Reece Computer Systems is running a promotion designed to encourage Coastsiders to donate to local charities. During the holiday season of October through December, 2007, Reece Computer Systems are offering a 10% discount to anyone who presents a valid receipt, for a donation in any amount, to a non-profit organization from the following list:

Coastside Family Medical Center
Coastside Hope
La Honda Pescadero Unified School District
USO at the SF Airport
Hope Services
Coastside Childrens Programs
Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve
Senior Coastsiders
Coastside Farmers Market
G.R.A.C.E., Grassroots Alliance for Community Education
County of San Mateo Farm Bureau
Cabrillo Education Foundation

The city of Half Moon Bay and the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce are holding an “official” ribbon-cutting for the new Peet’s Coffee & Tea. There will be complimentary brewed coffee and tea.

The new store was the center of controversy because it occupies the site formerly occupied by Raman’s coffee and Chai shop and a laundromat serving low-income Coastsiders.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 5:00pm-6:00pm
Peet’s Coffee & Tea
142 San Mateo Road, Half Moon Bay

OK Marketeers!

First things first.  The Market in Half Moon Bay is suspended on Pumpkin Festival.  BUT we run through November.  We are only gone that one day.  Really. I mean it.

And, yes, we will be open in Pacifica on Halloween.  What we will be wearing is anybody’s guess, but we will be there, same bat time, same bat place.

So with that in mind, lets make peace with the Cavalcade of Colossal Curcubits.  Take a look around you and tell me it is not astonishingly beautiful with all those hillsides and fields blazing with orange! This is why they call it the Gold Coast , people.  That, and the poppies.

Pumpkins are really versatile.  You can cook, decorate your porch, or live in one, depending on the variety and your state of mind.

By Erin Tormey, organizer of the Coastside Farmer’s Market. In Half Moon Bay, the market is at Shoreline Station (at Kelly and Highway 1), Saturdays, 9am to 1pm

Well Marketeers, Fall done fell.

Which begs the question: What happens when it rains?

Well, all kinds of good things happen when it rains.  For one thing, the Market will be open and full, as will be - rain or shine- through November, every day until right before Thanksgiving.  Except , of course Pumpkin Festival Saturday.  Other than that we are here and at your service. Squash any rumors to the contrary.  Pun intended.

Fires in the hillsides get put out.  You can eke another few weeks of abundance from your lettuce patches and if your roses are in their second bought of flowering for the year, then you luck out and get an ever richer bloom.

And most importantly you get to eat some kinda tea and toast all three meals of the day, plus snacks if you want, and no one thinks you are weird.

Come to the Market and get a loaf of Greenlees’s Cinnamon Bread. They call it “Worlds’ Best Cinnamon Bread “and having done more than my requisite share of research on the issue, I concur.  All you need to do to have a seriously good morning is toast a piece of this stuff and put it on a good looking plate with slices of perfect new crop apples. Forget the butter or any other single thing.  But do have a great cup of coffee or a cup of Garimo’s Up & Atom Chai on hand to complete the effect.  Your coffee-break companions will offer to do small jobs, prune your roses or return your extension cords in time for Christmas-anything- to get asked back.

By Erin Tormey, organizer of the Coastside Farmer’s Market. In Half Moon Bay, the market is at Shoreline Station (at Kelly and Highway 1), Saturdays, 9am to 1pm

If this morning is any indication, then it may just be the weather folks are right, and the Coastside is in for a glorious set of bright, bright sunshiney days coming up. Here’s hoping that you are sticking around to enjoy it.  Lots of folks I know are heading to Burning Man for a hygiene holiday and I say Happy Trails.  Some of the usual suspects are heading out for a last summer blast in the hills, and I hope they find peace. But if I had my druthers, I would stick around and revel in the just plain insane beauty of it all, sleep in, noodle around in my jammies watching the day unfold and have pie for breakfast at least one morning of this lovely long weekend ahead.

Peach pie. Uh huh.  Or perhaps a raspberry - peach crisp.  Oh, yes.

After a nice piece of pie, you can imagine doing anything.  Even cleaning your garage.  Your garage, I said, not mine.  Mine is beyond recall these days, full as it is with canning jars, box springs and my great grandmothers washing machine. I think it’s because every time I make a pie, everyone else eats it, and there is none left for breakfast, so I lose my nerve, and just put the box of my nephew’s cast-off ski gear down in some forsaken corner, shut the door on the whole thing and head for the beach with a bodice-buster.

