This weekend, I’ll be sporting it with other fabulous ABC celebrities at the Mustard Festival in Napa. Not only will there be lots of wine and food, I will be giving away an incredible package to a lucky person who stops by and visits me.
What you win is:
2 free tickets to a Giants game, a signed baseball by Jonathan “No-Hitter” Sanchez and……
River Terrace Inn is providing a two-night stay in a River View Deluxe King guestroom Facing the Napa River, the spacious River View Kings offer breathtaking river views, spa-style bathrooms with granite countertops and oversized hot tubs, King Napa Dream Beds, 37″ LCD flat-screen TV, Bath and Body Works designer bath products and a separate vanity area. Guests are provided with complimentary full American breakfast buffet, complimentary high-speed Internet with wireless access, access to a DVD library for in-room viewing, complimentary cruiser bike rentals, and complimentary self or valet parking. No black out dates. Based on availability on Sunday through Thursday nights.
Fabulous right??
Come on out and say “Hello!” and sign up to win this incredible package.
Bid on more than 140 original artworks by established and emerging artists in live and silent auctions at San Francisco’s premier visual art event. Sip luscious cocktails from the open bar, featuring Pernod Absinthe, and nibble hors d’oeuvres from Thomas John Events catering while bidding on fabulous, affordable local art. Bidding starts at 1/3 of the retail value!
Proceeds from the auction benefit all of ArtSpan’s programs, including Art for City Youth, providing arts education to 700 under-served youth, and San Francisco Open Studios, the city’s largest free visual arts event held each year featuring over 800 artists.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
6:30-9:00pm
SOMArts Bay Gallery
934 Brannan, San Francisco
VIP Reception, 6:00 – 6:30pm – $75 advance ticket sales only-hurry!
* Exclusive first viewing of artwork
* Champagne cocktails and gourmet hors d’oeuvres
* Preferred seating for live auction
* 5% discount on art purchases (up to $50 per purchase)
General Ticket, 6:30 – 9:00pm – $25 in advance / $30 at the door
* Open bar and light hors d’oeuvres
* Bidding starts at 1/3 of the retail value – an amazing deal on amazing art!
* Creative Cocktail Attire Encouraged
Purchase your tickets online.
NOTE: Pre-registration is available online to expedite check in and out; physical tickets will not be issued; your name will appear on the guest list
God, I feel old…and I had been feeling like such a young’en just a few weeks ago when I attended a fascinating dinner event put on by the Northern California chapter of the Explorers Club. The Club’s members include leaders (usually very well-published) in polar exploration, diving, aerospace exploration, archaeology, zoology, physics, oceanography, astronomy, ecology, geology, paleontology, conservation mountaineering, and speleology.
Not surprisingly, these well-traveled scientific explorers are not what one would call a youthful bunch. As a matter of fact, I think I was the second youngest person there. The youngest person, at least 25 years my junior, was Colby Gewalt, a darling college student who was finishing up her MBA after getting a degree in architecture. She was filling in for her parents who couldn’t make the event.
When she found out I was a food and travel writer, she exclaimed, “You are sooooo lucky. That’s exactly what I want to do.” (Yeah, I bet her parents will be thrilled to hear this!)
She then peppered me with questions about who, what, where and how could she get started. I told her that I was going to check out Trademark, a new restaurant on Belden Lane. I invited her to come along and write a review and if it was any good, I’d publish it here.
Well she would, and she did, and I think she did a great job.
Oh, the reason I’m feeling so old was that after spending two hours chitchatting over dinner, feeling like we were getting to be great buds, she wrote me a lovely thank -you card (even sent it by snail-mail) which started it with “Dear Ms. Nieder”.
Here’s Colby’s review:
Trademark definitely left its mark on this Southern girl
Growing up in Louisiana has its perks — you get to know what tickles the taste buds, and what doesn’t. Well, I’d have to say that the Trademark American Grill and Bar in San Francisco brings it all back for me. From the moment I turned onto the quaint alley of Belden Place, I knew I was in for a treat.
