Michelle Vaughan and Felix Salmon are Berkeleyside friends who live in New York City. Michelle is an artist and Felix is a finance blogger for Reuters. They’re passionate about their food so when we heard they were coming to Chez Panisse for the first time, we asked them to record their thoughts. Here’s their tale:

Michelle: Coming to San Francisco this time for me was for one occasion, and one occasion only: my husband’s birthday. He needed to be in SF for work the day before, and instead of him spending it alone, I volunteered to fly out. With one proviso:  that he get an amazing reservation for a decadent meal.

So Felix set his alarm inside his computer calendar to alert him exactly one month before so he could book through Open Table. He came back to me, “I booked us a reservation.” And I said, “Oh really, where?” And then he showed me the computer screen: Chez Panisse, 2 people, 9:15pm.

Felix: The alarm thing in the computer didn’t work very well, but when Michelle and I were in a restaurant in Orange County last month, I remembered the Chez Panisse idea and got a resy using the Open Table app on my iPhone. I love Open Table, but I think that it sometimes works less well with old-fashioned restaurants.

Michelle: We have dreamed about going to this restaurant for years and years. It’s never happened. So you can imagine my excitement and I booked an air ticket right away.

Felix: Which of course was my cunning plan: I got to spend my birthday in San Francisco with my wife, which was great.

Michelle: Fast forward to F’s birthday: we’re on the BART traveling from San Francisco to Berkeley all dressed up and anticipating a fabulous night.

Felix: Berkeley’s big! And Chez Panisse is not very close to the BART. I was expecting something a bit more Jane Jacobs and downtown, rather than a restaurant-you-really-need-to-drive-to. Michelle was wearing heels, turning the walk from the BART into a bit of a schlep.

Michelle: We arrive at Chez Panisse bang on time.

Felix: We thought we had time to explore Berkeley or grab a drink beforehand, not so much. It basically took us an hour from getting on the BART in SF.

Once we got to the restaurant, I was immediately struck by the architecture: it’s a beautiful and unique restaurant, architecturally, and I adore the way it looks and feels. You feel immediately at home, with all the warm wood; it’s informal yet high-end at the same time. But it can get a bit crowded.

Michelle: It’s asparagus season so there is a big pile in a basket near the entrance. I love that, stating: this is in season, and this is what you’re going to eat.

Felix: The greeting was a bit chaotic, there was a lot of milling around in a crowded corridor before the hostess finally appeared, and she had to deal with a couple of other people first. She needed my last name to find my reservation — no California informality here — and said the table would be ready in 5-10 minutes, they were running a little late. I looked around the corridor, and had to ask if there was a bar. Oh yes, she said distractedly, it’s upstairs. She’d come and fetch us when the table was ready.

The bar was nice, if also crowded; we ordered a couple of cocktails and looked around. Five minutes passed, then ten…

Michelle: Our reservation was for 9:15, so I’m already pretty hungry, as is Felix. We wait and wait.

It was a long wait. Drinks were finished. I mention to Felix it was poor expectations management to have us up here so long, and not check in to see how we are or give us an update on when we’ll be seated. But we are patient.

She finally comes up and we walk down to the dining room. We sit down and soak up the room. No art, just very attractive woodwork somewhere between Mission and Art Nouveau, I was having a hard time deciphering which. It was elegant but not snobby.

We receive our beautiful paper menus (green onions illustrated on the cover), which stated a fixed tasting. Fine, makes things easy — four courses: asparagus salad, Maine lobster and scallop risotto, braised and grilled pork shoulder with gnocchi, peas and fava beans. Neapolitan ice cream for desert. Great, we are ready.

The waiter comes to discuss the wine menu, which Felix is trying to choose from. He narrows down to a few — asks for a Pinot Noir that is earthy, light and has lots of character. We like a barnyard kick. The waiter wavers a little, unsure if they had something to match his request. So Felix asks about an Italian choice, and the waiter says, “Ah yes. That is fantastic and should be what you’re looking for.” (Or something to that effect.) We’re happy, he walks away and then returns with the bottle. He says, “Well actually it’s not from Italy, but from Slovenia. You will enjoy it.” Slovenia? Really??? The fact of the matter is, the wine was good. Slovenia: who knew? But it was listed as Italian and the waiter who seemed to know something about it, didn’t interject in the beginning to let us know it was in fact misprinted and from somewhere else, which annoyed Felix. I was still thinking about Mission furniture and how trendy it was for yuppies in the mid-nineties.

Felix: Our waiter seemed friendly, if slightly aggressive. Certainly chatty. He told us that the Chez Panisse conception of locavorism extends to flying in lobster from Maine, which I wasn’t very excited about, since I don’t think Maine lobster travels very well and much prefer it in situ. Eventually he came to take our wine order; he said that an interesting-looking red Trousseau from Jura was going to be quite heavy, so I asked about a 2004 Pinot Nero from Friuli in Italy. He started waxing rhapsodic about it, and told us that it was aged in clay, which sounded so weird and funky that I had to order it.

When he came back with the wine, he didn’t present to us so much as announce its arrival. Here you go, he said, a Pinot Nero from the Italian-Slovenian border. Then he looked at the back label, and said oh look, actually it’s from Slovenia. (It was called Movia, if you want to look it up.)

I’ll try any kind of weird and wonderful wine, so the fact that the wine was from Slovenia didn’t bother me too much, in fact it was quite exciting. And the wine was good. But it is very odd that it was listed on the wine list as being from Friuli in Italy. And it’s also odd that the waiter who knew so much about the wine didn’t know what country it was from.

Michelle: Then the first course comes. The asparagus was delicious. We finish.

Felix: The asparagus, we both agreed, was perfectly cooked, and tasted better than just about any asparagus either of has ever had. In the annals of asparagus, this was undoubtedly first-rate asparagus. And it lived up to the Chez Panisse reputation of cooking first-rate local food simply, and just letting the natural flavors come out.

