Dine About Oakland: Boot and Shoe Service

I should probably start this review off by saying that I love-love-love Pizzaiolo (and am still so bummed that we couldn’t afford a buyout there for our wedding!) We’ve been waiting excitedly for Charlie Hallowell’s two new projects to open in Grand Lake and Uptown, because then we will live smack in the middle of the Pizzaiolo Golden Triangle, with three different restaurants in easy walking or biking distance. So, obviously, I was a little biased as we finally headed to check out Boot & Shoe Service, Pizzaiolo’s new sister restaurant on Grand, with a friend who was visiting—but I tried to leave my expectations at the door and give this little restaurant a shot at its own identity.

I really didn’t need to. This place is a) wonderful and b) exactly the pieces of Pizzaiolo that I would want to copy and paste into my neighborhood, which is to say that it’s a slightly lower-key version of its big sister. Boot & Shoe, named in honor of the cobbler’s shop that was originally here, serves up pizzas—including takeout—and a small selection of appetizers and salads, but for the most part they leave off the entrees that Pizzaiolo is known for. That’s perfect, since it makes for a casual (and far less costly!) night out. Astoundingly, we walked right in on a Thursday night (after trying and failing to get in a couple of weeks earlier). The space is much smaller than Pizzaiolo, but it works with the scaled down menu. The front half of the space that once housed DiBartolo is tables, while the back has a bar that stretches across if all you want is a cocktail and a snack.

We tried a mix of dishes, including one pizza that we’d had at Pizziolo a couple of times as a reference point. We also happened to be there on Stand with Haiti night when the restaurant and wait staff were donating 15 percent of sales and tips to Partners in Health, so we ordered an extra dish for good measure. Our meal started off with the complimentary house olives—mmm!—and included:

• Burrata with toast and radishes: This was good burrata, although my favorite version of this dish uses warm burrata, and this was cold (as is most common). However, the bread-and-cheese theme ended up overlapping a bit too much with the pizza that followed, so I think next time I’d try one of their other starters, and save this for a night when I’m just headed there for a cocktail and a snack.
• Margherita pizza: Astoundingly, we’ve never tried Pizzaiolo’s version of this, even though D. swears you must use the margherita pizza as the baseline to judge any good pizza joint. Great mozzarella and good tomatoes with a perfect crust—D. pronounced it better than Marzano’s (which is a high compliment since we’re big Marzano fans).
• Wild nettle and ricotta salata pizza: Wild nettle pizza is one of my favorites at Pizzaiolo, and I was pleased to find the Boot & Shoe version very comparable. If you’ve never had nettles, try some! Again, a great crust on this. (I’ve seen B&S list this with other types of cheese some nights as well, so it would be interesting to see how they compare.)
• Beer and housemade tonic: To drink, the boys ordered local beer while I had my favorite, a gin and tonic made with the housemade tonic. (It’s the same as the housemade tonic at Pizzaiolo, which they didn’t have the last time we ate there—so I was excited to see it again!)
• And finally,  a cannoli filled with ricotta, pistachio, and orange. We ordered this on a whim, and it was an unusual pick. First, I grew up in New Haven and also spent a lot of years in Boston, where cannolis are an art form, so I’m a pretty picky cannoli eater. And D. generally hates them altogether since he’s not a fan of ricotta-based anything. But the pistachios and oranges sold him on this one, so we gave it a spin. Yum! Not quite a traditional cannoli, but very good in its own right, with a light filling and a crispy shell. Not a dessert to get for takeout—the shell wouldn’t last long—but a nice bit of sweetness to end a meal.

D. took some pictures of the deliciousness with his schmancy new phone to send to our friend’s wife back in Colorado, so when I remember to steal them from him I’ll post them (with apologies to our wonderful waitress, who asked with a raised eyebrow, “oh, are you Yelpers?” when D. started snapping shots…)

All-in-all, I’m excited to welcome this spot to our neighborhood. It’s practically perfect. Our dinner—which included a bit more than we generally order, plus a round-and-a half of drinks and great service!—still wound up under $100 for three of us, which really can’t be beat. The only things that could be improved? I would love for Boot & Shoe to be open on Sundays (they’re currently closed Sundays and Mondays, and Pizzaiolo’s closed Sundays too). And I’d REALLY love for them to be open for breakfast a la Pizzaiolo (or even weekend brunch with doughnuts and breakfast pizzas like Marzano used to serve). But for now I’ll be content to dream about buttermilk doughnuts while we enjoy dinners and takeout there.

