His Eye Is On The Sparrow

Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

Well, 2014 is almost over and 2015 is practically on our doorsteps.  I work for a company that had a long range vision plan for the year 2015, so for years everything was punctuated with a "In 2015" intense whisper.  

The seriousness behind how much we were supposed to accomplish and change "by 2015" was like a heavy weight bearing on our backs.  It was like we expected to have houses on Mars by then and God help the person who wasn't onboard to make the mission happen.  It was very much a "success OR ELSE" feeling to me.  And it gave "In 2015" this very weird, otherworldly aura.  

And now it's almost 2015, will a dreaded doomsday event occur?  Who knows?  I'm just happy to not have to hear the "terroristic inspiration" of how much we have to achieve by 2015.  Ladies and Gentlemen, 2015 is here.  Now let's live in it!  

I was recently in San Francisco, California - where I had briefly lived a million lifetimes ago.  If you read my previous post:  "A San Francisco State of Mind" you may recall on my last visit I was doing some walking down memory lane and inadvertent second hand smoking marijuana as I strolled down the Haight.  I was already in a mood of deep contemplation and examination as I had deja vu recalling the first time I had ever been to Haight-Ashbury a million lifetimes ago.

Not only was I thinking about life lessons from my youth, but l was also hungry.  (Story of my life.)  I walked past a restaurant called Sparrow Bar and Kitchen.  The song "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" started up in my head.  

The lyrics from the song "His Eye Is On The Sparrow": "I sing because I'm happy.  I sing because I'm free, for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me" always moves me very deeply.  I felt like this was some sort of sign.  

I was receiving a lot of spiritual nourishment (and second hand pot smoke) on my meditative walk along The Haight.  Now this restaurant seemed like it was tailor-made for a more basic nourishment.

The restaurant is adorable with a wall of reading material that has both David Chang's Lucky Peach magazine as well as a "Little Miss Trouble" kids' book.  (I have the "Little Miss Bossy" t-shirt, so even though I am 900 years old I still cater to my child self.)

The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen has soju cocktails.  Their "Blood Orange and Thyme Paloma" screamed "drink me!"  I am a sucker for herbs in my drink.  Give me a fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and vodka with a salted rim and a big old piece of fresh rosemary and I am in heaven!

I don't want to be cheesy and say "You could really taste the thyme!" in this blood orange and thyme paloma.  BUT YOU COULD REALLY TASTE THE THYME!  It was delicious and I had to physically restrain myself from ordering another.

Also can I just take a moment to give a big cheer to the San Francisco attitude?  Like Portland, Oregon, there seems to be a generally relaxed air in the citizens.  Which I am not sure why because the traffic and continued need to drive cars up steep hills always stresses me out, but the locals seem to be mellow.  (Although maybe that aforementioned pot smoke may be the reason ...)  

When I entered The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen, I asked the hostess if she had a table near an outlet.  I know this isn't Starbucks, it's a lovely restaurant.  BUT my phone was dead and I needed to summon an Uber to take me to the airport.  (I heart Uber!)  The hostess didn't even blink and instead said very nicely "I have one right over here for you."  In most any other city, I would have received a heavy sigh, an eye roll and a haughty look of disdain.  God bless you, San Francisco.

I found all of the service at The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen to be top notch.  So thank you not only to the hostess but the bartender and my server as well!

I had finished an intense meeting earlier in the day.  It was spiritually uplifting but still emotionally taxing.  And not to use food as a drug, but this really felt like a time for ... BACON.

The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen serves bacon-wrapped Scotch eggs on a bed of frisee with a sauce Cheron (which is basically Hollandaise with more lemon, some tomato paste and thyme.)  I love a good Scotch egg and I love anything wrapped in bacon, so I had to order it.

Now most Scotch eggs are horrifically overcooked.  A traditional Scotch egg is a hard boiled egg, wrapped in sausage then dredged in bread crumbs and deep-fried.  But The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen's Scotch egg was perfectly cooked.  Look at the gorgeous deep yellow center.  It was lovely.  The sauce Cheron had a nice piquant flavor although frankly the egg was so good on its own; it didn't need a sauce.

To continue with my bacon theme, I saw a "Dirty BLT" on the menu:  candied bacon, goat cheese, peppercorn-spiced remoulade and romaine lettuce on Ciabatta served with hand cut Kennebec fries.

