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The Tree of Life
In the first moments of Terrance Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life, we are presented with two competing and supposedly alternate approaches to facing life and its beauties and hardships. There is nature, and there is grace. Nature is difficult and tries to find the worst in the world, Grace is generous and tries to find the best. I think this is disingenuous, and that the truth lies in the middle. Nature gives and takes, it doesn’t try to find the worst, but it doesn’t look for the best either. Rather, it is indifferent. Grace wishes to find the best and forgive the worst, but sometimes ignores the reality.…
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I want a petite lap giraffe, don’t you?
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Mix Tape
(awesome mix-tape picture found here) A couple of people commented on my anniversary post about the beauty of mix tapes, and Dad Who Writes even requested to know what might be on some of the ones that Ted made me back in the day. So I dug out what’s left of our tape collection, then sorted through to find any that might still have their cases intact. I found just a few. There are a lot of tapes, but many are unmarked, and we no longer have a tape deck. Not even in our cars. OK, I think I still have a walkman somewhere, which I kept JUST in case…
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Morimoto Napa
For our anniversary dinner, Ted and I decided to try something new, rather than our traditional Rivoli dinner. I wanted to go to a place in San Francisco that is supposed to be wonderful, Aquarello, but they’re not open on Sundays, so that was out. Maybe for our 20th anniversary, we’ll go there. Anyway, I remembered reading that Iron Chef Morimoto had opened a restaurant in Napa, so we decided to see if we could get a reservation there. Happily, we were able to get a table, even though it wasn’t until 9:30. So we got dressed up a bit (we were overdressed, the place is pretty casual…but I wanted…
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Happy Anniversary!
18 years already? I’m not sure exactly how that can be, since it feels like we’re still in our 20s…. Thank you for being my husband, my best friend, such a wonderful father to our child, and for always being on my side. It’s you and me against the world, honey. I’m looking forward to the next 18 years of happy marriage to you, though not so excited to think about the wrinkles I’ll have at that point! HA! OK, here’s another anniversary video for you… I remember when you used to make me mix tapes, and this song was on one of them…the next song was ‘Legal Tender’ by…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Truly Yummy Jam
Yesterday I looked in the fridge and saw a pint and a half of ‘beyond their prime’ strawberries, and started thinking about the jam I made last year. I decided to make a batch, and then I started thinking about the strawberries in the freezer. Every time I buy new strawberries, I clean and trim the last of the old ones, and freeze them in a bag. I assume we’ll use them for smoothies, but I guess we haven’t had smoothies in awhile, because there were a lot of strawberries in there, and a few bananas as well. So I decided to use my frozen strawberries, in addition to my…
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Louis’ Lunch Burger
Does anyone else watch ‘Man vs. Food’? We’ve been watching sometimes lately, and we saw an episode where they were in Hartford, Connecticut, and the secondary restaurant that was featured claims to be the birthplace of the hamburger. Louis’ Lunch says that they served up the first burger in 1900, and that they’ve been serving it pretty much the same way ever since. We all thought it seemed like fun to try the Louis’ Lunch burger recipe. So I looked around online to see if I could find a recipe, and I came across this one, and we made them that evening. The keys to a Louis’ Lunch burger are…
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Yay New York!
(photo found here) Someday, equal rights to marriage for all will hopefully be the law of the land everywhere. For now, at least, gay and lesbian couples can get married in New York. (That’s 6 states that have gotten there before California. People think that’s strange, but California is actually a very conservative state, with the exceptions of the Bay Area and the greater Los Angeles area.) Good going, New York! Just in time for Pride Week, too. Rocking good news.
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Wordless Wednesday ~ Photos taken from car windows edition
(click to enlarge…sorry that they’re kinda blurry sometimes, but that’s the whole moving car thing in action…)
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Wedding Weekend
Saturday was a gorgeous day in Northern California…sunny but not hot. My friend Janet was in town to celebrate the wedding of another friend of ours, Gretchen. So we went to Sonoma for the wedding, which was held in the back yard of another friend of ours, Laura. Laura has an amazing back yard, you have to admit, with the best backyard view I’ve ever seen not involving an ocean. There are vineyards, which I assume are theirs, but I neglected to ask, so I could be wrong. There are rolling hills and trees, and when the light is just so, it’s pretty magical. She put a lot of work…
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Lemon Dinner, two Ways
My lovely friend Lei brought gifties for the rest of us to brunch at Brown Sugar Kitchen on Sunday…jams and marmalades. Marmalade always makes me think of my mom and her funny love of collecting things. When I was in 5th grade, I got into reading the Paddington Bear books, and my mom read them, too, so we could talk about them. I don’t know if you know Paddington, but he ADORES marmalade, and is always getting sticky with it. So my mom started buying different marmalades, lemon and orange and lime and whatever other flavors there were. Then she started buying tea pots, so we could have tea with…
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Brown Sugar Kitchen
I believe I’ve talked before about a local PBS show, Check Please, Bay Area, where people come in and talk about their favorite restaurants. I’ve seen an episode a few times reviewing a place in Oakland that’s famous for their Chicken and Waffles, Brown Sugar Kitchen. You can watch the review. I’ll wait. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUE6BeOsjQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] OK, now you’re probably wanting some chicken and waffles too, right? I’ve been wanting to try the chicken and waffles at Brown Sugar Kitchen since first seeing this episode. This last Sunday, I got together at BSK with Cherry and our friend, Lei, for brunch. Yay brunch! Yay friends! Brown Sugar Kitchen doesn’t take reservations, so…
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Cowgirl Creamery – Clabbered Cottage Cheese
I read a review a in the Chronicle for Clabbered Cottage Cheese from a wonderful local creamery, Cowgirl Creamery. Ted and Maya aren’t big fans of cottage cheese, and I don’t want to eat it every day, but once in awhile I love a bowl of it for lunch, and the rave review in the paper had me Jonesing for a try. It took a few weeks for our local Whole Foods to carry it (though after the newspaper review, people were definitely asking), but yesterday when I saw it on their shelf, I had to try some. At $6 for 8oz, it’s not something I’d buy all the time,…
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Halibut in Artichoke and Tomato Broth
The other day I was craving a nice fish dinner…and not salmon. I love salmon, but sometimes I get in the mood for something else, something like Halibut or another delicate white fish. I went looking for a recipe and came up with this one, from Giada, on Foodnetwork.com. When I’m looking for a recipe on Foodnetwork, I generally look for one with a lot of stars, and a lot of reviews, and then I read a few, because sometimes they have some good pointers. The only pointer I found on this one was to let the broth simmer a little while, which thickened it up more than a broth,…