Ice cream soda

I never knew what this really was until last Friday. Turns out it's ice cream with soda poured over it (like, duh!). The Italians have affogato (vanilla ice cream with espresso coffee). The Americans have ice cream soda - mine was vanilla ice cream with root beer. And very good it was too. In St Francis Fountain, San Francisco with actual booths too.

Correction: I am informed by a genuine American that this isn't an ice cream soda. So I'll just have to go back and have one of those as well.

Cookery lesson number three: sauces

Saturday was the third lesson in the series, though sadly only my second as I spent the previous Saturday in bed feeling dizzy from my antibiotics. This week I was full of beans. Olive, our French chef tutor, guided us through the concept of the roux and the emulsion and showed us a bechamel, a mayonnaise and a pan sauce. Then we split into groups to have a go ourselves at some mother sauces. I tried the mayonnaise first. I have strong nostalgic memories of home-made mayonnaise with poached salmon for sunny outdoor lunches at my grandmother's so was keen to see if I could manage this. And I could. It's surprisingly easy. Key things to know are that you musn't choose a really strong oil like extra virgin olive oil as it will taste far too strong, and you start very very slowly whipping in drop by drop of the oil until the sauce "has caught" and then you can go for it. I had another go at home on Sunday for lunch and whipped up a mayonnaise in a few minutes.

Meanwhile back in the lesson, the couple in my group managed to curdle their bechamel - they are complete novice cooks and this is easily done. Then I threw their curdled sauce away when they were going to flavour it anyway. Oh the horror and shame. Luckily they then made a really really delicious replacement under the guidance of Mike the chef and I think they forgave me because S... gave me some for lunch with pasta and chicken. I also made a veloute which is basically a roux base with stock instead of milk to differentiate it from the bechamel, and then had a go at an espagnole which is a veloute with added veg (mirepoix of celery, onion and carrot) and tomato puree. This one cooks for a while. I'm not sure either the veloute or the espagnole are going to make it into my standard repertoire as I find them a bit cloying.

I left the class feeling thoroughly inspired and of course rushed home and wittered on about sauce while Tom and the girls tried to tell me what they'd been up to (Fort Mason - a park on the north side of the city).

Next day in addition to the mayonnaise, I overdosed the family on egg yolk by feeding them Dover Sole with Hollandaise sauce for supper. Went down very well. And again I found the sauce not too hard to make. I'm not sure it was quite thick enough and I may adjust the flavouring to make it more lemony but it was delicious and really enhanced the meal. Which is after all the point.

Of course since then I haven't managed to make another sauce as life has got in the way. I have plans tonight. Or inklings of plans as I haven't worked out what I shall make yet. Watch this space.

Jamie Oliver - TED Prize talk

Those of you in Britain will be familiar with this talk and where it comes from. Those in the US, perhaps not. Either way this is worth watching. Go Jamie Oliver!

Coffee

About 20 years ago I was in Kenya on holiday, travelling off the beaten track. When you stopped at a roadside cafe for a drink, you found your choice was limited. There were perhaps two different makes of beer (which I thought tasted almost exactly the same) and perhaps six soft drinks, all by Coca Cola - coke, fanta, sprite and so on. What struck me was that the Kenyans I travelled with stuck with one or perhaps two choices. Even though changing your mind and reconsidering the options took no time, they had decided what they liked and generally never changed their minds. Perhaps it was just them or perhaps it's human.

In New York in a deli I remember Tom and I watching as people came in and ordered their sandwiches in breathtaking detail and at breathtaking speed. The entire wall which was at least 12 feet high was covered in options and when it came to our turn, we panicked and pointed randomly at a special. 

I wonder about this when I go into coffee shops here where the options are enormous.

Size, milk type, coffee type, flavouring, extra shots, roast of bean, origin of bean and on and on and on. What I want to know is are there people out there who make a genuine choice each day or does everyone work out once what they like the most and never deviate. Are we being fooled that we have all this choice when really we just have our habitual favourites? And does anyone actually buy gingerbread lattes?

