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In the Mix

Tasty Tofu

Deborah Sherman

Minh Tsai Makes Soy Beans Delectable

    It’s easy to see the appeal of chocolate tasting and wine tasting. But tofu tasting? Somehow, the thought seems bland. Tofu bland. But management-consultant-turned-tofu-maker Minh Tsai is intent on changing this perception.
     “A lot of people say they don’t like the flavor of tofu; they don’t like the texture; they don’t know what to do with tofu; and they don’t even want to try it,” Tsai says. “My goal is that you’ll come here and learn how tofu should be consumed; how it can and should taste; and that you’ll leave here with a different sense of tofu.”
    Tsai is in the lobby of his state-of-the-art tofu plant, Hodo Soy Beanery, in West Oakland. We’re here for a tour and to taste. He tells his small audience that making tofu is a combination of art and science. He forgets, or doesn’t think to add, what is clearly his secret ingredient: passion.
     To date, Tsai has spent more than six years on a quest. It started with a desire to create the sort of tofu he could not find in the United States; the tofu he knew as a boy living in a rural village in Vietnam before he and his family escaped from that country and came, as refugees, to the Bay Area when he was 11 years old.
     A Columbia University economic development graduate, Tsai, 38, had memories of fresh, organic, really creamy tofu. About six years ago, he started experimenting, trying to recreate the flavor and the texture, in a small commercial kitchen belonging to a family member. A little more than five years ago, having achieved what he wanted, he took a batch to the Palo Alto Farmers Market. It sold out within two hours. “Tofu is meant to be eaten fresh,” he says, making a pointed reference to the blocks seen in supermarkets, which he believes have given tofu its bad rap.
    Inspired by early farmers market successes, he made more tofu — and began creating tasty grab-and-go meals using tofu.
    After not too long, “the chefs came,” he says. Chefs, for example, from San Francisco’s two Michelin star Coi restaurant and The Slanted Door. “We have become the Niman Ranch of tofu,” he laughs. Niman is all about meat, and Tsai is all about soy, but the comparison jibes: restaurants are putting the name Hodo Beanery on their menus along with Niman Ranch–branded products.
     In October 2009, having outgrown the small commercial kitchen and after a long search and a complete refurbishment,
which includes equipment custom-made in Asia, Tsai opened the Hodo Soy Beanery artisan production facility on Adeline Street in Oakland.
     By then he was at 10 farmers markets and selling a line of a dozen organic ready-to-eat dishes, including a tofu jerky, satay soy noodles and soy chocolate mousse, from family recipes (made now in the beanery kitchen), and he was moving his products
into Whole Foods and the Berkeley Bowl.
     Tsai knows there are a lot more people to convert to tofu and to teach about yuba — what he calls the sashimi of tofu; it is the skin that forms on the top and is considered a delicacy. He hopes his Hodo Soy Beanery tofu tours and tastings, launched mid-December, will fan more flames and raise more passion for tofu.

Hodo Soy Beanery, 2923 Adeline St., (510) 464-2977; tours (including tastings) by reservation, one session every two weeks at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays; ticket price is $10 per person through hodosoy.com.

The Six Questions

Who: Kathleen Heafey, 50, of Oakland.

What: Wife, mom, graphic designer and owner/designer of Teacup Handbags.
 
When: She started doing graphic design in 1997, and six years later began making handbags for birthday gifts for her daughter’s friends. It wasn’t long before her creations were generating a buzz and Teacup Handbags was born.
 
Where: Heafey makes the purses at her home studio, using a computer for the graphics and a sewing machine for the handbag prototypes. She works with a local sewing company in Oakland, which produces the bags from her designs.
 
Why: She admits she has a compulsion for fashion — to always be creating something new and beautiful. “I just like to make stuff. I always have. I love to sew, and I love fabric, and when I started doing this, it became this compulsion to want to make it better and better.”

How: The handbags are made out of woven vinyl, so the texture is appealing, and the material is durable and easy to clean. She uses buttons and bows to add flair and introduces a new line annually. Some of her handbags are sold on consignment at local shops, but most of
Heafey’s sales are made on her Web site.

See Teacup Handbags at teacuphandbags.com.

