The Good, the Bad, and the Californian

The Salt Mine's Great Mothership exists in California, in San Jose. From time to time, I am called upon to visit the Incredibly Absent Orange Grove to deal with problems and issues that only my personal presence can fix. Also, I have visited the region for Aikido reasons as well since my dojo's parent dojo resides in the east bay area. I look forward to these visits, since they place me within driving distance of San Francisco (i.e., the City), a city which I adore.

The City is jaw-droppingly beautiful. I wouldn't compare it directly to Paris, a city which derives its beauty from its perfectly balanced eye-level architecture and it's sinuous river-hugging shape. The City instead derives its beauty from terrific landscape and weather: low mountains, ocean, bay, hills, pillowy cloud banks, and ancient trees. However, like Paris, it is a city which demands visiting anytime one comes within sight of it, and any first visit to the United States should encompass at least one full day in the City.

The first night I visited the City, many years ago alone and on business, I did two things. First, I ate at Scoma's on advice from a colleague. It was wonderful, though a more recent repeat dinner suggests my memories of that meal are somewhat better than contemporary reality. Second, I dipped my finger into the Pacific Ocean, being the first time I had ever seen it or any ocean, and tasted it. Interesting habit of mine that, and I am not certain where the urge came from. I have since sampled the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and yes, they all taste different.

The Brain, also a employee of the Salt Mine, but of significantly higher rank than myself due to his alien-like intellect and astonishingly good luck, happened to be present at the Great Mothership at the same time for other reasons. We resolved to visit a restaurant of quality within the boundaries of the City one evening, and after making a few failed attempts to secure reservations (on a Wednesday night!), we finally selected Fleur de Lys.

Fleur de Lys is a french restaurant, if the name didn't give it away. Eating french in the City is unusual for me. Normally, I prefer to locate something more ethnic. For many years, I've tried to locate good chinese spots in the City, with only moderate success. House of Nanking is excellent, though divey, and Ton Kiang has fantastic dim sum. Coming from Texas, any half-way decent chinese food is better than what I can get at home.

I've brought this up in meetings at the Mother Ship, where we have many chinese-american employees. On one visit, I turned to Nancy, a button-cute cantonese-american woman, after a meeting and mentioned my quest to find excellent chinese food in the City.

"You sound like you've never had good chinese before." she replied.

"I come from Texas. Our chinese food sucks." I replied.

Nancy seemed perplexed, as did the other people in the room. "But Texas, and Dallas, has a huge chinese population. Surely..."

"No," I said shaking my head, "as far as I know, it all sucks. I've asked the chinese and chinese-americans at the Salt Mine in Dallas, and even they say the chinese food in Dallas sucks."

"I wonder why?" mused Nancy.

"Well," I answered in all seriousness, "for one thing, it's all cooked by mexicans."

It is at this point that the differences between a Texan speaking a truism plainly and group of Californians, who are steeped in P.C. speech patterns until their brains have pickled, become vividly apparent.

They all jumped. I don't mean they looked surprised or mildly bemused. I mean they all, six or seven people, jumped as if I had pulled a severed head out of my computer bag and tossed it on the table.

"Oh my word!" blurted Nancy. "We don't say mexicans here. It's not very, you know, P.C."

"Oh," I said, "I see. Well, then, it's all cooked by hispanics, and being that it's Dallas, Texas, most of them are probably from Mexico. I am sure that a sizeable number of them are also from Guatemala and various other countries in the region with few cubans and puerto ricans tossed in for spice. But in Texas, it's usually safe to assume if you see a tan-skinned person who speaks spanish in a kitchen, they're from Mexico. Not always, but usually. You could take those odds to Vegas."

Fast forward to last week, and I am sitting with Cheung having dim sum for lunch and I asked, "So, how come I can't find any haute chinese restaurants in the Bay Area. I mean, there are lots of very good chinese restaurants, but nothing stellar, nothing like fine dining chinese."

Cheung didn't miss a beat. "Because chinese people are cheap." he said flatly before barking cantonese at the woman pushing a cart past us. He looked back at me, frozen and holding a siumai dumpling uneaten before my gaping mouth.

"Hey!" he shrugged, "I'm chinese and I'm cheap! We're all cheap!"

So much for P.C.

---

On the way to City, the Brain and I discussed the merits and demerits of moving to and living in the Bay Area. I am deeply moved by the clouds and mountains, the Brain, less swayed by natural beauty alone, morbidly dwells on the the area's two most obvious draw-backs: the cost and the traffic.

As he sees it -- probably correctly -- any place I would likely want to live in the Bay Area would be both ruinously expensive to a Texas-bred mind used to monstrously large houses and surrounded by impenetrable traffic. If I point to areas between the City and San Jose -- Los Altos, Mountainview, Palo Alto -- and areas north and across the bay -- Sausalito, Tiburon, even Sonoma -- as the areas I would most likely want to live in given my scant knowledge of the area, the Brain gives me a "told you so" look. Paris, he says, would be just as expensive, but have significantly less traffic. I'll point out that Paris requires fluency in French, and he shrugs his shoulders and accuses me of being lazy. I point out the the French might not be too crazy about accepting American ex-patriots at this point in history, he points out that while George W. Bush might have trouble finding a french person who didn't want to shove a three-day-old baguette up his backside, americans fleeing the Idiot Tyrant might get a sympathetic nod of approval.

