I swear, all i have to do is even hint about bragging on myself and blam, there i am hoist again by my own petard. Back on the 21st of October, a close reader might have detected between the lines a tiny shred of pride in my having planned my trip north so that i could return in time for the feijoa season. Well, guess what.
Yep, when i finally dragged myself out to the market after mostly recovering from the damn cold i got two days after my return, i discovered that i’d missed my vendor’s achingly short season. And yes, i know of another vendor who sells them, but he’s at the Ferry Plaza and gets Ferry Plaza prices. So unless i feel like making a trip to the Alemaney Farmers’ Market next Saturday on the off chance that a vendor there will have feijoas at a reasonable price, there will be no feijoa chutney this year.
I am hoping this will not be the final straw on the backs of the long suffering people, causing a national strike that sends the nation swirling down into revolution.
The only good news on this score is that i’m in the process of getting rid of about half of my library and am moving the jars of my products from their boxes on my foyer floor onto shelves as space becomes available. The fringe benefit is that i’m getting the stuff organized and have discovered buried items i’d forgot. Like three jars of the 2010 vintage FC Feijoa Chutney and five of the FMC Feijoa Mango Chutney.
And yes, to reward Matte’s more dedicated readers, requests will be filled in the order received.
Today’s news is that reading in this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle John King’s article on Proxy, the wonderful addition of temporary food shops along Octavia Boulevard, inspired me to head out there this afternoon and try the new Biergarten from Suppenküche.
It was great fun. I opted for the Bratwurst with Sauerkraut without a beer this time although they have an impressive variety on tap. After i placed my order i stood looking at the crowd and noticing that there were no empty tables but then the smells triggered memories. I stepped to the closest table where there was only one occupant at the far end of the bench and asked the couple across the table, “Haben Sie platzfrei?” pointing at the empty seats.
The guy laughed and asked, “Where’d you learn that?”
“In Germany fifty years ago.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Saving your parents from the Communists.”
We congratulated me on my success as they finished their beers.
The Bratwurst was good, but alas nothing like the wonderful ones they had in Frankfurt in the sixties. The Sauerkraut, though, was excellent.
As my reward for not having a beer, i stepped next door to Smitten for a couple of scoops of their breathtaking chocolate ice cream, but after i’d stood in line ten minutes i noticed the unobtrusive “temporarily out” sign on the chocolate. Luckily, they weren’t offering the burnt caramel today or anything else exciting, so i came home and fried up a half pound of fresh smelt that i’d picked up this morning.
I should explain that the Delta Smelt is not actually endangered even though they’re threatened because zillions of the tasty little things get pureed by the pumps that are sending way too much of our precious water down to blue Southern California’s swimming pools and green their desert lawns and golf courses. That’s right: they kill our smelt while stealing our water, not that we resent this, oh no.