—Ginny Prior
— Photography Lori Eanes

The Green Bin

Mattresses Get New Life in Oakland
     Ever wonder what happens to old mattresses? In Oakland they get a second life at DR3, “divert, reduce, reuse, recycle,” an innovative mattress recycling program and one of the few in the country.
     Begun in 2001 by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County in Eugene, Ore., originally in partnership with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County, DR3 takes between 10,000 to 12,000 mattresses per month from hospitals, universities
and landfills as far away as Santa Cruz and Napa. No private mattress donations are accepted.
      “We’ve kept over a million mattresses out of the landfill so far,” says Charley Harvey, executive director of SVdP of Lane County. “We’re utilizing the waste stream to create green jobs while we’re helping the environment.”
     In a 10,000-square-foot warehouse, workers slice away the fabric cover, strip, then sort mattresses into their components — polyurethane foam, cotton, steel springs and wood. Ninety-three percent of the material is recycled and sent off site for reuse. Metal springs are melted into scrap metal; wood becomes woodchips; polyurethane is reincarnated as carpet padding or car insulation. And cotton mattress coverings? They’re often used to make dog beds (svdp.us/dogma-dog-beds.php).

— Christina Boufis

In the Scene

Blasting from the Racks
In-stores at Amoeba Bring Big Names to Telegraph

    “We’re fine — go. Rock that sucker.”
     Those are the semi-immortal words of Flipper vocalist Bruce Loose, right before his re-formed yet wholly unreformed Bay Area punk combo roars through its gut-kick of a hardcore epigram, “Ha Ha Ha,” at Amoeba Music in Berkeley.
     A mob of grinning black-clad punks, young and old, watch from the aisles as the critically acclaimed underground punk/art-noise legends, known to rock collectors throughout the world, take their last, heavy laugh. Welcome to Amoeba, the now-nationally renowned independent music store. The Berkeley mega store is an outpost capable of luring major touring acts and buzz-inspiring critics’ faves to Telegraph Avenue in the form of the popular, free in-store performances.
     Most of the time they’re arranged at the last-minute and depend on who’s coming through on tour, explains current in-store booker Grace Bartlett, 34, who lives in Oakland. But if you’re lucky, you might catch M.I.A., turning out the tracks from her latest album at Amoeba, first, before she performs to a paying audience in San Francisco. Hip-hop independents like Blu and Exile might be found going with the flow. The Black Keys might be heard bashing out the heavy blues-rock jams, or punk veteran Exene Cervenka of X might be stumbled upon, plying her new music and raw poetry. Or on an exceptional night, Japanese metal mavens Boris might be turning out an unforgettable, after-hours, full hour-and-a-half set — complete with gong and fog machines — for the first 200 fans who buy the new disc.
     “I think it benefits everyone,” Bartlett opines. The artists don’t get paid, and the performances are usually shorter than an average set, but she offers, “It benefits the artists a lot to have the exposure. We get people in the store who are fans of the bands, and we sell more product to people who see what we have.”
     Amoeba also provides a way for local East Bay bands to find new fans, as part of the store’s Homegrown series. Past performers include Wallpaper, Dizzy Balloon and Grand Lake — and there’s no shortage of artists hoping to climb onto the Amoeba stage, surrounded by jacketed vinyl and proudly loud rock ’n’ roll signage. “That’s how they make their money — touring,” says Bartlett. “I’m constantly being approached by people who want to play.” And her tip for those who want to
catch the free sounds: “Get there early — if you think it’s going to be big.”

Amoeba Music, 2455 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, (510) 549-1125, amoeba.com.

— Kimberly Chun

Dialogues

No.  381 Acupuncture Pioneer

     In the early 1970s, when the average American likened acupuncture to voodoo, Marti Lee Kennedy had begun a life dedicated to the art of Chinese medicine. Today, acupuncture schools are as ubiquitous as Starbucks, and going to China is as easy as a click on Travelocity. But back then, Kennedy traveled the world over to receive the clinical training necessary to practice these ancient methods. When she returned to the United States and waited for California to get its licensing act together, she had two sons and discovered the wonders of acupuncture in fertility and pre- and post-natal care. Today, as one of the first certified acupuncturists in the United States (No. 381) and director of
the Ashby Center of Complementary Medicine in Berkeley, she’s not only relieving the East Bay of aches and ills, she’s populating it.

