On Friday and Saturday I visited my old grad-school comrade Ivan (at Rockefeller University, where I started), a self-described “herpetophile, bibliophile and part time physician.”
Ivan has a lovely home—nay, mansion—in the Berkeley hills, built in 1910 and with most of its original wood and fixtures (it’s four stories high). On the third story is the living room with a terrific view west toward San Francisco and the Bay.
I got up early the next day to see sunrise hit San Francisco from that window. The Bay Bridge (wrecked during the last earthquake and then repaired) is in the left foreground.
If you pan right, you can see the orange columns of the Golden Gate Bridge spanning the city and the Marin headlands. The island in the foreground, which appears between the bridge spans, is the infamous Alcatraz prison, home of many famous criminals (including Al Capone). Because of the swift currents in the Bay, no prisoner was ever known to successfully escape from the island.
Ivan has always had Leopard geckos (Eublepharis macularius). This latest one is named Surya, which means “sunrise” in Sanskrit. They are found in the drier parts of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Surya was molting during my visit: it eats its shed skin as extra nutrition.
At 2603 Benvenue Avenue, we saw the house from which Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in 1974 by the urban guerilla group the Symbionese Liberation Army. If you’re an American of a certain age, you’ll remember that odyssey, in which heiress Hearst was kidnapped, raped, brainwashed, and then forced to participate in crimes. For that she served 22 months in prison (her sentence was 30 years), but any prison time was unconscionable for her.
People’s Park in Berkeley, the focal point of riots in 1969 involving the University of California’s plan to demolish what the radical students wanted to use as a gathering place and free-speech (not safe speech!) zone. One student was killed when Governor Reagan (yes, Ronald) allowed the police to use shotguns on the students. A symbol of the rebellious Sixties, it’s now largely a resting place for homeless people
On Saturday we visited Tilden Park at the top of the Berkeley hills. Three pictures of native plants follow; can you botany mavens identify them?
I like this one because it looks like an abstract painting:
On Saturday we went to Lalime’s restaurant in Berkeley, a “California cuisine” restaurant which turned out to be splendid (Ivan says it’s undderated, and he’s right). Our meal started with delicious crusty sourdough bread from the Acme Bread Company, served with sweet butter.
Ivan’s starter: “Little gems” Caesar salad, with Spanish anchovies, garlic croutons, and parmiggiano:
My starter: white corn soup with lime cream and purple basil. This was a splendid dish, full of crunchy sweet white corn kernels just lopped from the cob. It may have been the best soup I ever had.
Our wine: an Alain Voge Cornas “Les Chailles” 2010, one of my favorites Rhones.
We both had Long-Bailey Farm pork chops served with pole and shelling bean salad, topped with apricot ketchup. This was a substantial chop!
Two atheist Jews scarf pork chops! This is Ivan about to dig into his:
After dinner I suggested we go the Ici ice cream store, a famous place in Berkeley, but the lines were long and there was nowhere to park. Instead I went into See’s Candy (a west-coast place that, to my mind, has the best commercial candy in the US) and bought us a half-pound of chocolates, truffles, and bonbons. Amazingly, two days later, some still remain!
Funny how after Reagan’s death, the media, even the more liberal-friendly NPR failed to mention such things, as they were so busy bestowing a sainthood upon him. Much more appropriate were the street celebrations following Thatcher’s death.
Lovely photographs as usual. that soup does look luscious.
Yes, I too am amazed that so much of Reagan’s follies, especially as governor of California, went unreported during his Presidency and afterwards to his death. His legacy should all be in shambles by now, but for some reason, the duped Americans still idolize that horrible President. So many of our major problems today stem from his radical conservative policies. Just his meaningless stance of “Be afraid of the government,” has weakened and dismantled so much of America’s economic and social strength: breaking up labor unions, lowering taxes for the wealthy, deregulating the banksters, stealing money from social security, ignoring AIDS and cutting research money, closing federal mental institutions…on and on it goes.
