Start of a Season

Last Saturday, after my team won our first soccer game of the season, Marina and I enjoyed a perfect day out in the city. It started with a walk to the windmill and tulip garden in Golden Gate Park.

Then to Ocean Beach, which was at really low tide.

We went produce shopping on Irving and had Thai food at our favorite place, Chabaa.

Some errands took us to the Mission, where we happened across Dynamo Donuts, which has a nice patio out back.

We ordered one chocolate rose and one chocolate star anise and they threw in a heart beet.

We both wore florals.

We came home and played Scrabble with kitty. Each of us played an 8 letter word.

Marina Turns 74!

I hosted a dinner party in celebration of Marina's birthday last week. There were ten people in attendance.

The birthday girl, one of her paintings, and her best friend, Lee.

Old family photos: My mom and brother from before I was born, Marina in a doorway.

Lee made carrot cake containing the juice and zest of seven meyer lemons. It was delicious.

I made my version of chicken tortilla soup, which is always a big hit. But I think I am going to start calling it chicken burrito soup, because it contains all the ingredients of a really good burrito. Everyone had second and third helpings of soup, so they must have liked it.

I decided to make soup because I worked the days leading up to the party and I needed something I could just heat up and garnish when we were ready to eat. I cooked the soup in three stages:

1. Two nights before the party I boiled the entire chicken in a large pot of water with some salt until the meat was falling off the bone. Then I removed the bird from the stock and put it in a bowl with a lid. I refrigerated both the pot of stock and the bird overnight.

2. The night before the party I picked all of the chicken from the bones, chopped it into bits and refrigerated in an airtight container. I scooped some of the fat off the top of the stock (leaving some for flavor) and boiled the onion, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, and seasonings (lime, chili powder, Thai chili garlic sauce, cumin, garlic salt, salt, pepper, jalapenos) to make the broth. Once it was as flavorful and delicious as I desired, I let it cool, then refrigerated it overnight. I also cooked a pot of brown rice in the rice cooker.

3. The night of the party I heated up the soup broth in two large pots (half in each) and added half a can of black beans, half the precooked brown rice, and half a can of whole kernel corn to each pot. When people were ready to eat, the soup was garnished with grated monterey jack cheese, ripe avocado, cilatro, and blue tortilla chips.

I'm so glad it turned out and that Marina had an enjoyable birthday party! I'm in cahoots with my mom to plan a surprise for her big 7-5 next year...shhh, don't tell. :)

Happy Birthday Marina!

I made her a bouquet of yellow ranunculus and fuchsia freesias. She took them home to paint.

Kitty wanted to sniff, then he saw a bird outside, then he rubbed up against the orchid stick, and after that he would sit still for a portrait.

I threw Marina a dinner party in celebration last night. More to come!

Feels like Spring

The tulips on our fire escape have opened.

The first two that came up look a little funky, but the third one is perfect.

I've been holding on to a $20 gift card to Anthropologie since before Christmas, but haven't found anything worth spending it on. The things I like are in the $70-$90 range, and I don't want to spend a whole lot extra just to use it up. But today I came home with something I really love, and still have $7 left for next time.

My kitchen is all orange, white and blue. Well, it is mostly white and blue with a little bit of orange thrown in where it counts [thank you Le Creuset flame pots and pans]. But the color scheme will be a little more balanced with my beautiful new napkins.

I have a money saving philosophy when shopping, and that is if you can walk away from something you should. Especially with new clothing, I nitpick and scrutinize whether or not it is flattering, if it will wash well, what I will wear it with, and if I find anything wrong at all, I make myself dwell on the matter until I no longer want it. It's quite effective. I rarely regret not buying something, and if I do, I go back and get it later. Or I hunt for it on ebay and get it for less.

So, a successful shopping excursion in Union Square. I didn't spend a dime of my own money and even got some free samples from Sephora. I'm trying to find a new face moisturizer with a high spf. The one I love has changed its formula and I no longer love it. Any recommendations?

Choosing a Life

My mother was one of five kids and always had to make do with not enough. Not enough food, space, privacy, attention. Not enough of her father’s support or fidelity. So she married a man who loved her above all else and had two children so each of them would get a larger portion. A larger portion of love and affection and time and kisses and cake and presents and a larger portion of herself.

