Bacchanalia by the Bay.

After leaving Southern California, we spent a week in the Bay Area visiting family and friends. We spent most of the time with my sister, Catherine. She and her husband, David, cooked us some fabulous meals and we reciprocated by attempting to recreate one of our favorite Vietnamese dishes--bun cha. It turned out quite well. We went to the movies with David's sister, Drew. It was almost the year anniversary of the murder of her daughter. It was good to see her and to catch up with everybody in depth.

Next, we visited our good friends Steve and Michele.

Their garden was at the height of late summer florescence.

They cooked us a delicious pulled pork dinner. we ate and drank and talked until very late.

Next, we visited the Pereiras, who, as usual, cooked us an elaborate, exquisite meal.

We watched the sun sink into the fog as we contemplated the eternal question:
Is this a great country, or what? It was good to be back.

The next day, we went into San Francisco and had a wonderful dinner and visit with Doug and Amy and Amy's dog Roxie. The next day, we lunched in North Beach, sipped an Irish coffee at the Buena Vista, shopped the Haight, then walked all the way across town into the fog belt to visit our friends Beth and Howard. We had dinner with them and our friends Dory and Jim, and barely managed to cut the festivities short enough to catch the last BART train to the east bay.

It had been a mad whirl of eating, drinking, talking, and laughing, but it wasn't enough, so we spent the last two days of our visit with my sister doing more of the same. By the time we hit the plane to Boise, we were ready for a break, but of course more festivities awaited us on our arrival in the land of Famous Potatoes.

P.