Marglin on Taste

“If music be the food of love, play on;/ Give me excess of it”
[Shakespeare, Twelfth Night]

Musical “taste” and actual sensory taste are two quite different beasts. Taste and smell are, literally and figuratively, acquired tastes. Think about it: when you are young, you have not tasted much, you do not want to taste very much, and learning to taste can be quite unpleasant. I, for one, never really got the hang of eating cheese (although I am lactose indifferent, not intolerant). Musical taste, however, is something we seem to lose over time: we like what we know, and we leave it to the younger folks to listen to new music. When I reach for music, it’s usually something I am familiar with, not something new, and I consider myself to be in the music business (at least, peripherally).

We literally acquire taste: and good tastes usually don’t come cheap. Expensive restaurant, fresh ingredients, fine wine, all need to be acquired. And if interested, we find ways to expose ourselves to new taste sensations. We literally learn new tastes.

Younger folks, they want to discover new music. They live to discover what is new, and to be on the edge. And one place where it’s easy to discover a whole lot of new music at once is at one of the several mega-music festivals like Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, and Coachella, all of which offer fans the opportunity to hear literally dozens of (new) bands over the course of several days. Here’s an analogy: music festivals are to single-venue concerts as buffets are to sit-down dinners. At a festival, you get “excess of it” (if you want it), and that allows you to learn and experience the thrill of bands and artists on the rise. Cutting edge music is a young person’s birthright in the US. And, when you go to one of the big festivals, you either feel young again, or very, very old.

All those new, up-and-coming bands don’t really draw the ticket-buyers, so festivals have learned how to mix the ingredients of old and new. And the bands that draw, they know what they are worth, and they don’t really “need” the festival (though I think they often genuinely love the exposure), so, they cost real guaranteed money to play. In a way, the less-known bands (who get paid less) get to ride on the coat tails of their more established peers. But in some ways, of course, it’s the other way around: the more famous acts drawing some modicum of cache from all the hips bands, and the fans who are there for them.

The most costly music festival for the promoters (but certainly NOT for the ticket-buying patrons) in the US these days may well be Chicago’s Lollapalooza. Note the possessive. Chicago’s. While Lollapalooza, the brain-love-heart child of Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction, Satellite Party), was once a touring concert, with a handful of acts on the bill, it is now more-or-less permanently ensconced in Chicago’s Grant Park. Grant Park is Chicago’s “front lawn”, right on the lake front, with Windy City’s diverse and impressive skyline pressing up against it.

I say “more-or-less permanently” to describe Lollapalooza’s “Chicago-ness” only because a large part of the appeal of rock music lies in the perpetual impression it seeks to cultivate of impermanence. While lasting can be a positive for rock and independent bands, in general, the younger crowd wants it meat fresh. And while “Lolla” bridges and harbors many kinds of music (and musical tastes), it is, and will likely continue to be, first and foremost about rock, especially the independent, buck-the-system kind. Nabokov would’ve been proud.

Lately it seems there is a major music festival happening somewhere in the States almost every weekend during the summer (and I am talking here only about contemporary music festivals like rock, punk, folk and “indie”, as opposed to classical music, or even, at this point, jazz, which while vibrant as an art form, now has a whiff of the historical about it).

Some fans may be getting “festivaled out.” But Lollapalooza, despite having relinquished its itinerant past, continues to be about what’s hip and happening now in music. It’s the epitome of the au courant, as those chic French might say. Even Bonnaroo, founded as the leading festival for so-called “jam” bands, with anchor tenants like Widespread Panic, Phil Lesh and the Dead, and Trey Anastasio in whatever water-out-of-Phish incarnation he finds himself flowing through, has become fringier and far less jam-band oriented. It has been “forced” to update its line-up by becoming more progressive and less “classic”.

Indeed, most music festivals have recognized that their current and future success (and these are franchises that are being built, make no mistake) is and must be built on the hard foundation of the “kids”, which means featuring music that is most of the now…

And “now” ain’t cheap. And it ain’t easy to program (kids being fickle, and their tastes changing as fast and as furiously as they are wont to). And then, of course, it’s one thing to do a festival on a farm or desert in the middle of nowhere (or in your own backyard): Chicago, being a big union city, can be, ahem, somewhat spendy. Pleasing the kids ain’t easy.

