Clement Street Dim Sum

eat. I went off my diet last week. But it was so worth it.

My friend Jamie lives in the Clement Street neighborhood of San Francisco, and two other mutual friends, Cathy and Linda, drove up with me to see her for the day so we could all hang out together.


Clement Street is one of my favorite parts of S.F. It’s a mix of many different ethnic cultures, but the Asian predominates these days. Here’s a description from an article (it’s worth reading) about the neighborhood I found online:

[Clement Street] has a long history of immigration, beginning with the Irish in the 1900s, followed by Swiss dairy farmers, the Jewish, Russians, Japanese and most recently immigrants from the Far East. Nearly half the residents today are of Asian or Pacific Island origin.

Like China Town on the other side of the City, Clement Street has numerous shops with roasted ducks in the windows (note to self: must buy one of these some day),


as well as groceries with bins of exotic vegetables, and counters heaped with gleaming seafood.


Not only that, but the neighborhood has several huge restaurant-supply stores, which can make a gal like me go into fits:

ceramic dishes for as little as a buck or two apiece!

But Clement Street is also host to other cultures besides the Asian. We went into a small grocery, for instance, that specializes in Indian and British cuisine (where I bought myself a large jar of Branson Pickle—yum!). And the best used bookstore in the City— Green Apple Books—is there.

We were on a mission, however, for brunch—dim sum to be exact. Jamie has a favorite restaurant around the corner from her place that specializes in dim sum, called (as are so many Chinese restaurants) Happy Garden.

inside the Happy Garden

As most readers of this blog no doubt know, dim sum is the Chinese version of brunch. A large family will come in and sit at a huge round table, and engage in a feeding frenzy as piles of small plates heaped with steamed buns, fried chicken feet, stir-fried vegetables, pot stickers, and the like are set down in quick succession and passed around the table. It’s all accompanied by never-ending stainless steel pots of steaming tea. (Click here for more history and description of dim sum.)

As soon as the four of us were seated we were handed a sheet of paper with a list of all the kinds of dim sum available. Jamie and Cathy knew exactly what they wanted, so Linda and I gladly let them order for us.

In the old days, dim sum restaurants would wheel carts loaded with the small plates about the restaurant, from which the customers would pick and point. Unfortunately, most restaurants—including the Happy Garden—have now discontinued this practice. On the weekends, however, Jamie informed us, they do come around with trays of special steamed buns, which have been baked after steaming. We started with a selection of these.


Oh my god—they were amazing. I do adore steamed pork buns, the sweet, chewy BBQ pork inside contrasting with the light, puffy texture of the dough. And these were even better, as the crispy outside added yet another texture and delectable dimension. In addition, there were steamed buns filled with a sweet, rich, egg custard. Simply death.

But I had to force myself to eat only one of each, as I knew we had many other plates still to come.

Next up was stuffed eggplant, which turned out to be fried eggplant stuffed with what tasted like shrimp balls. Ohmygod again. Rich.


We also had pot stickers with a sweet dipping sauce,

they must-a gotten the plates at a fire sale,
’cause that ain’t the name of the restaurant

and for a bit of something green, some dry sautéed string beans:


There were also sweet black sesame dumplings, vegetable (spring) rolls, and these crispy shrimp balls:


By the time the shrimp balls arrived, I was fairly stuffed. But I somehow managed to choke one down. Oh, and a second egg custard bun too.

After we had finished—and yes, we did consume every last morsel—we gazed with awe at the chaos we had created.


Then the check came. Cathy looked at it and her eyes bugged out. I knew that dim sum could be pricey, but how bad could it be? She handed me the slip and I examined it.

Could that be right? I put on my reading glasses and tried again.

Yep, it was indeed correct: $34.00 for the entire meal, including tax. With the tip, it worked out to only a little over ten bucks per person. What a deal for that amount of food—and it was good.

I am definitely going back.

