Tea Party Extraordinaire

Violet is not a person but a bakery/restaurant in London.  This sign directed Anne R. and me to a wonderful tea party near Pt. Reyes Station this weekend to celebrate the publication of The Violet Bakery Cookbook  by Claire Ptak,  a West Marin native and daughter of my good friend Elisabeth.

Rampant flower artistry all over the Historic Olema Schoolhouse, an event space transformed for the occasion, right down to marigold petals sprinkled in the bathtub of the restroom (didn't get a picture of that).

 

Anne and I arrived during set-up, and soon we were shooed outside so that the pastries and teapots could be arranged on small tables.

 Still setting up

 Beautiful tablecloths:

What vehicle gave up its seats?

We finally staked out a table:

 Because coral.  And the crocheted doily.

 Then we went out on the deck, where there was bubbly and a friendly crowd to talk to.

When we returned to our table, this had been centered on the doily:

 A selection of pastries from the cookbook

A tier-by-tier description:

Savory scones with leeks, ham, and Parmesan

Cupcakes with quince (pink), salted caramel (beige) and chocolate (self-explanatory) frosting.

 Scones and Violet Butterscotch Blondies. The latter are indescribably, wickedly, delicious and you must have one before you check out of this world, I don't care how many calories they are.

Our teapot

Us.  (Yes, pearls.  It was a tea party.)

This woman happened to be one of our table mates.  She was also a career counselor on the Berkeley campus who directed me to the part-time job in Entomology in 1974.  The rest is history.  (What are the chances?)

 Claire was interviewed before this hometown crowd, people who'd grown up with her or watched her grow up.   She started working at the Bovine Bakery in Pt. Reyes Station when she was 15, and after college and a stint as pastry chef at Chez Panisse ended up in London because she married an Englishman.  Now she owns the Violet Bakery in East London and is a food star herself.  Soon she'll be writing a Saturday column in The Guardian.

Local girl makes (ultra) good

Explaining that the rush for sweets and caffeine is from 3-5 pm in England, rather than in the morning, which is when Americans most need reviving.

The book itself:  Reader, I bought it a few weeks ago and read it cover-to-cover.  I may never bake anything in it--although the banana bread is extremely tempting--but I can attest to its merits as an engaging, well-written account of how she became the baker she is,  including the tricks she's learned and shares with an open hand.  Lots of information.  (Barbara Pym talks about women keeping devotional and cookery books next to the bed in case insomnia strikes. Which it did, and this book was the perfect entertaining and relaxing antidote.  Please take that as a high compliment, Claire.)

After the talk, people bought books madly:

   Yes, Alice Waters wrote the foreword

I spent a certain amount of time wondering if the baby girl Claire's expecting in January would a) have her mother's dimples, and b) prove to be another wonderfully artistic baker/stylist, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.

 At a baby shower the next day

Home Again and a Quilt Show

We've been home from our vacation for 12 days, and only today do I feel my back-in-the-saddle equilibrium.    Inverness was a wonderful break, mentally and physically refreshing, but I'm glad to be home. 

Finally.

For the first week, I thought, why in the hell do we live HERE?  We have no big vista, no dozens of spectacular nearby trails, no un-smoggy air.  Plus traffic.  Nuts.

 Water view from Elisabeth's house

 Water view from our house

Our house felt so boxy and uptight when we got back. I wanted to take out all the walls downstairs.

Me:  Let's knock down all walls!

Jerry:  What will hold up the house?

Me:  Steel beams or something.

Jerry: 

Now I'm used to the house again--having neighbors' houses on both sides and  a closed-off kitchen.  Most of all, I'm reveling in my community of friends.  That's what I really miss when we stay in West Marin.

* * * * *

A quilt show at the Oakland Museum revived me yesterday:

All 20 quilts are part of Eli Leon's collection.   An Oaklander, he got interested in collecting quilts when he was foraging for "green things" at local flea markets (see below). I'd seen many of the quilts in other shows and in books, but they are worth a second (or fourth) viewing.

Chair with embroidery and applique, Rosie Lee Tompkins, mixed media

Four Patch Half Square Strip, Rosie Lee Tompkins, rayon, synthetic cotton, and mixed fabrics, 1994

Mamaloo, Arbie Williams, cotton, synthetic, and metal

Double Strip, Mattie Pickett, cotton and synthetic fabrics

Double Medallion, Sherry Byrd, cotton, synthetic, and mixed fibers

Brass Buttons, Arbie Williams, cotton and synthetic fibers

Part of Eli Leon's extensive "green collection." 

Checker Board Green and Black, Rosie Lee Tompkins, 1990

For the love of green:  even the gallery stools

Yo-Yos & Half Squares: Contemporary California Quilts, Oakland Museum of California, September 1, 2015-February 21, 2016.  Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month.