We arrived at the restaurant on time. It became immediately apparent to us that perhaps, just perhaps, I should have inquired after the dress code. We are dressed as for work -- jeans, tatty sneakers, and comfortable shirts -- and no one else was. It's ties and jackets, black dresses and jewels.

Two women stood at a podium near the door. The first, taller with a shock of wild red hair, greeted us with a laughing smile as I announced ourselves for the reservation. The second woman, a shorter, closely-cropped Aryan blond in a black suit-dress, frowned visibly.

"Reservations for Blubrik at 8:45." I said.

"Ah, yes," chirped the red-head, "right on time!"

The blonde coughed politely. "Ahem. We do have a dress code."

"Ah, so I see." I said, glancing apologetically down my scruffiness. "Oh, well, we'll..."

"Perhaps", the blond continued icily, "you can return to your hotel and change into something?"

The dangling sentence offers up several humorous completions, but I responded with, "Well, we just drove up from San Jose."

Her face squinted sourly as she weighed the distasteful business decision before she said, "It'll just be a moment."

We sat at the tiny bar and tried to fly natural. Within a few minutes, the perky redhead came to fetch us, thanking us for being so patient, and escorted us to the rear of the restaurant, to a corner table surrounded by thick red curtains on two sides. The message was clear: we will let you to eat here, but don't expect us to let you to be seen eating here. While some people might be offended, we took it in stride. After all, it's their business how they want to run their business and they were making an exception for our attire. We were thankful, for this promised to be an excellent meal.

Indeed, we were rewarded for suppressing our indignation, for the although the table was carefully hidden behind curtains, it was far from sound-proof. I could easily over-hear the conversations at other tables as well as the occasional wicked snipe (sometimes in French) at the snobs sitting at those tables by the staff near the kitchen door. Furthermore, the mirrors of the restaurant actually allowed me to spy on the main room, putting faces to voices, and generally having a good time snooping.

We glanced at the menu -- tres haute -- and ordered the following:

To start, we'd share the trois foie gras tasting with two glasses of sauternes n'importe pas quoi. For myself, petit pois vichysoisse followed by venison atop salsify. For the Brain, a salad of root vegetables followed by quail stuffed with ris de veau. With this, a bottle of El Molino pinot noir. After the main course, a shared plate of cheeses and a chocolate soufflé. The restuarant kindly rounded out the meal with two amuse bouches, an heirloom tomato geleé -- yes, you read that right, tomato jello --and a precious miniature skillet of escargot, a balsamic vinegar and berry sorbet as a palate cleanser, and a tiered tray of petits forts with the check.

We ate with gusto.

When we were sated and contemplating the drive back to San Jose, the Brain mused that the meal had quite possibly been the best meal we had ever eaten. We compared notes and I decided he was probably right. We paid, thanked the redhead for accomodating us, and left.

Now, I mused wistfully on the way back to the hotel, I have yet another reason to find a way to make the City my home. I began to wonder if, upon moving to the area, I could manage to drop mexicans from my vocabulary.

Sound Familiar?

To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man... Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect.

Thucydides, the Father of History, writing about the day in 415 B.C. when Athens sent its glorious fleet off to destruction in Sicily.

U.S. Versus Them

Earlier this week, I am watching the Olympics in the evening. Now, I've actually been to an Olympics and I can tell you for certain that American Olympic coverage is crap. Not only is it crap from the point of view the scanty and patronizing coverage it gives to most events, but it plumbs whole new levels of crapiness with its so-called announcers. I am not generally indisposed towards the expert announcers, former athletes with keen eyes and sharp minds who can actually assist the viewer in understanding what is going on. I reserve my contempt for the inevitably obnoxious anchorperson who's job it is to announce the names of the contestants and prattle off some tidbit about them before leading us into one of those awful "personal segments" they show us for 10 minutes instead of (gasp!) the actual Olympic events.

So, here I am earlier this week, watching the women's gymanstics team competition when the Russians enter the floor lead by Svetlana Khorkina. Our Fearless Announcer begins to talk about what a princess (in the worst sense) she is, how she just barely practices, and how she posed for some pictures for a disreputable magazine. Translation: she's a bitchy Russian slut. Her performance is sub-par, which is grist for the announcer's mill, who might as well drop any pretext of politeness and just call her a washed-up, used-up hag and be done with it.

Later in the evening, coverage shifts intermittantly to women's swimming, where American darling Amanda Beard is given lavish attention. Indeed, a two-minute segment of Ms. Beard in a bikini, being doused by water while the camera zooms into her bosoms and crotch, lycra-covered but otherwise exposed for accurate evaluation by even the feeblest imaginations, proceeds the match she is about to participate in.

Perhaps the dear reader doesn't see the humor in this, so I'll spell it out...

Pretty Russian Gymnast with attitude gets down and dirty for magazine: bitchy slut.

Pretty American Swimmer frolics in water, wiggles her tits, and smiles copiously on national TV: wholesome girl next door.

Now, are we alone in the world guilty of such guilessness? Most certainly not, but that doesn't excuse it.