Forays into local commerce

While Laura unpacks in a frenzy, I've been wandering around our new neighborhood. I cannot yet corroborate the assertion that the West Side is "the best side", but I have seen some promising things.

First, some downsides: On the streets around our apartment people are few, but dog shit is many. Granted it's been chilly, so I expect to see more folks around when the weather gets better, but man there's a lot of poo everywhere. As to be expected in a neighborhood covered in canine BM, there are also lots of dogs. Poorly-behaved dogs. I was walking up the street on Sunday when a dog in a fenced yard began barking hysterically at me. As I drew alongside the yard, a woman came around the corner with her border collie/husky mix, who immediately began barking and lunging at the dog in the yard, who followed suit. As I passed by, another woman walked around the adjacent corner with her Dalmatian, who proceeded to lunge and bark hysterically at the other dogs. Needless to say, this makes Laura and I feel much better about OUR lunge-and-bark dog. However, we clean up after her. Ahem.

On the other end of the spectrum, it took me less than two days to find the nearest awesome ethic food store. Friendship Market on Messer Street is the size of a quick-e-mart, but has a mind-boggling array of fresh and unusual produce (thai basil, persimmons, enoki mushrooms, zillions of chilis, fresh tamarind, many many unidentifiable things), frozen fish and fish products (salted/smoked/barbecued fish, humongous squid), sauces with no English on the labels, and--best of all--bags of fresh chow fun noodles at the register. Nothing like rubbery sheets of slightly sticky tapioca noodles... yum. Laura and I filled our arms with delicious things and made a yummy mass of stir-fried craziness. I can't wait to go there all the time.


Speaking of "I can't wait to go there all the time", allow me to introduce my new favorite coffee shop, White Electric Coffee. Best americano I've ever had. Good art. Free wi-fi. Um, yeah. But the joygasm of the day came when I stopped in at Paper & Provision Warehouse. It's a sublime combination of restaurant supply store (cheap durable & attractive pans, Wall o' Ladles) and industrial-grade Costco (50lb bags of donut mix, cases of canned San Marzanos, gallon jugs of bbq sauce). I found myself walking through aisles of quart-sized bottles of maple flavoring and frantically thought "what do we eat a ton of?" I bought a restaurant-sized tabletop box of plastic wrap, and a fifty-cent jigger.

Tomorrow: face down the haughty hipsters at my new local bike shop!