Although my recent granola attempt turned out well, I wanted to try something less sweet, so I made a batch of Tracy Granola. I didn't have enough Quaker oats, so I supplemented with McCann's Quick-Cooking Irish Oats. It turned out well--deliciously spiced, slightly sweet, and chock full of nuts. Yum! Here it is in our handy new Tupperware cereal storer. It's just the right size to hold a batch of granola.

Tracy's granola is great with yogurt but not quite right as cereal (too many nuts, not enough oats). I'd like a granola that can perform well in both situations. I'm not quite sure what to try next. Although Andy's Fairfield Granola is delicious, it's a little overly sweet for daily consumption, and it seems more prone to overbaking. I think I'll stick with Tracy's general baking approach and sweetness level and just play with the ingredients incrementally until I find something that works for me.

There are a few more things I'd like to try in future batches (not all at once): Bob's 5-Grain Rolled Hot Cereal, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, coconut or lemon oil, cocoa, and crispy rice. Now to plan my next batch.

Not deserving of its own entry: we had Stir-fry with Curry Sauce (chicken, baked tofu, broccoli, zucchini, snap peas, crimini mushrooms, romaine lettuce) on oven-baked brown rice and barley with baked mashed sweet potato on the side. The vegetables were all from our box, and I was excited to use them all in one dish. The volume of vegetables turned out to be much higher than the recipe called for, and the stir-fry was pretty boring (not bad, just not the kind of dinner you'd look forward to eating). I won't write off this recipe yet though; I need to try it again with the appropriate vegetable-to-sauce ratio. It's definitely healthy and easy to make.

I had a good birthday weekend, but I don't have time to write about it tonight. I have to go to bed early so I can bike to work tomorrow (I didn't end up biking on Friday because it was rainy. Not an auspicious start to my 2007 biking season).

As I said in my last entry, we returned to Mudd last weekend for our 5-year college reunion. Prior to the reunion, I kept exclaiming how it didn't feel like it had been 5 years, but I think after the reunion, it does feel like it has been that long. Things have changed on campus and in our lives. I think it was good to go there and realize that we have grown up and changed. It's good to mark milestones like that. It did make me feel kind of old though...

Friday, April 27

Patrick and I flew into Ontario airport on Friday morning. We were on Southwest in the C boarding group, but luckily we were able to find seats together. We arrived around 10am. When we were landing, I was reminded of how brown and dirty the Inland Empire is compared to the Bay Area. It was still nice to come back to Ontario airport. It's familiar, as were a lot of things we encountered during our visit. Southern California was home for four years--longer than I've lived here!

We picked up our rental car, which had all sorts of mysterious buttons that didn't do anything. I begged Patrick to drive down Foothill Blvd. instead of taking the freeway, since that's how I always drove to and from the airport in college (since I hate freeway driving). Not much had changed in five years, except that $1 Chinese Food and Donuts has been replaced by another Chinese fast food establishment. That was kind of sad. I used to love going there, mostly for the novelty of cheap Chinese food and donuts in the same place.

Foothill Blvd. isn't the most glamorous stretch of road. It's lined with chain stores and quite a few adult bookstores. But, as with the airport, it was familiar, which counts for a lot. We drove through Ontario, Upland and Montclair before arriving in Claremont.

We had a few hours to kill before check-in time at the HoJo's, Claremont finest hotel establishment. We parked in the Village (Claremont's nice downtown area) and walked around. The weather was beautiful the whole weekend, which was nice. I wished I'd brought more dresses and skirts to take advantage of the Southern CA weather.

We walked around for a while and visited Rhino Records, and then we went to Harvard Square Cafe for an early lunch. Harvard Square was one of our favorite fancy restaurants when we were in college. Now that our food horizons have expanded, it doesn't seem quite as fancy, but it's definitely a nice restaurant. We sat on the patio and had some tasty sandwiches for lunch, and Patrick had a good Arnold Palmer (it's his go-to drink when it's warm out).

A little after lunch, we went to Bert and Rocky's for ice cream (man, if I'd seen that Chowhound page before the trip, I would've gotten the peppermint ice cream!). I had a scoop of Cookies and Cream frozen yogurt in a sugar cone, which was quite good. Patrick had the Dutch sweet cream ice cream, which was good as well. It was a perfect day to sit on a bench in Claremont and eat ice cream. How nice not to have to go to class!

Next, we drove over to Mudd and got our registration packets in front of Kingston. They have added two new buildings since we were there (Hoch-Shanahan dining hall and Sontag residence hall), but the buildings blend very well with the older buildings (which is to say they are boxy and covered with warts, as things at Mudd should be). Both new buildings are landscaped with drought-tolerant plants, which is a nice change from the flowers that need lots of watering and have to be replanted frequently because they can't handle the desert climate.

After getting our packets and sitting around for a little bit, we drove down to the HoJo's (right next to the freeway; not the nicest place we've ever stayed, but it worked fine for us) and checked in. I had originally wanted to drive to L.A. while were there, but we were both pretty tired, so we just sat in our room and watched TV for a few hours.

Tree, Andrew, and Jacob spent the day driving down from the Bay Area, and they apparently hit some nasty traffic near Pasadena. Ah, Southern California. They arrived in Claremont around dinnertime, so we met up and headed to the Village for dinner.

They were excited to go to Heroes for dinner, which sounded good to me. Heroes is exciting (to me at least) because they give you bags of peanuts, and you get to throw the shells on the floor! I'm easily amused. Oh, and they have a big selection of beer, and they serve it in big mugs, but since I don't like beer that's not really a selling point for me.

We waited ~40 minutes, and once we had gotten a table, the service wasn't great. But it was still a good meal. The portions are big there! Tree and Andrew were initially disappointed because the loaded potato skins were no longer on the menu, but the kitchen still made them for us at Tree's request. These weren't any dinky potato skins--they were huge!

Following the appetizer, we received our entrees, which were also huge! I had a yummy Ahi tuna burger with (giant) chunks of fruit on the side, Andrew had fish and chips, and everybody else had burgers, I think. Tree's burger was almost as big as her head! She didn't make much of a dent in it, I'm sorry to say.

As our meal was winding down, a group of people approached our table, and one asked us if we were Mudders. When we said we were, she place a small white paper ball on the table. We were momentarily baffled, but then she said that it was a napkin ball (a Mudd tradition--students aren't allowed to throw food in Mudd dining halls, so instead they make balls out of napkins and throw those). We had totally forgotten about napkin balls! It was a well made napkin ball. These people were clearly experts. Tree, showing much foresight, put it in her purse in case we needed it later.