When it comes to fertility, who can you help?
     The way I see it is as long as a woman is having a regular cycle, she is fertile. It’s so important to spend a lot of time with a person in that first session in order to see where the disharmony is coming from. We can tell a lot just by talking with a person, how they hold themselves, the coloring of the skin and the eyes. Then I look at their tongue and do pulse diagnosis. Often times, a woman can’t conceive because she just has a cold constitution. I have a saying that you wouldn’t try to bake a cake in a cold oven. We see a lot of women who have a history of miscarriage, and I’m very good at helping people get stronger and be able to hold the pregnancy and subsequent pregnancies.

Once a woman is pregnant, what can you do for her?
     After I’ve helped the person conceive, I encourage them to come back during the pregnancy, so we establish a relationship over that nine-month gestational period. We treat morning sickness, lower back pain, gestational diabetes, and can help prevent preeclampsia. Each trimester we have a “happy baby point” that we use to prevent congenital or ancestral problems from occurring in the newborn. When a woman has a breech presentation, we have a treatment where we burn moxa — commonly known as mugwort — to stimulate a certain acupuncture point. We have very good results with the baby turning into a proper presentation with the head down. And probably every day people call for labor induction. We do the whole nine yards.

It must be sad to see a woman go after helping a her through such an intimate period.
     I just feel completely joyful. I usually see them in a couple of years trying to get pregnant again.

—Karen T. Hartline
—Photography Lori Eanes

Hieroglyphics Keepin’ It Oakland

     Classic Oakland group Souls of Mischief’s latest album, Montezuma’s Revenge, hit stores in the fall, and a remix version is getting reworked to be sold with the original disc as a set this summer. Oh, you thought the Hieroglyphics movement was dead?
     Since leaving Jive Records in 1999 and creating Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings, Oakland’s favorite underground hip-hop group has thrived as independent artists, leading the way in a resurrection of interest in Oakland artistry.
     At the Hieroglyphics Imperium, tucked away on 50th Avenue in East Oakland, you’ll find the same lyricists that made the Hieroglyphics famous — Souls, Del the Funky Homosapien, Pep Love, Casual — are all still around, and the crew keeps growing, adding the likes of Knobody, Prince Ali and Chosen Few. They frequently produce music and videos, even albums. They still rock shows locally and internationally. They produce memorabilia, including jeans, with their world-famous logo.
     But their success isn’t directly related to dollars earned and records sold. Instead, they stay true to themselves, producing quality music and giving back to Tha Town.
     “We haven’t gone anywhere. We’ve been doing this,” Tajai Massey says. “We grew up on Too $hort. $hort taught us how to do it. It hits us [what we’ve done] when we travel all over the country and out of the country. To rock a show in NYC and it’s sold out just like it’s sold out in Oakland. Or to rock a show in Brazil and you get off the plane and there’s a Hiero sign on the freeway. I mean, we’re regular dudes. But we’ve been able to maintain. That’s probably been the biggest wow moment. It hits you at certain times.”
     Big-time hip-hop artists like Kanye West and Pharrell have credited the Hieroglyphics as inspiration. Eminem, before he was an icon, once opened for Hiero (you’re an Oaklander if you noticed the Hiero sticker in the movie 8 Mile).
     Still, members of Hiero consider among their greatest feats that they have remained loyal to Oakland. They have relationships with and help produce local artists. They’ve lent their talent and name to local events.
     Perhaps most impressive, Massey would say, is the hub the Imperium has become. He says some 30 to 40 kids come in and out every day. They come to listen to music, make music, chill with hip-hop stars and escape the streets.
     “We damn near have shut down certain turfs because they are coming to our spot,” Massey says. “Part of it is us
not being bourgie. But that’s Oakland.
It’s a model for citizenship and humanity. I’ve been in Norway, hitting the clubs
and seen cats ghost-ridin’ the whip and
blowing the whistle. We’re one of the most talented and watched regions around the world. There is a resurgence. It’s not just of the natives. But a lot of people are coming and participating.
It’s amazing.”

— Marcus Thompson II

Tajai Massey and Opio’s Oakland Hangs

Heiroglyphics might be dubbed the unofficial heroes of Oakland’s independent hip-hop scene. The entire collective has continued to keep it real — and be extremely productive. Where does the crew decompress amid all the activity? You just might find Heiro crew linchpins like Tajai Massey and Opio kicking back at these Oakland hangouts.

