With the snow last week, what could have been a stressful trip to speak in California turned into a wonderful adventure.
My friend Charlie snuck through police barricades on North Decatur and drove down scary iced over roads to pick me up early Thursday Morning. Then he managed to get through two more police barricades on iced over North Druid Hills to get us on 285. They had two lanes out of six open and guess what? There wasn’t any traffic!!! We should have taken pictures.

I got a flight out and stayed at a fantastic hotel called The Palace in San Francisco.

I had a wonderful meal at the Pied piper restaurant at the Palace hotel last Thursday evening and met a interesting guy who does training internationally and owns a coffee house in San Francisco. He was leaving for China this week. (I just read a very insightful article on China in “The Week” It discussed the coming storm as the country pollutes its water, has more elderly people than works, has have increased need for goods throughout the world. )

Later I spoke to a gentleman from Malaysia. He shared with me that he is part Indian part Chinese and was raised in a big house with floor to ceiling books in the library that sounded like the library at the Biltmore. At 14 he left Malaysia for London and was accepted immediately into to college. He went on from there to law school at Cambridge and then worked in international banking. He rides his bike or the bus everyday to his current job as a house council for a Bank. That fact alone impressed me!
He talked about the chain of restaurants in China he just opened with his partners. The Chinese love cheese and California wine. Who knew We also all shared favorite books. I have to but “Eleanor and Franklin” on my list. I told them about the novel I was reading by humorous British author David Nicholls “A Question of Attraction.” (He reminds me of author of “About a Boy” Nick Hornsby”
For the main course I had the vegetarian pasta with spiral macaroni pasta, mushrooms, parsley with truffle oil and a dollop of sour cream on top. It was wonderful. I have tasted a lot of pasta. This was a truly unique dish!

Then I had the dessert of chocolate peppermint cake. It was served on a beautiful long clear glass rectangle plate with pink ice-cream and raspberry sauce. It was so lovely, I even took a picture of the plating that I will send. The next day I had breakfast in the hotel court. Check out the link for Photos it is a extremely impressive hotel. Make sure you click to the court photos. It has this enormous glass ceiling like a garden conservatory in a Victorian home. In fact the restaurants and lobby where gorgeous!

Http://www.sfpalacerestaurants.com/pied-piper