…While Spring Skiing in Sun Valley; Ketchum, Idaho
Everything was about 5 minutes away by foot in Ketchum, Idaho. Which made exploring it approachable (that, and how friendly people were from the hotel desk clerk to the ski lift operators). Before heading out to the base of Bald Mountain at River Run in Sun Valley, there was breakfast at our funky-sheep-accented boutique hotel, the Hotel Ketchum, and a couple of quick morning walks to check out two of the coffee shops in town.
Just past the Ketchum Town Square is Maude’s Coffee and Clothes, a cottage at the corner of Walnut Avenue and 4th Street. It’s March and still seasonably cool in the mountains of Idaho, but I recollect a bench out front for sipping coffee in the summer. Maude is the name of the dog (there was a Polaroid of Maude propped up on the counter). The “Clothes” part is in fact a vintage clothing store within Maude’s. Bold belt buckles, bowling shirts, and fair isle sweaters were displayed on racks and counters to the left and behind the “Coffee” part. Coffee and clothes – literally for purchase at the same time. Opening the door, I felt like I was walking into someone’s light-filled quiet kitchen. Maude’s was relaxed and welcoming, and let me gradually wake up to the day. The coffee counter was heaped with pastries and there was an eclectic mix of a few low tables and chairs at which to sit and appreciate the serenity. I took my smooth latte to go in a paper cup unassumingly stamped with Maude’s logo.
On Sunday morning, across from The Board Bin snowboard shop and rental, the low-slung house that is Ketchum’s Java on 4th – part of an all-Idaho group of five coffee shops from Twin Falls to Boise – was bustling with weekend skiers in insulated pants and zippered turtlenecks waking up with coffees and breakfast burritos before the short drive down the road to Sun Valley’s slopes. People were in and out and back and forth, breakfasting at the bar and at the few scattered tables, their movements like that of a large family able to seamlessly go about their morning breakfast routine. Service at the ordering counter was quick. And my latte was presented in a cup calling me to, “Wake Up and Live.” Perfect words for making my way with J to the next adventure of snowshoeing on the well-marked and beautiful trails at Galena Lodge.
…While Dodging 2017’s Rains in San Diego, California
The motel was located on a main road, a blah strip with other motels and low-slung shops on either side. It happened to be the rainiest weekend that January 2017 – in 10 years – in San Diego. So maybe the strip would have looked more laid-back California than sadly grey, if the sun had been shining and the streets had been dry? Finding a walkable latte-making coffee shop seemed like it was going to be a difficult task here. But it wasn’t. Like a beacon through the driving rain Better Buzz Coffee’s turquoise sign, bright lights, and carefully weathered exterior guided me inside to meet a California that wasn’t itself on the outside.
Better Buzz was only a few blocks from our motel, and J and I gratefully hopped on stools at the distressed wood table and dug into some avocado toast, me with latte in hand, cup cheerfully printed with “Life’s Better Buzzed.” A collective obsession with avocado toast may have come and gone, but I’m still a fan, and the 3 Seed Avocado Toast at Better Buzz is the best I’ve had. On thick slices of multigrain bread and piled high with mashed avocado, a little lemon and red pepper flakes, topped with microgreens, and made pleasantly nutty with a combination of chia, sesame, and hemp seeds – I still remember it a year later. Better Buzz and, yes, that toast, powered J and I to joyously plot our mostly rainy few days in San Diego.
But Where Are We Going To EAT? 