Inside the San Francisco ferry building

Breakfast: salad with poached egg, toast with jam, and cappuccino with a heart on top

Lunch salad with watermelon agua fresca

Cut the flesh of half a yellow watermelon into pieces, and place in a blender. Pulsing, being careful not to cut up the seeds, macerate the melon, and then pass it through a sieve. Combine the watermelon juice with plenty of lime juice (this is vital), a little sugar, and some water, to taste.

Mash a shallot and some salt to a paste in the mortar and pestle; add some lemon juice and olive oil. Slice a bulb of fennel, and toss with the dressing. Divide the fennel between two shallow bowls. Pick two or three small ripe tomatoes from the vine, and add the halved tomatoes to the bowls. Divide in two and add also one carrot, sliced; one stalk celery, cut up; and an eight once tub of cooked salad shrimp.

Later, smile when B makes you a cappuccino with a heart drawn on the top.

Lunch: Greek salad and cappuccino

In the salad we had an Armenian cucumber from Riverdog, sliced and dressed in balsamic vinaigrette; cubed French feta cheese; and early girl tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh oregano from the garden. The coffee, as always, is made with Straus milk and Blue Bottle espresso.

Breakfasts and lunches at Indian Lake

We don't have a lot of variety in our breakfasts: we poach eggs very well. Each morning at Indian Lake we began by sleeping in, and then having a late breakfast of poached eggs on english muffins, strawberries and blueberries, and a full pot of strong coffee. Over breakfast, we would appreciate the view of the lake and plan that day's hike.

With only two full days at the lake, there were many hikes we did not do, but the two we did were great. Our neighbors immediately to the south are also our cousins: my grandmother met my grandfather because they had neighboring summer homes, and the (now-extended) families have kept the properties. They encouraged us to borrow two of their kayaks, and sent us across the lake (about one mile) to a cove directly on the opposite side. "Go across, look back to see if there's any weather coming, and if it's clear, just beach the kayak, and follow signs for the trail" we were instructed. Sure enough, the weather was clear, and the hike to the top of Baldy was a blast.

For our second day, we baked bread (letting the dough rise overnight and doing the baking in the morning) and made sandwiches with brie, apples, and basil. We climbed Snowy, which ends with a fantastic scramble up what is essentially a dry-ish waterfall rock pile. On our last day, we took leftovers down to the dock before driving to the airport, and wished we could stay at Indian Lake longer.

Lunch: caprese salad and cappuccino

First dinner back: pasta with tomatoes, basil, and ricotta salata

Our plane back from Spain got in late Wednesday night. On Thursday, we woke up super early, parked in North Berkeley, and spent the day enjoying the Gourmet Ghetto. Ah, it's good to be back in Berkeley. For breakfast, we had waffles and ever-strong coffee at Guerilla Cafe. After a walk to campus for some errands, we went to the brand-new Philz Coffee, my new favorite coffee shop in Berkeley (it's adjacent to Guerilla, my old favorite). We worked there a while, and then went to Gregoire for lunch. We got take-out — B had a shrimp-and-chipotle wrap and I had a Caesar salad with scalops — and walked up to Indian Rock for a picnic. Eventually we made our way back down, and then did our usual Thursday shopping: Safeway, The Cheeseboard, and the Farmers' Market.

At the market, we were excited to find the beginnings of summer tomatoes, and so got to have one of our favorite summer dinners: pasta with tomatoes, basil, garlic, and ricotta salata. During tomato season, we have this dish, which we learned from the Alice Waters books, about once a week. It's fantastic on its own, and also as an accompaniment to light seafood — sole or clams or .... This Italian-flag-colored dish is unassuming, and goes well with a Chardonnay, Chablis, or white "table wine" blend.

Eating outdoors

Since I haven't posted any pictures from the Spring, your view of our beautiful patio has been limited. I hope to post more pictures of it soon, and in particular all of our plants, but for now, I give you one of our standard breakfasts — poached eggs on English Muffins from Cheeseboard, fruit, and Blue Bottle coffee — this time enjoyed in the summer sun.

Later that day, we also had an afternoon snack outside, but my only picture is from prepping on the kitchen counter.

Coffee shops in Berkeley

My favorite coffee-shop drink is a mocha with soy; I'll occasionally order it iced, or I'll get a house coffee. There are many, many coffee shops in Berkeley, and I'll never evaluate all of them. But here's some thoughts.

• Au Coquelet. Decent food, and not bad coffee. Desserts look great, and taste fine.
  
• Berkeley Espresso. Not very good. Coffee is too bitter, but the tea selection is good. Environment is a little dark.
  
• Blue Bottle Coffee. Mostly certified organic and shade-grown, but not certified fair trade. They have a stand at Farmers' Market, selling bags of coffee and fresh-brewed drip coffee, but no espresso drinks. Their drip coffee is the best coffee I have ever had. (Their coffee is featured at, for instance, Chez Panisse, Guerilla, and Intermezzo.)
  
• Brewed Awakening. Always abuzz with mathies and folks from the seminary around the corner. Decent coffee, but uninspiring tea collection. Very fast, and friendly.
  
