All I can say is this: vote for Matthew Valencia! He’s running in a senate race at Berkeley City College and is dead serious about it. He has slogans, like “Moving BCC Forward” and “…with honesty and integrity.” He has a campaign manager, Wesley, who worked up a strategic plan for the affair. I saw this formal document in the living room once and almost fell over. I can tell you that Matt’s slogans and promises are not empty — the kid has a real desire to help people. When in middle school in San Francisco he came upon two obnoxious teens tormenting a mentally challenged boy who was having trouble with his locker. Matt marched up to them and told them what he thought and they promptly clobbered him, being older and larger. Not to be outdone, he dusted himself off, went over to one of his teachers, dragged him around the school until they spotted the perps, and loudly pointed them out. His righteous indignation overpowered his desire to protect life and limb, and you have to respect that. Here are a couple photos of the speech he gave today.
Yearly Archives: 2007
Berry’s chair
Above you have Berry in Chairy in our old house in Albany in 2002 and below you have him in Chairy in the new house in El Cerrito in 2007. Matthew once fell out of Chairy in 1989. Chairy has lived with us in Astoria (37th Street and 32nd Street), Manhattan (East 90th Street and West 105th Street), San Francisco, Albany, CA (Brighton Avenue and Talbot Avenue) and now El Cerrito. Berry loves Chairy and is not interested in any other piece of furniture in the house. He does not like it when someone else sits in Chairy, or, God forbid, if we open Chairy up to serve as a guest bed.
Happy Easter 2007!
The first Easter in our new house! Jon is here, too, which has become a wonderful Easter tradition. We had baked salmon, crab aspic, duck confit on crostini and French-style green beans. We purchased a large, oblong, teak dining table from The Wooden Duck in Berkeley this past year, to do justice to the actual dining room we now possess. No more squeezing into a coffee nook! Now all diners are able to move about the room freely, without being locked into place to eat!
The Solano Grill & Bar
Today is my Mom’s 69th birthday, and this must have brought us luck, because we also heard that the final agreement for our new house was signed this morning and we close the deal in two weeks. I took Mutti to The Solano Grill and Bar (1133 Solano Avenue, Albany) for a nice lunch. This is a good place where lunch seems to me to be a loss leader for dinner. Many of the entrees are offered way cheaper for lunch and I have never seen a difference in the portion size. Example: the breast of chicken entree is $8.95 for lunch and $13.95 for dinner. Since this is our local unpretentious fine dining spot, we eat here all the time and I have to say you really can’t go wrong. The chef was trained at the California Culinary Academy and has a flair for Asian fusion, which is given quite a bit of airtime in that program. If you have any specific questions you may, as always, email me, but I would probably tell you to get the chicken or the ahi tuna sandwich. Everything is made from scratch, including the desserts. If you go for the weekend brunch, you can get the best fried seafood combo ever for only $8.95. This is a comfortable place where the staff is very nice.
Tuk Tuk Thai in Berkeley
The only food item of note involves our lunch today at Tuk Tuk Thai Cafe (2466 Shattuck, Berkeley). I have enjoyed their lunch special for some time now and almost always order the BBQ chicken with sticky rice and green papaya salad. Transliterated, that’s gai yang and som tum. Fact is, Tuk Tuk produces superior som tum. Being a student and lover of Issan-style cooking, I know my som tum, and this is tops. The papaya is grated coarse so it retains its texture, and all the ingredients meld into that sweet-sour-hot-pungent flavor profile that is the hallmark of Issan cuisine. The grated papaya and condiments are pounded together in a wooden mortar, you see, which brings the salad together. Traditionally, dried shrimp, lime juice, fish sauce, dried chili pepper, tomatoes, palm sugar, green beans and sugar are used. If you want to try to make it there are about a zillion recipes on the web, but try to find one that uses the ingredients I list. Until I got the Thai mortar and pestle, I had some luck using big wooden spoons to smash the mass into the bottom of a large stoneware bowl. Now, if only I could get Matthew to stop ordering lunch special #1, the chow mein. No matter how I try to steer him, he is a stick of furniture.