Looking past the open outdoor dining area, complete with overhead heaters, passers-by are drawn in by the oversized window on the façade, with views of happy hour socialites and friends sitting at the pristine bar. With bowls of brightly colored citrus fruits against old-fashioned light fixtures illuminating the bar-top, one can hardly resist becoming part of the crowd.
First piece of advice- come hungry. There are so many items on the menu to excite your palate, you’ll want to try them all. As you take your seat, place an order for their special light and flakey biscuits. Request honey on the side and these “Original Meetinghouse” biscuits will absolutely melt in your mouth.
As you peruse the menu (which is updated monthly), order an appetizer, or three! Your choices include the meaty Dungeness crab cakes with a kick, or perfectly steamed mussels with a light and smoky broth. The beautifully presented tuna tartar and Caesar salad with balsamic onions are also fantastic choices. Go with friends or a date and share a few — you won’t be disappointed!
Have a glass of Veuve Clicquot, or one of their specialty cocktails, and prepare to surrender your menu. If you are a bar-b-que meat lover, try the Niman Ranch pork ribs. As the meat literally falls off the bone, the tangy coleslaw and flavorful black beans round out the plate nicely. As a southerner, I’m a big fan of cornbread, but this wedge didn’t top my charts. Stick to the biscuits you’ve already had and save a few carbohydrate points. Order the half smoked chicken, and savor the juicy bursts of flavor. Served with surprisingly delightful garlic bread pudding and perfectly cooked collard greens, this dish takes you right into the heart of the French Quarter.
While you may think you couldn’t possibly have another bite of anything, take a glimpse at the dessert menu. The hot apple crisp is perfection, but request it with the caramel balsamic gelato instead of the cinnamon. You’ve earned a sweet and tangy end to your night of indulgence. If you’re like me and save room for dessert no matter what, order the banana bread pudding as well. This not-so-typical version is served with butter pecan gelato, and takes you right back to your childhood.
With a menu as diverse as it is indulgent, no one leaves here hungry. After all, great food like this should not be taken for granted, and you deserve it!
When to go: Happy Hour from 2:30 to 6, Monday thru Friday. Oysters are $1 each, appetizer and drink specials as well.
Lunch is served 11 to 2:30 Monday thru Friday.
Dinner is offered 5 to 10 Monday thru Thursday, and until 10:30 on Friday and Saturday nights.
Dress: Business casual, but all are welcome.
Atmosphere: Inviting, fantastic use of color and texture, and the lighting was complementary, not glaring. Large mirror behind the bar, useful for slyly scoping out the crowd. Cozy bar area, right among the dining tables.
Colby A. Gewalt
P.S. Janice here. My two -cents worth: Just want to emphasize that theirs is one of the best Happy Hour’s around…with those $1.00 oysters, various drink specials and a roster of tasty bar bites such as Elite Cafe Garlic Chicken Wings $5.
Also, I want to give a shout out to Trademark’s manager, Chris, a true professional who exemplifies customer service. Tell them I said you deserve a big raise!
Other than that, as American Idol’s Simon Cowell would say, Colby’s review is “spot on.”
Yippee, finally a no-brainer restaurant opens in the Marina. Looking for tasty salads for lunch with the girls? Jonesin’ for a perfectly crisped Roman-styled pizza? Date night? Only have time to grab a brew and some apps before the movie, or wine and dessert after?
Chestnut street’s newest hot spot, Delarosa, is your go-to place for all of the above, plus the food is really good! The latest offering from the Baretta and Starbelly restaurateurs, this causal Italian eatery is open daily from 11:30 a.m. – 1 a.m. They only have one menu but it’s a doozy, with an extensive selection of antipasti, salads, pizza, pasta, sandwiches, spiedini (grilled skewers) and desserts. Your choice of libations also runs the gamut, from a drinker’s dozen of perfectly hand-crafted cocktails to about 30 artisanal beers and an Italian-centric wine list. They also offer complimentary sparkling or filtered still water with your meal-how civilized.
