Radiohead Rocked The Desert

Photo complements of NME.com

By Blake Morris

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is the hottest weekend in American popular music.  And by saying hottest I’m not using any hyperbole.  It takes place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, about 25 miles west of Palm Springs in the desert.  This year the temperature ranged from 102 degrees to 110 during the day.  The bill featured 149 cutting edge musical acts that ranged from hip-hop, electro- dance and rock.  If you weren’t there and want to picture what it was like, imagine stripping down to your underwear, putting your iPod on shuffle, except the artists are right in front of you playing live on a polo field, and you’re inside a blast furnace for 12 straight hours.  That is Coachella. 

For Saturday April 21^st the headliner was Radiohead, which is a big deal.  They are the reason why I was willing to withstand the blast furnace all day.  With that being said I have to come clean for the integrity of this review: I think Radiohead is the greatest band of my generation.  There.  I said it.  Now let’s begin. 

Radiohead took the stage at roughly 11:05 p.m. and were met by the clamoring of 60,000 disparate fans.  They opened their 22 song set with “Bloom”, the opening track of their latest studio album The King Of Limbs.  The first four songs, which included “Mr. Magpie” and the unreleased song “Staircase”, are heavy on rhythm and got us grooving immediately (Radiohead recruited Portishead touring drummer Clive Deamer to help with the complicated drum patterns).  I guess they wanted to warm the crowd up hotter than we already were and let us know that they can make dance music too.  

The King of Limbs is a far cry from the Radiohead albums of the 90’s and early 2000’s that initially endeared so many fans—like myself— to them.  The guitar is almost non-existent and the drums and bass really come to the fore.  The Bends and OK Computer, however, featured a three-guitar attack perfectly balanced by Thom Yorke’s haunting melodies.  They influenced a bunch of new bands—Coldplay, Keane, Muse—and showed that their 1992 break-out single “Creep” wasn’t going to define them as a band.  They don’t even perform “Creep” live anymore, which is a shame because it’s such a great great song.  O well.

The stage design featured a backdrop of light patterns that alternated according to the mood and song.  Right above the band were six screens that gave us an up close and personal look of each Radiohead—Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Colin and Johnny Greenwood and Phil Selway.  This worked in tandem with the next batch of songs for the night, which were slowed down compared to the frantic tempo of the opening songs. 

To kick off this next batch of songs they started with “The Gloaming”.  This part of the set was the slow brooding thinking section.  The bass dropped, the green computer code from The Matrix streamed across the stage monitors, and Yorke broke out his patented “I don’t know how to dance but I really really like this beat so I’ll just have a seizure” dance.  It was awesome.  One of the highlights was when they dusted off the rarely played “You and Whose Army” which made the most of the stage’s many screens.  Thanks to the slick placement of Yorke’s spy-cam right above his piano, his eyeball peered down on us through the six stage screens like Big Brother, as he proclaimed, “We ride tonight!”  Yes Mr. Yorke we did ride.  We rode that stirring wave of emotion for the next three songs until they played “Lotus Flower.” 

Another hit off King of Limbs, “Lotus Flower” cued a couple of things.  First, it let us know that the slow brooding part of the show was over and we are about to rock out.  Secondly, it let the weed smokers know it was time to step up their efforts.  I did a 360 and everyone was baked.

They wrapped up their set with “Karma Police,” “Feral” and “Idioteque.”  But really they could have ended with “Karma Police.”  Besides “Creep,” “Karma Police” is about the closest thing Radiohead has to a sing along.  So when Yorke began singing, everyone sang and never stopped, even after the band did.  For about a minute after the song was over we all sang the song’s “For a minute there/I lost myself” coda.  As we sang away, Yorke walked to the edge of the stage, opened his arms wide as if to hug us all and let the moment sink in.  “That was beautiful,” he said.   After “Idioteque” they took their bow and headed backstage. 

Their 15 song initial set was arguably the best of the weekend.  But then they came back for two more encores that were just perfect.  I’ll say that again—they were just perfect.  This was by far the most emotional part of the night. 

Radiohead is one of those rare bands that have the ability to be both intimate and epic simultaneously.  Thom Yorke’s voice coupled by the bands music played live that night had a way of making me feel like I was part of some bigger moment, even though intellectually I knew they were performing songs they had performed hundreds of times before to thousands of other fans.  But I didn’t care, and neither did everyone else.  The first song they played for the encore was “House of Cards,” the atmospheric and eerie track off 2007’s In Rainbows. When they finished I happened to glance to my right and the girl standing there was crying.   Yorke then spoke to us extensively for the first time of the night.

