This week: a trinket box in the Sunset, a coyote in Japantown, a denim design legend, a local inventor, and a one-day artist talk on “taking a knee” activism. Plus, remembering Oscar Grant on his 40th birthday, catching crab right off the boat, foraging wild garlic, and protecting the snowy plover.

From boat to pot

On Saturday mornings at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, customers can purchase live Dungeness crab directly from individual fishing boats, then carry it to a dockside popup where it’s cooked — or cooked and cleaned — while they wait.

The market also sells whole fish and fillets from the local fleet, an effort to broaden what people associate with Bay Area seafood beyond crab season. The popup fish market runs Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the end of March at 101 Al Scoma Way. — Chronicle

Happy 40th Birthday, Oscar Grant

The Black Panther Party Museum is marking Oscar Grant’s birthday with a new exhibition, Happy Heavenly Birthday, Oscar, celebrating Grant’s life through sound, images, and participatory ritual as part of the 1-800 Happy Birthday project.

Grant, who was killed by a BART police officer in 2009, would have turned 40 this year.

The exhibition runs February 1 through February 28 at the Black Panther Party Museum in downtown Oakland, with an opening reception February 1 from 6 to 9 pm. — San Francisco Bay View

Little treasures

At 48th Avenue and Moraga in San Francisco, a tiny junction box has become a weekend destination. Sunset Trinket Trade overflows with friendship bracelets, claw clips, and tiny ceramic frogs, all curated by Deanna, who cleans, repairs, and sometimes reimagines items to make them swap-ready.

Neighbors and visitors line up to trade, chat, and leave little surprises for one another, turning a street corner into a small, shared celebration. The project has inspired people beyond the Outer Sunset to start their own trinket exchanges, and Deanna reminds participants to keep the goodwill going without disturbing nearby homes. — Mission Local

Side routes around the big game

Super Bowl week doesn’t require a watch party. Around the Bay Area, a handful of low-key options offer a different way to spend the weekend, from ice skating in downtown San Jose to a Bad Bunny lookalike contest at San Francisco’s Tacolicious.

Museums lean in too, with family craft sessions at SFMOMA and a one-day screening and talk by German artist Kota Ezawa at Santa Clara University’s de Saisset Museum on the history of taking a knee during the national anthem, spearheaded by 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2016. — KQED

Love, Melody

From a pile of salvaged Levi’s to the suits of Elvis and Tina Turner, Melody Sabatasso built a career stitching together recycled denim into finely crafted, iconic outfits. Her early days involved hitchhiking across the Golden Gate Bridge, arguing for fittings, and discovering her own worth alongside Hollywood legends.

Today, her Greenbrae studio is a working archive filled with machines, studs, and memories, where past creations sit alongside new projects. She still collaborates with musicians, filmmakers, and collectors, keeping her decades of denim craft alive. — SFGate

Windows without walls

A San Rafael filmmaker stepped into the national spotlight this winter, pitching LiquidView — large-format digital windows that stream continuous outdoor scenes — on a January episode of Shark Tank. The idea grew out of years spent working in windowless rooms and gained wider notice after a feature on the Today show, helping the screens find homes in hotels, offices, and memory care spaces around the Bay Area.

Though he didn’t land a deal on the show, the appearance brought a surge of attention and new leads. LiquidView launched in 2021 and now displays places like Rodeo Beach, the Farallon Islands, and Venice in installations across Marin and San Francisco. — Marin Independent Journal

Foraging fever

Three-cornered garlic is spreading fast across Bay Area parks and can be harvested straight from the root. This pungent and flavorful vegetable grows abundantly, so don’t plant it at home since it’s invasive.

Forays organized by local foragers such as Cindy Doe Dee are teaching participants how to identify and gather plants safely, turning the hills and edges of the city into hands-on classrooms. — Cindy Doe Dee/Instagram

Snowy morning

Along Ocean Beach, Western Snowy Plovers make their home for most of the year, delicate birds eking out a life on shifting sand. Fewer than 2,000 adults remain along the Pacific coast, and simple habits — sticking to marked paths, staying near the wet sand — help them thrive.

Observers can watch without disturbing, keeping the upper beach clear for nesting. — Bird Curious SF/Instagram

Courtyard visitor

Amid a string of recent animal visits — from a mountain lion at Lafayette Park to a coyote swimming to Alcatraz — another young coyote, likely from the Presidio, spent three nights quietly in Hotel Kabuki’s garden in Japantown this week.

Onlookers were urged to give it space and to keep pets at a distance while it gathered some respite before disappearing back into the urban wilderness. She’s quite a beauty. We’d love to see some paintings of her! — Hotel Kabuki/Instagram

Top image: ‘National Anthem’(2018); Kota Ezawa

Previously: Field Notes: Ancient Star Map, New Cat Cafe, San Jose’s Batman, and Disquiet in Suburbia

The festival formerly known as the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which became the California Garlic Festival and moved to the Central Valley two years ago, is moving once again.

