The Cheese Board Collective

So after my romp around Cal, I made arrangements to meet up with my neighborhood mom pal, bookgroup compadre, and friend, Ariele. Okay, let me start of by giving you some amazing background about Ariele.

• She's sharp as a tack funny and smarter than most everyone I know.
  
• She grew up in Berkeley going to a hippy dippy school across the street from where her dad started Berkeley Free Clinic.
• For many years she was a HS Math teacher providing progressive education to some of the most depressed schools in California. She speaks of her old students with nothing but heartfelt love and admiration, and she has an innate understanding of teenagers few can fathom.
  
• She's a true, blue friend. And for the life of me, I couldn't imagine my first visit to Berkley without her!

So we met up at The Cheese Board Collective, she with her two boys and me with mine. After the greetings we got down to business. Ariele promptly handed me a shopping bag (she came prepared!), grabbed us a playing card, and started piling her arms full of the most amazing looking pastries and breads I've ever laid eyes on. CBC make all their own baked goods on site, and there is a constant overturn of hot crusty goodness every few hours. The cases also had a wide variety of olives, French and local honeys, and other noshes. Since CBC is a co-op they take their cheese very seriously. It is mandatory that you "try before you buy" so when our card was called we spent the next 30 minutes trying every cheese known to man...and then some! You wanna try a cheddar? Well they have like 20 different varieties of varying sharpness, some with chives, some without, some white, some yellow. Wanna brie? How about a stinky one? How about a blue that's creamy? How about a crumbly blue that's slightly different in texture, but very different in taste? It went on and on like this. I was starting to get scared...the wrapped packages of cut cheeses were piling up, and it didn't look like we had any sign of stopping soon. Ariele assured me it was all good, and kept on ordering. Finally, when the tally was rung up I balked...it coudln't be that cheap! So I added another three selections to top it off. We weren't allowed to tip the proprietors, but they said we could donate to the homeless initiative they support instead. After this, we stopped next door to the produce co-op and bought some fruit and berries. Then again next door to the Cheese Board Pizza. There was a live jazz duet playing while we waited in line to grab a few slices of the daily offering. Finally, we took all the kids by the hand and walked a half block up to a fenced in park. We found a big tree and set to work on our impromptu picnic.

I can't imagine a better first trip to Berkeley, and I'll be back soon for sure.

Walk from Cal to the Cheese Board.

That's a LOT of cheese.

If you pull the Joker you get to skip to the head of the line.

Freshly baked bread...and it was hot, too!

Weird ass cow bread god?

Cheese, glorious cheese!

Our cheese pile...we're about halfway done at this point.

Best pizza I've had in a long time! Zucchini, red onion, feta, with pesto and pignoli nuts.

Don't I look manically happy?

Cal Day at UC Berkeley

This is a shame, but for the past three years I'd yet to set foot in Berkeley. It's not that I wasn't interested, it's just that I've been busy exploring all other aspects of the Bay Area, and the opportunity just hadn't presented itself yet.

Then, prompted by the homeschooling thing, I saw an add through the Society for California Archaeology that UC Berkeley would have a "dig day" through the Archaeological Research Facility. This sounded great since I have a budding archeologist/Indiana Jones wanna be under my roof. Little did I know, that this "dig" was in conjunction with Cal's largest annual event of the year. Cal Day is a collection of activities, lectures, events, and open exhibits for the whole public, and reportedly drew in more than 35,000 people (now I feel like it was a small miracle I even found a place to park!).

We arrived promptly at ARF at 9:00, and were greeted by a really sweet PhD student who explainted to Math all the ins and outs of grid system mappings, excavation, and why archaeology is important. He also made a clay pot, and had a great time learning about what it takes to be a "real life" Indiana Jones.

After that we went around exploring the rest of the campus. I had some major nostalgic moments surrounded by all the old buildings, nerdy undergrads, and excentric professors. Since it was an event day the public was free to wander into all the museums, buildings, and labs. We had some majorly good tailgate chicken kabobs while we waited for my friend to arrive. Math picked up a stuffed tiger with the "Cal" logo emblazoned on a little blue shirt from the school store. Why a tiger was even availiable for purchase is beyond me, but I went with it (it was Mom and Me time afterall). So desipite the massive crowds, and the fact I have no ties to UC Berkeley at all (and kinda felt like a fraud for lapping up the school pride)...it was a really nice morning!

