Fun with la suegra

Anne's mom was in town this past weekend, and we had a nice visit. She lives in a small town in Eastern Washington, so one of the biggest treats for her when she visits is going out to eat, which is of course always a treat for us, too. Saturday night we went to a newish restaurant in Temescal (a recently trendy part of Oakland not far from our place) called Pizzaiolo. As you may guess, their signature food is pizza, with a somewhat California-y slant. We started with a beet, fennel, and avocado salad which was delicious. Then we split an order of gnocchi and a pizza with artichoke hearts and speck (which is like prosciutto for people who call arugula "rocket"). Their wine list is bewildering because all the wines are from Italy and I'd never heard of any of them. We just ordered a bottle of the cheapest red, which was really good (which is good because "cheapest" was relative). Everything was delicious and more than made up for the long wait.

The other dining highlight came on Sunday morning when we persuaded Bonnie to try dim sum. One of the things that always impresses me about Anne's mom is how game she is to try new things. As long as we were the ones picking the items from the carts, she was happy to try them. She even made a go at the seaweed. Sadly, though, neither Bonnie nor Anne would acquiesce to an order of chicken feet -- which I didn't think I could finish by myself -- so I had to go without. This is the place where we usually go for dim sum, and it was probably the earliest we'd ever arrived. We learned that getting there by 10:30 means 1) you'll get a table right away and 2) the cart ladies aren't nearly as surly when it's not as crowded.

A non-food highlight was going to Golden Gate Park to see the new deYoung museum, which reopened after a major overhaul. The exterior is now covered in sheets of perforated copper that make it look like a big cheese grater, which is a bit out of place in the park's music concourse. But I think it's an interesting look, and I really liked the architecture of interior. There's also an observation deck where you can get great views of the western half of the city. The museum has a very eclectic collection, but the thing for which it's probably best known is its large assemblage of artifacts from New Guinea. This is a part of the world I know next to nothing about, and even though I couldn't help but feel a certain colonizer's guilt looking at it all, it was definitely interesting and like nothing I'd ever seen before. There were even some items made with human skulls. Ewww.