With that I'm off to get a medium double decaf latte to go, please.

CSA veg box: what's in it

Today I collected my first fruit and veg box. I wandered to a few blocks from where I live, found the right garage and entered the secret code into the padlock. And inside was a list and a pile of boxes and a cooler with eggs inside.

So what did I get? Take a look at this.

This is all fresh from California and there isn't a swede (US transl.: rutabaga) in sight. There are baby turnips, and fresh green onions. There's a butternut squash, some rocket, dill and salad/stir fry greens. Also lemons, satsumas and oranges. Which all just goes to show that the Californian climate is a bit different to the Welsh one.

I also bought the eggs which are as close as I can get to having my own chickens. They're even slightly different sizes and look beautiful.

I don't think there's enough to keep this family going for a week but I love that it's all so fresh and grown locally. And I like the challenge of cooking to a seasonal diet based on the contents of the box. So I'm pleased with this first box and already working out what to do with the turnips.

Milk

When you buy milk, what decisions are you making? And what do you take for granted? In the UK, I had a local milkman who delivered to my door. I knew the milk was local but it wasn't organic. I'd made my decision in favour of convenience, supporting local businesses and the lack of waste (reused bottles) against the organic argument. It's a lot more complicated here.

It may be that I am ignorant of animal welfare standards in the UK, but I think I'm right that British cows spend a lot of time out of doors grazing on grass, and that a lot of the silage fed to them during the winter is also based on grass. I also know that growth hormones are banned in the UK which is why you won't find American beef for sale there. And generally we don't enrich or fortify our milk with vitamins.

Faced with a cold cabinet of milk here, the decisions are a bit more complicated. What do I care about? Well, I don't want to drink milk from cows that have been given growth hormones. The US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has decided that these are harmless to people but they are banned in the UK. Call it patriotism, or scepticism but I'm not keen on artificial means of increasing production which then cause increased levels of infertility and other problems in the cattle, as well as increased levels of an insulin like growth factor in the milk.

I would also prefer to drink milk from cows fed on grass out of doors. Now that one is tricky. I'm currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and have just got to the part on "big organic". Most cows in the US live in barns and not in fields. That's all the time, which to me just seems wrong. Does going organic guarantee that the cows are grass-fed? Not in the USA where more cows are corn-fed than grass-fed. Apparently when the US was designing its organic standards, to ensure that the industrial scale organic dairy farms could meet those new standards, they were made vague and weak. Currently cows must have "access to pasture" but there's nothing to say how often or whether they actually get to eat it. See what I mean about vague. I'm trying to find milk from grass-fed cows. Currently I'm buying Organic Clover Stornetta milk which is apparently from small farms in California and is I think from partially grass-fed cows. I just wish someone would tell me if I got this particular shopping test right.

I need a degree in food shopping

We all have a level at which we settle in making our decisions about what we buy. Starting from making decisions based purely on price, you can have as many additional factors as you like: country of origin for the political (I grew up in a house that boycotted South Africa and Chile during the 70s), organic or non-organic, local or imported, quality and taste.

It is damned complicated and having moved to a new country with different standards, different methods and different tastes, I am finding shopping a minefield. Do I head over to Whole Foods where I know a lot of the food is high quality, organic, sustainable (whatever those terms actually mean) but also expensive, and I'm supporting a big business with arguably questionable employment practices? Or do I head to the Mission where the food is cheaper and the stores are independent but the origins are not so obvious and it is generally not organic, and the farmers could be using very dubious pesticides? Or do I go to the Farmers Markets which means sacrificing chunks of my weekend to do the food shopping but lets me meet and support farmers directly?

