Quite The Perfect Day
Entry posted by docoflove1974
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Sausalito--or 'The Land of the Little Willows' as the Spaniards called it--lies just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. For the past 54 years they have an arts and crafts festival that rivals any other, with middle-to-very-high end pottery, jewelry, paintings, photography, and the like (yes, and the prices to match).
This year, my parents and I went to it, just to see what we could see. Gesu Maria...wow...I mean, some really great stuff, that took our breath away. There was this jade and fresh-water pearl pendant and earring set that was gorgeous...just simply gorgeous. Sand-blasted vases that were in beautiful designs. Abstract-ish paintings with 3-d presentations that stood out from EVERYTHING. We were in love with many pieces, yet came home without any tokens--it's amazing the prices that they were charging. But, it was an outstanding day...and lead to us eating at Caesar's.
Every family has their 'traditions', and for our family it's no different. Back in the day, as the kids say, my maternal grandfather ran the bar at Bimbo's, a San Francisco institution since Prohibition. In 1954, the Bimbo's owners wanted to move to another location (on Kearny, if I recall), and so they did...and in 1956, Caesar's restaurant opened. And we've been going ever since. My grandfather moved to the Villa d'Este (on Ocean, for those who know SF), but we continued to go ever since. It's the place where we go on very special occasions--well, let me rephrase, because I swear my brother Matt's up there once every couple of weeks. The main bartender now, Tony, had an uncle who used to tend bar for my great uncle (my grandfather's brother); Uncle Ning ran the Philosopher's Club in West Portal for 42 years. Small bleeping world. My parents, my brother Matt and I sat at the bar for like an hour, bs'ing with Tony and such, reminiscing about Ning/Angelo (in the family we called him 'Ning', which meant 'baby' in our Genovese dialect, but everyone else knew him as 'Angelo' or 'Ang'). I miss that man terribly...and I think we all did in that bar tonight.
Caesar's is typical Northern Italian food--most of SF Italian food is either Genovese/Northern based or Tuscan based, since that was the population of North Beach until the 1930s--with a specialty in seafood. Their 7-course meal is too much food for us normally, but we still ordered the antipasto to go with our a la carte meal (which is still pasta, entree, and coffee). Madonna, Madonna, Madonna...I forgot how damn good it was. It's typical for what I would call 'Genovese' antipasto, but maybe it's just what I grew up with: marinated peppers, marinated butter beans, some mortadella or salame, ceci and kidney beans, antipasto misto (which is a few veggies in a tomato 'marinade'), celery hearts, olives. We hadn't had this in YEARS...like, June of 2000...and we gobbled it up. I swear, nothing reminds me of home, nothing is comfort food, like antipasto. It was followed by a small plate of rigatoni rigate with a bit of bolognese, just enough to satisfy. My parents had the combo seafood platter--filet of sole, prawns, and bay scallops--while I had the grilled orange roughy; Matt couldn't stray from his 'usual', veal parmiggiano.
Oh, and we downed a bottle of zin (not my favorite, but Matt brought it, so who am I got argue?), on top of the glass of wine we had together at the wine bar on Chestnut (California Wine Merchants in Cow Hollow, for those who know SF), and the very strong drink we had at Caesar's bar. I dare say, I feel very warm right now...both from the alcomahol and the great day. And I do mean great day. This is what family is about: sharing experiences together, enjoying a most wonderful meal together, and bullsh*tting each other for the entire night.
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