I did feel that a bit of effort with respect to the plating would not have gone amiss: just because it’s been cooked simply, doesn’t mean it can just be slapped down on the plate. If anything, when the food is cooked so simply, the rest of it becomes more important, including the way the food is presented, both on the plate and by the waiter. It’s the only way for the restaurant to show respect for the food and for its customers.

Michelle: We wait. The second course comes… our waiter had said earlier that this dish was really divine, but actually: meh. It was OK. Neither of us were bending over backwards.

Felix: The second course was nominally a risotto, but it came out more like a random pile of undercooked rice mixed up with light-brown liquid and the occasional lump of something seafoody. This was no unitary risotto: it had disassembled itself into its constituent parts, none of which seemed to have enjoyed the experience. The lobster and scallops were perfectly good, but hardly revelatory, and actually, for a restaurant which prides itself on letting the food’s flavors shine out, they were kinda buried in the rice. That wonderful light, spring-fresh flavor that one gets in great risottos was missing; instead, the dish was stodgy, and I certainly got no hint of the sheer joy I get from eating Maine lobsters in Maine. My lobster rule stays.

Michelle: And then for the third course. Except we didn’t get it. We waited and waited. Our plates had been removed and we just sat there. Our waiter was MIA. I wish I had been more attentive to my watch so I could tell you the exact amount of time which went by during each course — but what I can say is that all of it was too long. I finally had to find another waiter and tell him, “Listen, we haven’t seen our waiter in a really long time. We don’t have our mains, what’s going on?” and with that, he rushed back. Our food came out immediately after, our waiter apologized and gave us a glass of wine on the house. That was nice. But it doesn’t make up for our time lost, and that cohesive fine dining experience one should expect from Chez Panisse… we ate our pork and fava beans: they were OK. Nothing spectacular. And nothing wrong either. Everything tasted good, but it didn’t taste GREAT. It wasn’t that creative. I won’t even describe the Neapolitan ice cream because I think you get it. So what, right?

Felix: The wait between the second and third courses really was a joke. And we did seem to lose our waiter somewhere along the way, dealing with various different servers and even the hostess at various points. They did give us an extra glass of wine when Michelle ran out, and no one was ever unfriendly. They were just a bit absent. All of which is pretty unforgivable given that this is a restaurant which in theory knows weeks in advance exactly how many dishes it’s going to be serving that night, and exactly when each one is going to be served. If it wanted to, it could, like Alinea, time everything down to the minute. Instead, it seemed to be collapsing under some kind of unexpected strain. Maybe the chef got sick and couldn’t come in, something like that? I have no idea. But that was the impression.

The main meat course was two cuts of pork, cooked two ways: shoulder and loin, I think, braised and grilled. Something like that. If anything a bit high-concept for the down-to-earth Chez Panisse, and certainly so much cooking was done to the pork that I can’t tell you whether the pork itself was particularly good. The loin was better than the thin and dry slices of shoulder, which sat there forlornly looking as though their highest ambition in life was to be a filling in a sandwich.

The dessert course was a big disappointment for me: while I ate the strawberry ice cream, I left the vanilla and the chocolate — they just weren’t interesting. Mine did come with a candle, and a piece of paper saying happy birthday.

And finally came the coffee: bitter, far too strong, with none of the natural sweetness in a well-drawn espresso. We asked a couple of people if they could call us a cab, and eventually somebody did.

The room was full of a wide variety of interesting-looking Berkeleyans, but  I didn’t get the vibe that most of them were there for the food. (One table was clearly there for the wine, another seemed to be putting together a PowerPoint presentation.) Maybe it’s a pleasant place to have a nice meeting or meal out, catch up with colleagues or friends. And that’s a very important part of what a restaurant should be. But some restaurants aim higher than that.

The bill, when it came, included a 17% service charge; I can’t remember whether that was mentioned on the menu. But in the end we spent over $340 on dinner at Chez Panisse. I can certainly think of places where it’s possible to spend that kind of money on worse food, but I can also think of a lot of places where you get much more joy, professionalism and creativity.

Michelle: We walked out that night completely let down. We both love what Alice Waters has done for food and farmers, and I can only assume when she’s in the kitchen cooking it’s a fabulous experience. But the restaurant is another story — just putting together local, fresh food is not enough these days to get me excited. I can do that in my own kitchen, and if we want disorganized service, believe me, we can serve that up just fine at home. What we were expecting was to be dazzled, like we were the following day for lunch at the Slanted Door. That was spectacular (pineapple-anchovies anyone?).

Sure we’re spoiled in New York, with local chefs from downtown to Brooklyn experimenting, competing and getting weird. Corton and Eleven Madison (for very special nights out), Spotted Pig/Breslin (when Fergus Henderson visits, it’s the bomb) and Momofuku Ssam Bar are tried and true NYC favorites… I’d rather be pounded by rock music while some pierced hipster slaps down creative bowls of deliciousness at Momofuku, than deal with a disorganized fancy restaurant any day.

Felix: The legacy of Alice Waters is everywhere: in thousands of restaurants and farmer’s markets around the country the Alice Waters gospel is preached to the converted. It has been built on with fervor and imagination, and millions of Americans eat tastier, healthier food as a result. But I think that Chez Panisse is no particular exemplar of what Alice Waters really stands for. It’s not accessible; the food is not all that spectacular; and the overriding impression is of a past-its-prime institution trading on its name.

Michelle: Alice Waters is very important as a food activist, and we totally support the Edible Schoolyard. One is being built in East New York, Brooklyn, it’s going to be great. I am helping support a regional outdoor market which will hopefully open permanently in downtown. It will be different from a green market. She’s incredibly active, and I think influenced Michelle Obama’s decision to plant a vegetable garden at the White House.

We very much support all these efforts, which is part of the reason we were so damn excited to visit the restaurant! So we crashed hard when they just kind of threw it out there and then disappeared.