While Bonnaroo may have the highest attendance (reportedly topping off at about 85,000 or so in 2006) of any music festival in the US, it can’t cost nearly as much as Lolla does to put on. And Bonnaroo, you’ve got the camping, which winds up being profitable, with that captive audience there day and night, needing beer and pizza and whatever else the kids consume. Lolla has curfews, it has hotels, it has convenience stores up the street. It lost big money in its inaugural Chicago try last year. But this year, well: Lolla did well.

Let’s begin at the end. As host Perry Farrell (the founder of the whole Lollapalooza concept) said in his introduction, the closing act on the main (ATT&T) stage, Red Hot Chili Peppers, are America’s biggest rock band right now. And they were on the bill many years ago at the second Lollapalooza, back in 1992. The first Lolla, somewhat ironically, but fittingly, had been conceived of as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction; Perry would probably confirm he thought that that band of his was getting rather old, a smidge long in the tooth, even then. So them Peppers were solid ‘06 headliners, regardless of whether you like their music or not. They bring the cache. Look for other bands from that year’s line-up to headline Lolla in the coming years….

The Chili Peppers set was smattered with covers, including snippets of Neil Young’s The Needle and the Damage Done and London Calling by The Clash. They looked like major rock stars, Flea with his tattoos, Anthony Kiedis with his needy, needly voice, and they have taken enough time off that you don’t realize they’re halfway through their third decade. And a highlight for me was hearing John Frusciante, one of the best living rock guitarists, play a spot-on cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her. He may be the most important member of the band (not that Dave Navarro wasn’t great during JF’s six-year hiatus, but Frusciante adds a certain frisson). And I don’t want to say I was disappointed, because I didn’t really have any expectations. But, I highly doubt they will be headlining too many festivals for the CSE/Cap guys again, based on the uniformity of luke-warm reaction they received. The Chili Peppers, to my ears, were totally eclipsed (& out-hotted) by two decidedly smaller acts immediately preceding.

On the Q101 stage immediately across from where the Chili Peppers did their triumphal closing (and to be fair, the Peppers’ve come a long way since 1983, baby), Canada’s own super-group, Broken Social Scene, absolutely shredded during their 45-minute set (short, but they were literally right before RHCP). It’s hard to describe the Social Scene’s sound (although I would liken it to a darker and more complex Polyphonic Spree, without, of course, the “Spree”…). BSS has a deeply loyal Canadian following, and anyone who was lucky enough to catch those 45 minutes was likely to have been blown away by their sound (and by them””they are some catchy folks, with like 20 people on the stage at one point making their music). And while it was over all-too-quickly, it felt like the sound of the present effortlessly blended with both the past and the future. And Jeffrey Remedios, co-owner of Ontario’s Arts and Crafts Records, which houses BSS, Feist, Stars, Jason Collett and the Apostle of Hustle, has definitely got to be a leading contender to inherit the 21st-century David Geffen mantle. The crowd seemed almost ready to riot (in a Canadian kind of way) when the BSS were denied a brief, 5-minute encore. Harsh.

Definitely read this compelling article about Broken Social Scene and the new Canadian sound from the Sunday Times Magazine by a former “student” of mine at Brown, Alissa Quart (I was her TA in a literature course). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/magazine/26toronto.html

Across Grant Park, on the other end, far, far away (almost a mile) from the field where BSS and Chili Peppers closed the festival, were local heroes Wilco, on from 6.30-7.30. On the day of lead singer Jeff Tweedy’s 11th wedding anniversary, it was a full-on family affair: a celebration of Chicago’s modern sound. The Chili Peppers have California (and the hit, Dani California), and Broken Social Scene’s got Canada covered. But Wilco is all about the country that might be called the Great Midwest””of which, of course, Chicago is the capital, and Lake Michigan provides the “Coast”. Wilco is Chicago, and the Chicago faithful greeted them as their very own headliners: hail conquering heroes.

