Myspace Editor : Myspace
>>>
CricketSoda MySpace Profile Editor CricketSoda's MySpace Profile Editor Welcome to the CricketSoda MySpace Profile Editor. With our simple easy to use editor you can transform your boring, plain, unoriginal Myspace profile to fit your unique needs. All you have to do is follow the following steps, and decide just how you want your profile to look. I tried to make it as simple as possible with step by step instructions that anyone can figure out. If you have any problems, please let us know via The CricketSoda Forums here , or you can talk to the Myspace Guru at shadows.com here . CricketSoda Myspace Stuff Pre Made Layouts : Myspace Editor : Myspace F.A.Q Myspace Editor Quick -n- Easy Navigation Links Step One : Change the Colors and Style Step Two : Add Images Step Three : Add Movies Step Four : Make tons of friends You can also leave us comments! If you run into any problems with our myspace editor, please let us know so we can fix it! The CricketSoda Myspace Profile Layout Contest! : Design a Myspace Profile layout and win cash prizes. To enter all you have to do is fill out a short form and submit us your code and images. We will let people on the internet vote for the best one! You could even use our editor to create a profile, copy and paste the code and be one step closer to winning. Click here to see more details about the contest and enter! Step One : Change the Colors and Style Not everyone likes the same colors, so why not change your profile to reflect the colors you truly adore. Fill out the following form with the color information, any background image and background music you might want to add to your myspace profile, and then hit submit. It will generate code your can copy and paste into your profile. Note: having other code on your Myspace profile may have an effect on the layout of your profile. If you have problems, make sure you don't have any other style code. (pictures, videos, music; stuff like that are fine) Select your editing method: simple | advanced Background Color Pick Color or Background Image more info on page backgrounds Background Music more info on background music note: if you plan on adding a video to your MySpace, make sure they don't conflict with one another. It can turn your profile into one messy nasty noise. Table Background Pick Color Main Text Font Family Arial Arnoldboecklin Blippo Bookman Brushstroke Comic Sans Courier New Courier cursive Coronetscript fantasy Fixed Florence Gill Sans Helvetica Impact Lucida monospace Oldtown Palatino Parkavenue sans-serif serif Times Times New Roman Zapf Chancery Main Text Color Pick Color Main Text Size 8pt 10pt 12pt 14pt 16pt 18pt 20pt 36pt 72pt Main Text Style -> Bold Italic none Link Text Color Pick Color Link Text Size 8pt 10pt 12pt 14pt 16pt 18pt 20pt 36pt 72pt Link Text Style -> Bold Italic none Visited Link Color Pick Color Link Mouse Over Color Pick Color Link Mouse Over Size 8pt 10pt 12pt 14pt 16pt 18pt 20pt 36pt 72pt Link Mouse Over Style -> Bold Italic none Table Border Style Solid______________ Dashed_ _ _ _ _ Dotted.................. Table Border Color Pick Color Border Size 1 2 3 4 5 6 none (select none for no border) Take the code on the next page and paste it into your About Me or any other part of your profile. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the colors just right. Try to image painting your room, or your car or whatever. Open your MySpace in a new window so you can go back and forth from MySpace to this editor. To try the new colors all you have to do is replace the code you inserted into your profile. When you get the code, a little snippit will be included at the end that looks like this: <small>This profile was edited with <A Href='http://www.cricketsoda.com'>The CricketSoda Myspace Editor!</A></small> You can delete that if you wish, or you can support The CricketSoda Myspace Editor. Sometimes the link dosn't fit in well with a person's design. We understand. :) 2.22222222222E+236 The CricketSoda MySpace Profile Editor is brought to you by CricketSoda.com And the CricketSoda Media Team Created by Individuals of the CricketSoda Space Program and is no way affiliated with Myspace.com
Whore Train
eXile - Issue #185 - Whore-R Stories - The Coal Miner's Daughter - By Mark Ames Moscow-based alternativenewspaper Search the eXile All Issues This Issue This Author This Column | Advanced Search... Email thousands of beautiful Russian Ladies! Home | Archive | Club Guide | Restaurant Guide | Songs | Field Guide To Moscow | Political Trading Cards | About Us Browse Column (19) Previous (12) Next (6) The Coal Miner's Daughter By Mark Ames ( editor at exile ru ) Browse Author (147) Previous (101) Next (44) I went to two parties and two nightclubs over the weekend, and the whole time I don't think I talked to a single woman. Or if I did, I don't remember it. That's because I had about as much lust in me as a box of fax paper. As Sunday night wore on and I was supposed to get started on this issue, I started to feel the first little jolts of lust shocking my loins. It always happens this way when I have a lot of work to do, and