Goodbye 2023!

Some mild triumphs, awful tragedies, plus travel, travel, travel, food, food, food

As we embark on the possible end of democracy in 2024 in the States and elsewhere, allow me to say farewell to 2023 with this excellent martini (and excess martini tub) at Harris’s steakhouse in San Francisco.

I spent a good part of the year traveling to some of my favorite spots in the world, Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, Leipzig, the watch making valley of Glashutte near Dresden, and all my all time favorite island Jeju, Korea.

After failing at many drafts of the next novel, I finally finished a presentable one and the focus group of my favorite writers and readers is diligently giving it a final go. As the fall of next year will be taken up with the election, it will come out in 2025.

Boy, did I eat! The last weeks of the year were spent in attack mode when it came to giant plates full of stuff.

I really think Una Pizza Neapolitana is the best pizza outside of Naples. But feel free to come after me in the comments.

And Mokyo on St. Marks is possibly my favorite new restaurant of the year (it’s been around longer than that but I’m slow). Look at that squid in rice!

And yesterday I ate a meal in commemoration of the passing of my dear friend Paul La Farge earlier this year. Paul loved the burrito at SF’s Cancun taqueria as well as El Toro. Walking through the streets of the Mission, I can almost feel his spirit beside me.

Here’s hoping we survive next year with more food and drinks in hand! Happy New Year, kind readers!