My kind of road food
One of my favorite restaurants on the west coast is hands down, Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco. Taking a road trip down from Oregon to Arizona recently, I had the fortune to celebrate my birthday at Gratitude, and it did not disappoint. The venue specializes in gourmet raw vegan fare, and I suppose it takes a bit of chutzpah to pile salad on a cracker and call it pizza. But it was wonderful, and the live (meaning not having the enzymes baked out of it) coconut cream pie was truly orgasmic. I left with a very happy belly. A word of warning though - if you tend toward the shy side, do not let your friends tell the waitstaff it’s your birthday. The entire staff will gather round you, hooping and hollering the Beatles’ “Happy Birthday” song, dancing and clapping and raising general mayhem over you. Let’s just say I turned redder than an organic tomato.
The creators of the cafe truly believe in manifesting abundance - which they have, judging by the fact they now have four Cafe Gratitudes in the Bay Area and one in LA (not to mention fairly steep prices for the food). To encourage people to go deep and get into their own stream of cosmic wealth, they name each dish I AM BEAUTIFUL, I AM LOVELY, I AM RICH, etc. It’s a little too new age for me, but speaking from personal experience, at other restaurants I tend to order I AM NAUSEOUS, I AM FATTY, I AM FLATULENT. So I bought the cookbook (can one cook raw foods?) and hopefully I will be I AM HAPPY if these recipes turn out well.
I’m so glad that you had a happy birthday celebration. I must say that we don’t have anything quite like this restaurant here in Ohio. We DO have lots of brats and fried things.
The new blog is great! Congratulations on pushing through with it.
((((Kells)))!!!!
I’m so glad you like da blog! I’ve never had bratwurst…am I missing anything?
“am I missing anything?”
Depends on who you ask, my dear. You are probably not missing anything. Here’s a story. My husband, two kids and I went apple picking on Saturday. While there we got some very fresh corn just dropped off by the Amish farmer. We got home rather late, later than we usually eat dinner so I was searching for something very quick. My daughter has no front teeth, top or bottom, lucky six-year old that she is, so I cut the corn off the cob and warmed it up with a little salt, pepper and butter. I sliced up the apples and then looked for something “proteiny”. My kids and I ate turkey breast hotdogs and my husband had kielbasa, all that was left in the deli drawer. My husband thought the kielbasa was the best thing he’d had all week and he could take or leave the corn. I thought the corn was the best thing I’d had all month, and my kids thought the apples were the best. So, that was an unusual Saturday dinner for us but everyone liked something and you, probably, would not have been able to eat any of it.
Have you really never had a brat? What about a hot dog?
No I have never had a brat. Been one, tho! :->
I grew up on hot dogs…there was a terrific brand called Wohrle’s (pronounced “whirly’s”), that are local to western Mass. I don’t think they have much distribution outside the area, but they should. :-)