Jennifer Jeffrey, Writer & Editor

Random Photo Friday: The Golden Gate Bridge at Twilight

I 'm  feeling out of sorts today - sweating in the sticky heat, astonished + aghast at certain choices made by a certain septuagenarian politician - so I chose a photo that instantly puts me in a better frame of mind: the Golden Gate Bridge at twilight, the tops of her towers enveloped in misty fog.

I love this bridge. Have I mentioned that before?

I never, ever get tired of walking on the beach beneath it, listening to the lonely wail of the foghorns while the waves splatter against the rocks.

Regimes change; the bridge stands. People make foolish choices; the bridge holds them as they travel from one side to the other. We weep, we laugh, we wonder; the bridge absorbs it all.

I'm off in search of hopeful vistas + beautiful sights.

Hope you are too. Happy weekend!

Leisurely Thoughts About Slow Food Nation

If you’re anywhere near San Francisco, and unless you drive with a paper bag over your head, you know that Slow Food Nation is upon us. The persimmon-colored signs are draped over every light pole and bus stop on the safe side of Market Street, and the chatter in food circles is centered around who is going to which events.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it. Contrary to what some might think, I don't have a stack of invitations to rub shoulders with all the right people at special insider events. I'm just like anyone else, checking out the Slow Food site and pondering whether or not to participate.

Here's a peek into what’s been rattling about in my brain.

On the Hey, This Might be a Good Thing side:

+  Slow Food Nation is shining a huge spotlight on the topics of local food and sustainability. Is that message penetrating beyond the dedicated food community? I think so. I hope so. News outlets are covering it; a few of the events are free + open to the public. This is good.

+  It is undoubtedly helping to facilitate valuable connections between small producers and the wholesalers, restaurants and retailers who will help to keep them in business. This is awesome.

+  It is allowing attendees to be exposed to more small producers and suppliers in a single event (whatever event that might be) than would otherwise be possible.

+  It matches the ethos of San Francisco. Of all the cities in the U.S., it feels right that this event should be held here.

On the Something About This Doesn’t Feel Quite Right side:

+  Most of the events have a hefty price tag, and it’s likely that many of the attendees will be the already-converted. The believers are already eating local - we need to reach the ones who aren't.

+  But that's harder than it seems: if I’m one of the hundreds of thousands of Bay Area families with a tight food budget, attending a Slow Food Nation event means that I have that much less to spend on local organic food. Just sayin’.

+  To be clear: I know that this isn’t a profit-making event, and I’m not suggesting that ticket prices are too high. Creating such a large-scale event in San Francisco is breathtakingly expensive, and many people are donating time + resources to make this thing happen.

+  Which leads me to wonder: does a celebration of small-slow-sustainable food fit within a rock-concert-like event paradigm?

+  The Fort Mason venue harbors that stressful, crowded, elbow-knocking environment that seems the very antithesis of slow. Will an enormous event truly bring us closer to slowing down and deliberating over our food choices? I wonder if my time might be better spent making a meal with friends using local products rather than fighting congestion in the Marina district.  (I know that there are smaller events taking place as well, but the Fort Mason events will draw the largest crowds.)

These are just thoughts; I’m not trying to reach any conclusions. I believe that many benefits will come about through Slow Food Nation, and certainly a lot of dialogue will be generated, which is All Good.

In fact, I’m going to join the herd and traipse down to one of the Taste Pavilions over the weekend, where we’ll doubtlessly jostle one another for bites of this and that. I’ll try to snap a few photos for those of you far from San Francisco.

What do you think about Slow Food Nation? 

Photo above: a slow-baked treat by a very talented friend.

Random Photo Friday: Scenes from the Farm

Admit it: you thought I forgot about Random Photo Friday.

Just a phase she went through, you said to yourself, with a shake of your head.

Didn't 'cha?

But what day is it today? And what do you see here?

Yeah, baby: not one but TWO photos to gently nudge you into your weekend.

That'll learn ya.

This is my mom, holding 3 eggs plucked straight from the nest of hay where they were laid. She sells them by the dozen to a few damn lucky select customers.

"I'm thinking I might have to raise my price," she said to me recently.

"Oh? How much are you charging now?" I asked.

"$2.00 a dozen. But I'm thinking I may have to increase it to $2.25."

TWO DOLLARS A DOZEN? I could practically buy a plane ticket,  fetch the eggs, grab a cup of Stumptown on my way out and still come out ahead.

This is one of 4 pigs my parents are raising this year.

They eat zucchini + pea shoots + whatever is left over from the garden. My dad drives to a local upscale market twice a week and picks up all of the past-dated artisan bread and cuts it up in chunks to feed them in the evenings. (Psst, Barbara: perhaps you might entertain the notion of getting a pig? They help nicely with the issue you raised.)

Their date with the butcher arrives next week, and my mother tells me that they've sold all the meat already - I couldn't even bring myself to ask how much they charged.

There are still good deals left in the world. You just might have to head to North Plains, Oregon to find them.

Happy Friday!

Add This to the Highlight Reel

My life is full of small shining moments, glimmering threads sewn into the fabric of each day. They happen all the time: catching sight of a full moon overhead; lingering over tea with friends; sinking into a good book. Alone, they might not seem significant, but together, they provide solid proof of life’s goodness, of the everyday magic that surrounds me.

But there are moments, and there are Moments. Moments when planning + intention + luck slide magically into place and everything is right with the world, if only for a few shimmering seconds. Such are the moments that make up the Highlight Reel.