We headed over to campus and caught the end of the annual Media Studio show (Media Studio is a class where students make their own short films. Patrick and Andrew both took it when they were at Mudd). There were far fewer people in the audience this time than there were 5 years ago. I know this sounds cliched, but it wasn't nearly as good as when we were students. Maybe we just missed all the good stuff at the start of the show. We weren't the only ones who were underwhelmed. Some alum's kid said, "This is boooring" in the middle of the show. Harsh, but true.

After Media Studio, we walked around the academic buildings, revisiting familiar classrooms and hallways. We were particularly excited to come upon the classroom where we had Chemistry 21A first semester freshman year. It's the class where Patrick and I met (though we also had friends in common and saw each other in other classes and outside of class, so I'm not sure if it's technically where we met). Awww...Here we are, where it all began. I took the one left-handed desk in the room, as I always did back then. As it turns out, Tree is left-handed too, and she had to use a right-handed desk when we were in Chem 21A together, but she did not begrudge me the special desk. She's so nice!

We stopped at the Muddhole in Platt, which got a facelift and is now called Jay's Place. Platt is all different now that it's not the cafeteria and is just a student center. The mailboxes are where the kitchen used to be. It's just strange.

Eventually, we wandered down to the residential end of campus. A few dorms were having parties, but we felt a little strange trying to get in, since everybody we knew at Mudd had already graduated (sigh). We visited the Linde Activities Center, where there was supposedly an alumni hospitality suite, but apparently they'd packed everything up for the night, because all that was left were a couple of tea bags (not even any hot water!).

Discouraged by the lack of exciting activities and food, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Saturday, April 28

We had breakfast at the BC Cafe, which is in the same parking lot as the hotel. It's a popular breakfast place among Claremont residents, but the food was too unhealthy for a delicate Bay Area flower such as myself. Even the "Lite" breakfast options were a bit much. I guess I can't fault them for serving big portions laden with fat and sugar; it's what people want.

I had a bowl of granola with vanilla yogurt, honey, berries, and bananas. It was yummy (very sweet). Jacob had some sort of an egg sandwich, and it came with a bowl of tapioca pudding and mints on the side. I thought that was pretty exciting. How often do you get tapioca with breakfast?

After breakfast, we headed over to Mudd so that Tree, Andrew, and Jacob could register. The schedule said that there would be Foster's Donuts at registration. We were hoping they would have strawberry donuts (donuts split in half and stuffed with sugared strawberries--yum!), but there were no donuts (strawberry or otherwise) to be had by the time we arrived. We planned on making a donut run later in our trip, but we never got around to it. Sad!

We walked around campus and ran into quite a few people from the class of 2002. I had been worried about making small talk with people I hadn't seen in a while (and hadn't known that well in college), but it was easy to find things to talk about. Phew!

We went to the new president's address before lunch. She seems nice, and it seems like she really enjoys being at Mudd. She did manage to fit in a request for money, but I guess that's part of her job.

After the talk, we had lunch (Platt burgers and picnic food; not worth $20) in the hot, hot sunshine in Hixon Court with Prof. Kuenning (from the CS department). Patrick had his second Arnold Palmer of the trip, and I tried desparately not to get sunburnt. I succeeded!

After lunch, we followed Prof. Keller around for a tour of the CS department. I wasn't very interested in the actual department tour, but we did get to see Prof. Dodds along the way. He was my favorite CS professor (not that I knew many CS professors, since I was a Chemistry major). I'm glad we got to talk to him.

After hanging out briefly in the new CS digs on the second floor of Sprague library (and almost getting stuck in the library stairwell because we didn't have key cards for the doors), Tree and I ran into Dr. Daub from the Chemistry department. He took us around the department, and we talked for a while. Not much seems to have changed in Chemistry, at least in terms of the building. It's too bad there weren't any other Chemistry professors around, but I'm glad we got to talk to Dr. Daub. He's nice.

We tooled around campus for a few hours after that. This time the hospitality suite in the LAC was better stocked, and I enjoyed a cookie and some lemonade. We checked out the new dining hall and sat in one of the private dining rooms, watching people walk by outside. College can be kind of boring when you don't go there anymore and don't have a dorm to go back to!

Ooh, at the new dining hall, they not only have horchata (which they had at Platt back in the day, but everybody was afraid to drink it because they didn't know how delicious it was), they also have agua de jamaica and pina colada drink! Sadly, when Patrick tried to sample the horchata, the liquid that came out of the dispenser was not horchata at all! What a disappointment. Good thing we have horchata up here in the Bay Area too. Man, I wish we could be at Platt for the Cinco de Mayo lunch tomorrow. They always put on a good show, with a mariachi band and food (including churros!) out on the lawn.

We visited Huntley bookstore, and upon returning to Mudd we happened upon a game of beer ball out behind Linde, which was in direct defiance of a memo included in our registration folders. Beer ball is a popular alumni weekend activity, but the administration does not like it at all, unsurprisingly. I didn't want to get in trouble for breaking the rules, so I didn't stick around to watch the festivities. It's just like in college. I'm still lame!

We headed back to Galileo Hall and sat on the cushy leather couches that our class had given to the school (the couch gift was made less special by the fact that Platt was later outfitted with more of the exact same couches and chairs a few years after we left). The chairs are unfortunately situated directly outside of the men's room in the Galileo foyer, but I still like them.

Soon enough it was time for the cocktail hour and class reunion photos in Hixon Court. The hors d' oeuvres were tasty, especially the baked brie and cocktail meatballs. We got to catch up with some more people from our class, including Charlie and Chrissy, who both live in the area and luckily decided it was worth their whiles to stop by.

It's crazy how quickly we reverted back to our old college personalities. It's not like we've changed hugely in five years, but we've definitely grown up. That all melted away once the boys of OG Suite were reunited, let me tell you!

We assembled for the class picture (I wonder if we'll get a copy). Patrick and I stood (or, in this case, kneeled) next to each other, just as we did for all of our other class pictures at Mudd. I remember when we took our freshman year class picture, I was all excited and nervous to be standing next to Patrick in the picture. It was like we were a legitimate couple! Who knew that seven years later we'd be getting married?

After our class picture, the top secret location of our class reunion dinner was revealed--the tent on the grass next to Platt! We were sharing the tent with the class of 1997. We had purchased tickets for the dinner, but they ended up not checking the tickets, and I think a few Westies from the years below us snuck in and got a free dinner. Oh well, their company was welcome.

Dinner was buffet style and was pretty good--filet mignon, veggie puff pastry, and chocolate mousse cake. They were pretty generous with the wine, and at the end of dinner, a napkin ball war broke out between the two classes. I tried to stay out of it because water and wine glasses were being knocked over right and left. People were having a great time. It felt like we were back in college. I tried to get an action shot of napkin balls flying, but I don't think I succeeded.

