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!