Candied bacon?

Goat cheese?

Ciabatta?

Kennebec fries?

It's like The Sparrow had his eye on my stomach and created this sandwich just for me.

The Ciabatta roll was the best ciabatta bread I have ever had in my life.  I could have put my shoe between the Ciabatta roll and loved every bite.  

To be fair the candied bacon just tasted like regular bacon to me, but with the goat cheese and the remoulade the sandwich has this custardy, velvety, smoky awesomeness that made me a very happy camper.

The sandwich was very hearty.  After the bacon-wrapped Scotch egg, I could only eat 1/2 the sandwich.  The other half I devoured several hours later on a plane back to Tampa Bay.  It held up well!  (Thank you, world's best Ciabatta!)

The Kennebec fries were delicious, but I couldn't eat all of them.  I need a San Francisco Kennebec fries buddy!  I wonder if they have a section for "Seeking Pal to Eat Part of my Potatoes" on Craigslist?

The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen were top notch in my book.  The decor is lovely.  The atmosphere is hip but laid-back.  The service is incredibly friendly, fast and responsive.  The cocktails and food were amazing.  Win - win - win.  A great lunch in the Haight-Ashbury area.  If you are in San Francisco, I highly recommend you check it out.

Eating at The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen made me feel the same way I do when I hear Jennifer Holliday singing "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" - happy and uplifted!

As your 2014 comes to a close, I hope you are at peace and filled with joy ... and maybe filled with some bacon too!  Thanks for reading!

Watching Top Chef in Slovakia

Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

I thought I had written my last post for 2014, but I guess I had another post in me!

For better or for worse, I try not to stop to think whether something scares me - I just do it.  Because if you allow yourself a moment to let self-doubt and fear into your heart, you may never do what you know you need to do.  I credit my Mother for this.  Growing up poor, you don't have the luxury of kindly demurring when things get rough.  You just have to jump in and hope for the best.

When I was nineteen, I backpacked around Western Europe on a shoestring budget with the woman who is now known as Mrs. BKJ of Minnesota.  To save money on youth hostels, we would occasionally travel by night and sleep on trains.  This made for such adventures as: (1) waking up to find a swarthy pickpocket trying to steal our luggage as the train made a late night stop in Avignon, France; (2) watching a man urinate in the middle of the Rome train station and (3) having "gentleman" after "gentleman" try to con us out of our money or virtue.  But two girls from Minnesota are FARM STRONG! and we made it through the experience unscathed.  

(Fact Checker Alert:  OK OK neither Mrs. BKJ or I lived on a  farm, but my Great-Aunt did have a farm - check out my post as The Strawberry Queen "Pink Was The Color of My Itchy Discontent" here.)

So when I was in Budapest, Hungary for work; I decided to hop a train to Slovakia to check out Bratislava.  Why?  WHY NOT!  

Do I know where Slovakia is on a map?  Nope.  
Do I speak Slovak?  No.  
Do I speak Czech?  No.  
Do I speak Hungarian?  No.  
Do I speak German?  No.  
Have I ever been on a train in Hungary or Slovakia?  No.  
Do I know what currency they use in Slovakia?  Nope.  
Do I know anything about Slovakia?  No.  

These are questions a normal, rational person might ask themselves before starting a train trip between Hungary and Slovakia.  But if you are a regular reader of LilyOnTheLam - you may be aware that I am not a normal, rational person!

My preparation for a trip to Slovakia was 1) checking the train times, 2) checking a map to see where the Budapest train station was, 3) checking to see what currency they use in Slovakia (the Euro!), 4) checking a map to see where the Bratislava train station was and where the "Old Town" area was located and 5) double-checking that US citizens did not need visas to enter Slovakia.  (That last one is kind of important!)

I did look for a Bratislava city guide - but fat chance, neither the internet, online bookstores or Budapest bookstores had anything on Bratislava.  I wondered if Bratislava was a mythical city that did not exist.

I shrugged my shoulders and said a very famous Lily line "I'll figure it out when I get there."

Seriously, if I had stopped to really think about hopping a train and just showing up in a country where I had absolutely no familiarity with the language and except for a short stay in Prague (now Czech Republic) a million years ago, had no clue about Slovak history ... I would have never seen this ...

