Our San Francisco Tours Are on Facebook

In addition to this blog, we're now on Facebook. We hope we can use it to encourage everyone to eat locally and seasonally.

Holiday and Confort Foods on our San Francisco Tours

On our San Francisco Tours, we're in the comfort food mode. For us, that means Arancini (Sicilian rice balls) and gingerbread cookies. On the home front, it's time for chicken and dumplings. I really like the flavor of free range and organic chicken. We use the same concept on our San Francisco Food Tours. Fresh rice has great natural flavor and fresh ginger makes all the difference. It's the reason getting food grown close by is so important.

Holiday Time on our San Francisco Tours

We always look forward to the holidays on our San Francisco Tours. It's a time when we get to take advantage of the all of the holiday food in the City. From Panetonne to Gingerbread Cookies, we get to find all kinds of foods to try.

When we go our on our San Francisco Tours, we never know what we'll find this of year. And we mean that in a good way. The time of year, we get lots of squash and lots of apples in, however we're still seeing some grapes in the farmers market. We're also still seeing Brussels Sprouts. I like buying them on the stalk, they're much fresher. If you can't use them right away, put the stalk in water and they'll stay fresh. Just keep the buds out of the water, otherwise they'll get mushy.

Sustainability on our San Francisco Tours

One of the most things we keenly aware on our San Francisco Tours is sustainability. Sustainability is whether a practice can be sustained over a long period of time. On our San Francisco Food tours, everyone of our stops is sustainable. In other words, they sustain the community and the community sustains them. From the perspective of our San Francisco Culinary Tours, that's essential.

We seem to be having that a discussion at the national level that should be asking the same question. From the perspective of our San Francisco Tours, it seems to a shame that we not asking the question about sustainability. For example, when the question comes to health care, from our San Francisco Food Tours, we ask the question, is the current system sustainable? In other words, will it hold up in the long run. To many of us, the answer is no. It is similar to treading water in the ocean and saying that it is okay because you haven't gone under yet. Eventually, your arms tire out and you drown. From the perspective of our San Francisco Culinary Tours, that is not sustainable.

On our San Francisco Tours, we see how local businesses can sustain a community, by keeping jobs and services in the community. When local businesses go away, the connections to the local businesses go away, as well as the jobs. Again, just like treading water in the ocean. As we see on our San Francisco Food Tours, not sustainable. And many question whether the local businesses on our San Francisco Culinary Tours are important.

When each of us gets caught us in own personal problems. it is easy for forces that do have our best interests in mind to skew the political argument so many argue against their own best interests. On our San Francisco Tours, we see how communities can come together and by looking out for each other, everyone gets taken care of.

A Local Perspective from our San Francisco Tours

One of our guests on one of our San Francisco Tours asked about a sign advertising the San Francisco Health Plan. They were guests one of our San Francisco Food Tours in North Beach\Little Italy. San Francisco has it's version of public health care option, run by the city. We're very used to that now, so seeing an advertisement on our San Francisco Culinary Tours is no surprise.

What is surprising to us, from the perspective of our San Francisco Tours, is that find what we did is not surprising. Our city, as a community, decided to do about something about health care, and provide universal health care for our citizens. Just like we see on our San Francisco Food Tours, we used the power of community to address a local problem. Many local problems, regardless of their complexity can be solved by neighbors coming together, just like we see in the neighborhoods we visit on our San Francisco Culinary Tours.

Regardless of one's opinion of our health plan, it is an example of what can be accomplished when people act a a community. On our San Francisco Tours, we can see how when people decide to shop local merchants, it develops businesses concerned about the neighborhood that are located in. For the businesses on our San Francisco Food Tours, the people in our neighborhoods are not listings on a balance sheet, they are people that they see everyday. The result is that our businesses and neighbors that we see on our San Francisco Culinary Tours end up seeing beyond the bottom line for the current quarter.

