small towns.

Is is Boston or is it SF?

Throw a stone in Boston and you hit Lydia Shire. Ken Oringer. Todd English.

Throw a stone in SF, you hit a Bostonian. Sox fan. Everyone here knows the places I've been so far, and I've only just gotten here and already the San Francisco chef community feels both small and insular, and weirdly connected to the community I left behind. Is it chefs the country over, or is there some kind of SF siren song us cold New Englanders are particularly susceptible to?

I was walking around the Gourmet Ghetto this afternoon looking for a good pastry, reached as far as I wanted to go and crossed the street to turn around when I notice Poulet is hiring. What the hell, I think, why not? If I fill out an application I can at least try to snatch a copy of Edible San Francisco without feeling so guilty about it.

So I fill out the application, take the magazine, go to leave the application on the counter and they're like, wait, we'll get someone for you to talk with, and they do, and I sit down with this woman Michelle who has lived in Cambridge. Worked at the Bostonian with Lydia Shire. I mention Sonsie, how Bill Poirer used to work with Lydia at the Bostonian, etc. She's eaten at Sonsie. I describe the French doors, how the tables face Newbury Street, I ask her how Lydia Shire was to work for, etc. She asks me if I'd like to bake one day a week or so if they need the help. Yes, duh, definitely. I've got an interview/trial there Thursday. Mmmmh roast chicken. I think working in the Gourmet Ghetto would be fun and dangerous (for the wallet). It makes me happy, so much good food. In the same way the Ferry Building does.

Apparently there's some Ferry-Building-is-the-temple-of-food article in GQ. Don't have my issue yet, though.

Went to Masse's after Poulet for some opera cake and coffee. The cake wasn't coffee-ish enough for my taste. It was strange. Eating it made me realize I've only had Cheffy's opera cake. Kind of like a lover's touch, you think you like being touched that way and then you realize it was only with those hands.