What do you think, Berkeleysiders? Did Michelle and Felix have bad luck? Was there somewhere else in Berkeley they should have gone for a celebratory meal worth flying across the country for?

Photo of Chez Panisse by Empty Highway on Flickr

From my reading of the tea leaves, Burke may be right. Here’s the text of an email BHS parents just received on signing up for the labs:

Science labs for Advanced Biology, Chemistry, and Physics will be included in the regular class time.  If students in these classes wish to take a separate enhancement/support lab course before or after school they may sign up for one. The class meets one day per week and students earn one credit for participation. Information about the lab support course was included in the course catalog and counselors provided information and the opportunity to sign up for it during course scheduling.

I know from my sample of one BHS student, the idea of signing up for an additional, wholly optional class (which could be, like this year, at 3:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon), is very unappealing. I can’t repeat on a family-friendly website his response that chemistry lab was a requirement in our household.

Add to that the very marginal encouragement I read in today’s email — here’s some “enhancement” or “support”, but it’s no biggie if you don’t do it. I suspect only a minority of households will read that email and say to their student, “You really should do the extra lab.”

Here’s an alternative email that might have done a better job of ensuring continued support for extra science labs:

Understanding science is both fundamental for our students and for our society. We are fortunate at Berkeley High to have a great science program, with an excellent record of achievement. The school board has secured extra funds to provide additional science labs for BHS students, which should provide them even better academic preparation. We encourage your student to sign up for the additional labs. Use them or lose them.

Photo by Horia Varlan from Flickr

Yesterday, Berkeleyside published an anti-pools bond comment by Marie Bowman. Robert Collier, co-chair of the Berkeley Pools Campaign, writes that there were numerous errors of fact in Bowman’s comment and he feels he’s in a “closed loop” where every statement requires immediate correction:

In Washington, D.C. and around the country, conservatives are hoping they can bluff their way into upset victories in this year’s elections. Health care, clean energy, financial regulation and other much-needed reforms are in their gun sights as they fire inflammatory claims and accusations. In Berkeley, the local “Party of No” seems to hope it can use the same tactics to defeat a ballot measure that would save some of our community’s most basic yet best-loved amenities – our four municipal swimming pools.

The conservatives’ strategy is brazen – to combine one bogus factoid on top of another as fast as possible, in a barrage of bluster that is intended to overwhelm and confuse voters. A perfect example is the comment by Marie Bowman in yesterday’s Berkeleyside. Bowman packs an astounding number of false statements into her argument against Measure C, which will be on the ballot June 8. Nearly every claim in her article is provably factually incorrect.

Let’s start with some truths that Bowman glosses over. Measure C would save two of the city’s four pools from certain extinction – Willard Pool, which is scheduled for permanent closure this July, and the Warm Pool, which will be evicted next year from its location at Berkeley High School. Measure C also would remodel West Campus Pool and expand King Pool. Overall, it would save and improve the four pools as wonderful community centers for Berkeley’s children, adults, seniors and disabled.

But the Party of No has turned reality upside down. Here are some of the false claims in Bowman’s comment:

Claim: Measure C would raise annual pools maintenance costs to $3.5 million, to be further adjusted for inflation. Fact:Measure C provides $980,000 for pools hours, programs and maintenance, adjusted for inflation. Measure C has an authorization limit of $3.5 million by 2040, most of which is for annual repayment of the bond’s principal and interest.

Claim: $20 million in new taxes were approved by Berkeley voters last November. Fact: Zero new taxes were approved last November.

Claim: UC Berkeley’s program for the disabled operates a warm pool that could be used by the city. Fact: UC Berkeley has no such pool. The Cal STAR sports program for the disabled provides access to the three campus outdoor pools, none of which is warmer than 82 degrees – far too cold for most disabled people, many elderly and others who cannot generate enough body heat while in the water.

Claim: The Warm Pool at Berkeley High School could be remodeled and not demolished. Fact: Even if many wish otherwise, the School Board has decided that BHS needs more space for classrooms and other facilities and that the Warm Pool must be evicted to make way for a new building. Demolition is scheduled for June 2011.

Claim: The Warm Pool could be substituted by the Downtown Berkeley YMCA’s two warm pools. Fact: The YMCA has only one warm pool, which is only 3.5 feet deep and thus cannot serve the disabled and others who need full-body immersion, and its lateral dimensions are so small that wave action prevents lap swimming. YMCA administrators say their pools are near maximum user capacity and cannot handle a significant increase.

Claim: The Aquatic Exercise Association (AEA) does not recommend the use of pools above 86 degrees except for limited uses, and the Warm Pool’s 92-degree water is dangerous. Fact: AEA official guidelines explicitly state that 92-degree water is appropriate for infants, physical therapy for all ages, and people with arthritis and Parkinson’s.

Claim: The new Warm Pool would be Olympic size, extravagantly large. Fact: The Warm Pool would be the same as its current 2,250 square feet, which is about one-sixth the Olympic 25 meters by 50 meters, or 13,455 square feet.

Claim: The Berkeley High School competition pool could meet the needs of middle school students and the Barracudas team.Fact: The BHS competition pool is solidly booked with BHS aquatics programs every weekday afternoon after classes.

Claim: Rehabbing Willard as a competition pool would reduce Measure C’s cost by $2.5 million. Fact: Doing so would raise the measure’s capital cost by $1.3 million, plus extra operating expenses.

Claim: Berkeley municipal debt is rising from $4 million in 2010 to $15 million in 2011. Fact: By law, the City must approve a balanced budget each year. Berkeley has a Standard & Poor’s bond credit rating of AA+, putting Berkeley in the highest 1 percent of cities nationwide.

Claim: Maintenance costs for Measure C have grown 380 percent. Fact: Nothing remotely resembling any such increase exists.

