Thanksgiving

Dave and Claire came up to CT for Thanksgiving, with my amazingly cute little grand-daughter, Brynn. It is hard to believe she is 18 months old already. She is a lively baby, who certainly knows her own mind, but except for the occasional tantrum is delightful to be around.

Our Thanksgiving menu plans were foiled by bad weather - Dave had agreed to attempt to deep-fry a turkey, which we've been hearing about from friends and colleagues and have been meaning to try. Unfortunately, it was grey and cold and raining and we decided that it would be a bad idea to heat up 5 gallons of oil to the smoking point in our garage and then lower all 20 pounds (David does nothing half way!) of a moisture-laden turkey into the vat. Supposedly this is one of the major causes of home fires on Thanksgiving! Anyway, we had a nice - if rather more conventional - Thanksgiving at home with family.

Mike's home for the weekend from Pittsburgh, although you'd hardly know it we've seen so little of him! He's allowing us to take him for sushi this evening, though, a major concession from the important time spent with friends!

India

I was in India until right before Thanksgiving. We're raising a fund that will be 'India centric' - it will invest in both Indian life science companies as well as Western companies with India as a key component of their business model. We were in Mumbai, at a conference and then meeting with various key influencers in the Indian life science community. Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is a pretty interesting city. It was created from 7 islands that were joined together in the mid-1800's to make one large island with the Arabian Sea as its western boundary and rivers and streams to the east and north. The ocean beaches are quite pretty and Mumbai was a major seaport during the time of the Raj.

Today, Mumbai is a typical hectic (kinder word than chaotic!) Indian city. Its 18 million people clog the arteries of a highway infrastructure that is incapable to handle that kind of traffic. Getting from the middle of the city to the end of the peninsula takes an hour or more if you go by car. There is a train line, but you wouldn't want to take it. Its cars are wall-to-wall people, standing packed as close as they can get; it is not uncommon that people hanging from the sides of cars fall to the tracks and are killed and injured. Just another day in Mumbai!

As in every Indian city, poverty is in your face. Women with tiny babies in their arms rap at your car window at stop lights, begging for change. If you were to offer any, your car would instantly be surrounded by by people spotting a mark, and you would be immobilized, annoying fellow passengers, your driver and other drivers. I resolve my white liberal guilt by writing checks to aid agencies when I get home, but it doesn't erase the pictures of the little babies and children from my mind.

Doing business here promises to be interesting. It is an absolute hive of industry and entrepreneurialism. Of course, everyone knows about the rise of the Indian IT industry, but life sciences is just in its infancy. Probably the most developed opportunities so far in life sciences are those which essentially entail a process outsourcing of clinical trials. Here in the US it is hard to recruit enough patients with the right profiles for a given trial. But in India the sheer size of the population, and also the need for healthcare, make it easier to fill studies quickly, thereby shortening the cycle time of a very long and costly process. Business people are energetic and smart - but lack access to capital and the venture model is not well-established. So we will have our challenges!

For reasons I won't go into, I stayed over the weekend so I could do business on Monday. Sunday was a down day, so my colleague Tania Fernandez and her sister Sonia, took me around the city and we did a little shopping. That's the two of them standing in front of the Gateway - Tania in orange and Sonia in blue. My favorite store was Fabindia, which sells fabrics, apparel and home linens for bed/bath and table. Other than silk scarves and wraps for gifts, I indulged myself in a pretty salwar kameez - a long tunic-like affair with slits on the side and baggy pants under, and worn with a beautiful long scarf called a dupatta.

We had tea at the beautiful Taj Hotel (in the picture below) and stopped at the Gateway of India (above), a monument built to commemorate the 1911 visit of King George V and Queen Mary of England.

Home in time for Thanksgiving. I am giving thanks for getting to sleep in my own bed and to Delta Airlines, for opening the only Mumbai-to-JFK direct flight, which takes (only!) 16 hours. Way better than the alternatives, which take more like 20 when you add in transit time in Frankfurt, Paris or Heathrow.

One Market

Spending lots of time in San Francisco these days - Don came out with me in early October, then I was back in early November before heading off to India. Courtesy of B&C I now have a studio on Nob Hill I can call home when I'm in town. SF is a great restaurant town, but its hard to enjoy when you're on your own - I hate eating out alone. I've found a good place, however, that makes it downright enjoyable. At One Market (the name and the address of this restaurant), you can ask to sit at "the counter" in the back. It is open to the kitchen, and you can sit there and watch the chefs at work while you enjoy your meal. Of course they are incredibly busy, and amazing really - doing 6 things at once, with almost no down time. Here are some shots I took from my seat last time - you can see my wine glass in the foreground! Only caveat - make sure you wear layered clothing, because those stoves put out a lot of heat, and as you can see, you are right next to them.

Don and I went the first time - and, reservationless, we were told we could either wait 90 minutes for a table or sit at the counter, which is how we discovered it. Seems there are almost always seats back there. I ordered a pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon, seared and then finished in the oven and served over a bed of sauteed dandelion greens with salsify. Don had braised beef cheeks, which are the actual jaw muscles of the animal - the waiter told us they were particularly tender because of all the exercise they get from chewing! When there's a bit of down time, the chefs are happy to talk with you about the dishes and explain techniques.

The second time I went by myself, and had a lovely seared ahi tuna with a grapefruit vinaigrette. Menus here. Went great with a New Zealand Marlborough sauvignon blanc, my new favorite. As I sat there, I thought about how much my mom would have enjoyed the experience, and remembered watching her cook in the restaurant we owned. And I didn't feel quite so alone in a strange city after that!

Moving On