I've let that work fester without treating it. So rather than write, I hooked onto www.vipdosug.ru and found myself a whore. Her name was listed as "Lara," and she appeared to have a thin, taut young body, long red hair and nice small breasts that I could cup in my hands. She claimed that she was 20 years old, though by her picture she appeared to be 18. And she charged $100 for a two hour visit. When I called and gave her my address, it was clear she was an out-of-towner. I had to explain where I live a few times. She promised to be over in an hour, but since she "lived" (to the extent that a whore lives somewhere) only two metro stops away, she was at my podezd within 40 minutes. The dezhurnaya downstairs called my home phone. "Mark! A dyevushka's here to see you!" she barked, disapprovingly as always. It's strange, you pay those old babushka a quarterly stipend to "protect" you, and all they do is make you feel self-conscious every time you order a whore delivered to your door. Where's the logic in that, I ask. When she arrived at the door, I could see why the dezhurnaya was a little more gruff than normal. My whore was accompanied by a thug who looked like something right out of a Dorozhny Patrul jail line-up: he was thick, about six feet tall, in a black leather coat, black pants, and one of those black leather ski caps with the black cloth rim, and thick flat-toed shoes. I caught it all in one glance because I've seen these "collectors" join their whores about 20% of the time, and they all look and dress alike. As per their orders, I paid the "courier," the guy whose job it was to collect the cash. I closed the door and he left. Lara didn't look a whole lot like her photo, but as I've said many times, we're talking about used cars here, folks. They always look a lot cleaner and shinier in the photo than they do in person. Lara had dyed her hair black, and that made her face seem much harsher than in the photo. The features were more chiseled and broad and square rather than soft and angled and young. Her teeth had large gaps. She wore a black t-shirt with the word "Love" written in pink and gold sparkles, and black pants laced on the calf. She entered my kitchen then stared out of the window down onto the Moscow river. "Klass," she said. "This is the nicest view of any apartment I've been to in Moscow, and I've been to a lot. Oh, I could really imagine spending time here. Yes. Just sitting here in the summer, watching the barges go up the river. That would be so nice. Yeah, I could live here." "Where are you from?" I asked. "From Ukraine," she said. Thank God for Ukraine, I thought. Some day, I'm going to have to give something back to that country for all it's given me. Buy Ukrainian Savings Bonds or something. "Where in Ukraine?" "You know Ukraine?" she asked in disbelief. "Some of it, yeah. I've been there a few times." "I'm from the Donbass region. The coal mines near Donetsk. I'm from Lugansk myself." "I know Lugansk, but I haven't been there." "There's nothing in Lugansk," she said. "It's dead. We have miners. They don't get paid. They work. They die. The state steals everything from them. But they keep working and keep dying. It's an awful place. Everything in Ukraine is awful. It's the worst governed state in the world." "Are there a lot of beautiful girls like you there?" I asked, flattering her. She wasn't beautiful, although she did have energy and that softened her hard face somewhat. "No, all the beautiful girls left Lugansk. Like me -- we're all gone!" "How did you get to Moscow?" "I took a train. See -- let me go back. I was a student. Well, I never studied. I was a bad student. I wanted to become a hair stylist, but I didn't do it. I was too wild, I couldn't sit still! I was also a sportsman. I did kickboxing until two years ago. I still know it." "Have you ever had to use kickboxing?" "For this...job?" she asked. Her face grew suddenly dour. "Yes, it's...let's say it helped me. I'd rather not remember it, okay? Do you mind if I smoke?" "Go ahead. So when did you lose your virginity?" "I was sixteen. I heard that if you waited longer, it would only hurt more and more. So I got it out of the way. I was stupid. Well, anyway I met a guy. We fell in love -- I did anyway. He said all sorts of things to me. Then I had a baby. And he went into the army. Left me. Never came back. Bastard. I'll never trust a man again. They're all traitors, you know." "So are women," I said. "Everyone's a traitor," she said, but without bitterness, in fact almost cheerfully. "They're all bastards and traitors, what can you do? So anyway, I had my child. I worked different jobs. I took a job at a carwash. That was my last big job in Lugansk. Some dyadya there, a client, told me I could do...this kind of work there. I didn't, but I came here on a train and it was easy to find this type of work. I didn't come here expecting it. I was hoping to get a job selling cosmetics, anything, but that didn't work so a girl I met told me about this agency, and well, this is what I'm doing for now. But my contract ends in a few weeks." "You have to sign a contract?" I asked. "That's