I Am Scrrrrrumptious!

These past few days have been chock-full of activities.

Saturday I drove about an hour out to Vacaville (a literal Cow Town - haha) to meet this amazing blogger. I got a bit lost amongst the outlet malls and car dealerships, but managed to find the Chili's where we'd agreed to meet. We had a wonderful lunch, full of get-to-know-you talk, then moved across the street for some tea and coffee to continue our conversations.

What ensued was, I humbly believe, one of the more insightful political discussions I've ever taken part in. I won't bore you with the details, but we managed to combine large-scale politics with personal-level psychology, using these two lenses to analyze several of the hot topics in the world today. Fascinating stuff, especially because we come from very different backgrounds and lead very different lives, yet share similar centrist, realist viewpoints.

To say I enjoyed meeting Amber is a gross understatement. What an intelligent, kind woman!

The next day, Mother's Day, I had the pleasure of meeting yet another blogger, Kristine. She was participating in an open studio arts crawl in the Mission and my mom and I decided to check it out. Are you familiar with her life-sized wire sculptures of couture dresses and fabulous handbags and stilettos? Kristine does amazing, unique work. My mom and I walked into the studio where her exibit was and - to my delight - Kristine recognized me as we came in the door. I think we were both mildly in shock the entire time about meeting each other, and had a great time talking about her sculptures and the fact that we've been blog friends for an entire year.

After chatting a bit, my mom and I checked out the rest of the artists' expositions, then went back to Kristine's space for an unfortunately quick goodbye. We met her husband, who wowed us with his knowledge of Ferragamo shoes and Givenchy fragrances, talked about my wedding dress, and made (hopefully) plans to meet later this week for a coffee/tea.

We walked out with one killer wire stiletto heel and two painted red wire hearts. I plan to give mine to Rico for our upcoming anniversary on the 26th (shhhh, don't tell him).

After the arts crawl, my mom and I were in the mood for a treat. We spotted a cafe/restaurant type place and decided to check it out. As we walked in, I glanced at the sign over the doorway and realized what we were in for: it was Cafe Gratitude, the place that so many of my blog friends rave and rave about, the mecca for raw and vegetarian gourmet cooking.

Our experience was, well, mildly disappointing.

Friends, I hope this doesn't constitute a serious block in our virtual relationships. Perhaps this just isn't the type of place for me. Maybe I had my hopes up too high after reading all of your reviews about the restaurant. Whatever the reason, I sadly don't share your opinion of Cafe Gratitude.

The entire time we were in the place I wanted to burst out laughing, turn and shake our waitress or the cook by the shoulders, and say, "Are you kidding?"

All of the items on the menu are named with affirmations. Instead of ordering Soy Spiced Noodles, you ask for "I Am Succulent"; instead of a Strawberry Mango Smoothie, you proudly state to your waitperson "I Am Enlightened".

When the orders are up in the kitchen, the cook yells out to the waitress, "Teresa, You Are Gracious, Empathetic, Empowered and Serene," or whatever equivalent list of adjectives is ready to go to her table. As we were waiting for our food, the cook called out an especially long list of positive qualities about a waitress called Irene and my mom snarkily said, "She must be some woman!"

I get the idea behind Cafe Gratitude - I really do. I am kind of a hippie, I love dancing Nia, I could imagine myself being macrobiotic or something similar, I appreciate organic and try to recycle. I am generally "that kind of person." But there is something about Cafe Gratitude that seemed too forced, too incredibly saccharine for my taste.

I ordered a raw milkshake with almond milk, unprocessed cacao chips, dates and vanilla. My mom had a slice of key lime pie with a raw macadamia nut crust. When our waitress brought our treats and announced to my mom with a flourish of the hand, "You Are Delightful!" I smiled and had to agree. My mom is a peach and it was Mother's Day, after all. But when the waitress turned to me and said, looking deep into my eyes, "You Are Generous!" I had to bite my lip to keep from snickering sarcastically.

I wanted to say, "Really? I am Generous. Do you know me? Because actually I tend to be quite Selfish, especially when it comes to food." Ask Rico. I'm certain he will agree in spades.

More than the overly optimistic affirmations about the patrons and the waitstaff, I had issues with the quality of the service. I had to ask 3 times for a glass of water. My milkshake arrived mostly melted and I didn't have a spoon to scoop out the almonds and chocolate chips with. Our waitress forgot to bring us the check. Little things, I know, but when you are paying out the wazoo for prime organic ingredients, you want the experience to be smooth.

And one last observation - for an establishment that is so into political correctness and the celebration of people of all shapes, sizes and colors, the clientele was surprisingly white bread. As in 100%. Including me and my mom. Not that there is anything wrong with having all white patrons, but it took me a bit by surprise. I wonder if it was just that particular day, or if they do struggle to draw in multicultural patrons, something rare in the middle of the Mission...

Anyhow, for those of you that are diehard Cafe Gratitude fans, you will enjoy that our outing ended with a heavy dose of karmic justice. Upon arriving home, I got some serious diarrhea. I guess the almond milk didn't really agree with my stomach.

Or perhaps, in good Cafe Gratitude lingo, I could say "I Am Cleansed."