“Umm, before we started this tour, and booked all these big sort of gigs, we were trying to figure out why the fuck we should do this,” Yorke said.  “I know it sounds ridiculous, but for me it’s big and scary.  But then I realized it’s a collective thing.  You and Us.  Together.  Thank You Everybody.”

Well, we were together. We were together as we collectively experienced the gamut of emotions during the final three songs of the second encore—“Give Up the Ghost,” in which Yorke sings the lyric “don’t hurt me” over and over again, and during “Exit Music,” an ode to Romeo and Juliet, and during “Paranoid Android,” a paranoid schizophrenic tale of modern life being taken over by technology.

As they hit their final note, the lights came up, and just like that it was over.  I walked back to my tent feeling entertained, enthralled, and exhilarated.  But most of all, Yorke’s words echoed in my mind.  “That was beautiful.”

Irvine’s Rachel Klemek Pillages the Pastry World

By Rayna Jensen

It takes quite the baker to fit a yeti, a farmer’s daughter and a shortbread all in the same oven. 

But for pastry chef Rachel Klemek, it’s all in a day’s work. For the past seven years, Klemek’s aptly named Blackmarket Bakery, inconspicuously tucked away in an industrial park behind Irvine’s John Wayne Airport, has been cooking up treats that can’t be found anywhere else. The white chocolate chunk and shredded sweet coconut yeti—a slightly beastlier take on a classic dark chocolate drop cookie—or the spicy cayenne and corn nut farmer’s daughter are just two Blackmarket staples.  Just a bite is enough to show even the most astute pastry aficionado that Klemek does things a little bit differently.  She has plundered the tried-and-true basics of traditional baking, but each of the creations at Blackmarket carry Klemek’s unique flair. Baking just seems like it’s in her blood.

But until recent years, becoming a pastry chef was hardly on her radar. “It was a really long journey actually,” Klemek laughs, standing by the sink in the Blackmarket kitchen. She’s scrubbing the dishes she needs for this morning’s challenge: she’s perfecting a recipe for the three hundred tuile tacos she’ll be serving at the Share Ourselves 19th Annual Wild & Crazy Taco Night fundraiser tomorrow afternoon, but she doesn’t seem daunted.

 Klemek does come from a sort of family legacy—her grandmother was “an amazing baker,” churning out pound cakes, carrot cakes, banana puddings, all as a matter of course—but Klemek moved from her home state of North Carolina to California when she was thirteen, and the idea of baking herself didn’t come up until her own children were little. 

 Klemek attended UC Irvine, where she earned her Bachelor’s in Anthropology and met her husband.  She got married, started a family, and then enrolled in the phD program in Anthropology at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. It only took one semester for Klemek to realize that this career path wasn’t for her.  “I just did not get it, I didn’t enjoy it, it was just nothing what I wanted to do,” Klemek says, plopping butter into a silver mixing bowl as she glances at a recipe she’s scribbled down on the sheet of paper next to her. 8 ounces. She scoops a tablespoon or two back out. “And the people who were the professors seemed to not really be happy people.  So you think, wait a minute, if I stay on this bus, I’m gonna end up where they are.”

 After leaving grad school, Klemek focused on raising her family.  Baking began for her as a way of keeping her mind alert and active in the midst of raising four kids. Klemek’s husband, realizing that his wife was becoming more serious about baking, encouraged her to go to Culinary School.  Klemek attended the Culinary Institute at Greystone, graduated at the top of her class, and, after a few jobs working for other chefs, decided to open her own business. 

 Blackmarket Bakery was born, and Klemek has been setting new standards and defying old ones ever since. Her inspiration is what perhaps every chef’s inspiration should be: she makes what she gets excited about eating.  She’s done the big, elaborate, cake sculptures, but she put it to rest after deciding that her heart didn’t lie with that kind of baking. “People see those TV shows and think that it’s, you know, no big deal. Those guys charge an arm and a leg! And most of those cakes aren’t even cake!” They’re pipes, wooden dowels, and that fondant stuff that nobody really even likes. She looks up from the egg whites she’s measuring, lowers her voice and smiles. “We’re much happier.”

The phone rings, and Klemek rushes to answer it after she clicks the bowl of butter, sugar, and egg whites into the mixer on the counter.

