Last night, after carpooling with my boss (yay for carpooling!) home from work, I took BART over to the East Bay to meet my sister for dinner and to see my friend’s concert. I have to say, I really love taking public transportation, and I always forget that! Taking BART, or Caltrain like I did to work on Tuesday (post in the works), makes me feel like I’m on vacation in another city. I just love it, and need to do it more often!
Anyway, my sister picked me up at BART and we headed to The Cheeseboard Collective for dinner, a worker-owned, independent pizza place. Each day they have one kind of vegetarian pizza, and it’s delicious! There’s always a line around the door. On the menu last night: pizza with asparagus, gremolata, Shitake mushrooms, mozzarella , Montalban Manchego Cheese and garlic olive oil. YUM! I never would have thought to put asparagus and gremolata on a pizza, but it was great. We also had a yummy salad, and I was just really in the mood for a beer, so I had a Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Half a pizza is $10, and we both took leftovers.
Pizza with compostable forks (for the salad)!
My cute sister eating pizza! Trying to come up with a good nickname for her, because she is my green inspiration. Extra Green Girl? Pretty Green Sister?
Then we headed over to the Freight & Salvage, a coffee house/music venue, to see my friend, the ultra talented Laura Cortese, perform. She’s an amazing fiddler/singer/performer. Definitely check her out! I was listening to her CD Even the Lost Creek this morning, and it’s so good! I definitely got some weird looks from other drivers because I was totally singing along! One cool thing they mentioned at F&S – they are in the middle of building a new eco-friendly venue with blue jean insulation and a living roof. Three cheers!
During the concert, Laura had a contest/raffle, including questions about how often you take public transit or walk instead of driving. Three days a week for me – soon to be four, I hope. I work from home Fridays, try not to drive on the weekends, and am hoping to start taking the train to work one day a week. We didn’t win, but we had a lot of fun with our entries.
We had to write down a word to identify ourselves on the cards. My sister picked snorkle (snorkel?). I picked, naturally, green. I also drew a really horrible picture of a tree, but luckily for you, the photograph didn’t come out. 😉
Also, here’s proof that keeping scratch paper in your bag is always a good idea.
My sister wrote “Janet Smells.” I made it “Janet Smells Good,” which became “Janet Never Smells Good,” which I turned into “Janet Never Smells Good Except Always.” Ahh, siblings. 😉
We then headed over to a local bar and had fun catching up with friends I hadn’t seen since high school. Lots of reminscing about all the drama back in the day, ha. We have some fun plans in the work for a writing project!
Finally, check out this awesome sign we walked past. I’m getting more comfortable saying, hang on, stop, I have to take a picture for my blog! I’m hanging on to this picture as a reminder that while recycling is great, reducing and reusing come first in the chain for a reason.
PS: Super thanks to Hallie for helping me link up my blog to my Twitter. You rock, girl!
pretty green girl 
such a fun sister night!! the next time i visit my sibs in sf, i am def putting in a request for pizza for the cheeseboard collective 🙂 and i’ve been to freight and salvage before! sigh, you’ve inflicted me with a giant sf craving …
Ooh, come to SF! That would be awesome! 🙂 I may be in NY later this year, too!
So, are they reusing doors as a fence… on the other side of a fence?
gremolata on pizza sounds like such a good idea! i’ll have to try it. also, that sign is great.
Thanks for the shout-out! You rock pretty hard yourself.
I love “fancy” pizzas like that, with fun toppings and all. That restaurant looks awesome!
Yummy pizza!!
I LOVE Cheeseboard…mmm now I want some pizza! Weird, my sister lives in the East Bay, too! Have you ever tried Arizmendi?! It’s an AWESOME bakery–they have one on 9th & Judah (I think) in the city, but I’ve only been to the one in Oakland (near Lake Merritt). It is SO amazing and like Cheeseboard, they have one type of pizza per day and use fresh, delicious, gourmet ingredients. YUM.
Ooh, Katharine, I have been to Arizmendi (the one in the City) but have never gotten around to trying their pizza – now I’m going to have to! In the name of blog research, of course! 😉 I’ve had their English muffins and other baked goods, though – yum! Great idea!