many months later...i post again. i am finished with my work at frog hollow farm. it was an amazing summer. waking before dawn to jump onto my little centurion fixie and pedal through the empty streets towards the 19th street BART station in downtown oakland. walking down the embarcadero; the wind rustling past my face; the sound of water lapping against the piers. unlocking the gates, switching on the ovens, lining thirty sheet pans, egg-washing and sugaring empanadas and tartelets and buttons and turnovers and scones and galettes, assembling the linzers, cutting up seasonal fruit for the compote, setting the pastries out in the case, begging the baristas for a soy latte - extra shot, baking cakes and cookies and frittatas and cobblers. all with a view of the sun rising in the east behind the bay bridge. i toured the farm in the beginning of the summer, tasting organic cherries and sun-dried peaches in the orchards, eating a lunch of acme bread, grilled corn, and lightly-dressed salad under a billowing white tent with people passionate about good food and the slow life. amazing. but as with all things once found pleasurable, i started to like the work there less and less when politics edged their way in, so i went on my way.

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in september i spent three days in the napa valley at the sterling vineyards’ harvest crush camp to which i had won a scholarship. during the three day wine intensive, i toured caves and cellars, sipped fermenting chardonnay juice from giant steel holding tanks, raked freshly-harvested grapes into crusher-de-stemmers, mixed my own wine using graduated cylinders and disposable pipettes, stood in on lectures regarding various trellising techniques, and drank copious (and i really do mean copious) amounts of fine wine and ate excellent food. it was a surreal experience. jumping onto the back of the pickup truck at acacia vineyards when the sky was a perfect blue and bumping our way through the sparkling vines, stopping every so often to taste fermenting pinot noir and to take a closer look at the vines.

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in october i started volunteering with CUESA again, at the ferry building. since then, i've met several talented chefs and cookbook authors as well as dozens of farmers and purveyors that have booths at the saturday market. i cannot explain the energy i get from working there every other weekend; the produce is beautiful and uncommon; the foods are prepared with pleasure, and not speed, in mind; the workers all share a common understanding and quiet dignity. it's fun because i'm starting to know a wider circle of people there, and i really am feeling involved with this movement toward slow food.

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aside from that, this summer and fall i had some hard times. i cut ties to a person that meant the world to me; i had my dignity challeged, my self-esteem floored...i watched dreams go up in flames, hopes get snuffed out, and i saw good intentions go bad.

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in the end, the past year has boiled down to a frenetic blur of difficult experiences tempered with a few moments of peace and bliss. rainy monday nights on the bay bridge on my way to tante marie's; standing with my classmates around the butcher block tables consuming sweets at 10:30 pm; saturday afternoon lunches on francisco street with melinda, judy, beth, rachel; the unrelenting pounding of my heart on the way to postrio each night i externed; slicing buuddha's hands on the meat cutter; swirling caramel sauce on dessert plates on the line with scott, my hair nestled into a tight white chef's cap; early mornings at frog hollow farms (as alluded to earlier in this post); unreturned phone calls and incomprehensible human interaction; lots of cider; too many quesadillas; tilden hikes; sweating like a madman while riding thru clayton on my volpe - the first and last time i wore spandex on a ride; deer flat hikes up mount diablo; crush camp in the napa valley; sitting beside lake berryessa - the eerie calm and silence of that day; too many days and too much time on myspace or online at work; filling water bottles; making gas tubes; preparing samples; writing SOPs; riding thru the streets of oakland at nite hoping to see..; tarot cards and wine at noelle's table in temescal; 'the usual' breadsticks and salad with dijon dressing at lanesplitter's bar with noelle; catatoes and cider at cato's too; driving up to the sierras to pick apples; jupiter for music and pizza; orphan gatherings with iche, mikey, noelle and james - all of them smoking on noelle's porch; dating a little but not getting thrilled by any of the guys; making my excellent halloween costume and the very fun night i had wearing it; new york city - drinking, laughing, enjoying good times with good friends; food photography; saturday morning farmer's market at the ferry building; growing my hair out;engaging emails with kristopher; touching conversations with my brother; grandma and dad getting sick; vegan meals and music with mike v; kinemed cookie exchange; grad school indecision and essays and finally application; lack of direction, loss of motivation; an increasing sense of hope curtailed by strong loneliness...and at last, communication. new faces. new ideas. shared sense of purpose. validation. apology. family. love. friends. belonging. and a new fucking year.