So why such a reckless disregard for the truth? Perhaps because Berkeley voters have soured on Bowman’s “anti-tax” ideology. In the 2006 and 2008 Berkeley elections, Bowman and her Party of No tried to defeat ballot measures that supported the public schools, branch libraries and emergency services. But the Party of No failed each time, as Berkeley residents voted in favor of the facilities and programs that are so important for our quality of life.

Certainly, Berkeleyans have legitimate concerns about high taxes. But support for Measure C is broad. It was approved by all nine members of the City Council and all five members of School Board. Other endorsers include former Mayor Shirley Dean, Senator Loni Hancock, Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers and scores of other groups and community leaders.

In the end, Measure C boils down to one simple question – should our community invest for the future? Should we plan for a good quality of life for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and other Berkeley generations? Or should we allow Berkeley’s naysayers to shrink and eliminate our city’s most beloved assets?

PLEASE VOTE YES ON MEASURE C – for our pools, our health, our kids and our community.

My latest Berkeley rant is regarding the limited hours of pharmacy service in our city.

Pharmacies keep banker’s hours. There is no 24-hour pharmacy in Berkeley. I don’t think there is one in Oakland either.  Oakland has a 24-hour Walgreens, but the pharmacy is not open 24 hours.

People who are sick or unable to get a pharmacy before they close for the night are SOL.  People who walk out of the emergency room at night better have free samples, because they aren’t going to fill an RX in Berkeley until the next day.

At midnight on Sunday, you can get your choice of pizzas, but you can’t buy a potentially life-saving antibiotic.

If your kid is sick in the middle of the night and you are able to get in touch with a doctor to call in an emergency RX, you are out of luck in Berkeley.

Given the millions of dollars CVS, Walgreens and other pharmacies make selling drugs, couldn’t they afford to staff one pharmacy at night in Berkeley to serve people who need their medications?  People in Berkeley generate millions of dollars for CVS and Walgreens.

In Barcelona pharmacies take turns and rotate who will be open all night to serve the public. I hear that San Francisco and Contra Costa County have 24 hour pharmacies. Why can’t we get one in Berkeley? Why should millions of people in the East Bay have no access to critical medication at night?

Contact CVS and Walgreens. Tell them you want 24 hour pharmacy service in Berkeley.

Photo from Flickr by Coreyu

Since my book In the Land of Believers came out a couple of weeks ago, most of the articles covering its release have made good use of some startling shorthand in headlines — “Atheist Jew From Berkeley Goes Undercover In Evangelical Church”, kind of thing.

“When I say you’re a secular Jew from Berkeley, California,” a Christian radio show host recently asked me, “everybody in this audience immediately knows where you’re coming from, don’t they?”

Well, sort of. Not really. The word secular carves space for a vacuum, not a shared system of principles. I’m a Jew, sure, by the matrilineal definition of the word, and by some dim cultural associations, but I don’t practice. And the word Berkeley rings very differently to the ears of people who haven’t lived there.

Joe Scarborough generously had me on his radio program a couple of weeks ago, and he asked if, while I was at Thomas Road Baptist Church [the late Dr Jerry Falwell's church in Lynchburg, Virginia], I’d noticed young Evangelicals “dressing like they were from Berkeley, California”*.

If you’re from Berkeley you might bristle at the notion that there’s such a thing as dressing Berkeley, knowing, as you surely do, the Berkeley label tends to blankly pave over byzantine cultural complexity. You know the muscle of the Berkeley Left is actually made up of a million fibers, often flexing at cross purposes — the Green Partiers, the Clintonites, the Obamaphiles, the Slow Foodists and Dumpster Divers, the Second and Third Wave feminists, the Marxists, anarchists, and Revolutionary Communists, the vaguely apathetic left-leaners, the merely apathetic.

You know there’s a strong libertarian contingent in Berkeley, just as sure as there’s a North Berkeley mood contrasting that in the South and the West. You know that slight change in cabin pressure as College crosses Claremont into Berkeley from Oakland, once marked by the blazing orange ball of the 76 station. You know how the airy warehouse grandeur of Berkeley Bowl West departs from the alleyway cramp of the original Berkeley Bowl. You know about racial tension at Berkeley High, you know the socio-economic difference between the hills and the flats. You know that Berkeley’s diversity doesn’t always translate into integration.

You know the narcotic waft of the Rose Garden in bloom, the eerie cries of peacocks echoing in the canyons below Grizzly Peak. You didn’t need Gwen Stefani to demonstrate the useful adverbial qualities of ‘hella’. You recognize the hodgepodge of architectural styles in the hills as a legacy of the big fire, the spontaneous reinvention of neighborhoods.

If you aren’t from here, when you hear Berkeley you hear tie-dye, protest marches, politically correct slogans bleated into bullhorns; you hear barefoot hippies with tangled hair tunelessly banging their tambourines; you hear healing crystals and crystal deodorant, hemp sandals and Krishna chants; you hear organic bok choy, humanely raised in a compost garden, nurtured daily with wisdom from the goddess, harvested according to a moon calendar and served on a lumpy, tasteless bed of bulgur wheat.

If you’re from Berkeley, you know all that’s there, that’s part of the story, but it’s only a thin wire in the tangled, complex circuitry of Berkeley life.

As I introduce my book to the world I’ve been slapping down the Berkeley card wherever I go, knowing full well what stereotypes it activates. When I was writing In the Land of Believers, I agonized over how to establish my point of view with great subtlety and precision, to reveal the exact prescription of the lens through which readers would be regarding evangelical Christians. And now when they ask, “Are you an atheist Jew from Berkeley, California?” I say, “I am.”

I do it because it’s efficient. Because while the specific universe of Berkeley is deep and complex, pushpinning Berkeley on a map with Lynchburg does illustrate helpful contrasts in political, geographical, and cultural differences.

Trading in reductive stereotype isn’t fair to Berkeley, I know. A high-school classmate trying to find purchase in DC emailed to tell me she had a “beef” with my suggestion that Berkeley was some kind of “atheist den”. “I’m having enough trouble with the Berkeley reputation in this town,” she wrote. “Would you mind just say[ing] ‘Northern California’ or something?”

