June 1st - Catch Up - May 24th - Chez NSA - Portrero Hill French Canadian Dinner Party

I am having leftover Bouillabaisse tonight so I am catching up on our eventful weekend in San Francisco.

We had the delightful pleasure of being invited to our friends N and S in Portrero Hill for dinner for our last night in town.  We had reservations at A16 for the evening with my sister O and her boyfriend but how could we turn down such a invitation.  O and A were grateful for the time alone, I'm sure.  We had been hogging all of O's time while visiting.  We left her with our A16 reservation but they opted for Oola instead.  But that's not my blog :^D

I think if I had my choice of neighbourhoods to live in San Francisco, Portrero Hill would definitely make my top two.  It is darling.  It feels like a village with lovely cafes like Farleys and organic markets and cheese shops around the corner.  That capped off with the stellar view of the city from just about any North facing window.  Spectacular.  Add to that, N and S have a big backyard with garden.  How lucky is that! We started with a bit of Rose we brought from D's old favourite wine shop near the Embarcadero.  Aaaaah

D first met N in Paris during grad school.  Then when D moved to San Francisco to live, they became a little gang of INSEAD grads and their friends.  They were a great gang of food, travel and wine loving brainiacs.  What better town to find yourself in your late twenties, hey!?  Now when we go back to visit, we catch up and visit with his wife S and their darling, nearly trilingual son A.

S made a great dinner with goodies from their garden.  We started with a Watermelon, Arugula and Feta Salad.  N tried to give us seed for Arugula which was prolific in their garden but we were not sure they would do very well our balcony.  That and we were not sure if we were allowed to bring the seeds across the border.  In the end, I think we forgot them on his counter.  What is about Feta and Watermelon?  It is just summer magic.  Then add Arugula to any salad, for me and I'm happy.

For our main they had a Pesto made from the Greens of their Radish Plants.  I love that, making Pesto from aromatic, piquante greens other than Basil.  It was YUMMMO!  I will definitely give that a go.  Whenever I buy Radishes, I like to hang on to the greens because it seems like such a waste to throw out.  I will toss them into salads or stirfries.  I never thought of a Pesto.  Brilliant.  S stir friend some onions, a minced carrot and some mushrooms to which she added the Papardelle Pasta and Pesto. 

We had a couple of fantastic wines from their collection.

I would put this lovely Chimney Rock on my bunker-worthy list.  

Dessert we had a Peach and Blueberry Galette we bought a Trader Joe's and N topped it off with a Ciao Bella Coconut Sorbet.  They paired it with a Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer from Navarro Vineyards