Wednesday, July 10, 2002
I woke up this morning and found a box of macadamia nut clusters and a set of pear candles on our kitchen countertop—a very nice surprise for us from Tina, who had set it out during the night while we slept. She awoke and said she had a dream about tea cups. She said I was getting ready for work and that I wanted to make a pot of Earl Gray tea. I offered her a cup of tea, which she accepted, but after I handed it to her, she misplaced it. So then I poured her another cup of tea, but she misplaced that one as well. This repeated until the room was full of cups of tea, and that's when she woke up. I had dreamt that I was using the new Microsoft Office keyboard, but that I wasn't really impressed with it. I had breakfast (oatmeal) and they had pre-breakfast (great white nectarines and strong Lavazza coffee from the French press). I went to work; they went to meet Nicki Tumbaga somewhere up Polk Street. I finished changes for James's application workshop form and made them live. I updated placement interviews and pharmacy information day Web pages for Joel. Late lunch at Nan King Road Bistro: Hong Kong noodles, which had a sauce that was too sweet and too watery for my taste but was otherwise quite delicious. Spent the rest of the day researching alternatives to sendmail. Dinner at Saul's restaurant and deli in Berkeley. Patrick had a roast beef sandwich and a side order of potato latkes. I had a Niman burger. We had taken BART over to Berkeley, and while walking to Saul's, we passed a bar that had a sign on the window: "EROTIC DRINKS"—or so we thought. A second glance, and we realized it said instead "EXOTIC DRINKS" but the font they used made it easy to mistake. Dessert with Tina, Nicki, Brandon, and Patrick at Chez Panisse! All of us except Tina were Chez Panisse virgins, and we were very pleased to be seated for dessert only, which is usually not allowed but Tina got her friend Marsha to pull some strings for us. This restaurant is know worldwide for Alice Waters' extraordinary talents as a chef. Earlier in the day, Marsha gave Tina copies of Chez Panisse cookbooks autographed by Alice Waters and they had a nice snacking chat catching up on the many years gone by since they worked together at Stars Singapore. We started with a pizzetta with onions, sorrel, and anchovies ($12.00). Later came the desserts: Almond cake with Middleton Gardens strawberries and cream ($8.50). White nectarine and peach tart with noyau ice cream ($8.50). Honey-orange creme caramel with almond cookies ($6.00). Santa Rosa plum sherbet with candied Valencia peel and almond bread ($6.00). Ceylon cinnamon ice cream with chocolate sauce and Mexican wedding cakes ($6.00). Frog Hollow Farm Golden Sweet apricots with biscotti ($6.50). The apricots were surprisingly disappointing: mealy and poor flavor. Everything else was between good and very good.