Apologetically, I told her no. But her angst speaks my language. People hear the Berkeley label and fill in all sorts of information about you before you get the chance to express yourself as a specific person.

The first week my book came out I ran into a former student on George Washington’s campus, her eyes round with concern. “They’re calling you this atheist Jew from Berkeley,” she said, “and you’re totally not like that!”

If you’re from Berkeley, you know that saying a person is an atheist Jew from Berkeley doesn’t tell you much about what they’re like at all.

*“You say that with such scorn,” I replied.

“No, I used to dress that way myself,” he said charmingly. “I’ve got a little artist side to me.”

Gina Welch will be reading at Books Inc in Berkeley, at 1760 Fourth Street, tonight at 7pm, and tomorrow, Tuesday 23, at Book Passage in Corte Madera, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, also at 7pm. You can read her interview on The Huffington Post and read her blog on True Slant.

By now, gentle reader, you have no doubt found it tedious and predictable, these clear juxtapositions of seeing the world in such black and white, Texan vs. Berkeley terms. So I would like to devote this column to a place of tail-wagging communion between the two republics.

There are few moments I feel more at home than walking dogs in Tilden Park on the fire trail. Normally rushed and clipped interactions become leisurely and intimate. And how could they not? Is there anything more intimate than being in a pack? And is there anything more pack-like than canids?  Whether it’s the Vinegar dogs of South America or rescue mutts in Tilden,  watching pack interactions — dog and human — is as good as the view.

There is simply no room for pretension around dogs, especially during moments that can only be described as “Synchronized Pooping”, followed by a reenactment of The Gleaners, only with blue New York Times bags instead of scythes.

I love learning the names of everyone’s dog.  Especially the duos. Maybe this is because one of my earliest memories is of L.B.J.’s two beagles, “Him” and “Her.”  In Tilden I’ve met “Sweet Pea and Earl,”  “Debit and Credit,” “Mickey and J.J.”  One day there was even a “Demosthenes and Antipater,” which the owners amended with “you can Wiki it!” in response to my puzzled look as they ran by.

In Tilden Park, everyone gets to be off-leash.

And the maraschino cherry on this sundae is that I have a dog that is convinced that he, Cesar, and not Tom Bates, is the actual Mayor of Berkeley. He is driven to impart a sense of welcome and friendship upon any being in his path. This adds to the fun because I am, actually, from a place that once had on its license plates, “Texas: The Friendly State!” (Molly Ivins once proposed, “Texas: Land of Wretched Excess”). And walking my dog in Tilden Park gives me a way to be friendly without feeling like I have a toothpick stuck in my mouth. It’s a reliably great time — until it all goes horribly, horribly awry.

And I find my yar and picaresque little vassal bounding to greet an animal that looks like Cujo on meth. A screamingly vicious and bad dog. Not just a tough character, but a dystopic canine Hannibal Lector pit/bulldog mix with two choke chains around its neck — that end in a leash held by one of these very nice older Berkeley women who look like they either started the Women’s Studies Department in 1972 or moved out from Boston with their boyfriend on a lark in 1968 and still live in the same co-op. There is East Coast decorum here, a desire to converse in a spirited, friendly and decidedly pleasant way. No doubt an E.B. White devotee.

Yet her dog is truly “mean as a wolverine,” and  is actually sucking in its breath through its teeth in a hissing show of aggression just like a saw a caged “pet” badger do one time. It is a nightmare.

And I lied earlier. My dog is not really “yar” as in “quick and easy to handle” like a beautiful little sailboat.  He is quick. And he is as sturdy as a little boat. But he is completely disobedient. (Yes, I know, Sirius Puppy Training).

There will be blood. Cesar is frisking closer and the Angela Lansbury look-alike is trying to shout sweetly above the chaos of her lunging hellhound,  “You might want to keep your dog away… my dog has a ‘Greeting Disorder”.

A “Greeting Disorder”.  As in, her dog doesn’t want to sniff butts, he wants to rip out entrails.  A “Greeting Disorder”.

“When he’s at home my other dog models the correct behavior for him, but when he’s… alone… his… ‘Greeting… Disorder’…. really…  manifests…  itself.” Cujo’s non-stop lunges make her last words sound like she’s shouting from atop a vibrator bed gone wild.

And then a sound emerges from me, a “HEAH NOW!”  Like something L.B.J. would say to “Him” and “Her,” from the time when men would really pick up their hunting dogs by their ears. It came from somewhere deep in my most masculine place (as a Jungian might say). A guttural, brutish vocalization of total and unequivocal dominance. It would have stopped a silverback gorilla. It’s how I heard my Dad handle his seven Brittany spaniels again and again. And it made Doggie Hannibal Lector, Cesar, and nice but obviously insane lady freeze. I was predator, they were prey, and I called the shots for that nanosecond.

My grab is successful and I’m headed down the hill with the oblivious Cesar, the happy quack, heart thudding while I take it in:  South Bay,  Oakland shipyards, San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Farallon Islands, Mount Tam, Coast Range, Carquinez Straights.

But the view provides no joy.

Later I talk with a friend about the encounter. The worst of it is how much it has taken the ‘safe place’ feeling away from the gloriousness of Tilden park dog walking and socializing. She explains her theory that, unlike 101 Dalmatians, most owners don’t mirror their dogs, but are the exact opposite, kind of alter egos. And then she adds something that really taxed my Texan-Berkeley translation device: “Don’t worry.  Just go back up. You’ll forget about this and Tilden will remain a great outlet for homosocial – I don’t mean homosexual, but homosocial — gathering for you, and you’ll be able to enter into its ultimate reality again.”

And you know she was right.  I went up there this morning and felt as happy as a little dog with two tails.

