Goodbye Foie

On July 1st 2012, California is going to ban the sale and production of Foie Gras (fatty liver from force fed gees). Farmers and fine restaurants are fighting back, organizing foie gras dinners and raising money to fight for the humane foie gras farming in California. Even our Google cafeteria offered foie gras last week, letting Googlers enjoy this amazing treat one more time.

And so we gathered at the Alexander's Steakhouse for the last supper, to honor the fat birds and their delicious livers.

The chef lineup was unprecedented -- four Michelin starred chefs and two local chefs from Alexander's Steakhouse. Did too many cooks spoil the broth? Not really. But this dinner was not what we expected.

Smoked foie gras log with spring nuances, and foraged herbs. These logs were frozen with liquid nitrogen and then shaved into a form that resembled a decaying tree trunk. This was a lot of foie, which made everyone very happy.
Seared humane artisan foie gras with braised eel, forbiden rice, and sweet soy. This was my favorite dish by far. Seared foie gras is everyone's favorite and we all loved the braised eel.

Cream of early spring onion with foie gras banana bread, roasted eggplant, chai cured and tobacco smoked foie gras. I liked this dish (not sure if this was a soup or not), and found it quite innovative.

My least favorite dish. "Foie gras caramelle". Roast squab, english peas, vin jaune, black truffle. The idea was nice -- to wrap foie into candy wrappers. But the dish tasted like ravioli from Costco served with thick slices of sausage. The foie in the pasta wrappers was not appetizing, but the presentation was beautiful. The black truffle was not noticable. The sausage taste of squab was overwhelming.
A little foied-up palate cleanser...
... and onto the star of the evening -- Sher full blood Wagyu steak with foie gras crumble and binchotan-grilled asparagus. Wagyu beef is known for its extensive marbling. To achieve the highest quality wagyu, Japanese farmers massage the cows and feed them beer and sake. I'm not a red meat person, but this was quite amazing.
And onto the dessert, which to me is extremely important. The dish was intriguing, but not memorable. Cubes of basil-almond sponge cake with foie gras and rhubarb. Creative presentation, but did not hit the spot. Especially after having the amazing foie gras pain perdue with roasted pineapple and candied sage at Lafitte couple of weeks ago.
The chef lineup:
Emil holding signed menu and the traditional Alexander's Steakhouse cotton candy:
The winners of the silent auction were announced at the end of the evening. Besides other foie goodies, Emil won the whole liver (which I'll make sure to help him consume)!

Welcome To Tijuana Tequila Sex Marijuana

Peter: "You're going to Tijuana? Don't go. Seriously. Don't go."

Dana: "But I'm from there. My parents live there."

Peter: "Ok, but be careful."

And off we went. Dana and I. Towards the home of the legendary Ceasar's Salad.

Dana told me that Tijuana is just like LA. Judging from the amount of prostitutes, I'd say it was more like Amsterdam.

For those who are not into sex, there is plenty of other stuff to do. For example shopping!

The "Obleas" candy is amazing! Two thin wafers filled with caramel.

When walking around downtown Tijuana, we've seen this kid playing with bottles.

We later drove to get some ice cream (in a store owned by Placido's Domingo's son) and checked out the famous "Minarete", which is just a glorified name for a fancy chimney.

And of course, the trip to Tijuana would not be complete without taking a photo of the zonkey (zebra donkey) on the street corner.

Architecture Photo Walk

Today's "Photo SF" #3 photo walk led us to the Embarcadero Center. Not only is it close to Google office, it's also full of interesting architectural elements to photograph -- such as this staircase. I'm pretty sure you've seen this staircase on a million of photos already. Here is a millionth and one:

Embarcadero Hyatt lobby:

Just outside:

The Photo SF crew

Back in the lobby:

A statue that creeped out pretty much everyone on the group.

The Embarcadero Hyatt:

Bubbles in the lobby fountain.

Hyatt hotel rooms:

No Monkeys At The Monkey Ranch?

When Brad mentioned we were going to Alan Cooper's Monkey Ranch, the little girl in me screamed "Yupeeeee, I'm gonna play with monkeys!". To my great disappointment, there were no monkeys. Well, there was one -- a cat called "Monkey". She was less of a monkey and more of a panther or a dog.

Alan is remodeling one of the barns into a workshop/classroom space. The barn boasts with a couple of shit pumps from its early years. We came up with this brilliant idea -- once the space is remodeled, the shit pumps can be used to serve soft serve ice cream. A chocolate flavor perhaps, with some corn in it for texture.

Alan is a creative hands on guy. He made some of the wooden bowls we used during the picnic.

The tall barn was another interesting space that is begging for some areal artist to hang from the ceiling. 

I loved the look of this mobile home parked at the nearby lot.

On the left: Sue, the Monkey mom. On the right: Bloominating flowers (Al's words).

This baby cow had no interest to play with Brad. However, it was quite intrigued by Monkey, perhaps because Monkey looks like a toy cow.

This is Monkey. She has this ranch on the lockdown.

Alan is protecting Monkey from yet another bovine.

Monkey took us for a stroll around her ranch.

One match or we'll stay cold!

This is Sue with uncle Joe. When Joe saw the little disco-ball like reflections off my sequined sleeves, he got a flashback to a concert he attended in Chicago in 1942. 

Fresh eggs from a neighbor's farm.

Ready for a picnic!

Goodbye Monkey Ranch! See you in the summer!

San Francisco Chinatown Photo-Walk

Only two people responded to my call to join me at this Chinatown photo-walk. One with "maybe" and one with "yes but I don't have a camera". Great. What a fun bunch of lazy ass Google+ followers do I have! All seven thousand of them lazy ass couch potatoes!

None of them actually cared to show up (with a camera!) for a fun creative afternoon. Is it me that they didn't want to get near to or did they not see my post? I sat on it for a few days and then decided to make one more attempt to herd few photo enthusiasts from San Francisco. I came up with a plan to attract. I made a sticky note advertising the photo-walk. It's just like a dicksticky but dick free. I then posted it on an internal employee Google+ as well as my external Google+. The non-dick sticky note worked! We had fifteen people total and we very much bublibished each other's company.

Lara (a software engineer and now also a model) did great! She kept throwing he hair over and over, until we all got our shots.

We had a variety of cameras. Surprisingly, about half of them were film cameras.

Wonder what these ladies would think if they knew that their faces would end up on people's butts.

There is only one thing I ever buy in Chinatown. Pashminas.

Lara posed by the same pillar where I did my "Faces of Gmail" shoot.

This is my attempt on street photography.

Big thanks to everyone who joined me today. I loved to meet you all!