Grade: A
Price: $$

Community-supported meat, cheese, and bread—yum!

For the past several years, we’ve been getting a tasty farm box stuffed with fruits, nuts, and vegetables each week, which has many a night been the saving grace for dinner. Community-supported agriculture, or CSA, subscriptions also help small farms stay in business—each subscriber pays in advance and receives some of the bounty each week. In good years, boxes are overflowing; in bad years, there may be some gaps from time to time. It’s a way of sharing the risks with the farm owners who might not otherwise have the resources to stay afloat year to year. We’ve been very pleased with our farm box, and they do a great job of trading their surplus with other nearby farms to balance out the box contents.

But at the end of the day, one cannot live on vegetables alone. (Well, okay, maybe you could—but it wouldn’t be much fun!) Enter community-supported food. Way back in 2008, I promised to follow up the Bay Area CSA list with a list of other delicious goodness you can get—so here it is, a little late! In the East Bay, you can now get just about anything in local subscription form—and the eating’s never been better! Here’s a sampling of CSF organizations with drop-off spots in Oakland and Berkeley.

Meats
Meat shares provide a way to purchase meat and eggs from small local ranches that raise their animals more sustainably. Each ranch’s program is a bit different as far as what you get and how much control you have over that, so check the details for the one you’re interested in.

• Bay Area Meat CSA (clearinghouse for many small ranches; one-time and subscription opportunities)
• Soul Food Farm (chicken and eggs)
• Marin Sun Farms Meat CSA (beef, lamb, goat, pork, veal, poultry)
• Barbarosa Ranchers Meat CSA (beef, lamb, pork, chicken)
• Clark Summit Meat Club (beef, pork, chicken, eggs)

Grains
Many fruit-and-vegetable CSAs also offer nuts and grains, but a few farms specialize in these less common staples.

• Windborne Farm (many grains, beans, and seeds)
• Massa Organics (brown rice, wheat berries, and almonds for sale online or at Oakland and Berkeley farmers markets)

Cheese
Not exactly CSAs per se, but these cheese clubs offer fun (if pricey) ways to support local producers while trying a nice assortment of new cheeses.

• Bellwether Farms Cheese Club
• Cowgirl Creamery Cheese Club

Groceries and prepared foods
This is a new spin on an age-old concept: the basic components of your meal, carefully selected and prepared for you to pick up at worker-owned cooperatives.

• Three Stone Hearth Community-Supported Kitchen (Berkeley pickup with delivery option)
• The Cooperative Grocery (CoG) (Emeryville pickup; also has member work requirement)

And new to the scene: bread!
Last but not least, an old co-worker of mine has started up her own community-supported bakery, so this spring we’re getting fresh-baked bread once a week (conveniently on the same day we get our farm box, so Wednesday night dinners are pretty tasty these days!) You can get the whole scoop here (and can also find out more about her other food projects, like the Indilicious food cart that is making its way through the streets of San Francisco).

• Pandora’s Box (Berkeley pickup)

Yum! Now all we need is some chickens and a goat, and we’d be all set! (Although in fairness, that won’t help D. much—we need to start growing rice for that…)

Helping Haiti

The devastation in the wake of the Haiti earthquake is obviously touching people around the globe, but it’s been particularly poignant here in earthquake country, where we are acutely aware of the destruction that the moving earth can bring. There are a number of national organizations funneling resources into Haiti, but I just wanted to plug a few local efforts for anyone looking to get involved in the relief effort. Feel free to add others in the comments.

California Nurses Association

The Oakland-based California Nurses Association is coordinating with National Nurses United and other nursing organizations to send desperately needed registered nurses to Haiti to provide medical care in the aftermath of the earthquake as part of the Registered Nurses Response Network. Over 4,500 7,000! nurses have volunteered to go nationally, but CNA still needs money for flights to get people there. You can make a tax-deductible donation here. They are also accepting in-kind donations of supplies; call for more details.

First Christian Church of Oakland (111 Fairmount Avenue at 29th Street)

FCC is creating much-needed hygiene kits, which they’ll be assembling during worship. If you’d like to contribute supplies, each kit will need the following:

• One hand towel measuring approximately 16″ x 28″ (no fingertip or bath towels)
• One washcloth
• One wide-tooth comb
• One nail clipper (no metal files or
• emery boards)
• One bar of soap (bath size in wrapper)
• One toothbrush (in original packaging)
• Six Band-Aids

You can drop any donations off in the front foyer between 9 and 11 am on Sunday mornings. For more information, contact Sandhya Jha, Pastor, at the church.

