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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,…
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Blue Valentine
Dean and Cindy are a husband and wife, far beyond the first blushes of love. It’s more like the first blushes of disgust, actually. They’ve been married now for 6 years, and their marriage is falling apart. Blue Valentine travels back and forth, from the early days of discovering each other and rushing into marriage, to a day 6 years later, when we see that Dean hasn’t changed at all, and Cindy wishes very much that he had. Dean is a man without ambition, who considers himself to be living the good life because he has a job where he can have a beer when he gets up in the…
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Every Last One
I came across this book in the silliest way. A few months ago, Ted and I had some time to kill at the bookstore downtown while Maya did some cheer thing or another. I had a pile of library books at home to read, so I wasn’t really looking for something to buy. I got a little bored and started playing a dumb game with myself. The game was, looking at the bookcases at the bookstore, and seeing if there were any shelves without at least one book I had read before. I was feeling pretty smug and proud of myself, seeing books that I had read on so many…
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New Orleans BBQ Shrimp
Ted’s birthday was a few weeks ago, and we had a barbecue theme. I made chicken, ribs, and I wanted to make barbecue shrimp, but something different than just shrimp cooked on the grill. So I did a little internet search, and I found a wonderful recipe on Food Network, from Emeril. I bought a couple of pounds of jumbo sized shrimp, and cooked up a batch. I followed the recipe exactly, except that I used purchased Cajun seasoning rather than Emeril’s homemade Creole seasoning, and I didn’t make the biscuits. Instead I bought some delicious bread to sop up the yummy sauce. Between using the shells to make the…
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Miscallaneous
Back in February or March, Issa mentioned on Facebook that she was going to do the 30-Day Shred. What, I thought, is the 30-day shred? Perhaps I even asked her. Or perhaps I looked it up. Either way, I thought it might be good to mix up my workout routine a bit and try something new. I’m pretty good about taking walks, but I need something that builds a bit more muscle, and gets my heart rate up higher, since I rarely walk as fast as I could/should. It’s cheap on Amazon, and the reviews are great, so I went ahead and ordered it. The first time through, I really…
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Herb Brined Lamb Chops
My good friend Janet came to visit a few weeks ago. Janet lives in DC, though she used to live in Texas, and before that, she lived in New York, and before that, DC. It’s been a long time since we lived close by each other in San Francisco and Berkeley, or Stockton and Lodi. She had several hours to spend before heading back to DC, and wanted to know if I wanted to have lunch or dinner and a visit. Often when she comes to visit, she spends a bunch of money taking me to a fancy lunch, and we have a nice visit, but she doesn’t get to…
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Pictures of You
April Nash is leaving her marriage. Leaving her husband and young son behind, traveling on a foggy road towards another life. Unbeknownst to her, her son, Sam, is asleep under a blanket in the back seat. The car was moving. Sam heard the rivery sound of the road under him, and he sat up, rubbing his eyes, pulling the blanket from him. Cars were zipping past in a blur of color. And there was his mother in front, singing along to some song on the radio. “You are my spec-i-al someone,” she sang, and because Sam thought she meant him, he grinned. Her voice sounded bright, like it was full…
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Mother’s Day
Pretty pretty please, don’t you ever ever feel Like you’re less than, less than perfect Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel Like you’re nothing, you are perfect to me* I don’t even like this song. Sorry Pink. Nothing personal. But the other day I was in the car, and it came on, and I found myself wondering if Maya knows that this is how I feel about her. I know, I nag. Pick up your clothes. Do your homework. Make your bed. Finish your girl scout award commitment. But none of that means I think any less of her. It means I know she’s a teen, and sometimes…
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Garlicky Broiled Salmon and Tomatoes
I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for awhile now. It’s in an issue of Real Simple, easy, delicious meals. (The link goes to a more current issue, I believe…mine is dated January of 2010.) Well, last night was the night, and I decided to give this one a try. I must say, it was both easy, and delicious. Really, really good. I can imagine it would be even better if you live somewhere where you can catch fresh salmon yourself. Mine was from the grocery store, and it was still very good. If you were to make it later in the summer, you’d get better tomatoes, though the salmon…
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Wordless Wednesday
