Pantry Tasting – Local Mirco-climate Honeys

When: Sunday, August 29 at 3PM for tasting (1PM for recipe demos)

Where: The School of the Arts farm, 555 Portola Drive

What: A guided tasting of local neighborhood San Francisco honeys.
Apiarist Robert MacKimmie will guide through the tasting of several
micro-climate honeys from right here in SF! Taste honeys from:
Cole Valley, Potrero Hill, Pacific Heights, Mission, MacLaren Park, Cow
Hollow, the St-Andreas faultline & (the farthest out) Healdsburg’s Dry
Creek forest. Learn about urban bee keeping and what gives honeys their
distinct taste. You’ll be surprised by the difference just a few blocks
can make in taste and color.

How: Buy tix from SlowFood SF for $20

The early Chinese animations were truly unique. I really miss those summer nights watching animation movies in the open air. Here’s an animation that tells the story between a Qin master and a talented boat girl. No dialogue, simply beautiful music.

I am recently selected by the San Francisco Arts Commission to do the “Art in Storefronts” project. On 630 Kearny Street, I converted an empty, vandalized storefront into a simulated Chinese restaurant offering only three entrees: 1. Cheap and good. (slow) 2. Cheap and fast. (crappy) 3. Good and fast (expensive). The special of the day, though, is Good and slow(I am growing dishes on site from the seeds!).

Passersby are invited to place orders through an intercom on site or grab a free menu on the door. All dishes are also available for adoption. I try to be there every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 12noon to 6pm. For other days of the week, reservations only :-) For more information and the concept behind this project, please visit NianaLiu.com. I will be featured on Eye on the Bay program on CBS5 on July 19th, 7pm.

There are also fresh roasted ducks for sale! Together with handmade ready to wear local SF fortune cookies, and Chinese clay pastries.

Tai Chi, yoga, swing dance, local folk music and even a Pizza-tossing competition… Wow, can’t miss this great event. May 15th 10am to 8:30pm, on irving street between 9th and 10th avenue, and on 10th avenue between Irving and Lincoln. For details about the Inner Sunset Street Fair, check out their website.

Come and check out my booth on 10th avenue. I will have local neighborhood stuff for sale, as well as my baby grocery shirts!

Open to public and be as silly as you like! The parade starts promptly at noon at the foot of Market Street (Embarcadero Plaza) and follows a well-established route through the financial district. Bring your feet, old socks, pennies, dead lottery tickets, noisemakers, 3-D glasses, drums…April 1st, noon, silly costumes are encouraged!!! Be there, or be elsewhere!

Attention artists, vendors, musicians and owners of unique cars:

Cole Valley Fair will be back again for its eighth year on Sunday, September 26, 2010. The fair features local art and fine crafts, lip-smacking food, live music, a display of historical Cole Valley photographs, a full block of vintage automobiles owned by neighborhood residents, events for children, and more!

Application for artist can be downloaded here. Priority will be given to Cole Valley residents and returning vendors. Food vendors’ application is here. Musicians from all genres and styles can apply for one-hour performance slots here. Unique car owners are encouraged to apply for “Cars on Cole” car show this year. It need not be a “show queen”, or vintage, or rare. The range of vehicles in past years has been from a gaggle of Citroen 2CV’s, British, German, French, Japanese and Italian sports and touring cars, heavy 30-60’s American Iron, Model A to modern Hot Rod, bicycles to motorcycles.

For more information, please visit www.cviasf.org. Oh, the deadline is July 1st!!

$5 prism near bathroom window will give you free daily thrills.
Weather permitting :-)

Trees get “pissed off” a lot in SF… Duboce @ Church.

Although my dad was once the only photographer in town before I was born, it wasn’t until I got to the Harvey Milk photography center many many years later that I learned to develop film and print black and white photos. The Photo center is located inside of Harvey Milk Center on 50 Scott St in Duboce park, and reopened in 2009 after a major renovation. I remember in the weeks and months I spent there, Peter, Clarence and other staffers were extremely friendly and knowledgeable. They created a sanctuary for film lovers. Photographers, experienced or new, loved to work, to learn, and hang out in that laid back darkroom community. Since Peter suddenly passed away a few years ago, Clarence Towers, the director of the photo center had to run the facility with even less staff and funding.

Unfortunately I just found out yesterday that due to the city’s budget crisis, a decision was made to eliminate the position of the Photography Center director. Everybody knows that the photo center would never be the same without Clarence, because there will be no one available to offer the proactive service, leadership and “hands on” attention that everybody have appreciated over the past 22 years. We wouldn’t be able to continue to enjoy the exhibitions, seminars, classes, the largest publicly funded darkroom in the country and, of course the new digital lab. It would be a tremendous loss if we cannot keep this most valuable resource that has served San Franciscans for over 53 years.

So, please, please, write to the superintendent of Citywide services, Ana Alvarez, (ana.alvarez@sfgov.org) and the general manager, Phil Ginsburg (phil.ginsburg@sfgov.org) to appeal their decision to exclude the Photography Centers’ director position from the 2010-2011 budget. We do not want to lose that nice photographer community!

Yawn. Alarm o’clock went off at 7:55am this morning. I’m determined to try my luck to call China at the busiest time of the year — 5 minutes before the arrival of the Year of the Tiger. There are hundreds and millions of people trying to do the same, and normally would take me more than an hour to get through.

Miraculously I got through immediately this time! Sudden blasts of fireworks from the other side of the phone almost blew me off the bed. Grandma shouted on top of her lung:”Can you hear the fireworks?! Can you hear them?!” “Yes yes” I talked so loud that the whole block could hear me, “I can hear nothing but fireworks, Grandma!”

Chinese New Year atmosphere is what I miss the most since I left China. Fireworks day after day, parties in the house and on the streets, smell of food in the air, music and dances everywhere… so much fun! Chinese New Year’s Eve is tonight for San Franciscans, so I am getting ready to make some dumplings at friend’s house. Wish everybody a very lucky year of the tiger — and check out my Chinese New Year tote bags, shirts and postcards here!