Sunday, February 17, 2008

"Hey, did you go to Carleton?"

For whatever reason, I seem to hear this question quite often when I am wearing the attire of my alma mater. Karen is amazed at the number of random places where people, seeing me wearing a Carleton shirt, ask me if I actually attended the college in Northfied, Minnesota. The encounters have occurred in many different situations including, while eating lunch in Maui just before exploring a volcano, during a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park on a trip to Boulder, and while seeing the terra cotta soldiers in Xi'an. Of course, there have also been a lot of Carleton call outs during my eight years in the Bay Area, including shout-outs on the streets of San Francisco and a few brief exchanges in various locations in Wine Country. You might think that my entire wardrobe consists of college gear, but, in reality, I only have a t-shirt and a sweatshirt. (Okay, I do have more Carleton shirts lying around, but none that I ever wear; I doubt the '89-'90 Third Myers floor t-shirt even fits anyway.)

Yesterday, while wearing my Carleton sweatshirt, I went over to the Ferry Building's Saturday morning farmers' market in search of some Fatted Calf bacon. While wandering around the stalls, I was asked not once, not twice, but three separate times in the course of an hour if I attended the small liberal arts college. One of the people who asked me, Dave, is actually a vendor at the market. After procuring some bacon, I stopped by his booth, Andante Dairy, to check out his offerings and picked up some butter, which was hand-churned by Dave himself. After trying some of the butter on some crusty bread that I picked up from the Acme Bread Company, I can attest to the quality of this delectable, creamy, high-fat content butter. I'll definitely go back for some more butter in the future.

One place where I haven't gotten a Carleton shout-out is in Europe, even though I've been there almost a dozen times over the past few years. I guess that it's a function of me not really wearing much Carleton gear during my business trips over to the Continent. Perhaps I'll have to include one of my Carleton shirts to wear during one of my forays into Heidelberg after working hours. I'll let ya know when happens.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Next time you are at the Farmers Market at the Ferry Building, Pick something up from Miette Bakery, they have the best cupcakes and parisian macaroons. I fell in love with hem last time I was there.

Loren said...

Anon: Thanks for the tip. I've been to Miette during previous trips to the Ferry Building, but because I arrived pretty early yesterday morning, many of the stores, including Miette, were still closed.

tesha said...

What are you going to do with that bacon? Or, should I say, what did you do with that bacon?

Thistlemoon said...

Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll!
Hope to see you on the forum!

Loren said...

Jenndz, thanks for adding me to the Foodie Blogroll!

Jeena, thank you for the link to your forum. Hopefully, I'll have some time to participate in the foodie discussions.