Tajai Massey
Hiero HQ: “Always something popping there — good music, videos being shot, latest industry gossip, and a bunch of young talent ready to blow (IMAO). Great creative vibes.” hieroglyphics.com

Lanesplitter Pizza & Pub:  “They are open late and cyclist-friendly and have a cool staff. Laid-back atmosphere inside, and a lot of cuties slide through.” 4799 Telegraph Ave., (510) 653-5350, lanesplitterpizza.com

Village Bottoms in the Lower Bottoms: “Art, history, culture, self-reliance. This place is an inspiration!!!” villagebottoms.blogspot.com

Red Sea Restaurant: “Best Eritrean food I have had in all of my travels. Get a telba and shrimp with hamli, plus the veggie sampler. Thank me by bringing me a plate.” 5200 Claremont Ave., (510) 655-3757, redsearestaurantbar.com

Opio
Quinn’s Lighthouse Restaurant & Pub
The view from the deck is incredible. The restaurant/bar is located in a historic landmark lighthouse built in 1890, and sits right on the Oakland Estuary. I go there to catch the sunset and have a drink while I enjoy the scenery.” 1951 Embarcadero, (510) 536-2050, quinnslighthouse.com

The Trappist: “Northern California microbrews and Belgian-style beers on tap and in the bottle. No TV or loud music — the focus is on the European-style setting and the great beer! The bartenders help you decide and let you taste the brews before you order.” 460 Eighth St., (510) 238-8900, thetrappist.com

Bakesale Betty: “Fried chicken sandwich, OMG!!! Shit is hella good. The secret is the SLAW! And they have the best strawberry shortcake ever. Don’t believe me? Bet $50!” 5098 Telegraph Ave., (510) 985-1213, bakesalebetty.com

Champa Garden “Bomb-ass Laotian, Thai, Cambodian food! It’s a nice restaurant smack in the middle of an Oakland neighborhood, right across the street from a ’hood liquor store. The location is very unassuming, but once you get inside, you can tell you’re in for quite the culinary experience … I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!” 2102 Eighth Ave., (510) 238-8819, champagarden.com

— Kimberly Chun

Rocking the Boat

      If you are one of the thousands of people who have enjoyed the peace and beauty of going around Lake Merritt, now may be the best time to consider another approach: going in.
     “Rowing is something you can get very passionate about,” says Emily Esner. Esner and Mary Mattingly are the newly elected sculler representatives for the Lake Merritt Rowing Club. “You can learn 90 percent of what you need to know in about an hour. The rest is a lifetime pursuit.”
     Esner and Mattingly met at a rowing clinic in 2008 and in no time, they were sculling partners. “We always talked about ways the club could make sculling more novice-friendly,” says Mattingly, who recalls how intimidating it was to go out on the lake by herself for the first time after the required two-day lesson. “I just downloaded a form [to join the club] and got a key in the mail.  I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’ll try to row!’ ”
      Thanks to Esner and Mattingly, newbies are no longer left to their own devices. Beginner classes now come with a comprehensive handbook to guide first-timers through everything from signing out a boat to preventing goose poop on the dock. They have also arranged a buddy chart and more group rows so that inexperienced rowers can benefit from veterans. “It’s already a loner sport,” says Mattingly. “We wanted to find ways to get scullers together.”
     There is little doubt that this full-body aerobic sport could whip anyone into shape. But for Esner and Mattingly, it’s more than a way to exercise. “I ran on the treadmill for 20 years and was miserable. I did it just to get it over with,” says Esner. “This is about the art and the connection to the water.  The details are endless.”
    Mattingly nods in agreement. “It’s super badass.”

For more information, visit rowlakemerritt.org, call (510) 834-6293 or (510) 273- 9041 or e-mail novice_sculling@lakemerrittrowingclub.org.