The Highlight Reel is what I draw from when grim reality begins to cloud my vision, when all I can see is lack and loss. It spins like a slow-moving carousel, filled with slow-mo shots of golden light, triumphant eyes, exultant smiles. It's my happy place.

In July, I had not one but two moments for the Reel.

They both happened on the occasion of my mother’s 60th birthday. Prior to the big day, my sisters and I talked for months about how to commemorate this special occasion. What would bring our mother the most happiness? We gently probed her for suggestions, and came away with a few guidelines: no big party. No la-dee-da.

Finally, we decided upon this: all of us girls, her daughters (there are six of us) would whisk her away to her favorite place, Canon Beach, where we would spend the day. We would also invite her sister, our aunt, to join us. I would fly up from San Francisco; youngest sister would fly up from Austin, baby in tow, and we’d spend the day showering our mother with love. And we wouldn't tell her beforehand; we'd make it a secret.

It wasn’t a showy plan, and there was much debate among us as to whether it was enough, but we stuck to it. Our aunt arranged to spend the day with our mother, thereby guaranteeing that her day would be free. I flew in the night before, as did little sister, whose plane was delayed twice, and who finally straggled into PDX after midnight carrying one exhausted infant.

On the morning of our mother's birthday, we sisters met about a mile from the farm so that we could drive down the hill, caravan-style, for the surprise. Each of us had called her earlier that morning, telling her in our own ways that we wished we could spend the day with her, but that one thing or another had prevented it. “How’s the weather in San Francisco?” she asked me. “Cool and foggy as always,” I replied, looking out on a sunny Portland sky.

That Last Couple of Drops Makes All the Difference

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last post, and I’m not going to grovel, I’m just going to say: wow. Wish I could feed you stories about diving off an exotic reef, or at least dipping my toes into the Pacific, but no: I’ve had projects + deadlines + stacks of Things To Do. My fingers, lo, they have been flying.

But the air is beginning to clear, and I’ve taken a couple of days to replenish my sleep deficit, and I'm starting to feel human again. The air is turning crisp, and I'm greedy for the last few weeks of summer. I’ve taken to getting outside early in the morning, feeling the fog dissolve into mist against my skin as I measure the light with my eyes, pleading silently with it not to go. I’m not yet ready for dark mornings and murky afternoons. Light: please stay.

Coming up for air, I stumbled across this strand of inspiration:  perusing the New York Times online, I found  an intriguing piece on John Stewart, brilliant-witty-handsome news anchor with serious content beneath the snicker. Buried on page three was this gem by Stephen Colbert (speaking here about working with John):

“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” Mr. Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.

Score.

That paragraph stopped me for a moment, pulled me back to center as I wondered: what am I distilling?

Am I still digging for the pure stuff, staying the course through the last couple of drops?

Am I being patient, disciplined and focused? What’s coming through?

(It takes space + time to parse those questions. They get right to the heart of everything I hope + fear as it relates to writing + communication.)

More soon. Really and truly.

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I don’t often blog about the projects I’m working on, but one of my client sites launched recently, and I'm so excited about it, I had to share:  479° Popcorn is an artisan popcorn venture based here in San Francisco, the brainchild of a wonderful woman named Jean Arnold. It was a pleasure to work with Jean and the rockstar team at The Engine Room, who designed this gorgeous packaging that has been mentioned by everyone from The Dieline to Packaging  Digest.

Organic, local ingredients + sustainable business practices + meticulous attention to detail - 479° Popcorn is the real deal, and I feel fortunate that I got to be involved from the start – working on everything from the packaging copy to the website.

It's so much fun to see it out there in the world!

If you happen by BiRite or Blue Fog Market, or if you’re far away from San Francisco and get a jones for caramel popcorn dressed in fleur de sel – 479° Popcorn has the goods.

Go Forth Into Thy Weekend and Prosper

As we peel away from our computer screens and dive into this midsummer weekend, I wanted to share some links with you that have tickled my eyeballs over the past few days.

I’ll start with a link to a photographic tribute by Phillip Toledano. This ode to his father is far and away the most moving thing I’ve seen online in a long time. If you only visit one of the links in this post, go here. Keep a tissue handy; you’ll need it. To navigate from page to page, hover your mouse near the bottom of the image; the edge of the next page will appear; click on that. Gorgeous UI. 

(Via the geniuses at 37 Signals)

This is Sophie. If stuffed tattooed pigs make you squeamish, you might not want to check out the site of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, whose art is stunningly original, diverse and occasionally disturbing. Oh, live a little and click on over.

(Via Wooster Collective, a street art blog that I only discovered last week, so it’s probably old news to many of you, but you know my semi-guilty fascination with street art, so I’m loving it.)

The NYT recently posted a fascinating piece about contemporary Chinese female artists. Subtext: How is the concept of feminism expressed in China?

After I read the article, I went back through my notes + photos from last month’s opening of Dialogue China Part I at the Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery at 49 Geary, which I hadn’t expected to like, but ended up loving. Well – I didn’t love all of it, but I was captivated by several pieces. As I looked back through my notes, I realized that most of the artists were male, but here’s a piece (above) that I snapped by Liu Bolin.

If you live in San Francisco: Elins-Eagles Smith will be showing Dialogue China Part II from September 4-30. Can’t wait.

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That’s all I’ve got for now.

Here’s hoping your weekend is full of beauty. It’s the first weekend of August; one more month before fall begins to fold its wings around us.

Slurp up the sunshine and soak in the clear, starry nights.

See you soon.