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

The East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a Berkeley support and advocacy organization for refugees and immigrants, runs the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. They are collecting funds both for the immediate crisis and for the future rebuilding of the nation. You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

Finally, please remember to think of Haiti not just today and tomorrow, but in the coming weeks, months, and years, as well. Like the Gulf Coast, Haiti will be rebuilding for years to come, and it’s critical that this already extraordinarily vulnerable nation gets the support it needs to prevent tragedies like this one in the future. In the words of Tracy Kidder (from his excellent piece on Haiti for the New York Times this week), “while earthquakes are acts of nature, extreme vulnerability to earthquakes is manmade.” Help make sure Haitians have the resources to rebuild right this time!

And the 2010 house resolutions!

Last week I gave the final rundown on the 2009 house resolutions, which means it’s time for (da-da-daaaa!) the 2010 list.

This year’s projects are mostly short and sweet, because we’re tackling one HUGE project and also getting married in June, so there will be more than enough things to occupy us. Still, there are some projects here I’m super excited about!

1. A DISHWASHER. Well, a whole new kitchen, actually. This a carryover from last year’s list. It’s our one huge gigantic project for this year after a year off from contractors—we did the electrical and seismic work back in 2008—and since we’re trying to do at least some of it ourselves, I’m expecting it to consume a lot of time.

2. HONEYBEES. Thanks to a little bit of a kick in the pants from my sister in the form of a gift certificate to Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper in San Francisco (thanks B!!), this jumped up our list a bit, and I can’t wait to get started on it! But first, I need to learn a little bit more about what I’m doing here—so look for more in the months to come.

3. MEDICINE CABINET. I’ve been procrastinating on getting a recessed medicine cabinet for the bathroom for a while, but I’m hoping to actually get moving on that this year, and also repaint the bathroom while I’m at it. This project is a bit daunting because it involves knocking holes in plaster, and I’m still not quite sure what we’ll find in there. (You can still see the shadows of the framing of the original cabinet, but I have no idea how or when it was filled in, or whether the framing is still intact.) We’ll see…

4. LAWN LANDSCAPING. We successfully killed all of our grass* this past year, but we haven’t done much with the space yet. Now it’s time to have some fun with the landscaping, and figure out what interesting natives we can put in. (*Note that by “grass” I do not mean oxalis, which is having a field day with our bare lawn…ack!)

5. HEAT REGISTERS. I started replacing these with functional reproductions this year, but got sidetracked when I discovered the moulding around the registers needed to be replaced. Hopefully I can check this one off the list pretty early this year…

6. GARAGE SHELVES AND BIKE RACKS. We’ve needed these forever, but it’s just never a very high priority project…maybe putting it on the resolutions list will make it one!

7. CHICKENS. Finally, though this may be a long shot, I’m hoping by the year’s end we’ll be involved in a chicken project either at our house or at our neighbor’s house (since they had the great idea of setting up a block chicken coop to share the responsibility and, more importantly, to house the hens somewhere where there is no big black dog!)

The blog in review: 2009 reflections and 2010 resolutions

One of the things I find intriguing about blogging is seeing who reads what, where they come from, and how they found their way to this under-the-radar blog. City Homestead began as a journal of sorts to chronicle our adventures as first-time homeowners; the main purpose at the beginning was just to have a place to post photographs of our meager attempts at home improvement for our families, with an occasional photo of our then-new dog thrown in for good measure. In the past year and a half, though, this blog has morphed into a more multi-purpose space for thoughts and reflections on a wide array of things.

Since 2009 marks my first full year blogging, I thought it would be interesting to put together a top-ten hit list. This is a little skewed towards posts earlier in the year because mid-year I switched the blog feed to allow people to read full posts without clicking through to the site, but it still gives a taste of what’s on people’s minds. Here’s what you’ve been reading about this year:

10. Big Black Dog: Our dog continues to be infinitely more popular than just about anything else I write about (which is funny given how infrequently I post about him!) Yes, I promise—more photos in the year to come!