But some people simply have a deeper strength of character when it comes to these kinds of endeavors, and if you are one of those folks, I have a tip, and a request, for you.  On the off chance you are contemplating cleaning out your garage this weekend or any time soon, consider this -

The County Times covers Harbor Village, the hotel and retail development that is scheduled to open “around November 15”.

The walls of the mall area will capture the harbor life motif with shingles and clapboard siding, said project marketing director Tony Canadas. The colors in the shops and the hotel rooms — beige, green and blue — follow the colors of the sea, while shingles, dormers and bay windows add to the look of an old seaport town.

The $20 million project is expected to generate between $1.5 million and $2 million a year in tax revenue for San Mateo County and will create between 150 and 175 jobs. Nerhan originally announced an opening date of May 2007. The delay was derived from problems getting all the steel in on time, he said.

Nerhan said half the boutiques were spoken for by future tenants of the mall, which will be a careful mix of retail shops, a delicatessen, clothing stores, a wine-and cheese shop, and other services. Many of the shops will be filled by spinoffs of local stores that have proven successful elsewhere on the coast, like Half Moon Bay’s Toque Blanche, a cooking tools store. Former San Francisco 49er Russ Francis will open a large surf shop, said Canadas.

With 450 parking spaces, the mall expects to get a significant amount of its revenue from Coastsiders looking for food, clothing, and housewares.

Harmony Road in Moss Beach is offering an full week of free music classes September 4 through 10. Kindermusik for infants and toddlers: beginning piano classes for pre-K to adult; private piano for intermediate to advanced. 

So, earlier this week I had a troupe o’ Tucson troubadours staying ala mi casa for a layover on a summer long tour that included a spin through Canada, a slingshot back to Seattle followed by a jag out to Wisconsin, a subsequent haulass back to the Left Coast arriving just in time to do some laundry, then jump on a flight to the UK for the next go-round.  Great fun was had by all as 3 large men with larger hats and substantial boots piled into the Market Van along with a minimum of 15 instruments, and suitcases stuffed with the requisite amount now clean socks and other dude-ly unmentionables, parts of a banjo and a mic as big as a canary melon.

Having been on the road for months and roaring through places without decent tortillas and stuff to put in them, and with a month of travels through Holland, England, Ireland and Wales directly ahead, the mandolin player was desperate for something, anything resembling a real taco. The Guapango maestro and the Big Man with the Penny Whistle are so smitten with tortillas that they sing a love song to them. I am not kidding.  I have proof.  Anyway, the gents in question here are from Tucson, where they know from tacos.  Lucky for them I am from the Coast, know a thing or two about the stuff that goes in a taco , knows who grows and catches same, and know where to get it, so happiness and great satisfaction was achieved.  Cause let me tell ya something. You simply cannot get a decent taco in Wales.

Reece Computer Systems is having a Friday Night Social Hour in our new space on August 17 from 5:30-7:30pm.  You are invited.  Please don’t bring anything except a welcoming grin and a guest – we’ll supply food, dessert, refreshments and fun.

Reece Computer Systems is locaed in Shoreline Station, Suite 103D (yellow building), 225 Cabrillo Highway S., HMB (at the corner of Kelly and Highway 1). 

We missed including the announcement of Reece’s store opening last month. You can read an edited version of their press release by clicking below.

Erin Tormey is the organizer of the Coastside Farmer’s Market. In Half Moon Bay, the market is at Shoreline Station (at Kelly and Highway 1), Saturdays, 9am to 1pm

Yesterday I had a goofy day. It was loaded with inconveniences, interruptions and petty annoyances. I was cranky for all kinds of good reasons, none of which made me feel very good, but all of which reminded me how good I have it.  And I was also reminded that most of the time when you feel icky it’s because of one of three things.  One-you are not getting enough water.  Two- you are not eating right. Three- you are not getting enough sleep.  All of them were true when I arrived at the Pacifica Market yesterday, but remedies were at hand, as it turns out, so now I am golden, rested and ready.

And you can be too. Because yesterday the Market was loaded with all sorts of new oddities that appeared in the stalls of our local farmers along with a comforting collection of standards.  I went home with a bag full of these unusual delights, given to me by concerned vendors who were hoping I wasn’t cranky at them, or if I was, they figured that feeding me a peach might mellow me out. Many suggested I needed a small vacation.  Which is always a good suggestion, even when you are in the best mood ever.

Anyway, my Farmer Pals are pretty smart, so I took their advice and took a mini-vay-cay that very evening, and now I am feeling like a whole new woman. I highly recommend everyone do the same whenever possible. Try it this weekend!

Here’s what you do.  Plan nothing for Sunday. Nothing. Not one thing.