We'd heard rumors that West dorm might set up the Octagon (an impromptu wrestling ring made of security fences and a big pile of mattresses) later that night, which was a big deal, since the Octagon is normally reserved for HHP (Heaven, Hell, Purgatory--an annual West party). Andrew and Jacob had a score to settle, as they'd wrestled at HHP when we were in college, and their record was tied. This would be a decisive night!

It was still kind of early (by college standards) when we got to West, and not much was going on. Some students were playing with a spray bottle of flammable liquid, sort of an impromptu flamethrower. It made me nervous, as you might have guessed. I'm such an old lady. I wasn't much better when we were actually in college. I've never been a real wild and crazy type. It's probably good that I didn't end up living in West, as I'd wanted to when I visited in high school. West is the crazy dorm. I lived in Atwood, which was much more laid back and quiet.

Beer was consumed, more people showed up, and a band started setting up on a makeshift plywood stage. The alumni were all standing at one end of the courtyard, and the students were at the other end. At one point, one brave Westie approached us and addressed us as "sketchy alums" (which is exactly how we viewed alumni who came to parties when we were students). He encouraged us to actually talk to the students instead of standing around talking to each other, but we remained segregated. That's when it really hit me that I wasn't in college anymore. Sigh...

Andrew wrestled not only Jacob, but also Charlie and Austin. It's not exactly clear who won, but I think they enjoyed themselves. I was kind of worried somebody's head would get cracked open on the cement (there were scary gaps in between the mattresses in the ring), but the worst injury was a bloody nose. I'm guessing there won't be any Octagon wrestling at our 10-year reunion, so it's a good thing they were able to get in the ring this time!

The OG boys were excited to spot a Westie who looked eerily like our friend Noah from a distance. They got him to pose for a picture (he's the one in the green shirt). He seemed a little spooked. I probably would be too if a bunch of sketchy alumni approached me and wanted to take a picture with me!

Drew stopped by with his guitar and sang us a song before heading off to serenade random Scrippsies. Ah, Drew. Tree visited East Dorm (she was proctor there senior year) and met a lot of friendly Easties. They were much more approachable than the Westies. They were updating the East Dorm Wiki when I stopped by. I'm in it, as is Tree!

We headed back to the hotel around midnight, just when the party was really getting started. We really have gotten old, haven't we?

Sunday, April 29

We didn't do much on Sunday. We got bagels at 42nd St. Bagel Cafe in the Village. Actually, I had oatmeal, which came in a styrofoam bowl but wasn't half bad. Ooh, and Patrick and I split a honey whole wheat bagel encrusted with cinnamon sugar. Good stuff.

We lazed around the hotel the rest of the morning, and then we met up with Jeff M. (another member of the class of '02) for lunch. We stopped at Wolfe's to get sandwiches. Each sandwich includes a side salad of your choice (I went with the 4-bean salad--yum!) and a choice of pickles, peppers, or marinated mushrooms. So exciting! I had a mesquite turkey sandwich on squaw bread, which was quite good.

We took our sandwiches to the park on Indian Hill Blvd. and had a picnic there. Patrick and I had quite a few picnics there back in the day. It was good to go back. After talking and enjoying the weather for a little while, Tree, Andrew, and Jacob left to drive back up to the Bay Area, and Jeff headed home to Pasadena. Our flight wasn't until 8pm (a poor choice, in retrospect), so we laid on the grass in the shade for a while, and then we swung on the swings. It was so nice and peaceful.

We had some time to kill before dinner, so we drove down to Montclair (Upland?) to see a movie. Unfortunately, nothing good was playing when we got there, so we drove one exit down to our beloved old mall, Montclair Plaza, and hung out in Borders for a while. I guess it's appropriate to go to the mall when you're in Southern CA.

We drove back to the Village and contemplated getting pearl milk tea at a cute little bakery, but they were just about to close. Instead, we decided to go to The Press for dinner. I had heard good things about it while in college, but we'd never been. I really liked it!

The decor was fun (strings of blue Christmas lights, exposed rafters, unusual art on the walls), and I was excited about the menu. It had a bunch of vegetarian/healthy options, which is just what we were looking for. Patrick had a tofu stir-fry (and his third Arnold Palmer of the trip), and I had the eggplant burger (a blend of eggplant, oats, and TVP), which was interesting. I would definitely go there again. It just felt like a comfortable, familiar restaurant with reasonably healthy and tasty food. It's too bad we never went in college.

After dinner, we headed to the airport, returned our car, and got situated at our gate. This time we were in boarding group A, but unfortunately, our flight was majorly delayed. Initially it was delayed by an hour and a half, but they kept delaying it more as the night wore on. I think we ended up taking off around 10:45pm. At least they gave us each two packets of honey-roasted peanuts (my favorite airplane food) to make up for it. It was pretty boring waiting around the airport for hours on end. Most of the restaurants were closed, and the TVs weren't showing anything interesting (America's Funniest Home Videos and Dr. Phil), so we just read magazines. I could think of better ways to spend a Sunday night.

When we finally arrived in San Jose, the shuttle to the off-site long-term parking lot was nowhere to be found, and we didn't have their phone number, so we ended up taking a cab to the lot (it turns out the shuttle was still running, but I don't think they would've come to the airport unless they'd gotten a call). Our cabbie seemed a little out of it. Maybe he was just tired. I was glad to get to the parking lot safely. We drove home without incident, went to bed, and the next morning we returned to our normal, non-college-student lives.

I'm glad we went to the reunion, even though it made me feel nostalgic and a little wistful. It was good returning to Claremont and visiting some of our favorite places. We grew up a lot in the four years we were in college. Returning to Mudd made me think about my 10-year high school reunion coming up next year. That'll be even stranger. I wonder if we'll even have a reunion. I hope so!

We've been busy recently! Last Wednesday, we went to see the Decemberists at the Warfield with My Brightest Diamond. We only recently started listening to the Decemberists, and we like them a lot. I know, we're like 5 years behind the times. It was a fun concert. Toward the end, they played Chimbley Sweep, and they all ended up crowd-surfing in the general admission area (we were up in the balcony). Two teenage guys got up on stage (perhaps invited, perhaps not) and played the drums and guitar and sang a little bit, and everybody cheered for them. It was nice.

Tree and Andrew saw the Decemberists a while back, and Tree and I agree that we totally want to learn to play the accordion like Jenny Conlee. She not only plays the accordion, but she also plays organ and tambourine (she played a sweet solo at one point during the concert), and she has cute hair!

