sybarites

In an odd conjunction of circumstances last week, we found ourselves eating a dinner of sake and hot dogs.    I had bought some fancy schmancy Niman Ranch hot dogs and gourmet buns with plans to load those babies up with caramelized onions, big lashes of classic French’s mustard and dripping wads of sauerkraut.   Marc likes to steam the buns until they nearly devolve into the dough from whence they came.  Fried up good, these are some tasty dogs.

And then, unexpectedly, we found ourselves with two bottles of sake.   America’s First Sake Store™ True Sake , is located in Hayes Valley, conventiently within walking distance of our place.  October is a bright and sunny T-shirt month here, so we strolled down the hill with no particular intention of buying anything and came away with some new clothes and two interesing-looking bottles of sake.   Don’t know anything about sake, couldn’t name one type or brand to save my life, but we decided a taste test of them would be fun.    What else does one do with such a shop?   We got some blue kind and another bottle that was greenish, both covered in Japanese-  it’s like a blind tasting because we can’t read the labels.

And so, a proper tasting of sake (one was drier than the other one, that’s the best I can do), and squishy, overloaded, messy hot dogs.   How I adore living in this city.

Arguably, art should mimic life and not the other way around.   And arguably, advertising is not really art.   Yet, I purposely arrange my morning coffee to mimic an ad I once saw for Starbucks, trying to sell their beans for people to brew at home.   The image was of one small, rickety folding chair set on a back step of a house in what looked like it could be a garden; on the chair sat a folded section of newspaper and a large Starbucks mug.  The caption  was something like “Coffee for one.”

I’m not a regular ‘bucks drinker anymore, but I never forgot that ad.    Here, in this flat, I find an opportunity to approximate this scenario-  my coffee, my reading material of choice, our wee, cozy garden in the morning sun.

…and a dog nose sniffing through the bedroom window.