It was, you might say, the last breakfast. On a summer Saturday in 2020, dozens of family...
Few who end up in the hospital are likely to be thinking about whether there’s a sufficient,...
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Many years ago, I spent a year baking desserts in a restaurant...
Seated in the backroom of a café on Polk Street, Kevagne Kalisch leans against the wall and...
When his mother, Lucrezia, was diagnosed with cancer, then 25-year-old Frankie Gaetano Balistreri cared for her at...
It’s an overcast summer morning, and Chrisie Giordano is leading a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese...
If you think dollhouses are just for children, you haven’t met the artisans and collectors, like Margaret...
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Even though I’m 78 years old, I have resisted seeing myself as...
Seventy-one-year-old Richard Marino is on the cusp of retirement. And it’s making him anxious. He’s gone through...
He was in the sixth grade and really wanted to be in the school band. But his...
Lauren McNamara makes sure to remember where the regular clientele at Sam’s Grill like to sit. She...
LeBeau Market calls itself Nob Hill’s Community Grocery Store, where you can get almost everything: from Lay’s...
Summers for Deborah Drysdale meant idyllic days at her grandparents’ cattle ranch in the Blue Ridge mountains...
Jonah Raskin was 10 in 1952, during the height of the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War....
If you’d been walking along one of the steepest streets in San Francisco one sunny afternoon in...
Eve Maher hands out programs to visitors boarding the SS Jeremiah O’Brien for a tour and memorial...
A SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – My correspondence with Jutta Mengersen (now Brockhaus), the “World’s Ideal Pen...
When 17-year-old Jose Heriberto Garcia came courting the young girl who’d become his wife, his future mother-in-law...
SENIOR BEAT COLUMN: I got my first job in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago, in the...
A stained glass window by Bill and a "fishing" quilt Etta made for him adorn a hallway...
It was, you might say, the last breakfast. On a summer Saturday in 2020, dozens of family members, employees, customers, and friends got together for one last meal at a restaurant that had survived under the ownership of a single family for more than 80 years. Louis’ Restaurant, perched on a cliff above Sutro Baths ...
Few who end up in the hospital are likely to be thinking about whether there’s a sufficient, readily accessible, and safe supply of blood on hand if needed. Someone who has is Sarah Young, former manager of the blood bank at San Francisco’s Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. Until she retired in 2017, it was her ...
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Many years ago, I spent a year baking desserts in a restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, and I’ve been doing it on an amateur basis ever since. Periodically, the daughter of a dear friend—who’s also my daughter’s close friend—urged me to bake professionally again, but I never wanted to. It’s ...
Seated in the backroom of a café on Polk Street, Kevagne Kalisch leans against the wall and stares at a nearby painting of two clowns: one grinning, the other crying. Turning, she said she’s puzzling how to tell her own story: one of happiness and grief. Kalisch, 78, struggled with alcoholism for many years. She ...
When his mother, Lucrezia, was diagnosed with cancer, then 25-year-old Frankie Gaetano Balistreri cared for her at home. She craved her favorite Sicilian dishes and called out her wishes from her bed. “ ‘Frankie, pasta con sarde!’ ”(Pasta with sardines); “ ‘Frankie, sfingi!’ (powdered sugar donuts with ricotta filling) “I was running back and forth, ...
It’s an overcast summer morning, and Chrisie Giordano is leading a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden. She pauses in front of the large statue of Buddha and sheds a few tears. The tea garden, she says, is the place where she has come to terms with her daughter’s painful decision to leave ...
