Surprises along Highway 1, and why driving slowly is a good thing

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

What do you do when you see this sort of thing through the windshield of your Volvo Cross Country as you’re driving 50 mph along Highway 1?

If you’re like me, you yell to your husband, “Grab your camera! This’ll make a great blog!” If you’re like my husband’s friend Peter, you say, “Camera? Forget that—grab the knife. This looks like good eats!” If you’re like my husband, you ignore your preposterous friend and listen to your wife, and dutifully snap a photo of the cow.

Then you inch closer to get a better shot (while your wife waves and gestures and smiles to the driver of the oncoming car in the other lane, who is just as amused as you are). And you note how nice everyone is, remembering how the driver of the car who crossed paths with you moments before let out a polite honk that you hadn’t understood at that moment but that made sense when you saw the cow. It was the “warning: cow crossing” honk.

And then you inch even closer, to get a really good look at this bovine breaker of CHP laws. What is this dude doing way up on this vertiginous cliff? You can’t really blame him, though, the views are so incredible up here.

And then you drive on, shrugging your shoulders and chalking it up to life here in sunny California, where even the cows like to be nonconformists.

My new favorite town along the Mendocino coast: Gualala

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

When we were packing up to head to the little coastal town of Gualala for Memorial Day weekend, I wasn’t entirely sure I knew where Gualala was, even though, truth be told, I edited a story about this rugged stretch of the Sonoma Coast just a couple of years ago.

Nor did I know how to pronounce Gualala. Do you?

In case your answer was no, Gualala is just north of Sea Ranch Lodge, about an hour south of Mendocino. And it’s NOT pronounced GWA-la-la. It’s wa-LA-la. Locals are adamant about that. I saw a license plate that said GWAA-LA-LA. Damn, I should have photographed that. Anyway, now I’m in love with Gualala. Here’s why.

Reason #1. The drive to get there is spectacular. This is the kind of scenery I like to use to prove to my New York in-laws that they're missing out.

Reason #2. It’s got stunning little beaches that no one goes to. Like the one just down the road from the house we rented. We were the only ones there. Us and the sand crabs, actually.

The sand crabs made a fine appetizer later that evening. My husband gathered a bunch and held them captive in his new Real Deal hat. The hat, by the way, was one of the best pieces of swag I've received in a long time. It's made of recycled tarps from Brazil and is not only an ecologically genius idea but also sort of sexy. Don't you think?

My husband's friend Peter pretended to eat a crab raw, just to freak out my kids. (I don’t think the crabs thought the hat was so sexy, by the way.)

Reason #3. It’s abalone divers’ heaven. (Please don’t ask me for details or my husband will never speak to me again.)

Reason #4. It’s got a gorgeous county park, Gualala Point County Park, with a spectacular blufftop trail that I got to run along yesterday. The trail cuts through Sea Ranch Lodge property, so you get to enjoy the lucky Sea Ranch dwellers’ views without having to pay to stay there. I made sure not to stray from the well-trodden path for fear of being shot (signs all along the way remind you not to trespass) as I drank in dizzying views of the ocean and the sweet-honey smell of yellow lupine.

Reason #4. One of the coast’s best restaurants, Pangaea, is right in town.

Reason #5. The absolute most amazing beach I’ve ever been to, Bowling Ball Beach, is 15 minutes away.

Tune in tomorrow for more on the bowling balls, plus the most unusual experience I’ve ever had on a California highway...

'Tis the season for bachelorette parties—and Bass Lake, in Bolinas, California

By Rachel Levin, Sunset senior editor

I remember, not too long ago, when Bass Lake—a rare, swimmable body of water in West Marin, reachable by a 3-mile hike along the coastal Palomarin Trail—was a secret. Or at least it felt like a secret... I’ve skinny-dipped there on second dates (bold, I know); dog-paddled in the rain with old boyfriends; lounged on blow-up rafts gossiping with girlfriends... Each time, we’d have the shrub-enshrouded lake all to ourselves, treading sparkling black water, leaping off the rope swing, feeling like the carefree kids we used to be. (And, of course, getting poison oak from the overgrown path to the water every time.)

This past weekend, though, I went back to Bass Lake for a friend’s bachelorette party. (Vegas, obviously, isn't our style.) We rolled in mid-morning, our cars covered in dust from the long dirt road, to a sea of other dusty cars which would multiply by noon. (Looking for parking to spend a day outdoors has gotta be one of my biggest pet peeves, but such is life in the beautiful Bay Area.)

Still, we hiked, chatted, laughed, complained about how damn hot out it was and how we couldn’t wait to jump in. We were one of the early groups to arrive, so we were able to spread our picnic blanket in one of the few shady areas left. (The picnic, by the way, was a Sunset spread. Not my doing, I swear! The party organizer organized a potluck: grilled buttermilk chicken, corn and arugula salad, spiced cornmeal pound cake. A few bottles of reisling recommended, as is the entire menu. Click here for recipes.

If you haven't been to Bass Lake, a few things to note: 1) Lest you think there’s a long, sandy beach to lounge on, there’s not—just a dry plateau with a few scrambles leading down to the water. 2) The ranger, unfortunately, just cut the rope swing when we were there. (Maybe someone will tie a new one...) 3) The launching areas are pretty tight, and skinnydippers do occasionally take over, so it can get kinda awkwardly crowded down there. Just so you know.

