Experiments in Impermanence

Saturday with Sea Forager and Dark Garden

On Saturday, I attended a Coastal Sea Foraging class in San Francisco, given by Kirk Lombard of Sea Forager. A couple of years ago, I was given a copy of his terrific book, The Sea Forager’s Guide to the Northern California Coast (thank you!), and had been following Sea Forager posts ever since. Happily, classes are now happening again now and I signed up for one as soon as the first notice landed in my inbox.

There is a surprising variety and abundance of food one can harvest, even on the shoreline at Pier 52 right in San Francisco, where the class met. Kirk demonstrated lots of ways of fishing and foraging the coastline. The tide wasn’t quite right for good catches during class, but he had lots of stories of utterly surprising (to me) catches of halibut and other goodies at that same location during other classes.

The class was a lot of fun because, like the book, it made fishing seem so accessible. Will I go out on my own and do some of it? I’m not sure. The point then is to eat what you catch, and honestly it just kind of feels like a lonely proposition to take something home and then just cook and eat it yourself. But maybe. I love this kind of thing.

The photos tell the story as well as anything else:

He also demonstrated some other types of lures with more traditional rod and reel rigs.

You can also use a net to catch herring during the runs in the greater San Francisco Bay, which sounds fun (although a lot of work to clean). Here’s a video of Kirk demonstrating how to throw a net. He says to get the 5’ nets at Gus’s at 38th and Balboa.

I kicked myself a little…had I thought things through, I would have tried to meet up with reader (and writer) Edward Mycue for a visit while I was in the city. It didn’t even occur to me until I was in Thirsty heading south early in the morning, and It seemed to late to arrange it. Edward….we will try sometime soon!

I met Edward at a Peace Corps conference…he was in the first group of Peace Corps volunteers ever to be received by a country, in 1961…which was also Ghana — 50 years before my group arrived there in 2011.

After the fishing class, I treated myself to another adventure to Dark Garden, San Francisco’s world-renown corset makers. (Because everyone follows up a fishing class with a trip to a couture corset maker, right?) I discovered corsets by way of costuming for bubbling, first with a cheap version a costume designer put me in. They feel amazing — especially when you level up to better ones.

Though pro-bubbling is now a part of my past, my love of corsetry remains and I have been haunting Dark Garden ever since. A place I will return to when feeling flush — or just for the beauty. (You can also get the best bra fitting ever, upstairs at the tiny Revelation in Fit boutique.)

It’s good to do these sorts of mini-adventures. I’m lucky to live in a place that’s so full of possibilities for them.