9. Where to get married in Oakland and Berkeley: Okay, I put this up primarily because the legwork to put this list together for our summer wedding was so exhausting that I didn’t want anyone else to have to reinvent the wheel. Who knew so many people wanted to know?!? Astoundingly, this post—which went up in November—has drawn more visits in two months than most posts draw over a year. Huh. I’ll continue to add to it as we learn more about various venues and other local resources.

8. All about Auto Row: The two-year Auto Row planning process launched this past year, and I’ve been excited by the number of people who are extraordinarily interested in the future of our little corner of Oakland. I like writing about planning and I like writing about the ‘hood, so obviously I love writing about this project (and there will certainly be more to come on that front in 2010).

7. Rain barrels: We’ll get these done soon, I promise! The posts on rain barrels, lawn replacement, and other eco gardening strategies draw a lot of readers from out in the wide blue yonder. I’ve also seen the number of people searching for these topics rise month by month, which I suspect (hope?) reflects growing concern and interest in living more sustainably. As we tackle more projects along these lines, I’ll post more on them, and will also try to get some better step-by-step guides up in the future.

6. Mapping Oakland: If I combined the numbers for all of the Oakland mapping and neighborhood posts, they would probably trump some of the things higher on the list. A lot of people out there were especially intrigued by Robert Lemon’s neighborhood boundaries project, and I’m excited to finally see his results in the not-too-distant future. It’s also nice to know people like reading about things like this, because I love writing about them (and researching Oakland history in general—it’s good to put that history degree to work!) so it gives me a good excuse to spend some quality time at the library.

5. Dine About Oakland: The Dine About Oakland series continues to be one of the more popular things I write about. That works out well, because it’s also one of the things that’s really fun to write about (and of course you can’t beat the primary research involved!) My main challenge here is to avoid posting back-to-back restaurant reflections, which is a nice problem to have!

4. The Parkway Theater: The closing of the Parkway was a big deal in Oakland and especially in the neighborhoods around the lake, and the series of posts last spring here and on other Oakland blogs drew a lot of readers. I still get periodic hits on this one from the I Love the Parkway site, which makes me happy because it’s good to know people are still thinking about the theater and its future even as it sits shuttered nearly a year later.

3. How to earthquake-proof your home: Not surprising in earthquake country, I guess, but this 2008 post got a lot of love this year too. I still haven’t posted photos from our seismic retrofit, so I’ll try to snap some soon. I often forget about old posts after they’re up, so it’s good to have a reminder to revisit and reflect on them.

2. Building a bungalow garden: This is an interesting one at number two for the year. This post gets almost daily hits months after it first went up, which may be due in part to the fact that with a couple of notable exceptions, no one is really writing about bungalow gardens. (Hey landscape architects and historians, here’s a great book idea!) I got a little sidetracked on garden planning this year, but as I return to it and get deeper into the research, I’ll put up more historic plans.

And last but not least:

1. Thoughts on a fractured city: One of the first posts of 2009, this essay got picked up by a lot of fellow bloggers, who are largely responsible for drawing so much traffic to it. Writing this in the aftermath of the Oscar Grant killing was a really a therapeutic process for me as I worked through my own feelings and frustrations about the shooting and its aftermath. Initially, I didn’t intend it for the blog at all and posted it on a whim, so I was a little surprised to see the reception it got—I heard from a lot of people both on and offline, and it helped to discover how many other Oaklanders struggled with the same emotions. This post had the interesting side effect of drawing a lot more local readers to the blog, though; up until then the majority of readers had been folks from the house blogger community. That’s given me an incentive to broaden the scope of what I write about to include a lot more posts about Oakland history and planning, two things I love to learn about.

So there you have it. This year, I’m resolving to try to write, and therefore post, more regularly, in part because 2010 promises to be filled with craziness (of the good kind, hopefully), and in a funny way writing and other forms of journaling go a long way in keeping me sane and happy. I’m also hoping to carve some time out to delve a little more deeply into some of my history projects, and to do a better job documenting our house projects in general. (Okay, and also to do a better job finishing the house projects I start…) That should be more than enough to keep me busy with all the other projects running this year.

Happy 2010!

Out with the old: Final 2009 house resolutions check-in

To wrap up 2009, here’s the status of this year’s resolutions. Look for the 2010 list next week!