We were out past our bedtime, but it was worth it. We should go to more concerts!

The next day was Take Your Kids to Work Day. I helped marginally with the activities at work. Kids are both cute and exhausting. I wonder if we'll ever feel really ready to have one. I'd definitely like to have kids someday, but it seems like a pretty daunting task at the moment. Good thing we have time to wait.

After work, we drove down to the South Bay and had dinner at my grandma's house with my mom, Auntie Nance, and a few of my favorite local relatives. It's always so much fun getting together with all of them. I like my family (and not just because they read this website :)

Both my sister and Patrick's are seniors in high school, so they've been making exciting choices about their futures recently. Patrick's sister is going to Stanford, and mine is going to Franklin in Switzerland! Very different choices, but both exciting. My sister has definitely beaten me at going as far away from Colorado as possible for college. And I thought California was far away! I'm excited to see what the future holds for everybody!

Speaking of college, this past weekend was our 5-year college reunion at Mudd. That gets its own entry (with a few pictures!), probably tomorrow.

The softball team at work has been doing great this season. Last season I helped manage the team, but this year I opted not to manage because I found it too stressful and I could care less about putting together a good lineup. Instead I just keep score at the games (using a situational scorecard). It makes the games go more quickly. It's nice that our team is doing so well this year. We're even having a party at work tomorrow afternoon to celebrate our undefeated status.

I'm also going to start riding my bike to work again every Friday, now that it's getting warmer. I took a long break from riding my bike over the winter, but it's time to start again with Bike to Work Day coming up on May 17. Unfortunately it looks like it might rain tomorrow, but I feel like I have to bike to work tomorrow or else I'll lose my momentum. A little rain isn't a big deal, right?

It's hard to get back into the normal rhythm of life after being gone all weekend! There doesn't seem to be enough time to do all the things I normally do in a week. Eh, it's good to shake things up every so often.

While at the market this afternoon, I spotted some fava beans. I'd never prepared them before, but they seemed like a good springtime side dish, so I picked up a pound to have with dinner.

Conveniently enough, the April Sunset had a blurb about how to prepare them. First you remove them from the pod (the interior of the fava bean pod is so cushy and velvety. If I were a bean, I'd want to be a fava bean). Then you boil them for 2 minutes (I think these beans were a little mature and would've benefited from a slightly longer boil). Then you remove each cooked bean from its skin. I tossed the finished beans in some lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper and topped with grated Parmesan.

It was quite a labor-intensive process overall, and I didn't think the finished product was worth the effort. But I'm glad for the experience. I've definitely had yummy fava beans in restaurants, so maybe it's just a matter of finding the right recipe.

I planted our summer garden today (pictures here). This summer, we'll have three new kinds of tomatoes (Supersweet 100s, Black Zebra, and Stupice), Crane melons, beets, and a bunch of herbs (basil, cilantro, thyme, sage, parsley, and orange mint--it smelled so nice at the nursery!). In addition to using our patio boxes, Patrick convinced me to plant stuff in the empty patches of dirt on either side of our patio, which don't technically belong to our apartment. Our neighbors have already commandeered the patches of dirt near their apartments, and the building manager doesn't seem to care. The dirt is pretty clay-heavy, so I don't know if the plants I put there (tomatoes and melons) will survive, but it's worth a try.

We've had some decent chicken dinners lately. First, there was Chicken, Mushrooms, and Tomatoes with Port Wine Sauce, Sugar Snap Peas with Lemon and Toasted Almonds, and oven-baked polenta (from Lorna Sass's Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way). The chicken recipe turned out well, considering it used boneless skinless chicken breasts. I especially liked the garlic--I'd double the cloves of garlic next time. The peas were yummy! The polenta was a little dry, but it was easy to make. I'm sure it would have benefited from some butter and cheese, but I was trying to keep things healthy, so I left it plain.

Last night, we had a chicken-free meal of Otsu from Super Natural Cooking. It's a simple dish combining soba noodles, tofu, and cucumber slices in a tasty dressing. It was easy to make and enjoyable to eat. It's definitely worth repeating. Yum!

Our dessert was less successful. I made the Chocolate Rice Pudding from Feast (which I ended up buying last week, since I felt so sad when I had to return it to the library). It was super easy to make--just mix all the ingredients in custard cups and bake--but it didn't impress me. When I took it out of the oven after the designated baking time, it was still all liquidy, so I put it back in for 20 minutes, but it didn't help much. I could have gotten the same effect by pouring chocolate milk over cooked rice. It tasted okay, but it wasn't like real rice pudding. Oh well, at least I didn't spend much time on it.

For dinner tonight, I tried another Feast recipe, St. Tropez Chicken, along with Israeli couscous with toasted pine nuts, spinach and feta (based on the wheat berry salad in Super Natural Cooking). I used six chicken thighs instead of cutting up a whole chicken. It smelled good while it was cooking, but the skin came off of two of the thighs while they were cooking, and they dried out (no big surprise). The thighs that were protected by their skin turned out well though. It wasn't as amazing as I'd imagined, but it's good enough to make again on a lazy weekend.

Both of us enjoyed the couscous salad a lot. Not as healthy as Heidi's original wheat berry salad, but I'm trying to use up what we have on hand, and the Israeli couscous has been in our cupboard for a while. I would definitely make the salad again, either with wheat berries or another grain.

You can tell that I'm excited about Feast; in addition to the rice pudding and chicken, I also made a half batch of Andy's Fairfield Granola, which is one of the first recipes I earmarked after buying Feast. Patrick frequently eats yogurt with granola as a snack, so it would be great if I could find a good granola recipe to call my own (I even ordered a Tupperware cereal storer in anticipation of this becoming a regular activity; I'm sad their FIFO version has such a big footprint--it's impractical!). Also, I was excited to have a reason to buy and use brown rice syrup!

I think I overbaked it a little. I left it in for a little longer than 40 minutes because I was expecting it to crisp up toward the end of the baking time, but it was still pretty pliable when I finally gave up and took it out of the oven. I needn't have worried--it got nice and crunchy as it cooled. This granola is definitely on the sweet end of the spectrum, and because of this it's really yummy (almost like candy). The sweetness is probably due, in part, to my using apple butter (which had some added sugar) instead of apple sauce. I think next I'll try Tracy's Granola (on the less sweet end of things) to see if we like that better (it would certainly be better for us). I'm looking forward to having a favorite granola recipe! It seems like a good thing to have in one's repertoire.

