A gift of food is, for me, quite rare. A few days ago I received a couple of pieces of freshly made focaccia covered with black olives, feta cheese, and caramelized onions. The unusual thing was how I got the gift.
It was early evening and I had just pushed the doorbell button at a friend's house. A moment later, he opened the door and at just that instant I heard a voice from behind me. "Hey, you guys want some focaccia?" Turning to the voice I saw a young man standing on the sidewalk in front of the house. He was holding, and offering, a take-away container in which there were a couple of pieces of the described focaccia. Friend and I were were taken aback not only by the offer, but by the circumstances.
The young man explained it was from a restaurant around the corner, on one of Berkeley's main shopping streets. The man said that the restaurant was closing early and that they had some items left over that they decided to distribute to folks in the neighborhood, something akin to an advertising promotion I surmised. I got some information about the restaurant, and since the bread was quite delicious I'll visit the next time I'm in the heighborhood.
The incident reminded me of the times when I was a kid and guys would come through our neighborhood and sell meat and chicken out of the trunk of their car. It was a little different though, as those guys were always selling stuff that fell off a truck. As a kid, I thought how lucky those guys were, but later on I came to fully understand their good fortune.
