After Elizabeth’s reading on Saturday, we trekked back to Brooklyn to our friend Kristin’s place. People were coming over for a combination Derby-book-birthday party, and we had kebabs to assemble and julep syrup to test.

We had started everything earlier that morning. Kristin, Elizabeth and I walked up to the greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza. Kristin wanted flowers for her back patio. We already had chicken breasts in a Greek marinade and we needed one other meat plus vegetables to dress and skewer.

We found the red peppers, picked up Italian sausages, sampled the loved-by-all turkey sausages from DiPaola Turkey Farm, contemplated but decided against various cheeses and finally contemplated but decided against incredibly good looking asparagus from Kernan Farms.

Kristin bought the heaviest flowers at the market, but it didn’t matter because the sky was so blue and the day was so clear. It was slightly cold out but definitely spring. There were strollers and dogs and old men on bikes everywhere, and I decided that living in a small, odd town in western Mass and having the keys to Kristin’s place — ten minutes from the market — was the culmination of my life’s work. This pleasant thought made me crave fish — shellfish to be exact, cold and clear — but the line for Blue Moon Fish stretched fifty feet into the center of the market, and we had things to do.

Specifically, we had julep fixings to buy, a cousin to meet, a lunch to eat, a poetry reading to ready for and vegetables to chop and submerge in a marinade of white wine, olive oil, tarragon and basil.

Elizabeth went to work on the vegetables, while I made a mint syrup for the juleps. Kristin’s sister Jenny picked up burritos. Meanwhile, Kristin tidied for the thirty or so people that would show up before, for and after the reading, then watch Dominican not win, then stand out in Kristin’s back patio (among heavy flowers and grill fires) and eat and talk and dance and drink until it was time — much, much later — to take it elsewhere.

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