A Premium Cable Car Ride
Could that dank anonymous-looking basement be the factory? Sure enough, past the cluttered boxes of sugar and flour, three women wrapped disks of warm, still-soft cookie around slips of paper. The cheery owner of the 43-year-old factory, Franklin Yee, handed out a free sample. "Make you strong. Makes you long life," he said. "Schoolchildren eat my cookies, get smart!"
I took a couple of bags ($3 apiece) on the chance he might be right and headed back to the cable car. The next car (they come by every 10 minutes or so) trundled up Nob Hill. The glory of the robber barons, who got rich off the ore mined and railroad built by workers like the Chinese, was short lived. San Francisco's 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed many 19th-century mansions.
Lofty lobby. But one surviving example crowns Nob Hill. The Fairmont Hotel was built by the daughters of silver magnate James Fair. After being gutted in the 1906 fire, the lobby was restored to its original gold and marble elegance. It has long been the place for important events. The first charter for the United Nations was drafted here in 1945. And it was in the Venetian Room that Tony Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."
The Venetian Room is now reserved for private parties. But anybody with a hungering for a 360-degree panorama and a thirst for history can walk across the street to the Mark Hopkins hotel, take the elevator to the Top of the Mark, and watch the fog roll in past the Golden Gate Bridge while sipping a martini, another San Francisco culinary invention.
I opted to jump on a cable car heading back toward the bay. Gripman Scott, who has placed second in several bell-ringing competitions, clanged musically at the Dirty Harry-like drivers recklessly trying to squeeze past. It was a short two-block stroll from the terminus to the renovated Ferry Building, where local chefs and organic farmers sell San Francisco specialties such as Teleme cheese and sourdough baguettes. The gold prospectors who set off this city's first boom in 1849 discovered that if they left a batter of flour and water out, a native yeast would start to ferment. Knead a bit of that "starter" into some bread dough, and you get a uniquely delicious loaf of bread that is crusty on the outside and soft, moist, and tangy on the inside. I sat on one of the benches overlooking the city's "other" bridge--the silvery Bay Bridge--and watched the boats plow through the swells while enjoying a little fresh bread and cheese. Now that's a real San Francisco treat.
LOCAL FAVE
"I'm a painter. I like to paint the Palace of Fine Arts. I like that classical building and the swans. There are so many views, of the Golden Gate Bridge, of the sailboats. It is just great. When the fog comes in, it is glorious."
Tony Bennett, whose signature song is "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
advertisement