Sunday had a whole lot of good music. I enjoyed Chicago’s up-and-coming The Redwalls with my first cup of coffee, and both Ben Kweller and Nickel Creek did arresting sets (at opposite ends of the venue, meaning I only got to hear a few minutes of each). These are both fresh young bands, just making it, and about to make it even bigger. On a small side-stage (the AMD, and I don’t even know what company that is), the eclectic Benevento-Russo Duo, who’ve been around for a while, soared with their jazz-ish, improvised sound; they are together and individually gaining quite a bit of notoriety based on their numerous “side projects” (with members of Phish, and Ween, and Umphrey’s McGee, etc.). To the extent that in some ways, one could argue that the Duo itself has become their “side project”. I also got to hear a few moments of alt-alt legends Poi Dog Pondering (whose lead singer, Frank Orral, has been moonlighting, leading Thievery Corporation’s band on its current tour). And Perry Farrell’s latest Satellite Party song, Celebration (does everyone have a song with that name these days?). I am not sure if I caught any cover’s of Gnarls Barkley’s summer blockbuster Crazy, but I know I heard at least 3 different versions of it over the course of the weekend, not including Gnarls Barkley’s own version, with its band and dancers in full tennis whites.

Bands I would have like to have seen but didn’t: deadboy & the Elephantmen, who opened the festival at quarter to noon on Friday. The Subways, who killed at SXSW. The afore-mentioned Stars, of Quebec. And the up-and-coming Editors (who played opposite them). Umphrey’s McGee, Secret Machines and Jack White’s new side gig, the Raconteurs. Sleater-Kinney, on what may be their last tour ever, as they go on indefinite hiatus this month. Odies the Violent Femmes (opposite them). And, of course, the post post-modern Ween. One thing about Ween: you can never tell how much of their music is parody, and how much is just appreciation. But, they always seem fucking sincere to me.

Saturday I got to the Park too late for Feist, and barely caught hard rock fury that is Wolf Mother (for which I missed the newly re-vamped Partcile and Lyrics Born). I was awed by the loyalty of the Dresden Dolls fans (from my hometown of Boston””the duo reminds me of Morphine on steroids, but without, as yet, the finesse); we got a treat when Amanda’s shirt came off, and we got to see her breasts, which are real, and like Sidra’s on Seinfeld, quite spectacular). She took it in stride and simply quipped, “wardrobe malfunction.” And the ubiquitous Flaming Lips did their colorful show (sans strip-tease, but then, you can’t fake that). But the highlight of the night for me was watching Manu Chao blow Kanye West all the way back to Soldier Field. Kanye’s sound sucked ass, and it was pretty clear he knew it. And I know, Kanye is another hometown hero, and he probably brought in a lot of “day traffic” to the event to see his show (including some of the club kids fresh off their Chicago Scene party on boats on Lake Michigan’s Playpen). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/fashion/13BOAT.html. But my man Manu Chao is an international star who’s not played the US in several years, and his hip world music and utterly danceable, hip-shake-able tunes were an absolute revelation.

Manu Chao v. Kanye West in many ways embodies the glory of the current Lollapalooza. You have your hometown hip-hop hero doing his thing down at one end of the Park, and almost a mile away, a far-less familiar world star who, for most Midwesterners would be, well, a discovery. While the discovery may have been missed by many in Chicago that nice Saturday night, it’s one they just might make eventually, just because he was on the bill. That’s what a great music festival is all about: discovering music. Having the luxury and time to hear a tune or two by bands you’d probably never go near, otherwise.

So if you make it to one of these summer extravaganzas (Austin City Limits Fest, put on by the same CSE/CAP team, is coming up on September 15-17th in Austin, Texas), my advice would be this””make time for the bands you’ve never even heard of. You never know which of those unknowns may wind up being the next Wilco, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And if you love music, discovering the new shit is, quite often, its own reward.

You don’t have to be a kid to acquire taste in new music. Indeed, at least 80% of your “success” in discovering new things you like is “just showing up”, to quote Woody Allen.

http://www.aclfestival.com/default.aspx

1. Get A Grip On It

This may seem obvious, but if you don’t grip the club properly, you can’t swing it properly. Most people who play golf will NEVER properly grip the club. And, while there are many grips you might employ, there is pretty much only one grip that is right for you. And like so many things about golf, gripping it right can be counter-intuitive.