A writer actually pitched Bass Lake as a “secret” for our July SECRETS issue—coming soon to a newsstand near you—but we axed it because, well, it’s just not anymore. But don’t let that deter you. It's still one of the very best ways to spend a summery day in the Bay Area. That parking lot is crowded for a reason. Just get there early enough to score a spot.

Why everyone should bike to work, and the wonders of Highway 35

By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor

Did you ride your bike to work today? You’d better have answered yes. It is national Bike to Work day, after all. But even if it weren’t, biking to work is simply the cool thing to do. Here’s why.

1. You’ll see things from a whole new perspective. Like Crystal Springs Reservoir (shown above; photo by Kevin Collins), which most people know only as the blur they speed by en route to or from work on Interstate 280.

2. You'll discover things you never knew about. I usually ride my bike 25 miles to work from Burlingame to Menlo Park along Skyline Drive and Canada Road (which is especially fun to ride on Sundays, when it's closed to traffic—but it's not bad on weekdays either). But this morning, to mix things up in honor of Bike to Work day, I tried a new route: Highway 92 (toward Half Moon Bay) to Highway 35. This is a stunning road unbelievably woodsy and untrafficked. It's edged by redwood forests, horse pastures, and tempting-looking open-space trails, with views of the Peninsula shimmering below.

2. You might discover the town of your dreams, and decide your life’s destiny. This happened to me, just this morning. I decided, right there on my bike, that when the time is right I’m moving to Woodside so I can see this beauty every day, and hang out at the legendary Alice's restaurant (pictured at left), where bikers of all kinds congregate.

3. You can let your mind have a rest, and dream up trippy thoughts, while your legs do the work. I rode my bike 35 miles to work along Highway 35. I swear, I did 35 along Highway 35—how weird is that? This is better than drugs!

4. Speaking of legs, riding to work will make them look better than you ever imagined they could. Why do you think I’m a devoted Tour de France spectator? So I can gape at all those gorgeous legs!

5. You can build up major karma points by treading as lightly as it’s possible to tread as a commuter. Biking to work is even greener than carpooling, or taking the train. The only gas you’re burning is your own.

6. You can burn enough calories to justify having an extra grande latte when you get to work. Or an extra homemade corn dog, which is what was being served in Sunset’s test kitchen this morning. (You can check out our test kitchen, and you should—it has nine stoves!—at this year's Sunset Celebration Weekend.

Ready to try it? Post your comments on your most beautiful ride to work. We’d love to hear from you.

My Virgin voyage

By Rachel Levin, Sunset senior editor

Why do I love Virgin America? You know, Richard Branson’s new low-cost airline aimed to “make flying good again.”

Oh, let me count the ways:

1. They roll out the red carpet. Literally. When I first walked into the sprawling San Francisco International Terminal, I had no clue where to find the Virgin America ticket counter. Late for my flight to New York City (I’m always late), I searched frantically, feeling like a 4-yr-old lost in Grand Central Station. And then, I caught sight of a true oasis among the chaos: a cushy red carpet and a hotel-lobby-like-table topped with an oversized vase of white orchids. (Okay, they're fake, but, still...) There were plenty of open kiosks, plus a friendly woman there to help walk me through the touch-screen. How pleasant!

2. They set the mood. No piercing lights in this Airbus. Instead, a purplish glow and comfy black leather seats (white leather—plus massage—in first class), create a calm, lounge-like atmosphere never before experienced at 39,000 feet. (The bathroom isn't bad either; they've got Method products and everything.)

3. They look good. Flight attendants aren’t dressed in some stiff, navy polyester throwback outfit with stockings, scarves, and nursing sneakers. Men wear black button downs (Johnny Cash-style); women wear white.

4. They keep you entertained. Not with a mandatory viewing of “Everybody Loves Raymond” or a grainy VHS version of “Astronaut Farmer”—but with essentially anything you want. Thanks to "Red"— your very own iMac-of-an-entertainment center. “The Office!” “30 Rock!” First-run movies on demand! (for a fee, of course, but who cares.) Video games! Seat-to-seat chat. (If you don’t like the guy drooling next to you, make a new friend.) And, best of all, a library of 3,000 songs—from Bjork to Beethoven to female folkies like Patty Griffin (my fave); listening to a crystal-clear recording of Patty’s “Trapeze” at lift-off, normally a kind of a tense time, I couldn’t have been happier.

5. And well-fed. Whenever you’re hungry, not when the stinky cart clunks by. Instead, just scroll through the touchstone menu for fresh, organic fare: yogurt parfait... caprese sandwich...fruit and cheese plate (gouda, manchego, Brie)...Swipe your credit card and food arrives within minutes. (First-class gets tapas like marinated bocconcini with peppadew peppers; Italian salametti with artichoke and roasted tomato; Louisiana crab salad.) Thirsty? Just grab as many mini-bottles of water as you want, from the always-stocked cubby hole in the back.

6. Best of all, they have the best safety video of all time. My favorite line? “For that .001 % of you who don’t know how to buckle a seatbelt...” Can’t wait to see it? Click here to watch now.

Virgin America currently flies to 7 cities with daily flights from: San Francisco (SFO) to Los Angeles (LAX), SFO to New York City (JFK), SFO to San Diego (SAD), SFO to Washington, D.C. (IAD), SFO to Las Vegas (LAS), LAX to JFK, LAX to IAD— and, this spring, they launched flights from San Francisco to Seattle and Los Angeles to Seattle. With more on the way!