(If you want to check out the Happy Garden Restaurant, it’s at 815 Clement St., and is open 7 days a week, from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The dim sum ranges from $1.70 to $4.50 a plate; but they have other food too.)

The Myriad Perils of the Tour de France

ride. We all know that crashes are an ever-present danger of participatng in the Tour de France. But as I discussed in an earlier post, this year’s Tour has been even more crash-ridden than normal.

blood and gutsy riders
web photo [source]

Another not-uncommon hazard is that of some ignoramus letting their dog loose on the road right as the peloton comes screaming by. And yes, it happened again this year, taking out poor old David Millar (video here):

by all accounts, the dog was okay after the incident
web photo [source]

Several other occurrences this year, however, have also put the riders in great jeopardy. First there were the dreaded cobbles in Belgium, which brought down a whole host of riders, most notably Frank Schleck (Andy’s brother and super-domestique for the mountains), who fractured his collarbone in three places:

web photo [source]

And then there was the dense fog, and the flock of Pyrenean sheep who decided this would be the perfect time to cross the road—right in front of the Astana team who were riding at the front of the pack, protecting the yellow jersey:

amazingly, no one crashed into the fuzzy, confused obstacles
web photo [source]

But today (don’t worry—there’s no spoiler here) I learned what the most difficult feat would be for a rider in this year’s Tour: producing a convincing smile when Tom Cruise horned in on your moment of glory on the podium:

web photo [source]

Cantaloupe With What?

eat. As I mentioned in my last post, it’s common in Mexico to eat fresh fruit sprinkled with red chili powder. The contrast of sweet and juicy with hot and spicy makes for a tasty and thirst-quenching treat.

Faced with a cantaloupe the other day, I decided to use it to make a quick, light lunch, and took the Mexican street-vendors as my inspiration.


I cut a wedge of fruit from the skin, and sliced it into bite-sized pieces.


These went into a bowl.


Next I spooned on some cottage cheese.


This, of course, is nothing new; lots of folks eat fruit—peaches, pears, melon—with cottage cheese.

It’s also common to mix cottage cheese with salsa (Richard Nixon famously ate his with ketchup). But I decided to combine the two, something I’d never done before. I took my trusty taco sauce,


and poured some over the cantaloupe and cottage cheese.


It was great—I heartily recommend it!

A Feast of Summer’s Bounty

eat. Plums are bursting from their skins, zucchini are multiplying faster than those creatures in Alien, tomatoes are finally starting to ripen (okay—not in Santa Cruz, but they are inland from here), and my grapefruit tree is bowing down under the weight of all its fruit.

plums from the neighbor’s trees

It must be summer.

Our friends Patrice and Enda invited us to dinner last weekend. It’s always a treat to go to their house for a meal, as Patrice—who is the co-owner of two restaurants in town, the wine-bar Soif and La Posta, an Italian place on the East Side—is a terrific cook. Robin was in Santa Monica, but my brother Kenny was visiting and got to come along as my date instead.

When I asked what I could bring, Enda suggested fruit salad for dessert. Perfect. I had lots of ripe fruit on hand.

I started by chopping up some cantaloupe and peaches,


and then some of the plums I’d picked that morning from a neighbor’s trees:


Next I threw in some blueberries.


To add a citrusy contrast, I sliced up a couple grapefruit from my tree,


and tossed them into the mix:


For the dressing I was inspired by those street-vendors in Mexico who sell slices of cold, juicy melon and cucumber sprinkled with chili powder and lime juice.


Into a few dollops of plain yogurt I mixed a tablespoon of brown sugar, a teaspoon of chili powder, and the juice from half an orange (also from our garden). I would toss the dressing with the fruit right before service.


