The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 29, 1896, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 1896 15 iy gy %/,’/// Wi N;M wh iy lfi“"‘"\‘ e il i u“i\ ] EAUTIFUL for situation is San Francisco on her hundred hills. How heantiful, we who come and go, daily, within her gates, are too | apt to forzet. At least I think it must be forgetfulness that makes so many of us speak slightingly of this wonderfully picturesque city, comparing it with the | more conventional loveliness of others, | famous for their beauty. It is a misfor tune when we allow the things of every-| day life to become commonplace. It is| just this tendency of the human mind that is at the root of so much carelessness and | bad citizenship. We ought to take seri ously the ¢ ty and beauty of our City, | and bring our standards of life and build- ‘ ing up to it. | There are many approaches to San| Francisco, but none without its peculiar | charm, 1 one excepts the mrosaic entrance of the Menlo Park railroad by | way of the south. But itis the lay of the | road rather than the surrounding country { that 1s at It creeps through cuts and devious ways and one gets but a meager g here and there, of the City. Ongdoes better from the cars of the road, where, from many | ht, the City is seen | might be called its is the horny hand | Ban Mateo a command spread out ir working garments of toil that is The City high towers and c tall masts and raking he water front, s and w gestive of toil, y he what [ It | extended to greet you. | side is a thing of | | | ong th lines of | mokestacks along rds and factories, grim and sug- | ive, too, of the mneys, t s picturesque, half foreign flavor | art of all San Francisco. Itis| grimy and smoky. Most of the buildiags | weatherbeaten; many are ng into premature de- er intended as busi- ind even in their old age | unable to recover their aston- | surroundings in which Ives. a deep and pathetic interest, old homes al ty of Harrivon, are old and they seem ishment at the they f int , in the v Second streets, survivals of the days, e once Bry nt | o i\ \1\\\\\\ \ W AN \ \ i\ | I f this | — | haps there is no other city so little appre- | . 2 ¢ ciated by its own people. But we are im- | not yet a scoraof vears ago, when Rincon | ;rovino'in that regard, and awakening to Hill was the most desirable sitein the | yopee of our City’s possibilities It is not ! ith Fark the Pacific heights | 5 upo0m» that San Francisco needs, nor o aristocratic exclusiveness. | woi'tpo wrow first-class funerals” that im- | There is mo more significant comment than the 2 old homes uyon the wonderful of our City. They have far more air of permanency than have nine- of our more fashionable, modern yet they have for the most part into the neglect and decay of tran- fallen sient and frequently changing tenancy. Coming in from the park or the Cliff House one gets a wholly different yet equally picturesque view of the City. Here again what at tirst seems a stretch of dull gray houses hemming in dull gray streets resolves itself, as the panorama unfolds, into an interesting study in color. There has been, on the whole, wisdom in the apparent stupidity that has painted our houses what a sarcastic observer recently termed, “A uniform mud tint.”’ Whether by accident or design our painters have produced a thoroughly democratic effect of *‘the greatest good to the greatest number.” Itis a general effect of restful neutrality, pleasingly broken here and there, and more frequently than the casual observer would suspect, by bits of bright- ness. Were there greater diversity of color a wooden city, such as ours, spread out toview from hundreds of eminences, as San Francisco must always be, would present the appearance of an unspeakable crazy-quilt with every patch the result of separate and individual selection. Perhaps of all the park routes the Haight-street line presents the most won- derful view of the City as the descent is made into its business center. From this | line, on the downward trip, one looks across to the dark, smoky south, with its teeming life, eastward, down Market | street, the great artery of the City, with | its hurrying multitude running to and fro on the countless small errands that make | up buman existence, and then northward, | where row upon row rise, beantiful homes | crowning the hills and resting in the val- leys between. Across the bay gleam the three sister cities, Oakland, Berkelev and | Alameda, and far on the left the Marin shore shows purple in the mists that pre- is season. r, if one desires an impression of San Francisco’s great extent, such an impres- sion as cannot really be obtained from a height, with eyes sweeping the whole City at a glance, the drive in along the San Bruno road will afford this, and is very likely to cure an imaginative mind of any ering predilection for a level town. t choose your day for this drive. It is 2 ihing to be shunned and feared when | the trades are blowing. | But if, viewed from the land ways, San Francisco is beautiful, seen from the water she has become famous. Where are our | sets that they have not long since sung, | ir artists that they have not painted, ! er and over again, the fair city on her | chless bay ? Whether one sails through he Golden Gate and up the channel, past er sloping beaches and bold bluffs, or her come uearer and nearer, | nigher and bigher, as the San | and Sausalito ferries round the t to their slips, or whether the more t trip is made from the Oakland s, the picture is beautiful and com- | ; the majestic city is ever the same, | ngupon all comers from