Making my own cappuccino

What a special treat! And on a real 4-group La Marzocco. But that’s all I can say – I’ve deleted everything I was going to write and show because it’s come to my attention that some authorities here might frown upon the fact that I touched a cafe’s coffee machine.

That is all.

Video extras

This video was just released today – a little promotional piece on the Kiwi Landing Pad where our offices are in San Francisco – taken a little while ago before we moved downstairs. Some bit of footage of The Mister and I being busy and important in the office 🙂

Hot x buns

Easter in the States comes and goes. There are no public holidays although some observe the Good Friday. We looked around for some Hot x Buns or equivalent. Nothing easy to come by. However we did find a plastic packet of buns labelled Hot Cross Buns in Wholefoods so thought we’d give them a try.

They were some kind of sweet brioche bread with raisins dotted with an iced cross.

US hot xo buns

They toasted up alright – a bit too sweet – not sure if they were supposed to be toasted because the icing melted off. Hmmmm. Might have to make our own next year.

US hot xo buns

You can get cinnamon buns here (and our colleague made a brought some into work after I asked about and described Hot x Buns) but they’re not the same either.

San Francisco Zoo

We don’t mind wandering around a zoo for a bit of exercise – certainly the Wellington Zoo offered that being so hilly! Plus we got to see the lovely orange pandas 🙂

So we headed way out West to the ocean to the San Francisco Zoo. I think the zoo is quite old, it wasn’t looking run down but perhaps a little bit tired and some of the enclosures could’ve been bigger. Also, I think it was a bad time of day/year to visit too – a lot of animals seemed to be asleep or hibernating – I really wanted to see the snow leopard, but no sign of him, and tigers were hard to spot too.

However there were plenty of characters to watch for a while.

A rhino enjoying the hose, although sad he had no horn

San Francisco zoo

A hippo pooping and shouting in the pool (although mostly funny listening to the little kids shouting “eeeuuuwwwww mom loooook, he’s doing a poop.” Followed not to long after by “eeeeeuuuuuuwwwww don’t look eeeuuwwwww he’s eating it!” (Which he was. Gross.)

San Francisco zoo

Penguins peek-a-booing

San Francisco zoo

Grizzly bears biting/kissing each other and playing with a swimming ring (first time I’ve seen these bears for real)

San Francisco zoo

San Francisco zoo

Caught this teddy on video

Flamingos that looked quite orange! Not sure I’ve ever seen these for real either and they were out in the open with just a low fence so I probably could’ve touched one!

San Francisco zoo

New place to go to work every day

Our first day back from Arizona was our first day in some new office space. The building that we’re in on the first floor, in a small suite, has been renovated on the ground floor into a huge warehouse-type shared office space – to be mostly rented on a desk by desk basis to entrepreneurs or local start-up companies needing a bit of space to get going before they commit to their own building. It’s a local venture and building owner, no longer with a New Zealand focus.

It’s large and funky and we’re a bit lost in it until they rent out the desks in the main shared space but it’s got some cool break-out/kitchen spaces and soon Epicenter Cafe will run a coffee machine in there for everyone. It’s still a bit bare and cold but it’s early days yet! Great to have somewhere a bit more settled. It’s all open plan and we’re in one corner with our friends from Kiwi Landing Pad who we shared offices with upstairs in the other corner and all the rent-a-desk spots in the middle.

New San Francisco office space

New San Francisco office space

New San Francisco office space

New San Francisco office space

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie is quintessentially American to me. Along with the likes of apple pie, whipped cream in a can and pick-up trucks. Key Lime Pie is in diners on the telly and in Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books. So when Kara made a recent trip to visit family in Florida we asked her if her mom knew how to make Key Lime Pie – she did! While we were in New York last weekend we got a couple of tweets from Kara reporting that she had a recipe and had procured some limes.

The limes and a lovingly written-out recipe were on my desk on Friday.

Time to make Key Lime Pie

I grated a couple.

Key Lime Pie

Squeezed a few million!

Key Lime Pie

Baked the shell and filling until it ‘jiggled slightly’.

Key Lime Pie

Piled whipped cream on top.

Key Lime Pie

Cut a slice to take to Kara.

Key Lime Pie

YUM! It was delicious, although not green as I was expecting. I thought it would be lime green! Thanks Mamma Kara!