Here’s the original list: My New Year’s House Resolutions

…and here’s where we are in the waning days of 2009:

1. BETTER WINDOW INSULATION.
Mostly done. In the end, I ordered 1 3/8″ spring bronze weatherstripping  from Kilian’s Hardware, since the stuff I got from our local Ace was too narrow. They shipped promptly and have everything under the sun on the old weatherstripping front. With instructions from Working Windows, a phenomenal guide, I’ll hopefully finish up the last of the weatherstripping soon. Pictures coming once I remember to take some. (I’m doing a modified version of it without removing the sashes—not the recommended way, but so far it seems to be working decently, and significantly reduces the likelihood that I’ll screw it up and need to call in the pros. But it also means I would be much happier with a staple gun, which the Tool Library has—except that they’re closed till after the new year with all the budget cuts…augh.) And the bedroom window issues will be resolved by early 2010—yay!

2. DROUGHT-TOLERANT LANDSCAPING.
Mostly done. We successfully killed the grass, but then went to war with the oxalis. This isn’t done yet, but it’s mostly because I’ve been lazy and preoccupied with other things. I think I can safely say it’s a weekend (and a few hundred dollars’ worth of DG, stones, mulch, and plants) away from being complete.

3. PRODUCTIVE VEGETABLE BED.
Done! The garden did quite respectably this year, though it’s definitely still a work in progress. I continue to be in awe of the huge yields from some friends’ gardens, so I’ll keep at it. I put cover crops in this winter, so hopefully that will help, too.

Lettuce bed

4. NEW POWER STRIPS.
Done! Pictures are not exciting here, so you don’t get any…

5. CLOTHES LINE.
Done! But no photos till we get the landscaping done, since right now the yard looks pretty icky.

6. NO MORE LEAKY TUB.
Umm, done? We got stuck on this one, so I’m not even sure it counts as done. Technically, it doesn’t leak anymore. But in the process of trying to fix it, we broke it more, had to hire a plumber to fix that, and then discovered that it had been fixed incorrectly. Fixing the new problem turned out to be an even bigger project that will entail retiling the bathroom, so for now we’re living with a slightly imperfect faucet setup. Moral of the story: hire people who know what they’re doing, especially when you don’t!

7. RAIN BARREL.
Mostly done. After trekking all over town looking for the specific parts D. had in mind for this, we finally found them at Grainger in West Berkeley. He’s off this week, so with luck this might be finished before the new year. Pictures and maybe an instructable to follow once it’s all installed and caulked in, but Gene over at DIY Insanity has some great photos up of the barrels pre-holes on the new platform he helped us build last month (and by “helped” I mean walked us through pretty much step-by-step—thanks again!!)

Gene's photo of the barrels on their brand new platform!

8. RETAINING WALL & FENCE.
Done!

Another view

9. DISHWASHER.
Not done. But…WE ARE GETTING OUR FIRST BIDS ON THE STRUCTURAL WORK IN THE KITCHEN! This is my most exciting news. It won’t make the 2009 list, but it’s within reach at long last. (And it better make the 2010 list…)

In fact, it might be fortuitous that it took so long—if Obama’s Cash for Caulkers program really gets rolling, we’re all set to buy both our dishwasher and new refrigerator under it! And we may apply to be guinea pigs in Oakland’s version of CaliforniaFIRST, which spreads the cost of energy efficiency improvements over a number of years by rolling the cost into property taxes. When we take out our furnace chimney, we’ll have to re-vent our furnace and water heater, and it might be the ideal time to replace both. (They still have a few years left in them, but both are aging, neither is high-efficiency, and D. is itching for a solar water heater.)

So we’re 8 for 9 for 2009—not too bad, actually!

Kitchen Chronicles: Color inspirations

Initially, color seemed like one of those fun details that we could save till the end of the kitchen renovation process and have a little fun with. As it turns out, it’s a decision we need to make fairly early on in the process, since the color of the cabinets will drive a lot of design and cost decisions. (Specifically, we need to decide whether we’re doing painted cabinets or natural wood, since that in turn affects flooring choices and both affect the bottom line.) So I dug up several art pieces I’d been saving for a while and had them matted and framed over at Kuhl Frames + Art in Uptown. (Miraculously, I also got through the whole framing process without having to buy D. the Devo poster he’s been eyeing that’s part of the Lil Tuffy poster exhibit the shop is hosting right now! Yes, that would be the only poster in the whole show that costs more than all of our new appliances put together will…)

The first two pieces are old fruit labels that my aunt and uncle gave me years ago; I’ve been toting them around ever since (note the nice crease down the snow owl one!) I think they’ve been in no fewer than seven different apartments in five cities over the last decade—augh! So it’s long time they were framed. It’s hard to see, but the frames are actually a very deep brown with a light cream mat.

