honoured ancestor visit, weekend one
Airports are no place for infants. I can still feel the marks of Claire’s fangs on my collarbone. The computers in immigration went down on Friday and it took over an hour for the blicket’s abuelo and abuela to emerge from the bowels of the airport. Under the circumstances I think Claire’s attempts to rip my throat out were a pretty restrained response.
Claire’s grandmother is a formidable cook, and I am an exceedingly competitive woman, so we’ve all been eating very well. On Friday we had roast chicken with a pear, blue cheese and baby spinach salad, and amazing blueberries to follow. Saturday morning was our inaugural trip to the Ferry Building farmer’s market, so on Saturday night we had Byran, Shannon and Cian over for roast salmon with red, white and purple potatoes, freshly shelled peas and a salad of arugula and dandelion. Bryan liked the peas better than anything else I think I’ve ever cooked for him, funny daft Irishman that he is.
Last night we had Jamey and Carole and Rowan to dinner. I made a big lemon, chicken and zucchini pilaf, with a bread-and-butter pudding for dessert. In your face, Dr Atkins! Cafe Rach serves all carbs, all the time.
It’s Jan’s turn to cook tonight, and I’m all, Top that, lady, but she’s all, I have thirty years on you child, and I’m all, Yeah, well Nyerr.
Also yesterday we took Claire to the Asian Art Museum. She likes museums for their acoustics, which greatly amplify her cheery hoots. I’m given to bitter complaints over the fact that the powers-that-be threw the SF Public Library out of this building into the somewhat less beautiful building next door, but the Asian Art Museum gradually won me over with a combination of astounding jades and a very enlightened area equipped with markers and crayons for bored kids. Claire made her first pictures, which to my completely unprejudiced eye display astonishing talent and precocity. My daughter, vampire or fine artist? Time will tell.