her count- | Ils, waiting only the loving human | to make her the wonderful thing she | t be. | to insist upon this view of San | It cannot be urged too strenu- T'here is no other city in America !ly enthroned. There is no city where More or greater blunders have been made in government and building. Per- atches Franc ous] 50 r0! patient spirits are wont to urge as a desid- | eratum to nrogress, but an awakening, on | all sides, to a sense that nature has dealt | generously by us, and that we shall do well | to plan and execute our City along the | lines she has indicated. | These are very wonderful days in which to study San Francisco from the water. The “white days” so prevalent just now invest her with a new and weird beauty. The fogs at this season are very different | from those we shall have a little later. They are torn and drifted, showing the City in snatches as the approach is made by the ferries. Perhaps a long, snowy ledge of vapor will stretch clear across the water front, with the parallel lines of streets climbing hezvenward from out it. Orthe mist will lift and drift above | the slips, cutting off all but the higher points of the City, the water front, the shippinz and wharves showing darkly clear and distinct beneath it. Again, it floats in great banks, drifting against the tallest buildings and hovering | in ragged, tossing clouds over the highest | heights. Beneath it the City lies, blue and | beautiful, and the smoke from her chim- neys sets the mist a-quiver with color— | rose and purple, orange and red, and wonderful greens where it rests over the wharves. There is something fascinating, t00, in the approach through a dense sum- mer fog, when only the constant clangor of the bell at the slip guides the steersman into port. From out the white mystery come all the sounds of the City’s busy life, | the clang of cable-cars, the rolling of | heavy wheels, the vibrating sounds of ma- | chinery, and even the calls of vendors about the ferries, but of City there is no | glimpse until, at the very last, as the | steamer creeps on through the mist, dim and ghostlike, an outline looms up, dark and low, that we know is the ferry build- | ing. I have seen the City a shimmerof vibrat- ing opalescence in the delicate haze of an autumn afternoon; clean and clear-cut as acameo after the early rains. It takes on rare blues and purples, then, seen from across the bay, and a little later, when the surrounding hills are ciothed in green, the effect is still more beautiful. The approach at night is very lovely; to watch the City lights climbing upward to meet the stars, but more wonderfut still, | on a clear starlight niglit, is it to watch it | long drive that forms a part of it all is sure to be taken into strange and odd places unknown to the greater crowd that grinds and groans in the City. One day it may be a tour through the Potrero to Hunters Point, where the big stone dry- dock is, and the dinner on a strip of sand under the bluff not far away, with a subse- quent drive over the San Bruno road, the most lonely and picturesque in town, re- turning by way of Baden and the San Jose road. On another day it may be a straight drive to Crystal Springs by way of Milbrae, a dinner on the shore and a return by way of San Mateo. Still another day may find us threading the Presidio | and losing ourselves in a deep canyon be- tween the Marine Hospital and the park. Again, it may be a drive out Point Lobos avenue and down the ocean beach six or seven miles past the Cliff House, with a return by way of Ingleside and the Cor- bett road (a particularly favorite route for us by reason of the fact that in a small canyon at the base of Twin Peaks is the hospitable home of a Frenchman with an English wife, and if that is not a combina- tion of hospitable elements we must go far afield to seek it). For these trips my friend has a sturdy two-wheeled cart that can go anywhere, and it has an ample box body, closed with a lid, for carrying the provisions. The horse is one of those wise and uncanny creatures that knows how to make an easy These precautions are all a part of the able skill of my friend. 3 On the last trip he took two of us in the cart. As composed the party represented France, England and America. The day was ‘gray. The spot selected was one familiar to the Frenchman, and was chosen with exquisite judgment. It was on the ocean beach, far from the possibility of intrusion. At the foot of a towering bluff aridge of sand, overgrown with the lush mesembryanthemum of the = peninsula, separated a little trough from the beach and shielded it from the wind. In that nook, perfectly concealed from any chance stragglers on the beach, a few yards away, my friend unhitched his horse and started England and America ona wood-gathering expedition. That was an easy task. The beach was strewn with dry flotsam. I have stopped with this Frenchman in placss where it seemed impossible to find even a twig for making a fire, but he never worried about that. “Fuel always comes to a cook,’’ he would say; and it always did, although it re- quired two or three hard lessons like that for me to acquire the art of getting fuel. The Frenchman produced two steel rods the size of a vesncil. They were about thirty inches long and sharpened at the points. The ends of them were bent at right angles, forming legs about eight inches long. He stuck the rods in the grade for himself by zigzagging up a hill. f — e - SAN FRANCISCO FROM HAIGHT-STREET HILL. [The photograph from which the sketch from the hills across the bay. The star- | lighted heavens are not more