The Plight of the Bumblebee

This picture is for Angie, whose obsession with bees lead to a photo essay and calendar. As I understand it, bees and bumble bees in particular are in danger all over America and their demise threatens key crops such as stone fruits and almonds. Today, beekeepers actually truck in trailers filled with bees to pollinate fields all over California and their services are in demand. Introduced foreign bee species, endemic diseases, loss of habitat, and the overuse of pesticides all contribute to diminishing bee reserves. To counteract this prevailing trend, a new underground movement is afoot in Bay Area communities. Organizations such as Garden for the Environment (http://www.gardenfortheenvironment.org/) promote urban beekeeping in local workshops over on 7th and Lawton, in the Inner Sunset. I can attest that their homegrown honey is delicious!

Sausalito and Sunday in the Park

LoveJoy's

For a completely frivolous and cozy afternoon tea, LoveJoy's on Church street is the perfect place. The quirky and inventive decor features mismatched china sets and a tasteful collection teatime treasures and collectibles. Unlike other tea houses in the City, the full spread includes enough tasty scones, sandwiches, and salad to leave you satisfied and a bottomless teapot to quench your thirst. Be sure to reserve a table well in advance. Weekends and especially Sundays are booked weeks ahead of time.

http://www.lovejoystearoom.com/

Hum. Well, since it is so often booked on Mother's day, it's easy enough to just copy to the entire menu, style, and theme at someones home. Here's a quick list of menu items and accessories to create the same effect. These are mere approximations of the actual recipes and may not taste exactly comparable because I've only eaten there on one occasion and only tried a fraction of their entire repetoir. But, the ingredients seem simple enough to locate at any grocery store or WholeFoods. Moreover, the wonderful thing about LoveJoy's is the tasteful, yet intentional, visual chaos created by contrasting colors, patterns, and textures. While the general style and shape of the dinnerware generally comes from the same era or aesthic, it need not match! So, everything can be found for a few cents at your local GoodWill on the next "dollar day"and returned later as a donation if you don't want to keep it.

Menu

• Fine, loose tea (herbal, green, black, fruit...anthing would work)
• Fresh scones
• Tea cookies (mmm...McVitte cookies, my FAVORITE)
• English clotted cream
• Jam/preserves(preferably homemade)
• Seasonal fruit cut into bit sized and decorative shapes (pineapple, melon, berries)
• Mixed salad greens with flower petals (from a local farmer's market)
• Vinaigrette salad dressing
• Gourmet coleslaw
• An assortment of tiny tea sandwiches. Spread any of the following between two slices of standard, plain, white or whole wheat bread. Then cut away crust and cut each square into diagonal triangles. Or, use a cookie cutter to shape perfect circles and place them on tiered serving trays. The sandwich fillings tend to be comprised of only a two or three ingredients in thin, delicate layers.

Sandwich fillings

• Olive and fig tapenade (try blending black olives and preserved figs)
• Humus with pureed artichoke hearts
• Stilton and thin pear slices (This filling was the BEST!!!!! )
• Butter and cucumber slices
• Pureed apple, walnut, and chicken salad
• Roast beef and horseradish

Plates, decor and accessories

• 1 flowered tablecloth
• 1 napkin holder
• 1 lace coverlet
• 1 antique cream server
• 1 antique sugar server
• 1 tiered serving tray with three, stacked, circular levels supported by a vertical rod going though the center of each. The lowest and widest level is about the size of a dinner plate.

Each place setting included the following:

• 1 antique or vintage teacup with matching tea saucer
• 1 lace dolie to go under the tea saucer
• 1 lace place mat
• 1 poreclain teapot (the crazier or more unique the better!)
• 1 dessert plate
• 1 teaspoon
• 1 tea strainer
• 1 small tin cup to hold the tea strainer
• 1 lace or flowered napkin

BON APPETIT!

Freedom from Braces

Top three reasons to celebrate April 26:

1. Tevye's liberation from braces.
2. Shakespeare's birthday
3. The anniversary of the first evidence showing the top quark subatomic particle.

Thank you Tevye for the trivia!

Pass the Matzah!

Pepper hosted a Passover meal with a "Love and Justice" theme last Sunday which drew at least a dozen people. Having been raised in a completely different tradition, I felt honored and delighted to participate in the ancient ritual. That being said, I doubt the proceedings of ancient orthodox passovers could have been this ecclectic or politcially correct. She used a script from an online Zine and which included directions on how to make the event "Trans-friendly." With readings from good old MLK, wonderful company, reflections on world events, and plenty of matzah ball soup, who could complain? If the event remotely resembles other Jewish gatherings, I'm sold.

Want to try your own new-age Passover next Spring? The full script is available at http://colours.mahost.org/events/haggadah.html.

God Dag

Yes, we're moving to Norway, the land of fjords! The picture is actually from a cross-country ski trip in Yosemite this winter, but I imagine Norway looks similar and has as much snow. Matt's there already and calls on Skype, gushing with enthusiasm, spilling glowing reports of the landscape, people, and culture.

I am so intruiged and excited. The City of Oslo, where we will be living, is surrounded by mountains full of hiking and skiing trails, and open waters for sailing and boating. Norway is a socialist country with a well-educated, English-speaking populus that loves outdoor activities. A calendar online lists annual festivals and events to keep us busy. I also spotted dance, meditation, and yoga studios that must attract like-minded folks.