Given that the Ground Of Putrefaction is headed to the far right, Reagan would come off as being too moderate these days.
I’ve never understood why Reagan is seen as such a great president. I only really started watching US politics closely about 15-20 years ago, but I had for a bit in high school when he was president, and my best friend and I were so horrified by the idea of him in charge, we wrote him an admonitory letter! 🙂 We never got a response. (Surprise, surprise!) When I started watching again I was shocked at all the worshipping going on.
Try watching a GOP debate and counting whenever a candidate mentions Reagan. You’ll be amazed how big the number is. Focus groups have worked out that Republican and Republican leaning voters always feel more positive towards a candidate they associate with Reagan. It’s like the name causes a release of positive endorphins.
I don’t think he is; not in general. Only in the eyes of deluded conservatives.
I got the impression the reason Reagan is so revered now is because (a) any US president seems to get a bit of a pass on their misdeeds and (b) “ended communism” covers a lot of stuff. (That this is sort of wrong is besides the point.)
Seconding the luscious appearance of the soup – it sounds absolutely delicious.
The beatification of St. Ronald by the media and others was repellent and dishonest. I had the misfortune of attending undergrad and grad school during the Reagan years, and although I wasn’t at all unhappy in my education or research, I did struggle financially, especially in grad school. The latter was a direct result of Reagan-implemented policies. And many thousands of people were much worse off than was I – at least I could respond to my disgust and frustration by getting a postdoctoral fellowship outside the US for a few years.
I have just read a book which relates that Reagan went to Britain in 1948 to make a film, ‘The Hasty Heart’. He did not enjoy his time in the UK with the smog, cold and lousy food-‘What they do to food we did to the American Indian’ and this period of his life was a defining stage in his political journey, from Democrat to Republican.
Interesting! I lived in the UK for several years (the aforementioned postdoctoral fellowship), and I returned to the US leaning even further to the left (have never been anything resembling a Republican).
The UK at the time of Reagan’s visit (1948) was in a very sorry state.The book I quoted is ‘Asterity Britain 1945-51’by David Kynaston.
Reagan is an idiot…I can see him being swayed by some stupid sort of weather affects. What a dullard.
I think Warren Buffet will say thanks for the advertisement on See’s Candy. I believe that is one of his many companies.
The sour dough bread is just something you get addicted to in California. I kept a starter going for a long time to make sour dough pancakes.
Years ago (early 80s) there was a well known fish place in Berkeley called Spengers. I think it is long gone now.
No, Spenger’s is still there. The Spenger family sold it about 15 years ago, after 100 years in business, and it closed for a while, but it has re-opened, much the same as it always was.
Good to hear….thanks
I went to an SF eatery called The Golden Spike (IIRC the name) in 1985. Do you happen to know if it’s still there?
Also re: the photo of the new (portion of?) the Oakland Bay Area Bridge. DO I correctly recall that a portion of that was towed from China, as opposed to the presumably liberal, progressive local government contracting with U.S. bridge builders? It was that much cheaper to warrant towing it across the Pacific ocean? What if The Golden Gate Bridge had not been built until the 21st century?
The white flower is Romneya coulteri (Papaveraceae). Also called Matilija Poppy or California Tree Poppy. Native to Baja California and southern California.
Sometimes called the “Fried Egg Plant”, on account of its flowers.
Judging from the perspective…from where you were looking at Alcatraz, if you did a 180, you’d be looking right at where my Mom grew up. And her father was one of those helping the students be radical in People’s Park. A couple years later, my parents would be carrying both the tradition and a certain infant in Golden Gate Park….
b&
Un enfant terrain.
a very docile(??), though future cat-on-shoulder-toting infant…
I believe the second flower (purple one), is Calycanthus occidentalis, which is native to the western U.S. It is a beautiful flower and was used medicinally by native Americans. Both this and the eastern one, C. floridus, are frequently used in landscaping. The flowers should have a very spicy, sweet smell to them.
