Indulging in Oysters...

Sharon & Howard are back from a trip down the coast to Carmel and Big Sur, and I meet them again at Peet's in Montclair to take them to my house, here we hang out until I went t pick-up Joe Shakarchi from BART and later Elaine joins us for some appetizers and catching-up with each other. For dinner we walked to Bacheco's and indulged ourself with al that delicious food from the buffet. For 12.95 you can eat all you can, dessert and lots of different items to choose from, not a bad deal, also there is always room for a bunch of folks like us sitting together to schmuse, a dirve band was playing bluegrass and all is fun. Elaine went dancing after that to Ashkenaz and I drop Joe off at BART and drive Sharon and Howard back to Montclair.

Pre-dinner Party in my backyard...


I missed hooking-up with PeiPei, Chris and Kirk who went for beers with Daniel who just arrived from Thaiwan, can't wait to see him, last time he was here was last year in November and I'll see him only this weekend because I should be hitting the road here pretty soon.
Saturday morning starts with Yoga, I need it too, haven't gone for the last 2 weeks and won't be able to go for the next 3 month. I paid Chris the down-payment for the upcoming retreat in July, then the usual visit to Sweet Adelaine. A good way to meet the new students and catch-up with the "old" ones, even though the regulars form way when back don't show their faces anymore, there is always great stories to listen to.
Off to PeiPei and Chris's house, Daniel and Kirk are already there and Mark arrives just as I get into the door... final plans are made to go to Tamales Bay for another oyster outing. First we need to get some cheese, olives and stuff to make a picnic, then some coffee before hitting the road, but even before that I need to get home to change and get some stuff too for the trip. I meet-up again with the gang at the Cheese Board, it is kind of strange that I haven't gone there for such a long time, like years, and now twice in a week, Daniel and PeiPei already picked some cheese and olives, then we had to regroup and literally squeeze into Chris's truck, 3 in the front and 3 in the back> I squeezed in between Kirk and Mark in the back.

At the Cheese Board picking olives and guess what...

From Tamales Bay Oyster Feast

Its a 52 mile drive to the Marshall Store right at the Tomales Bay. This time we take the road through Novato and then into the country-side, it is such a beautiful time to drive through this area right now, the grass is thick and green, the trees just sprouting with a fresh bright green and the sky is bluer than blue, lots of cows and sheep while driving through all this hills and farms.

Map of the drive...

From Tamales Bay Oyster Feast

It is a complete mad-house at the Marshall Store, I never seen a line this long, and Todd, a long time friend of Daniel, is buried in front of the grill and shocking oysters by the dozens, barely has time to look up and say hi to us... it is great though to see the business is going well, at least to day!!! We get there just before 2 o'clock.
I order 1 dozen raw and a dozen b.b.q.ed and PeiPei does the same, later Kirk goes in and orders more of the same,we have some home-made clam-chowder soup and buy a bunch of the locally made bread, beers and wine. A feast of unbelievable joy!!! The oysters start to arrive, we secured a table right at the water overlooking the bay and life is just perfect right now, even though we pissed the guy off who brings the oysters to the table because we said yes to Pat's order because I heard Pei and then we started thinking about it and realized that we did not order Oysters Rockefeller and when PeiPei ordered she used Chris's name... but by the time the guy came around again Daniel was already eating a oyster... to bad for them to good for Daniel.
At three o clock we had a pile of oyster shells in front of us and are waiting for more to arrive, just too good to be true...