The interior of the Bratislava Train Station

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big believer in rational thinking, looking before you leap and not dying on a train to a country you have never been to before.  BUT I also strongly subscribe to the James Russell Lowell quote: "FATE LOVES THE FEARLESS."  Sometimes you just have to hop on that train and see where life takes you.  This line of (somewhat warped) thinking has served me well in my life and as I think about my 2015 goals, I know I need to embrace this even more!  

So on a Saturday in November, I loaded up on a highly caloric buffet breakfast at the Sofitel Chain Bridge Hotel in Budapest, Hungary.  Each month, the hotel has a special pastry and this particular month it was "Strudels of the Monarchy" - an array of different flavored fruit strudels at the breakfast buffet.  It will also be the name of my future all-girl, one-cat punk band.  Watch for our album in 2016.  

Judging by a Budapest city map it looked like I could take a long walk and get to the train station, but I am not the finest of cartographers so I took a taxi.  The ride was quick and yet surprisingly expensive.  (I walked home from the train station when I returned, proving that it indeed was walkable in the right shoes.)  

I entered the Budapest train station looking for a ticket booth - but none was to be found.  I was stumped!  I have been on trains all over Europe, parts of Asia and America - where are they hiding the ticket booths??  

Finally against a wall I saw these mini travel agency offices.  One marked domestic and one marked international.  There was a ginormous long line at the domestic travel agency office.  I stood in this line for about three minutes until I realized that Slovakia is not a domestic part of Hungary.  (Not the smartest girl in the world!)  I tried to subtly step out of line without drawing any attention to myself before sprinting over to the international office.

I sat in a chair in front of a glass encased booth inside another glass encased office.  In America, so much is fast-serve, self-serve, automated - you stand in line to get everything.  I must admit I felt very weird getting a train ticket by sitting down in front of the travel agent.  She quickly sold me a 2nd class round-trip ticket for Bratislava good for one month.  

I hopped out of the office with my very old school, slightly Soviet looking, 3 attached pieces of paper ticket and went to find my train!

The 2nd class train compartments had individual compartments with 6 seats each.  The seats were faded and threadbare in spots, but comfortable.

I found an empty compartment, kicked back and pulled out my iPad.  I had two episodes of Bravo TV's "Top Chef: Boston" that were just begging to be watched.

It was a gray cold day, but the scenery between Budapest and Bratislava (about a 2 1/2 hour train ride) was still lovely.

I had an uneventful trip, caught up on my American TV and before I knew it I had arrived in Slovakia.

Bratislava's Hlavna Train Station

I hopped off the train - no apprehension, no self-doubt, no raging fear of Slovaks ... just excitement (and gratitude that it wasn't raining).  I was ready for my Slovakian adventure to begin!

The purpose of writing this blog post was not so much to talk about the trip between Hungary and Slovakia but to talk about the spirit in which the trip was taken.  As we say "goodbye" to the remainder of 2014, I hope everyone who reads this is living their lives to their full potential, hopping trains (literal or metaphorical) to new lands and have hearts full of excitement and gratitude!

P.S.  Long story short - walked 13 miles around Bratislava, had a great day, saw lovely sights in the Old Town of Bratislava, had some bad pierogi, had a good beer, some awesome cake, delicious coffee, found a tiny pamphlet on Bratislava history, bought some souvenirs and then went back to Budapest.  It was an excellent day!  It was definitely a nothing ventured, nothing gained adventure!

A San Francisco State of Mind

Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers!

If you are a regular reader of "The Lam," you may notice that my posts have not been as frequent as usual.  It's not that my adventures have slowed down - as I have been to Houston, NYC, Budapest (twice!), Vienna, Bratislava and San Francisco in the past 2 1/2 months; it's that I have been steering my energy to short term goals.  

I started a rainbow striped girlie journal back in May 2013.  (The cover of the journal is so ridiculously more suited for a 6th grader than a woman of my "advanced years.")  For my mental health and stress level, I do my best when I write every day - it's like an unburdening and a soul lightener.  Whether it's a blog post, a heart felt note to a dear friend/loved one or a journal entry - I just do better spiritually and emotionally when I spend time writing.  