The dinner party was loads of fun, and as expected the food was wonderful—simple but full of flavor. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was a large dish of sliced heirloom tomatoes topped with basil and drizzled with olive oil, sitting on the long, farmhouse-style table in the kitchen:


Here’s a view of the table, the hungry guests gazing expectantly at the platters overflowing with food (that’s my brother Kenny at the far end):


The menu included smoky chicken, slow-cooked on the barbeque; roasted baby potatoes; fresh peas and carrots; and the aforementioned tomatoes:


Washed down with some fabulous wines (including a 1997 Cigare Volant, which I think Patrice pulled out specially for me, knowing how I love it so—it was amazing, Patrice—thank you!).

In addition to my fruit salad,


we had juicy, fresh plums, and a variety of cheeses to nibble on as we sat around the table and drank more wine and argued about whether Obama was doing a good job or not. (Yes, I contended—perhaps a bit too vehemently. But then I had drunk a fair amount of wine by that time...)


ride. Tour Update: (Spoiler alert if you haven’t yet watched Thursday’s stage)

If you’ve read today’s paper you probably already know about the infamous “head-butt” incident in yesterday’s stage of the TdF. HTC lead-out man for Mark Cavendish, Mark Renshaw—in an over-exuberant (and successful) attempt to push rival lead-out man Garmin’s Julian Dean out of the way—bashed his helmet into that of Dean’s three times on the run-in to the finish. And to make matters worse, Renshaw then proceeded to swerve to his left and effectively block Garmin sprinter Tyler Farrar from contesting Cavendish’s sprint.

You can see a video of it here. Renshaw has been disqualified from the rest of the race for his conduct, a penalty that seems too lenient: Shouldn’t they have also taken the stage win from Cav, who was the one who directly benefited from the butts and blocking?

And what is it about this recent penchant for head-butts in European sports? (See here for another famous example.) Maybe they should all just start playing American football, and be done with it.

Rabbit Soccer

ride. I know that it’s early summer when the baby cottontails start appearing in droves along the verges of the bike paths in Santa Cruz County.

web photo [source]

But I have mixed feelings about their appearance.

I got my bike tuned up while we were on our road trip the week-before-last, and it was a revelation when I got it back: I hadn’t realized just how sticky and cantankerous my gear-shifting had become. Whereas before it was a bit of work to move the chain from the small to the big ring, now, one little click and it felt like a hot knife through butter switching gears.

web photo [source]

There’s this long, flat stretch on the bike path out to Wilder Ranch, just north of town, where I like to push myself—pumping the pedals as hard as I can until I feel that burn in my legs—pretending I’m some kind of Mark Cavendish or Tyler Farrar in a bunch sprint for the green jersey. (This is of course a total joke, as I can only reach a maximum speed of about 23 or 24 mph, whereas they’re probably going in the high 40s.)

Tyler Farrar (r) tries unsuccessfully to out-sprint
the “Manx Missile” Mark Cavendish
web photo [source]

After I got my bike back from the shop, I decided to test out its new-found smoothness on this flat stretch, and shifted to a higher gear in anticipation of some sweat-inducing pedal-pounding. Just as I was building up to a moderately high speed, however, I noticed a cottontail sitting in the middle of the path about 30 yards ahead of me. Uh oh....

You see, these little creatures—adorable as they are—are not very bright. They’ll sit there frozen in the middle of the road until you’re almost on top of them, and then they’ll dart away. But you can never know which direction they’ll go: sometimes right, sometimes left, and sometimes right and then left. Or else they’ll run straight down the road in front of you, and then dart to the right or left (or both) after about 20 feet.

It’s not unusual for me to see ten or twenty of the critters along the bike path this time of year, and I feel like a soccer player with a free kick, trying to anticipate which way the rabbit-goalie will hurl itself in anticipation of my choice of direction. Except that unlike with a soccer ball successfully blocked by the goalie, neither I nor the rabbit would be happy were I to guess wrong.

So when I saw that cottontail bunny sitting there at the finish-line of my make-believe sprint, I ruefully put on the brakes (which had thankfully also been adjusted at the shop), and let my imaginary competitors Mark and Tyler fight it out amongst themselves. As I slowed to a near-complete stop, the baby bunny looked up at me, hopped right, then left, and then right again into the bushes.