beautiful than that up-going, outstretching sweep of vibratile light. City do mnot dance and flicker, seen thus, but they seem to breathe and pulsate with life and motion. The electric lights, in particular, have this effect. From height to height they seem to signal and answer one another. The ships’ lights on the bay maintain a sort of connection between the cities on either side the water, and the stars above, rounding out the mystical, sparkling sphere, complete a spectacle worth making a piigrimage to bebold. I know of no other locality on | 1] know of no other sight so full of hopeful | the continent that affords such a sight. inspiration. Tt reconciles one to all the blunders of the City’s past and fills one with hope for its future, when ity citizens | ould be | shall know and love it as it sh. loved and know ApELiNe K PP, A FRENCH DINNER ON THE BEACH. | There are just two men in San Francisco (if there are more they have a superb art for concealing their genius) who under- | stand the art of cooking a delicious dinner | on the beach without any of the appli- ances of the kitchen, and who in fhe em- ployment of their skill give a few of their nearest friends an occasional onting which furnishes delignts unknown to the great sordid masses who cannot appreciate the charms of San Francisco. As might be supposed, both of these men are of foreign birth and training, albeit one of them had an American mother. Of course both were poor in their youthful days. One of them is of Italian birth, the other French; one is 2 physician and popular man of society, the other a publisher enjoying prosperity and confidence. Either one of them might make a fortune by writing a book on the art of cooking. As the physician always has ladies in his pleasant little picnic parties, and as the Frenchman confines himself to male guests, it has fallen out that, although both these men are my good friends, it has been only with the Frenchman that I have enjoyed some wonderful days on the sandy beach and in the brushy dunes of this humpbacked peninsula. It is for the purpose of describing one of the events and showing the less fortunate residents of this magical City how they might en- joy a similar pleasure that this is written, ‘We may be sure that no two of our trips are alike, that the camp is never pitched in the same place twice, that no two din- ners are similar, and that the inevitable The lights of the | was made was taken by Taber.) ground about an inch and & half apart, built & fire under them and waited for the coals to appear. Then he produced three dozen small oysters from the inysterious cart-box, opened them deftly with an ordinary table- knife, spread them on the half shell on a newspaper and they constituted the first course of the meal. A touch of lime was their only seasoning. By this time the coals were ready. The box yielded up a dozen softsheli crabs tail and the crustaceans were laid on their backs on the parallel steel rods over the coals. Inashorttime they were turned on their bellies, then soon again on their backs. The signal for this last turn was their beginning to drip. This meant that their fat was melting and must be saved by turning them upon their backs. The notice of their being done came when the backs began to crack and the melted fat to escape. Then they were removed. The under shell was quickly stripped, and the crab buttered and eaten out of hand, and held very carefully so as not to permit the best part of all to spill. This came last. The cup of the upper shell after the meat was gone was half full of a savory liquor. A pinch of butter, which soon melted, and a few drops of lime transformed it into a delicious swallow of something better than a cocktail. No softshell crab prepared in the finest restaurant ever could be as sweet and luscious as that. Three were cooked at a time until the twelve were gone. Simple as all this iooks in the reading, there is not one person in a thousand who knows how to cook a softshell crab like that or who has the smallest idea how de- licious it is. It was the perfect art of our | friend that produced the result. The next course might have been tender chickens to broil, but as on this occasion | it was a skirt steak, and as that article and | the manner of preparing it are unknown | to any but epicures who can cook, I shall select the mysteries of the skirt steak for exposition. This steak is not a steak at | ail, but the diaphragm of the beef—the | long, strong muscle, as thick and as broad | as one’s hand, that produces the inflation and deflation of the lungs. The Frencn | artist-cook selects his steak usually eight days in advance of the picnic. During the first four days it is kept hanging in a cool place and the succeeding four in an ice chest. That makes it tender and sweet. This is the only steak that can be per- fectly broiled over coals. The reason for this is that as the muscle runs lengthwise, | instead of transversely, asin an ordinary steak, and is of just the proper thickness and is covered by a strong thin membrane, | its texture and vessels remain uncut, and ing. Hence there is nothing to makea smudge by dripping, no creosote is formed and not a drop of the juices and fats islost. A bed of coals had been made for the advent of the steak. The long narrow strip of muscle was laid lengthwise upon the rods. As these were so close together as to permit the edgesof the steak to hang over the fire it looked awkward, but the Frenchman, who is wise and knows his business, gave this explanation: “You see, a steak should never be turned more than once over the coals. The