Sunday brunching

Well well aren’t we getting all citified and metropolitan … just realized the last 3 Sundays in a row we’ve been out for brunch. Mid-morning is my ideal coffee and a cookie time of day but it’s not when I like eating breakfast: as a reasonably early riser, it’s way too long after I wake up to wait for coffee, brunch places don’t usually have toast and peanut butter so you’re forced to have something large like pancakes or eggs however, the silver lining is that by having a ‘large’ late breakfast, I don’t need lunch! The meal I actually hate most. The late coffee headaches haven’t been too bad either so perhaps it’s a trend that will continue.

3 Sundays ago – we went to a new neighborhood for us in San Fransisco, Noe Valley, where some other fairly recent New Zealand arrivals have set up their home, people we knew in Wellington, but not that well. We went to Zazie where our friends had to arrive before 9am to line up and wait for a sheet of paper on a clipboard to be hung on the cafe window, at which time everyone milling on the sidewalk lined up to write their name and number in their party on the list. When the cafe opened at 9am (by then we’d arrived) the owner came out and called good morning to everyone, took down the clipboard, and read out each name in turn, escorting them into a table until the cafe was full, then he crossed the first 20 names off the list, shut the door, and went out again to call the next name when the first set of diners started leaving.

Busy brunch spot

The system worked! I had pancakes that time, and orange juice. Wasn’t going to trust the coffee, and a sip of the Mister’s told me I’d made the right choice. However, being New Zealanders, they knew we’d need a second stop for decent coffee pretty quickly. We walked along Haight Street and got some Blue Bottle in the Haight Street Market before spending the rest of the morning strolling through Golden Gate Park. Very nice.

Last Sunday we were in New York – yippeeee! Upon Cousin Grant’s recommendation we found our way to Market Table in the West Village for brunch – he was out on a 4-hour bike ride through New Jersey while we were eating. Unlike San Francisco, when we got there at 10am when they opened, there was no line around the block and in fact we were the first to arrive. Turned out it was a combination of daylight savings starting the night before so lots of people thought it was 9am, it was pretty cold and New Yorkers are late to rise, late to bed. However the place started filling up pretty quickly after we went in.

Market Table

Again I didn’t trust the coffee so had some freshly squeezed juice which was fresh and this time poached eggs on grain toast. Man it was good. I can’t remember the last time I had a poached egg and this one was organic and almost cooked hard through, just perfect. And the toast, was toast. Not strange sweet bread with white butter. I was very impressed. The coffee stop following was Third Rail nearby in The Village, a spot I’d heard much about but never visited, great coffee.

And today, back in San Francisco we headed over to North Beach to meet Kara to stand in line for brunch at Mama’s. Famous in these parts. We’d stood there a couple of years ago with Bev and Dan but gave up after not moving much for 45 minutes.

San Francisco Sunday morning

This time we were there earlier and an hour after we arrived, we were at our table waiting for our brunch, after standing at a second line inside where you order at the counter before sitting down. A rather strange system. The place was mostly full of tourists, a very small L-shaped cafe. The food was a bit more diner-style which I didn’t enjoy that much – this time my poached eggs were floating in water in a side dish on a plate of plastic-bag loaf sweet white bread toast, a pile of chopped fried potatoes and a decorative slice of orange. The eggs weren’t quite cooked enough for my liking and I could still taste the vinegar they were poached in. However we were there for a long overdue catchup with Kara not having spent much time with her because of trips to New Zealand, Florida, New York and a bit of a cold. We also had a few sips of house coffee from large green mugs, but did go for the coffee seconds at Trieste in Little Italy not far away afterwards.

Not sure if we’ll be out for brunch next weekend or where we might end up – New York is the winning brunch so far!

35 seconds of me on the street

San Francisco weekend

Took a couple of great snaps this weekend – it was unusually warm for this time of the year.

Orange tram outside the Ferry Building

Ferry Building & orange tram

Bay Bridge on one of the hearts in Union Square

Bay Bridge at Union Square

Parklet

This arrived outside our office in San Francisco while we were in New Zealand – a mobile garden, known as a parklet. It has a little bench seat on it and everything. Not sure I’ll sit on it facing the parking spaces outside the building next to our office but you never know!

Parklet