Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market – San Francisco

On a sunny San Francisco Saturday, I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. There was a farmer’s market in front of the Ferry Building, but the shiny food trucks of this week’s Off the Grid threatened to pull me in. I was the contestant on the Price is Right, deciding between shells. I was the bachelor during the season finale, caught between two potential loves of my life, and I had to lose one to avoid losing both.

I picked the farmer’s market, but not without shedding a tear for every food truck that gleamed in the morning sun.

A couple of Oysters from Hog Island Oyster Company were definitely not staving off my guilt. Sure they’re sweet and briny-fresh, but at $2/oyster, google a nearby dollar-oyster special if you’re craving these little shuckers.

I tried to drown my regrets with a Café au Lait at Blue Bottle Coffee Company. It almost worked. Don’t skip the line, it’s totally worth it.

The coffee jump-started my broken heart, and Namu’s Real Korean Tacos helped heal the gashes of my internal conflict with little blocks of short rib wrapped in squares of seaweed.

For all that I may have done wrong, a SF Style Red Lox Sandwich at Cap’s Mike’s told me that I did something right. The lox was as pink as the evening sky, and Mike’s own cream cheese remains airy under the weight of the rich salmon. All over a crisp crust of Acme bread, washed down with a dusky Iced Hopi Tea that tasted as dark and stormy as my Off the Grid regrets.

Some will forgive me my choices. Others understand. But to some, I am forever lost. But I stand by my choices, and I reluctantly accept that Off the Grid may be forever lost to me. But the lox was hardly a red herring, and I just might pick the farm fresh every time.