Thanks for IDing it. I had no idea, and now I’ve learned from the internet that all parts of this plant can be used for spicing up stuff like tea and what not. Very lovely. Apparently, it’s now relatively ‘hard to find’ in garden centres.
I was thinking it looked like a Proteaceae, but am not surprised it’s something completely different, given the ‘native’ tag.
The ‘abstract painting’ tree trunk also reminds me of a southwestern Australian species, Gimlet Eucalyptus salubris (a very attractive tree – or rather mallee, usually) – but I don’t suppose Eucs are considered ‘native’ yet either, even in the Bay area.
See’s Candy? Try Moonstruck when you get the chance. A PNW brand.
looks like they beat the crap out of KC’s local Russell Stovers. Are any of them filled with that disgustingly sweet, diabetic coma-inducing orange or pink cream crap?
Not the Moonstruck. None of those generic chemical cocktails used in most candy.
I have a sort of quaint but queasy nostalgia around those noxious colorful sugar bombs, as I do for that old fashioned hard candy, like the ribbon candy, or those goo-filled ones wrapped up to resemble strawberries, that my great grandparents used to have around the house.
I used to love that ribbon candy. Haven’t seen it around in decades.
I saw some at Tuesday Morning, that closeout store, if you have one around you. Or I’m sure it’s on the internet somewhere.
I’d probably be better off without it, but thanks anyway:-). Very strange memory of my first encounter with that stuff. We were living in Martinique ( age 6-8) and a US Navy submarine came to town. My dad took us kids onto the unsubmerged sub for a tour, and the nice sailors gave us some of that ribbon candy. You couldn’t make this up…
Come on everyone has a “sailors on a sub gave me Candy when I lived in Martinique” story. 😉
At least I wasn’t old enough to know the “Hello, sailor” line🐸
Lovely house and view. I wonder if it was threatened by the Berkeley/Oakland firestorm in 1991. I recall watching that from across the bay in Menlo Park. It was awful, with massive destruction and loss of life.
I have good friends in the Oakland hills who missed the fire by one block. They had taken bikes on BART across the Bay on the day of the earthquake/fire and had not been allowed to come home for a week or two.
Looks like the house is too far north to have been threatened by the Oakland Hills fire.
Is the tree ‘abstract painting’ a picture of a Eucalyptus tree? I remember they had bark like that.
That’s what I thought too…I miss their smell…very ubiquitous in the Bay Area.
Ah yes, the invasive Australian fire bombs. They are quite pretty. 🙂
Third one is, I think, a manzanita (don’t know the botanical name) – dark red-brown outer bark and yellow-brown inner bark are characteristic.
First is definitely a matililja poppy.
I suspect the 3rd is a madrone (Arbutus menziesii) rather than a manzanita — they have similar bark and are much larger plants. This looks to have been a tree.
I agree that the 1st is Romneya and with the previous ID of the 2nd as Calycanthus.
Love the pic of Sees candy.My grandmother always bought us some want some now.
Growing up in California, there were always See’s candies to be had; like you, my grandmother always had a box on hand. My favorites were the toffee bars. Like mini Skor bars, but better.
See’s chocolates and Blum’s hot-fudge sundaes!
I want some, too! I became acquainted with See’s candy when my sister-in-law, a native Californian, would send us flatlanders a box of See’s chocolates every year for Christmas. She is not my sister-in-law anymore so no more See’s candy for me. Bummer. Best chocolates I’ve ever eaten, especially the nutty ones. Yum yum!
Even See’s is selling online these days — sweet!
http://www.sees.com
I was living in Santa Clara during that earthquake in ’89. A horrible experience all around, and I hope never to be in another shaker of that magnitude. Once is more than enough. It is an interesting note that the World Series that year was between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. Because of that huge bay area event, the traffic was unusually light when the quake hit. The collapsing bridges would have killed many more people had the game not spurned an early commute home to watch the game.
I think the Caesar salad is donned with white anchovies. You don’t see those in the states very often. They are cured with vinegar instead of salt…more ‘fishy’ than the standard anchovy, but extremely tasty. I have some; I’ll have to try them on a Caesar next time I make one.