hang- | ing down of the sides and the setting of | the steak in that position vroduce a cup when it is turned, and it holdsall tae juices that may come up.” enough it did, for although nothing dripped from the lower side the heat did drive some juices to the top, and there they were held. Into them the salt was sprinkled just before the steak was ready to be removed. Bt AR R E0E, PORTION OF THE CITY SEEN FROM THE BAY. [From a photograph by Taber.] | | | | | s AR iy it still alive. A quick pinch removed the | it cannot “‘bleed”’ in the process of broil- | And sure | Then came another ingenious prepara- tion. A French loaf—none other will an- swer—was cut transversely in two and the parts split lengthwise and soread with soft butter. You never catch a sane Frenchman using iced butter. Upon one of these strips of buttered bread was laid a strip of steak cut of a lengtn to fit it. With a sharp penknife the steak was then slashed through in 3 number of places. Tnstantly the hot imprisoned juices poured out and mingling with the butter soaked into the loaf. Before this had pro- gressed too far the upper slice of bread was laid on the meatand the whole turned over, so that both should be soaked and none of the juices lost. In devouring this delicious morsel either the method of the cave-dweller or the penknife is suitable. I submit that this entire process is arare combination of philosophy and art. Of course there has been an abundance of light red wine, an honest, California article. This yelded to burgundy in the succeeding course, and that in turn to what my. friend called champagne; but this is anticipating. To have hot black coffee without even the coffee-pot is ununusual, but my friend accomplishes it. He makes coffee at home and brings it in a bottte. This he sets to the leeward of the fire and about a foot from it. In half an hour it is hot. If he has a stone ale bottle he quietly remarks that it will inform us when the coffee is ready. This it does by ejecting the stopper with a pop. If he uses a glass bottle he puts in more sugar than in the case of a stone boltle, as the sugar prevents the cracking of the glass. At least that is what he says, and he knows. But the curious thing about it is that the stopper does not pop out of the glass bottle, and so the scheme is hardly so complete and fascinating. The coffea is drunk out of the glass tumblers used for wine, and it is flavored with a little raw rom. The course following the steak is a littla French sausage, of the Dbologna type, sliced thin, ora small pudgy garlic sausage, which is best of all. In spite of Italy's superiorreputation for sausages the French kinds seem to me to be far daintier. Fol- lowing the sausage comes fruit, and then the “champagne.”” This consists of good California white wine mixed with soda water. Thus we have had a French dinner at a trifling cost and cooked by a artist without any kitchen utensils. In the meantime we have been enjoying the great green waves combing the beach, have clambered over the hills strewn with wild flowers, have luxuriated in the lawless fun and frolic of the outing, have sung songs and. toid stories, and then go home with browned faces and contented hearts. It is the easiest thing in the world to enjoy an outing in San Francisco. President at McClellan’s Head- quarters. General Sickles rarely sits down to a table with old soldiers without contribu~ ting some valuable historical reminiscence. At a banquet the other evening he told this story: ‘It was, I should think, very early 1n the winter of 1861-62 that having some business with General McClellan, L walked up one forenoon to his headquar- ters—in Admiral Semmes’ house, opposiie | the Arlington. The man on duty said the general was engaged, and asked me to wait. I took a seat, and shortly the Secretary of War came in and inquired | for the general. An officer came out of the next room, said the general was busy just then, and asked the Secretary of War to take a seat and wait. Mr. Cam- eron sat down and we fell into conversa- tion. Ina few minutes Mr. Lincoln came in and inquired for General McClellan. The officer repeated what he had said to us, that the general was very busy, and Mr. Lincoln would have to wait. The Presis dent sat down with us and said, ‘Al right, T'll wait.” The Secretary of War re« marked that the President ought in some way to have access to one of his generals, Lincoln threw one leg over the other, ag if prepared for a long siege, and said: ‘Oh, no. It’s ail right. My time is of no special value and the general is engaged in attending to our business. I can wait as well as not.’ And he fell into his famous story-telling, showing not the slightest impatience at the necessity of cooling his heels in the anterooma of a man who was a civilian less than a year before, and whom he himself had ap- pointed to office. The incident illuse trated,”” adaed General Sickles, “twa things—first, that Mr. Lincoln was one of the most unpretentious of men, and second, that at that time everybody, ine cluding McClellan himself, expected Mce Clellan to put down the rebellion.”’— Washington Post. The A Frenchman named Villon has ine "vented a novel method of sealing cham- pagne bottles. The loss and deterioration of champagne due to the escape of gas long, he says, made some process of per- fect air-tight sealing desirable. M. Villon accomplishes this by covering the cork and part of the neck with a thin layer of copper electrically deposited. AT i GENERAL VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO FROM THE TWIN PEAKS. [From a photograph by{Taber.]