We had some time to spare before our lovely dinner at Chez Panisse (more on that later), so we poked around an area of Berkeley called the Gourmet Ghetto. Here are just a few of our favorite stops:
The Holistic Hound is a doggy boutique worthy of the fanciest of canines, so we felt it necessary to procure Neville’s first collar here. Our prerequisite was that it had to match the carolina-blue tag that Margaret had picked out for him. Happily, we found a fashionable argyle collar, which seemed to be the perfect coordinate. The minute we arrived home from California, we dressed him in his new collar. Since he has been living in his birthday suit for four months, he was not very pleased and found the new accessory extremely bothersome. But, once he realized how handsome he was, he posed for us wearing his new bling!
Twig & Fig Ellen and I are lovers of letterpress, so just peeking through this window was like looking into a candy shop. We had to go in and appreciate all things printed, admiring the deep indentations that the letterpress images make into the soft-press papers. Before we left, we happily bought this fun fat book called The Printmaking Bible. The pages are filled with every tool, technique and tip for printmaking today … well, maybe not potato prints, but still.
Love At First Bite was a delightful shop full of tasty baked goods and some nifty gifts for chefs young and old. We loved these cute aprons for little epicureans. (You can read more about Love At First Bite in our Cupcakery Study.)
Then it was time for dinner, so we will have to visit this delicious neighborhood next trip for Gourmet Ghetto, Part 2. And, next time, we’ll try to do a better job sampling the many foodie finds for you since there are approximately 40 restaurants and purveyors of fine foods in this 3-4 block neighborhood! Tough job but we’re happy to oblige.