As she talks to a customer on the phone, the cogs of Blackmaket keep turning. Around the corner, one of Klemek’s assistants is decorating round sugar cookies for an Earth Day celebration, piping each one with blue and then green icing to look like little globes. In the back, a young man with his name and job title embroidered on his chef’s coat—David: Zombie Crew—is tossing diced apples in a sauce pan for the muffins and tarts Blackmarket bakes every morning.  What does he like about working at Blackmarket?

 “Her,” David points to Klemek, who is back to her tuile dough, tapping flour and cocoa powder through a sifter onto a sheet of wax paper.  “It’s rare that you find an atmosphere like this, and people that you can just click with.”

 David is right. From the personality of the head baker herself to the innovation she and her crew bring to the pastry world, what Blackmarket Bakery has is rare.

 “We’re not French, we’re not southern, we’re not grandma’s home-style yum-yum, anything like that,” Klemek says over the whir of the mixer. What Blackmarket is, what Klemek has made it to be, is real food for real people. It’s the good stuff you can’t get in a world dominated by the mass produced and processed baked goods, or the over-the-top pastry creations of reality TV, or the cupcakes and cake pops that have seemed to be all the rage.  

 When it comes to what’s cutesy or trendy, Klemek doesn’t buy in. “I’m just…not a fan.” She watches the KitchenAid whip the butter and the sugar and the egg whites smooth, pouring in the flour and cocoa powder bit by bit. “I want to do more what my grandma would eat, or bake herself. Maybe update the flavors and make it more fun, but that’s the idea.”  Klemek is embracing that heritage of making things from scratch, without fancy equipment, without fancy ingredients.  “Just go to the grocery store!” Klemek says. “Butter flour sugar eggs. Chocolate. Cream. That’s it. And you can do practically anything.”

“Hey, Sailor!”: Performance and Makeovers Draw Crowds

By Madeline Motamednia

This past Memorial Day Weekend  at 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, Mac Cosmetics hosted a unique event to evoke excitement over the launch of their “Hey, Sailor!” summer bronzing and color collection. Over 500 people lined up throughout the weekend to have their makeup done by a professional MAC makeup artist. MAC had an elaborate visual display for their new collection, which included a stage that showcased live tap dance performances and lessons taught by choreographer Karl Warden.  MAC drew in a massive crowd as participants flocked to the nearby MAC store to purchase the products that the makeup artists used on them.

Persian Disneyland in the O.C.

Persian Culture Through The Lens Of American Consumerism

by Naveed Afshar

I recently visited Wholesome Choice, a popular Persian-owned grocery store on Culver and Michelson. ‘Disneyland for Persian parents’, according to my brother, Wholesome Choice is an intriguing blend of the typical, overstimulating surplus we experience in American grocery stores compounded with an undeniable brush stroke of Persian Culture. With hookah supplies by Windex, yogurt drinks by Chiquita juice drinks, this market features aspects of both cultures that my photos can only attempt to capture.

Down and Out in K-Town

By Blake Morris

I drove around  Korea-Town from Pico to Wilshire (north and south) and Western to Vermont (east and west) not knowing what I was looking for when I began this photo essay.  But once I was paying attention all I could see was what most people ignore—homelessness, drug addicts, and alcohol.  Carlos has been homeless for 20 years.  Bill simply comes to K-Town to hang out.  And Claudine was high, pregnant, and drinking a beer when I talked to her.  She liked my shoes.  We often think of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles as the hub of homelessness, and that may be true.  But these people show that in a place where we often think of korean barbeque, bowling, and karaoke—Korea Town—there is much more.  All we have to do is look.

San Diego: Two Hours and a Day Away

By Joshua Waldrop

“Thank God I arrived the day before yesterday, the first of the month, at this port of San Diego, truly a fine one, and not without reason called famous.”

                                                                                                –Junipero Serra

By the time I had climbed in the passenger seat of my friend and road dog Francis’ gray Scion, I was ready for a little time away from the trappings of the O.C. Not to mention, it’s about two months out from San Diego Comic-Con, so heading down to California’s second largest city would surely whet the appetite, which is good considering the city’s abundant food offerings.

I’m no stranger to the City to the South as a regular Con attendee, but since the convention is always the singular focus of my yearly pilgrimage, there isn’t generally time to explore the unique attractions of San D, which I would learn were much more plentiful that a single day could contain.

Unfortunately, the Padres were out of town or a visit to beautiful Petco Park would surely have been in order. We would explore the amazing structure’s exterior in due time, but upon crossing the county line, my ride mate was already crying out for food. He would insist on a non-descript little café in the famed Hillcrest district near University of California, San Diego called Hash-House-A-Go-Go.

