Nope, sorry folks, no Victoria Beckham in sight. But keep reading! The North Berkeley 7th Annual Spice of Life Festival is today. In place of a snooty fembot, you get fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Seems like a fair trade.

The spices start simmering 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Shattuck from Virginia to Rose Street. This will include demos from local chefs, gourmet street food, a farmers’ market, art exhibitions, farm animals, jazz bands, bossa nova, and something frighteningly referred to as “‘green’ coffin decorating.”

It’s enough to make anyone curious. At the very least it should be a nice airing-out of the city’s artsy types–a chance to see them in their full yarn-weaving, group-hugging, spice-making, hemp-sewing glory. And heck, while you’re at it, you might as well enjoy the spices. After all, North Berkeley spice is the spice of life. (And if that isn’t the proverb, it damn well should be.)

So this Sunday, dust off your coffin and come learn how to make it environmentally friendly. This may well be the last chance you get.

Image source: jaycross under Creative Commons
North Berkeley 7th Annual Spice of Life Festival this Sunday Oct 4 [San Francisco Examiner]

Boy, do we love cheap fun. Alright, that sounded wrong. Boy, do we love cheap fun that doesn’t give us venereal disease. Much better. We also love cheap fun that happens on a monthly basis. (Sorry, we’ve got nothing to fix that one.) “Matcha” at the Asian Art Museum fulfills all of these criteria, and more!
(Video after the jump.)

For just $5 you get not only admission to special “Matcha”-related fun, but you can explore the less-crowded galleries chock full of (wait for it, wait for it … ) Asian art! September’s theme was “Tea and Spice,” so we roamed the museum picking out our future possessions and sipping samples of some of the world’s finest teas, all the while mingling with San Francisco’s “hip”–”yuppie” might be a more accurate term–elite.

Tea specialists, Tealchemy, were in attendance, fresh from Burning Man. (Mm, Burning Man–so hot right now.) Berkeley tea vendor, Teance, provided delicious tea (we particularly enjoyed this “Phoenix Oolong” they were serving), and we’d highly recommend trying Tibetan yak butter tea, if you get the chance.

Anyway, this video should give you the gist:

If that doesn’t convince you, we don’t know what will.

Image Source: Jill Cowan
Burning Man [Wikipedia]
Matcha [Asian Art Museum of San Francisco]
Asian Art Museum MATCHA Trailer [YouTube]