I've decided to sign up with a CSA - community supported agriculture - in my case Eatwell Farms, who are based around 60 miles from San Francisco and deliver weekly boxes of their fruit, veg and free-range eggs to addresses all over the city for collection. First pick-up is Wednesday. I am hoping this will mean fewer days of lugging veg up the hill and then our steps and fewer days of thinking what are we going to eat for dinner. Also I will know where the food is coming from and how it is grown.

That's just the green stuff. Milk and meat will have to wait for another post.

I'm on a roll

Sunday dinner was wonderful. I know this not only because it tasted excellent but because everyone ate it and asked for more. Everyone. Even the girls. Anyone who has small children will probably know what I mean. It's one of the reasons I like (or is that insist) that Tom gets home in time to eat with the family. There is nothing more demoralising than spending time and creativity on a meal only to have small people say "Yeuch, I don't want that". At least when Tom is there I know one person at the table will like and eat it.

What did we have? A boned (US transl.: boneless) leg of lamb roasted with garlic and rosemary and surrounded by potatoes. Accompanied by green beans and salad. Particular thanks should go to Drewes the butchers who have never let me down yet. Excellent tender delicious lamb. The children even ate the leftovers with couscous and a tomatoey stewy sauce thing I made up and had seconds of that as well.

We'll just have to see how long it is until the usual "bleah" reaction sets in again. Tonight it's wild shrimp grilled with garlic and lime. Should be a winner but you never can tell...

Put the kettle on

It was a simple thing. After a longish day I stopped in a cafe with the girls and I just wanted a cup of tea. I was in a rather good coffee place with the emphasis on coffee which is what I should have had. How to induce panic in a Brit gasping for a cuppa? Hand her a cup of not that recently boiled hot water and indicate the teabags some distance away. Was I going to pay for the tea first? Nope. I was going to push other customers out of the way to get that bag into the water as quick as I could. Didn't they realise that there was no time to be lost, every second counted as the water cooled. I'm not singling out this particular place - happens all over the place. So please America, put the bag in the mug first and pour boiling water onto it. Makes all the difference. You might even come to like it.

Who knew there were so many different chickens?

I mean dead ones. I know there are lots of different types of live ones. But in the UK in a butchers you will generally only get organic, free-range and standard chickens and they're all about the same in size and age if not flavour and price.

Yesterday we bought a chicken to roast from our current favourite butchers in the Mission Food Hall on Mission at 22nd Street. The man who served me who I suspect is the manager very kindly took me through all the chickens on offer. They had frying chicken (that is a whole chicken not pieces) which apparently is young, tender but with not much meat so you can fry/barbecue the chicken. Then there's broiling which is a bit bigger I think. Then there were stewing hens which were huge, ex-layers, and older so suitable for casseroles. And finally there were roasters which were male, younger than the stewers and tender. I think that was it. I may have got a bit confused. There were also all the free-range/organic/basic options too within this. I think they also still sell capons here which I seem to remember are banned in the UK, but which I remember from my childhood. Thank God the staff in shops are so helpful because my bewilderment continues, and this all makes ethical shopping more confusing than ever.

Last week of 2009

We got back from St Helena on Monday having taken the scenic route over the hills to Santa Rosa which reminded us a lot of the lanes in Wales. Lots of trees and moss and small farms though these often had vineyards and there were not sheep. I miss sheep. Also I think they would improve the look of a lot of the green hills around here. Perhaps they just aren't practical though I always thought sheep were pretty adaptable. Funny what you miss.

We also tried to visit Muir Woods Park which is just north of SF and is one of the last remaining areas with coastal redwoods. I say tried because after driving round and round the car parks for 40 minutes looking for a space, I lost patience, we left and then we all had a huge row about it. We've decided to head back one weekend early, taking breakfast with us. We did stop at the Golden Gate bridge on the way back into town.



Since then we had a big big shop at REI which is a huge outdoor activities shop here in San Francisco. The bill at the end was also huge and the checkout guy handed us our till receipt saying "here's your novel". Very droll. But we are now kitted out with snow gear so Yosemite had better be good because this is turning into the most expensive weekend ever. Still if it is good we can always go again or to Tahoe.