One of our San Francisco Tours, we look at how we can get people to look beyond the current fiscal quarter. The biggest challenge for of us is to see beyond the immediate situation. Faced with an immediate crisis, we can lose touch with the long term perspective, whereby we save money on the short-term, but it costs us more in the long-term. On our San Francisco Food Tours, many of our guest are surprised by how many local stores that we have in San Francisco. For that to continue, people here have to make the choice to support local stores. It it same perspective that allowed us to address health care. On our San Francisco Culinary Tours, we visit many of our friends who now benefit from this. In the short-term, we had to invest in our health care system. In the long-term, it is now saving us money. However, it took people here demanding that our elected officials respond to the community, not outside interests. If we are to see changes on a national level, it will require the same demands. When our elected officials realize that they have no choice other than to respond our own citizens, we will have policies which address the needs of our citizens.

We vs I on our San Francisco Tours

On our San Francisco Tours, we often see the effect of a we mentality. A mentality that says that we care about others around us, not just ourselves. The I mentality puts ourselves above others, as if the rest of the people around us doesn't matter or doesn't exists. On our San Francisco Food Tours, we believe in the we mentality. We believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that we improve and contribute to our community. The focus of our San Francisco Culinary Tours is that we mentality.

As the debate goes on nationally, the I mentality is disturbing. On the way home from one of the San Francisco Tours, I stopped by a local market. In the market, there was a flyer from a family attempting to raise for treatment for cancer. That poster really struck me. Only a I mentality would not be disturbed that a family would have to raise money for cancer treatment. It would be like walking past someone bleeding from an automobile accident and not even bothering to call 911. On San Francisco Food Tours, we see what happens when neighborhoods come together to help each other. Everyone in the community benefits. We see this in the neighborhoods we visit on San Francisco Culinary Tours.

The I mentality results in everyone losing out. It is like being on a ship that is sinking and being happy because you drown ten seconds later than everyone else. You may have survived for ten seconds later, but the reality is that you still drowned. If for nothing that one's own preservation, caring about only oneself is a path for self-destruction.

Networking on our San Francisco Tours

A major reason we started our San Francisco Tours was to encourage people to eat locally and seasonally. We realized that our San Francisco Food Tours were a way for people to get to know the neighborhoods of the city. We also wanted our San Francisco Culinary Tours to encourage people to get in touch with the communities where they lived.

This weekend, we learned about an amazing example of much one person can impact the communities around them. We were up a winery in Sonoma seeing friends of of ours. In the tasting room of the winery, we met someone who heard about some who need a heart transplant. They never the met the person, but they were touched by the person's dilemma. Rather than do nothing, they sent out a request on Twitter to ask for donations to cover the cost. They raised enough money in a matter of days to cover the cost. I was amazed by what one person had achieved.

If they was ever an example about why we believe what we do on our San Francisco Tours, that is it. We believe that by shopping at the same kind of places they we visit on our San Francisco Food Tours, people can preserve the local artisans they have back home. Many places have the same kind of places we visit on our San Francisco Culinary Tours, the question is whether people will value them.

One person connecting with another can achieve amazing things. On our San Francisco Tours, we see that is what makes up a neighborhood. It is a series of people who decide that their local community is important. It is also realizing that the collective knowledge of people can achieve incredible things. For example, we started talking about working to preserve some open space in Sonoma County. I've previously done work in that area so I was able to pass along some ideas. Just like on San Francisco Food Tours, everyone specializes in different areas. One person on our San Francisco Culinary Tours specializes in coffee, another specializes in chocolate, another specializes in bread, and so on.

Collective knowledge can make major changes. For example, on our San Francisco Tours, we see how neighborhoods are a combination of people working toward the same goal. When the person who enlisted others to help another who needed a heart transplant, he created a neighborhood. On our San Francisco Food Tours, we see how those neighborhoods, can be a group of people who decide to think beyond their own narrow interests. As we see on our San Francisco Culinary Tours, we people working together they can achieve amazing things. Like getting someone a heart transplant.