Located off of 5^thStreet, Hash-House-A-Go-Go is a quaint little roadhouse-looking café you might pass right on by if you weren’t looking for it, were it not for the formidable line of patrons waiting outside to be seated. Since being featured on Food Network’s popular destination show “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives,” business has been booming, and with good reason. The dishes offered are not only plentiful, they’re inventive and exciting. We happened to arrive on Wednesday, which is “bacon day” at H-House. I saddled up to the bar and ordered the special for the day, Belgium Bacon Waffles; a thick, fluffy set of Belgium beauties with six large, thick cut strips of bacon cooked into the waffles, serves with fruit and a mound of hash browns cooked to perfection. If you have the opportunity, wash it down with their famed B.L.T. Bloody Mary; a tall glass of tomato delight served with a stalk of celery in a glass whose rim has been coated with…(wait for it)…bacon bits!

(Hash-House-A-Go-Go)

Intent on working our way to the ballpark, we took a scenic route toward the historic Balboa Park. At over 1000 acres, Balboa Park features fifteen museums, including the San Diego Natural History Museum and San Diego Museum of Art, nineteen themes botanical gardens, nine performing arts venues including the world famous Old Globe modeled after Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, and the San Diego Zoo. Many of the museums along Balboa Park’s Prado are housed in magnificent Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, originally constructed for the 1915–1916 Panama-California Exposition.

Mindful of time, we decided on exploring the regions oldest and biggest museum, the Museum of Art. Founded in 1926, the shrines renowned holdings include a fine selection of European old masters, 19th-20th -century American art, an encyclopedic Asian collection, and growing collections of contemporary and Latin American art. Its beautiful building was designed by architect William Templeton Johnson and architect and building, Robert W. Snyder. On display was an enlightening exhibit of artifacts from the Buddhist cave temples of Xiangtangshan or northern China which offered a glimpse into the reclusive beginnings of the religion. Also on display was modernist paintings of Japanese artists Kuboku and Hisako Takaku, on display outside of their native land for the first time.

It seemed only fitting to follow up the elegance and beauty of these exhibits with a reflective stroll through the Japanese Friendship Garden, a serene landscape filled with the soft beauty of cherry blossoms and assorted colorful flora that features traditional Japanese meditation music and an authentic tea house where, despite being separated from our kingly meal by mere hours, we were forced to partake in an oolong tea and mochi; Japanese ice cream. Available in three flavors (strawberry, vanilla, and green tea), mochi is the perfect following the Zen of the gardens.

(Credit: blog.sandiego.org)

Finally, we were on to Petco Park. Built in the early part of this decade, the home of the Major League Baseball Padres boasts an impressive façade, erected smack dab in the middle of Downtown San Diego right near its happening Gaslamp District. Rather than level everything around the stadium, developers built right into existing historic buildings, including the 100-year-old Western Medical Supply, Company building, allowing for a unique esthetic and visually pleasing style that hearkens back to the ballparks of yesteryear. Perhaps most impressive is the “Park within a Park,” a play area located just beyond the right field wall with a perfect sight line of the game where kids can play and parents can watch the game for mere five dollars. The centerpiece of this area is a 10-foot statue of outfielder Tony Gwynn, a major league hall of famer largely regarded as the greatest player ever to wear a Padre uniform. (The official address of the stadium is 19 Tony Gwynn Way; 19 being the number he wore throughout his entire playing career.)

Petco Park sits directly across the street from the building that, come July, would become Geek Mecca: the San Diego Convention Center. My pal and I took a stroll to experience the surroundings without costumed comic freaks, blockbuster movie fans, and pop culture warriors, stopping to take a brief sit on the greenbelt by the water known as the San Diego Bay. We both agreed – it didn’t feel right. So, we set back toward home, palate sufficiently whet for July, already growing eager and ready for our imminent return.

(Credit: suttonsolves.com)

There was certainly more on the agenda than a day could contain. Perhaps this year during Con, we’ll stray a little further away from the familiar surroundings of the Convention Center, and see a little more of what San Diego has to offer.

