Mission Mission

There is nothing quite like biking down Florida, the sweet yeasty smell of Panorama bread filling the air, unless it is all those things, plus happening upon a burgeoning garden.  This vacant lot, although not a giant pit, is about to become a community space:

The woman in the photo did acknowledge that this is only a temporary setup and that when the lot gets sold the garden will have to dismantle, still, the tub and wooden pyramid seem pretty settled to me. Awesome that the landowner is encouraging of this idea, awesome that someone is taking the initiative, and we can only hope that maybe this economy never turns around and it never gets sold! Who needs a job anyway? I’d rather sit in a fragrant park.

There is a grand opening to be held tomorrow (Saturday), with live music, muraling, demonstrations (surely there is a vacant lot you might like to see turned into a park), and community bonding from 11am to 4pm, and any volunteers to get the park ready beforehand are welcome.

Previously:

Mission Greenbelt Project

How About a Peace Garden in This Bleak IGA Parking Lot?

As reader sfortunata once remarked, there was, “…a Bermuda triangle of desserts with Dianda’s, Mission Pie, and Anthony’s.”  Anthony’s opened over the weekend with free cookies (I ate 5 this weekend), but there is a new player in town. Behold:

No beating about the bush here, the “Froyo & Crepe Cafe” delivers what it promises.  I had an almond, banana, coconut, nutella and whipped cream crepe and it was a carefully folded slice of happiness.  Despite less than enthusiastic yelps, my tastebuds purred.  I liked my taste of the froyo too.

And with an atmosphere like this (dibs on the couch):

And a strangely small number of people allowed inside:

I do believe there is yet another reason to leave the Valencia teen streets and maturely mosey to the Mission mid-twenties.

Pros: Crepes, Froyo, Elbow Room
Cons: Fried Mini Octopus
Maybes: Avocado Smoothies?

Previously:

Cookie Shop Coming Soon
No Farmers, No Pie

Safeway, 8:30 pm.

After a homeless man saunters out of the store, an alarm is immediately sounded via telephone. Two security guards and a bagger book it out the door, and with an apology, my cashier runs out mid-transaction to watch the scene unfold.

Two minutes later, one of the security guards returns, triumphantly brandishing….soap.

Yesterday I managed to snag a seat on a crowded BART train, getting on at the 24th street station, delighted to have a few minutes to read.  My current book is West of Kabul, East of New York, the 2008 “San Francisco Reads” pick which may as well be called “Lael Reads” because I have yet to see another person doing their mandatory civic duty.  Surely if we all at least skimmed this book our BART and bus rides would be filled with scintillating conversations and good-natured ribbing of the main characters. However, my dreams of constantly striking up heated debates with mysterious and articulate literary strangers hasn’t quite panned out, no matter how visible I make the cover of the book.

So anyway, I sat down and began to read.  It is at this point that my seatmate, a girl in her twenties, begins to complain to her friend sitting in front of her.

“So, I’ve begun noticing that the same kinds of people ALWAYS sit next to me! I mean what is it about me that attracts them?”

She then proceeded to turn and look at me. Then she turned back to her friend.

“It’s always these old Asian women, with lots of shopping bags.”

I am neither old nor Asian, and I carried exactly zero shopping bags.

Girl: “I just wish that once, some really hot guy would sit next to me and start talking to me.”

She then looked over at me again, this time in disgust.

I looked back.  I sensed in her a kindred spirit, someone else who wanted to connect with a stranger. I thought about sharing my book approach with her, but there are only so many hot guys in our city, and even fewer who read, and I deemed this secret strategy too precious to be shared. So I kept silent, knowing she would never know just how alike we were, and that old Asian ladies sit next to me on BART all the time too.

Tonight is the kickoff of Video Fest 2008, held at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts.  The festival this year received 49 different film submissions of which 17 will be shown either tonight (10/17) or tomorrow (10/18).  From the festival blog:

Video Fest 08 is focused on people’s existence and their surroundings, the relationships that develop between the human being and nature, community, family and their social surroundings.

Although I have not often ventured into the Mission Cultural Center, the couple of times that I did, I was extremely impressed.  Once I heard some really good jazz that had people stopping in their tracks and turning the sidewalk into an impromptu theater.  Another time I saw an absorbing exhibition featuring photos snapped by kids and young adults.  If past experience is any clue, this should be good.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has ended it is true, but your unquenchable thirst for bluegrass doesn’t have to go unwatered.  Atlas Cafe hosts Belle Monroe and her Bluegrass Boys tonight from 8-10pm.  It just might get your knee thumpin’ (to the beat), heart pumpin’ (blood), fingers twitchin’ (to play) and feet itchin’ (to dance).

Person A: You going the wrong way.

Person B: No I’m not.  I’m going to buy liquor and that aint never the wrong way! Ahahahahahahaaa!

Person A: Ahahahahahaaaa!

Fall is in the air, and Tree over at Free Farm Stand has proof, one of the largest banana squashes this side of Thanksgiving!  No mere knife could tame this unruly beast, it requires a “sawzall.” Sounds like Tree is going to have a lot of squash in the coming weeks.

Just like Tom said (the guy who brought the tomatoes and squash to me from the country), I cut the squash easily with a “sawzall”, and I wrapped 1 lb. pieces in cling plastic wrap. I still have more to cut up and he wants to bring me more.

Link.

Recipes: Honey Glazed Banana Squash, Roasted Banana Squash Soup, Raw Banana Squash Donuts

In an attempt to find out if there was a reason why the sidewalks of Mission Street are tiled, I ran across an article published by The New York Times in October of 1989. Finding it rather poetic, and also an interesting read, I stopped wondering about the tiles, and started reading this rather lengthy article.

EACH TIME AMERICA SEALS ME IN A laminate of deadlines and Dow Jones averages, bills due and bills payable, I journey to a place where urgencies fade, colors brighten and all claims on reality begin to look relative. Just a stroll down the hill – though, like a good Californian, I usually drive – leads me out of my silent, wind-scoured, chillingly pretty neighborhood into a raucous, mouldering, charmingly unscrubbed caldron. Suddenly, the sidewalks are bordered with azure tiles and doused with the perfume of rotting mangoes; the streets are serenaded by thumping basso laments broadcast from souped-up Chevys; the advertisements appeal to a dozen loyalties and languages. Black-shawled Guatemalan women ply the restaurants, peddling red carnations, followed by packs of Vietnamese urchins toting bags of fresh-picked garlics; each available clapboard wall bursts with murals of naked Aztec deities and painted jungles; every sight conspires to defeat grayness and to sabotage the straight-and-narrow. Where thousands have sought asylum before me, I am a refugee in reverse – fleeing the benefits of the Promised Land for the immigrant hothouse and global miscellany that is San Francisco’s Mission District.

Full article here.

The 2009 Michelin Guide to San Francisco Bay Area & Wine Country released its results today.  Range remains the only restaurant in the Mission to get a star and thus maintains its status as “a very good restaurant in its category.”  Known for being extremely frugal with its stars, the Michelin Guide refused to allow Bar Tartine, Delfina, Farina, or Tokyo Go Go a spot in their coveted constellation, but acknowleged that these places provide a good meal for less than $40.

Maybe its the fact the $40 does not sound like a bargain for me, but I have sadly not yet been to any of these places.  Until then, I will console myself knowing that Range gets 4 stars on Yelp and El Tonayense Taco Truck gets 4.5.