So far, learning Norwegian has been quite amusing. Phrases bounce along with a jaunty cadence and many words vaguely resemble or sound like English equivalents. Starting in July, it will be interesting to see how my research matches the real thing.

Ah, Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is a sweet and gentle country, filled with extremes from high, cloud-capped mountains and steep waterfalls to sweltering swamps with exotic creatures, from tiny villages to bustling cities, and from wild jungles to scarred hillsides. While most tourists flock to a few, select beach fronts and adventure parks, we took the path less traveled, exploring darling inland valleys, roaring rivers, remote gorges, and thin trails. We also ventured South through twisty back roads to see the changing landscape in action.

After landing in San Jose Airport at the crack of dawn on March 29, we circled the suburbs until the GPS device on our rental car started working. Thank God! From there we headed to a small, agricultural area called Orosi Valley for two days and then drove to San Geraldo de Rivas, a tiny village perched on the side of Mount Chirripo where we spend four days. We toured the southern part the region all the way to the Panamanian boarder for just a day before two days in Hacienda Baru, a hot and humid jungle by the coast. Along the way we spotted countless tropical birds and strange mammals such as Agoutis and Peccaris. But, above all, we met some of the kindest and most generous Costa Ricans in the more remote areas. Nano, a jungle man and a local legend in Orosi, took us under his wing and entertained us for hours with his stories and dreams. He gave us a tour of his ranch and showed us how to swing from giant vines. Omar and his brother David hosted us at their lodge in San Geraldo and gave us an inside view into the village life. Now Matt's convinced that we should return someday to participate in an annual race, running 36km straight up a mountain and straight down. Each of the business we visited in San Geraldo proudly displayed finishing photos of local winners.

As far as Central American countries go, Costa Rica is in better shape than most. Its stable, democratic government is enlightened enough to spend a large percentage of the national budget on education and maintains no standing military. Despite ongoing and increasing population pressures, a full 25% of the total lass mass has been permanently dedicated as National parks. But, the pressures remain, and forests continue to disappear at a rate of 3.6% per year. We could see it clearly with our own eyes as we drove around the countryside. Everywhere we went we saw thin strings of trees topping the hillsides and crevices above expanses of new grazing land supporting just a few cinder block dwellings with tin roofs. And everywhere there were children in bright crisp uniforms walking to and from school. Costa Rica is clearly a young country, a country in transition, and at the same time, a beautiful, enchanting, and charming place to visit.

Hashing

Where do they come up with things like this? Tonight Nash introduced me to one of the most peculiar and entertaining recreational activities ever invented, called "Hashing." This bizare, underground phenomenon involves anywhere from 10-50 people running through neighborhoods or in the woods, following cryptic dots, arrows, and signs marked out in chalk and flour. Some signs indicate a dead end, and others prompt the group to spit up in three directions looking for the next lead. The markings are scattered anywhere from 100-300 feet apart, so you have to keep your eyes peels while jogging along. Runners at the front of the pack call out what they found and every now and then the group breaks into total chaos scattering into the bushes or down slopes hunting for the next arrow. The kicker is the end of the line where large letters signal "beer near" and the run terminates in a tail gate party with old drinking songs and verbal abuse poured on in good cheer. Then the boisterous crew wanders into a local pub to finish the night off with more drinking and banter.

We arrived at the end of 9th street in the Sunset, next to Presidio at 6:15 on a Monday, where a small group of runners gathered around a few trucks filled with kegs and chips in the back. Since I was the only "virgin" participant that night, the "hare", or the person who set the course, gave me a quick tutorial on the basic rules and how to interpret the chalk marks. Then, at the sound of the whistle, we were off. By this time a large mass of 50 runners had assembled and everyone suddenly bolted in all directions looking for the first clue. Nash and I headed down a path into the Presidio and were fortunate to find three flour piles indicating the correct path. From there, the journey meandered around a lake, up an access road, through a neighborhood, between apartment buildings and down tiny trails leading all the way to the Pacific ocean, just in time for a spectacular sunset by Golden Gate bridge. At times the runner formed one single line, or doubled up in pairs and clumps. And then at other times, when encountering dead ends and other symbols, everyone slowed down into a mob scene. The dead end signals served a useful purpose, slowing down the fastest runners so the slow pokes could catch up while forcing everyone to take a breather. It was an incredible evening, and everyone was congenial and jovial, chatting along the way and introducing themselves with their code names. Whenever someone does something stupid or notable on a run, they're roasted at the end and dubbed with some goofy and lewd title. Though, despite the epithets, the crew couldn't be more harmless.

Nash and I had a ball. It was like being back in high school cross-county, going on wild goose-chases in the Stanford Hills. The course couldn't have been more scenic or stunning. We trampled through eucalyptus groves, stands of Monterrey Cyprus, and across sand dunes. In the setting sun, the landscape looked like a mirage with muted browns, and greens contrasting against the bright yellow of the flowers and freshly cut grass. The ocean spread out like a shimmering blanket nestled between the Headlands and Pacific Heights. And the heather was in bloom, filling the air with its pungent aroma.


The roots of hashing stem back to a Victorian game in 19th century England. As far as I can tell, in the original game one set of children, called "hares," would mark a trail in the woods for other children, called "harriers," to follow. Another version of the game evolved on an English army base in Asia and involved running around and drinking beer. For the full history see the wikipedia page(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers). Today, it's played all over the world and teams gather both nationally and internationally on occasion. But, it's primarily a non-competitive sport.