Visit to Aunt Brezna's

I forgot I had planned this trip since I was so caught up in that risotto thing...anyhow, I've been at my Aunt Brezna's for the last week, up in the city. I try to spend a week with her every year, enjoying the good life (her late husband, Uncle Artie, was J. Artemis Call, heir to the Call Salt empire). She's not some lonely old spinster pining away in a SoMa single-occupancy hotel; she's got a big house in Seacliff and keeps a pretty active calendar. She's on the board of the opera hall and a few museums, etc. I think all the other old-money crows like her style -- she's a no-bullshit Slav with a thick accent, but what she does say usually cuts right to the quick of things. Plus she's really funny. I remember one time she took me to Quadrillon, this coat-and-tie place on Nob Hill, and we were having dinner with some bigshot city attorney and his wife. Aunt B took a grape off the table centerpiece and stuck it in the mouth of the fox fur the woman was wearing. "He has his mouth open all night this fox, and no-one feeds him!" she laughed. I had to bite on a lambchop to keep from busting a gut.
 
Anyhow, she loves to dote on me (she never had any kids of her own) and we always go shopping to set me up for the year. We'll hit Nordstrom, Neiman-Marcus, Wilkes Bashford (now that I'm older) along with a nice set of old-school tailors and shoemakers she's known forever. This time we did pretty well but when I got home I realized that almost all of the casual stuff I got was EXACTLY like the stuff Jamie Oliver's wearing in that new cookbook of his! You know, the one I wrote about a couple weeks ago, which is more Jamie's modeling portfolio than it is a set of recipes.  I guess it had a pretty big influence on me. Thin white Adidas tennis shoes, dyed and sanded jeans, camouflage turtleneck with an orange safety vest, Simon & Garfunkel shoes, babbley Japanese tshirts...etc.
 
So I just pulled in and am catching up on email and all of that. I guess I could start doing that risotto thing to Chris again but I'm kind of over it.