how it works. Three months at a time. I've been doing it for, well, this will be four months. Then I'll quit. I send money back to my family in Lugansk." "You have family?" "I have an older sister and a younger brother. He's eleven. And my baby of course. My mother died. She died last year of cancer. It was horrible, and now we really need the money." "Your father?" I asked. It usually comes down to the father. "He's alive. He lives with a woman. He has another family." "How do you send the cash to Lugansk?" "I give cash to the train conductor here in Moscow, give him a cut, and he takes it down, and someone meets him in Lugansk and takes the cash. Otherwise it'd take forever, if I used Sberbank." "Aren't you afraid the conductor will steal the cash?" I asked. She laughed. "Hasn't happened yet. But I guess it could happen. You know, it's so nice to just talk with you. Usually I show up to a client's, and right away, he wants to...he just takes me and we have sex, then he throws me out. But with you I'm much more comfortable, just talking. I like this! What about you? Where are you from?" "California." "Oh, California! California! Why are you here? Everyone wants to get out of here and go to California!" "It's more interesting here." "Yes, ekstremalno," she said. "Extreme in Moscow. Terrorism in the metro. Terrorism at concerts. That's what you like?" "We have terrorism too, if you remember," I noted. She laughed. "Yes, I remember. The sad thing is that there's no terrorism in Ukraine. Nobody cares about Ukraine. It's not even worthy of a terror act because there's nothing anyone wants from Ukraine." She laughed and shook her head. As we talked, we drank tequila with grapefruit juice. I made hers strong, and she enjoyed each cocktail, drinking more than most whores drink. "I like three things. Fruit, cigarettes and alcohol," she told me, stealing a banana. After getting half-undressed in my kitchen, we took our act to my bedroom. She didn't shower -- I guess she was getting too drunk. But that was a shame because her vagina had that end-of-the-tour-of-duty odor to it, the butt grease odor that worn-in whores get. It spoiled an otherwise cheerful night. Her breasts were small and not too squishy. Her ass was also small, and though squishy, it fit into my hand. She rolled some kind of super-small, ridiculous Soviet condom onto my unit and started to blow me, but we had to take the thing off and put on a Durex. I was kind of hoping I'd get a condomless blowjob, but I wasn't forceful with her. I'd enjoyed her company, and the power I had over her time with me, too much to spoil it with a change in the tempo. She wanted to fuck. "I can't wait," she said. She rolled onto her back, but I pulled her on top of me and told her to sit on me. Her vagina was wet and tight enough that I didn't feel like I was getting the old "hot dog in a hallway" snapper that every john dreads. She didn't need to lube with a whore swipe. Lara was really enjoying herself on top of me, or at least faking pretty convincingly that she was. Her pleasure was rooted in believing that I was interested in her stories about herself, which I was, slightly. I was trying to feel some kind of genuine interest or make some connection, or trying to feel like I should try to make a connection, but it was all fake and all internalized -- trying to conjure up genuine interest in Lara's story was contrived in a ridiculous way, like faking my own orgasm while masturbating. My aunt once said to me, while pointing to her baby grandson, "They're nothing to me until they're at least four or five years old." That's sort of how I feel about humans: they're nothing to me until I've clocked so many hours with them, a lot of hours, hours usually spaced over a matter of years. Lara pulled me on top of her and pulled her legs back. I felt like I was going to cum too quickly and I didn't want to, so I slowed it up. "Come on!" she said. "I want it. Let's go, come on!" I started to go, but all the lust that had been missing suddenly caught up with me. So I rolled over again and pulled her on top of me. This time she wouldn't wait. She started to piston-fuck me, so I figured the hell with it, I was paying, who am I trying to impress? I grabbed her small ass and used it like a giant block of sandpaper to sand down my whole pelvic region. Suddenly I exploded, and she made sounds as if she did too. I don't know -- of all the ego things, getting a whore off is just not something that makes me feel like more of a man. I'm not sure how much she faked it, both for my sake and for hers, but when she fell on top of me her heart was beating as hard and fast as a mongoose's. But the best part of our evening was to come when she rolled onto her back. After a few deep breaths she asked me what time it was. Already after two in the morning. "Oh. It's already time for me to go," she said. "I should get ready to leave." She wrote down her phone number, but as soon as she handed it to me I knew I wouldn't call her. She deserves at least a pozdravlenie on Women's Day. But I know I won't do it. Which makes me just another traitor in her life. Issue In #185 04 Mar 04 (1 year, 10 months old) Also in this Issue The Ugly Truth Feature Story byMarkAmes Moscow's girls have become uglier, and are getting increasingly ugly every year. If Moscow is no longer a haven of lust, then what is the point of living here?... In Brief In Brief US-German Thaw... Forbes List of Whores... Fradkov Mania!... Bonner for Putin?... GULAGs Re-Open, Western Investors Cheer... Viva la Resistance! byJakeRudnitsky Welcome to Warsaw, hub of the exiled Belarusian opposition movement. All twenty of 'em... Democratic Putin Voltaire de Putin (French, 18th c.)