Fruit labels

The third piece is by Olympia-based artist Nikki McClure, who does crazy beautiful paper cuts. (I got this one at Issues off of Piedmont Avenue, where they usually have a nice assortment of her work.) Seriously, I’d wallpaper our house with these if D. didn’t have a say in it! (But he does, so we also have some old school Shepard Fairey from back when he was still counterculture. And also, cute photos of elephants with little children.)

Nikki McClure print

So obviously our kitchen is not going to be striped in red and black, but I do want a color scheme that this art can accent. We’re leaning strongly towards painted cabinets right now, and D. is adamant about not wanting a white kitchen, which is the more traditional “look” for an Arts and Crafts house. So instead, we’re exploring lighter creams, grays, or greens—plus a few natural woods—for the Shaker-style cabinets, probably with a wood floor and dark countertops. That actually gives me a nice palette to work with, since we can potentially keep the walls in the sage family, which makes the red and cream a perfect complementary color. Or we can use some yellows, which could look really nice with gray cabinets and red accents. I like the look of the green cabinets too (D.’s favorite is a color called “silver sage”) but it just seems like the kind of thing that we could get tired of in the years to come, and then we’re pretty locked into the color. Bleh.

Anyway, for now, I’m stalking Sunset, Apartment Therapy, Design Pad, and the many house blogs out there for some inspiration and ideas. Know anyone with good green, gray, or cream kitchen cabinets to look at?

Dine About Oakland: Grand Tavern

I’ve been really curious about Grand Tavern ever since they opened earlier this year, but somehow we just never seem to end up out and about in Grand Lake at an appropriate tavern time. (Also, for a while D. was resisting because their website plays music—a pet peeve of his—so that took a little coaxing!) A couple weeks ago, though, we were over at Grand Lake Ace for some errands, and it was cold, mucky, and drizzling out. As we passed Grand Tavern on the way home, it looked oh-so-appealing decked out in Christmas lights, and I suddenly remembered they had a fireplace, too. A few minutes later, we were headed in the door.

Grand Tavern moved into the Arts and Crafts house on Upper Grand that was home to Señor Nero’s until it closed last year. During the day, you can get a drink with light food; in the evening hours, they serve a full dinner. They still seem to be figuring out their place, caught between being a pub and being a restaurant. It was actually a perfect fit for what we wanted, though—drinks by the fire with a little snack. We ended up staying for a couple of hours, which meant an opportunity to really give the cocktail menu a workout. On the side, we tried some “small social bites” (or so says the menu). The vegetarian chili was okay, but not too exciting—in the category of “things I can make just as well at home” (and for considerably less!) The fries, on the other hand, were fabulous. “Fries” is something of a misnomer, since the “social skin fries” are actually more like potato chips—warm, crispy rounds of potato with a softer bit on the inside. We’ll definitely get them again, and might give the dinner menu a spin too. When we were there it had a burger in addition to several fancier main dishes; seems like the kind of menu that you can swing towards the casual or the upscale (which is to say, my favorite kind of menu, a la Wood Tavern and Sidebar!)

The list of wines, beers, spirits, and cocktails is extensive, with a distinctively “speakeasy” vibe. (Four different absinthes…!) The cocktails are old school classics reminiscent of the Prohibition era. I tried the Ward 8 and the Old Fashioned, which were both well made; D. was surprised to find that neither was too sweet for him, since generally if the cocktail description includes grenadine or gum syrup, it doesn’t bode well on that front. He stuck with the beer list, though, which features a lot of Belgian ales (including a few I’m not used to seeing anywhere but the Trappist and occasionally Luka’s) plus a good mix of local brews to round it out.

The early evening crowd was mixed on a Saturday night; people trickled in and out, but generally I don’t think this place has been discovered yet (which may be a good thing—a lot of its charm was the quiet by-the-fire environment). We didn’t stay into the dinner hour, so I’m not sure what it’s like then or as you get into going-out time (but generally I’ve found that Grand Lake shuts down a little earlier than some other parts of town, perhaps because it leans to the family side of things).

At any rate, this place was a nice discovery, and one we’ll be back to. While we savored the warm fire during the wintry rain, they also have a back patio that looks like it would be a great spot in the summer. If you bike, skate, or walk to the Tavern, you also get a $2 discount on your second drink, which is good news for us since it’s (sort of!) in the neighborhood.

