Always Be Cooking
Taking the bus over Russian Hill, I did not stop on Hyde Street where I had a (to me) palatial four-room apartment. Instead I kept going down the hill to Polk Street, to the Real Food Company, a modestly-sized grocery. It was fall and piles of pumpkins and squashes graced the shelves at the entrance, plus golden bouquets of fall flowers. There were baskets of fresh bread, trays of fruits and vegetables, small central aisles of cereals and packaged food, a small selection of wines, and, at the back, a meat and fish counter. I considered myself an aesthetic eater. Though San Francisco was rife with health food stores catering to the many ideas about diet playing out at the time (probably 1997), it had begun to be true that you could buy beautiful organic produce that had come in from farmers in the area. I had learned to cook and eat during long term stays in Europe, and felt that if you ate with beauty and the classical civil values in mind, you would be healthy enough. The Real Food...
