UkuAdventures in Echo Park: Pioneer General Store Fever!

Dear Blob,

Due to years spent driving to Lake Tahoe, my face plastered to the backseat window, awestruck as the car passed the Donner Party Museum and multiple readings of the Little House on The Prairie books,  I'm obsessed with Pioneers.  In times of hardship I always remember the Pioneers, particularly the Donner Party, who ate not only their shoes, trees and buffalo-skin blankets, but each other.

One of my favorite things about Laura Ingalls Wilder's books is her fabulous descriptions of pioneer food preparation and general stores.  This week's delightful Eastside discovery is the Broome Street General Store in Silverlake. 

The Broome Street General Store is what Nellie Olsen's family would own if they were hip and listened to the Decemberists.  It's a true general store, offering a medley of items including handmade, organic toys (which irritates meep - organic toy?!), high-end small-business-made toiletries & cosmetics, artisan nibblies like pickled chipotle carrots & fancy mayo, antique knick-knacks, gourmet sandwiches, espresso & impulse gift-items like whistles, cocoa-nibs 'n' ginger syrup.  It's Precious, but Soothingly Delightful.  It's a General Store for my generation;  we buy special-occasion-nibblies vintage shaving tins & Hava corn chips, Norcal chips made with tamari; Laura Ingalls Wilder purchased calico, taffy & salt pork.

I am on the fence about Precious Foods; part of me is a complete food snob, true to my Marin Coutny childhood roots of mom-made goat-milk-yogurt and Corn Flakes=sugar cereal mentality.  I come from the land of snacking-on-Nori-in-the-1980's, McDonalds-once-a-year-on-My-Birthday & hobnobbing with the inventors of granola.  As a child  I longed for Kraft singles, white bread & Golden Grahams; as an adult I sneer at a feta-cheeseless market, but am irritated by the organic-trend-obsession, even though it's a good thing.  I'm torn, like a damaged meniscus.

Being a feast-or-famine artist and a genetic-fiscal Heeb, I watch my pennies and am aghast at local-artisan eatery prices, favoring divey taco shacks over $10 sandwiches.  I loathe Precious Food Restaurants, serving tiny $100 plates of chisled fois-gras 'n' dehydrated fig. Or worse, expensive hippie-food.

The Broome Street General Store offers Precious foods 'n' items, but something about it is homey, cozy, inviting and Pioneery; I'm a fan.

Owned by an adorable couple, knocked-up and expecting, there is a magical be-tabled courtyard for schmoozy-snack-time.  The shop name comes from their former street in NYC and has a Lower East Side Hipster (not-a-bad-word) vibe (the older hipsters who've been listening to Guided by Voices since the '80's, not the young trust-fund-ones with skinny-jeans and shaggy hair). 

When yoga next door at The Raven, owned by the Best Yoga Teacher in the World, Tony G, is done and a gal has booked paying work, The Broome Street General Store is a perfect place to enjoy lunch other than a $1.00 taco.

Love The Ukulady (Thessaly Lerner)

ps:  The Broome Street General Store should host a Pioneer Taffy Pull with proceeds benefitting some deserving charity...

pps:  It's funny to go into an artisan shop-eatery, like Cookbook, on Echo Park Ave, and discover Foods of my Homeland; Cookbook features an array of Marin County-grown meats, 'n' more.  Another delightful place to spend $5 on bread.