San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts
San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts
San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts is Ernie Beyl’s second book published by Grizzly Peak Press. His first, Sketches from a North Beach Journal, traced the city’s history with profiles of larger-than-life characters who have added so much panache and excitement to the old neighborhood. San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts is an opinionated book by an opinionated guy. It hits the reader right between the ears. Open this book to any page and it hooks you: Levi Strauss and the copper rivets on his jeans and why they were removed from the crotch, Agnes von Kurowsky’s Dear John letter to Ernest Hemingway relates to Ernie’s Dear John letter after taking his girlfriend to the top of the Mark before he shipped out with the Marine Corps, The Haphazard Gourmet who gives Ernie his recipe for cassoulet because he knows a seduction depends on it. The book feature’s Ernie’s passions—his appetites for fascinating characters he’s known over the years in San Francisco—from poets to bartenders, from saloons to jazz. It’s the author’s life in the provocative city by the Golden Gate.
ISBN: 978-0983926498
Praise for San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts:
"Ernie penned San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts as a manifestation of his love and passion for our city. He writes that the City is a ‘kaleidoscope of fragments gathered over many years searching for the good life by the Golden Gate—and finding it.’ His enthusiasm and optimism about San Francisco shine brightly through the pages of this book. It is a great tribute to our City by the Bay."
-Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator
"There’s no question that Ernie Beyl loves San Francisco and has a passion for it. He knows his city’s glorious past and its fascinating, sometimes complicated, present. His knowledge of this San Francisco microcosm—its larger-than-life characters, offbeat places, hedonistic pleasures—its music, musicians, cafés, saloons, and, of course, its bartenders—is spot on. Had Ernie asked me, I would have suggested inserting a small square box next to each chapter of this book so both visitors and natives could make a check after reading—and then experiencing—one of Ernie’s passions. This is a delightful read, by a delightful guy."
-Michael Fraser, Bartender, Original Joe’s North Beach, San Francisco
"Ernest Beyl’s San Francisco Appetites and Afterthoughts is a pleasant meander not just through his beloved city, but through a life rich with fascinating characters, incidents and passions, from coppa to Panama hats to jazz to the vanished landmarks of North Beach. Like a good cioppino, it has a little bit of everything."
-Gary Kamiya, author of Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco
