How I Came to Love Superbowl Sunday

The older you get, the more you know what you're looking for in a relationship. Call it wisdom or call it being worn down, but with age also comes the understanding that no partner can be everything.

When I met Joe, I was in my mid(ish)-30s, old enough to ask the important questions:
1. Do you like to cook?
2. Do you often pursue outdoor activities?
3. Do you like sports?

I was gunning for these answers:
1. yes
2. no (and I solemnly swear to never require you to sleep on the cold, hard ground)
3. no (and I particularly hate football)

I got these instead:
1. yes
2. sometimes?
3. yes

Factoring in our relationship's other strong pluses, I figured fifty percent was acceptable. I agreed to replace my four channels and rabbit ears with cable so we could have Sports Center and we got married.

Here we are, our Le Cruesets merged and some amazing home-cooked meals behind us. I've only been asked to camp once in close proximity to our car and beared a fair share of sports on television. The gentlemanly banter and crack of the bat in baseball doesn't bother me; basketball players have interesting hair to look at; but barring a good cheerleader routine, everything about football I find grating. The last time a game was on, I removed Joe's arm from around my shoulder and dramatically shut myself in our room with a book in a martyred, intellectual protest. I followed up by giving Joe remote TV headphones for Christmas that he has yet to take out of the box.

I'm normally not the sort of person to applaud the installation of a flat-screen TV in a restaurant (a growing trend), but I had no issue with it when Joe told me he was going to put one up in Tacolicious, especially since he promised he had no intention of having it on all the time—it would just be used for key sporting events.

Which of course, right now, means football. But I've had a big a-ha: Football games on at Tacolicious means less football on in the house. A beautiful trade-off.

Still, hope springs eternal in relationships and Joe is a romantic. Clearly he didn't get the wisdom memo because the other night he asked me if I was going to come in to watch the Superbowl at Tacolicious this Sunday. I thought he was joking, but he was not.

So, while all of you are having a rollicking time, drinking margaritas and eating chili con queso (that stuff oozes Superbowl), hollering and hooting and doing whatever barbaric things people do that watch football do, I'll be at home, contently curled up with my National Book Award winning novel. I won't see you there. But Joe will, and happily.

Live Life on the Edge: Eat Dinner Late

There are a lot of reasons I'm proud to be a San Franciscan:

1. This is one of the most picturesque places in the world—not to mention one can drive in almost any direction (barring South on 101) and the beauty continues. (Current example: The neon-yellow mustard flowers blooming in the vineyards up in the wine country right now.)
2. We have great food, amazing markets and left leaning politics.
3. A very extended etc.
But as proud as I am to live here, I don't think San Francisco is perfect. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we listen to too much NPR, but sometimes I wonder if we're just too sensible for our own good.

Unlike New Yorkers, we wear practical shoes; unlike Italians, we do not engage in public makeout sessions; unlike Bankokians, we wouldn't even consider getting on a Vespa without a helmet (much less ride on it with our extended family and a cage of live chickens); unlike Parisians, we wouldn't dare smoke while riding our bikes (barring the odd Mission hipster); unlike Los Angelenos, we pretend not to revel in Brangelina's rumored separation; unlike Spaniards, we eat far before 10 pm.

(Note: Before Joe writes a comment below saying I'm a pot calling the kettle black, I'll admit right here that I rarely make it up past Jon Stewart's monologue and the last time I went clubbing was, well, I can't recall. But this doesn't mean I don't have aspirations.)

It's the last part of the above list that I'm most invested in, unsurprisingly. Something I've noticed however, is that when I visit the above cities, I find myself stepping up to the plate, energized by the collective whole. I do crazy things like wear high heels, ride Vespas (with a helmet) and most of all, eat late. In Tokyo, I found myself slurping up a bowl of curried noodles with pork tonkatsu at 4 am, barely registering the time (sure it had something to do with the amount of drink I'd consumed, but it also had something to do with the city's joie de after-hours vivre). In New York, I walked out of Ssam Bar at 3 am, amazed to see the streets of the East Village were as busy as Chestnut Street on a Sunday morning. These cities always make me feel urban and cool but also fill me with a twinge of jealousy.

Which is the long way short to get to the point that we made the executive decision to keep Tacolicious open until midnight every night of the week for a reason—not for financial gain (ok, if it happens, it happens), but because we have visions of being part of making San Francisco a place where people spill out of restaurants into the wee hours and have somewhere to go after seeing a show at the Fillmore. I want to feel like this town is happening—that late-night dining isn't even a question mark.

And we hope you'll come. We hope you'll come in at 11:45 pm, famished and looking for an almost midnight snack of a carnitas taco and a beer. We hope you'll come in, post Avatar, still crossed eyed from the 3D glasses and slightly air sick from flying around on a dragon all night, looking to settle your stomach with a bowl of albondigas soup. We hope you'll stop by after a evening sail on the Bay to warm up with a shot of tequila.

Rest assured should you need to have a shot of espresso to keep you going, we've got that too. (We also have a cocktail that mixes espresso with sambuca to great effect). And remember: that the whole pumpkin thing? It only happens in Cinderella.

Image by Canbalci on Flickr

Chili Con Queso: The Guilty Pleasure

Having written about food in San Francisco for longer than I want to admit, I am no stranger to the guilty complex that comes with living in a town influenced greatly by the S.L.O (sustainable, local, organic) movement. I've cringed along with the rest of the liberals while watching Food, Inc. I consider Michael Pollan my journalist hero. I had the first edition of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch card shoved in my wallet for years. (See the tombo tuna, versus ahi, on our tostadas as an indirect result of this.)

I once sat in on a press conference where Alice Waters got weepy introducing her own hero, Slow Food founder Carl Petrini who then proceeded to give a speech—with a booming, proselytizing voice and hand gestures that could compete with Al Sharpton—that included a story about a poor woman in Mexico who didn't even know she had some traditional herbs growing in her backyard because she was so far removed from her heritage that she shopped at the—no!—supermarket.

Disclaimer #1: Before I go further, I should state that Tacolicious was founded on the principals of sustainability. A large portion of our produce comes from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market where we launched our stand last summer. We use natural meats. Our tortillas may not be organic but they're made daily at our very local La Palma.

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Which is part of the reason why Joe and I found ourselves low-crawling through the vast aisles of Safeway one night on a secret mission to buy a thing of Velveeta. (Thing being the best word to describe it, really. Any dairy item that doesn't have to be refrigerated cannot be categorized.)

Disclaimer #2: This was not Joe's idea. It was mine. I wanted to try to make the Tex-Mex style chili con queso for Tacolicious; it was a dish that I felt that any self-respecting, margarita-drunk Marina inhabitant would be grateful to have available late night.

Joe's first reaction was to try make it with legitimate cheese (which he ultimately attempted), but real cheese separates and does weird things. I knew that chile con queso and its creamy greatness does not come from anything natural. I suggested we just try it out and then tell me what he thought.

The Velveeta purchased, we came home and, after analyzing the processed cheese spread's ingredients, we decided to go for it. The chili con queso made, we brought it up with a bag of chips to my super foodie neighbors—neighbors that cold-smoke their own salmon, roast their own coffee beans, forage for their own chanterelles. And? Well, they couldn't stop eating it. And to be honest, neither could we.

My guilt turned to something that I can only describe as giddy pleasure. Each taste of velvety, spicy deliciousness threw me right back to the mid-80s, back before I knew better. I felt a rebellious thrill rush through me and it felt great.

So, Carl Petrini: Strike us down.

Or better yet, have a few margs, dip into the chili con queso and we won't tell anyone.

The Sitout Gutwrench Powerbomb

Almost two nights into Tacolicious and things are looking good.

Although the food was great last night (my friends were moaning over the tuna tostada that we modeled after Contramar's and another friend was all about the short rib tacos), from my point of view—someone that's had everything on the menu a few times over—last night was all about the art.

Wanting to make sure that the room really showed some character, Joe and I painstakingly considered what to put on the walls of Tacolicious. Opening night was the first time that I'd gotten to see it in all its glory.

In the righthand corner of the dining room is the wrestler, a highly amusing, yet amazing, massive illustrated photograph done by Joe's longtime friend Tyler Gourley. (For what it's worth, photography geeks will like to know that it was shot with a Contax 645 camera, with an 80 mm lens, on color negative with 120 film.) This piece came to us in a roundabout way. We'd hired Tyler to shoot scenes of the Mexican parts of town in both Modesto and the city's Mission District. But before we even got going on that, Tyler realized he'd already done a series of photographs of WWE wresters that included Rey Mysterio, the big time, champion Mexican wrestler who also has gone by the ring names The Green Lizard and Super Niño.

Although Rey is Mexican-American and resides in San Diego, you don't have to know much about him to know which side (the Mexican or the American) he identifies with. Not only does he wear a lucha libre mask from his days training with his uncle in Mexico, but Mr. Mysterio has a huge tattoo across his ripped abdomen that says "Mexican." He's a high flyer and his signature moves include the Bronco Buster, the Suicide Drive and the Sitout Gutwrench Powerbomb (the latter is one I'm pretty sure my older son Silas would like to try on his little brother).