My father grew up one of three, the middle child. He didn’t want there to be a middle child so they had two. His mother didn’t cook, so he married a woman so beautiful and talented that all he had to do was look at her and eat her cooking and he would be endlessly happy. (He helped her in the kitchen too.)

They were active. Took their little ones to Yosemite before the youngest one could walk. Hiked Half Dome in the summer and cross-country skied in the winter. They met playing soccer. And raised their family playing soccer, giving them a community to be a part of and a lifestyle to embrace and something to believe in.

They took trips to the ocean, to the desert, to the tropics, to Disneyland, camped, stayed in hotels, entertained themselves in nature. They bought bikes and swimsuits and books and art supplies. Read Dr. Seuss and Dr. Dolittle. Bought them instruments. Took them to Paris, Alaska, Hawaii. Provided them with opportunity. Wanted them to be happy and encouraged them to follow their dreams. They followed their own dreams too.

The older I get the more I realize that we chose the life that we want for ourselves and we create a life for our children. I admire how my parents made those choices and I hope that Jeffery and I are able to make choices that our children will one day appreciate.

One Month Married

We celebrated one month as newlyweds on Valentine's Day. The first three years we were together (when we were kids), Jeffery would get me teddy bears and flowers in celebration. Only one Valentine's was particularly memorable and it was about four years ago. We spent the whole day planning a meal and shopped at Whole Foods for the ingredients. We had halibut, which we coated with a macadamia nut crust and sauteed in butter. We also made slow-cooked polenta with four types of cheese and topped it with a hedgehop mushroom and heirloom tomato sauce. It was so good.

This year was pretty good too. We started the day with kitty, as usual. Then we had mini bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese (which the little man really wanted but wasn't allowed to have because he's on a very strict diet). For dinner we made a bouillabaisse with whole tilapia, prawns, calamari and scallops.* We had chocolate-dipped strawberries for dessert.** Yum!

*It was our first time making bouillabaisse, and it was surprisingly easy. I followed this recipe and then just added the seafood I wanted. We used a frozen seafood medley from Trader Joe's. 

**For the strawberries we used semi sweet baker's chocolate which we melted in a double boiler.

Kauai, Where We Stayed

We stayed in a guesthouse just outside the town of Kilauea on the North Shore. (

Here

's a link.) When we arrived, they had champagne and chocolates chilling in the fridge. It was so much larger than it looks in photographs, with 20 foot vaulted ceilings and a wrap-around lanai.

I love how the mountains change throughout the day.

It was perfect.

Kauai, Day Three

We were headed towards Waimea Canyon on our third day, but we heard on the radio that there was no visibility due to cloud cover. It was beautiful on the north shore so we decided to stay and give Hanalei a proper visit.

We set up the tripod and captured this one with my dad's pentax:

We decided to hike two miles in (four miles round trip) on the Kalalau Trail.

Same shot taken with the pentax:

The trail was steep and rocky in some places and muddy in others. And the sun bore down strong. We hiked down to the beach and cooled our feet in the water. We lunched on peanut butter sandwiches, almonds and bananas. There were wild kitties scavenging for scraps. The waves were pretty gnarly, but there were still some die hard surfers who hiked their boards in. We hiked back out and cooled off in the protected lagoon at the start of the trail. Then we went back to our guesthouse for cheerios and a beer before a round of mini golf at the botanical garden on our last night on Kauai.

Kauai, Day Two

After all that rain, we went in search for waterfalls. We found a few.

We were driving down the coast and the ocean water was brown from all the sediment that came down from the mountains. The next day it was blue and clear again.

That night we were craving burgers, so we ate at Bubba's.

Lettuce and tomato: "not recommended"

It was good.

Kauai, Day One

We stayed just outside Kilauea at a guest house about three miles up from the main road. It was huge, with high ceilings and a wrap around lanai providing mountain and ocean views, the best of both worlds.

By the time we were settled it was after three and we spent the afternoon exploring Kauai's postcard perfect beaches.

The sky was becoming more and more dynamic as the sun went down and we wanted to make it to the end of the road to hike a bit of the Kalalau trail before it got dark.

It was so beautiful. Jeffery snapped this photo of me with my dad's old Pentax.

It was getting dark and we were getting hungry, so we hiked back out and went to dinner at Postcards Cafe, which was lovely.

When we got home the wind started to howl like nothing I have ever heard and there was thunder and lightening for 15 hours. We were safe and warm inside and there was no where else in the world I would have rather been.