... H. Puttin Thoreau (American, 19th c.)... Putinbo Lumumba (Africa, 20th c.)... Vladimir Lincoln (American,n 19th c.)... Ksenia + Denis Club Review byDenisSalnikov By the time you read this you probably know the big news in Russia from the past week. Everyone's talking about it... A Decadent Spring Dyev's Diary byLyolyaAndrosova Spring is a marvellous season for sexually obsessed people. Really, what can be a better start for spring, than a passionate sex?... Outsourcing Thomas Friedman byTamishPhreedman Globalization is here to stay. And that's a good thing not only for Wall Street, but for Main Street too... Bardak Calendar Bardak Calendar All For Ladies. Tseppelin... Loire Culinary Festival. Panorama... Fun Loving Criminals. Tinkov Brewery... Lidia Lunch. B2... DJs Layo & Bushwacka. The Warehouse... The Monster Mash Kino Korner byMarkAmes There is a new trend I'm noticing in Hollywood - the fake independent film, the gentrification of indy movies... Haiti 2: the Rerun War Nerd byGaryBrecher Haitian history just won't stop happening. Between that last column and this one, president was booted out... Comrade Terminator Book Review byJohnDolan "Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century" by Stan Goff... SIC! SIC! HOLOCAUSTIC... MOTHER TUCKER... THE IDIOT... WHORE-SICA... HARDY-HAR-HARBIN... THE CONSULTANT CURSE... Death Porn Death Porn FILL HIM UP... DON'T BE A BABY... QUEER WAY TO GO... THE MOTHER-IN-LAW... Disappointments Yuri Balabin, 24... Natalya Lukina, 31... Timur Aliyev, 18... Irina Godunova, 22... Alexei Vidolov, 28... Mandela Porn Mandela Porn byNatashaMarchetti In Malvern, an 83-year old woman went to investigate the noises in her kitchen and was raped for her efforts... Drilled-Down Veggies Restaurant Review byPeterArenseberg Avocado is a quiet and dignified place, tucked into a huge Stalinesque block near Chistiy Prudiy Metro station... Set Font This feature requires JavaScript. Other Formats Printer-friendly Plain Text Email Article Email address(es): Note: Affiliate Links By buying from these merchants, you help to support and enhance our online presence. 200 beautiful RussianBrides a week! Photo galleries, personal profiles, introduction services. Travel to Russia Visa support, hotels, train tickets, tours and cruises. See your message here! Write to web_adv at exile ru Interested in advertising? Write to the_exile at mail ru "the eXile". Tel: +7 (095) 795-3376 , fax: +7 (095) 245-1415 E-mail: office at exile ru (website-related issues: webperson at exile ru )
Whore Train
Confessions of a Restaurant Whore: My One True Love (Delfina -- San Francisco, CA and Da Delfina -- Artimino, Italy) BlogThis! CONFESSIONS OF A RESTAURANT WHORE A San Francisco Girl's Down and Dirty Adventures in the Culinary Playground Confessions of a Restaurant Whore A San Francisco Girl's Down and Dirty Adventures in the Culinary Playground -- Show a whore some lovin'. Email Me Where can I eat, bitch? Restaurant Whore's Dining Guide What I Said Before Zu(ni) Story (Zuni Cafe -- San Francisco, CA) Good Night Moon (Luna Park and The Last Supper Club -- San Francisco, CA) Highway to Heaven (A16 -- San Francisco, CA) The Way We Were I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream (Mitchell's Ice Cream -- San Francisco, CA) Amber-ific (Amber India -- Mountain View, CA) Restaurant Behavior 101 Dim YUM (Ton Kiang -- San Francisco, CA) Just for ME (Mabel's Just For You Cafe -- San Francisco, CA) Slow and Steady (Slow Club -- San Francisco, CA) Food Bloggers I Like Becks and Posh Burrito Eater Chocolate and Zucchini Epicurean Debauchery Food Blog S'cool Food Musings Gastronomie KQED Food Blog San Francisco Gourmet Spicetart Sweetnicks The Food Whore You Gonna Eat That? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License . -- Tuesday, December 07, 2004 My One True Love (Delfina -- San Francisco, CA and Da Delfina -- Artimino, Italy) Ribollita. The food of the Gods. OK, not really. It's actually peasant food. But it is DAMN good. Ribollita is Tuscan bread soup filled with cannelini beans, cavelo nero (a kale-like green), bread and yummy yum yums (that's a technical term). Then, it's stuck in a fridge to get all congeal-y and then it's FRIED. Fried soup. It's like a little blanket for your insides. It rocks. The first place Jon and I ever had ribollita was at Delfina . Delfina opened about 3 months after we, ourselves, moved to San Francisco. We made the pilgrimage from our shithole apartment about a week after they opened. As it was only 3 and a half blocks away, it wasn't a