Learning the ropes

Inside the Anthropology Museum

I love collegiate gothic buildings

This is the kind a thing you see in college towns

Silliman Swmming

This week has been spring break time for all the local schools in our area. Since we rather unexpectedly started doing the homeschool thing it was fun to enjoy our usual after-school friends for lots of fun activities during the day.

5 other moms and I caravaned up to Silliman Activity Center in Newark on the East Bay yesterday. Why we had to go by caravan I still haven't figured out, but it was kinda fun, lol.

Silliman is an indoor aquatic park with a variety of different entertaining features for your water babies (or kids). There is a zero-depth entry pool with a play structure full of slides, water fountains, and water cannons. A lazy river with inter tubes to ride on, a large lap pool, a hot tub, and a giant double water side. Math was SO disappointed he wasn't tall enough to slide yet (48 inches, he was 2 inches shy!). There were some very nice features such as the family changing rooms (complete with private shower, hair dryer, and changing station), and the food was pretty decent as well. I think the main drawback was we went during spring break and it was packed!

Some things that are nice to know beforehand:

• No outside rafts, floats, or swim fins are allowed (Silliman provides inter tubes for the lazy river and life vests of varying sizes (though you can bring your own vest)).
• Apparently you're not supposed to bring outside food, but we saw lots of people who brought their own healthy snacks.
• You need to ask the front desk to un-lock the family changing room, and bring shampoo unless you don't mind using hand soap.
  

Alexander right before we had to switch out the swimmies for a life-vest

The giant slides

My reward

Buffalo Bills Brewery and Zuckersüss

Let me preface this by boasting about my father-in-law. He is the Grandpa of all Grandpas...he is a big-rig truck driver! This might not sound like much if your a mom without boys, but if you do have boys you know what I mean. The In-laws were in the restaurant industry for most of their lives, but when they sold the business/semi-retired Grandpa decided to try something out. Something he's always wanted to do since he was a little boy. And my little boy gets major benefits out of it :0)

One benefit is Grandpa's truck route often brings him down through the Bay Area so we get to see him quite often! And another benefit is we get to go to our favorite East Bay restaurant, Buffalo Bills Brewery, when he drives into Hayward. This weekend we got the added bonus of my MIL, too. And since she has heard lots about our eating at Buffalo Bills, but never been, of course we had to take her!

Our family is pretty fond of pub/brewery dining. For one thing, the food is almost always affordable and it's usually pretty good (especially if you have picky eaters). Secondly, brewpubs tend to be rather loud so you don't have to worry about your kids making too much noise. And lastly, brewpubs specialize in alcohol...what's not to like? Buffalo Bills satisfies all these qualities, and the food is actually better than pretty good...it's downright great! We've yet to have a bad meal here, and the service is always very friendly.

I'm actually not a beer drinker, but the Hubs and his parents are serious beer connoisseurs (no, all three of those aren't just for him!).

Teriyaki chicken sandwich (without the sandwich). Comes with caramelized onions, grilled pineapple, mushrooms and potatoes, and two dipping sauces.

Matthew likes BB's pepperoni pizza. Alexander had a kid's cheese quesidellia with fruit.

After dinner we headed across the street to a new frozen yogurt shop that just opened. It was called Zuckersüss, and they touted organic self-serve'n'weight European style tart yogurt. Zuckersüss also was sporting a baby grand piano in the corner, some rad throw-back tunes, and some pretty swank furnishings. Initially when we arrived their card machine was down, but we got some cash down the street. The owners were so incredibly sweet (hence the name) they offered us ALL free seconds for the price of one to see if their card-reader was back up and running! Unfortunately, we were so full we didn't get to take them up on their offer!

Math really got into the whole serve yourself thing. He's got more toppings than he does yogurt.

Gotta say, this was really good (and I'm a die-hard Fraîche/Pinkberry fan).