Grade: A−
Cost: $$-$$$

Kitchen Chronicles: The (not so) bad beginning

Yep, it’s that pesky kitchen again…

In the last episode, we discovered that there were far too many complicated and expensive things that needed to be fixed with our circa-1939 kitchen (with a 2007 “facelift”) for it to make much sense to do the project piecemeal. Instead, we started saving up for one big overhaul. We’re not quite there yet, but I’ve decided to go ahead and start working on the plan and talking to contractors so that we can get this thing rolling in the new year. Not exactly a bad beginning, per se, but certainly a far more expensive (and stressful!) one than we’d originally envisioned.

First things first: to save those of you who really don’t care about our kitchen from having to wade through what will probably be a LOT of posts about the renovation process in the coming year, I’m going to start titling and tagging any kitchen-related posts as “kitchen chronicles.” Read ‘em if you like kitchens, or ignore ‘em if you don’t.

Crafting the plan
One of the first things I did once we decided to tackle the entire space was to sit down and make a list of the current problems and the multiple roles we’d like the space to serve. Here’s how we envision it:

• More light!
• Better flow from the dining room into the kitchen into the breakfast room and out into the yard
• Preserve the breakfast room function, if not the physical division of space
• Allow the breakfast room to double as a mud room (which it sort of does now, but not terribly well)
• Create space for the dog’s bowl and supplies
• Create a continuous work surface somewhere in the kitchen itself
• Eliminate the “wall” of cabinets that you walk into when you enter the kitchen from the dining room
• Preserve the California cooler, the only original element in the kitchen
• Preserve the ability to close the kitchen off from the rest of the house
• Create a kitchen that fits into the historical aesthetic of the house

That’s a lot of different pieces and different jobs for a relatively small (13 feet by 17.5 feet, counting the breakfast room) space to fill. We’re still playing around with different configurations to get there, but right now, the plan is looking something like this:

Here’s what we’re starting with, as a refresher:

And here’s what we really started with, courtesy of our neighbor. This kitchen is actually  from the blueprints of our house’s mirror-image twin. I flipped it in Photoshop, but that would be why “screen” and “glass” are still backwards. (Or rather, I’m lazy and that’s why they are.) But you get the idea, and you can still see where the original walls and counters were, which is pretty crazy! In our house, the wall between the porch and the breakfast room was taken down as part of the 1939 remodel and the ironing board was moved.

The plan is still very much a work in progress and we have a lot of things to work out (like whether we can actually move the doorway, for starters—and if we do, how do we set it up so that the door closes, given that it’s a swinging door right now, and apparently you can’t put a pocket door in without stripping both sides of a wall down to the studs?) Our kitchen is awkwardly sized—too wide for a good galley layout, but too narrow to really accommodate an island. Most people with this layout—and there are a surprising number of them given how many bungalows are floating around town!—take out the cooler and stick the refrigerator there or make this into a U shape, but I really love our cooler and would hate to lose it. So, no U.

Kitchen Work Plan

1. Disconnect and move stove and refrigerator; demo all cabinets. Remember to buy new toaster oven and borrow hot plate or microwave from somewhere before we get to this point!!
2. Demo furnace chimney; re-vent furnace and hot water heater through wall or to exterior of house as needed. Explore the possibility of using the new Oakland iteration of CaliforniaFIRST to upgrade to a high-efficiency furnace and solar water heater at the same time.
3. Remove tile floor, baseboard trim, sink backsplash, and washer/dryer hookups on breakfast room walls.
4. Widen doorway between breakfast room and kitchen and figure out what kind of door to install here.
5. Insulate outside wall behind sink, and add heat to the kitchen.
6. Finish open walls and install new flooring and new trim to match the original.
7. Install new cabinets, open shelves, sink, dishwasher, backsplash, etc.
8. Install new counter. Paperstone, maybe?
9. Install (or acquire freestanding) benches for breakfast room and mudroom areas. Install coat hooks.
10. Install new light fixtures and exhaust hood.
11. Replace back door with better insulated door. Yay Obama tax credits!

