why i enjoy the ferry building

Aside from being a nice piece of architecture, and an old building made functionally and psycihcally new (kind of like the Dia: Beacon, only for foodies), I had a really geat breakfast there. My mom and I didn't even intend to go to the Ferry Building on our SF trip, thinking it too touristy, but then we found out about the Frog hollow store. The night before, we'd gone to the chez panisse cafe and had a Frog Hollow nectarine for dessert, and this was our last day in SF. Since there was no way we were going to get to the farm--and we called out friends, Frog Hollow relations, to make sure--we could at least buy some more produce at the Ferry Building, and get a good cup of coffee to boot. So we walked down Market past the bike messengers and enjoyed a beautiful morning, nosed around the fancy shops a bit...

I snagged some plums and mom got a peach, then we got some breakfast pastries and took them out to the patio where we sat in t-shirts in the sun, and I ate fruit crisp, ad we talked to some nice man about how hte produce was overpriced and all. He asked where else we were gonig and we told him the itinerary--Gualala, Mendocino, Healdsburg, and we chatted about wines and redwoods and were generally approved of by this man. Maybe it was the chez panisse experience, but I started feeling a sense of belonging, or of understanding (more accurately) this city that seemed to always resist me. We shopped the afternoon away in Pacific Heights, found a boutique chocolatier and a grey cashmere sweater, and in a bookstore in the Western Addition I bought my first food book, Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires. I got hooked on Ruth and her wigs while waiting for it to be time to meet my mom's cousin and her daughter across the street at some fancy Nob Hill hotel, and then they whisked away to Frisson and perfect roast chicken, and by the time we left SF in the morning, driving over the Golden Gate Bridge in fog, I was a different person, though I didn't know it at the time.

anyway, not only is Frog Hollow hiring right now, but Boulettes Larder is hiring a pastry chef as well, adn though I am no doubt both too poor to get out there and unqualified for the second position, I am jealous. To work in the Fery Building adn spend every afternoon in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, reminiscing about the Berkeley days and who I used to be...and to write...and to eat, and be in such bounty.

Well, with global warming and all perhaps New England will grow into a bounty of its own...my garlic is coming up already, and it's supposed to be "overwintering". Al
Gore was right. Sigh.