Catching up with family and friends in SF.

Marc and I had some Purple Teeth Cellars
business to attend to, which meant us taking a trip down to San Francisco. We have a bunch of family and friends in the Bay Area, so it was great to catch up. I'll let Marc cover the Purple Teeth Cellars aspect of our trip in another entry, but be assured that we have excellent news to report on that front.
Cousin Claire played host to us, which was very generous and allowed me to get some workouts in – particularly some very tough hills to run. She hosted a family lunch at her place, which allowed us to see the Stearns and Lien clans. The family also tasted some of our most recent Purple Teeth Cellars barrel samples from our 2006
and 2007 vintages (see below), and were very positive about how it was all coming out. I got to catch up with Bobby (of Team Bobby fame) and talk some baseball. He's very bullish about his A's now that Frank Thomas is back. Annie, Bobby's sister, is quite the character and keeps everyone on their toes. We also had Danny and Henry in top form showcasing bowling and acrobatic skills throughout the afternoon – who knew that Claire's place could do all of this? J
Claire, Marc and I also met up with Sally
at Fleur de Lys. Unfortunately Sally had to leave early, but we continued to soldier on through the awesome meal and drink some excellent wine, including an '02 Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru. The next night, we met up with Matt and Rebecca at Bin 38 after we had a nice dinner at Boulevard. They are making the big move to Chicago soon, so it was good to see them since we hadn't seen them since their wedding almost a year ago.
The following evening we had dinner with Anne-Cecile and Dan
at Evvia, which was one of my favorite places to eat when I lived in the Bay Area. The food didn't disappoint, but the standout dishes of the evening were A-C's moussaka with all of the flavors and my dessert called Galaktoboureko (traditional phyllo wrapped vanilla bean semolina custard with pistachio ice cream). I thought it was the best dessert I had ordered in a restaurant in a long time (more on this from Marc as well). It had been so long since I had seen A-C and Dan that this was the first time they met Marc! Can't let that happen again.
You can find more pics from our trip here
.
And my very cool cousin, Rebecca, was at the "Sex and The City" movie premiere in SF yesterday because she works at PopSugar! She is the cool chick on the right in the picture.