huge commitment. Or so we thought. From the moment we stepped in, we were in love. At the time, it was about a third the size it is now (if that). They described ribollita for us, and we figured eh, what the hell, how bad can it be? Well, I sure as hell may be a restaurant whore, but at that moment, I was ready to kiss my whorin' days goodbye and settle down. I love Delfina so much that it gets me all choked up just thinking about it. This is going to be a gushy post, so if that's going to wig you out, either suck it up or stop reading. Because I loooooooove them. It's taken me a long time to get to this post because I knew it would be a biggie. So settle in and get ready...here goes: The food. Ribollita yes. Simple-as-pie-but-delicious-as-hell spaghetti with plum tomatoes. For that matter, any pasta at all. The soups. Oh, dear God, the incredible soups (chickpea, Jerusalem artichoke, pappa al pomodoro, etc.). They just blow your mind. Grilled calamari and white bean salad where the beans are as good as those we had at French Laundry. The insalata del campo with everything good in the world in it. The panna cotta, the profiteroles, the crostatas....Oh, fuck it. It's all amazing. It's everything you hope, wish and dream for in your deepest fantasies. And special occasions bring special food, like the Bucatini with lobster and rice pudding with truffles that we eat each New Year's Eve. Craig and Annie Stoll. The owners. These people are the best people you could know. I have never, ever seen people so devoted to their business, their staff, their customers. They are so loyal. They will bend over backwards for their regulars. They take such good care of us, it makes me feel guilty. Here's the thing about Craig and Annie. They hire staff as devoted to their customers as they, themselves are. The staff are so amazing at their jobs, and so kind and wonderful (gush, gush, gush). I love them. I mean that. I LOVE THEM. And they treat us like friends instead of paychecks when we come in. LOVE THEM. We have been to Delfina during our highest ups and our lowest downs. Some examples: Losing a job, getting a new one, grieving a death, entertaining guests, celebrating birthdays, buying a home, moving, losing a friend, reconnecting with each other after hectic weeks apart, the aforementioned New Year's celebrations. And then there are the big ones. Such as September 11, 2001 when our families were on the east coast and we were lost. We wandered into Delfina and they told us they didn't know what to do but stay open and we told them that we didn't know what to do but turn off the TV and start walking in their direction. And the time when we packed up that same shithole apartment, to move to our beautiful new home. It was a happy thing that we were moving, but six years of our lives had been spent in that apartment during which time we had gone from dating to married, purchased a cat (hooray for Charlie!), gained and lost friends. It was a huge chunk of our lives. So when we shut the door for the last time, we felt strangely sad. And we walked straight to Delfina. After all, we'd now be 7 blocks away instead of 3 and a half. And they took care of us, as always. It's nights like those that made us come up with the code word "home" when referring to Delfina. As in "Where would you like to go for your birthday?" "Home." It is where we go when we want and/or need to share something important in our lives. Delfina is the restaurant we'd choose if we had to eat at only one place for the rest of our lives. So it is only fitting that when we were in Italy last September, we made a pilgrimage to Da Delfina in Tuscany, where Craig had studied. We arrived in Florence with Jon's super wonderful but disorganized family (5 of us total) and wandered the streets with a shitload of luggage trying to find our hotel. Yes, Florence has cabs. But why take one when you can avoid making a decision and blindly stumble around like jackasses? Anyway, we found our hotel, threw our stuff in the door and made our way back out to the train station (We did this alone, we would be meeting Jon's family in Siena in the evening. Delfina is so personal to us that we felt we needed to go alone). We took a train to the town of Signa (one stop away, but there are only a few trains a day that go there). Once in Signa, we thought we'd take a cab to Artimino. Nice try. No cabs at the station. So we go into a ghetto hotel and ask them to call us one. We feel bad, so Jon goes to the bar and orders a shot of tequila for their troubles. Nice. So our "cab" arrives. It's a minivan with an older dude inside. As we wind through the hills, he describes everything we're seeing. In Italian. But it's so beautiful, and he's so good natured, that we don't care. And then we get there. There she is in all her glory. Da Delfina. And when I say that, I mean the restaurant and Delfina herself, sitting in the foyer. Delfina is in her 90's and she is beautiful. Carlo, the owner, looks at the young Americans like "What the hell are you here for?" But he seats us anyway. At a table overlooking the Tuscan countryside. We spent the whole meal with