First, a few recent meals:

1. Buttermilk-Brined Pork Chops, Millet with Buttermilk and Chives from Lorna Sass's Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, and steamed peas. The pork chops were good, as usual. They're one of my favorite ways to use up extra buttermilk. The millet's flavor was good (reminiscent of mashed potatoes, as promised), but the texture wasn't pleasant--kind of dry and gritty. It's possible this was because I cooked the millet the night before making the dish. I get the impression millet doesn't keep well. Maybe if we'd made it fresh that night, it would've been better.

2. Chicken-Cashew Stir-Fry with oven-baked brown rice and sauteed chard. This stir-fry, like others, was good and easy, and we would make it again. Not amazing, but certainly an acceptable dinner. I was really happy with the brown rice. Based on Sass's recommendation, I portioned out the cooked brown rice and froze it. Each night, I removed two servings of rice from the freezer, covered them with a paper towel, and microwaved on low for ~6 minutes. The rice reheated really well! It's an easy way to include whole grains in our meals without spending an hour making dinner each night.

When the chard ran out, we accompanied the stir-fry with a baby spinach salad with Pt. Reyes blue cheese (leftover from the cracker-making expedition described below), diced Pink Lady apple, candied walnuts, carrots, and Tracy's Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette. I was really happy with the dressing. It was easy to make, and all I needed to buy at the store was a shallot; we had everything else on hand. Thanks, Tracy!

3. Rogan Josh atop Curried Kalijira Rice Pilaf with Cashews and Peas (also from Sass's Whole Grains). The name of the dish reminds me of Joe Rogan, but I believe the two are unrelated. I think I should have used a smaller pot when making the Rogan Josh; most of the sauce had cooked away with half an hour still left in the cooking time, so I stopped cooking it early. It turned out okay, but we weren't wowed by the flavor. I guess I should just accept the fact that we're not big lamb fans.

We both really liked the pilaf though. I accidentally bought white Kalijira rice instead of brown, which probably made it tastier, if not healthier. It was reminiscent of fried rice, with pleasant curry flavors and occasional bursts of flavor from the fennel and cumin seeds. I'd definitely make it again (well, Patrick made it this time around, but you know what I mean).

In addition to dinners, I made a few fun extras. Tree's birthday party was this weekend, and I made two savory snacks to bring with us (I think I feel more comfortable making sweet things, so I wanted to broaden my horizons). I made Irish Blue Cheese Crackers (using non-Irish Pt. Reyes Blue) from Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess and Indian-spiced Peanuts with Cumin, using smoked paprika instead of cayenne.

The crackers were yummy, though very rich from all the butter and blue cheese. They were more like mini-biscuits than crackers. I think if I make them again (which I would, given the proper occasion), I would make them smaller--approximately 1 inch in diameter. The peanuts were good, but not amazing. I think I liked the Cook's Illustrated spiced nuts better.

Last week, I had some egg whites to use up (from the hot cross buns), so I jumped on the Internet bandwagon and made pavlovas with rhubarb compote. The rhubarb-pavlova combination was my idea, and it didn't work out very well. Both were pretty sweet. Maybe if there had been some whipped cream involved, it would have cut the sweetness sufficiently, but we didn't have any, and the combination was cloying. Instead, we ended up enjoying the compote on top of plain yogurt, and we topped the pavlovas with sliced strawberries one night and bananas the next. Much better! I really liked the rhubarb compote. I bet it would be good on top of ice cream too.

I really enjoyed the pavlova-making process. Spreading the egg white mixture with the back of a spoon was strangely therapeutic. It has such a nice texture! We were a little ambivalent about the crisp/marshmallowy texture of the baked pavlovas. I liked it okay, but I don't think Patrick was a fan. It's definitely a good way to use up leftover egg whites though. I might try making them again. Nigella's Chocolate Pavlova with Raspberries looks so good!

Patrick had a kayaking class in the city last weekend (at UCSF; he enjoyed it very much), and afterwards, we went to Mitchell's ice cream for the first time. They are a San Francisco institution and are known for their unusual tropical flavors. Since it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there was a line out front, and we had to take a number to be served. A nice man (who had apparently taken a few extra numbers when he arrived) gave us a lower number, so we got to order sooner. It kind of negates the whole concept of taking a number, but we gave our original number to somebody who had arrived after us, so it all worked out for the best. I had a sugar cone with a scoop of macapuno (sweet coconut) ice cream dipped in chocolate. It was delicious, but the chocolate shell led to unexpected difficulties. The ice cream kept dripping out of invisible fissures in the shell, and I never knew where the next drip would come from. It made the whole experience a little stressful. But it was so yummy, I didn't mind a little stress and a few drops of ice cream on my shoes. Mitchell's is definitely worth a visit if you're in the Mission on a sunny day (or a cloudy day; whatever).

A little something crafty, after a long craft hiatus:

I bought some cute scraps from Kozo back in December. I wanted to be able to enjoy them every day, so I made a little paper scrap quilt. I cut 1.75 x 2.5-inch rectangles (and a few larger pieces) and sewed them together with a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Unfortunately, some of the pieces got a little puckered, so it doesn't look totally smooth, but it's good enough. Now I can enjoy the monkeys and bunnies every time I go into our guest room!

After reading this article and this one in Sunset about Angel Island, I decided that we should go camping there this April. I reserved campsite #5 (supposedly one of the best on the island) for Easter day, and we headed out yesterday morning, along with Tree and Andrew.

We drove up to Tiburon, a charming little town, and caught the 11 o'clock ferry to the island. The ferry ride was brief, maybe 10 minutes, which, as Tree stated, was a good amount of time--not so long that it got boring. We even saw some of Andrew's family friends sitting on the deck of their bay-front house as we ferried by. Andrew called to tell them to look at the ferry, and we all waved to them.

When we landed, we went to the camping registration kiosk to check in. Official check-in time wasn't until 2pm, but they let us check in at 11:15am without any problems. The only issue was that the ranger had mistakenly directed another group of campers to our campsite instead of to the site they had actually reserved. As we hiked to the campsite (about a mile hike, mostly uphill), we worried about how we would nicely inform the campers that they were in our spot, but when we arrived, nobody was there, and they never showed up. So that was good--no unpleasant confrontations.

Campsite #5 was indeed awesome. It was right next to Battery Wallace (built in 1901 to defend San Francisco from attacks, but disarmed in 1915). Near the campsite entrance is a picnic bench and raccoon cupboard (the island used to be connected to the mainland by a strait, and raccoons still live there today). A little trail surrounded by sweet-smelling foliage leads from the eating area to a grassy clearing big enough (just barely) for two tents, with views of Tiburon, the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco skyline, and the Bay Bridge. There were other small clearings nearby where more tents could have gone if our group had been bigger. There's a pit potty and water faucet a minute or so away, at campsite 6.