Standouts from our tasting dinner included my new fave salad of the year, an artistically plated carpaccio of gold and red beets with goat ricotta, perfectly anointed with a splash of truffle oil…yummers! I could have killed for some bread to sop of the leftover spicy marinara sauce from the meatballs (the meatballs were only ok,but that sauce was something special.) The winter chicories with cauliflower and roasted hazelnuts was another styling way to make sure you get your five-a-day.
Just to test their listening skills, we made a couple substitutes on a pizza, changing the cheese, adding an egg just on one side and requesting it very well crisped and they scored an A+.
About the only dish that didn’t work for me was their signature black olive gnocchi with rock shrimp–too bland and not al dente enough for me. But hey, the couple next to me scarfed down every last bite.
Our charming and ever so helpful server, Jacqueline, insisted that the bomboloni caldi (hot homemade donut holes sided with three dipping sauces) were well worth every calories and I’m so glad we heeded her advice. I wouldn’t kick the coppa mocha (coffee gelato topped with choco sauce, bourbon, and crunch almonds and meringue) out of bed either.
One caveat, with its elbow2elbow mostly communal seating, Delarosa would not make a good pick for a quiet, romantic dinner for two but other than that, all I can say is, “Welcome to the nabe. I’ll definitely be back.”
Sakes of the South
Dampen your palette with 39 sake labels from southern Japan and savory peruvian dishes of La Mar.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
6:00-8:00 pm
Registration is from 5:30pm and program begins promptly at 6:00pm
Doing my usual drive through random streets of San Francisco on thurs night I rumbled down 18th street and spied what looked like an event worth checking out.
There were bunches of people with drinks, two guys behind a card table , uum, doesn’t look like a bar, some sort of demo ?
And just then a parking space opened up, on 18th & Valencia ! !
I took it as a sign from the party gods.
Behold one of the hippest members of the support local movement.
THE MISSION STATEMENT was celebrating their second anniversary. They’re doing very well with their designer co-op.
Many of the co-op designers were in house for the party.
The tiny store is full of funky affordable fashions & products.
Mineral Makeup. Kid’s Ts.
Scarves, hats, vintage jackets, jewelry , art, even jam. All local.
Now ….back to that card table thing that caused me to stop the car.
Adam Bienvenu & Errol Davis of METAPHOR ORGANIC were demonstrating their amazing all natural, all local ingredients filled skin products.
The two are a great team, Adam, the web designer & Errol, the writer, somehow found themselves in the soap biz. You’re sure to find their products soon
in local boutique hotels, but for now it’s available at The Mission Statement.
I bought a small screw-top tin of peppermint lip balm for 4 bucks and i swear it was the equivalent of those tiny tins of shea butter L’Occitane sells for $9.
Being a sufferer of chronic chapped lips i was skeptical, but covered my lips last night in the peppermint concoction and praise the lord, i awoke with new supple, smooth, kissable lips. The stuff works as a cuticle cream as well.
How do these guys do it ?
To quote their website…
“Pour the scary chemicals and stir the bubbling cauldron”.
Actually, it was a crock pot. And all the ingredients were not only all natural but quite tasty. But we’re talking soap here. Really fascinating. And they’re really into
their craft and the locally made movement.
The demo was a soap they make with essential oils and orange peels.
The partners first product was a natural deodorant, but were told by their band of
women advisers that deodorant wasn’t sexy. The key to making marketable, appealing products
is great skin care products. And they went to town with a full line of arty, organic
winners.
YES!! FREE admission to the de Young and popular Tut exhibition for the weekend of Feb. 20-21
Free tickets to the special exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the de Young will be available to the general public on Saturday, February 20, and Sunday, February 21, as part of a generous sponsorship by Target.
