Day Six- Well, we are almost at the one week mark! My house looks like a crazy person lives here... oh, wait...
I started my day by getting in line at Rainbow at 8:30am. They have two lines, very organized. Actually three lines, but only two lines that I have to worry about. The other one is for the Instacart workers. It seems like a lot of "used-to-work-for-uber--or-lyft-but-now-noone-is-using-them-so-now-I-work-for-instacart" folks have become an army of brave shoppers.
Anyway, back to my lines. The two lines available are: #1 for older/high risk shoppers, and #2 for everyone else. Line #1 gets to go into the store from 9am (when they open) until 10am, when Line #2 gets merged into it at a rate of about 1 to every 2 from Line #1.
At 8:30am, Line #1 went all the way around the corner back to the other side of the block. Line #2 had just started, and I got to be in the third 6' slot. Luckily, I was in the morning sunshine. That made all the difference. Instead of standing for an hour and half in the drizzling rain like I did last week, this morning I stood in the sunshine, with my book (The Man Who Ate Everything) and D'Arcy's Spotify Studio 54 playlist on my phone. Which meant that I was also dancing. Not full out dancing like I would do at Oasis or in my kitchen, but definitely "crazy lady" dancing. While reading. While standing in line. In one of my brother's Rainbow Unicorn trucker hats, a flowered safety mask left over from the fires and gloves. But somehow, the combination of the morning energy, the sunshine on my back, the funny writing and the disco (let's face it, it was mostly the disco) waiting in line for an hour and half, was really ok.
Bought six cases of Mason jars to prep our soups and sauces for delivery/pick up, then headed over to Restaurant Depot to buy a case of huge jars of Italian Plum tomatoes to make more Ragu and a new Pomodoro sauce. Home to bake the sourdough that was destined to go to Joe and Eric (thank you both! It was really really good to see you!) and to make some cookies for Calum.
I am realizing that our house is totally taken over by this endeavor and I wanted to make something just for him. Because he is a teenager and his mother bakes all the time, his request was for "Safeway Sugar cookies." (Way to go, dude. Just kill me now). Ethel's Sugar Cookies from the Betty Crocker Cooky book was the way to go. With pink icing just like Safeway. Hilarious and true.
Our menu is updated a bit for this next week, adding some dried as well as the fresh pasta, a new Pomodoro sauce (which is currently bubbling on the stove and smells like Italian heaven) and the Nettle-Walnut Pesto with nettles foraged from my mom's land up in Pt Reyes. We had a good experience with delivery to the East Bay on Wednesday last week, so this Monday I will be making a trip up to the North Bay. If you are north of the Golden Gate and want to put in an order for Monday, I will be making stops in San Rafael and Novato and anywhere along the road out to Pt Reyes. We can do a hands-free transfer in a parking lot or whatever works. Combining orders in one area means that we can divide the mileage and tolls costs and make it a little more economical.
We are thrilled with the response so far and hope that folks who are feeling tired of cooking or ordering from their usual places are getting a little home-cooked love boost from us.
Take care of yourselves, hug your people. xoxox