The Great Commission

By Anna Iliff

 

Shannon stands at the edge of the pool with her feet firmly planted, and her mind made up. She is a long time member of Foothill Vineyard Church in San Dimas, California and the time has come for her to make a decision about where she stands. On May 27, Shannon was baptized before her family, friends, and church family at her pastor’s house—in his backyard pool. This ceremony is a public commitment to live life according to Christ, while the body is filled with the Holy Spirit. Many churches have baptismal pools located in the sanctuary, but it is a growing trend to hold baptisms in unlikely place, from beaches and rivers to backyard pools and Jacuzzis. Adult baptisms are essentially a way for the body to symbollically be reborn as a follower of Christ, and a common practice among non-denominational churches. Shannon was nervous, excited and full of emotion on her baptism day. One minute figeting and laughing and the next sobbing in the arms of her pastor. For her, this ceremony is the next step in her faith where she can fully commit body, mind and soul to her lord, Christ.

Why You Should ‘Season Your Garlic with Food’

By Siahara Jimenez

by Siahara Jimenez
Stinking Rose menu

The Stinking Rose, a Beverly Hills restaurant, presents a unique palate of garlic in every dish, drink and ice cream.

For those that are not fond of garlic or onions for fear of causing bad breath, don’t worry, I am right there with y’all! When I heard that the Stinking Rose, a restaurant on North La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, seasons everything on the menu with garlic, I hesitated. Yet, what struck me was the bizarre and interesting decorations inside that sold me to give it a try.

From the outside, it looks like a fairly plain restaurant featuring French Bistro décor. However, beyond the French doors is a mixture of a circus, Disneyland’s It’s a Small World ride, and beach boardwalk style. Design flourishes include two rows of blue-and-white-striped cabanas and a room filled with redesigned Michelangelo paintings with garlic figurines.

No one would have guessed, not even the waiter, that the theme is of the Italian Renaissance Era and Hollywood Dracula, unless they checked the restaurant’s website, which reminders diners of the restaurant’s unique philosophy: to celebrate the “culinary euphoria of garlic.”

First up, complimentary freshly-baked Focaccia Rolls. The soft, warm, chewy and therapeutic aroma of baked garlic pieces that nestle in your nostrils puts Pillsbury bread rolls to shame.

The food items listed on the menu are a little over-priced, starting at $8.95 for a Roasted Garlic Onion Soup to a whopping $110.00 for the Dungeness Killer Crab feast for 4 people. It’s one of those restaurants where you’ll want to go once in a blue moon or on special occasions.

Non-alcoholic drinks are served in a 15 oz. refurbished milk/cream bottle from Strauss Farms, giving it a cool vintage feel to it. While alcoholic drinks are served in martini glasses with the cocktail shaker on the side, giving it a chic, modern feel to it.

I got my hands on two out of their nine signature dishes- the Garlic Braised Boneless Short Rib and the Rabbit. The first dish had the short rib topped with glazed bits of garlic. The beef was so tender and juicy that each time I put my fork through is as if the meat were butter and would just melt away each time. The tiny pieces of cooked garlic glazed in olive oil had a similar texture to the chewy caramel candy, they were very difficult to get rid off with your teeth.

The rabbit leg on the contrary, was struggle. It’s almost as if you were Indiana Jones crossing through the deep tropical rainforest slaying anything and everything in your path. There was more meat left on the leg than the portions you were able to cut out. Either way, both were served with their famous creamy, garlic yukon gold mashed potatoes and spinach.

Sitting in the half-lit private cabanas and listening to Marvin Gaye’s, “It Takes Two,” and Stevie Wonder’s, “Uptight,” oldies, gives it a romantic yet upbeat vibe. Waiters wearing black, “Got Garlic?” t-shirts would pass frequently, taking away the illusion, but their charm and enthusiasm will always win you over.

Upon requesting the rain-check, the waiter cajoled me into getting the garlic ice cream by saying, “You haven’t had the full Stinking Rose experience until you try the garlic ice cream.” So, I invested in another $7 for a scoop of garlic flavored ice cream.

It looked rather plain, the vanilla and garlic ice cream at the bottom covered by a thick layer of chocolate syrup. As I took a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth, there was a slight after taste of garlic, not too sweet and not too strong, just right.

by Siahara Jimenez
Focaccia Rolls

by Siahara Jimenez
Garlic Ice Cream

Two Worlds Meet at the Race Track

By Carrie Dilluvio

This slideshow represents the two economic sides of horse racing. These photos were taken at Betfair Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California on May 28, 2012. Despite the current economy, people still willingly gamble their money away, even when the odds are against them. It fascinates me how these two groups of people, with drastically different economic statuses, come to the races for the same reason: to win.