Tickets will be available on site only, with a limit of four tickets per adult for that day. All tickets are first-come, first-served and timed and dated.
The permanent collections of the de Young will be free to the public all weekend and free programming will include children’s art making, fortune tellers, tarot card readers, belly and sword dancers and a dj spinning in Wilsey Court, as well as a festival of mummy movies screened from noon to 5 pm in the Koret Auditorium.
Admission Specifics:
There will be no advance ticketing. Tickets are first-come, first-served with a limit of four tickets per adult. Demand will be high and Tut tickets for the day will be claimed early in the day.
Visitors without Tut tickets can visit the de Young’s permanent collection free of charge on both days and the Museum Store, Museum Café and Tower will also be open.
The de Young box office will open at 8:30 am on February 20–21 with first exhibition entry at 9 am. Museum hours on February 20–21 will be from 9 am–5:15 pm with last entry to the Tut exhibition at 4 pm.
Free Programming and Mummy Film Festival:
The de Young will be filled with free activities during Target Tut Free Weekend. Families can enjoy a children’s art project in the Piazzoni Murals Room where kids learn to engrave ancient hieroglyphics into copper foil. Belly and sword dancers will entertain visitors waiting to enter the Tut exhibition, and tarot card and fortune tellers will be on hand to predict the future. Enjoy the sounds of contemporary Egyptian music spun by a dj in Wilsey Court.
A special mummy film festival for all ages will take place in the Koret Auditorium from noon to 5 pm each day screening a mix of light-hearted and serious mummy classics such as The Mummy (1932), Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), King Tutankhamun: The Mystery Unsealed (2006), The Mummy: Hollywood’s Golden Age (2000) and Scooby-Doo in Where’s My Mummy? (2005). And what mummy festival would be complete without the Three Stooges classic, We Want Our Mummy?All films are free and open to the public.
Programming Schedule:
9:30am – 5pm Hands-on art making for all ages in Piazzoni Murals Room
11:30am – 3pm Fortune Teller and Tarot Reader in Wilsey Court
11am – 5pm Dj spinning Arab and Egyptian beats in Wilsey Court
11am – 5pm Mummy Movie Festival in Koret Auditorium
12pm – 5pm Sword dancers & belly dancers roving throughout the ground floor
Golden Gate Park
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118 www.deyoungmuseum.org
415.750.3600
Angela Ritchie’s Ace Camps SABRINA WARD HARRISON: Make Your Life
Seattle, Washington, USA
April 23 – 26, 2010 – Seattle, Washington, USA
Sabrina Ward Harrison will be leading a workshop in Seattle, Washington on creating unique and very special visual journaling books. Join her as part of her True Living Project and let your creativity calmly burst. This workshop will be held at the Shuey House, Seattle, Washington. You will share meals, take outdoor nature walks, learn the true value of quiet, of listening, of writing and create freely with others.
Sabrina will offer demos on collaging techniques, lead you through free writing, and the art of journal making and more.
How Sabrina’s workshops started…
Sabrina began offering, “The Art of Becoming Yourself Workshops” 10 years ago by posting handmade fliers around her neighborhood in Berkeley, California. Over the years she has enjoyed traveling the world to facilitate her workshops with women and men who desire to create the life they most want to live.
If you have a desire to restore, to get back to what is most real for you…join us.
If you are longing to make a mess on the floor, to be enveloped by the creative process and to create the thing you most want to find… You are so welcome.
Come, leave ripples with us.
Option One: $675.00
3 nights at the Shuey House
3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 3 dinners
2 day workshop with Sabrina Ward Harrison
Art supplies (upon registration you will be sent a list of personal supplies you may want to bring.
Option Two: $425.00
2 day workshop with Sabrina Ward Harrison
Art supplies (upon registration you will be sent a list of personal supplies you may want to bring.
Having recently been named the nation’s “Top Medical Spa” by DaySpa Magazine, Epi Center MedSpa San Francisco is renown as a luxury retreat in the heart of San Francisco’s Union Square. While the center is proud to receive such prestigious acclaim, it takes even more pride in its support of the local community.