tears streaming down our faces. We felt like we had returned to the mothership. We order everything. I order the Tuscan bread soup (ribollita, before it becomes ribollita, if you follow...Carlo was very concerned that I knew this). And in everything we ate, we saw our own Delfina's roots. Jon's guinea hen was a clear ancestor of Craig's chicken, the chicken liver crostini was almost identical, etc. We each had an appetizer, a primi, a secondi. Plus wine. A lot of wine. By the time we got to secondi, I thought I was going to hurl. It was so amazing but it was also a shitload of food. When I let the last third of my salt cod go, Carlo asked me about four thousand times if it was OK. Damn, people, I just can't eat that much food! Nevertheless, they talked us into ordering dessert. Very Tuscan, very good, but again, on the verge of hurling. In between, we received vin santo and some Sangiovese grapes grown by the older Americans at the table behind us. Well it turns out the guy growing the grapes was a trustee at the college Jon and I went to. And he and his wife ended up inviting us to their Tuscan villa. But alas, we needed to meet Jon's family and only had 2 short days left in Italy. Damn. But how fucking cool is that? By the time we left, Carlo was hugging us and we were giving him some of the fake tattoos from the SF Delfina. And when our nice man in the minivan came to take us back to the train station, we were grateful for the meal of a lifetime (at only $110 euro, no less). When there are places in the world like Delfina and Da Delfina, why settle for anything less, ever? xoxo Joy "To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art." --La Rochefoucauld posted by Joy @ 7:44 AM 2 Comments: Gayle And Don said... This is the most passionate review I have ever read in my life. It almost brought me to tears. Thank god I stumbled across your blog. My girlfriend and I are heading for San Fran for a quickie getaway and I was looking for a place to take her. We are staying at the Westin by chance and I found your review of Michael Mina's very amusing. I love people who are not afraid to speak the truth. And, as some of your readers have shown, some people just can't handle the truth. Thanks again for your candid reviews, and I hope we have a chance to get to Delfina this weekend. Who knows, maybe we will see you there. Don 7/29/2005 7:11 PM art said... Loved your story about Da Delfina. Delfina SF was also the favorite restaurant of my wife and I when we lived there. So much that we pretty much organized our whole Florence trip around Da Delfina (I'm sure we had the same van driver). I am a chef in Chicago and I think back to the two years that I spent in San Francisco having the opportunity to work at Delfina. I had an interview with Craig Stoll and ended up working somewhere else. I kick myself all the time! I loved the part of your story where you said Carlo looked at you like "what the hell are you doing here?" We made the mistake of showing up a little bit early and I thought he was going to whale on my ass! So we killed time by having a drink in the little cantina where three chain smoking locals coughed and watched soap operas full blast on the t.v. Ah well, your story brought back great memories and I think your website is great too. 7/30/2005 8:24 PM Post a Comment
Myspace Graphic Help Myspace
Myspace Graphic Help MyspaceGraphicHelp.com myspace,layouts,music codes,video codes,html tutorial,html,graphics, codes, free, contact tables, resources,design,help, icons Menu - Animations 1 - Animations 2 - Animations 3 - Animations 4 - Animations 5 - Animations 6 - Animations 7 - Glitter 1 - Glitter 2 - Glitter 3 - Glitter 4 - Glitter 5 - Alcohol & Drugs - Animated - Brands - Cars - Colors - Evil & Dark - Girly - Movies & TV - Musicians - Sexy - Space - Sports - Video Games - Other - Banners 1 - Banners 2 - Banners 3 - Banners 4 - Banners 5 - Banners 6 - Online Now 1 - Online Now 2 - Image Scroller - Glowing Text - Text Boxes - Scrolling Friends - Center All Text - Page Border - Flip Page - Hide Friends Add Me To Your Friends Myspace Graphic Help Myspace Graphic Help offers more graphics than any other website. And we also have large amounts of html and webdesign help. Alcohol/Drugs - Brands - Cars - Colors - Evil/Dark - Girly - Moving Movies/T.V. - Musicians - Sexy - Space - Sports - VideoGames - Other Thanks to Carrie, Wbsurfer13, Haole Boy, Skuller12, ndfreak718, Josh, Wefrox, Rob, JackntheBox, Wh0Kid, xcarnag3x, MrNiceGuy, DeadStrokeX and Kay for making certain tables. If i missed you send me an email. Link Exchanges Make Money Myspace Glitters Funny Pictures Myspace Celebs MyGen Myspace Tweaks D's Myspace Html My Cute Space Myspace Games Free Layouts Myspace Pictures Myspace Codes Myspace Pranks Video Code Lab Pimp My Com Stuff All Free Music Video Codes More Links Your Ad Here 2005 Myspace Graphic Help All images are for myspace use only. Contact Me
Whore Train
