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  • Tag: San Francisco

    • waiting

      Posted at 3:27 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 3, 2014

      I am sitting at work waiting everrrr sooooo patientlyyyy for 5 o’ clock to get here. My sister is coming to spend the weekend with me and I’m so excited.

      She’s never really been here before, she came out to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with me in September, but we were pretty much walking and suffering the entire time so it wasn’t an all around fun experience.

      I’m taking her to AsiaSF for supper tonight, I’ve been wanting to go there for ages but the boy is not keen on the idea, I can’t imagine why.

      We have lots of big plans, and the weather is supposed to be nice, plus I’m taking the day off to cavort around the bay with her tomorrow.

      I’m lucky because even though we live far apart I get to see her pretty often, but it’s usually with my whole family all together.

      I was thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure the last time we did something just the two of us was when I flew to Calgary to hang out with her for my 18th birthday, so this is long overdue.

      So now I just have to make it to 5 o’ clock. Did I mention I was waiting patiently?

      Posted in family, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged Asia SF, avon walk for breast cancer, family, life, San Francisco, sisters, visit
    • chef

      Posted at 12:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 12, 2014

      Last week we had an onsite work training that our whole team flew out for from all over the country. At the end of the second day, we did a cooking class as a group for something fun to do together.

      It was at Jordan’s Kitchen in San Francisco, and it was amazing. It is a full scale commercial kitchen, but they only do group cooking classes, so we had the place to ourselves. The staff were super friendly, and really knowledgeable.

      We arrived, and they had trays of cheeses and smoked meats for us to snack on, and they were handing out wine before we even got our jackets off.  We made mushroom risotto, flank steak with fingerling potato salad and chocolate mousse with sea salt for dessert.

      Our group got to do everything, they taught us how to chop vegetables, season everything, and prepare, plate and garnish each dish. The food was delicious, mushroom risotto is one of my favourite things in the world. I may have gotten a little too deep into the wine because before I knew it I had nominated myself as the grill master of the group, and was picking up the flank steaks with my bare hands, and expertly (ish) maneuvering them around the flaming grill.

      The chocolate mousse was delish, and we had a post-dessert mini-booze bottle pinata, which is not something I’ve done before but may well become a part of my supper routine every night. It was a really fun activity,  and we got a copy of all of the recipes we made so we can re-create them at home. Not promising I will, because even though it was delicious it was a lot more work than boxed mac and cheese, but still it’s nice to have the option.

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      Posted in food, recipes, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged cheese, chocolate mousse, cooking class, flank steak, food, friends, Jordan's Kitchen, mushroom risotto, recipes, risotto, San Francisco, wine, work
    • gotham

      Posted at 10:52 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 15, 2013

      Life in SF has basically ground to a screeching halt today, because of Batkid. It seems like everyone knows about it, but maybe that’s only because I’m in the Bay. It’s a pretty great story no matter where you live.

      A little boy battling leukemia told the Make a Wish Foundation that his only wish was to be Batkid, and to help save Gotham City. San Francisco rose to the challenge, with more than 12,000 volunteers helping to transform the city into Gotham, complete with bat signal.

      Batkid has been all over the city today, battling the Riddler and the Penguin, saving damsels in distress and also the SF Giants mascott, Lou Seal, from certain death. He’s been riding around in the batmobile, AKA a black Lamborghini with bat adornments, accompanied by Batman, and Batkid’s little brother, who gets to be Robin for the day.

      Batkid has been sick since he was 20 months old, so most of his life has been spent in hospitals getting treatment, and today he got to be a superhero. Wishing to be Batkid is pretty creative, as far as wishes go, and all of these people rallying to help make it happen is really amazing.

      The bat symbol in a building across the street from my office

      You can learn more about batkid here.

      Posted in loveliness, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged batkid, batman, loveliness, make-a-wish foundation, San Francisco
    • buzz

      Posted at 3:42 am by jasminedesirees, on October 18, 2013

      It’s such a gorgeous day in San Francisco I just want to go play outside. I find it strange that it is 60 degrees here in July and 90 in mid-October, but that’s just one more thing to love about this weird little city.

      I am literally don’t think I can eat any more turkey, but I feel really guilty going shopping for any other food while we still have so much left because there are lots of people in the world that don’t have enough to eat, so there is actually no other food in our house.

      As a direct result of this situation, I had a very large coffee and some chocolate for lunch today and it was delicious and decadent but between the caffeine and the sugar rush I am feeling a bit crazy and I might be developing a twitch in my left eye.