We have also handed back our hire car and are carless. At least we are until this afternoon when Tom picks up an SUV for the Yosemite trip. We're playing it safe. The rules are that you have to carry snow chains in the winter whether they are needed or not but SUV's only have to put them on the car in the most severe conditions. We will get some as the park rangers can check if you have them with you but we have decided that if it gets that bad we won't be driving anyway. Also the hire companies generally won't let you use them. So far the forecast is for good weather this weekend. Sunny during the day, and crisp and cold at night.

We have no idea at all what it will be like. We're just not used to places like this in the snow. I have never done winter sports and Tom hasn't been skiing since we met. Snow in the UK is of the "2-inches-for-an-afternoon-but-screws-up-the-entire-country-for-a-week-kind". Also this will be our longest American journey. We're still adjusting to the idea that you drive a couple of hours to have lunch with people and that 4 hours away is close.

Meanwhile, yesterday Tom was back at work, going in on the BART/Caltrain which takes an hour and was quiet. I suppose this is the holidays but apparently he should be able to get a seat most of the time, which to anyone having commuted in London, is of course novel and welcome.

The girls and I had a lovely day. We took the J line down to 18th to visit a wool shop and furnish Lottie with needles and yarn. We bought Emilia some in St Helena and she's taken to knitting this time around. And of course little sister wants some too. Not sure if she's quite ready but woe betide me for not being entirely fair! The shop is gorgeous and I will go back some time when they are in school.

Then we had ice creams at Bi-rite (salted caramel for me again because it is delicious). Then on through the Mission to a butchers/wet fish shop for chicken breast and large prawns. And a produce shop for the makings of a pseudo-Mexican meal. Large tortillas, refried beans, avocados, coriander/cilantro, limes, tomatoes and so on. It may not be authentic, and it certainly wasn't spicy enough but it was delicious.

Christmas

Our first Christmas as a family of four alone without relatives, was quiet. Well, quiet if you don't count the excitement which started very very early in the morning, and went on and on until it ended with quite a lot of tears and sulking some time in the afternoon. Every year I am surprised at just how excited my children get - which is because I have a very short memory. Everything was a success - they have scooters which are in the process of being mastered and will hopefully speed up the walk to and from school. And they have a remote control helicopter as Lottie is currently obsessed with all flying things and Tom wanted one too.

Lunch was plentiful and delicious although as usual I completely forgot about gravy.



And I forgot about the brandy and matches after all that effort finding the Christmas pudding. But luckily not everyone takes Christmas so seriously and several shops were open so Tom found some which meant we had a proper Christmas after all.

Of course before the pudding we had to climb a hill. So we tackled Bernal Heights which we can see from our sitting room. The weather was perfect, a bit warm in fact and so very unChristmassy. We even saw some people in a hot tub on the way down the hill. A hot tub in December! The views from the top are incredible. The whole of the city is laid out before you and you can even see Golden Gate Bridge peeping over the top.

If I was clever and could be bothered I would stitch these four pictures together, but I'm useless with i-Photo or maybe i-Photo is useless for this kind of stuff so I won't. Just imagine this is a panoramic shot, looking from west through north to east and taking in Twin Peaks, the Golden Gate Bridge, Downtown and the East Bay.

The great pudding hunt is over

I have travelled from one end of San Francisco to the other in the search for a Christmas pudding. Luckily it isn't a very big place. My first port of call was the Britshoppe.com, the other end of the Mission, which had sold out of puddings and mincemeat. But they tipped me off to the existence of "You say tomato" and this time I called first before heading to the fringes of Nob Hill. There I found a shop full of British delicacies such as Patak's lime pickle, Yorkshire tea bags, Marmite and a large Christmas pudding. I'll be honest with you that as a bit of foodie I'm rather disappointed in these shops. There is more to British food than cans of mushy peas and jars of marmalade but these shops mostly seem to cater to the home sick Brit requiring decent tea bags, or digestive biscuits. The brands sold are generally the obvious ones: Kiplings, Robinsons etc. I just think it's a shame that they don't explore the depth of quality that now exists in the UK. Where are the handmade cheeses we see at home in our delis, butchers and at the farmers markets? Where are the ciders, whiskies and wines? How about some biscuits from someone other than McVities? It is all too easy to make fun of British food and these shops, while serving a purpose (thanks for the pudding!) don't really help all that much in challenging that view. You can find better British imports in Whole Foods.

