That Was the Year that Was: 2006

In July, I decided I needed some time to be alone, so over 4th of July weekend I took a solo road trip to the Southern California desert.  It ended up being one of the best experiences I've ever had.  I stayed at the beautiful Hollywood getaway Two Bunch Palms in Desert Hot Springs (I've since seen it mentioned in both the film The Player and the TV show Six Feet Under), where I spent the wee hours of every evening soaking in a lush hot springs pool, staring contemplatively at the stars through a ring of palms trees.  During the day I roamed around Palm Springs and the Salton Sea, free to explore to my heart's content and take as much time as I wanted photographing flooded out trailer parks and beaches made of fish bones.  I remember one night when I drove through the desert, windows open, listening to El Perro Del Mar's "God Knows," as one of the last times I was truly, completely happy.

While I was in Southern California, I also took advantage of my friend Michael McCracken's sofa and spent the 4th of July with him and his friends in Pacific Beach.  It turns out Mission Bay is a great place to watch fireworks.

Immediately after getting home from my road trip, I (with the help of my friend Kristin) threw my yearly barbecue on my rooftop in the Upper Haight.  This year the movie Capote inspired me to dub the event "The Black & White BBQ" (in homage to Capote's famous Black & White Ball), and to my surprise, people took the name seriously enough to show up in some pretty impressive monochrome outfits!  I'm also quite proud of the food we provided: instead of serving conventional hamburgers, we made tiny sliders and provided a variety of sauces and toppings so people could sample a number of different tastes (aioli, wasabi mayo, curry ketchup, jalapeno ketchup, etc.).  It was truly a triumph of high concept barbecuing.

In September, my friend Sarah Hatter organized a road trip to Bodie, CA, a well preserved Ghost Town in the Eastern Sierras that is instantly recognizable as the location for many of Anton Corbijn's Joshua Tree-era U2 photos.  She assembled a motley crew of friends (me, Mai Le, Nick Douglas, and George Oates--a group I came to refer to as "The Fellowship of the Bodie") and made reservations for us to stay at the rustic Virginia Creek Settlement in Bridgeport, CA.  We took lots of photos, drank cheap beer in cowboy bars, and bonded while sitting around the campfire telling stories.

Also in September, my close friend Courtney and I celebrated our common birthday (the 27th) with an epic week of shared festivities that included a gift exchange at our favorite hangout Bourbon & Branch, a very well-attended picnic on Rodeo Beach in Marin County, and, best of all, a wonderfully memorable 9 course meal at Manresa, a Michelin three star restaurant in the small South Bay town of Los Gatos.

The holidays began this year with what has become a hallowed tradition of mine: the feuerzangenbowle.  In early December I invited some of my closest friends over for dinner and a gift exchange, followed by a pot of spiced wine, over which a sugar cone was placed, doused with rum, and, with great drama (we played New Order's "Elegia" for mood music), set aflame.  The idea is that as the sugar cone burns, chunks of it carmelize and drop into the wine, sweetening it.  I enjoy this yearly ritual because it's such a mellow, warm, and undeniably unique way to spend time with my friends and get everyone in the holiday spirit (something I find to be a little more challenging in snowless San Francisco).

Christmas was a bit strange for me this year.  Because of the blizzard in Denver, I wasn't actually able to make it home in time for Christmas Eve, and instead ended up unexpectedly spending my first ever Christmas in San Francisco.  The blizzard ended up being a blessing in disguise, however, because I got to spend the evening cooking a fantastic meal out of the Bouchon Cookbook (brined roasted chicken, haricots vert, beet and mache salad with walnut vinaigrette), drinking delicious dessert wine, and playing Uno and Boggle with my good friends Mai Le and Chris Wetherell.  As much as I missed my family, it felt like a special thing to spend a holiday with friends.

This brings me to good place to end the post, because, despite all the disappointments and setbacks it visited upon me, I now believe 2006 should go down in the record books as a good year because of the wonderful friendships it brought me.  For the first time since I moved to California, I know that I'm developing real friendships--friendships based not on forced camaraderie and hedonism, but rather on shared values and sensibilities, common interests, and a genuine rapport.  To all of the dear friends I became closer to in 2006: thank you, and I hope I can be as good to you in 2007 as you have been to me 2006.