Living and (not) eating in Furnitureland

I have lived in San Francisco since 1964, but have been in my native Colombia most of the past three years. I have been back in the U.S. since late 2006, but due to various circumstances, I am staying with one of my sons and his two daughters in So-Cal for an indefinite period, with plans to return to San Francisco sometime this summer.

We are in a not-so-little-anymore town called Lakeside, about 30 miles East of San Diego; on the way, you drive through an area that must have been settled by furniture salesmen or carpenters: the two fairly big communities you pass are creatively named El Cajón (The Drawer) and La Mesa (The Table). And North to your left, the biggest and most prominent thing is romantically called Escondido (Hidden).

A couple of months ago, my son invited me to drive out and stay overnight at the most popular week-end destination around here, to which the locals go in droves on Friday evenings, in traffic that makes the commute from Oakland to SF look like a cart ride from holes 3 to 4 at Pebble Beach. We would be cruising by an area where there are wineries and casinos in an Indian reservation. I had visions of driving through Napa-Sonoma and ending up near the South Tahoe shores. The Indian thing turned out to be a mall with lots of outlets; and I did see some terrain with what looked to me like weeds and brush, but I was wrong, those were vines!<more/>After 30 miles eastward, we arrived at what the locals here describe as their paradise: the desert – i.e. the Mojave. Now I have a vague idea of the working conditions our boys in Iraq have to endure, thanks to the Global Village Idiot (that was You-Know-Who's nickname in a newspaper I read in France about three years ago). But I digress ...

Are these people here a bunch of goddamned masochists? Or what! I thought I was on a tour of the training grounds for the astronauts – it was 105 in the shade, in early March!. However, I'll have to be honest: the night was beautiful. I slept outdoors. Great (seriously)! Good thing we brought our own foods and little barbeque, though – the selection at the local store was almost as bad as the Mission Safeway.

I suppose we could also talk about our SF 40 degree summer evenings and howling winds in Union Square, and our crazy politics, and SF's hostility towards small businesses, and more. So, really, no place is perfect; this one is kind of nice, there is pleasant weather and lots of good Mexican dives – which brings us to what really matters: the food.

I have tasted the best tacos and other rustic Mexican food items ever. I am in taco heaven: tripitas (intestines), buche (stomach), carnitas, chicharrones en salsa, lengua (tongue), mostly in tacos as good as those you get from the El Tonayense trucks on Harrison in the Mission; same quality, but bigger, @ $1.10. And that's it for the good part.

I feel it's my duty to caution you San Franciscans: unless you want to live on taquería food, DON'T COME HERE!

To be fair, I can't speak for San Diego the city, because I have not yet had time to explore it. It's a pretty big place that gets a lot of visitors, so I imagine there must be a couple of decent restaurants there –– and I intend to find them. As of now, what little I have seen there looks and tastes fake, like SF's Fisherman's Wharf. But here in Furnitureland, no way. Let me give you a couple of peeks at the food scene here:

I have shopped for food at Von's (owned by Safeway), considered the best of the volume markets in the area. Nice and clean and huge. They never heard of squab, a guy at the fish counter didn't know what squid is, their featured chicken is Foster Farms. One bizarre thing about chicken everywhere around here: I have not seen a FRYER weighing less than 4 pounds – could be the proximity to the Los Alamos nuclear facility.

After doing some digging, I determined that the best food market in the area is the Harvest Ranch Market in The Drawer, so we went there to buy food for a good dinner. Nice store, but glancing at the prices, for a minute I thought we were at Molly Stone's in Greenbrae. Encouraged after finding some decent meat, I told somebody I wanted to get a baguette. The baker herself came out and presented me with one from the batch she was proud to say she had baked an hour earlier. What she handed me was a 30-inch bag containing a pale-crusted turd with the diameter and texture of Wonder Bread. Like the chicken thing, there's another oddity about this place: I have not yet seen edible bread; the best has been the pre-packaged rolls from a little Mexican market here in Lakeside.

We decided to have pizza delivered one evening, but I told my son I didn't want the crap from Domino's or Pizza Hut or any other chain. Well, cazzo! We called Gaetano's, one of the best Italian restaurants nearby and ordered two pizzetas, One "Pesto and Pinenuts", the other "Quattro Formaggio". The latter would have been better named "Merda Salata" – a ¼ inch thick soggy crust lined with off-white rubber, topped with three layers of salt, so you couldn't even enjoy the rubber. The other one was the same crust, this time with a pale yellow-green-neon lining and a few pinenuts strewn all over – it was well-balanced: the soggy crust provided a nice textural contrast with the elastic layer and you could taste the pinenuts; but they misspelled the name, it should have been "Pissto" - like a couple of hours after you guzzle your vitamin pack.

One evening, two of us went to Mangia Bene, one of the best ristoranti in The Drawer. We both ordered the Linguini with Fresh Clam Sauce. Fill a glass with sea water, enhance its taste with a spoonful of salt and experience the taste of this creation. Another typo here: they forgot "Out of the Can" after "Fresh".

On, man, do I miss San Francisco!