‘Two atheist Jews scarf pork chops.’ Damn, I loved that caption.
I thought the tree might be a Eucalyptus…
I use to drive everyday on the road that collapsed on itself in Oakland. Coming home from the Port of Oakland to Alameda takes you right across that section to the Nimitz. Many people were killed there and they did not double deck that road again.
I was in the swimming pool across the way (Stanford) and nothing could have been further from dangerous for most of us in the water. For one, the earth does not shake in a pool but it gives it a sloshing that persisted for well over fifteen minutes.
My old Stanford boyfriend’s young daughter was sloshed out of the pool she was practicing in down in Aptos /Santa Cruz.
I think if I was in a swimming pool it would somehow fook with me a bit. A weird thing that happened in my realm was a neighbor’s parrot bit through the flesh of her hand between thumb and first finger. I was so discombobulated it was just another scream. But the blood was real.
Surely it should be ‘Two atheist Jews NOSHING pork chops’.
After fisherman’s wharf it is always a good idea to visit Fort Point, which is right under the Golden Gate on the San Francisco side. I think lots of tourist miss this.
SF, my favourite city. I can almost see McCovey Cove from there.
The eastern span of the Bay Bridge, between Oakland and Yerba Buena Island (which you can see in Jerry’s first sunrise view panoramic photo) is new construction, not just replacement. I think most of the original eastern span has been deconstructed and removed by now. If I’m not mistaken, in the photo you can see the viaduct approach from Oakland and the single tower of the self-anchored suspension bridge portions of the new eastern span, leading up to Yerba Buena Island. No more double-decker (which was an issue in one of the shots of Dustin Hoffman driving in The Graduate).
I go to the East Bay (Alameda, rather than the People’s Republic of Berkeley) to visit grad school friends almost every year, which is the only reason I know anything about the Bay Bridge. There’s much more information than almost anyone could want to know on the Wikipedia page for “Eastern span replacement of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.”
When I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, the lower span of the old Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was exclusively used by the Key System light rail line that linked Oakland and Berkeley with San Francisco. The line coming off the bridge split into 2 lines in Emeryville, one of which ran down the median on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, eventually going through the Albany tunnel and ending up in Albany.
Spice Bush, a California native.
You’re making me so homesick. Friends of my parents (prof at Berkeley) had a gorgeous house like that one up in the hills.
I was back at Stanford a year when Patty was kidnapped, but carpooled from Berkeley to West Pittsburg, CA, for a school year ’71-’72) with Scott something who was Steven Weed’s best friend (Patty’s bf). Scott wrote a book about the whole abduction. Can’t recall his last name. Some of the Symbionese Liberation Army craziness was going on while I was living in Berkeley, but nobody really understood what was going on at the time. Ya know, it’s all good, man….
Another thing you cannot do anymore – from work at the port in Oakland we would jump on the bridge and go part way over, exiting to Treasure Island for lunch at the Officer’s Club. I have no idea what they did with Treasure Island?
Treasure Island is gradually being cleaned up (contamination from Navy days) and becoming a suburb of San Francisco. It’s technically within the city limits; and there’s a city bus line runs there.
I think the same was true for Alameda Navel Air Station. After it closed it took a long time to make it pay and lots of clean up. Had a big impact for a city of Alameda’s size. Also, when the Oakland Army Depot and port facilities closed.
My Navy ship was home ported in Alameda when I reported aboard in June ’81. We shifted home port from there to Guam, leaving CA the first week of August. I enjoyed my several weeks there in the interim, what time I could get off the ship. Left the navy in Guam mid-May of ’85 and took a 45′ sloop with four others, arriving/passing under the Golden Gate at 2:30 in the morning on July 4, and spent a few weeks there, renting a room at a house next to the Berkeley campus.
What a great adventure!
NICE mansion!
Wrong town, but I think Christopher Marlowe would have felt right at home calling on a few million dollars there in his powder-blue suit.