No doubt poor old Robbie McEwen wishes he could have similarly put on the brakes after his sprint finish in last Friday’s Stage 6 of the Tour de France, when he collided with a journalist who had darted out into the road (story here).

Robbie down after a previous crash in this year’s TdF
web photo [source]

Eat Less, Exercise More

eat. Yep, the sad fact is that’s what you have to do if you want to lose weight. Especially if you’re a post-menopausal woman.

Besides bouts of hormone-induced depression, irritability (sorry, Robin) and listlessness, by far the worst part for me of being post-menopausal has been the tendency for my middle section to increase in girth. (And yes, as you might guess, this doesn’t help a bit with those other symptoms, either.)

I’ve been eating the same amount, and have been cycling as much as ever, but what used to be a road-bike size spare tire is slowly creeping up to that of a beach-cruiser. Time to put a stop to it—especially since Robin and I are headed to France and England in a little over a month. You know what that means: moules-frites, crème brûlee, Cornish pasties, and pints of bitter. If I don’t watch out, I’ll end up carrying a motorcycle tire around my waist by the time I get home.

Inspired by my nephew Nehemiah’s raw cuisine—and his rave review of its ability to help achieve a fit body (he’s a ballet dancer, so he should know)—I’ve therefore decided to eat more raw food and more vegetables and fruits in general,

more of this

and to limit my meat and fat consumption. At least for a while—until I lose five or ten pounds.

and less of this

Oh, and since Robin’s gone for a week, I’m going to temporarily forgo Cocktail Hour (gasp!), which should—at least as far as calories are concerned—equal at least a half-hour bike ride per day.

adieu for now...

Here’s what I’ve been eating so far: Yesterday for breakfast I had half a PB&J sandwich, and for lunch some low-fat cottage cheese with cantaloupe.

Last night I made Nehemiah’s raw kale and miso salad, except that I substituted blood orange for the lemon, and real Parmesan cheese for the vegan variety. I also cooked some beets, and added them to the mix.


Into the water in which the beets were simmering I tossed the kale stems, which I deemed too tough for the salad. These cooked stems I ate separately as a first course, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar, a hint of mayo, and S&P. (Quite good—like very flavorful cooked spinach.)

Not wanting to waste the water the beets and kale stems had been cooked in, I tried a sip after it had cooled. Not bad: a sort of watery beet juice. So I’ve been drinking that instead of water.

This morning after my bike ride, I walked over to the neighbor’s house and picked (at his request, because he’s got way too many) a peck of bursting-from-their-skins-ripe plums. I chopped a few of these up and added them to my oatmeal with yoghurt. And for lunch I had cottage cheese with the rest of the beets.

Damn, but I’ve been a virtuous girl! (Yeah, I know, I know: it’s only been two days so far. Oh, and I did have an eensy-weensy bit of Calvados last night after dinner...)

And yes, I’m going to increase my exercise. Right now, I average three 20-mile bike rides per week. Yesterday was a non-riding day, so I rode my “townie” down to the ocean and locked her up,


and went for a three-mile walk along West Cliff Drive. (I walked quickly for me, but not as fast as Robin, or—god forbid—her power-walking friend Angela does.) I’m gonna try to keep doing that on the days I don’t go for my regular ride.

Who knows how long I’ll be able to keep all this up. But even if I only last for the week Robin’s gone, I should be able to lose a few pounds. I’ll let you know.

Le Tour des Chutes

ride. Spoiler Alert: This post talks about today’s (Monday’s) Tour de France stage. I warn you of this because I happen to be fanatical about not hearing anything about the day’s race until after I’ve seen it.

Case in point: My brother Kenny called me yesterday at about eleven a.m., and the first thing out of his mouth was: “Oh my god Leslie, can you believe—”

I quickly interrupted him: “If you’re about to say anything about the Tour, don’t! I went for a bike ride this morning while it was on, and haven’t watched it yet.”