Seeing double on San Francisco's Nob Hill

by MacKenzie Geidt, Sunset assistant travel editor

I'm a San Francisco native.  Born and raised.  But I STILL manage to get a thrill every time I experience a sighting.  I'm not talking about anything extraterrestrial, or your garden variety celebrities.  I'm talking about THE TWINS! San Francisco's Brown Twins!  And if you're on Nob Hill, or The Nob, as I like to call it, you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of these 81-year-old San Francisco icons.

Last night....I got lucky.  I caught Marian and Vivian in their leopard cowgirl splendor!

I was in the middle of devouring the most amazing salami pizza at Nob Hill Cafe (an adorable neighborhood nook with truly truly exceptional Italian fare--they deserve their own un-twin-focused posting), and my heart stopped when, lo and behold, the twins walked in!

Let's be serious...who the heck are these ladies?  Well, according to Wikipedia, you might recognize them from a slew of television commercials, even a cameo in the movie Nine to Five. The San Francisco Chronicle awarded them the "Best Local Character" in 2000 (they even beat Robin Williams!), and they've also won "most identical"  at  twin conventions.   (TWIN CONVENTIONS?)  In any case, Marian and Vivian have dressed alike since birth, and they've only been apart for 3 weeks total.  Wow.  (You can't really hold twins to the same co-dependency standards as the rest of us...) 

Apparently the gals have a standing Tuesday night date at Nob Hill Cafe, so you'll probably see them in their window seat if you walk by.... (or if you eat there, which you should since the food is amazing...)

Do me a favor--if you see them, let us know!  Let's record all the fun places that we see them around town.

And because I just can't resist, here's them cutting a caper near the Transamerica Pyramid. 
                                            Vive the Twins!

Coming attraction: San Francisco’s spectacular new Academy of Sciences

By Peter Fish, Sunset Editor-at-Large

I just had a back-stage tour of the new California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park, the Renzo Piano-designed, sustainable, grass-roofed shrine to scientific inquiry set to open in late September.  I didn’t get to wear a hard hat, but otherwise the tour was great.

Here’s what I learned.

The Swamp lives. The ornate pit that houses the Academy’s alligators is still there, a pleasingly dank and crepuscular focal point for the new piazza at the building’s center. Now, however, you can also go downstairs and peer at the alligators underwater, just like you were at some 60s Mad Men poolside cocktail lounge where you gaped through portholes at synchronized swimmers. Except that these are alligators, and you’re not drinking a mai tai.   

The African Hall is still there. “We did lots of focus groups,” Stephanie Stone, the Academy’s Director of Communications told me.   “People loved the alligators and they loved the African Hall. We had to keep those.” In the hall’s case, all the dioramas have been carefully restored; the largest of them will now hold actually living (as opposed to taxidermied) African penguins, splashing around in an actual (as opposed to painted) pool. 

The Foucault Pendulum still swings. For the reasons noted above. People love a pendulum, even if nobody knows who Foucault was. 

Everything else about the Academy is new and pretty damn spectacular. The piazza is light-filled and gives you the sense of still being out in Golden Gate Park even though you’re inside a building. Housed in a four-story dome, the walk-through Rainforests of the World lets you travel from the Amazon to Borneo to Madagascar to Costa Rica, all of them suitably humid. The Philippine Coral Reef is the second largest living coral reef exhibit in the world. On my visit it was one of the few exhibits with some animals already in occupancy: rays and skates zipping around looking elegant and menacing in the way rays and skates do. (The rest of the Academy’s 38,000 living fish and reptiles and insects and birds will arrive over the next few months, transported from the Academy’s temporary downtown S.F. location and elsewhere. And you thought your moves were a pain..)

As the literal and figurative topper, there’s the Academy’s Living Roof, which has already drawn major press attention: 2.5 sustainable, eco-friendly rooftop acres planted in native California grasses and flowers. What’s great is that observation platforms let you look at the roof close up. And even now, when the plants aren’t fully grown in, it’s beguiling: a whimsical Teletubby-like landscape nonetheless tied to its site, the undulations echoing the topography of Twin Peaks and Golden Gate Heights just to the south. I’ve found the location for this year’s family Christmas card. (If you want to know more about grass roofs, check out Sunset’s 2007 story, Eaves of Grass.)

The Academy is set to open September 27. For updates, visit www.calacademy.org

Annie Liebovitz: a life in photos

By Julie Chai, Sunset associate garden editor

I know little about photography, and even less about who’s who in the field. But I love Annie Leibovitz and her work, so when I heard she was having an exhibit at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, I wanted to be first in line to see it.

At the recent media preview, Leibovitz led a tour through the exhibit which is like a visual time capsule containing some of our collective cultural history from 1990 to 2005. Well-known faces look out from the 200-plus photos—a once-radical shot of pregnant Demi Moore from 1991, the Clintons, W and crew, the Queen, and scores of other actors, musicians, and public figures.

But the collection is also a snapshot of Leibovitz’s private life during those years. Interspersed amongst the famous faces are intensely moving images documenting her personal history with shots like those we might have in our own family albums: her pregnancy, the birth of her children, Susan Sontag going through chemo, her parents’ 50th anniversary, her father’s death. Leibovitz discussed having misgivings about sharing these, saying she opened herself up in a way she’ll probably never do again. About a portrait of her mother, she said, “It may be the best picture of the show, it may be the best picture of my life.”

