Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday all my adult life, and this year it was particularly fine.
I had this brilliant idea for Thanksgiving dinner: Gloria and I could sneak off to one of the nice restaurants in either Santa Rosa or San Francisco and have a no-fuss, no-muss dinner all by ourselves. So I made her the offer by email, but before I’d given her even a couple of hours to accept, I realized that we knew a couple of single people who would probably be Alone at Thanksgiving and that, without breaking our backs, we could cook something low-key and simple for these folks and Do a Good Deed.
And she’s nice, so she agreed. And then after we’d invited the two singles it occurred to me that my gay landlords, although not single, could be invited to round out the table. And Gloria agreed to that, also, so there ended up six of us, a good number, really, for a dinner.
We agreed that this one needed to be totally non-traditional, so there was no turkey. She came down Thanksgiving morning, and we cooked Pork Sybil, garlic mashed potatoes, braised spinach, cornbread, and a salad of baby rocket lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Cynthia brought an appetizer arrangement that included tasty bruschetta plus good cheeses and crackers, and for dessert we had The Pie as well as a pecan pie from Nick. Lots of good wine that the guests brought to wash it all down, and it being Thanksgiving, most of us gorged.
On Friday, Gloria and I went to Riverside Seafood Restaurant on Vicente at 23rd Avenue for good dim sum, and then spent the afternoon exploring the coast from Ft. Funston to the fine new Sutro Heights Park high above the Sutro Baths. I just love it how the late afternoon sun snuck in under the low overcast to light up the trees….and that i was lucky enough to be standing there when it did so.
On Saturday Carol came staggering over under a load of little bitter oranges and Meyer lemons from her trees, and the three of us made Carol’s Little Bitter Orange Marmalade. I just love these communal kitchen projects.
On Sunday I joined my friend Stephen for lunch at Bodega Bistro, the name being a three language play on words and the food being Vietnamese. Ahhh, San Francisco, how I do love thee! It’s on Larkin at the entrance gate to Little Saigon, and oh yes, the food is superb and the prices, reasonable. After lunch, we wandered around the neighborhood snapping pics, including this totally Christmassy one. Santa needs some lovin’ , too.
On Monday I saw my annual movie, this year it being Milk since I could see it in the Castro theater with an audience that was heavily seeded with people like me who had lived through all the events right here in the city and who had known, often repeatedly, many of the characters.