Or rather Philip. Christopher would have been somewhat embarrassed, both temporally and by the dagger through his eye in Deptford.
Fabulous house, fabulous view, fabulous food! That’s one great-looking Caesar salad, not to mention the other delectable goodies.
The white flower is the Matilija California poppy.
(Romneya coulteri (Coulter’s Matilija poppy or Californian tree poppy)):
http://grownatives.cnps.org/2013/06/29/matilija-poppy-queen-of-california-flowers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romneya
Everything that comes out of Anne’s mouth is poppycock, but they really didn’t need to name one after her.
Beautiful home and cute gecko!
These are lovely photos from a city I lived in (and loved) for 7 years. So many good restaurants- it would be hard to pick the best.
It is entirely true that no prisoner was “known” to have escaped from Alcatraz but there was indeed one possibly successful escape although it is unknown if the escapees made it to land or drowned in the Bay. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1962_Alcatraz_escape
An interesting photo of the collapsed section (actually rather small) of the Bay Bridge in the 1989 earthquake is here.
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/257451/slide_257451_1652247_free.jpg
The part that shows in Professore Soffitto Gatto’s photo (the east span) was completely rebuilt in 2002 through 2013 to have it be more earthquake resistant. Unlike the two-story west span, the new east span has parallel lanes for both directions making according to Guinness the widest bridge in the world.
So if any film company decides to remake “The Graduate” they won’t have to fake Ben Braddock’s direction of travel by filming some scenes from the North of the bridge and others from the South of the bridge to make it look as if he is going in opposite directions. (They wanted to have the car on the upper layer of the bridge for both directions of travel.)
Yeah, any of us who lived in the Bay Area thought WTH during that bridge scene.
I was attending DeAnza college in Cupertino and was surprised how many fellow students up and left. The Quake was too much for them. It was over the top. I know two friends who saw deadpeople. Deadpeople sucks to see. Up in the Pacific NW, I hope it’s less fucked if a quake happens. Just another quake to tweak the world once again. No new Drama please.
The tree is called Arbutus here in B.C., Madrona south of the border, I believe. We have a ton of it on our property. Fantastic firewood, very hard and dense. Not so good for woodworking as it tends to check badly. Sheds leaves (although it is a broadleaf evergreen, it rotates them on a yearly basis. The new ones appear before the old ones fall off), bark, and berries, all at different times of year. Terrible tree if you have a lawn, which we don’t. It sheds branches constantly too, as it seems to like marginal locations that won’t support too much foliage. Literally rains kindling around our place. Plus there is the issue of snow and broadleaf not being a happy combination. Lot of character though. Bit like owning cats.
It is a cousin to Manzanita, which is smaller. We have a few of those in our yard as well, but they struggle, as I think we are at the northern edge of their range.
FWIW, I agree it looks like a Madrone.
Madrone are very common here in the Bay Area. If you are hiking on a hot, dusty summer day, it’s nice to lean your cheek against the exposed inner bark because it is always cool.
The gecko looks as though he is wearing a tiny lab coat.
Yes he does:-)
Might you post, please, the recipe for the white corn soup? it looks beyond perfect for the summer. Thank you.
Now I understand the geography of where in the city you were. I was going to ask what the bay bridge was… of course the Golden Gate Bridge has been in so many fims, wrecked in many of them.
Stupendous view & noms!
I love the picture from the house – my dream house has dark wood accents and lots and lots of books, so of course my eye was immediately drawn to the shelf on the right 🙂
Very late, I agree. First is the Matilija poppy or Fried Egg Flower, Romneya, probably R. coulteri.
Second is Calycanthus occidentalis, Sweetshrub. Descendent of primitive plants that evolved before the split between monocots and dicots. The difference between sepals, petals, and the odd stamens isn’t as well defined as in later plants.
This is Arbutus menziesii, Madrone. Lovely tree that sheds its bark, so the trunks and main branches are mostly smooth. (Glad I don’t have one in my yard, though.)