San Francisco is the last U.S. stop of the exhibit’s tour before it heads overseas. Be sure to see it before it ends on May 25.

Epic burger

By Rachel Levin, Sunset senior editor

Pat Kuleto’s new restaurant Epic Roasthouse opened in January, gussying-up a long-abandoned stretch of San Francisco’s waterfront. Smack between the ballpark and the Ferry Building Marketplace, the sprawling steak palace boasts prime views of the sparkling bay—and, in the Quiver Bar upstairs, one of the best burgers in the city.

Behold! the “Ultimate ¾ Pound Roasthouse Burger”

Here’s the breakdown:

The beef: A messy, steak-sized slab of, well, steak trimmings: tenderloin, New York Strip, rib eye, Porterhouse, from Coleman Ranch in Colorado, patted into a 3/4 lb hamburger fit for Fred Flinstone—and foodies with cavernous stomachs.

The bun: Thick slices of lightly grilled brioche, from the Bay Area's PAN-o-RAMA Bakery.

The accoutrements: A too-tiny side of anchovy-spiked ketchup, plus a pencil-thin wooden platter lined with ramekins filled with real bacon bits, sauteed mushrooms, garlic aioli, stone-ground mustard, and a fresh corn "chow chow," inspired by chef Jan Birnbaum’s New Orleans roots.

The bucks: $25 — and worth every penny.

Photo credit: Mark Leet

Honoring an icon in Marin

By Peter Fish, editor-at-large, Sunset Magazine

For his fans—and there are a lot of them, even 15 years after his death—Wallace Stegner was the West. In biographies like Beyond the Hundredth Meridian and novels like Angle of Repose, Stegner showed how our past inspired and haunted our present. In more polemical works (mostly magazine and newspaper pieces) he condemned the way the West’s wasteful use of its resources threatened both its natural beauty and, ultimately, its future.

This month is a bonanza for Stegner readers. (And, if you aren’t one, it may provide reasons to join the crew.)  Up in Marin County, the estimable Point Reyes Books and the equally estimable Marin Agricultural Land Trust (which has preserved some 40,000 acres of farmland over the last 28 years) is sponsoring The Geography of Hope, a three-day conference on Stegner’s life and work. Guests include Stegner’s novelist son Page, U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Haas, and a number of other noted Western writers. The setting—the green hills around Point Reyes Station—is the living embodiment of the conference’s title, which is taken from one of Stegner’s most famous descriptions of his home region.

The roster of conference speakers also includes author Philip Fradkin, whose new Stegner biography—Wallace Stegner and the American West—is out this month. Fradkin, who has written fine books on the West's volatile natural history— A River No More, about the Colorado River,   Wildest Alaska  and The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906—takes on a seemingly more sedentary subject here. Biographies of writers are notoriously problematic, because what writers mainly do is write, think about writing, and distract themselves from writing.  Sometimes the “distract themselves from writing” periods can include forays into alcoholism and adultery, and these  can spice up the pages for awhile. But eventually, it’s back to the Smith-Corona, or, now, the iMac, and the reader longs to read about, say, Bonnie and Clyde or Paris Hilton.

Luckily for Fradkin, Stegner had a long and eventful life.  As any reader of his memoir, Wolf Willow, or his autobiographical novel, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, knows, his childhood was hardscrabble, rootless, and shadowed by a ne’er-do-well father, all of which makes for good reading. If Fradkin’s accounts of rivalries within the Stanford English Department, where Stegner taught for years, are probably only interesting to people who spent time around the Quad (Ok, I admit, I’m one of them), the analyses of Stegner’s conservation battles make the issues seem urgent even today. As, indeed, most of them are.

So buy the biography. And, this weekend, consider heading up to Marin County to hear some of the West’s best contemporary writers discuss one of the West’s best writers of all time.   

What to do this weekend

By Peter Fish, Sunset Editor-at-Large

Thomas Moran, "Toltec Gorge, Colorado" 1881
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Not every art exhibition doubles as a summer vacation planner. But Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape does just that. The show, which comes from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan, is now on view (through May 4) at Stanford University’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts.

As Tourism and the American Landscape reminds you, Church and Homer and Moran were sort of the Travel Channel of their era. Working in engraving and water color and oil, they showed 19th century Americans how wild and beautiful their country was, from the coast of Maine (Homer) to the Hudson Valley (Church) to the Rocky Mountains (Moran) and Yosemite Valley (photographer Carlton Watkins).  Once they saw the art, Americans clamored to see the real thing. Which as it happens is one reason Sunset Magazine is here—we started out as a magazine for tourists traveling west on the Southern Pacific’s Sunset Limited.

Tourism and the American Landscape will probably stir some dreams of travel in you, too. Stroll, relax  (in a very nice touch) in one of gallery’s Adirondack chairs, admire the art. If you’re like us, it will be about 30 seconds before you start thinking, I could squeeze in a Yosemite visit sometime in April..

What to do this weekend

By Peter Fish, Sunset editor-at-large

We've talked about it before on this blog. But as a three-time hunt veteran, I'm going to say that Jayson Wechter's Chinese New Year's Treasure Hunt — which happens this coming Saturday — is one of the best things you can do in San Francisco, or anywhere. Where else can you indulge your inner Sam Spade (or Scooby-Doo) and hot-foot it through Chinatown, North Beach, and the San Francisco waterfront in search of clues?

