And they say that the Internet is making us more isolated.

Not so, not today.

After much napping, neti potting, tea and ibuprofen, I finally felt good enough to get up and at ’em. So I took my couch mate, Nurse Janie to a dog park. The little miss doesn’t get to too many parks, but by the grace of the ‘net and meetup.com, I knew there was a French bulldog gathering today, although we were pretty late. The five remaining Frenchies weren’t as interesting to Ms. Sparkles as a tennis ball, so I was the social one with strangers and their pups.

Then it was off to coffee. The closest to home and most dog-friendly is the cart at Sightglass. In addition to being so delicious, they are on Twitter and that was how I first learned of their cold-brewed spiced iced coffee. (it doesn’t hurt that a Twitter founder is an investor.)

Janie had a spa appointment in the afternoon (which turned out was a false alarm, no need to “express” herself). Afterwards, we found ourselves jonesing for a lunchie-type snack. A quick check of Twitter revealed that the taco bike by Weird Fish would be at Dolores Park, but I knew parking would be a nightmare. Luckily, just then, a friend checked in on FourSquare at the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, a restaurant I’ve watched in blogs and on social media. Roasted wild mushrooms with gruyere and fontina? It was worth the wait, and I’ll be back for more, for sure.

The afternoon happened, with more recovery naps, and dinner loomed. Lucky for me, for the entire month of July, Hapa Ramen, a husband and wife food cart/tent duo, was setting up outside at Coffee Bar. You guessed it, both are on Twitter. The cafe posted their guests’ stint a few weeks back.

I’ve been trying to check out Hapa Ramen since I first started reading their saga of perfecting their broths and the chef giving up his gig at a respected restaurant for the life of a vagrant vendor. I even went by on their first day at the Ferry Building, to only find lines and that they were sold out by 12:15. Every other time I read about them being somewhere, I had conflicting plans. Homemade noodles, fresh sweet corn and an earthy miso broth with a beautiful sous vide egg did not disappoint. I’m now a devoted follower of the chef, his wife and the business from now on, because I could eat a bowl of that almost every night.

So what’s this about the web ruining the real-world of communities? It has connected me more deeply to my city and people who are doing interesting things in food and experience creation. Heck, all of them are trying hard to connect people more deeply with those who are growing and preparing the food. Technology is getting me back to basics and close to our roots.

And, pardon the pun, it feeds my soul. Yum.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 10:50 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.