Driving To San Francisco For Chinese Food And Chairs.

A couple weeks ago, Adrienne Parker, who was a AE at PK Advertising in San Jose way back when, mentioned on Facebook that she had two lobby chairs that she had aquired when we liquidated the agency. She said that the chairs no longer fit in her place and she was looking for a good home for them.

O replied that we remembered the chairs fondly, and Adrienne generously offered them to us if we'd pay for the shipping. We said great, until we found out it would cost about $500. Sentimental value is only so valuable, after all.

Then I saw the opportunity for a road trip. O had to work, but I had the time off, so I rented a small hatchback and drove to San Francisco where I was able to enjoy pre-holiday merriment with friends and family. I also stocked up on many commodities, like good andouille sausage and cheap tequila, that are either unavailable or ridiculously expensive in Boise.

Thanks, Adrienne!

Good Chinese food is also unavailable in Boise, so every visit to the Bay Area must include as many favorite Chinese meals as possible. This trip I managed two, and with a bit of ingenuity, three.

First, one of my favorite meals of all time: house-smoked ham with whole cloves of garlic at

Brandy Ho. Scorchingly spicy, deliciously smoky, and mouth-wateringly garlicky. Sheer bliss.

Next: curried chicken over rice at Hunan Taste in San Jose. When we had the agency here, I ate

at Hunan Taste at least three or four times a week for almost 15 years. It was (and is) that
addictive. I would always have either the curried chicken, the shredded chicken with cold
noodles and peanut sauce, or their version of smoked ham with garlic. Not as good as Brandy
Ho's version, but an acceptable substitute. But it is the curried chicken that still haunts my taste
buds. The secret (which I recently figured out): lots of tumeric. I can now almost reproduce it,
to my delight. But there's nothing like the original.

My dilemma at Hunan Taste was always this: which do I want more, curried chicken or 

shredded chicken with cold noodles and peanut sauce? This time I decided not to choose, 

but to get both and eat the noodles for lunch on my drive home. It may have been below 

freezing and windy outside, but as I gazed at the desolate tundra north of Winnemucca, 

my belly was warmed by thick, spicy, vinegary peanut sauce and soothing noodles.

The chairs that made it all possible, safe in their new home.

P.