Has our team (a motley assortment of adults and kids) ever won, even in our supposedly easy beginner division? Well, no. But we don't care. The hunt is its own reward.

When: February 23, 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Where: Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market Street (at Market and the Embarcadero)
Cost: $30 per person through January 31; $35 per person from February 1 to 21; $40 at the door

Calling all gumshoes

SAN FRANCISCO

What: You could celebrate the Year of the Rat by checking out San Francisco's Chinese New Year parade. But word on the street is that the real fun happens during the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, which happens on the same night. It's a heart-pounding, mind-bending "urban sleuthing adventure" that sends you and your team of friends scurrying through the streets and back alleys of Chinatown, North Beach and Telegraph Hill to solve clues leading to hidden landmarks, long-lost architectural wonders and remnants of the city's vibrant history. You have four hours to crack 16 riddles, and you don't have to be an expert on the city's history. But you'll probably want to bring a flashlight, warm clothes, a good pair of shoes, and an adventurous spirit.

Why we love it: It not only sounds fun, but the proceeds also go to charity.
When: February 23, 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Where: Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market Street (at Market and the Embarcadero)
Cost: $30 per person through January 31; $35 per person from February 1 to 21; $40 at the door

—Stephanie Soong, Sunset  Magazine

Jazzed about Yoshi’s San Francisco

By Rachel Levin, Sunset associate travel editor

It was a sea of blazers, beautiful people, and cocktail servers delivering stiff martinis —along with low-sodium soy and Rainbow Rolls—to the sold-out crowd at Yoshi’s opening night on Wednesday.

Folks of all ages filed in— $100 tickets in hand—to San Francisco’s swank new two-story jazz club, anchoring tenant of the $75 million Fillmore Heritage Center. A construction worker fiddled in the yet-to-be-finished foyer, and the adjoining sushi restaurant was still days from opening, but no one cared. We were here for a celebratory night of jazz—and to toast the Fillmore District’s return to its swinging 1950s  roots.

Legendary 82-year-old drummer Roy Haynes, all smiles in brown velvet pants, assembled the super-star septet “Birds of Feather” especially for opening night: pianist David Kikoski, bassist John Patitucci, saxophonist Kenny Garret, double-fisting vibraphonist Gary Burton, trumpter Nicholas Payton, plus tenor sax Ravi Coltrane (son of John). The group packed plenty of energy into their hour-and-a-half set (with another show scheduled for 10 p.m.), riffing on everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Charlie Parker— moving the audience to their feet and begging for more.   

“Ah, I love it!” Haynes cried into the mic, following Ravi Coltrane’s soulful sax rendition of Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now.”

So do we.

Let’s give a warm welcome back to the Harlem of the West.

Check Yoshi's for calendar and ticket prices.

Photo Credit Stu Brinin

Lights Out, uh huh

By Rachel Levin, associate travel editor

In honor of Lights Out San Francisco (as well as a fridge full of beer leftover from a recent party), my husband and I invited a few friends over Saturday night. The plan was simple: Little Star Pizza (best deep-dish in the Bay Area, by the way) by candlelight. Lucky to live on top of Mount Olympus—a quiet, steep-hill-of-a-neighboorhood, smack in the middle of the city and home to killer views—we had, uh, high hopes that we’d have a perfect vantage point for appreciating the darkened city. Per Lights Out organizer Nate Tyler, we obediently switched off all of our lights promptly at 8pm, toasted to energy conservation, and waited for the city to go dark for the hour.

8:04 pm, we could still see into our neighbors' windows. 8:11pm, the bright lights at the apparently empty Kezar Stadium were still on, as was the neon-red Bambino’s sign and entire business strip of Cole Valley below. We wondered if we were the only ones in the city participating, so we scurried up to the roofdeck to take in the almost 360-degree view of the city. Below, streetlamps glowed but--ah! our faith in our fellow citizens was restored. City Hall was dark! As was what we could make out of the Transamerica Building.

Meanwhile, a few miles away in Dolores Park, another friend was dressed up as a panda, passing out info about World Wildlife Fund, and rousing the crowd of roughly 500 folks who had gathered in the park for Lights Out revelry. All in all, the city lights were dimmed, at best, and it seemed to be the mostly Biodiesel-driving-Blue Bottle Coffee-drinking set who participated, but, of course, change takes time. And a little more advertising. But it’s a start! No doubt, Lights Out will soon be a national phenomenon. The next one is scheduled for March 29, 2008 (8-9pm); so far at least 11 other cities have signed on, including Seattle, Los Angeles, and Denver. At 9pm, although our Lights Out duty was done, we happily polished off our pizza, and beer, in the dark.

And, you know what? Even with our new low-watt flourescent bulbs firmly plugged in, we dined by candlelight the next night, too.

San Francisco's October surprise

By Peter Fish, Sunset editor-at-large

October is the glory month in San Francisco.

All summer, the city has been taunting tourists and residents both with foggy day after unrelenting foggy day. July? Don’t think shorts, think Polar fleece. August? Forget the backyard barbecue, how about some nice hot soup. Even September can be iffy, swiveling between sunlit and grim.

But in October San Francisco shimmers, sparkles, gleams like a Technicolor version of itself.

Of the venues where you can bask in San Francisco’s October surprise--i.e.sunshine and views-- one tops them all: a small patch of green, in the northwest corner of the city,  called Sutro Heights Park.