Confessions of a Restaurant Whore: My One True Love (Delfina -- San Francisco, CA and Da Delfina -- Artimino, Italy) BlogThis! CONFESSIONS OF A RESTAURANT WHORE A San Francisco Girl's Down and Dirty Adventures in the Culinary Playground Confessions of a Restaurant Whore A San Francisco Girl's Down and Dirty Adventures in the Culinary Playground -- Show a whore some lovin'. Email Me Where can I eat, bitch? Restaurant Whore's Dining Guide What I Said Before Zu(ni) Story (Zuni Cafe -- San Francisco, CA) Good Night Moon (Luna Park and The Last Supper Club -- San Francisco, CA) Highway to Heaven (A16 -- San Francisco, CA) The Way We Were I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream (Mitchell's Ice Cream -- San Francisco, CA) Amber-ific (Amber India -- Mountain View, CA) Restaurant Behavior 101 Dim YUM (Ton Kiang -- San Francisco, CA) Just for ME (Mabel's Just For You Cafe -- San Francisco, CA) Slow and Steady (Slow Club -- San Francisco, CA) Food Bloggers I Like Becks and Posh Burrito Eater Chocolate and Zucchini Epicurean Debauchery Food Blog S'cool Food Musings Gastronomie KQED Food Blog San Francisco Gourmet Spicetart Sweetnicks The Food Whore You Gonna Eat That? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License . -- Tuesday, December 07, 2004 My One True Love (Delfina -- San Francisco, CA and Da Delfina -- Artimino, Italy) Ribollita. The food of the Gods. OK, not really. It's actually peasant food. But it is DAMN good. Ribollita is Tuscan bread soup filled with cannelini beans, cavelo nero (a kale-like green), bread and yummy yum yums (that's a technical term). Then, it's stuck in a fridge to get all congeal-y and then it's FRIED. Fried soup. It's like a little blanket for your insides. It rocks. The first place Jon and I ever had ribollita was at Delfina . Delfina opened about 3 months after we, ourselves, moved to San Francisco. We made the pilgrimage from our shithole apartment about a week after they opened. As it was only 3 and a half blocks away, it wasn't a huge commitment. Or so we thought. From the moment we stepped in, we were in love. At the time, it was about a third the size it is now (if that). They described ribollita for us, and we figured eh, what the hell, how bad can it be? Well, I sure as hell may be a restaurant whore, but at that moment, I was ready to kiss my whorin' days goodbye and settle down. I love Delfina so much that it gets me all choked up just thinking about it. This is going to be a gushy post, so if that's going to wig you out, either suck it up or stop reading. Because I loooooooove them. It's taken me a long time to get to this post because I knew it would be a biggie. So settle in and get ready...here goes: The food. Ribollita yes. Simple-as-pie-but-delicious-as-hell spaghetti with plum tomatoes. For that matter, any pasta at all. The soups. Oh, dear God, the incredible soups (chickpea, Jerusalem artichoke, pappa al pomodoro, etc.). They just blow your mind. Grilled calamari and white bean salad where the beans are as good as those we had at French Laundry. The insalata del campo with everything good in the world in it. The panna cotta, the profiteroles, the crostatas....Oh, fuck it. It's all amazing. It's everything you hope, wish and dream for in your deepest fantasies. And special occasions bring special food, like the Bucatini with lobster and rice pudding with truffles that we eat each New Year's Eve. Craig and Annie Stoll. The owners. These people are the best people you could know. I have never, ever seen people so devoted to their business, their staff, their customers. They are so loyal. They will bend over backwards for their regulars. They take such good care of us, it makes me feel guilty. Here's the thing about Craig and Annie. They hire staff as devoted to their customers as they, themselves are. The staff are so amazing at their jobs, and so kind and wonderful (gush, gush, gush). I love them. I mean that. I LOVE THEM. And they treat us like friends instead of paychecks when we come in. LOVE THEM. We have been to Delfina during our highest ups and our lowest downs. Some examples: Losing a job, getting a new one, grieving a death, entertaining guests, celebrating birthdays, buying a home, moving, losing a friend, reconnecting with each other after hectic weeks apart, the aforementioned New Year's celebrations. And then there are the big ones. Such as September 11, 2001 when our families were on the east coast and we were lost. We wandered into Delfina and they told us they didn't know what to do but stay open and we told them that we didn't know what to do but turn off the TV and start walking in their direction. And the time when we packed up that same shithole apartment, to move to our beautiful new home. It was a happy thing that we were moving, but six years of our lives had been spent in that apartment during which time we had gone from dating to married, purchased a cat (hooray for Charlie!), gained and lost friends. It was a huge chunk of our lives. So when we shut the door for the last time, we felt strangely sad. And we walked straight to Delfina. After all, we'd now be 7 blocks away instead of 3 and a half. And they took care of us, as always. It's nights like those that made us come up with the code word "home" when referring to Delfina. As in "Where would you like to go for