Vague Wisdom

Yesterday I got to hang out with wild_irises knocking around the ferry building in San Francisco. I had never actually been in the building before. Once last year I rode the ferry from Oakland to the ferry building and back. Because getting out of the ferry was so traumatic, I didn't bother getting out and looking around.

wild_irises and I hadn't been able to hang out much lately. While we were figuring out the logistics of getting together she mentioned a food store at the ferry building called Boccalone Salumeria. It happened that I had just seen a show on the Food Channel called The Best Thing I Ever Ate. On that show they featured Boccalone Salumeria and mentioned a meat cone that could be acquired there. I was immensely curious, I mean it was cured pig meat! How could you not want some of that? So we decided to check it out.

I got there a little early so I wandered around a little. Lots of fascinating food stores, bakeries, confectioners, restaurants they even had a store that just sold mushrooms. It was lunch hour so the place was pretty frenetic. I stopped by Recchiuti Confections and the store clerks were very helpful. They even helped me try a few samples. I ended up buying a few things there just because they made me feel so comfortable. Some chocolate covered cherries for loracs and a peanut butter cup for me. It was all good, but I'm a philistine and still probably prefer my Reese's. This opinion should only reflect my palate, Not the quality of the chocolate which is really good.

Anyway wild_irises arrived and and we headed for the pig! It turned out their meat cone was just a convenient way to sample some of their meets. You get three samples with a cone. So I tried their cone and wild_irises got a sample tray. They had a coke manufactured by Red Bull. The coke was less sweet than other colas I've had, but it had a bunch of other herbs and spices: cinnamon, clove, cardamom etc. I liked it being less sweet, but I could've used fewer spices. I liked the first sip and then was over it.

The meats were really quite good. I especially liked the salami (although it was called something else that I don't remember). It turned out to be exactly the amount of meat I wanted. Once we'd chosen our lunch we went out to the pier to eat. We spent a lovely half-hour watching the water and complaining about how health care reform was going here in the United States. After lunch I grabbed the chocolates and we sat in front of a Peet's coffee. It strikes me again how many relatively local things I should be taking advantage of. Makes me want to visit all kinds of places I haven't managed to check out yet in my own backyard. I think a wonderful day was had by all.