7.26.2010

Your Mint Is Making Me Jealous

What happens when a girl tries to grow a charming herb garden in a 425 sq./ft. condo with no patio and a sole window that opens itself to morning dump-truck exhaust and late night Capitol Hill revelers?

Anxious, dying plants, that's what!

This is my mint plant; it reminds me of one of those "This is your brain on drugs" posters:

(RIP Mint Plant: May 2010 - July 2010)


This frustration has led me to a love-hate relationship with my charming neighbors who run the floral shop at The Melrose Market.

(The Melrose Project Design)

First, I guess I hate this whole place only because it is so divine I wish I built it, lived in it, lived above it, or lived under it. Dunn & Hobbes did a ridiculous job renovating the triangular block of historic automotive buildings. Grease is exchanged for exposed beams, concrete, brick and food. They created an environment happier than dark chocolate on a Fran's Sea Salt Caramel.


(Fran's - strategically headquartered 4 blocks from my house)


Anyways, back to mint.

If anyone can keep mint alive, it's this floral shop: Marigold and Mint: the organic floral and food vendor who entices The Non-Scotsman into buying me bunches of fresh flowers.


(Marigold & Mint)

No wonder he's enticed: with herbs & flowers that look like this!:



The rest of the Market is pretty spectacular, too, and I don't know if I can really say I have a favorite:

Rain Shadow Meats with their stained butcher blocks and cases of marbled cow? (Pigs head in window included).


The Calf & Kid? Perhaps the favorite, simply because their name is darling and they know well enough to get breads from wheaty Macrina Bakery to compliment their cheeses.


Last night's favorite was Bar Ferd'nand, where The Non-Scotsman and I sat nibbling on marcona almonds and musing over the fact that Jay Kuehner, the chemist from Sambar, is tending this bar on his own home-hill.

But ... drum roll, please... I'm still waiting for the Big Kahuna: a first visit to Sitka & Spruce. I don't know why I'm waiting, because it looks like heaven and I've heard tastes better than...better than that.

I'm already jealous of myself for getting to go.