Our campsite was on a little hill above Perimeter Road, which runs around the island. Here's the view from the road below our campsite, to give you an idea of what it was like. That's the Golden Gate bridge on the right, the Bay Bridge on the left, and San Francisco in the middle.

We had a good lunch of crackers, Fuji apples, triple-cream Mt. Tam cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, and salametto from Fra'Mani. Both cheese and salami were soooo good. I love having access to such good food.

After setting up our tents and securing our food in the raccoon cupboard, we headed out to hike up to the summit of Mt. Livermore. It was a pretty steep walk, and it took a little under an hour to get up there. There were pretty wildflowers along the way, and the view at the top was awesome, as promised. We sat at the top for a while, watched what appeared to be two pirate ships sailing in the bay, enjoyed a snack (coconut macaroons, sesame snaps, and ginger thins), and then headed back down. Here we are at the summit. I got a lot of use out of my camping hat on this trip.

We headed back to our campsite, stopping to explore Battery Drew along the way. Upon returning to our campsite, we were all pretty tired (Patrick and Andrew were both suffering from colds, sadly). We had more snacks and played a game of Zaire.

For dinner, we set up Tree and Andrew's little camping stove, and we had vegetable-lentil soup out of a can and grilled cheese sandwiches (made with hearty religious bread and a mix of muenster and cheddar cheeses). The grilled cheese sandwiches weren't perfectly cooked, but they turned out pretty well. None of them were too badly burned or undercooked. For dessert, we had Cadbury creme eggs (it was Easter after all) and half a bar of Maya Gold chocolate. Tree and Andrew brought some jammy red wine, in hopes of teaching me to enjoy red wine, but I'm not quite there yet. It was a good try though!

We had beautiful weather both days we were on Angel Island. As the sun set and it got chillier, we made a batch of hot cocoa (from a packet, with marshmallows!) and went and stood on the hill near our tents and admired the view and the twinkling lights in Marin and San Francisco. It was so nice! And then we secured our food in the cupboard and hunkered down in our tents for a good night's sleep, around 8pm.

We slept pretty well. I got a new sleeping bag (in My Little Pony colors--aqua and light purple) for this trip, and it kept me toasty. I tossed and turned a little bit, worrying I could hear animals outside our tent trying to get in, but it was just the wind. Apparently it rained a little overnight, and Tree and Andrew had some water seepage into their tent, so they didn't sleep as well as we did. That's too bad!

We got up around sunrise. The grasses and bushes around our tents looked so pretty covered in dew with the sun shining on them. Sadly, when we walked up to our picnic area, we found that the raccoon cupboard had not been very effective. The latch was kind of loose, and it looked like a team of at least two raccoons had raided it, one reaching down through a gap in the top, and one reaching up between the bottom of the doors. Our breakfast (McCann's instant Irish oatmeal, milk powder, brown sugar, dried cherries, slivered almonds, and mini chocolate chips, as well as four hot cross buns) was mostly gone, with the remaining scraps trashed and inedible. I hope those raccoons enjoyed our breakfast!

Luckily, the raccoons weren't able to reach the dinner leftovers, so we each had a slice of bread and a few pieces of cheese for breakfast, as well as tea and cocoa. I also had a tin of smoked oysters that I'd forgotten to have at lunch the previous day, but nobody else wanted any (Tree bravely sampled one and declared it an acquired taste. I can see how that might be the case; the women in my family enjoy smoked oysters, as well as liverwurst).

We were thinking about renting bikes after breakfast and riding the 5-mile loop around the island, but we decided to catch the 10:20 ferry back to Tiburon and have an early lunch instead. We packed up, hiked back to the ferry landing, and waited around in the sun for a while. The ferry was late because of engine troubles, but it wasn't a big deal. We had a nice chat with the park ranger about how wiley raccoons can be. She sympathized about them eating our breakfast.

We were pretty much the only people on the return ferry. We dropped our bags off at our cars (by the way, there's a lot on Tiburon Blvd. next to WaMu a little bit before Beach St. where parking is only $4/day and overnight parking is allowed; it seemed like the best option for Angel Island campers), and then walked over to Sam's Anchor Cafe, on Main Street in Tiburon. Sam's only served lunch, and we passed a breakfast place giving off delicious breakfast smells that might have been a better choice given our situation, but Sam's was good too.

We were seated out on the patio, overlooking the dock. This turned out to be less idyllic and picturesque than we'd anticipated, as there were some very ballsy seagulls wandering around. One gull even swooped in and stole a few onion rings from a neighboring table, knocking over the rest of the onion rings in the process. We covered our food protectively after that incident. It wasn't the most relaxed meal ever. I guess that's the price you pay for nice views of the water.

Tree and Andrew had a basket of onion rings, and they were certainly tasty. Tree and I both had the rare Ahi tuna sandwiches, which were quite good. After lunch, we walked down Tiburon and got ice cream (peanut butter fudge gelato, yum!) and ate it in front of a pretty fountain/kinetic sculpture nearby. Then we parted ways and headed home.

Despite our raccoon troubles, I really enjoyed this camping trip. After Sea Otter, I was a little wary of camping, but this was much better. It was my first time camping without a car, and it went really well. I think staying just one night was good, as it let me feel like I was roughing it without actually getting too grungy or being deprived of creature comforts for too long. I definitely recommend Angel Island for hiking and camping (especially campsite #5); just make sure your food is raccoon-proof!

(Full picture set is here)

I made hot cross buns for the first time today. I had noticed a recipe for them in the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook when we first got it, and I decided to make them at Easter-time. Conveniently enough, Feast, which I borrowed from the library last week, also has a recipe for them, so I combined the two.

They tasted exactly how I'd hoped--rich, tender, sweet, and a little tangy, full of dried fruit bits. They didn't look as perfect as I'd imagined, but that's not a big deal. They made the apartment smell really good while they were baking, and they were quite nice indeed when eaten hot out of the oven (and at room temperature). I'm so glad they turned out well!

