Love: FuseBOX, deep in West Oakland, which is currently open only for lunch 3 days a week, but has the feeling of someplace that will become a destination for foodies. Everything was delicious - from the assorted vegetable skewers to the host of housemade kimchees and pickles that accompanied a skirt steak, to a potted cheesecake with corn flake crumbles. Their wings are supposedly out of this world too. I need to get some coworkers to sign up for a Friday lunch excursion.
Like: Sylvie Bednar's Flags of the World book, which is so fun to look through, filled with interesting facts that decode each flag's various symbols, colors and patterns, that I bought one for us and a dozen more to have on hand to give as gifts to all the kids whose birthday parties Stella will inevitably be invited to in the coming year.
Discovery: The Strawberry Alarm pizza from Seattle's Flying Squirrel, which pairs spicy coppa salumi with the sweet fruit, along with goat cheese and toasted walnuts. Who knew this combination would work so well? Might be worth trying at home before the local strawberries disappear.
Obsession: The perfectly-sized, nicely-weighted spirit glasses Pizzaiolo uses for their negronis. I tracked them down at East Bay Restaurant Supply, a good place to stock up on other things as well, like a commercial ice cream scoop and wood-handled whisks. Oh, and randomly, they have a GIANT taxidermy polar bear by the entrance. Yes!
Complaint: That there is no ferry commute option from the Berkeley Marina into San Francisco. I had the occasion to take the ferry roundtrip from Tiburon a few weeks ago, and can't imagine a lovelier way to cross the Bay each day for work (bonus points for walking through the Ferry Building twice a day, for a Blue Bottle coffee in the am, and then to pick up groceries for dinner on the way home.) Googling "ferry from the Berkeley Marina" showed some very promising activity up until 2009 - including site maps and a parking structure plan - but then the trail goes cold.
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