We had been in California for less than 12 hours when we debarked for the Pacific Coast Highway and our dear friends took us to Tomales Bay Oyster Company. We got two spidery mesh bags of 50 oysters each (yes, 100 oysters), buttery and fat and still fresh wet from their briny homes, shucked and raw with fresh lemon and tabasco or smoked and yawning open on the grill. Add a cast iron skillet full of sweet butter, caramelized onions and squash from the Bolinas Farmstand, crusty sourdough bread, haloumi cheese, and plenty of cold beer and, well, we are doing quite well for ourselves.
Category: Happiness
Bolinas Farmstand
On the way to Bolinas there is a roadside farmstand that uses the “Honest John” system… the last time we used an Honest John system we were a couple of Dishonest Jakes, but the boys who run this place are too cute and the vegetables too fresh and delicious for such espionage. So we coughed up a mere $20 for zucchini, onions, fennel, carrots, kale, and some marvelous Araucana blue eggs. Not too shabby.
Quoting the amazing Anne Emond Ann Marie pointed to the kale and said “Hey, Baby Spinach get the F out of here” to which the FarmStandHand replied “I like the way you talk”. Anne Emond’s comique, in addition to being awesome, is also an exact likeness (down to the black pants and striped shirt) of Ann Marie when she said it:
On the Road Again
Here we are just starting out. The summer after we all graduated from college we traveled cross country. Under the guise of moving Sara to San Francisco the four of us packed up and headed west. We saw the painted desert and slept on the banks of the Rio Grande, we took to coastal roads and desolate flats, we danced honkytonk and airstream, we mapped our days in terms of smallest road and sweetest spot to swim, and, like so many before us, we discovered and loved the riches of California. It was wonderful, it was the birth of adventures.
Here we are now:
Time has passed, years have flown, we have gained much, lost some, and lived around in our bones a little. We now revolve around each other in elliptical orbits, drawn at once by the gravity of our pasts, the omnipresent weight and luster of New York like a great sun, and the distant call of the star-flung west coast. Soon (but not even soon enough!) we’ll all be together again to pick up the thread of our traveling like the best conversations: after much time and distance, right at the point where we left off. And this time, we’ll have Molly:
THIS JUST IN: Cat Loves New Sofa
We’ve just done a big maneuver and re-requisitioned the awesome loveseat that used to be in my grandfather’s house (Mama’s side). More on that later. In the meantime, breaking news: Nipsey Russell LOVES the new couch. See?
I’d also like to mention that none of these is an action shot, he was in each of these positions for 30-45 minutes, at least. Life is hard out here for a Russell, but he’s making do, you know.
Sitting in Front of a Fan
Hey Legs, looking good. Nice and Cool.
How marvelous is this? On the right: an iconic Gil Elvgren pinup painting. On the left: the photograph that inspired it. See more wonderful shots here. If you scroll through them, you’ll see that the model is always the same, it’s Elvgren’s wife. How divine.
I’m sitting in front of a fan too today.
The Jamaica Bay Jerks
I’m having a total love affair with summer right now. Probably because I’ve been hopping in and out of New York and have only seen the most lovely and tantalizing parts (roof parties, sunsets, music outside, picnics) and none of the armpit parts (hot.smell.subway.toes.). In the former category: we went out to the ball fields on Bay 16th to see Andrew’s little brother’s Little League team play their championship tournament. The gods of small ball pitted the sweetest band of intrepid, full-hearted, and popsicle-mouthed 8 year olds against this pitcher. See above. A side-slinging lowballer, towering a full three heads over the runts in right field, a little league leviathan who almost had a perfect game (our guys’ third baseman, who had been in tears earlier over a tie-gone-to-the-runner-this-ump-is-a-union-scab-type-call, got on base with a frozen rope to shortstop to ruin Goliath’s no-hitter. Yes.). The boys lost, but bless their little hearts, when the game was over they were quiet and kind to each other and held their heads high with honor beyond their years. After the game at Spumoni Gardens they were back to fighting over corner pieces of the perfect-sweet-sauced sicilian square pie and spitting soda at each other, but for a dusky sunset moment you could see just a shade of the men they’d be. Ahh, Summer, how fine you are.
Cold Brew: Brewhaha!
It started in 2007. Ann Marie and I had moved to E.7th street in the winter and it was our first warm weather in our 6th floor walkup. And by warm weather I mean it was hot as blue blazes. She worked from home (inexplicably, marvelously, and exclusively by fax), I was bartending and it was an amazing time of long, jort filled days. We had taken to drinking whole pots of espresso in highly sugared three-quarter-tasse cups during our first New York Februaries but now that the clothes were coming off and the air conditioners had not yet been delivered to deliver us from July evils we needed something different. Enter New Orleans Cold Brew Coffee. The superbly easy, utterly delicious, and super cheap wiles of coffee concentrate suited us like ugly on a monkey. Deep, dark and smooth, not at all bitter, inky and mellow, a little milk, lots of ice, it was perfect. One by one, like bad girls, we got everyone we knew hooked on it. Our mothers bought toddys and perfected the 8’oclock cheap brew, Molly downed it by the mason jar, Andrew drinks it hand over tervis-tumbler-fist, it put Sara back on caffeine, and McKay discovered it abroad (and sent back the picture above).
A Missive from the West Coast: Stumptown has started selling Cold Brew Shorties:
The Verdict? From Ann Marie: Not as good as ours. Its the chicory. Chicory= crucial.
The Recipe that Started it All:
1 pound dark roast coffee and chicory, medium ground
10 cups cold water
Ice
Milk.
1. Put coffee in a nonreactive container, like a stainless-steel stockpot. Add 2 cups water, stirring gently to wet the grounds, then add remaining 8 cups water, agitating the grounds as little as possible. Cover and let steep at room temperature for 12 hours.
2. Strain coffee concentrate through a medium sieve, then again through a fine-mesh sieve.
3. To make iced coffee, fill a glass with ice, add ¼ cup coffee concentrate and 3/4 to 1 cup milk, then stir. (Concentrate will keep in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.)
Summer Joy: Gardenias
You know you are in a good place when it is time to go to sleep and someone has put a gardenia next to your bed. Just one, in the tiniest bit of water, depression glass or old fiestaware. You know it’s a marvelous confluence of events that has led you to lay your head down in a place where June is warm enough for blooms and the sheets are still cool to the touch.
Petit Herbs Garden
Ahh, New York. Would that we could have an acre out back for straw bale tomatoes, climbing cucumbers and whatever other delectable treats we could imagine. It’s all we can do to put a few simple herbs out on the front stoop now that summer has officially arrived. I stopped by the Union Square farmers market this week and picked up the bare essentials: basils, rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley. After a week of squalls today was the perfect day to plant them! Now, what should we have for dinner?
Summer Joy: Cucumber Sandwiches
Today I had one of the summer’s most marvelous delicate treats: the cucumber sandwich. When I was little Mama and I grew cucumbers and tomatoes in half barrels down the length of our driveway. I loved the curlicue tendrils that got so grabby and brushing off the little white thorns that grew from the bumps when they were ready to pick. Mama would have a tomato sandwich and me– always the cucumber. Nothing has changed.
I go white bread, crust on, no toast, Duke’s mayonnaise on both sides (sometimes I have to bring this special from Virginia, other times they randomly/awesomely have it at Fairway), salt, pepper, and chips. This is probably the only sandwich in the world (outside of PB&J) that doesn’t agree with a pickle. After all, a pickle is just a cucumber that sold its soul to the Devil. And the Devil was Dill.
Feather By Feather 