— Karen T. Hartline

Oakland Made

The King of Bags

     Bobby Glasser couldn’t resist the lot of 1950s vintage vinyl car seat covers he stumbled across at the iconic King Kovers going-out-of-business sale on Broadway Auto Row in December 2007.
    The woven plaids and textured patterns were just too good to pass up. “I knew they had to be bags,” says the slightly nerdy 43-year-old sixth-grade Orinda language arts and social studies teacher who has started a sideline venture, King Bag Company, to transform the mint-condition seat covers into bowling bag–style purses and messenger bags plus coin purses and art projects from the associated scraps. “I suggested it to my girlfriend, and she didn’t think I was crazy. I have a lot of crazy ideas. But when she saw them, she agreed we had to have them.”
    Glasser, who grew up in Pleasanton and now lives in the Laurel District, got a deal on the covers and then got down to the business of finding a pattern maker and a seamstress (on Craig’s List) to produce his “limited-edition” bags. The finite inventory sits in neat boxes on open shelves in his small studio where ’50s-era car seat ads hang on a wall.
    The 18-year teaching veteran initially hawked his products via four evolving prototypes, and they started to catch on last spring. His “little moment of success” occurred at the Rockridge Out & About Street Festival when a customer bought a bag after having admired a stranger’s, researching King Bag on line and hunting down Glasser, “the King,” at the event.
    “So I’m not getting rich from that, but it’s kinda cool it’s starting to catch on,” he says, content to be putting “the stuff to use.” When he runs out of material, King Bag is done, so there’s a finite supply.
    “I think there is a story in these bags. I know my bags. I’m the only one aside from my seamstress who touches them.”
    Bags range from $150 to $180. Buy them at Re4m in Montclair or Ruby in San Francisco, and learn more on the King Bag Website, kingbagcompany.com. A portion of sales goes to The Crucible for arts education.

—Judith M. Gallman

MEDIA SHELF
New Releases from Bay Area Authors

Food Rules, An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan (Penguin Books, 2009, 140 pp., $11)
     Want the gist of what Michael Pollan, best-selling author and University of California, Berkeley journalism professor, thinks you should eat without reading his entire body of works? Get a copy of his latest, Food Rules, for a handy-dandy guide to eating with 64 rules in three parts: What should I eat? (Eat food.); What kind of foods should I eat? (Mostly plants.); and How should I eat? (Not too much.). Pollan disciples have heard it all before, but this rule book strings together some real gems such as No. 20: “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.” Or No. 25: “Eat your colors.” And No. 57 “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”

Living Life as a Thank You, The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude by Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons (Viva Editions, 2009, 252 pp., $15.95)
     Be thankful — it can improve and save your life. That’s the message of Piedmont’s Nina Lesowitz and Chicago’s Mary Beth Sammons. Convinced a healthy dose of gratitude goes a long way toward happiness and healthiness, the two have written a self-help book that shares inspirational tales of people (some famous, some not) whose lives have been dramatically shaped by incorporating gratitude into daily living. At the end of each chapter, the authors suggest a “Gratitude Practice,” a simple, specific action — listening to a certain CD, saying thank you often, a meditation on positive aspects of life — designed to help readers bump up their gratitude quotients and live a more fulfilling life. In these tough times, reading it will only help you feel better.

Gluten-Free Italian by Jacqueline Mallorca (De Capo Press Lifelong Books, 2009, 228 pp., $18.95)
     Lots of people suffer from celiac disease and must avoid gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Jacqueline Mallorca, author of The Wheat-Free Cook and a former San Francisco Chronicle food columnist, now turns her attention to Italian-style cooking in her new cookbook that’s stocked with more than 150 gluten-free recipes. For the uninitiated, there is an explanation of the disease, a useful list of gluten-free products, a primer on suitable grains, flours and baking ingredients and a roundup of naturally gluten-free Italian products, from anchovies and balsamic vinegar to risotto rice and tomatoes. Mallorca suggests recipes that will suit the entire table, not just celiacs. It’s hard
to page through this one when you’re hungry.

