Suzy Says

Lately I’ve had a new morning ritual: the construction workers who are doing the earthquake retrofitting on Old St. Mary’s Cathedral are starting their day as I walk past in the early morning. They take off their hard hats and say, “Morning, honey! Have a good one!” etc. It makes me blush, but I love it anyway. Construction workers always love me, also old guys, I don’t know why. I have very specialized appeal.

We wound up our survey of San Francisco shops and restaurants yesterday. Today my stepmother is spending the day with my godmother, and then heading to Palm Springs tomorrow for a week of sunshine with her cousin before heading back to rainy London on the 21st. I think she had a good time, and it was great to see her. She really unwinds when she’s in California, so I guess it rubs off on her. The way she talks kind of rubs off on me, too, and I have to stop myself from saying “ringing” instead of “phoning” someone, etc.

I valiantly resisted buying a pair of Manolo Blahniks at a nearby consignment shop. They were my size, lavender suede with appliqu&eacuteed flowers, and a mere $125 instead of $450. The soles weren’t even scuffed, so their previous owner either never wore them or never wore them outside. Aren’t you impressed with my willpower?

I struck out with trying to show Margaret the splendid view from the Top of the Mark, the bar perched on top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill. A sudden fog swirled up and obscured what is usually one if the best views of the city.

However, I scored a hit (I’m turning into Sporty Suzy) with the dinner that followed at the Waterfront. The fog stayed at the Top of the Mark, so down by the Bay we had a stunning view of the Bay and the Bay Bridge, all dressed up with lights for the evening. The restaurant is unpretentious but charming, the staff attentive and knowledgeable, and the food excellent. I had Dungeness crab cakes to start, napped with a roasted red pepper coulis whose creaminess was offset by just a hint of heat. The star of the evening was without question the grilled Hawaiian escolar, also known as butterfish. They had grilled it simply, knowing that the better the fish is, the less should be done to it, and set it on a bed of fluffy buttermilk mashed potatoes, accompanied by grilled asparagus with Meyer lemon vinaigrette. It was perfection on a plate. We had an outstanding bottle of Ridge zinfandel with it, since my stepmother is a wine renegade who doesn’t believe that you should only drink white wine with fish. It was a lovely evening.

The marathon of this week is almost over. All I have to do today is: work a whole day; see my therapist; get my nails done; go home and finish (start) packing for the trip to Boston tonight; get to airport by 8:30 p.m.; try not to set off metal detectors; repair to Red Carpet Club and ingest sufficient controlled substances to get on plane; get on plane and hope for the best (no plane crash; no screaming kids; no talkative person in the seat next to me). Hopefully my next post will be from the east coast.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2003 at 7:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.