end of May my longing will at last be requited.

My haul: one bunch asparagus, one avocado, one basket strawberries, new potatoes, one cauliflower, small bit of spinach, one bunch Italian chard, one bunch radishes, one carrot, a few broccoli, one dozen organic, fresh eggs. This all cost me about $20 and the kid from whom I bought the asparagus thanked me cheerfully for coming out in the “sprinkles.” I think I loved that kid.

[First asparagus, March 2009.]

Oh, it’s spring.

It’s spring and chilly here in San Francisco and the sky is spitting down rain but I ran six miles anyway and talked to my best girl in London and did some writing and it was a good day. It’s spring and three years ago yesterday I moved back to California and the Obamas are putting a garden in the White House and I celebrated both these momentous occasions today with a bowl of asparagus and spinach soup.

When I read the NY Times story the other night that the first family will plant a garden at the White House for the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II I nearly leaped out of my chair. I’m sure I’m not quite as excited as Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, or those guys who drove a bus around the country advocating for a national garden, but I’m pretty darn excited. I love the impetus behind it, as reported in the Times:

“While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern. … Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. Virtually the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said with a laugh.”

This is the Edible Schoolyard taken to Washington on a grand scale, and it’s a powerful statement about the change needed in how we view food in the United States. It’s unbelievably fantastic that eating seasonally has been put in the spotlight by one of the most powerful people in the world and I can’t help but to hope it will trickle down to the greater population. Of course it’s impossible for every family to have a garden — I am mentally planning out my own plot for the day I have a bit of land to plant on but unfortunately that looks to be a ways off as I’m firmly entrenched in the city — but the idea of eating local, seasonal produce is the most important one. Even if we can’t grow the stuff ourselves it’s still very possible to take advantage of this concept by visiting your local farmers’ markets or even just making sure to buy locally-grown fruits and vegetables at the grocery store by looking at the labels.

It’s such a simple concept, really, to eat as people did for centuries by the turn of the seasons but along the way somehow it got trampled by the busy-ness of life and we forgot. The garden at the White House is a reminder that it’s important — so important — in terms of the environment and our own health.

In this spirit I came up with a sort of tribute to spring this afternoon — a bowl of vivid greens, punctuated by creamy white beans for a bit of protein. I used the first beautiful bunch of asparagus of the season (I tend to eat a whole lot of them around this time because they’re just so … gorgeous and exactly right), a bit of spinach and not much else. I left out the dairy and flavored my soup only with salt, pepper, and thyme; it was just right for this cold, gray day. March is not exactly going out like a lamb this year but there’s still a week left for it to sort itself out.

And it’s spring! Tomato season suddenly doesn’t feel like an impossibly far-off dream and everything is pretty much smooth sailing from now into the slow slide of summer.

Even if today felt like this

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

- Carl Sandburg, Fog

Asparagus and White Bean Soup

1 bunch asparagus
2 cups spinach
1/2 onion chopped

1 cup white beans drained and rinsed
4 cups water or vegetable broth
salt and pepper
pinch thyme (optional)

Sautee the onion in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the asparagus and water and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and cook for about 5 minutes until the asparagus starts getting tender. Add the spinach and more water if you like, then cover and simmer for five more minutes. Add the salt and pepper and thyme if using. Remove from heat.

With a stick blender or in a food processor blend the soup until smooth. Add the beans and return to the stove to reheat gently.