— Judith M. Gallman

Wow, What an Organ

    Since the Middle Ages in Europe, the pipe organ has been an integral part of the great cathedrals throughout the Western world, providing musical accompaniment and inspiration to the Christian faithful. So, it was a natural thing for the Oakland Diocese to want a world-class instrument to complement its new landmark central church — the $190 million Cathedral of Christ the Light — with its very own grand instrument.
     In 2007, a Diocese committee of organists and music directors chose The Létourneau Pipe Organs LTD of Quebec, Canada, from among
three other world-class organ makers to custom build the instrument.
     It took 43 Canadian craftsmen nearly two years to build the 94-stop, four-keyboard pedal pipe organ with its 5,298 wood and steel pipes that rest on two massive wood shelves on either side of the altar. Each shelf holds 10 tons of equipment and pipes. The Douglas fir wood pipes, which range in height from 32 feet to the size of a pencil, along with the cathedral’s Douglas fir wood frame and red oak pews, help create a forest-like effect intended by cathedral architect Craig Hartman and add to the warmth of the enormous sanctuary, which stands more than 100 feet high and has seating for 1,350 congregants.
     The organ was completed and installed in two phases: the first phase included the installation of the full organ console and two divisions of 1,509 pipes within the room behind the choir area in time to provide some music for the cathedral’s formal dedication in September 2008. The final phase saw the installation of the remaining five divisions of 3,789 pipes on the two large shelves in October and November 2009.
     Oakland residents Daniel Whalen and his wife, Katharine Conroy Whalen, donated the entire
$2.5 million for the design, manufacture and installation of the new instrument, officially called The Conroy Memorial Organ. It’s named in honor of Ms. Conroy Whalen’s mother, Gerry Conroy.
     The Whalens reveled in the opportunity to help three important entities in their lives with their donation: the Catholic Church, their adopted city of Oakland and the world of music.
     Rudy de Vos, the director of music for the cathedral, has planned a dedication recital series of five concerts for the new organ, and the performances will feature local, national and international organists. De Vos will be featured in the second concert on March 6 at 8 p.m. All concerts in the series are free-will donation.
For more information, go to www.ctlcathedral.org.

—By Keith Gleason
—Photography Lori Eanes

Block Party

To the Point

     If you’ve ever had one of those dreams in which you suddenly discover a beautiful room in your house that you’ve never explored before, you’ll understand what it’s like to stroll around the lovely Point Richmond. Block Party recently took a field trip where Washington Avenue meets Park Place and one thought came to mind – why are we not here more often?

Where to Eat
     For nearly 20 years, Hidden City Café has been serving breakfast and lunch made with creativity by chefs with a pure passion for good food. “I’m all about the food,” says owner and chef Shelly Bourgault, a former chef at Chez Panisse. The
warm, rustic atmosphere invites you to escape
the breakneck pace and kick back with a book or some good conversation as each dish is made to order. Favorites include the polenta scrapple made with Applewood bacon and the fresh fava bean falafel burger. Regulars declare the eggs benedict to be the best ever – and who wouldn’t want to test that out? An overflowing toy chest in the corner makes this an inviting spot for families, and the kids might even recognize the place, which had a cameo in Pixar’s Monsters Inc. and the trailer for Wall-E. And given Bourgault’s commitment to using organic and sustainable ingredients, you can feel good about licking  your plate.
109 Park Place, Richmond,  (510) 991-6746, hiddencitycafe.biz

     If you don’t have the time to travel to Vietnam, India, Italy and Thailand in one evening, then you might want to consider tucking a napkin in your collar for a meal at Symphonie International Vegan Cuisine, a relative newcomer to Point Richmond. With nearly 30 years of experience cooking every kind of food San Francisco has to offer — from Italian to Brazilian to Mexican — owner and chef Panos Ly makes everything on his eclectic menu from scratch. Though you may see “gumbo” and “coconut seafood” on the menu, there’s no meat to be found on the plate. A vegan himself, Ly believes that eating vegan is not only good for your physical being but your spiritual self and overall temperament. Taking your palate on a trip around the world never hurts either!
199 Park Place, Richmond, (510) 236-2118

Where to Shop
     You have to admit: It feels really cheesy to get a gift for someone at a big chain store that sells a bazillion replicas of every trinket and piece of jewelry on offer.
For every gem in the hidden gem of The Incurable Collector, what you see is what you get. It’s quite likely that what you find here have never seen a factory conveyor belt in its life. Though much of the inventory depends on your luck, you may come upon some beautiful Waterford crystal and Belik collectibles, a very unique kind of porcelain so thin you can see through it. Don’t scoff at the Hummels either. Sure, they may look like the kind you get at Costco, but these are the real deal, made in the mid-20th century. Choose whether you want to channel Bette Davis or Grace Kelly by decking yourself out in the jewelry – both genuine and costume. It’s high time some Old World class was brought back to shopping.
140 Washington Ave., Richmond, (510) 234-7611
  
