Happy Saturday!

This was one of my first weekends at home in San Francisco in a long time. I did what I love most—I headed to the Farmer’s Market! My sister Michelle, and I met up with two of my friends, Jason and Eric. We kicked off the morning with my favorite Blue Bottle Coffee. What is my coffee of choice? If y’ll really must know, I am a New Orleans style coffee fan. It’s Blue Bottle iced coffee with roasted French chicory, sugar and milk. All perfectly mixed. Not too sweet, just perfect. Yum yum yum. Seriously. Even this morning, which was a little overcast and a tinny bit cold, I opted for my iced New Orleans coffee.

From there, we began perusing the stalls. Eric was a man on a mission and bee-lined for a few different stalls. Michelle saw some gorgeous strawberries and headed there. Meanwhile, Jason and I kind of hung back and took it all in.

I saw a lot of familiar faces. In fact, ran into my friends Kevin and Alli and their new baby Charley! (Hmmm, wonder if this was Charley’s first Farmer’s Market outing?) We saw some familiar chef faces too. We saw chefs (and other fans) congratulating Chef Daniel Patterson from Coi Restaurant on his recent four star review by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Michael Bauer.

Sadly, this was also the night the famous Rubicon was closing. And we even had a Drew Nieporent sighting along with Chef Stuart Brioza and the Rubicon crew. Made me a little sad just seeing them…to think, I’ve never been to Rubicon! Sigh. Guess I never will. We’ll have to anxiously wait and see where Stuart and Nicole end up!

Here are some of the things we saw…

Some amazing bell peppers...look at all of the colors!

I took this photo just for my friend Bahram...shout out to East Palo Alto!

Squash Blossoms! I almost bought them, but wasn’t exactly sure how to prepare them, and the petals looked so delicate! I also knew I wasn’t eating at home tonight nor tomorrow, so hesitated and ended up not buying them. My friend Josh later told me, “You could have simply eaten them with olive oil, sea salt and mixed greens. They’re like candy!!” Sigh. My biggest regret of the day was not buying them!

Look at these beautiful hydrangeas!

They were huge and colorful and gorgeous!

We also watched Chef Chris Cosentino of Incanto Restaurant and Boccalone fame do a cooking demo, but since we were late comers, we ended up sitting in the back on the ground (as Michelle and I shared a Prather Ranch breakfast sandwich...yum!) Chris demonstrated how to make Sharyln melon with Boccalone Lardo with torn basils, and was great at getting the crowd involved. Super interactive, and we could hear the crowd laughing and getting really into it. The bite sized sample was tasted was really good too. Chris did a great job, but we had more fun gabbing in the back with his wife Tatiana.

All in all, a fun and relaxing Saturday morning. A great reminder of just how great this city is and how lucky I am. Oh yea! And yes! As promised, I came home with some pretty flowers of my own. Not as amazing as those hydrangeas we saw earlier, but still pretty.

Dahlias of my very own to enjoy this week!