Saturday with my girl

On Saturday morning, Marissa and I went to Craftsman & Wolves to finally try, The Rebel Within, for ourselves. The muffin with the soft, runny egg in the center that I previously wrote about and tried to make at home, without success.

You’d think that with this “Anatomy of a Rebel” from the C&W website, I would be able to figure it out. But how to get the egg to have that runny center – that is the mystery.

The guy at the counter, who took our order, thought Marissa was super cute. As well he should!

Anyhow, we sat down with our muffins (plus an amazing Chocolate Sourdough, Citrus, Almond & Coconut pastry!) and just admired the beauty of it all.

I held my breath and then sliced mine open. Pure Per-fec-tion! It was exactly as I hoped it would be. No, let down. Not an ounce of disappointment. Just perfection.

The one surprising thing that may just be the key to unlocking the mystery of how they keep that egg center soft instead of hard-cooked … it is served cold. Not ice-cold, but it was obviously refrigerated after being baked. When the staff arrives in the morning, my guess is that they must remove the muffins from the refrigerator, to allow them to come to room temperature, before they open the door to customers.

I attempt to make it again, soon, and I shall prevail!

After breakfast, we spent the day shopping. I wanted to check out a cookbook store called Omnivore.

It is housed in an old butcher shop. The former meat locker is the storeroom and office. There’s a huge meat scale hanging from the ceiling.

It is full of lovely new, used, and vintage cookbooks and in the front window, there is a funny chicken with a toque upon his little head.

Oh, how I’d love to have a quirky kitchen store/school in such a unique and fun space.

Next, Marissa surprised me as we pulled up to Big Daddy’s Antiques. My friend, Sheila, and I visited and fell in love with Big Daddy’s Los Angeles store a couple of years ago. This location did not disappoint.

As before, I could not afford one thing, but it is a fun place to browse and dream!

Marissa’s favorite thing was a cool industrial dining table with swing-out stools. The stools tuck in beneath the table when not in use.

We both loved this heavy-duty foosball table. It must weigh several hundred pounds!

By far, my favorite things were these scary-looking orchard ladders. They have only three legs, are kind of tripod in shape, and seem extremely narrow and flimsy. I suppose they need to be squeezed between rows of apple and citrus trees. But still, you wouldn’t catch me climbing one.

If you look back up at the photo of the front of Big Daddy’s store, those are also the orchard ladders hanging on the walls of the building. When we pulled up, I thought they were Eiffel Tower-looking lattices for vines to crawl up, but upon further inspection… folded up orchard ladders. Love it!

After our day of shopping, we were wiped out, so Marissa went home and I went to my room to chill before getting ready to go to dinner and the theater.  That was the purpose of my trip. For her birthday, I gave Marissa tickets for the two of us to see The Book of Mormon together.

Jeff was already downtown, so we met up with him at Market Street Grill for dinner. We chose the restaurant because it is easy walking distance to the theater. It was nice enough, but nothing to write home about or to go into detail about here.

Oh, I almost forgot. When we were searching for a parking space, we drove by San Francisco City Hall, which is a gorgeous building, and it was all lit up for the 49ers vs.Seahawks game, which was the following day. Since both San Francisco and Seattle are our (Arizona Cardinals) rivals, usually I wouldn’t have cared less who won. But since I was physically in San Francisco at the time … sorry 49ers fans!

Jeff had taken the bus downtown and we’d driven. So he drove the car home and we walked across the street to see the show. It was performed in the Orpheum Theatre. We have an Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix too. And just as with ours, the seats are close together and not exactly comfortable.

The San Francisco Orpheum was built in 1926 and the Phoenix Orpheum in 1929. It appears that Orpheum is a somewhat common name for theaters of that era. There are 17 Orpheum Theaters in the USA, with two in Arizona (Flagstaff) and two in California (LA). I decided to share that, just because I find it interesting.

This was the second to last performance of the musical’s run in San Francisco and it was outstanding. You’d think that the actors would get tired of singing and performing with such high energy and excitement, night after night, but apparently not because they were fabulous.

I’d first heard about The Book of Mormon from Kim Howard while we were in Canada this past summer. Kim played the soundtrack for me and I was hooked. It is rude, vulgar, sacrilegious, offensive, and completely hilarious and fun. If you are at all sensitive to any of those things, please skip it. If not, it’s a must-see.

Marissa and I could not have loved it more. The opening song, “Hello!” is suitable for tender ears, so if you’re at all interested, listen to that song and if you find that OK, try the next, “You and Me (But Mostly Me)” is also quite tame. After that, it all goes downhill, so you’re on your own.

Except for the uncomfortable seats and some leg cramping before intermission, it was a blast. Marissa and I highly recommend it. I know that Connor would love it, so if it comes to town, you can bet that I’ll be seeing it again with my boys.