     Whoever said that “locally grown” only applied to food? Stop by Point Richmond Art Collective, a bright gallery and find a veritable art garden filled with the designs of nine East Bay creative minds. Though this location is well known as a framing shop and the go-to spot to purchase work by the acclaimed painter Jim DeWitt, in October it began housing the work of painters, sculptors, jewelry designers and photographers who, together, satiate any discerning eye. One visit and you will not be able to stop thinking about Joe Brooks’ metal sculptures that turn everyday hardware into storybook-like characters — from birds to fire-breathing dragons. Good luck passing the jewelry counter without opening your wallet to don yourself in the detail of Thomas Edwards’ and Arlin Robins’ work. You’ll also find the beautiful hand-blown glasswork of Bill Sistek. Of course, you can still get all your new loot framed by director Pam DeWitt. Your only problem may be choosing what to take home.
121 Park Place, Richmond, (510) 778-1480, pointrichmondartcollective.org

What to Do
    Sure, you only live 15 minutes away, but leaving the kids at the grandparents for a night doesn’t mean you have to go home to a pile of laundry and catch up on Grey’s Anatomy. Originally built in 1911, the Hotel Mac is a beautiful establishment that got its name when bought by M.V. McAfee in the 1930s. After ravaged by fire in 1971, the building was restored to the beauty and grace of its original state. Attend one of the wine tastings on the first Tuesday of each month. If you prefer the hard stuff, go for a spirit tasting to become a whiz at whiskey, cognac and other libations. Every room and suite is draped with a different design, with attention paid to detail in every nook. If you can bring yourself to leave your room, the Mac has lots of information on Richmond attractions, like the San Francisco Bay Trail, the Richmond Museum of History and the SS Red Oak Victory Ship. The best part — the drive home will be a piece of cake!
50 Washington Ave., Richmond, (510) 233-0576, hotelmac.net

     If you are the type who pops in the show tunes as soon as you plop into your car or have sung “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” in the shower so many times that even your shampoo bottle knows it by heart, you’re in for a treat at Masquers Playhouse. For more than 50 years, Masquers Playhouse, a volunteer nonprofit community theatre, has brought live theatrical events to the Bay Area. The company performs mainstream plays and musicals, as well as a series called Envision, which includes limited-scale productions not part of the regular season. Visit the Web site for ticket information, and don’t be shy about clicking for more audition information. Tryouts are open to everyone — that means you secret theater buffs who still have the bug from back in high school. You may not have seen your last curtain call.
105 Park Place, Richmond, (510) 232-4031, masquers.org

—Karen T. Hartline

Shaken, Not Stirred

    There are a few things (outside of friends and family) that yours truly truly loves: good food, sports, good drinks and the nightlife. When I’m ready to experience all my loves rolled into one, I make a beeline for Arsimona (561 11th St., 510-444-1158, arsimonalounge.com). This is where some of the tastiest sports bar food this side of the Bay Bridge can be consumed, where 11 jumbo plasmas surround and massage eyes into sports bliss, and where East Bay mixologist Denice Lukas uses her Technicolor imagination to create yummy beverages that any drinker would love to gulp. “I have the freedom to create new and exciting drinks while at the same time having a blast and getting paid to do so,” says Lukas. After tending different types of bars (i.e., lounges, dives, nightclubs, restaurants) in different cities, Lukas considers Oakland the most interesting.
    “Oakland is the only place you can walk into a bar and find every imaginable walk of life sitting together having a drink,” she says. Oakland is also the only place to get a delicious Denice Lukas concoction, including a frosty Piña Colada Mojito.                                                            

Piña Colada Mojito

2 fresh limes
Fresh mint leaves
2 ounces coconut rum
½ ounce triple sec
Splash of ice-cold pineapple juice

Muddle the limes and mint in the bottom of a pint glass. Fill the glass with cracked ice. Add the coconut rum and triple sec. Give a quick shake and float with a splash of ice-cold pineapple juice. Garnish with lime and a mint sprig.

— Lonnie Long