Kelly Cash, who lives in Berkeley, is a writer who prepares ethically harvested foods for her companion animals, including husband and children, while working to save open spaces, one million acres at a time. This is the fourth in her series of “Lone Star” columns.

She collects “Berkeley Moments”, so if you have one, send it to tips@berkeleyside.com

Previous Lone Star columns:

On not rushing the bonding
On potty training
On latkes

[Photo Jock McDonald © 2009]

For those raised in “Political Incorrectness”, the holidays pose many challenges. Some of it has to do with finding a way for private nostalgia to co-exist with currently accepted norms. Did I really live in a place where all media (count ‘em, three television stations) uniformly covered “Santa Sightings” with as much intensity as they later would O.J.’s white bronco?  A place whose neighborhoods were lit up with so many lights that they looked like small supernovae?  Where nativity re-enactors wrangled live camels and donkeys in frigid prairie winters, where “the only thing between Fort Worth and the North Pole is a barb wire fence”.

Of course, as time wore on the outside world pressed in upon the Lone Star State. Who can forget the famous fight about whether a crèche should be allowed to remain in the state capitol? Asked by A.C.L.U. representatives to remove it, then Governor Ann Richards said, “You know, that’s probably as close as three wise men will ever get to the Texas Legislature, so why don’t we just let them be?”

I, like you, love Berkeley because it values diversity, and yet what answer to give a first grader who asks, “how many different holidays can you celebrate in one month, anyway?”

During the holidays in Berkeley the uber narratives that I’m familiar with of peace, light and hope have survived wonderfully, but the particulars get a little fuzzy.  I remember watching an industrious mother at a holiday party “funnel the energy” of the preschool set into an impromptu play about the nativity. “And who was it, who came down from Heaven to tell Joseph and Mary that they were going to have a baby?”  The entire group looks thunderstruck, wondering what answer will bring them closer to cake time. “Who was it?  Who came down from Heaven?” One little girl lights up and says: “Burl Ives.”

And yet there’s always food, isn’t there?  So when asked if there were any parents who might want to help with a first grade holiday latke party, my hand shot up.  Latkes.  What could be better? So what if I called them ‘potato pancakes’ and my Jewish friend calls them ‘latkes’.

Latkes/potato pancakes are a superb example of evolutionary convergence.  Obviously the same light bulb went off in everyone’s mind when they encountered that Peruvian tuber so suited for creating coma-inducing, community-bonding delectations of epic proportions.  I almost skipped as I went to discuss our “Holiday Cooking Project” with the “Edible Schoolyards” chef.

Who looked at me with that puzzled, head-tilted gaze of sincere empathy that I had come to dread. “Latkes… all that oil. I know, they are so good I can taste them. But I can’t.  I just can’t. We are working so hard to teach the children to celebrate with healthy foods.”

And so we ended up making piquant snowmen out of tangerines from the Capay Valley, using raisins to create the winsome facial features. They were not hot and crispy. No one groaned and said that they couldn’t eat another bite and then ate five more. No, they were cold and citrusy and … pretty darn good.  And even I had to admit that their facial features were much cuter than ones found on potato pancakes, er, latkes.

I felt a warm sense of holiday connection that I shared with a deep Berkeley-ite friend.   “Yes,” she said, “there’s usually some kind of viable option that opens up in these situations if enough space can be created.” After realizing that she was talking about my situation at the first-grade holiday party, and not World Bank politics, the ‘aha’ moment happened. I see the hairnet of the Luby’s Cafeteria lady who, when asked by a patron, which is better, the buttermilk pie or the chess, answers sincerely: “whatever melts your butter.”

Next time:  Dog parks. Fun outing or group psychoanalysis?

Kelly Cash, who has lived in Berkeley for eight years, is a writer who prepares ethically harvested foods for her companion animals, including husband and children, while working to save open spaces in the American west, one million acres at a time. This is the third in her series of “Lone Star” columns.

Previous “Lone Star” columns:

On not rushing the bonding
On potty training

[Photo Jock McDonald © 2009]

Photo/Jeremy Franklin

We wrote last week about the debate over science and the achievement gap at Berkeley High School. There’s a stream of comments on that earlier post that are well worth reading, if you’re concerned about the issue.

Priscilla Myrick, a former Berkeley High School Governance Council parent representative and mother of two BHS graduates, weighs in with an open letter, arguing for the importance of the science labs:

Science education for all Berkeley students is too important for the community to ignore.  The achievement gap includes literacy, math and science. The following are some facts on BHS student achievement in science, how funding from the BSEP parcel tax works, science education as part of the national “Race to the Top” education agenda, and how the lack of good governance at Berkeley High in terms of compliance with the Education Code, board policy, and BSEP tax measure is leading to poor decision-making about a Berkeley High education.  Please voice your opinion to the BUSD board.

Issue:  The BHS School Governance Council recently voted to show their support of a proposal that will eliminate FTEs (full time equivalent) credentialed science teachers that are currently being used to fund science labs (approximately 4-5 FTEs) in favor of teachers supporting unspecified “equity” proposals.  The Principal has directed the SGC to review the use of these (public BSEP funds) through an “equity lens.”

THIS IS A FALSE CHOICE.  Berkeley High needs BOTH a strong college prep science program AND academic support for students struggling at the bottom of the achievement gap.  The BSEP parcel tax provides funding to do BOTH and has. In November 2006 the Berkeley Public Schools Educational Excellence Act (also known as BSEP/Measure A) was extended for ten years through June 2017.  BUSD is one of the best funded districts in the state thanks to local taxpayer support.  BUSD receives $12,400 per student compared with the average California unified school district that receives $9,000 — almost 40% more!