The four-decade-old Gilroy Garlic Festival had become a popular tourist draw to the town of Gilroy, which dubbed itself the Garlic Capital of the World. But a tragic 2019 mass shooting, combined with some financial troubles and onerous insurance requirements that followed that shooting, meant that the festival's longtime organizers had to call the whole thing off in 2022.

It may be somewhat appropriate that, given that the business of garlic growing left the Gilroy area some years ago (though significant garlic processing facilities are still there), the garlic festival should move closer to where garlic is still being harvested — which is in the western Central Valley. And that began when the organizer of the annual Asparagus Festival in Stockton decided to swoop in and relaunch as the California Garlic Festival just a few months after the Gilroy folks decided to indefinitely cancel.

The California Garlic Festival happened at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds in August 2022 and again in August 2023, with new organizer Tony Noceti saying at the time, "The problem with that is it should be over in their region over there, where it came from," noting that garlic needs to be grown in a slightly cooler climate.

Well, the festival is moving this year to Merced County, to the town of Los Banos — which is 48 miles due east of Gilroy and significantly closer to the original festival grounds than Stockton.

As ABC 7 reports, the California Garlic Festival will be happening over Labor Day Weekend, from August 30 to September 1, at the Merced County Spring Fairgrounds. Admission this year will be $15 for adults, $10 for ages 6-17, and free for children five and under.

The festival will include carnival rides ($35 gets you unlimited rides), monster truck shows, live entertainment, and of course the Cali Garlic Alley food vendors serving garlic noodles, garlic wings, garlic sausage, garlic popcorn, garlic grilled cheese, garlic catfish, garlic shrimp, and yes, garlic ice cream. See more details here.

Previously: Garlic Festival Apparently Happening In Stockton In August, Under New Organizers

Top image: People lined up to buy garlic ice cream at the 2007 Garlic Festival, Gilroy, California. Photo by Getty Images

The Garlic Shoppe, a recognizable pitstop for thousands of travelers who relish in the unique garlic-themed offerings at the busy crossroads of Highway 101 and State Route 25 in Gilroy, is being uprooted from its long-time home.

The abrupt move was mandated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Agency (VTA), which, under eminent domain, acquired the property to build a new intersection at the location, per KSBW.

It’s reportedly part of a nearly $140 million project to replace Highway 25's two-lane over-crossing with a four-lane over-crossing over Highway 101, increase the length of Highway 101 off-ramp, upgrade traffic signals, and add bike lanes.  The VTA fast-tracked the project at the beginning of this year, according to the Chronicle. And when it did, the Garlic Shoppe location came under fire because it in particular has a higher-than-average rate of accidents.

The owners, brothers Alex and Charlie Larson, told KSBW that they found out days before they were required to move. As Charlie told the outlet, “We've been here for 39 years. Alex is 62, and I'm 63. We are planning to retire a few years...now we have to basically start all over again."

The Garlic Shoppe is apparently planning to migrate to its sister winery, Rapazzini Winery, just down the street. The Larson brothers say they will continue selling their garlic-infused products there until the end of the year, when they'll hopefully be able to find a new permanent home for the store.

Feature image via Google Street View.

After a surprisingly successful test run selling "Gilroy Garlic Fries" earlier this month, global conglomerate McDonald's has brought back their version of the garlic-chunk covered fries to four locations. The fries were originally intended for a limited run as a test item in the South Bay only, but quickly sold out. According to KRON 4, if the fries keep selling at this rate we may see them at 250 Bay Area locations by August.

But could the national food media please get their geography straight? A lot of press went out about how "San Francisco" had been gobbling up all these new garlic fries, not understanding that San Jose is not that close to here, and this all started at just two McDonald's locations down there.

"The new fries are made-to-order in McDonald’s kitchens," a company press release reads, "where restaurant employees toss French fries in stainless steel bowls with a purée mix that includes ingredients, such as chopped Gilroy garlic and olive oil, parmesan cheese, parsley, and a pinch of salt."

Take special note that the fries are made with "ingredients." That's how you know they're "food."

The four locations currently serving the fries are 3509 Homestead Road Santa Clara (two and a half stars on Yelp), 2191 Monterey Road San Jose (two Yelp stars),1398 W San Carlos Street San Jose (also two stars), and 4838 San Felipe Road San Jose (a super-fancy three stars).

The garlic is actually being sourced from Gilroy-based Christopher Ranch, so at least there's an element of verisimilitude to the whole thing.

"It's been great for us," explained an unnamed store manager to KRON 4. "Just seeing the overwhelming customer demand, and people talking about it all over social media, and just the feedback has been great."

We're looking forward to the day when the an open-air drug market and stoner haven that is the Mickey D's at Haight and Stanyan discovers this new garlicky delicacy, and offers their reviews.

Previously: McDonald's Sells 'Gilroy Garlic Fries' In Bid For Bay Area Relevance