"The Bay Area and back down. Cali is where they put the mack down." Part Uno

Sorry for the short absence, but this last weekend I was out of town visiting family in San Francisco Bay Area. My brother and his fiance, who both live here in Portland, were in San Francisco because she had a seminar in the city and decided to have a small engagement party with our family who live in Sacramento and the Bay Area. It was a small casual affair, but a great time for my immediate family to finally get together and celebrate their engagement. My parents were so generous enough to use their miles to fly me down! (Thanks Mom and Joe)

Hotel Motel, Holiday Inn! 24th Floor

 The first night was the engagement dinner, which we had with some of our family in the North Beach area at Bocce, an Italian Restaurant. Unfortunately, I have no photos of either dinner we had out because all I had with me was my camera phone, which takes poor quality photos at night. It was a good dinner, but I was mostly impressed with the company and seeing many of my family I never get to see. My brother and his fiance set the date for their wedding and my brother asked my sister and I to walk him down the isle. I was so honored that they asked me to be involved in their wedding. As this blog progresses, you will come to find that I am very close with my brother and consider him to be one of my closest friends...he may even make an appearance or two!

The next morning I headed over to the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero with my mom, step dad and sister. The Ferry Building is one of my favorite attractions in San Francisco. It's like a culinary mecca, especially since it was Farmer's Market day! Yippee! Since it was nine am our first stop was to get some coffee at Blue Bottle. We each got individual drip coffee while my sister got a hot chocolate. Drip coffee isn't exactly photogenic so I took a snap of my sister's hot chocolate made with Michael Recchiuti chocolate, mmmm.

mmmm, delicious.

We then split up to pick out our breakfast. My step dad and sister got bagels and cream cheese while my mom and I split a breakfast sandwich with baked egg, sauteed mushrooms, kale and pancetta on a baguette.

Breakfast with the fam.

Once we fueled up we headed out to the blustery weather to check out the farmers market, which might have our Portland farmers market beat. I was so impressed with all the different produce. I didn't take a lot of photos because, really, how many different photos of escarole and chicory can you have?! I did, however, get this great shot from one of the mushroom stands.

We also spotted an awesome rotisserie truck with a mile long line. They had chicken and pork on their spits and it smelled so good. We had already ate and didn't much feel like standing in line, but I will have to check it out next time. We headed back inside so I could get a few more things I like to pick up while in town like, Boccalone salami.

Every time I'm at the Ferry Building I always want to ride off on this.

At the Ferry Building and farmers market I scored some sun dried heirloom cherry tomatoes, olive oil, bourbon rubbed beef jerky, Meyer lemon marmalade, sopressata, orange and wild flower salami and coffee beans. I should have taken a pic, but we quickly dove into the beef jerky.

Our next stop was at the SF MOMA, which I will continue in the next post, Part Dos of my trip. Until then, I hope you enjoy the eye candy!