      It might just be excitement though, I’m off to Vegas tomorrow to see two of my most favourite girls, drink a lot of margaritas and spend all my money. It’s not the gambling that gets me, though I do seem to have a unusual talent for craps, it’s the shopping.

      There is a Zara here in SF, but for some reason when I walk into the one in Vegas I want EVERYTHING! Plus they have a Top Shop. Life is good.

      Posted in life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged coffee, Las Vegas, life, San Francisco, shopping, travel, zara
    • team ta-tas

      Posted at 12:21 am by jasminedesirees, on October 3, 2013

      I posted yesterday about our experience doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. It was a pretty long post already without pictures so I wanted to share some today.

      Starting off early in the morning
      Walking by the Palace of the Fine Arts
      Love this city
      This lady danced her little face off, all day long
      Funniest hat I’ve ever seen
      soooo much pink
      beautiful bay
      golden gate
      Posted in family, life | 1 Comment | Tagged avon walk for breast cancer, breast cancer, family, San Francisco, team ta-ta's
    • breast friends

      Posted at 6:51 pm by jasminedesirees, on October 1, 2013

      The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer was this past weekend. We signed up in February, fundraised for months, thought about training for months while sitting on the couch and not actually training (to be fair, it’s walking, right? I’ve been walking pretty solidly for like 26 years by now).

      I was excited for it, and excited to be doing it with my mom and sisters, I thought it would be fun and that it raised money for a good cause, but I didn’t give it much more thought than that.

      It was a really great experience, even just as far as getting to see the city. If you only have one weekend to visit a place, think about signing up for this event because it was really awesome, we walked through Fisherman’s Wharf, down the Embarcadero, through China town, North Beach, the Presidio, past Golden Gate Park, it was really an amazing way to see the city, and to get to really appreciate so many of the places that I drive by all the time and think to myself “Oh I should really stop there”, but then never do.

      As we were at about mile 8, we came to a corner where a woman was standing alone. She was pale. thin, and she looked frail but tough. From her close cropped hair, it was clear that she was either in the midst of chemo, or had just finished it. As each walker passed by her, she would look them directly in the eye and say “Thank you for walking for me.” I almost burst into tears, but it was so inspiring, especially at about mile 25 when all I wanted to do was lay down and drink a margarita.

      That night we went to Cheesecake Factory for some carb loading and some truly delicious Asian Pear martinis, I didn’t even blink at finishing most of our shared piece of cheesecake myself, because let’s be honest, I had earned it. We were sitting there, feeling proud of what we’d accomplished, 26.2 miles the first day, but tired, sore and injured, and really disheartened at the prospect of doing it all again the next day.

      All of a sudden, my mom pipes up with “Maybe that’s kind of what it’s like when you are actually fighting cancer. You’re tired and sore and injured and you’ve already come so far and you feel like that should be enough, but it isn’t, and you have to wake up the next day and do it all over again, even though you don’t feel like you can, but you have to do it.”

      I guess that’s why we have moms. All in all, it was a great experience and a very memorable weekend.

      Posted in family, life, San Francisco | 1 Comment | Tagged avon walk for breast cancer, breast cancer, family, health, San Francisco, thoughts
    • hello goodbye

      Posted at 10:35 pm by jasminedesirees, on September 25, 2013

      I still don’t know my way around here very well, probably because I’ve been so dependent on technology that I’ve never had to learn. My phone GPS is broken right now, so on the way home from San Jose last weekend, we ended up getting lost and going through San Francisco, which worked out anyway because I had a friend visiting and she wanted to see the city.

      It was a gorgeous day, not a lot of traffic, the sun shining and good tunes on the radio, and as we drove north on the 101 and came around the last curve and saw the San Francisco laying out in front of us, with it’s cute, colourful houses on the hillsides and the skyline off in the distance, I realized for the first time that I really love this city.

      It would be just like me to finally notice that just as we’re starting to get serious about planning where we want to go next, but you can’t have everything in life. The transition to living here was definitely rough, I’ve never been so lonely and homesick in my life, including when I moved to an island in the middle of the ocean without knowing a single person.

      It was a great experience for me in hindsight,  nothing helps you figure out who you are faster than no longer have anyone around you to tell you who they think you should be. It’s scary at first, but once you figure out that the only opinion that really matters is your own, even if it’s because there is nobody left around you to have an opinion, it’s very freeing.

      Looking back, I can pretty clearly see how each new place I’ve lived has changed me and shaped my viewpoint, and I know I’m very fortunate to have had the ability to live in so many wonderful places. I can’t wait to see what is in store for me when I get to my next new home.

