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Community Corner

Eat, Drink and Be Grateful

A report on the 15th Annual Alameda Meals on Wheels fundraiser

Although my hometown of San Francisco will always be “the City” with a capital “C,” I continue to be grateful for Alameda — my adopted home. The fundraiser on July 17 was a prime example of what makes Alameda my favorite little city on the left coast.

Held at  out on Alameda Point, it was a perfect afternoon. The sun and a summer breeze off the Bay poured through the open hangar door as Alamedans wandered from table to table between stacks of oak barrels, sampling wine from over 20 wineries and food from restaurants across the Island.

A perfect afternoon doesn’t just happen by magic. If you stick around town long enough, you’ll see the same faces volunteering again and again for various Alameda charities.

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From the warm hug at the door from greeter Kathie Woulfe to Ron and Barbara Mooney taking turns barbequing beef prepared by Kate Pryor of , volunteers worked industriously to make the event a huge success. (The rest of you: You know who you are, and thank you.)

My assignment was to show up with cash and have a good time. Mission accomplished.

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“Barbequing Barbara” Mooney of gift shop on Park Street is, by the way, the reason I can never use the words “too busy” in a sentence with “volunteer.” She and her husband, Ron, have three children and a small business, and log more volunteer hours in a year than most Alamedans in a lifetime.

Of all the vendors staffing the tasting tables, seeing Dan Marshall of made me smile the most. Every time I go into his shop on Santa Clara, he cheerfully suggests a good wine on a budget, never looking down his nose at me as if I should be spending more. He is a gentleman, a connoisseur and another Alameda asset.

I wish I could say more about the specific wines – eloquently describe their nose, legs, fruit and pepper. But with apologies to the vintners, I honestly focused more attention on food tasting than wine tasting.

Mo and Mustafa of made lamb meatballs and toasted bread rounds spread with hummus and linguica sprinkled with sliced green onion. And even though he was working like crazy putting them together a mile a minute, Mustafa took time to lean across the table to give me a big hug and put two extra hors d’oeuvres on my plate without breaking stride. You just have to love a man like that.

Melanie of served ceviche with red onion, green apple, cilantro and lime on biodegradable bamboo spoons. John from offered chilled summer corn soup with cilantro pesto, and from there were little cups of aromatic golden curry. had trays of baked goods worth every single calorie.

I saw a copy of ’s new menu, which includes a house-made veggie patty with mushroom vinaigrette. That sounds like a good choice, but not if I order it with a side of their shoestring fries. Maybe the fact that the ingredients are “local, organic, natural and responsibly raised” offsets the calorie content…

I thought I knew a lot about Alameda cuisine. I didn’t know that sells olive oil in bulk. That’s good information, because our daughter, Emily, is a Caesar salad addict. (I suppose if a daughter is going to be hooked on something, Caesar salad is a good drug of choice.)

Another culinary scoop: delivers organic boxes! Dan’s Produce is at the corner of Central and Oak, right here in Alameda, so if you want good produce you don’t have to cross a bridge or go clear over to Berkeley Bowl and try to find a parking spot or anything. So why would one need box delivery service within Alameda? You can bet I might just eat more veggies if there was a box on my porch when I came home from work.

Having had enough finger food and produce, I wandered toward Cliff Shum of Edward Jones Financial Services, who was scooping Tucker’s Zinfandel ice cream. Two years back at the same event my husband, Si, and I bought a few tickets and won the raffle grand prize — a week at a Maui condo donated by Don and Sue Lindsey. Cliff volunteered to drive us to the airport, and as we stepped out onto the curb in front of SFO, he handed us a bag of snacks for the plane, including tropical fruit snacks and macadamia nuts to prime us for our exotic vacation.

The snacks started us off on a perfect week. I snorkeled and communed with two glowing, fluttery squid that stared at me the entire time as if to say, “We are made of the same stardust.” It took months for me to eat calamari again. But then I saw this PBS special about aggressive squid that stalk their prey, and after that I was OK eating them again.

What I really want to say is that Alameda is chock full of good food and great people. And that summer afternoon, over 1,500 people showed up to help Meals on Wheels provide 42,000 Alameda meals per year, with no government funding whatsoever.

If you want to add to the gratitude list, just comment below. Thank you to all the volunteers, wineries, restaurants, and my fellow islanders for a perfect afternoon in our little city.

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