Experience History in a Transient City

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from atop Coit Tower
Photo by Dominique Boubion

By Dominique Boubion

I walked 300 steps up a wooden staircase, passing lush greenery, Hell’s Bells and roses of green blue and red, passing by small $2 million dollar homes tucked away like tree houses from my childhood fantasies, and I passed San Franciscans getting a work out on the uncharacteristically balmy afternoon day, and I passed by tourists like me, burning the excessive calorie intake that comes with vacationing, and trudging onward for the reward of a 360 degree view of San Francisco from 495 feet above, atop Coit Tower.

At the foot of Coit Tower, there is 180 degree view of the bay that is partially obstructed by trees and so it is worth the seven dollars to ascend the extra 210 feet in a small elevator, fit snugly with tourists from as far as France, and then, finally, to ascend another 37 steps up the spiral staircase to the tip of the cylindrical concrete tower. The Coit Tower was built to memorialize a wealthy and eccentric socialite named Lillian Coit. As we would say, she was a woman ahead of her times; but at the dawn of the 20^th century, she was criticized for wearing trousers, gambling and smoking cigars. She left a third of her money to the city to beautify San Francisco and four years after her death in 1929 the tower was erected.

From the top, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge to the East, the Bay Bridge to the West and all of the organized blocks of San Francisco in between, hues of white and beige with green bushy trees sprinkled through. Just before the bay bridge, you can see a small building with a large narrow tower at the center of it– although hardly discernible from Coit Tower, the Ferry Plaza was no small feat for San Francisco from it’s conception in 1892 to it’s finishing in 1898. The Ferry Building official website points out that six hundred and sixty feet of arcades supported an entirely steel framed structure that survived both of San Francisco’s major earthquakes and was the largest foundation over water anywhere else in the world, and at the time, was the largest project the city had taken on. The large narrow tower is the 245 foot clock tower, designed by Arthur Brown (the same architect who designed the Ferry Plaza and Coit Tower) was fashioned after a 12^th century bell tower in the Seville Cathedral in Spain, which once chimed the Westminster Quarters over 50,000 passenger boarding the ferries in the hayday of the Ferry Plaza, until it became obsolete in 1936 after the completion of the bay bridges.

The loud hum of hundreds of voices combined can once again be heard inside the Ferry Plaza today, as it now attracts 25,000 customers weekly to the Farmers Market every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. On this Saturday, thousands of people were coming and going to shop for locally grown organic vegetables and fruit, artisan breads baked in 1930’s Spanish brick ovens by the Acme Bread Company of Berkeley, offering a choice Pain au Levain, Walnut Levain, all shapes and sizes of Sourdough, Italian Bread, Olive Bread, Sweetdough, Fougasse, poppy seed covered Challah and Citrus Almond Brioche. Long lines form for a hot cup of coffee grown in Sidamo and Yirgacheffe of Ethiopia, Minas Geraise of Southeaster Brazil, Guatemala and Rwanda, and brought through the port of Oakland. The high price does not deter anyone: $2.75 for a small cup of coffee. Because of it’s popularity, Blue Bottle Coffee Company is stationed at three different places around the market, making individually prepared coffee with organic beans roasted not more than 48 hours before a warm, strong cup of coffee, albeit small and expensive, enters your hands.

Photo by Dominique Boubion

Photo by Dominique Boubion

Before my trek to Coit Tower, 2 miles away, I sat at the bench on the edge of the bay enjoying a coffee served in a biodegradable cup and a Korean Egg Sandwich from the Japanese restaurant vendor Namu: an omelette, made with free range eggs, stuffed with organic and handpicked crunchy carrots and cabbage, with chorizo sandwiched between two slices of french toast, slathered with kewpie, a japanese mayonnaise made of egg yolks. While I decided whether it was a brilliant contort of a traditional egg sandwich, or total mayhem and a waste of $8.50, I found it difficult to choose the latter as a four man steel-drum band named the Kittitians performed jovial reggae tunes. If I didn’t already know I was on vacation their music reminded me so.

Before making the 2 mile trek to Coit Tower, I disposed of my cup and plate in the proper compostable trash can. Blue, green and black trash cans are all over San Francisco with specific instructions of what belongs in each trash can to ensure that trash is properly disposed because it is the law to separate recyclables and compostable from regular trash in San Francisco. It is the only city in the United States which mandates this. Already 72% of waste has been reduced and, according to NPR, is aiming for zero waste by 2020. The Ferry Plaza, with its blue, green and black trashcans dotting the parameter, is witnessing another prodigious feat a century later.