So, I've mentioned before that Tara is the one who's been organizing Monday Night Music in the backyard. She was originally planning on opening a skate shop across the road and it kinda fell through.... so she's used the BackAlley name to draw events together in a really incredible way. She organized Johnson's first MudFest this spring... a four day event that brought music, sculptors and artisans to the area. Most of the legwork was done here on the shop computer and we all kind of watched her pull her hair out (in a most graceful way) as she booked bands, wrote up their bios, created the program for the weekend and made her pirate flags and banners to advertise for each venue.
Monday Night Music was Tara's idea.... mostly because there was nothing else to do in town that night and she's capable of making it happen. After watching me spread myself way too thin this spring, she was quick to reassure that if I wanted to split after my long Monday shift, I was free to go and she would sail the ship.
Our first week I stuck around and we hosted Jeremy Harple.... had a good showing, made kick ass food, and called it a night by 10pm.
The menu consisted of several summer salads made with locally grown organic goodies
an incredible green salad picked and assembled by Penny. 
Penny is our spicy Gemini who lives out back behind the shop in a house that sits beside the river. She lovingly tends bar at the bistro and she can usually be spotted out there in her backyard kneeling in her garden beds or at the bar here with stacks of cookbooks figuring out what on earth to make with all the produce she's producing.
So, we offered a cucumber, strawberry and mint salad.
A beet salad with beet greens, summer squash and feta. I made my incredible peanut noodles that I have to credit Molly Katzen for.
Oh, and there was a chilled yogurt cucumber soup, too.
The food prep and display was probably my most favorite aspect of all of this. I'm getting a chance to put out there the kind of food that I feel good about serving folks. Our daily menu of sandwiches is fine but the few organic ingredients I can throw into them just isn't enough for me. It's dawning on me how much my diesel impact on the planet has increased since I bought this place. It's hard to wrap my head around how much of what I purchase now-a-days comes from god knows where and uses how much oil to be shipped from California on refrigerated trucks??? Scary. So this little contribution to the local food economy brings me great joy and maybe, just maybe, it'll help lay the groundwork for more of the same in the future.
So, we're booked up for music the rest of July and the month of August. We've got some great folks from this area and some bluegrass bands from the Burlington area. Everyone seems alright with playing for tips and food and it'll be interesting to see how out of town musicians respond to this down and dirty little town of ours.
But the flowers are blooming and it looks gorgeous out there (Thank you Kalinas!!).
We have sculptures and lights and picnic tables and it feels so good to see it all occupied. 
To check out Tara's new Mac skills,
get a little run down on who's playing
and hear samples of their music, go to:
get a little run down on who's playing
and hear samples of their music, go to:
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