Hot Cross Buns
(Adapated from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and Nigella Lawson's Feast)

Ingredients:

Dough

• 3/4 c buttermilk
• 6 T unsalted butter
• zest from 1 orange
• 1 clove
• 2 cardamom pods, crushed
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 4.25 c all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c white sugar
• 1 envelope (2.25 t) rapid-rise yeast
• 1.25 t salt
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t ground nutmeg
• 1/4 t ground ginger
• 1/2 c currants
• 1/4 c golden raisins
• 1/4 c candied citron (I might leave this out next time; the storebought stuff tastes a little funny, and I'm not sure what to do with the rest of it)

Egg wash

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 T water

Crosses

• 3 T all-purpose flour
• 2 T water
• 1/2 T superfine sugar

Glaze

• 1 T superfine sugar
• 1 T boiling water

Directions:

1. Heat buttermilk, butter, orange zest, clove, and cardamom pods until butter melts, then turn off heat and let infuse, ~5 minutes or until body temperature. Remove clove and cardamom (this was a little fiddly because of all the little cardamom seeds).
2. Whisk the eggs into the buttermilk mixture.
3. Mix 4 cups of the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, spices, currants, raisins, and citron in a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 1 minute.
4. Increase the speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. If, after 5 minutes, more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/4 c flour, 1 T at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom. (Even after adding the remaining 1/4 c flour, my dough was still pretty sticky)
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball, about 1 minute. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in fridge overnight, then let come to room temperature in the morning (or just let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 2-2.5 hours).
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 12 even pieces. Roll each piece into a tight ball. Arrange the balls in a greased 9x13-inch metal baking dish and cover tightly with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until the rolls have nearly doubled in size and are pressed against one another, 1-1.5 hours.
7. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350F. Using a sharp knife, cut an X through the top 1/4 inch of each bun. (Nigella has you do this before the second rise, which might be better, as cutting the X's after the second rise caused the buns to deflate somewhat. But they recovered in the oven and puffed up anyway)
8. Whisk the egg and water together and brush over the buns. For the crosses, mix together the flour, water, and sugar, and dribble over the cut X's. Bake until golden and puffed, 25-30 minutes.
9. Mix the sugar and boiling water to make the glaze. (I used leftover citrus-infused simple syrup from candying the blood orange peels for my chiffon pies; it might be nice to add lemon zest or extract to the glaze to get a similar effect) Remove the buns from the oven and brush with two coats of the glaze. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then either serve hot or let cool on a wire rack.

Yesterday was the second annual pie bake-off at my place of employment. I organized it this year, and I chose to hold it on the same date as last year's. This was a poor choice, as it turns out, since many schools had Spring Break, so lots of people were on vacation. It was also Good Friday, which is apparently a day of fasting for Catholics (I knew it was Good Friday, but I didn't know about the fasting). And it was during Passover, when Jewish people aren't supposed to make or consume anything that has been leavened (apparently pie crust falls into that category). Way to go, Caitlin! If I organize it again next year, I will definitely think more carefully when choosing the date.

Despite my poor date choice, we had a decent turnout, with 14 pies entered, and a lot of people came to eat the pies after judging was completed. Patrick left work early to come and be a judge, which I very much appreciated. It didn't seem like a huge sacrifice on his part :)

I made two kinds of pie for the contest. Both were received very well (better than my banana cream pie from last year) and got good scores, but I didn't count them when determining which pies won awards, as it would have been a little awkward for me to win things when my husband judged and I counted all the votes. Knowing that people liked my pies was award enough for me :)

Pie #1 was actually a bunch of tiny pies. Remember when I made those mini chiffon pies in grad school, over three years ago? Well, I finally got around to making more of them, this time with blood orange juice. It took me long enough! I ended up using the Blood Orange Chiffon Pie recipe from The Baker's Dozen Cookbook (which I got from the library), but I used a gingersnap crust instead of a chocolate crumb crust. The recipe was almost identical to the Citrus Chiffon Pie recipe in Williams-Sonoma Pie and Tart.

I had a heck of a time finding organic blood oranges, but Whole Foods came through for me. I used Meyer lemons in addition to the blood oranges. Since I didn't have enough crust last time, I made 1.5 times the crust; this was more than enough. I had enough crust and filling to make 48 mini pies (using a mini muffin pan and mini liners) and 6 regular cupcake-sized pies.

The pies turned out well. The filling was a beautiful fairy-tale pink, light and airy. I overheard one of the judges saying that she thought it was too citrusy, but I liked the flavor. I topped each pie with a swirl of whipped cream and candied blood orange peel (the blanching removed most of the red from the peel, so it didn't turn out exactly as I'd imagined it). Good stuff. I'd say this recipe was a winner, though not my favorite pie ever. The chiffon filling alone would make a nice light dessert if you plopped it into ramekins.

Pie #2 was Mighty Fine Apple Pie (made using the Damn Fine Apple Pie recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen, but renamed so as not to offend anybody). It's not exactly apple season, and the apples I used (1 lb each Granny Smith, McIntosh, and Gala) weren't very crisp, but it didn't seem to make a big difference. I used the Baker's Dozen all butter crust recipe. This was my first time making pie crust since taking Shuna's pie dough class, and I felt much more confident making the pie dough. It all just felt right and familiar, and based on the small taste of pie I got after the pie contest, my pie crust turned out just right! It was tender and flaky, just like it's supposed to be. I'm so proud of my crust! Shuna's pie dough class was definitely a worthwhile investment. This apple pie was a winner.

Oh man, I've let things pile up, and now I have a bunch of stuff to write about. Let's see...

Recent meals:

I made a batch of Smoky Beef and Bacon Chili from Sunset a week or two ago. It was good, certainly smoky, but I like Stef's chili better. The weather has been great, so we enjoyed our chili al fresco on our patio with a variety of sides--cornbread and chard one night; popovers, gingered broccoli (from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites), and roast asparagus the next. We don't have a popover pan, so I made the popovers in a muffin tin, and they were shaped a little strangely. But they tasted good! We had the extras for dessert with some jam. The gingered broccoli was fine, but not awesome. I doubt we'll make it again.

I bought Heidi's new book, Super Natural Cooking, last week. It has lots of exciting recipes, and the food is beautifully photographed. We made two recipes from it for dinner last week--Clemenquat Salad and Big Curry Noodle Pot, both charmingly named. The salad consisted of thinly sliced celery and kumquats, walnuts, parmesan, and clementine segments. It was yummy, if a little unorthodox. The noodles were a little too spicy for my tastes but were pretty good. I would make the salad again, but probably not the noodles. I'm excited to try more recipes from the cookbook in the future!

I also bought Whole Grains, Every Day Every Way by Lorna Sass, and I got even more cookbooks from the library, including Feast (like most everyone else, I'm thoroughly charmed by Nigella Lawson). On Thursday, Patrick made Sake Steak (from Feast) accompanied by steamed spinach and Brown Rice Salad with Asian Flavors (from Whole Grains). The brown rice salad was yummy and pretty easy to put together if you cook the rice the night before. The steak turned out really well. We used rib-eye steaks (grass-fed). Nigella's cooking method leaves them pretty rare, and they were a beautiful ruby red on the inside. We wouldn't normally eat our meat so rare, but this stuff was great--tender and delicious. It was also pretty quick to make, since the steaks were marinated a few days in advance.

