i am slightly more prone to whining these days.

i work a lot (7 days a week) and being temporarily (going on 3 mos) without a car, i bike a lot (100+ miles per week). these facts mean i'm generally leaving one job for another or heading home to bed and that my knees are either screaming at me, shouting at me, or incessantly poking me like an annoying redheaded 8 year old.

but cloudy, stormy times just make for brighter patches of sunshine & the occasional rainbow- i think.

i finished my shift at the restaurant around 3pm yesterday and decided to swing over the culver city farmers market a few blocks away to grab flowers for the agency and for a much needed few moments of breathing between jobs. i popped my head into the pastry kitchen to ask the boys if they needed anything from the market and was met with puppy dog eyes and begs of carmello.

i walked the few blocks over and started with the flower guy. i bought four bouquets of gerba daisies in very uncharacteristic for me shades of hot pink & fuscia and as the german/eastern european flower man wrapped them up and eyed my bike bag i was about to stuff them in he offered to "make me a backpack". he found some twine and made a shoulder strap for the flowers so the hung just above my bike bag on my back. then i headed off in search of Things to Pickle.



i found beets, a gorgeous little bouquet of radishes, and these funny little lemon cucumbers that smelled like lemonade. i also somehow accidentally found myself in possession of a spinach/artichoke/mozzarella empanada, which i made quick work on.


lastly, i ducked down to the end of the market where the carmello was supposed to be and found out that what i had assumed was a caramel ice cream bar for the ice cream truck, was actually an adorable small batch ice cream operation, Carmela, out of downtown LA and sold at farmers markets. they had small and large little containers and after the rad ice cream dude let me try a few flavors, i got two small containers of salted caramel and lavender honey. oh, lordy. colour me smitten.

i dropped the ice cream off to the boys and then flew up venice blvd on my little bike, with a bag full of veggies and the gerba daisies sitting on top like a pagent queen waving at everyone going past and creating smiles from atop her convertible.

xx.