Dangerously close to home: Anthony's Cookies

I found a cookie shop the other day. My nose found it first as I wandered down Valencia Street between 26th and 25th. On a not particularly busy part of the street there is a rather discreet shop front and an elegant sign hanging outside, and a wonderful warm and sweet smell of baking. It wasn't open at the time - obviously getting ready for the day ahead. Yesterday it was open and as I had two small girls who were getting peckish, I took them there on the way home from the library. The inside is almost austere in design but they sell cookies in smart boxes and lovely flavours - we had semi-sweet chocolate chip and toffee chip. The shop is staffed by lots of charming young men in black t-shirts, one of whom became the first American to exclaim about my lovely accent. Anthony's Cookies is going down on my map of places to take the girls when they need rewarding or perhaps bribing.

And then on Sunday

Actually to finish off Saturday, Emilia and I baked a loaf of bread. And here it is with a small proud baker.


We ate it for breakfast, after waking at 8 naturally and without the pad pad pad of small and demanding children first. Sunday afternoon we wandered off down to Dolores Park which is a few blocks north of us. (An aside: for some reason I can't get my head round the fact that the city centre is north of us and we live in the south of the city. I think it may be because I spent nearly 20 years in north London, but I'm always getting this wrong.)

Dolores Park is a sloping green space of about two blocks worth, with tennis courts, a large play area and a big statue of the Mexican Liberator Miguel Hidalgo at the top. And, no, I hadn't heard of him before either. The views of the city as it is on a north-east facing slope are wonderful.



And as far as the children are concerned, one of the park's main attractions is the nearby ice cream shop, Bi-rite Creamery. This is one I have been recommended to go to, appears in books and on food guides to the city and Tom had already been (though he had no clue about that until we got there). Apparently one of their specialities is salted caramel, so naturally I had that. It was fantastic. Really really fantastic. The other flavours chosen were a cinnamon ice cream with snickerdoodles in it which was good, a coffee toffee which was a bit grainy and not as good as Mitchell's coffee and candy cane which I think had broken up stick of rock in it, but was actually very nice indeed.

After that we popped into the Bi-rite Market across the road which is a posh food shop selling organic veg, meat and fish and everything you'd expect in a delicatessen. Very nice with very nice prices to match, the most gob-smacking of which was $99.99 a lb for Jamon Iberico. I know it's expensive but !!! That's an extreme example, as until recently it was apparently banned in the US (fools!) but a lot of European food is very very highly priced, which is as it should be considering the distances it has travelled and so on. I don't particularly have a problem with this except in one specific area: cheese. Name me one high quality American cheese. Bet you can't. And if you can, thank you, because I can't find any. I am curious to know why there isn't a strong cheese culture over here (groan!). Is there a reason that the Americans don't make different and interesting cheeses? I have a friend in New Zealand who has the same problem and misses her cheddar etc. Why no New World cheeses to match Stilton or Camembert?

Anyway moving on, we wandered towards Mission Street, past these magnificent murals (on the Women's Building).