Achievement in science at BHS

• Since elimination of double period science in 2003, achievement has declined.  For example, in chemistry the percent of students proficient declined from 48 % in 2003 to 37% proficient in 2009.  In order to maintain the quality of the current program existing labs MUST be retained.  Students need more time in class/labs, not less.
• Science labs provide weekly enrichment and satisfy UC and CSU requirements that college prep science classes offer 20% of instructional time for hands-on lab activities.  Extra lab periods provide additional time to support struggling students.
• Elimination of these labs will reduce instructional time in science classes by more than 21% (30% in AP classes).
• Each year Berkeley High offers over 60 sections of lab science courses to 1,700 students, almost 20% of those sections are Advanced Placement courses that offer the students the possibility of college-level credit.  This is a major portion of the college preparatory academic program at Berkeley High.

Funding from BSEP parcel tax

• In December Berkeley taxpayers are paying their tax bills and the BSEP tax levy.  BSEP stands for Berkeley Schools Excellence Project.  The BSEP tax averages $500 per year ($.228 per square foot) per household.  Berkeley voters supported the tax with 74% approval.  Berkeley taxpayers deserve the promised oversight that spending is in accordance with the tax measure.  It does not appear that unspecified “equity” grants proposed by the Principal are appropriately being taken from BSEP “expanded course offering” funds.
• In total BSEP contributes about $22 million to the BUSD total budget of over $108 million. Local tax funds are integral to educating Berkeley’s children.  At Berkeley High, BSEP funds:
  1)  25% of the classroom teachers (34-35 FTE) $3.0 million (Smaller Class Size Funding)
  2)  expanded course offerings (6 FTE) $500K (Expanded Course Offering Funding)
  3)  and educational support/school enrichment and instructional materials (13 FTE) over $700K  (Site Discretionary Funding)
• BSEP also supports the Berkeley High School library, as well as parent outreach, professional development, evaluation and technology. Almost 50 teachers and classified staff at Berkeley High are supported by BSEP. Why is Principal Slemp targeting to eliminate 4-5 science lab FTEs?
• Since Berkeley High ended double-period science in 2003, science labs in addition to classroom time have been consistently funded from BSEP funds for expanded course offerings.  Principal Slemp has coerced the SGC into eliminating science labs (4-5 FTE) in favor of unspecified “equity” classes.  No data supports the undefined use of these critical classroom teachers.
• BSEP Planning & Oversight Chair Julie Holcomb stated, “In any case, according to the [BSEP tax] Measure, those FTE have to be used for classroom teachers teaching courses to students (they couldn’t be used for counselors, for example), and they have to ‘expand course offerings.’  The ‘Equity Grants’ would have to comply with the Measure if they are being funded by it.”
• The Berkeley community supports the BSEP parcel tax (Berkeley Schools Excellence Project) in order that Berkeley High can offer enhanced academic learning opportunities for all students.  A substantial amount of BSEP funding is site discretionary spending.  Almost $700K already is allocated to a range of educational support and enrichment services including: tutors, academic support coordinator, college counselors, student learning center, after-school teacher tutorials.  In fact the site discretionary fund supports the AP Project that works with first-generation college-bound students in gateway classes such as geometry and chemistry, and in small schools and programs in the most rigorous classes offered.
• BSEP through its class size reduction money allows Berkeley High to offer Algebra I (normally taken in middle school) to struggling high school students with a class ratio of 20:1 rather that the overall average of 28:1.  Many upper level math classes enroll over 28 students (some math classes have over 40 students) in order to allow for an overall average of 28:1.
• Additionally, BSEP class size reduction allows for the existence of an Accelerated Reading class for students who struggle with basic literacy skills in an atmosphere of less than 10:1.

Importance of science education at the state and national level

Note the comments made by President Obama regarding math and science education in announcing the Educate to Innovate campaign two weeks ago:

Leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today, especially in those fields that hold the promise of producing future innovations and innovators.  And that’s why education in math and science is so important… I’m committed to moving our country from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math education over the next decade… To meet this goal, the Recovery Act included the largest investment in education in history while preventing hundreds of thousands of educators from being fired because of state budget shortfalls… Today, we are launching the “Educate to Innovate” campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the goal this administration has set: moving to the top in science and math education in the next decade.

• As a country, we lag in math and science, and minorities are significantly underrepresented in math and science in undergraduate and graduate programs and ultimately in those scientific and technical jobs in the work force.  Math and science must be strengthened at the high school level in order to fill the educational pipeline and achieve educational equity. Data from the National Science Foundation show that African Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans are significantly under-represented in the sciences.  For example, African Americans represent only 1% of PhD scientists.
• According to UC Berkeley, “In California, our most underrepresented minorities in the sciences are African-Americans, and Hispanics are the second most underrepresented group.  Thus, the bulk of our [outreach] efforts are directed toward developing a better pipeline to both our undergraduate and graduate programs for students from these communities.”
• How is Berkeley High doing in preparing all of our students, but particularly African-American and Latino students, in math and science?  How many of our African-American and Latino students graduate from Berkeley High having completed successfully the UC/CSU-required lab science and math courses?  Doesn’t this suggest that more time in college-prep classes, not less, is where we should be targeting our increasingly scarce public resources?
• The fastest growing occupations in medicine, healthcare, technology and the green economy all require excellent high school level science and math preparation.

School Governance Council decision process out of compliance with Education Code, BUSD Board policy, and BSEP tax measure

• The Berkeley High School Governance Council is out of compliance with California Education Code, board policy, and the BSEP tax measure in terms of the composition of the voting membership.  The public is entitled to 50% voting membership, or parity, with school/administrative staff.  The current composition of the Berkeley High SGC is 27 teachers and staff, only 8 parents/students.
• The majority of teachers on the SGC are affiliated with the 4 small schools that represent only 26% of the total student population at Berkeley High
• The public is entitled to transparency and accountability of the SGC.  The entire process of the Berkeley High redesign has been secretive and dismissive of legitimate public comment.
• The SGC and the school board are elected to oversee public education at both the site and district level.  Neither the SGC nor the school board has enforced provisions of the Brown Act (open governance laws) or the provision for 50% public representation on the SGC (parity requirements of the Education Code).  Note: All other 15 SGCs in the school district comply with the parity requirement. Berkeley High is the only exception.
• The school board has a policy subcommittee meeting on the issue of the non-compliance of the Berkeley High SGC, yet neither the school board nor the superintendent has required the Berkeley High SGC to  comply with the Education Code and board policy.

