This week leeks, and peas, cucumbers and asparagus are shooting up at the farmers market, along with early apricots and piles of berries and cherries. Spring is a lovely time to eat all the green things in abundance. The sycamore tree shading my house is leafing back out to protect us from the coming summer heat and the magnolia trees all down 12th street sigh open their voluminous heady blooms.
There seems to be a quickening and slowing at once, school kids slump towards the ends of the school year, dragging their feet to the finish line. Otherwise, the pace of social invites, summer plans and community activities pick up steam. The runaway train of late bedtimes, lost routines, and sticky hot summer evenings outdoors with our friends beckons us onward!
This past week reflected some of those leanings. Thursday night Sophie and I abandoned the bakery early to my assistant Madelyn’s discretion and took the train into San Francisco for a show at the Chapel. By the time Alchemy Bread closed for the night at home, we were leaning on a sticky bar in the Mission District, chewing on Luxardo cherries. The kids in a shirley temple and mine in an old fashioned. We were there to see Hurray for the Riff Raff, a band from New Orleans that I had first seen in 2009 on the porch of Thai restaurant in Davis. Their new album, some 15 years later, had just been called one of the best of the year by every major music publication. This Thursday night might be the last time to see them in a small venue. Sophie had been listening to them on my old iPod since infancy. It was a great show populated by a crowd of your average aging NPR listener, and one very cool homeschooled 17 year old out late on a “school night”. We ended the night as always with street hot dogs. Wrapped in bacon, charred on a dented sheet-pan placed over a propane burner on the sidewalk, onions melting down in the grease. The hotdog vendor called me and Sophie both “Princesa”. Ah yes, princess of oily midnight sausages on the moonlit walk to the last train home. Can’t think of anything I’d rather be.
The weekend included Porchfest, and we covered about 8 miles on foot from my house, to Penny University, down Magnolia Avenue and beyond. We bought lemonade and rice crispy treats from kids, wandered weaving through friends houses, clinking beers in the street with friends while a cover band plays 80’s classics to a street full of bicycles. We ate mango with chamoy and tajin while listening to grateful dead covers, ate ceviche tostadas and passed by a mariachi group. The weather was breezy, the music and food were great and our legs were a little sore.
Looking forward to more days in the sun, walks in the neighborhood, street food, music. I can’t wait to replace morning school drop off and afternoon pickup with morning bike rides and afternoons reading library books in my hammock!