Via C.W.: "yay! coupon day at rainbow grocery! hope to run into some friendly faces at checkout..."
Via C.W.: "yay! coupon day at rainbow grocery! hope to run into some friendly faces at checkout..."
While perusing the colorful aisles of Walgreens this afternoon -- because nothing sooths the soul and an ADHD-addled mind like a trip to Walgreens -- we came across Pez's take on the election. It took us some time to dig through all of the elephants to find a donkey, but we did.
Every year at Thanksgiving, you're bound to forget one or two critical items. A shallot, cooking twine, mushrooms, Ketel One -- something will slip your mind and you run the risk of having your Thanksgiving dinner collapse in on itself. And then you've ruined everything. Everything! But who can we prevent such yellow wallpapered hysteria? This is where you come in: do you know of any grocery stores that stay open late on Thanksgiving...
Seeing as how we don't drive an automobile in San Francisco because people in the Bay Area drive like crap because we want to keep the planet minty green, we don't feel the pinch as much as others do. About what, you ask? Well, gas prices, it seems, are going through the roof! (The only thing that concerns us about gasoline is its odor, which we love.) But before you get all "like, ride...
Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Hey, why is Sucka Free City before the letters this week? Anti-Jewish slurs at Rainbow Grocery. The story behind that weird killing in Hayes Valley you guys got all worked up at us about (blah blah blah, hipsters, blah blah, SFist is racist, blah blah). Cover article: Disbar more lawyers. We are adoring the cautious yet game-for-adventure tone in this Southern Exposure pie delivery service piece! Meredith Brody bills the Weekly for her belly dancer. Hey, SFist Ced liked it! Let's Get Killed on the spate of bands coming in to perform single albums live, including Sonic Youth with Daydream Nation. We find that phenomenon so mysterious. The Bouncer passes along the theory that there are three types of bars in this city: Irish, hipster, and bars with two Asian women behind the bar. Also -- you may have heard the new Weekly web guy is now no longer with the Weekly -- best of luck to you, Matt Stroud! He was super super nice about the Day Around The Baymixup and we were looking forward to getting to know him!
. . . some of them, anyway. The Rainbow Grocery Co-op is the first San Francisco-based store to announce that it will exclusively carry cage-free eggs. The news was spread by animal advocacy group East Bay Animal Advocates, whose mission is more or less to create humane conditions for animals within the agriculture industry.
We've clocked more hours in Maiden Lane's pocket-sized social club, Otis than our liver cares to think about, but the only famous people we've ever seen there were our guests. Ah, the nights we've spent scanning the crowd in vain, wondering "Is that Chandler, again?"
Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Bottom Feeder on whether the Concord mayor is anti-abortion, and the bad body odor of a Berkeley narcotics officer alleged to be on the take. Photoshopping pandas in Oakland. (check out that awesome picture!) Do conservatives have fewer friends? Cover article: no, you can't void your mortgage by claiming that US currency has no value (this is a pretty cool article). Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley has bad service. I Like Eating charms us again with a visit to Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe. And Harvilla on the Kim Deal musical everyone's talking about.
The Bay Guardian: Hey, new website design! Chris Daly for Assembly? An entertaining editors' note (scroll down) about whether or not the Guardian believes that vegetables feel pain as they're being digested! Oh, advertiser Rainbow Grocery, always on the cutting edge (ouch! watch that edge!) The inside scoop on the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic brouhaha. Hating Berkeley law professor John Yoo ("torture is a-okay by me!"). On The Sidelines' hilarious cartoon about bands with three repeated word names ("Die Die Die?" "Tony Toni Tone?" "!!!" ?). Cover article: Matt Gonzalez on Jonestown (and the Guardian shamefacedly admits that they totally thought the Peoples' Temple was okay at the time.) Bettie Page lookalike contest at Thee Parkside this Friday. And SFist Eve's horoscope: it implies that she's currently in a "crazy place" right now -- hey, Double Team, that ain't nice!
