Bay Area | October, 2021
October recap! Orange October – playoff baseball for the Giants; a day trip to Guerneville for work; meeting Baby Westy; and the Warriors at Chase Center. Plus more!
First, a teeny home project: I added a hook for my hanging plant so that it doesn’t just have to hang from the door any more.
The Giants won the NL West Title (on the last day of the regular season), clinching our spot in the playoffs! And we were there to see it, with our day fits, white and orange.
Remembering to scratch Cincinnati off on Alex’s ballpark visits. Only 14 more cities to go.
Thankful for these ladies and our Brene Brown book club! Always so much empathy, wisdom, and caring amongst these women.
A surprise gift from a past client, Liz & Louie, as they revisited their wedding venue for their third anniversary! So kind of them to give me a present for their anniversary. Plus, hosting our October accountability meeting, with Gigi checking out all the snacks.
A Lioco wine tasting hosted at Mission Bay Wine & Cheese. We’ll have to visit them the next time we’re up in Healdsburg. Plus, homemade dinner featuring veggies from our Radical Family Farms CSA box and squid ink pasta purchased from the pickup point, Alimentary Aurora.
Playoff game #1, Giants vs. Dodgers! A historic rivalry that dates back over a hundred years to when both teams were in New York. But this was their first time ever meeting in the playoffs!
This was, hands down, the best baseball experience all year. The crowd was electric, almost no Dodgers fans were in sight, and the whole place transformed from its usual muted, foggy scene. Bay Area sports legends were all over the place, and 49ers Jerry Rice and Vince Young were there to hype up the crowd as the “play ball” boys. We also won the game 4-0.
Sadly, Game 2 of the NLDS was not quite as fun. Not as lively of a crowd, and we lost 2-9. And of course we would go on to lose the series in the end.
But Travis Ishikawa was there to throw out the first pitch! And Tom Cruise was there, with puffy cheeks, presumably cheering for the Dodgers?
Ah, well, can’t win them all. It was a really wonderful season though. Thanks Giants! And thanks Alex for bringing me in to your beloved sport. Guess it’s time to switch to cheering for the Warriors next.
Book launch day for Kristina Cho and her new cookbook, Mooncakes & Milk Bread! So many tasty goodies inside. I haven’t quite had the inclination to bake anything lately, but I will definitely try a lot of these recipes in the future!
Accountability check-in.
Welcoming Connie & Connor to the Bay Area!
And grabbing ramen with Dan & Jeri, our favorite South Bay friends.
Bring an Alex to work day! I had a wedding up in Guerneville, so Alex tagged along for the trip. First, a little takeout picnic from Sol Food.
And after my session, a little stroll through Sebastopol.
Drinks & dinner at Fern Bar. Very cute. Very tasty.
Sunday, Chase Center Farmer’s Market. And trying the new Impossible nuggets at Gott’s. Pretty good!
Farmer’s market #2, at the Ferry Building. And the cutest box of Halloween treats from my bride Candace.
Our first time back in a movie theater! We watched the Bond movie. And then sheltering inside the car in the rain, doing our rapid tests…
… so that we could safely meet Baby Westin!
So precious, and what a wonderful feeling to all be together again.
More home cooking with our veggies from Radical Family Farms. The second one is a bourbon carrot dish from Ed Lee’s cookbook, which we borrowed from the library.
More book club!
More check-ins!
And my monthly chats with Whitney
and Tiffany.
Yes, our first time back inside Chase Center after many many months of walking around the outside. I was lucky enough to attend one concert and one Warriors game in the inaugural year of the stadium before everything shut down due to the pandemic.
This was a terrible chicken sandwich, but Bakesale Betty responded to my story on instagram and refunded us for it. The fries and Pepsi were fine.
Yay run club! Do-Hee signed us up for a 10k in December, so ocassionally we run together to train. But Do-Hee is the only one who’s actually equipped to run a 10k at the moment. We’ll see if Cassie and I can catch up within the next month. Our partners are all running too!
Followed by delicious katsu sandos at Cafe Okawari.
Impromptu date night for me and Alex! We have a wine club subscription with Flour & Water (highly recommend), so we picked up our wines and then popped in next door to check out their latest project, Penny Roma, in the former Salumeria/Central Kitchen space.
All very tasty. Would also highly recommend.
Halloween at Chase Center!
We didn’t dress up as anything other than neighborhood people without kids checking out the festivities.
And finally, after months of anticipation, my Yunhai dried fruits that I supported on Kickstarter finally arrived! Very tasty, although the guava is rather hard. But I’m very happy to support a bunch of Taiwanese farmers and enterprising Taiwanese Americans!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