“We value the community and celebrate philanthropy in the Bay Area by supporting a wide range of charitable programs,” says Margaret Mitchell, president and founder of Epi Center MedSpa. “While many companies were cutting back on giving because of the economy, we actually increased our charitable efforts in 2009. It made for a rewarding year for the center and our staff and we believe 2010 will be even more exciting.”
In 2009, Epi Center MedSpa supported over 24 community groups, hosted events for 12 non-profit organizations and held six unique fundraising events. Beneficiaries included organizations that support women’s health issues, HIV/AIDS, children and families, animals, arts and culture as well as environmental causes. The center’s community partners include agencies such as: Global Green, Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, Academy of Friends, Edgewood Center for Families & Children, St. Anthony’s Foundation, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation and the San Francisco Ballet.
The center kicks off its 2010 community giving campaign with a fundraising event on Feb. 16 benefitting Dress for Success, an organization that promotes independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
“Epi Center is the perfect partner for Dress for Success,” says Maria Barrios Ehmer, community philanthropist who raises funds and awareness for organizations including for Dress for Success. “While it’s their mission to help people look their personal best, it’s our mission to help underprivileged women in our community look professional, so that they have the confidence to thrive in today’s workforce.”
Brenda Zarate, Francein Freer, Maria Barrios Ehmer, Natalia Urrutia and (Beth is missing in this photo)
About the Event
Maria Barrios Ehmer, Brenda Zarate, Beth Schnitzer, Natalia Urrutia and Francein Freer Hansen invite you to share the love! Enjoy a lovely night of great friends and great conversation. Tour the award-winning Epi Center MedSpa and learn about treatments and services.
Event Details
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Epi Center MedSpa
450 Sutter Street Suite 800
San Francisco, CA
www.skinrejuv.com
Donate your accessories:
Purses, Briefcases, Jewelries, Belts and Scarves
Enjoy our raffle and fantastic prizes including a $50 Gift Certificate for attending!
Please RSVP to rsvp@epicentermedspa.com
About the Epi Center MedSpa
San Francisco’s Epi Center MedSpa is a Silver LEED® certified, professional environment where patients receive the highest quality skin rejuvenation treatments. By combining medical grade products and luxurious organic ingredients, the center’s custom treatment programs achieve affordable, lasting results in a soothing, healthy environment. Consultations are free, and the results are priceless. For more information; please log onto: www.skinrejuv.com.
Two weeks ago I jetted down to Barbados to attend a charity Polo event hosted by Prince Harry of Wales to raise money and awareness for an organization called Sentebale. The charity was started by the Prince along with Prince Sessio of Lesotho, a tiny country located within the country of South Africa, to help the orphaned children living there.
The charity Polo match was a spectacular event (watch video below), as is the island of Barbados. Enjoy the video and if you make it down to Barbados be sure to check out some of my local favorites hot spots!
Among a few of my favorites is Scarlet, a charming British bistro in the parish of St. James, is a brightly colored restaurant with pop art images of Marilyn, Jackie and even Che adorning its walls. With their signature house cocktails, the Scarlet Rocks and the Bajan Mojito, Scarlet proved to be the perfect spot to kick off the evening. Next up was dinner at Tides restaurant. Serving as both a restaurant and art gallery, we dined among paintings by local artists. One of my best meals during my stay was found at Champers. Set directly on the ocean, this Zagat rated menu rivals any upscale eatery in the Caribbean. My favorite, their Parmesan-crusted Barracuda is a gastronomical treat and the Bread Pudding is by far the best you’ll ever order.
Barbados is filled with many options when it comes to lodging but the The Sandpiper; Coral Reef, and The House are all fabulous spots to check out for a more boutique experience.
A glorious weekend on a stunning island with a handsome Prince playing Polo…Now that’s what I call a Royal Flush!