       

      Posted in exploring, life, San Francisco, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged exploring, home, life, San Francisco, travel, wander
    • Tiffany’s

      Posted at 9:30 pm by jasminedesirees, on September 20, 2013

      Last night we went to the launch party for Tiffany’s new jewellery line, Atlas. I went with my friend Hannah, and it was a good time. They had some really good appetizers (and some not so good ones, avoid black bean tarts at any cost), and we drank all of the champagne that exists in the world, as evidenced by my pounding headache and immediate craving for a cheese bagel the second I opened my eyes this morning, one hour past my alarm.

      We also got to meet Aimee Song from Song of Style, and she was very sweet and just as beautiful in person. It was a pretty fun night, we were quite like Holly Go-Lightly, but without the emotional baggage or jaunty hats.

      The Atlas line was pretty, I liked some of the bracelets especially, but call me old fashioned, if I’m going to pay that much for a piece of jewellery, it needs to be really sparkly.

      Aimee Song, she was very sweet
      Sparkly chocolate truffles. Everyone was completely covered in edible glitter
      Tiffany jewellery models
      Posted in San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged aimee song, champagne, diamonds, jewellery, party, San Francisco, song of style, tiffany's
    • guilty pleasure

      Posted at 5:22 am by jasminedesirees, on September 19, 2013

      I have a little ritual that I pull out every couple of months when I really need to just get away from everything for awhile.

      I leave work and go straight to specialty’s and buy the biggest chocolate chunk cookie they have, then I wander around the city nibbling on it and people watching, marvelling at the truly unique souls that are housed by this interesting little city.

      I usually end up at the Westfield mall on market to do a little shopping. Today was one of those days, and it was exactly what I needed.  The two cute shirts I found at Zara were just an added bonus.
      Posted in life | 0 Comments | Tagged me time, relax, San Francisco, shopping, specialty's, zara
    • eat all the things.

      Posted at 9:07 pm by jasminedesirees, on August 22, 2013

      I have a friend coming in to town over Labour Day weekend from L.A., and she was wondering about the best places to eat in San Francisco for a truly delicious, unique experience. I asked my food-loving co-workers for suggestions, and I got a lot of feedback. It turned into a pretty impressive list, so I decided to share it.

      I’ve been to the first few, and really enjoyed them, and I’m pretty excited to start eating my way through the rest of the list.

      Tacolicious– The tacos here are really delicious, they have a bunch of different kinds, and they have really interesting margarita flavours to try as well.

      Spruce– This place is a little more expensive but it’s really funny because if you go in here, every.single. person. is eating a burger. Their burgers are amazing, their fries taste like potato chips, and they gave us a free giant cookie when we came in for being first time visitors, but I was already so full from eating everything else that I was like “I’ll never be able to eat this cookie, I’ll have to save it for tomorrow”. And then I ate the whole thing before we even made it home.

      Cafe Delucchi– In North Beach, the “Italian” part of the city, I went for dinner here a few weeks ago with my Italian girlfriend and it was so friggin good. Then we went across the street for hot chocolate and cannoli’s, it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.

      Tartine– I’ve never been here but I’ve had food from here. It’s pretty much an SF institution, and their flourless chocolate cake might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

      Flour and Water– Pizza and pasta, came very highly recommended

      Thanh Long– Vietnamese fusion cuisine

      Burma Superstar- Apparently a very unique experience.

      Yank Sing– Deem Sum

      State Bird Provisions– This place has a constantly evolving menu, and is apparently a cliche, but classic San Francisco suggestion

      Golden Boy– People are pretty crazy about this pizza place.

      Frances– A bit expensive but really good food-

      AQ– Uses seasonal ingredients to make brand new

      Mission Chinese– Life changingly good Chinese.

      Swan Oyster Depot– A place to get very fresh seafood. I’ll be taking my sister and brother-in-law here for sure.

      Foreign Cinema– I’ve heard the food here is amazing, and the really cute thing is that they show movies on the wall of the court yard.

      AsiaSF:  It’s a bar and restaurant but the servers are really beautiful drag queens. It’s apparently a must do for visitors to the city, I might take my sister there when she comes in to town tomorrow.

      The Latin American Club: If you like margaritas as much as I do, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to, you should check this place out.

      And the final suggestion I was given: get a bacon wrapped hot dog in the mission. We used to go to Mazatlan all the time to see my Grandpa, and the bacon wrapped hot dogs they sell on the street at 2 a.m. are a thing of beauty, so we’ll see. Big shoes to fill, and what not.

      I’d love to get more suggestions, so if you have any for me, please leave them in the comments. 🙂

      Posted in food, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged food, foodie, restaurants, San Francisco, Spruce, State Bird Provisions, Tacolicious, tartine
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