The Mission district has a distinctly different feel about it and yet it is only a couple of blocks from the rather chi-chi Noe Valley. In fact it's hard to say where one ends and the other begins but you know they do. As we walked up Mission Street towards home, Tom and I looked at each other and said "Mare Street, Hackney". The over-riding culture of the neighbourhood (Hispanic) may be different from Hackney, but it has a familiar feel to it. Fascinating, but also dodgy (or sketchy in US English). Wouldn't particularly want to walk there at night, and you have to keep your wits about you in the day time too. But the food shopping looks amazing - live crabs and lobster, good and diverse butchers, piles of fruit and veg, Mexican specialities and so on. And I like that cars driving past are often playing Mexican music at full blast - makes a change from Hip-Hop and SF suddenly feels thoroughly foreign.

Our last shopping stop was a linen store in the Mission where we bought blankets. And we got home just before a hail shower. I know. Hail. Unusual enough for locals to emerge and gasp at it. The children at school were still talking about it this morning. It is cold right now. I am glad I packed my thermals and today I bought a winter jacket and my hat has been in use again. Not bitter UK cold yet, but there's a distinct nip in the air and there's talk (hushed awed talk) of a frost.

First best day in San Francisco

Today was brilliant. We did what we should have done last weekend when I was languishing in bed on my birthday. It started the way a lot of weekends start round here. Sound of small feet padding our way. Pause. "Daddy, do you know where my pencil case is?" You are expected to be on the ball round here, even if you have only just woken up. We had a lazyish breakfast and then sprang (not) into action, and headed off for our first proper encounter with the Pacific Ocean.



We parked on Great Highway at the end of Golden Gate Park. The sky was clear, the waves were big. It's a huge beach and it's on the edge of a city but you don't feel as if you are anywhere near a city. We wandered along the water's edge and at one point all had to make a run for it, after a particularly enthusiastic wave chased us, much to the amusement of some locals. The girls built and decorated a castle. And we met a very charming and handsome park ranger who gave us a map of the State National Park.





Then we headed over to Clement Street in Inner Richmond to visit a bookstore we had heard good things about, find lunch and potter about. The bookstore was Green Apple Books and was wonderful. A mixture of used and new books, it had a lovely children's section, a huge and interesting cooking section and lots of other things to interest us. Also we had a 20 per cent discount thanks to Green Zebra so we bought several books for the girls, a couple of walking books and a history of finance book for Tom. (I'll do a separate post some time about Green Zebra - a great idea.)

Then lunch at Troya which rather against the trend in this part of town (and perhaps for SF in general, I don't know) is Turkish. Very very classy and refined Turkish. We love our Turkish food coming as we do from Stoke Newington in London which if it were the States would have been renamed Little Istanbul. Troya served everything we recognised but rather more elegantly and somehow fresher and with a twist. Tiny warm black olives came first, with a few large lime green olives that Lottie said tasted like broccoli. They didn't, but they were gorgeous. We also had a red pepper dip, yoghurt with carrots, hummus, zucchini cakes (crisp outside, soft and yielding inside and fresh), borek, lovely tender chicken and lamb shish kebab. I think that's it. It all disappeared and when you're out with the girls that doesn't always happen. This time they ate everything.

After that we headed to Kamei Restaurant Supplies which is a large Chinese kitchenware shop. It was heaven. I got over-excited.



Luckily I'd written a list in the restaurant when I discovered we were nearby, or I'd have got undisciplined and bought stuff I don't need. They sell lovely china in gorgeous colours. Things we did buy: a large saute pan with lid, a tea pot (finally!), some lovely bowls with glassy coloured glaze inside, an ice-cream scoop, a slotted spoon, tall glasses, storage jars. Prices are low and there is a huge range. I am glad I didn't head downtown to posh shops before I found this place. I will be back, in particular for a rice cooker, bamboo steamers and some more pretty china.

After that we briefly walked into Golden Gate Park and found a playground for the girls to play on. And then home.

I feel like I've been blown about a bit, fed well and shopped well. It's all good.

Our first Thanksgiving

Today we have been in the US exactly four weeks. Not quite long enough to get to grips with that typically New World holiday, Thanksgiving, so it was with a great deal of gratitude that we found ourselves invited to friends to be part of their family's celebrations. To make a confession, I had arrived in the US with the intention of getting us invited somewhere for a proper Thanksgiving, whatever it took, but in the end I didn't need to engineer this in any way - Americans are so hospitable.