Afterwhile, Everything in Bolinas Looks Like Art

Sunny Bolinas

Yesterday reminded me yet again why we didn't move to Inverness:  Fog!  All day long, except for about five minutes at 4:30.

Rural fog gets to me in a way that city fog doesn't.  There are more places to go in the city when the weather's dreary, more diversions.  Here I feel stuck in the house, antsy and vaguely claustrophobic, which is why we didn't move here about twenty years ago.  After a month-long trial run a rental house in Inverness during the winter, we decided to stay put in Berkeley. Couldn't take it.

Confronted with socked-in conditions yesterday,  we gave up on a hike and drove down Highway 1 to Bolinas in search of sun and lunch.

It was sunny there, and I perked up, although  I always feel a bit out of it in Bolinas,  because it's a hippie outpost, and I am not a hippie but a tourist, and the place radiates Ambivalence About Tourists.  Houses are as wildly expensive as other places in the Bay Area, so I don't know where the hippies live, unless a certain number of locals are impersonating hippies and own a million dollar house.  Or a house worth a million now that they bought when it was $75,000.  Who knows.

But the sun was shining, and we had a good lunch at the Coast Café and then walked around the town.  Here's what we saw:

 The Coast Cafe:  Note surfboards hanging form ceiling and the stolen road sign over the bar

A local house.  Note the  "Playground" sign under the balcony, two Coke ads,  a hanging bicycle, and an old-fashioned scooter in upstairs window, plus:

 On the land side of the house: a fence decorated with old glass doorknobs

Another fence, which reminded me of a quilt

...and its shadow

 A sign near the small beach:  I always wanted to be loved by a crab

 Afterwhile, everything in Bolinas looks like art

Eat, Hike, Sleep

Taken from the bridge on the Estero Trail three days ago

This trip has been wonderful,  particularly the second week, when I managed to shake off my city concerns and get into a very pleasant routine: eat, walk, sleep.  It's been soul-soothing.

A couple of days ago, we calculated that we'ed hiked 30 miles.  Now, the total's up to 38, not that it hasn't taken a toll on our bodies: for a few days after an 8-mile hike, my hip joints felt like they were grating against each other with every step, and I needed a heating pad for my lower back.  Jerry's done something to the bottom of one foot and has a blister on the other.  Still.

We head back to Berkeley on Thursday, and I'm cranky about it.

* * * * *

A barn door at Pierce Point

Yesterday, we hiked the Tomales Point Trail, near the historic Pierce Point dairy ranch.  It was a clear, warm day with a mild breeze, perfect.

We'd avoided that trail for years after a short, cold walk in a blustering wind many years ago.  Friends persuaded us to give it another go.  We saw a coyote, tule elk, rabbits, and butterflies.  And this:

Off one side of the trail:  A view of McClure Beach

On the other side: Tomales Bay

Near the end of the trail, you see both:  The ocean to the left, the mouth of Tomales Bay to the right

 Lunch on a rock

* * * * *

Every time we stay in West Marin, I have a renewed sense of calm and a stronger sense of my priorities.  Toward the end of each trip, I try to figure out how to export these feelings to Berkeley.  Sometimes I beat myself up because I CAN'T seem to be this relaxed and untroubled in Berkeley.  For God's sake, why not?

For one thing, I have no house to take care of here.  I guard against rings on the furniture, and I water the pots of flowers and deadhead the dahlias, but I'm blind to leaks, mold, malfunctioning appliances, upholstery that needs replacing, and burned out recessed light bulbs that I can't manage to extricate from their cans--(currently two in our kitchen at home).  If Elisabeth has these problems, I don't see them.

Here there are no bills, no maddeningly incomprehensible statements from Blue Shield, no pleas for money, no piles of catalogs (I bet the Christmas catalogs are starting to arrive).  No one calls us.  We have a very limited menu of dinners, which we rotate.  No meals out, no exasperated waits in noisy restaurants.  We share half a bottle of Prosecco each night and watch Amazon/Netflix/Acorn movies on the computer after dinner.  Then we go to bed, and we sleep SOUNDLY.

* * * * *

Not that the curmudgeon side of me isn't on duty!  I hate people talking loudly on trails (for God's sake, don't you want peace?),  resent having to step aside for horses on narrow trails, and wants to arrest bicyclists who come up on us so quickly that they threaten to mow us down.  On weekends, Pt. Reyes Station is overwhelmed with weekenders and day trippers.

Last Sunday, which was very warm,  I dashed into town for a couple of grocery items and paused at the unoccupied community garden.  The, though,  street was mobbed.   I thought,  Why go out in this over-heated mayhem?  I bought a New York Times  for us to read under the shade of an umbrella on the deck.

A cup of tea, the New York Times, and thou