“Oh,” he said. “Good thing you stopped me, because I was going to talk about it. Okay, I won’t say anything about who won, but just let me say—”

“Nothing—don’t say anything about it!” I pleaded.

“I was just gonna say it was really exciting,” he insisted.

“Aaargh! That’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to hear!” I moaned.

People just don’t get it. (But I still love you Kenny.) It’s very frustrating, because once you hear that the stage was “exciting,” or even if you don’t hear anything about the race at all, but someone calls you up to talk about it, you know something “important” happened. And that changes how you watch it: you’re waiting for “that thing” to occur.

So if you’re reading on, I can only assume that (a) you’ve already watched today’s stage; (b) you’re like Robin and don’t mind TdF spoilers; or (c) you don’t give a hoot about the Tour, and are only reading this post because you’re a loyal follower of my blog.

Today’s title means “the Tour of Crashes.” And that’s what it’s been so far. Stage one on Sunday had at least five crashes, two of which occurred in the last kilometer of the race during the mass sprint for the finish.

an example of Sunday’s carnage on the road
web photo [source]

The first crash knocked HTC lead-out man Adam Hansen from the race with a broken collarbone; the second involved a dog who ran out into the road (the TV announcers assured us that the dog was okay). The third—3K from the finish—looks like it was caused by sprint phenom Mark Cavendish, the second crash he’s caused in the past few weeks.

Check out this photo of Cav cutting to the left and going down during the Tour de Suisse. (Yes, that is his front wheel crumpling in half from the force of the fall.)

web photo [source]

In this video (scroll down) from Sunday’s stage of the TdF, you can see the third crash of the day (which the French commentators opine was caused by Cavendish), then the massive fourth crash 1K from the end which brought almost the entire peloton to a standstill, and the last crash just before the finish, which unfortunately knocked Tyler Farrar out of the running for the stage when his rear derailleur was caught by another bike.

So you can imagine the riders were a bit wary today when they started their ride from Brussels to Spa. It was a rainy day, and the roads were slick. And then the crashes started again. Rocketing down a narrow, wet descent, one rider skidded and fell. The TV camera motorcycle following him went down next (resulting in the only subsequent images of the crash coming from the helicopter cameras). The riders behind couldn’t stop, and most of the race favorites took a tumble. Andy Schleck—who came in second last year—suffered the worst fall. I’m worried he may have fractured his wrist and be out of the Tour.

To his credit, current yellow jersey-wearer Fabian Cancellara talked the riders in the lead group who averted the crash into waiting up for their fallen comrades. In addition, as a symbol of protest (though I’m not sure exactly what was being protested—rain and narrow roads are par for the course for bike races), he convinced the peloton to “neutralize” the finish, i.e., no one sprinted for the green jersey points, and they all rolled into the finish together.

Except for Sylvain Chavanel that is, the brave French rider who, in an almost wire-to-wire ride, won the stage by four minutes and, in his tenth Tour de France, finally pulled on his first yellow jersey. He may well wear yellow for a few days, as he now has an almost three-minute lead over second-place man Cancellara.

Allez Sylvain; vive la France! (And they do so need something to cheer about after that miserable showing in the World Cup.)

Chavanel celebrates his victory
web photo [source]

Here’s what Lance Armstrong had to say on Twitter after today’s stage:

What a day...crashes everywhere and I don’t use the term “everywhere” lightly. Most of the GC guys hit the ground myself included.

Got some good “road rash” on the hip and elbow. Bike mangled, cleat on the shoe completely cracked in two. Hope it’s dry tomorrow.

Of course tomorrow brings the dreaded pavé, the “Hell of the North” cobblestones.

Big George Hincapie tackles the infamous pavé
web photo [source]

I imagine it’s not just Lance who’s hoping for dry weather.