Joke for the day: How many Pentium chips does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: 1.59999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
Vivande Porta Via; 2125 Fillmore (between California/Sacramento); (415 346-4440;www.vivande.com;mark@vivande.com. I came tripping lightly to this upscale Italian restaurant whose owner/cookbook author/brains, Carlo Middione, opened the doors in 1981. It was a gorgeous spring day, and I had a song in my heart from the days of WWI:
What's the use of worrying?
It never was worthwhile
So, pack up your troubles in your old Kit-Bag,
And SMILE, SMILE, SMILE (1915, George Asaf).
I met a retired dermatologist, David, who had just moved in this Pacific Heights neighborhood, and he was truly technologically challenged (he had accidentally hit the delete button on his cellphone). It took a long time to make a lunch date. I remembered that Groucho Marx was one of his heroes. What was his favorite "Groucho" anecdote?
Groucho was interviewing a male guest on his show, YOU BET YOUR LIFE, who had 20 children - that's almost a record.
Groucho: How come you have so many children?
Guest: I love my wife.
Groucho: I love my cigar but I take it out of my mouth sometimes.
(Does Arnold ever take the stogies out of his mouth? Sigmund Freud, aficionado of cigar, aptly replied when asked if it was a phallic symbol: Sometime a cigar is only a cigar).
Would you believe "Tricky Dick" Nixon watched this show? Can you name the 5 Marx brothers, David asked. Yes! What about Beano? Beano was no Marx bro; rather, Gummo, or maybe he was thinking of Zeppo! Back to the food:
Try to find better pasta, risotto, fennel sausage, spinach salad, roast chicken, fried oysters, pecorino, primavera, or Mediterranean Mussels. I dare you. I met the executive chef, Mark Santino, the "brawn", a San Jose native, who's been at Vivande since 2001. I give him award for most outstanding chef for "upstanding" hair-do. We played a game. I asked him which dish on the lunch menu he would pick for his "Last Supper". Can you say TORTA ZABAGLIONE?
I was hankering to reel in a salmon or sole but for lunch, I 86'd the plan. (These are served at dinner). I am a bivalve lover. Did you know mussels are called "the poor man's oysters" because of their abundance and reasonable price? David, who grew up outside of Boston, told me they were routinely "discarded". In Europe they've been cultivated for more than 8 centuries, and are a supreme delicacy.
Here are my choices for this authentic, award-winning restaurant, which makes fresh pasta from durum and semolina flours and eggs;grinds, seasons its own sausage from a time-tested sicilian family recipe, and does NOT welcome cellphones! If you bring the kids, they can entertain themselves by drawing on the brown paper tabletops provided: a great idea!
6 deep-fried oysters served with tangy house relish: 9.0
fettucine alle cozze: mussels, white wine, marinara sauce, and fresh parsley: 13.25
ANNA'S VERDICT: Pasta was exquisite; the mussels unfortunately were rubbery and overcooked.
risotta alla sbirraglila: policeman's risotto from the veneto -chicken, carrots,celery; grated parmesan: 16.50
pollo arrosto: cold roast chicken with fettuccine vegetable salad and balsamic roasted onion: 12.50
baby spinach, ricotta salata, toasted pine nuts and lemon vinaigrette: 6.57
Wine of the day: Rosso: 2004 Chianti Classico 7.75/34.00.
I gave David, a Harvard graduate/scholar,who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, and a man of needless words, a goodbye hug, and recited my favorite quote from Hamlet:
Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words!
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2 comments:
Anna, I think I found your blog but there's a lot of parts to your blog. I guess that's what blogs are all about. Blah, blah, blog.
However, very interesting but it must takes mucho time to reply to not....or just to read the blah, blah, blah.
Good luck blogging.
Helen Lewison
I still don't know what a blog really is or does but obviously bloggers are everywhere doing everything. However, from what I see on your blog, there seems to be a lot of talk about food, lots of food. Do you like to cook or eat? See you on the 25th at the JCC.
Helen
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