But since May 2013, I haven't been dedicating much time to journal entries and frankly I was tired to still be writing in the same darn rainbow striped girlie-looking journal for sooooo long.  I was determined that I would have the journal completely filled before 2015.  I would NOT be welcoming the new year still writing in this darn girlie journal.

So I set a goal for myself to finish writing in all the pages of the "never-ending journal" before 12/31/2014.  And then each day I wrote ... and wrote ... and wrote.  I will admit that some of the writing occurred while I was binge watching five seasons of "Friday Night Lights."  When I watched the first episode I thought "Why was this show so popular?  I'm bored.  I don't like football.  Blah blah."  But by the second show I was hooked and then the BINGE began.  

And on December 7, after many hours of writing and many episodes of "Friday Night Lights;" I finished that darn journal before my deadline.  Mission accomplished!

At the same time I was doing my "Million steps in 100 days challenge" - which I also completed and am very happy to have stay focused on my goal and met the challenge!  Another mission accomplished!  

One more area that I have been paying more attention to is my lack of reading.  I love to read but again it's another area that I have been neglecting.  I set a small, achievable goal of reading 12 books in 2014.  I have read 16 so far.  Bam!  Another goal met!

I suspect the year 2015 is going to be a continuation of setting short-term goals for myself, staying focused and achieving everything I set out for myself.  It may sound boring, but to me it is pretty exciting!  However it means less time working on LilyOnTheLam, so forgive me my lack of blog posts lately.  I have photos for about 200 blog posts but not a lot of time nor motivation to write them.  Perhaps in 2015?

I have had the great fortune to have spent some time in San Francisco lately for another project I am working on.  It is a place near and dear to my heart.  I spent a lot of time in Northern California in my early 20's due to having two relationships who lived there.  Had the real estate market prices not gone through the roof, I probably would have moved to San Francisco when I turned 25.  However instead I chose Los Angeles - because it was significantly cheaper and warmer. 

San Francisco has always held this optimistic, lovely, "young love" vibe due to the experiences I have had there in my oh so long ago youth.  It's magical to arrive in the city and still feel that sensation after so many many many years.  (I am 912 years old now, you know.)

This week has especially been "San Francisco on my mind." I had some extra time while I was in San Francisco, so I leisurely walked around the Haight - taking it all in (and I don't mean taking in the secondhand pot smoke - which was impossible not to inhale).  

This store in the Haight always makes me smile when I see it ... for purely egotistical reasons.

I enjoyed remembering the first time I walked around Haight-Ashbury and how "small town Middle America" I felt.  I am much more "worldly" now and yet there still is some level of touristy-commercialistic-anachronistic-otherworldly haze around the Haight that I still adore as if I still had wide, bright eyes.

I was also excited to see that one of my favorite NYC store "Kid Robot" has a store in San Francisco as well.

When I returned home to "my other city by the bay," Tampa Bay - I attended a concert featuring two of my favorite San Francisco bands-- Matt Nathanson and Train.  It was a nice way to end my San Francisco trip.  Mary Lambert and the East Coast Inspirational Singers also performed at the concert.  A fantastic concert.  I have seen Mary Lambert perform before, but it was my first time seeing East Coast Inspirational Singers - and they were FABULOUS.

All in all it's been a wonderful week.  As we approach this holiday season, I wish all the best of peace, joy and happiness to you all!

Happy Tuesday! You're Ugly!

Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

I find Top Ten lists about cities to be somewhat random, arbitrary and usually incorrect in my humble opinion.  For instance, Tampa is supposed to be the number one city for singles in a certain age range.  But if I ask my single friends about this, they scoff ... the dating scene here is not the best ... and certainly not "number one."

But when I saw this article stating that Tampa residents are hotter than Orlando residents, I just had to laugh and say facetiously "Oh of course that is true."  It's easy to agree with some of the "proclamations."  

I have a lot of friends in Minneapolis and according to the article, Minneapolis people are even more attractive than Tampa people.  (Whaaaat?  Noooo way!)  

I expect I'll get some Christmas cards that say "Merry Christmas, it is empirically proven that we in Minneapolis are hotter than you ... and a Happy New Year!"    

Tis the season to brag!  I hope they at least send me a candy cane with their bragging.