Joie de Vivre
Dear Friends,
Food and Drink
Breakfast featured a crab omelette. “Perfect. And the toast is just right.” [Yesterday’s toast was too crispy.]
Catherine hits a high note.
On Tuesday, Chez Catherine served all-American dinner of Guacamole and Corn Chips, Roast Chicken and Potatoes, with Daniella K, Norm G, Kevin H, and Erin. Daniella presented Catherine with a caboodle of postcards from her father’s hoard. You will be receiving one soon.
Saturday dinner was Jalea, a Peruvian seafood platter with deep-fried crab cakes, soft-shelled crabs, and oysters, topped with lime-marinated red onions, tomatoes, and cilantro. Also served was a Tian prepared with shredded zucchini, rice, and Parmesan; garlic bread; Champagne and Sauvignon Blanc; and dessert of Pineapple Flambé and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Quinta Da Romaneira Vontage Port 2017. A tian is the way to deal with zucchini overload. Look up the Julia Child recipe. Diners were newly elected Club Curry Chief Natalie T (all hail the Chief) and friend Sherry, Mika McH, Maisy O’S A and aunt Jennifer, and Erin D. Sherry was introduced as a “professional plus-one”, as she is the friend to call when needed. She recently wore a long gown, filling in at the San Francisco Opera’s season opening performance of Rigoletto.
I have applied for a fellowship to the Wine Writers’ Symposium in Napa Valley in February. A good reference may help, so answer all calls from 707 numbers. I had to submit two unpublished pieces and two published writing samples. Blog posts were OK, so the application was easy-peasy. I’m not sure, however, that they will consider me a real wine writer, as I don’t focus on aroma, body, and terroir, like “notes of hawthorn berries underlain by pink shale, with a vibrant guava finish.” My writing is about wine in our lives, like when I knocked over a table of red wine glasses at Harvey Hacker’s New Year party. It was a memorable medium-bodied red with subtle tannins, moderate acidity, and rich hue that challenged Sherry’s Cleaners - I had been wearing all white. The Wine Writers’ Symposium this year will be spotlighting young writers – my year of birth is obviously a typo.
If accepted, I will join these excited writers
Bro, Where Art Thou?
“Given consistent trends of exponential performance improvements over many years and across many industries, it would be extremely surprising if these improvements suddenly stopped. Instead, even a relatively conservative extrapolation of these trends suggests that 2026 will be a pivotal year for the widespread integration of AI into the economy,” writes Julian Schrittwieser.
San Francisco is ground zero for AI-driven tech culture. Here at Millennium Tower, 20- and 30-something tech bros and sisses are laptopping in the lounge, maxxing in the gym, although mostly they are jammed in shared apartments feverishly building their AI start-ups. As a non-bro, I am invisible. My view of the tech bros is based on their behaviors and through this week’s series in the San Francisco Standard, our best local news source. The bros are loners with little social life; do not read; drink no alcohol; eat only delivered food; sip weird drinks; closely track health and sleep. They wear AI hardware. Time spent at the gym is an investment as they plan to have their bodies for centuries through edgy drugs, biohacking, and future advances in medicine.
The tech bros are currently grinding through The Great Lock-In, a viral challenge to work for at least 12 hours per day, six days a week, from September 1 to the end of December. There is not a moment to lose. Their time is hyper-optimized toward the goal of making loads of money before any coming AI-driven economic turmoil.
Ideas ranging from straight-arrow business modelling to wild sports are being developed and funded. The founder of Sperm Racing has stopped using the steam room, concerned that it will slow down his team. “Keep those boys cool.” As art, a robot dog wanders around, pooping random objects. An AI desktop assistant helps users “cheat on everything.” This AI world seems improbable and frequently undecipherable, but, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. That improbable truth resides across the hall.
Two if By Sea
Maisy and I trundled down to South Beach Harbor for a final morning of winterization to find Minerva a mess, slimed with sea lion muck, scuffed by flippers, with bristly whiskers stuck in the dock lines. The boarding steps were gone. Seagull poop was everywhere. What a party they must have had! After a day spent cleaning, we now need another workday to top up the diesel tank, rotate the sheets, pump out and refresh the water tank, put new batteries in the lamps.
Maisy enjoys scrubbing
Upcoming
Join for a bistro lunch at the excellent Caché on Thursday, October 9. Just show up at noon – no reservation required. We will be awaiting your arrival. 1235 9th Avenue.
Halloween event at Chez Catherine on Sunday, October 12. Sew a simple costume or hat. Expect Spider Pizza and Frightwig cocktails. Drop in anytime 2:00 to 7:00 PM. We can go downstairs and scare the bejesus out of our Millennium Tower neighbors.
It is not too early to begin planning your attire for the Coot Cotillion, coming in early 2026. The color theme of black and white with a blip of red reflects the plumage of Fulica americana, the American Coot. In planning your festive attire, note that male coots have larger ruffs and head plumage. Male calls are puhlk or puhk-cowah, while females call poonk or cooah. Work on that. A group of coots is sometimes called a commotion.
The anchovies are not sold out
Catherine says that I am an “influencer”. Has anchovy consumption in the Bay Area increased as they are extolled herein? No.
Asked to predict which horse would win the race, the physicist said, “First, we presume the horse is a perfect sphere…”.
See you soon,
Laurence K, Scribe
415-307-6707