But ironically, Wikipedia puts Mysterio's height at only 5 foot 6 (and IMDB says he's only 5'3!) and his weight at 135 pounds—which is only five pounds greater than what I weighed in college when I gained my "Freshman 15" from eating too many waffles for breakfast.

Sidenote: Meanwhile, Tyler is 6 foot 6. Imagine the photo shoot.

All which means the photograph of Rey—measuring in at 6.5 x 4-feet—is truly larger than life.

The whole thing makes me giggle.

19 More Hours to Go

Joe just got home, tired but upbeat and excited for the Monday night opening. Tacolicious is ready to go. I was there today and it looks beautiful.

It's funny, the calm before the storm. Taking on the domestic side of all this this week, when I'm not at 7x7, I've been mostly helping remotely: keeping up with the piles of laundry, watching the kids, shopping for groceries so we don't starve. The irony of the restaurant business is that it feeds everyone but the people most closing involved with it. Let's just say a restaurant doesn't pack the kids' lunch.

And in trying to keep order around the house, I've noticed how much of our lives have become about Tacolicious. It's pervaded our every move. Even the kids are in on it. On our front door right now is a hot pink Post-It note that Moss made today that says "Moss Cafe: Tacolicious" in the handwriting of a four year old. And on the desk, I found a construction paper taco filled with tissue paper taco "fillings" that Moss made in his preschool class as a precursor to the Tacolicious field trip his class took last month. Beneath that, I found a stencil that I made, trying to to figure out the logo (I had visions of a graffiti-like stencil, because I'm street like that). Beneath that is a piece of paper where Joe sketched out what he wanted the menu to look like.

Outside our back door is a tile of pressed copper from Laiola's ceiling which Joe experimented with, trying to see how we could patina it a dark brown. The baking soda experiment leaked over onto the kitchen table which now has a permanent scar on it. (And in the end, we left the ceiling gleaming copper.) I just changed the sheets in the guest room where Joe's dad—a retired ship captain that is also very skilled carpenter—stayed for five nights when he came in to do the restaurant's wood work. And I finally threw away the piles of Benjamin Moore paint samples that I've neurotically continued to purchase, all in one-degree variations on teal—teals like "Shenendoah" that were ultimately painted on the walls of Tacolicious, and then painted over for a teal of Joe's preference ("Cedar Mountain"). Yes, it caused a little familial drama, but I'll grudgingly admit looks a lot better. (I've always thought paint store employees would behoove themselves to take classes in couple's therapy.)

It's 10:27 now. Just that much closer to the opening tomorrow night, and the closest I've ever been personally to a restaurant opening, despite having been a food writer for over 10 years. It's an amazing feat, this restaurant opening stuff. Certainly not for the weak hearted.

Joe's dozing on the couch, having disgustedly turned from "The Worst Cook in America" on the Food Network to a game of professional poker. All the better to zone out for a moment and dream about anything but what's ahead of him, if just for a sleepy moment.

We hope to see you tomorrow.

It's A Family Affair

Laiola closed on New Year's Eve and the next day, the construction began. Joe's dad, Mike, arrived and after a little bolstering breakfast of hashbrowns and eggs at Bay Watch Restaurant, everyone got to work. It took Isaac, Joe, Manny, Yonni and Mike the majority of the day just to get down the beautiful wine bar which they started out thinking weighed about 300 pounds and ultimately figured out weighed about a ton. What they thought they could just lift and take away to storage ended up being a full-day project that involved, saws and hammers, not to mention a dramatic fall that Isaac took, including a few puncture wounds from the nails on the floor, causing all the mothers in the room to suck in their breath or shriek and repeatedly ask him if was ok for the rest of the night. It's hard to be a man when you've got a brood of hens clucking around you.

I'm sorry to say, the wine bar is no longer for sale on Craigslist.

The next day, my mom and dad and I painted; Kelly organized the office; and Joe's mom did errands for us. Meanwhile, Mike and Isaac—true carpenters—spent the day building a beautiful bar and lining some of the walls with wood, which then general manager Mike came along and stained. Telmo fed us a much needed lunch.

I know I'm bias here, but I'm stunned by how beautiful it looks.

Fast forward and the signage is up and the restaurant is nearly done and ready to open. The official opening is this Wednesday, although I think you might see some action in the kitchen on Monday if, just say, you were to stop by and ask for a margarita. I'm thinking there will be shots of tequila all around.