It was very relaxed afternoon, unlike the frantic activity that usually surrounds my Christmas meal preparations. This may be a testament to the laid-back cool of the Californians we were visiting, or to the fact that no present opening was taking place. There is something lovely about a special meal devoted to being with family and giving thanks, and nothing else. Though we did have to answer a quiz before we were allowed to eat. I got the date right - 1621 - but apart from that know almost nothing about turkeys so thank you Henry (aged 9) for being my partner and filling in all the gaps. Now I know that a male turkey is called a Tom!

I was trepidatious that the meal might involve large quantities of maple syrup, cinnamon and the dreaded sweet potato topped by marshmallows (what is that about?) but instead a delicious and, yes, large meal of wonderfully moist turkey with all the trimmings awaited us.


Everyone had contributed something including me - homemade bread rolls and an apple pie from the Ballymaloe Cookbook which came out all right despite my issues with my oven. I am particularly keen to obtain the recipe for a wonderful corn pudding - not dessert in the British sense of the word - which was not quite a souffle, but light and creamy, served with onions, peppers and chiles. Also the cranberry sauce was much less jammy than any I have made in the past, and somehow both less sweet and less sour. Instead it was very fruity. For dessert, I naturally tried the pumpkin pie, light and aromatic. I'm not sure it'll be my favourite pudding but it was lovely.


Something else I've learned this week. As if to make up for the complete lack of commercialism on the day of Thanksgiving, America follows it with something called Black Friday - the biggest and busiest shopping day of the year. So having decided we might pop downtown to get some clothes, we decided against and pottered about our neighbourhood instead. Now I have a dressing-gown, a top to run in, and I know for definite my American shoe size because the staff at See Jane Run measured my feet for me.

The oven, dinner and an accident waiting to happen

I didn't think roasting a chicken would be complicated. I also didn't think the oven would be different. But of course it is. It comes with a "Bake" function and a "Broil" function. Broil means roast, apparently, though I think the word sounds too wet for that. Anyway I assumed the broil function was it but then found that also involves a roast tray thing to go into the oven that I don't have so I'm sticking to the Bake function. And that means my oven has a rather terrifying looking element glowing away at the bottom. Last week a piece of pizza slid onto it and burnt enough to set the smoke alarm off. Is this what all US ovens are like or do I have a particularly primitive version? I'm just not used to being able to see the heating element (or knowing how clumsy I am, touch the thing). Damn, I just set the smoke alarm off again, and I haven't even got the chicken in the oven yet. At least the fire station is on the same block as us, so if I prove deeply incompetent, they can come and rescue us.

Another local highlight discovered

I suspect this detour between school (more on that later perhaps) and our new apartment may happen at least once a week. We have discovered Mitchell's Ice Cream Parlor which is a smallish shop selling their own prize-winning ice cream in a large and sometimes astonishing (avocado or purple yam anyone?) array of flavours. We stuck with the rather more traditional mint for the girls and coffee for me in sugar cones, junior sized. Junior for me too as this was a normal single scoop ice cream unlike the enormous cones with triple scoops of mountainous proportions that were also being bought. You can take home tubs of this lovely stuff and I am looking forward to branching out into some of the more unusual flavours at a later date. The colour of the purple yam has to be seen to be believed.

My latest favourite place in SF

Not the social security office. Not the school district office. Not even (even?) Ikea. No. It won't surprise you to know that it is a cook shop. Cooks Boulevard in Noe Valley. Full of lovely things with often mouthwatering prices - I won't be buying Le Creuset in the US. But I have bought two rather gorgeous knives from an American firm called Lamson & Goodnow of Massachusetts.

Cooks Boulevard also offers cookery classes and today between 3 and 5 pm, a rather lovely chocolate tasting. I will definitely return.