The park is named for  Adolf Sutro. The German-born “King of the Comstock,” he made a pile of money as a mining engineer in the Gold Rush, then parlayed his wealth into a San Francisco career as politician (he became mayor in 1894) and philanthropist. In the 1880s he built a large Victorian mansion on this promontory overlooking Land’s End and invited the public to enjoy its gardens. The house fell into disrepair after Sutro’s death and was eventually demolished, but the park is still there, now managed by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The bits of remaining statuary (stone lions,  Diana the huntress) and the ruins of Sutro’s belvedere should give the place a mournful air. But the lawns are too green, the romping dogs and children are too happy, and the views—across Land’s End and out to the vast Pacific—too astonishing to inspire brooding.

San Francisco is of course a city famous for its views. But most of these views are of San Francisco looking at itself.  Twin Peaks looks down on the Castro, Pacific Heights looks down on the Marina, and Nob Hill looks down on everybody. This helps nurture the city’s deserved reputation for narcissistic self-regard. At Sutro Heights Park you look out across blue ocean to the very edge of the world. It’s pretty damn exhilarating.

Afterwards, follow a dirt path down to another landmark in this part of the city, Louis’ Cafe. This brick-fronted shack perched over Land’s End has been serving All-American breakfasts and lunches (I like breakfasts best) for decades. It has cheery uniformed waitresses, fake wood Formica tables, and views almost as good as you get at Sutro Heights Park, but this time with eggs and coffee.

Pirates

By Peter Fish, Sunset editor-at-large

Partly because last Wednesday was Talk Like a Pirate Day, and partly because we were about to journey to a TOP SECRET EVENT THAT WILL BE FEATURED IN SUNSET NEXT YEAR, my son and I made our way down to 826 Valencia Street in San Francisco and Dave Eggers’ Pirate Supply Store. We wanted to acquire pirate accoutrements and attitude—not so much Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow as, say, Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. 

You should go, too. Yeah, 2007’s Talk Like a Pirate Day is past, but it’s not too soon to prepare for 2008’s, and Halloween is coming up. And, in a larger sense, shouldn’t every day be pirate day? 

Because 826 Valencia is a pretty great place.  Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the more recent What is the What and the creator of McSweeney's magazine and has just won a Heinz Award. The main business of 826 Valencia is instilling a love for literature and writing in kids age 6 to 16. So don’t come here expecting cheesy Halloween Headquarters polyester pantaloons and plastic swords.

Instead the mood is quirky and quizzical. You can buy peg legs and nicely sewn pirate shirts, also pieces of eight and the requisite eye patches, not to mention glass eyes. But there are also cabinets filled with items that look like oddities brought back from a long sea voyages, and a fair number of surprises. Take, for example, that sign that reads I WAS MOPPED. WHY? WHY ME?

What could that mean?  I am here to affirm that I know, but I am not going to tell you. As Jack Sparrow or Peter Blood must have said somewhere,  there are some voyages you must make yourself.

Eat right with tablehopper

By Samantha Schoech, Sunset senior editor

San Francisco is a foodie town.  We’re down with the local thing, the slow thing, the speakeasy thing.  We even do foams. Keeping track of where to eat can be a little bit like parsing out the popular crowd in high school (Steffie hates Jenny because of Todd, but Todd still love Tanya, even though she’s now dating Jason.)    Sometimes you just want a fabulous meal, never mind what the cheerleaders think.

Enter the tablehopper, your guide to all things restaurant and food related in San Francisco.  Dining dynamo Marcia Gagliardi (pictured here) is not a reviewer or a critic.  She’s just an immeasurably friendly (how else to account for her knowing absolutely everyone who has ever touched a saucepan) girl who likes to eat.  And she’s fun to read.

Even if you couldn't care less about who is now making desserts at Myth or which sommelier recently jumped ship at Cortez, you will care about her enthusiastic restaurant write-ups that serve as a  guide to eating your way through the city. And if you don’t see anything that appeals on this week’s entry, simply email the “tip, please” section with a little bit about what you’re looking for (say you need to take your in-laws out for seafood but want to avoid Pier 39) and she will find you the perfect restaurant, often with some insidery info or instructions to say hello to the chef. She can even help with suggestions in other towns (on a recent trip to New York, I took her advice and impressed my Manhattanite friends with my sophisticated palate and off-the-beaten-track savvy).

Once you’re hooked, dining without her will seem in terribly poor taste.

ALEMBIC

By Peter Fish, Sunset editor-at-large

Dick Dale’s tragic surf guitar is playing from the speakers. The guy on the barstool next to me studies the menu and asks, Where are the light beers? He appears not to be joking. Dude, I want to say, this is not the place for light beer. This is the place for serious drinks, drinks to make you forget every woman who ever dumped you and every precious dream that ever died. And maybe make you remember the one dream that might yet live. 

The place is Alembic, on San Francisco’s Haight Street. A year old, it’s the best bar I’ve been into in a decade. The name has its pretensions—“alembic,” as you may know but I sure didn’t, refers to an antique method of distilling liquor.  And certainly the ambiance (as people who know the definition of alembic like to say) is a lot classier than the scruffy block of Haight it calls home.

But when it comes to drinks, Alembic is the real deal. Consider this: a menu of three dozen bourbons,  a dozen American ryes, a roster of single malts that runs from highlands to lowlands and back again. Cocktails? Alembic does the classics—the Sazerac, the Martini—expertly. And its New School cocktails are, mostly, things a grown-up might actually want to drink, like the rye-and-bitters Vow of Silence. I go for The Blood and Sand—“alluring as Rita Hayworth, but this femme fatale kicks like a bull”—and follow it with a Manhattan.

