We're two for two. Not just with Mario's Chicken Thighs and Green Olives, but with walks up the hill in the morning. Two mornings in a row Baleen's headed up Sanchez to 24th, Poppy in tow, then down 24th to Castro where we head up the hill, Baleen again insisiting that we walk down the steeper side of Castro and then right back up it. It's good for Poppy, we say, and also Poppy's mom, as are the Chicken Thighs and Green Olives.
If we can get a little more out of those Chicken Thighs, we can more out of Mario, too. We'll go back to the summer of 2004, back before I had any spandex, back to when Baleen was spending her last summer in Venice Beach and Team Kamvar ran the Mountain View campus. One of those summer mornings I got a text from Abigail's mom, Drive down here. Mario Batali signing books and making lunch. That pre-tweet tweet was all it took to get me in my car, shift from first to fifth and head down to Mountain View.
There, I stood in the long line with all the rest of the Googlers, and Abigail's mom. Somebody with an ear peice got to each of us in the line when we were about twenty people from Mario and asked us to spell our names on a notecard which would then be handed to Mario to sign. That morning, when I got the text in my cubicle in the city, surrounded by racks of clothes and computer screens, it felt like the most unique thing in the world. But down in Mountain View, surrounded by people already used to notables in their hallways, and not just the Valley Wag kind, it didn't feel so unique. And with just twenty people in front of me to think of something to creative to say to Mario or something creative for him to write down, I failed, thinking only that I shouldn't give him my known name. So in my orange cookbook they gave me I have a signature in orange ink from a man in orange clogs and orange hair that reads, "Dear Gabriel! Molto Mario!"
If we can get a little more out of those Chicken Thighs, we can more out of Mario, too. We'll go back to the summer of 2004, back before I had any spandex, back to when Baleen was spending her last summer in Venice Beach and Team Kamvar ran the Mountain View campus. One of those summer mornings I got a text from Abigail's mom, Drive down here. Mario Batali signing books and making lunch. That pre-tweet tweet was all it took to get me in my car, shift from first to fifth and head down to Mountain View.
There, I stood in the long line with all the rest of the Googlers, and Abigail's mom. Somebody with an ear peice got to each of us in the line when we were about twenty people from Mario and asked us to spell our names on a notecard which would then be handed to Mario to sign. That morning, when I got the text in my cubicle in the city, surrounded by racks of clothes and computer screens, it felt like the most unique thing in the world. But down in Mountain View, surrounded by people already used to notables in their hallways, and not just the Valley Wag kind, it didn't feel so unique. And with just twenty people in front of me to think of something to creative to say to Mario or something creative for him to write down, I failed, thinking only that I shouldn't give him my known name. So in my orange cookbook they gave me I have a signature in orange ink from a man in orange clogs and orange hair that reads, "Dear Gabriel! Molto Mario!"
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