To get a good grip, if you are right-handed, you need to start with your left hand. You left hand must be on top of the grip. Let me repeat that: your left HAND must be on TOP of the grip. Put your hand out flat, palm down. Note the back of your hand. Put your left hand on the club. On top of the club. It may or may not feel right. The intuitive thing is to put the left thumb on top of the grip. But, you can only do that if your left hand is on top of the grip.

Your left hand is the key. The golf swing requires your left hand, namely the back of your left hand, to work in synch with the face of the golf club. When the golf club, moving at about 100 mph, makes contact with the golf ball, the back of your left hand is going to be transmitting all the power in your body through the grip to the club face.

It sounds simple. It is simple. But if you don’t get your left hand on top of the grip, you will forever be playing with one hand “tied behind your back.” To play golf well, you need to get the proper grip, and that is all about the left hand.

As for the right hand: once you have a good grip with your left, fit your right hand over it. You can interlock (I used to, but I switched recently””this is the grip used by Tiger and Jack); you can overlap (that’s what I use, it makes it easier to hit the ball right to left), or you can put all ten fingers on the club (I do this for explosion shots from the sand). But in any event, your right palm should wrap comfortably around and over your left thumb. The two hands will fit together, like two rhombbi. The diagonal lines should be parallel, and pleasing to the eye. The hands should feel comfortable.

2. Play From the Ground Up

This is advice from Jack Nicklaus, and his golf teacher, Jack Grout. The essential nature of footwork cannot be emphasized enough. Playing from the ground up means standing up to the ball well (recognizing that, in the main, the ground upon which you will stand is not level, as is it on a driving range). The key to good footwork, and to using your body’s strength, is to be able to use your right leg (if you are a rightie, which all these tips will now just assume). You use your right leg to provide resistance on the back swing. You must be able to turn back without “reverse-pivoting”. The reverse-pivot is the kiss of death for any golfer. It means when you turn back, you don’t resist properly with the right leg, and your weight therefore shifts first back and then, alas, forward to your left leg. Good footwork, playing from the ground up, means taking a comfortable stance, with the proper amount of resistance in your right knew and thigh, that when you make your backswing, your right side will “catch” your weight. This allows for a proper “weight shift.” The weight is shifting from balanced, usually 50-50 at address, to something like 90% of your weight on your right side at the top of your backswing.

Some teachers have invited me to test my proper weight shift by picking up my left foot. Obviously, if you are standing on one foot, your weight is all on your right foot. Duh. But that won’t really help you to feel a proper weight shift. I find that you can help achieve a proper weight shift by turning your hips a bit to the left. This will allow you to feel some tension in your inner right thigh at address, which is where a lot of the resistance is going to come from when you turn back.

Now bend your knees. Nick Faldo says that at address, you should feel like you are sitting on a bar-stool. I guess that says plenty about Nick Faldo, but anyway, you need to get your knees bent so that you can resist properly on the back swing.

Waiting for the other shoe…

And, it might not surprise you, your left side will provide some resistance on the down swing. When you swing into the ball, your hips are going to lead (more on that later) and you will be turning them left. Not left as in at the target, but your left hip will turn left, as in 90 degrees to the target line. Your inner left thigh should feel a bit of tension at address. This will be useful when, in swinging down at the ball, your left foot provides resistance against swaying. Swaying involves your left hip moving “left” down the target line: as opposed to left, 90 degrees from the target line. Swaying is bad. Resistance, both on the back swing (your right knee and inner right thigh) and on the downswing (essentially your whole left leg, from your foot up to your hip), is key. It is NOT futile.

3. Let The Club Head Do The Work

You are not likely a golf expert. If you were, you wouldn’t really need to read any of this. You see these things called golf clubs, but you don’t think too much about the science of their construction. That’s ok. Golf can be way too complicated. But you do need to think about the club head. The club head is “weighted”. It is heavier than the shaft. It is weighted for a reason. The “heavy” club head opens and closes, and that opening-and-closing action is what makes the ball go far. And on target.

Your intuition tells you that you need to manipulate the clubhead. You want to do the work to open and close the club head. To turn it. You want to drive. You want to be in control. That’s all ok, but it won’t help you, and under pressure, it will hurt you.

