No Riding, but lots of (talk about) Eating

It rained most of the weekend so the tandem stayed dry and cozy, hanging in the rafters of the garage.

Sunday is our usual riding day but with the rain and a scheduled meeting, we had a lazy morning reading the paper and then a nice lunch/brunch at Comfort Food Cafe. I had a blackened chicken sandwich with avocado, pepperjack cheese, chipotle mayo and lots of lettuce. It was a bit much, but it was good.

The afternoon took me to Peets in Novato to meet with a group of ALC riders. We are planning a "Crab Feed" to raise funds for AIDS Lifecycle.

Back east we call them "crab feasts" and we have the smaller Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, which will always be my favorite. In all my years in California I've had Dungeness crab only a couple of times. They are good, but I guess my heart belongs to steamed crabs, covered in spicy Old Bay.

That being said, a group of us are hustling to put together a fundraiser in what could be record time. We want to have it late January or first week in February, which, in reality, is not a whole lot of time to find a place, organize it and get lots and lots of silent auction items.

We'll have a live auction as well, but that will have only a few select items. Two already on the list are a house in Tahoe for a week, courtesy of Robin's ex husband, and an aerial tour of the bay, courtesy of my husband. Two down, two or three more to go. Our big hope is to get a chef to do a home dinner, but despite all of our fabulous connections, we discovered we don't know one with a "name." Back to the drawing board on that one.

I discovered there is a traditional menu for a crab feed: crabs (of course), pasta, salad and bread. Easy enough.

Since they seem to be incredibly popular in Sonoma County, my hope is that we will sell out, raise lots of money, all going to my very favorite cause-- helping people with HIV and preventing more people from contracting the virus.

So what could be a better fundraiser! Food, bikes and the AIDS Foundation. A winner all around.