Our BSEP tax dollars are being redirected at Berkeley High without appropriate oversight or accountability guaranteed by the tax measure.  The decision to eliminate science labs and five science teachers was made by the principal, staff and non-science teachers on the SGC.  The fate of quality science education at Berkeley High deserves a broader discussion.  Let the school board know of your concern. Email: boardofed@berkeley.k12.ca.us

There is perhaps no other realm of living in Berkeley that is as challenging to those of us raised in “Political Incorrectness” than the arena of parenting.

While others enjoy a sunny day at the park, we watch in stunned silence as a mother runs after her toddler shouting: “Hamlet, Hamlet, come back and finish your bok choy!”

Or what about seeing a Berkeley Bowl shopper, “Back To Earth” meets “Just Woke Up at Woodstock” (long skirt, babushka, woolly socks, clogs, dreads, piercings), go silent and rigid upon hearing that the produce man doesn’t know the provenance of several key vegetables. With a stoic look and a white-knuckled grip on her cart — and in a voice full of shaky and false bravado — she says to her young daughter (who is smashing strawberries on her knee): “I guess Mommy just won’t know where the white corn comes from today.”  I remember my corn-based meals: a packet of Fritos with a dollop of Wolf Brand Chili on top at football games.

And what to do about the poor mother who came home to find that her son, proudly elected to the school governance committee, had renounced all thought of future elected office?  In fact, had sworn to “never be on Student Council again”.

It seems that as an official liaison with the powers-that-be, he had been tasked to tell his class that “Nacho Thursdays” lived no more, and had, in fact, been replaced by a new lunch theme called “Ancient Grains of the Mediterranean”.  The intensity of the disappointment, including a young girl who sobbed that “Nacho Thursdays” were the best part of her week, coupled with his powerlessness to do anything to restore them, was just too much.  No amount of discussion about the trade-offs of power, the ability to do good that comes with the sometimes unsavory aspects of duty, could persuade her son otherwise.

I arrived in Berkeley with a toddler in diapers, and discovered Berkeley Parents Network, that wonderful, indispensable repository of wisdom, know-how, and, sometimes, let’s face it, true insanity. I eagerly dove into a page full of links with advice on toilet training, and immediately became stumped by this one: “Toddler Oppositional to Potty Training”.  “Oppositional to Potty Training.”  Huh. “Oppositional to Potty Training.” Huh. What can that mean? Like… an “opponent”.  Like.. an “opposing force”.  Like…

And then the “Aha”. And in my mind’s eye, I see a 17-year-old mother at the Walk n’ Wag grocery store, still wearing the father of her child’s High School football bomber jacket, exhaling the last of her third Lucky Strike of the day, and saying to her pouty “not gonna” young son:  “Momma’ll give ya a quarter if you peepee in the potty.”

Next time: Latkas Latkes: innocent holiday ritual or nefarious health threat?

Kelly Cash, who has lived in Berkeley for eight years, is a writer who prepares ethically harvested foods for her companion animals, including husband and children, while working to save open spaces in the American west, one million acres at a time. This is the second in her series of “Lone Star” columns.

See Kelly’s previous column here.

[Photo Jock McDonald © 2009]

Some might say I grew up in the most politically incorrect place in the world: Fort Worth, Texas, where the main road is “White Settlement” and “The Petroleum Club” still holds regular meetings. Yet now I reside in what must surely be the most politically correct place in the world: Berkeley, California, where the parking meter holiday is “Indigenous People’s Day”, not “Columbus Day”, and recycling has been taken to fetishistic new levels.

But of course I, like everyone else, really ‘live’ in my mind and it is there, in that place, that it becomes most difficult to comprehend the mundane exchanges taking place around me every day, here, in Berkeley.

I believe that this is because the Culture of Berkeley is, as the natives might say, “somewhat opaque”. To address this challenge, I have evolved a kind of simulcast translation technique that, with patience, renders even the most obtuse Berkeley encounter comprehensible. And so, gentle reader, it is in the interest of a kind of cross-cultural inner mind exploration worthy of Steven Pinker that I share the following moments of my life in Berkeley with you.

First Encounter: During my first week in Berkeley, I was in the café at Oliveto, which sits right under a veritable den of psychotherapists. I was drinking my coffee and reading the East Bay Express, marveling at the array of sexual proclivities displayed in its pages like so many species of Darwin’s finches, when the undertow of a kind of conversation that I find irresistible made eavesdropping imperative.

The conversation was between two lovely 30-something therapists who were both obviously dating men who had children from a previous marriage.  They were discussing what to do when the children came with their fathers on their dates and misbehaved.

One woman looked at the other, and with a deep yogic breath and dead-on eye contact said to her friend, very slowly, very quietly, with great ‘intention’: “Well, The Question Becomes… how to assert authority without rushing the bonding?”

In my head I am scrambling, “without rushing the bonding without rushing the bonding without rushing the bonding” — what the hell can that mean? — and then a light bulb goes off and I realize that if I was in Texas, this would be two beauticians in a Dairy Queen sharing tater tots and one would say to the other:  “Well, I wanna hit ‘em but they’re not my kids”.

The exultation I felt can only be compared to Helen Keller’s famous water moment. I could do it!  I could live in Berkeley!

Next time:  When potty training becomes “oppositional”.

Kelly Cash, who has lived in Berkeley for eight years, is a writer who prepares ethically harvested foods for her companion animals, including husband and children, while working to save open spaces in the American west, one million acres at a time. This is the first in an occasional series of “Lone Star” columns.

[Photo Jock McDonald © 2009]