A good golfer, ALL good golfers, learn to let the club head do the work. It is designed to be weighted in just the right way to open and close properly. You just have to create the proper setting in which that action can occur. So, if you have taken a proper grip, with your left hand on top, your right hand comfortably over your left, then you should be in a position, upon swinging back, low and wide, for the club head to open properly. The weight of the club head induces it to open. It will open without manipulation. It will open more if you try to turn it. But it will open the right amount if you just swing it back without gripping it too tightly, but with a proper grip. Once it has opened properly, again low and wide being the keys, it will close properly without you having to “turn it back”.

Why? Because it is weighted. The “heavy” club head is designed to close. It opens when you take it back just the right amount, and it closes, back to square, when you swing back down through the ball. The preposition is key. THROUGH the ball. Not to the ball. Even at the ball is misleading. You will be swinging the club head through the ball, and if you are swinging well, and your swing is holding up under pressure, it means you are letting the club head do the work.

4. Back To The Target

Ok, so you have a proper grip, left hand on top. You are standing up to the ball nicely, your hips turned a little left so there is resistance in your legs,and your knees are bent (what will you be having to drink?). You are of a mind to let the club head do the work.

Now you need to make your back swing. As far as the club head is concerned, low and wide are your key thoughts. But what about your body? Your body is, as far as I am concerned, all about your shoulders on the back swing. Your shoulders need to make a big turn. Every swing. A big turn means your left shoulder will literally be pointing behind the ball (right of the ball). Your left should will make this big turn, while your right leg will resist, preventing a reverse-pivot, and catching your weight on your right side. A big shoulder turn will culminate in the feeling that your back is to the target.

If you are limber enough, your back should be to the target. At address, I actually have my shoulders pointing a bit left of the target””because you will recall I advocate you turning your left hip slightly left, to get the proper resistance in your lower body. So a full shoulder turn is slightly more than 90 degrees. You can settle for 90 degrees, but a full, back-to-the-target turn comes from just slightly left of the target line (by a few degrees) to just behind the ball (by a degree or more, whatever you can handle without reverse-pivoting). Take as big a shoulder turn as you can, without letting your weight shift back to the left. Your weight catches to the right and at the top, your back is to the target. You are COILED. Now, you are ready for the down swing….

5. Lead With The Hips

You have a good grip, a good stance, you are committed to letting the club head do the work, and you have taken a low wide back swing that has culminated with your back facing the target (the hole, the spot in the fairway, wherever it may be). Now what?

I believe you need to lead with your hips. That means your left hip will turn back to the left. You are “uncoiling.” Left does NOT mean towards the target. Left means to the left from the direction your left hip was pointing at address. Let me repeat this. On a clock, if the target is at 12, and the ball at 3, your left hip points at address somewhere between 11 and 12. When you uncoil, your left hip is moving back along the clock.

It is not “swaying” down the target line. It is turning left, so that at impact, it is pointing somewhere between 10 and 9, and at completion of your swing, following your “follow through”, your left hip is pointing at 9. You will now be facing the target. So I say lead with the hips, though I mean lead with the left hip. Your first move down is uncoiling your hips, and your left hip turns left. To apply power, you can feel as though you are firing your right hip. Watch Tiger, or any golfer: watch his hips. Watch how from the top of the back swing, he clears his hips. He moves them left, through 10 at impact to 9 at completion. You don’t need to focus on firing your right hip. But, the faster you turn your hips, not swaying down the line but turning them “in the barrel” (to use a common image), the fast your will swing. Arm strength helps. Letting the club head do the work with a proper grip is key. And you need that resistance with your legs, as you play from the ground up. But a good hip turn is what supplies the power.

If you have one swing thought for the down swing (and it is easy to have many, which is too many), you would do well to make it “lead with the hips.”

“Today’s tom sawyer,
He gets high on you,
And the energy you trade,
He gets right on to the friction of the day.”

Tom Sawyer, Rush

The friction of the day (and dinner hour) plays out between classic French cooking and the new ways of approaching the loose collection of cuisines we tend to call “Italian”. For a long while, I thought French food would be where the action was here in SF. Living here by the Bay, my Russian Hill neighborhood is composed of a lower and upper arrondissement: it’s seen a veritable potpourri of French bistros popping up. France has, in my life, always set the bar for the very finest in wines; so, unsurprisingly, the cuisine of France was always the pinnacle to which top chefs aspired. Heck, the very words “cuisine” and “chef” are French. I speak some French, having lived in Paris, and I [cut my teeth on Burgundy wines]. I even went out on the limb and predicted that San Francisco food, perhaps to counter popular Freedom Fry sentiment, was “going French.”

When Les Bleues made their improbable way back to the FIFA World Cup Final, I thought sans doute that we were finding ourselves in the midst of a new French culinary Revolution. Especially since the Final was France v. Italy, and all through the tournament, no team seemed to me more despicable or less deserving of success than the Italians, known for their sky-blue shirts in most athletic competitions (hence their nickname: the Azzurri). During said Final, there came the head-butt (the butt heard round the world). And what do you know, but it was almost Shakespearian how, in an instant, my allegiance to the French evaporated (how very French of me, you say), and suddenly, it seemed that even though “poor” Materazzi kind of flopped on the butt itself, now Italian azure was more worthy of victory than tired, nostalgic, and superstitious French blue. See, food at its most interesting reflects the mood of the times, our zeitgeists. So, French Laundry may well be the greatest restaurant in California, and Auberge du Soleil may have the best appetizers, and 2005 Bordeaux may be the finest reds of the past 50 years: but, with the flick of a forehead, my stomach suddenly yearns for tastes of Italy.

Italian food in San Francisco flat out rocks. Much of it is fairly basic. And despite all those Jean-come-lately bistros, there are loads of pasta houses and Pomodoros ready to serve you a hearty Italian meal. I live literally above North Beach, so I know them.

More interesting, however, is what I will call neo-Italian, but others have dubbed Ital-ifornian. Whatever you call it, it involves taking classic dishes from regions in Italy, using traditional spices and recipes, and then jazzing them up by using fresh Left Coast ingredients. In terms of interesting dining, several SF Italian eateries deserve your dinero. Here are a handful that are practicing the craft and style of neo-Italian/Itali-fornian to nigh on perfection. I say “nigh on” because one of the differences between France and Italy qua cuisine is that the French truly believe in perfection as attainable, while Italians would rather relegate perfection to religion, and settle for well-executed…

On Polk St., which between Broadway and Union is a bastion of French and French influenced cuisines, there are two enticing Italian places worth paying attention to, both owned by the same dude (chef/owner Ruggero Gadaldi, who also owns the Last Supper Club here in SF as well). The first is Antica Trattoria, on the corner of Union, which is Gadaldi’s modern take on Etruscan cuisine. What, you may wonder, is Etruscan cuisine?

Here’s what an Italian winery, Castello Banfi, has to say about it on its Web-site:

Their recipes showed they cooked fish stuffed with rosemary. They also roasted pork with rosemary or cooked pork liver with bay leaves. Honey was used to sweeten food and salt to preserve it. Meats were prepared on spits and grills; saucepans were used for boiling, and, of course, ovens for baking. Paintings found in a tomb near Orvieto depict a busy Etruscan kitchen. Beef, venison, hare, even a brace of ducks hang from hooks in the open air. One cook holds a frying pan over an oven’s flames, another readies a saucepan, while vessels brimming with sauces and gravies stand nearby. [Link]

Basically, Etruscan means “of Ancient Rome, before the Roman Empire”. The Etruscans were close to their gods, so the stories went, and sex and food were always intermingled. They were a passionate people, so it seems. Anyway, Gadaldi interprets truly classic Etruscan styles, and has given them a modern update. His ragus of boar, his rabbits, his meats in general are all stellar, and nothing is priced higher than $20. His use of capers and vinegars is exquisite, and I don’t know if there’s a better carpaccio in the city than this. I have never had a bad meal at Antica Trattoria, and that’s not for lack of attempts.

The service is friendly, and earthy, and if I were Italian, I might even tell you it feels like home. There is no bar, and hence only wines and beer are available, but the list is thoughtful, and you can cross Union to Tonic if you need a cocktail before dinner.

