San Francisco (pt 2) - the case of the 60 minute chicken

Now it's often been said (and is probably true) that the best things in life are worth waiting for....but, I'm pretty sure that whoever came up with that phrase, wasn't applying it to a roast chicken ! The day had started well - we were collected by our tour guide Rick (the one recommended by Nelson - the Chinese concierge whose parents, you may remember, apparently hate the French) and he was very good. Took us to Fisherman's Wharf, Little Italy, Twin Peaks, Chinatown (since Rick seemed to know everything, I asked him if he had heard of any historic wars between the French and Chinese but drew a blank), and of course Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately, the bridge itself was mostly hidden by clouds - it has been since we arrived - but Rick was determined to compensate by covering it from every angle. And cover it we did...we drove across it, then we drove underneath it, then we drove back across it the other way. By that time, I'd had enough of that f'ing bridge - I was just waiting for Rick's Honda Odyssey to sprout wings and fly over it. Anyway, lunchtime came around and we had reservations at Zuni Cafe on Market Street so Rick obliged by dropping us off early. The famous specialty at Zuni is the roast chicken on a bed of marinated bread and currents - yeah, I wasn't sure either - but it takes 60 minutes to prepare so naturally we all thought - "this must be a chicken to end all chickens".

The table wasn't ready so we asked the maitre d' if we could order the chicken early so we'd get a jump on the 60 minutes but he said that this would be impossible. Elizabeth speculated that maybe there was some scientific link between the taste of the chicken and the length of the wait actually sitting at the table - whatever - we all ordered it and the wait began. The boys were already hungry and couldn't really appreciate how a chicken could take so long to roast. They'd already learnt from Rick that in Chinatown chickens were often sold alive and were then slaughtered later so obviously we all had visions of poultry being chased round the kitchen by the chef before being battered with a marinated French bread (thinking about it - if the chicken was from Chinatown, the bread would have had to have come from somewhere other than France). Anyway, we waited and waited and it was 70 minutes before the chicken finally arrived and it tasted.....like roast chicken, a little salty, but otherwise pretty good. And by the time you finish reading this you'll probably also feel let down but it's only taken you two or three minutes - think how you would have felt if it had taken you 70 !!

After lunch we caught the Alcatraz cruise across to the island itself. As you can see from the attached video, we had a smooth, comfortable voyage - but this wasn't it ! The wind was bitter but the tour was great and Elizabeth and I came away with a very different perspective on rehabilitation (see below)...

PARENTING - it needn't be complicated !!

Tomorrow I have to fly back to Santa Barbara for a meeting and so Elizabeth will be driving to Reno with the boys and I will meet them there on Tuesday morning. That means that she will be taking over the blogging reins and so you may actually end up with something worth reading - you never know ??!!