By now the guy next to me has gotten into the Alembic spirit. He’s working on a gin Bee’s Knees, and telling his two buddies, “What I really want to do is start a Heli-snowboarding company. Like Heli-skiing. But with snowboards.” Now the speakers are playing a mournful version of the Hawaii 5-0 theme, as if Steve McGarrett and Wo Fat had both sat down at the bar to share sorrows. Book ‘em, Danno, let’s hear more about the snowboards, and order me another Blood and Sand.

San Francisco for kindergarteners

By Samantha Schoech, Sunset interim senior editor

Last summer, in an effort to lure my niece out to San Francisco, I may have told Bethany, then five, that in California our streets are paved with candy.  I might have also insinuated that out of our taps flows chocolate milk.  And now she was finally coming, and although the Hetch Hetchy water that does flow forth from our spigots is very good indeed, I was afraid she might be disappointed in our fair city.

And, we didn’t get off to a great start.  Her first words upon arrival?  “I want to see the golden bridge!”  I winced.  “Golden” as metaphor is simply not impressive to a six-year-old who just flew in from Philadelphia to see a 14 karat gold bridge.

In an effort to prevent further let-downs, I planned a frenetically fun itinerary sure to impress the kindergarten set. 

Day One
Morning Plan: The Discovery Museum.  I had never been but according to all my friends under ten, it is the place to be.  I seemed to remember something about being able to dissect owl poop for mouse bones or something--as good a reason as any to take a drive. The outing had the added benefit of taking us across the Golden Gate Bridge, an anti-climax I just wanted to get out of the way.

The Result: With much prompting from mom, Bethany pretended to think the Golden Gate Bridge was cool.  No such cajoling about the Discovery Museum was needed.  We heart the Discovery Museum.  In fact, we joined, right there on the spot.  It’s hard to describe why this place is so great but suffice to say that many of the employees seem to play guitar, the views of the city and the bay and the bridge are fantastic, and the cafeteria serves Niman Ranch hot dogs and organic salads.  I didn’t, however, notice any owl poop, but like I said, we had a schedule to keep, so I may have missed it.

Afternoon Plan: Swimming in Aquatic Park.  Ok, this one was sort of a Tom Sawyer thing.  My husband is training for the Tiburon Mile swim and his plan was to swim in the bay while Bethany pranced around on the tiny beach at the South End Rowing Club and our twins ate sand.  Fair enough.

The Result: Despite what the members of the South End Rowing Club say, 60 degree water is not warm.  This fact was not lost on Bethany, who did five minutes of splashing before deciding her uncle Pete was crazy and giving up the ghost.  She discovered the wonders of a nice hot sauna while Pete swam his laps and the twins tried really hard to fling themselves off the dock and into the freezing water.

The real high-point of this particular outing was our detour into Ghirardelli Square and the newly opened outpost of Kara’s Cupcakes.  We ordered five: a chocolate coconut with cream cheese frosting, a buttermilk vanilla, two Ghirardelli chocolates and a raspberry dazzle.  We ate them.  Then we went back in and ordered a half-dozen to go.  You know that saying, “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels”?  Well, it’s not true.

Day Two
Morning Plan: The newly renovated Children’s Quarter in Golden Gate Park.  It’s a wonder of sand and swings and slides.  Truly the best playground I have ever seen.  There’s even a “creek” oozing through the sand where kids can get wet and build sandcastles.  Did I mention the historic carousel?  Really, the place is cool.

The Result: When I made this plan I was unaware that Bethany, at six, considers playgrounds to be for little kids.  “Just wait” I kept saying, with more bravado than I felt (I could be creating another “streets of candy” situation).  All I can say is thank god for the cement slides, which Bethany thoroughly enjoyed until she slipped off her piece of cardboard and skinned her knee.  Fun while it lasted.  And the twins got to eat more sand and master the baby slide.

Afternoon Plan: The Park Chalet. Yes, it’s a bar.  But it’s a very family-friendly bar.  In fact, the Park Chalet is so packed with toddlers and dogs on the weekends that people have taken to calling it Day Care.  Lawn, sun, and house-brewed beer smack up against Golden Gate Park.  Bethany even found some kids to explore the woods with.

Result: “Beth, don’t you love that place?” I asked as we left.
“Those kids were only four.  It was boring.”
“Well, I thought it was fun.”
“That’s because you guys were drinking beer.”
The kid’s got a point.

Day Three
Morning Plan: The Zoo.  Since Bethany has a membership to the Philadelphia Zoo, I had to tempt her with animals we have that they don’t.  I tried to convince her she would get to see a heffalope but she wasn’t buying.  The new grizzly exhibit and koala bears would have to do.

Result: The koalas were the big hit--cute and close up and yawning.  The grizzlies just weren’t big enough to impress her, although I was mesmerized.  But she did really enjoy her hot pretzel.  I’m not sure what she thought of the petting zoo because I was too distracted trying to keep my children from whacking the poor goats with their plastic rakes.

Afternoon Plan: Back to Aquatic Park.  This time to “see the sea lions.”  Read: Pete wanted to swim.