• Cafe Cacao. Absolutely the best mocha I've ever had. They use their own (Scharffen Berger) chocolate, and the mocha is perfectly sweetened, the soymilk steamed womderfully, and the leafing is gorgeous. Be sure to make reservations, and go for brunch or lunch after taking the factory tour.
  
• Cafe Intermezzo. Second best mocha. They mix their espresso, soy milk, and chocolate first, and then steam it; then they add more steamed milk for the leafing. The barista I had (who was, incidentally, pretty cute) gave me a lovely five-petaled flower. I appreciate that they take your order and then ask for details (how many shots of espresso, what kind of milk).
  
• Cafe Milano. Decent food, decent coffee, fun environment.
  
• Cafe Strada. Decent mocha, lovely outdoors environment, but no food.
  
• Espresso Roma Cafe. Decent mocha, lovely outdoors environment, good-looking food, and very good iced coffee.
  
• Fertile Grounds. Lousy mocha, one of the worst I've had. They use unsweetened Scharffenberger cocoa powder, but not enough, end unsweetened soy milk. Small shop, with good-looking food (and good-looking barista). But an all-around disappointment. My roommate says that their spiced mocha is also lousy.
  
• Free Speech Movement Cafe. Very fast, and they are good about using only organic, fair-trade coffee. Iced mocha is not mixed well.
  
• The French Hotel. Mocha is fine, although they don't use nonfat in spite of the request, and they were out of whipped cream. Prepare to stop, drop, and role at the counter: I was spurted by (well-)creamed soy milk.
  
• Guerilla Cafe. Serving Blue Bottle coffee and espresso (French-press for house coffee, and you can get a whole pot), Guerilla has fun decor and a great vibe. The staff are consistently smiling and up-beat, in an honest, funky way. The cafe composts and serves organic produce, and best of all the menu brags about the farm they get their organic free-range eggs from, and the chocolate (Dagoba) and bread. The poached-eggs-and-toast is nothing to write home about, but the waffles — with different flavors each day (e.g. we had spiced-carrot) — are divine. Guerilla is my new favorite brunch place, provided I live on waffles and coffee: the line is shorter and prices are better than at Venus, and it's around the block. We had mochas on a Sunday afternoon. The barrista was friendly, but seemed new to barristaing; the mochas were fine. The cayenne in their spicy mocha burns in the back of the throat, and the regular mocha tastes strongly of cinnamon. (On a later, weekday trip, we got a mocha "for here", which was quite pretty.) The teas are loose and excellent. Guerilla is closed on Mondays.
  
• La Note. The line is usually more than an hour, and the coffee (not to mention the brunch) is quite good. Not as good as Venus, down the block.
  
• Musical Offering. Expensive, upscale, and there's a very rude woman who works there. But the rest of the staff is friendly, the coffee good, the music great, and the food fantastic.
  
• Nefeli Cafe. Decent coffee, pretty good food. Iced mocha is not mixed well.
  
• Peet's. Fast, chain, and their mochas are only slightly too sweet.
  
• People's Cafe. I'm not a fan of their coffee — the powdered chocolate in the mocha is too sweet — but they are cheep and have free wifi and don't bother you.
  
• Starbucks. Chain, and every drink they serve is too sweet.
  
• Sufficient Grounds. Great name, lousy cafe. I agree with the reviews on yelp: the place is a donut shop more than a coffee shop. Wireless is free, and the coffee could be worse, but I wish there were air conditioning. I haven't tried the mocha, and don't expedt to. The sandwiches look good.
  
• Sweet Adeline. Co-op bakery in North Oakland. Baked goods are fine, and the soy milk is creamed well. The Sunday barrista seems easily flustered, but the staff are very friendly.
  
• Terrace Cafe. This on-campus eatery is a bit of a disappointment, but right next to my office. Their "food" consists of grab-and-go microwavable things in plastic, and their espresso drinks are lousy (mocha is made with bottled chocolate milk). Their black coffee, though, is decent: they serve Peerless Coffee, and have self-serve urns with all different flavors, including one organic fair-trade blend.
  
• Tully's. A chain, but a decent one. They have People's Republic teas, and their coffee is decent. They've moved to only organic fair-trade coffee, which is awesome. They use Starbucks-style sizes (tall, grande, venti), which is bizarre.
  
• Venus. Best brunch in Berkeley. Excellent service, food, and environment. Oh, and good coffee.
  
• Village Grounds. Very good coffee — one of the better iced mochas I've had. Not great for grab-and-go coffee, because the baristas are not fast, but they are very friendly and consistently dyke-looking. Very busy, good place to work (free wifi and outlets). Good food. Village Grounds is a good working environment, with power and wireless. My roommate has worked there enough that she's friends with the barista. If you're not in a coffee mood, I highly recommend their fresh "squeezed" juices. I particularly like the sparkling lemonade.
  
• Yali's Oxford Street Cafe. A friend says their house coffee is very good, but I was unimpressed with their mocha. The food is good, but too expensive. Overall, nice, but not worth the price. The house coffee is reasonably good, and they use Vitasoy if you ask for soy milk, which is tasty.