The million dollar question, of course, is how much all of this is going to cost. (Hopefully not a million dollars!) We’re on a pretty tight budget for this project, so the goal is to do as much of the work ourselves as seems feasible and wise. That probably means lots of fun demo-ing things, but leaving some of the finishing to the pros. I shipped off some paint and dust samples to be tested for lead a few months ago and was psyched to learn that the paint and plaster in the kitchen are effectively lead-free, so we can demo our hearts out. We also need to figure out where the cabinets are coming from. I’m getting a few estimates from local cabinetmakers, since that’s our ideal scenario—but we may end up back at Ikea if we can’t make it pencil out. We’ll see.

So with that—welcome to the City Homestead Kitchen Chronicles!

Snow: It’s not just for WordPress blogs anymore! (Or: A winter primer for Californians)

Okay, so temps just below freezing aren’t exactly considered a “deep freeze” anywhere else in the country. But around here, where we just planted all our winter seedlings and the citrus harvest is about to start, the frozen soil was  a bit of a shocker, and the snow-covered hills caught just about everyone by surprise.

Once I dug all my warm wool clothes out of storage, I remembered that once upon a time I used to know all about winter. However, my New England know-how never covered topics like what to do if the oranges on your tree are frozen solid or your December lettuce starts are wilting, so I had to hit the interweb to figure out what on earth you’re supposed to do when California freezes over.

How can I keep my garden from being damaged by the frost?

• Water your plants, especially veggie starts, before the frost. If there’s a frost in the forecast, water your plants well and make sure the soil is moist. Spray the leaves with water, too. Don’t water them after the frost, though—just let them “defrost” on their own.
• Protect plants physically. In places where temperatures are regularly below freezing, people build frames and other devices to warm plants up. But around here, a simple covering is more than sufficient, since the freeze isn’t likely to last too long (I hope!) Blankets, newspaper, cardboard boxes, and milk cartons all work well. Try not to have the covering in direct contact with the plants—it should be more like a little tent of warm(er) air around the plant.
• Help your trees out too. Small trees can be covered just like other plants. Larger trees can be warmed up with things as simple as Christmas tree lights (but not the schmancy new LED ones!) Trees should be kept moist just like plants (though it’s not really an issue given all the rain that came with this storm!)

How do I know if my plants were damaged by the frost?

• First and foremost, wait it out till warmer weather returns. Then you’ll be able to assess the signs. On citrus, damaged fruit will get swollen and puffy and the rind will separate. Damaged leaves may get brown spots. Don’t start pruning off any damaged wood till the spring, though—the tree may surprise you!
• On vegetables, frost damage isn’t subtle. The plants will wilt, look like they’re water logged, and then turn brown and die. There’s not too much you can do once the damage is done, though, so again—just wait and see. Generally, the hearty winter vegetables should hold their own in this (relatively!) mild cold, but if you have lots of lettuce starts in like we do, you may lose some of them.

Other wintry weather tips

Black ice = bad. And there’s been some in various parts of the Bay this week. First, know that you can’t always see black ice on the road. If you hit it, you’ll feel it. Don’t brake quickly. Definitely don’t accelerate! Just ease onto the brake slowly and try to use the steering wheel to control the car, rather than the brakes or the gas. If you start to skid, don’t panic—just turn the wheel into the skid to regain control of the car. And leave lots of space between the car in front of you, just in case you do hit a patch of ice.

Heat = good. This is the part where the East Coasters’ and Midwesterners’ eyes start to bug out, but there are still a decent number of houses in the Bay Area that don’t have heat, since it’s not needed most of the year. But it’s obviously a good idea to have some heat flowing right now, especially in areas where, say, pets are sleeping that may not be heated normally. Also, frozen pipes are not fun. I don’t think it will get cold enough for long enough in Oakland for this to be an issue, but Contra Costa County’s already under a frozen pipe alert. You can insulate outdoor pipes somewhat by wrapping them in rags or newspaper or the pipe insulation stuff they (hopefully?) sell at local hardware stores. On the off chance they do freeze, you can run water to try to get them moving again (assuming you’ve got at least a trickle coming through—but around here you probably do!), or use an iron or hair dryer on low to warm them up a bit.

Warm winter food = the best. Hot chocolate! Steel cut oats! Cream of wheat! Root vegetable pot pie! These are a few of my favorite things…and I eat them far too infrequently in sunny California. Perfect winter snow food—yay!

Anyway. While we Californians have fun with our measly little snow piles, our storm is apparently headed east with a fury (or maybe a flurry?) As it gets past the Rockies, it should drop some real snow. Have fun!