Result: While Pete did his swim again, we parted the crowds at Fisherman’s Wharf with our double stroller in order to get to Pier 39 to see the sea lions. We arrived, cold and irritated and watched the sea lions for about five minutes before we turned around and headed back through the throngs.  Sea lions are cool and everything, but not quite cool enough to get me back to Fisherman’s Wharf in mid-summer with a double-wide stroller anytime soon.  To my mind, and to Bethany’s too, the coolest part about the sea lions is their proximity to unbelievable cupcakes.  Yes.  We had more.

Mangamania

By Peter Fish Sunset editor-at-large

“Do you know how to read manga?” my son asked.
No.
“Do you even know how to pronounce manga?”
No.

Having been thoroughly dissed by a 10-year-old, I should have given up taking my son to Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. But I figured dads shouldn’t get discouraged so easily.

And once at the exhibit, the first thing I saw was a sign welcoming people just like me. “Manga,” it read, “You can’t figure out out to pronounce it, let alone define it..You’ve seen it on TV, in books, but its essence eludes you.”

It was like stepping into a copy of Manga for Dummies. They were talking to me.

Manga is the Japanese cartoon art, and it's pronounced Mahn-gah and read backwards, up-down but right-left. It tends to feature characters with giant eyes and spiked hair engaged in life-and-death battles whose roots are incomprehensible to grown-ups. And manga is all around us, especially if you’re a parent of a boy. Open the mail and there’s the monthly copy of Shonen Jump Magazine, turn on TV and there’s Yu-gi-Oh or Dragon Ball Z. Walk into the kid’s bedroom (at least into the bedroom of the kid I know best) and it’s slick with a shiny carpet of Naruto cards.

This is what the exhibit—which is running through September 9—celebrates, and it does a good job. At the Manga Lounge, you can read manga, watch manga, attempt to draw your own manga, and even admire a replica kid’s room that is not unlike my son’s except that there are fewer cards on the floor.

But there are deeper currents, too. Much of the exhibit is devoted to Tezuka Osamu, who is to manga what Walt Disney or Chuck Jones is to American animation. He’s best known to baby boomers like me for Astro Boy, which had a good run on American TV. But Americans never saw his more complex, darker works--like Black Jack, about a renegade surgeon, or Crime and Punishment, which is indeed the Dostoevsky novel in manga form. That hints at the range of Tezuka’s ambition: I mean, did Chuck Jones ever dream of doing Anna Karenina with Bugs Bunny as Count Vronsky? There are also more erotic manga that we couldn’t look at because, as my son said flatly, “They’re inappropriate for a 10-year-old.”

Even so, Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga turned out to be the rare museum experience satisfying to both me and my son. Some museum shows introduce you to worlds you never knew existed. This one didn’t do that—after all, I knew manga existed every time I tried to walk across my son’s bedroom floor. But it was a stranger, more thought-provoking world than I could have imagined.

Hot Fun Part II

By Peter Fish
Sunset editor-at-large

Another summer pleasure, this time in the city. My first emotion on visiting the Bi-Rite Creamery was rage. After all, every one of my friends and co-workers know how much I like ice cream. Why then had they waited a good year after Bi-Rite opened to tell me about it?

Bi-Rite is on 18th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District and like the neighborhood is a mix of the arty and Middle American. It makes its ice creams using organic dairy products from Strauss Family Creamery in Marin, and it makes them in flavors that range from the traditional (an intense chocolate, a sunny lemon) to the cutting-edge (salted caramel, honey lavender). The sundaes offer a similar range. The Coffee Toffee Sundae is so bittersweet and adult you feel you should be wearing a beret and discussing Derrida while eating it. Sam’s Sundae consists of chocolate ice cream covered in bergamot olive oil and topped with whipped cream. It is perhaps an acquired taste. In fact, it was a taste I found I could not acquire. So I retreated to the Brownie Sundae, with vanilla ice cream and chocolate and burnt caramel sauce, so childishly good it overcame my annoyance with my close-mouthed friends.

Hot Fun Part I

By Peter Fish
Sunset editor-at-large

It’s hot here in the Bay Area. Not as hot, say, as Phoenix or Boise, but hot enough that you start thinking of good places to go on a sweltering July day. Here are two of my warm-weather faves, one old, one (see above) new.

The old first. For generations of Stanford students, me among them, the Poolside Grill at Dinah’s Garden Hotel in Palo Alto was the best place in the world to spend Sunday morning. Here, as the turquoise pool water shimmered soothingly, you could linger over vastly better breakfasts than you could get on campus, work off Saturday night’s hangover, and postpone work on that overdue Moby Dick paper.

I’m no longer stupid enough to get hangovers. But I’m still perfectly capable of procrastinating. So when I learned that Dinah’s was celebrating its 50th birthday this year, I had to head back and see how the place was doing.

The good news is the hotel is as sleek and verdant as ever—with its ponds and bamboo plantings and Asian art it’s Beverly Hills/Bali come to the San Francisco Peninsula. As for the Poolside Grill, it remains one of the best breakfast joints in the Bay Area. The coffee is good, the orange juice is fresh, and—after all, this is Palo Alto, even a menu should ideally help you on your SATs—you could spend hours trying to figure out the possible omelet permutations: choice of cheeses (cheddar, monterey jack, onward) times choice of meats (sausage, ham, onward) times choice of vegetables (mushroom, spinach, onward) equals, in my calculations, two gazillion possible omelets. So relax, sip your orange juice, savor the omelet, enjoy the view. That paper will write itself. Sure it will.