your birthday?" "Home." It is where we go when we want and/or need to share something important in our lives. Delfina is the restaurant we'd choose if we had to eat at only one place for the rest of our lives. So it is only fitting that when we were in Italy last September, we made a pilgrimage to Da Delfina in Tuscany, where Craig had studied. We arrived in Florence with Jon's super wonderful but disorganized family (5 of us total) and wandered the streets with a shitload of luggage trying to find our hotel. Yes, Florence has cabs. But why take one when you can avoid making a decision and blindly stumble around like jackasses? Anyway, we found our hotel, threw our stuff in the door and made our way back out to the train station (We did this alone, we would be meeting Jon's family in Siena in the evening. Delfina is so personal to us that we felt we needed to go alone). We took a train to the town of Signa (one stop away, but there are only a few trains a day that go there). Once in Signa, we thought we'd take a cab to Artimino. Nice try. No cabs at the station. So we go into a ghetto hotel and ask them to call us one. We feel bad, so Jon goes to the bar and orders a shot of tequila for their troubles. Nice. So our "cab" arrives. It's a minivan with an older dude inside. As we wind through the hills, he describes everything we're seeing. In Italian. But it's so beautiful, and he's so good natured, that we don't care. And then we get there. There she is in all her glory. Da Delfina. And when I say that, I mean the restaurant and Delfina herself, sitting in the foyer. Delfina is in her 90's and she is beautiful. Carlo, the owner, looks at the young Americans like "What the hell are you here for?" But he seats us anyway. At a table overlooking the Tuscan countryside. We spent the whole meal with tears streaming down our faces. We felt like we had returned to the mothership. We order everything. I order the Tuscan bread soup (ribollita, before it becomes ribollita, if you follow...Carlo was very concerned that I knew this). And in everything we ate, we saw our own Delfina's roots. Jon's guinea hen was a clear ancestor of Craig's chicken, the chicken liver crostini was almost identical, etc. We each had an appetizer, a primi, a secondi. Plus wine. A lot of wine. By the time we got to secondi, I thought I was going to hurl. It was so amazing but it was also a shitload of food. When I let the last third of my salt cod go, Carlo asked me about four thousand times if it was OK. Damn, people, I just can't eat that much food! Nevertheless, they talked us into ordering dessert. Very Tuscan, very good, but again, on the verge of hurling. In between, we received vin santo and some Sangiovese grapes grown by the older Americans at the table behind us. Well it turns out the guy growing the grapes was a trustee at the college Jon and I went to. And he and his wife ended up inviting us to their Tuscan villa. But alas, we needed to meet Jon's family and only had 2 short days left in Italy. Damn. But how fucking cool is that? By the time we left, Carlo was hugging us and we were giving him some of the fake tattoos from the SF Delfina. And when our nice man in the minivan came to take us back to the train station, we were grateful for the meal of a lifetime (at only $110 euro, no less). When there are places in the world like Delfina and Da Delfina, why settle for anything less, ever? xoxo Joy "To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art." --La Rochefoucauld posted by Joy @ 7:44 AM 2 Comments: Gayle And Don said... This is the most passionate review I have ever read in my life. It almost brought me to tears. Thank god I stumbled across your blog. My girlfriend and I are heading for San Fran for a quickie getaway and I was looking for a place to take her. We are staying at the Westin by chance and I found your review of Michael Mina's very amusing. I love people who are not afraid to speak the truth. And, as some of your readers have shown, some people just can't handle the truth. Thanks again for your candid reviews, and I hope we have a chance to get to Delfina this weekend. Who knows, maybe we will see you there. Don 7/29/2005 7:11 PM art said... Loved your story about Da Delfina. Delfina SF was also the favorite restaurant of my wife and I when we lived there. So much that we pretty much organized our whole Florence trip around Da Delfina (I'm sure we had the same van driver). I am a chef in Chicago and I think back to the two years that I spent in San Francisco having the opportunity to work at Delfina. I had an interview with Craig Stoll and ended up working somewhere else. I kick myself all the time! I loved the part of your story where you said Carlo looked at you like "what the hell are you doing here?" We made the mistake of showing up a little bit early and I thought he was going to whale on my ass! So we killed time by having a drink in the little cantina where three chain smoking locals coughed and watched soap operas full blast on the t.v. Ah well, your story brought back great memories and I think your website is great too. 7/30/2005 8:24 PM Post a Comment