I'm back!

I'm finally back from my incredible San Francisco Thanksgiving, and with me, I bring this wisdom:

• Do not go see the film version of "Rent." To call it bad would be charitable.
  
• Do not go to a multi-winery tasting room, taste something like 25 wines, and then buy way too many of them, especially if you're too tipsy to ask them to ship and you and your friend end up having to schlep a case and a half of wine home on your oversold Southwest flight. (Bonus knowledge: a case of wine WILL fit under the seat in front of you. It will. Especially if you kind of kick it.) (The tasting place is Locals in Geyserville. Aside from all the drunken buying of wine, it was lovely. They have wines from 6 tiny vineyards in the area and you get to taste flights so you can compare and contrast all the Zinfandels or Malbecs or whatever. And you share each flight with your group, so it's extra social.)
  
• If you do happen to be in Geyserville, Santi is an incredible place to eat.
  
• If you only have four people at your Thanksgiving dinner, it is probably not necessary to have 5 pies, 4 vegetable dishes, and two kinds of potatoes in addition to the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc.
  
• Euchre is fun, and not that hard to learn.
  
• The brussels sprouts with chestnuts recipe from "The Joy of Cooking" is really good.
  
• They built a new elevated highway extension. The on-ramp is at Octavia and Market. Weird.
  
• Acorn Syrah (Sonoma, but not one of the wines I bought--we had it with dinner in SF) kicks ass, and isn't that expensive. It's one of those well-balanced, grassy-smelling Syrahs like that Isenhower Wild Alfalfa Syrah.
  
• Broadley Pinot Noir (McMinnville) is also really nice. They make several Pinots. Ours was $20 retail, so I think it's the cheap one. We had it Thanksgiving Day.