Less than two blocks away is Pesce, which is Gadaldi’s take on Venetian cuisine. It features cicchetti, which are essentially tapas: smaller plates of food. “little tastes.” But Pesce does serve main courses. And some of the best penne arrabiatta in town (a dish I confess an almost un-natural fondness for…). And I would be remiss if I did not mention the Dungenness crab linguini, which, when in season, I cannot get enough of. Pesce features a full bar, with good specialty drinks, and a host most excellent (he is also its manager), in Reza Esmaili. I give the smoked fish a try, and the oyster shooters (I normally like my oysters simply chilled on the half-shell, with lemon, but theirs is a particularly well loaded shooter). Pesce’s wine list is by no means as extensive as Antica’s, but on Wednesday nights, if you buy a bottle at Wm. Cross Wine Merchants next door, Reza will usually waive any corkage charge. So you got that.

Over in the Marina, the way to go for neo-Italian is A16. It’s a route in Italy’s southern Campania region (which I know very little about, but am keen to ride on). A16 has the finest selection of Italian wines in San Francisco, and some of the most knowledgeable wine people in the city: led by the ineffable co-owner Shelley Lindgren, who has put together an incredible wine list of 60% Italian and 40% American wines. She also has an awesome team of sommeliers in Skye La Torre and Andrew Mosblech: any of these three can not only help you find the right wine to pair with your order, but they would be a tremendous sommelier in any setting. A16 boasts world-class service. Now the food can be a bit hit-and-miss sometimes, though that may be somewhat attributable to their new executive chef, Nate Appleman, who is all of 26, still “feeling his oats”. What can’t miss are their pizzas: Nate and his predecessor, Chris Hille, were trained by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, making them some of the very few certified pizzaiolos in the US. Nate’s got game, and he knows his meats, having trained in his “youth” as a butcher. They smoke some salumis right on the premises. In general, however, I lean towards pizzas and pastas, and then allow my companions to ride rough-shod over the menu, ordering as they will. In the past, lamb has alas let me and my tablemates down.

Nevertheless, I love the vibe at A16: it feels like Italy, more than any other place in SF. It may be in the Marina, but it is closer to Naples (a city to which I have yet been””but hey, it seems like Naples would feel). And then I sit at the bar, or back in the dining room with the open kitchen, and I revel in the theater of dining. Food is not just about taste: it’s about the taste of the people with whom one is dining. Dining alone, truly alone, with no one else around, never fully satisfies me. Dining by myself at a place like A16, I never feel alone””it’s always bustling, the staff is always there to make you feel, if not “at home”, then at least welcome (my home rarely has so many beautiful people in it). It’s fresh, in a way that makes it San Franciscan, but it draws on the classics of Campania (which I will confirm when I get there, how close it may be to Napolitan dining…).

All the way across town, in southern Noe Valley, a part of town that barely counts as being in San Francisco, sits the new La Ciccia, which means “belly” in Sardinian. Sardinia is an island off the Western Coast of Italy, very rugged. They have their own language, and their own cuisine. Of course, they have pastas and pizzas, and they use a lot of coarse salt. Indeed, coarse would be a good word to describe the cooking at La Ciccia, and not just because Sardinia lies but a few kilometers south of Corsica. Another word would be salty. La Ciccia’s wine list is an absolute gem, which makes sense since its chef/owner Massimiliano Conti has spent the better part of the past two decades in the wine business as a sommelier and importer. Service is decent, though they have a lot of tables to cover, and the place seems fairly packed (we were there after 9 on a Wednesday, and every table was occupied). We had a delicious cabbage salad with marinated Vidalia onions: one of my favorite salads I’ve had recently. And a good, if chewy and not so crisp pizza a la Sarda (which adds pecorino and capers to your basic Margherita). And do try the signature tagliolini with artichokes and bottarga””fish roe.

La Ciccia’s got a lot of Sardinia in it, it seems (I’ve only been to Corsica, but now I am inspired to visit Sardinia). La Ciccia strikes me as an excellent date place, out of the way, romantic, the walls all azure. And Mas’s lovely wife, Lorella Degan, also goes to great lengths to make her guests feel comfortable. It made me want to romance someone. In general, Ital-ifornian cuisine excites me. Where French bistro food nowadays seems more about comfort, and a longing for a past I never really had, Neo-Italian makes me hungry for the future: for what’s next…