The SF Weekly and the Metro, after the jump -- along with the Weekly of the Week.
We found a really nice coffee -- from a local roaster no less -- and when we made it at home on our stovetop doohicky (still our favorite mode of home brewing), it was as good or better than anything we've had in a cafe. From our little kitchen in the dungeon, no less! Taylor Maid Farms has great coffee -- and President Mark Inman drops by with the skinny on this great enterprise.
Was anyone else a little unnerved to see that "major earthquake in San Francisco" is listed as the number 2 scenario for FEMA practice, right below "terrorist attack on New York" and right above "major hurricane hits New Orleans?" And you know with all our gays and minorities and blue-state progressivism, ain't no one from the federal government coming to save our butts when the Big One hits here! And remember when we all thought there was a tsunami coming but no one in SF checked the emergency fax machine until an hour after the original warning? We're screwed!
So we set out this weekend to buy us an earthquake preparedness kit. We know, we could put it together ourselves, but it'd be so much nicer just to buy a ready-to-go set.
Do you know how hard it is to find an earthquake preparedness kit in this city? Costco had none. Safeway had none. REI was closed. We didn't go to Target because of the boycott for their Schwarzenegger donations, but they probably didn't have one either. Home Depot told us that they had five "a while ago" but haven't restocked since. Where else would we go for a pre-packaged kit? Rainbow Grocery? Cole Hardware? They don't have anything either.
So here's our thought: why doesn't City Hall sell pre-packaged earthquake prep kits? Annemarie Conroy's Office of Emergency Service could get 'em at cost, have the kits emblazoned with a cute "San Francisco's Prepared!" logo of some sort, and sell 'em at community centers across the city. It would beat having to turn on the TV and see San Franciscans sitting on the roofs of their houses, waiting for someone at CNN to film our HELP US PLZ signs, as the SFPD struggles to find the right radio frequency for communications.
After the jump, where we ended up getting our prep kit, plus everything your prep kit should have in it.
Just in time for Hanukkah, the Essefficist makes contact with the Chabad Lubavitch community and SFist Jon let's us know where to find the ten foot Lego Menorah. If you're more into Santa than the Maccabees, then get dressed in your finest dime-store red and white costume and assault The City as a drunken army of St. Nicks with the Cacophony Society. We're sure you'll be jolly and red-cheeked in no time.
The inagural entry in our shopping guide goes to Rainbow Grocery. We've made no secret of our fondness for Rainbow in the past, but wanted to bring it to your attention as a great place not just for organic produce and Raweos, but it's a great place to pick up gifts for a number of the people on your list.
No discussion of the Labor Movement in food-obsessed San Francisco would be complete without a mention of Rainbow Grocery, our own "independent, collectively run, worker-owned and operated" grocery and general store.
We do the reading so you can concentrate on eating.
Gerald Hirigoyen is at it again, adding Bocadillo to his empire of French Basque eateries here in The City - coverage by Paul Reidinger. Dan Leone is a sucker for a willing audience and a cheap sandwich. Masha Gutkin interviews Gordon Edgar, Rainbow Grocery fromagiere, on the occassion the annual American Cheese Society conference in beautiful Milwaukee.
The Chron goes gaga over one of EssEffist's favorites, potato salad. That's right, it's tuber time - run out and get some heirloom fingerlings while their jackets are still soft. Marlena Spieler trades shoes with her husband after a long day touring Versailles. The Chron cooking school moves to the Ferry Building.
The coverage in the Weekly is so thin today, we've included their corporate sister the East Bay Express in the mix. Meredith Brody takes vegetarians to El Raigon and orders sweetbreads. In the Express, Jonathan Kauffman discovers Pho Ga at Huong Que on International Boulevard. For the picky pooch, he recommends Christine Johnson's veggie dog biscuits from Barks Bakery.