It’s my last night in San Francisco and it’s hitting me that this is the first time in years I’ve gone anywhere besides New York and Chicago for an extended vacation (in the schedule of the working world, four full days is practically studying abroad). I serendipitously got to spend most of the weekend with my friend Mary and her sister Liz, who happened to be in Cali at the same time, and we had some delicious eats: lunch at Rose Pistola, where I had a truly memorable antipasti of seafood-stuffed grilled calamari surrounded by lentil salad and rosemary aioli: 

Liz bravely ordered the capponada salad without knowing what it was: it turned out to include tuna, bread, and that gorgeous farm egg floating on top. The pesto tasted unbelievably fresh.

Mary had the acclaimed pizza, made in a wood-burning stove, with artichoke and prosciutto and green olives. The artichokes were strangely a little bland, but the crust was excellent.

Liz and Mary, who spent months this past year living in Paris, fell in love with a little North Beach bakery called La Boulange. You can see why.