Attention: These posts following our coastal Christmas-thru-New-Year’s trip are named a bit specifically, that’s because when these were originally shared, they only had one photo each due to bandwidth limitations back in the day. Since that time, I’ve updated them to include images that relate to the details of each day.
Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco offers a unique menu of not just vegetarian but also vegan fare, and not just that: nothing is cooked. This cafe’s claim to fame is that they serve 98% of the menu RAW. To say I was skeptical would be a gross understatement. After reading a few snippets of some of the writing praising raw ‘cooking,’ I was left with the idea that raw foodies were the new-age alien chasers of the culinary world, way out on the fringe with those who believe the reptilians are amongst us. I must say, I WAS WRONG. Breakfast was at the original location on 2400 Harrison Street. I had live granola made of sprouted buckwheat, apple, almonds, cranberries, dates, shredded coconut, and cinnamon topped with fresh almond milk; Caroline had sprouted and steamed quinoa topped with fresh fruit, cinnamon, and agave syrup.
[Another interesting thing about Cafe Gratitude is that their menu items are all named “I am XYZ,” and the XYZ is something positive and/or uplifting. I think our breakfast orders were “I am Great” and “I am Peace.” It sounds a bit silly, but you end up saying things about yourself you wouldn’t normally say out loud, and that is a clever concept, in my opinion. – Caroline]
The weather wasn’t participating today, and in any case, we had to stock up on provisions for the next couple of days as we were heading up to Point Reyes to stay on Tomales Bay in Inverness.
We are at the Ferry Marketplace in San Francisco, a veritable gourmet heaven for those who include the indulgence of taste as an important part of their experiences.
Sadly, we have no way of cooking mushrooms in our motel room, and these fragile fungi won’t survive our trip home. We’ll just have to satisfy ourselves by ogling these beautiful specimens.
Our breakfast was so good that we returned to Cafe Gratitude for another meal. Lunch was at their newest location at 1336 9th Ave where I had live nachos, salad, stuffed mushroom, olive tapenade, live hummus, Thai coconut soup with an assortment of live crackers, and almond toast. Caroline tried a live pizza made of a buckwheat and sunflower seed crust topped with spicy raw cacao, chipotle chili mole, and avocado; the cheese was cashew ricotta and brazil nut parmesan, sliced tomatoes, and microgreens finished it off. For dessert, we shared a slice of lemon meringue pie made of tart lemon topped with a coconut meringue on a macadamia nut crust. A third visit to Cafe Gratitude is in the cards.
As I said, the weather was not behaving to our benefit. When we arrived at our motel directly on the bay, we decided to remain dry and wait for the heavy downpour to take a break; it never did. Tomorrow, I’ll show you why there were no other photos of this day.