Baking adventure: English muffins

Last weekend, I made English muffins, inspired by the pretty pictures at Delicious Days. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own English muffins! I used this recipe, which gave me a chance to use my food scale to weigh out the ingredients. Exciting! I love doughs that rise overnight. I mixed it up in about 15 minutes last Friday night (it made a pretty sticky dough, but it turned out just fine), and then I made us English muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning. This took longer than I'd expected because I had to cook them in two batches, as I was using our cast iron skillet. Next time I'd probably try to do them all at once on our griddle.

The English muffins looked surprisingly like storebought, and when I split them with a fork, they were full of nooks and crannies, just like they were supposed to be. It's like magic! I'm not sure if they exactly fit my English muffin ideal, but I was pretty happy with the overall outcome. We topped the split and toasted muffins with poached eggs and smoked salmon and had grapefruit halves and fresh-squeezed blood orange juice on the side. The poached eggs were perfectly cooked (I love you, Cook's Illustrated!), but some of the poaching water clung stubbornly to them, so they made the muffins a little watery. I'll have to get a better slotted spoon.

We topped the leftovers with butter, cinnamon-sugar, and jam. Yum!

Apart from taking longer than I'd expected, I found the English-muffin-making experience quite enjoyable. I'd do it again. Since these worked out so well, I think next I'll tackle homemade Graham crackers!

Dinner at Oliveto:

Last Sunday, we were in the East Bay, so we went to Oliveto with Tree and Andrew, for the first time. We got to Rockridge a little early so we stopped in at Bittersweet and tried a Chocolate Thai Iced Tea. It wasn't very good--kind of gritty and strange-tasting. I guess we'll stick to their hot chocolate from now on.

I'd been wanting to visit Oliveto for awhile, as everybody who'd been there seemed to love it, and it's fun to walk around Rockridge. As it turns out, Oliveto deserves all of the good reviews--it is excellent Italian food. It's the best Italian food I've had in the Bay Area, but I haven't been to the big hitters in San Francisco yet. It's certainly worth a trip to Oakland.

When we were seated, we were given a bowl of delicious green and black olives and some yummy bread. We started by splitting the salumi platter for two (it was large enough to divide between four people). I can't remember the different kinds of cured meat we tried, but they were all really good. I don't eat enough salami!

Next, we shared two starters: shaved purple asparagus with fennel and parmesan, and cured steelhead salmon with baby beets and chervil. The salmon starter was especially good. For our entrees, we all had housemade pasta. Mine was topped with a pork rib ragu, which was awesome. So satisfying.

We split three desserts four ways: (1) bittersweet chocolate cake, (2) a rhubarb tartlette with rosewater cream, (3) chocolate, vanilla, and apricot zuppe inglese with amaretto sauce. All three were very good; I think the chocolate cake was my favorite. I love being able to sample multiple desserts in one meal!

In my opinion, Oliveto is well worth the trip. It's relatively expensive, but both dinner and dessert were outstanding. Since their menus change daily, we'll clearly have to go back frequently to see what else they come up with!

Garden news:

Our dwarf Meyer lemon tree appears to have handled the cold weather just fine, and we have a bunch of baby lemons a-growing, as well as lots of lemon flowers blooming (the smell of citrus blossoms is so wonderful!). Here's the biggest lemon on the tree, as of last weekend. I wonder when we'll have our first lemon harvest!

I bought some cute scraps from Kozo back in December. I wanted to be able to enjoy them every day, so I made a little paper quilt using small pieces of the paper. I cut 1.75 x 2.5-inch rectangles (and a few larger pieces) and sewed them together with a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Unfortunately, some of the pieces got a little puckered, so it doesn't look totally smooth, but it's good enough. Now I can enjoy the monkeys and bunnies every time I go into our guest room!

Quilt made of Kozo paper scraps

We had a slow-cooked dinner yesterday: Spring Lamb and Flageolet Beans, Beer-Rye Bread, Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Poppy Seeds and Lemon, and Baked Spelt Pudding.

The lamb and beans took about 4 hours to cook in a 300F oven after bringing to a boil (2 hours covered, 2 hours uncovered). It turned out soupier and blander than I was imagining, but a squeeze of lemon juice right before serving helped make it better. Still, I expected more from my pretty Rancho Gordo flageolet beans. I still hold out hope that someday I'll make a really excellent bean dish. I just haven't found the right recipe (well, there are these awesome baked beans, but they don't really showcase the beans).

The bread turned out pretty well. The recipe came from a recent issue of Sunset, which featured our favorite hometown brewery, New Belgium. Way to go, you guys! The bread was faintly sweet, flavored with rye and caraway. I was surprised that it had retained some of the beer flavor (I used New Belgium Springboard, a seasonal ale brewed with wormwood, goji berries, and schisandra). It would've been even better slathered with butter or cream cheese.

I wanted to like the Brussels sprouts, but they turned out a little bitter and uninteresting. I'm guessing I either cooked them too long or used Brussels sprouts that were past their prime (but they were from the farmers' market, so that's something!). Were I to try it again, I might try this version, since butter makes everything taste better.

I was excited about the pudding because I had been craving rice pudding, and it let me use more spelt as well as a whole bottle of Straus 2% milk (it's too expensive for everyday milk, so it's a treat when I get to use it in recipes). I made it in a loaf pan in our toaster oven, and it took a little under 3 hours to bake. When it was done, I spooned it into our recently acquired set of 351 1/2 Hall custard cups (from eBay, inspired by this outing) and chilled it.

The pudding turned out denser and firmer than I'd expected. Well set--like it had been thickened with gelatin (when really it was just ground up spelt and long, slow baking that thickened it). I was hoping for a creamier texture, but this stuff was hearty and a little chewy. Although it wasn't what I was expecting, I liked it. It's unique, and eating it makes me feel healthy! However, it didn't satisfy my rice pudding cravings. I've got my eye on these three recipes, and I'd better try one of them soon, since it won't be rice pudding season for much longer.

I also made another batch of Classic Brownies to use up the leftover butter and chocolate from the Tahoe trip. Most of them went to work with me today and were well received by my coworkers. I let the brownies cool for the full 2 hours this time, and they cut more cleanly, though there was still some crumbling. It seems that people prefer pecan-topped brownies to plain, since on both occasions the plain brownies lasted longer. I always thought most people didn't like brownies with nuts, but I guess that's not the case. They're yummy, either way (as the sign indicates).

Patrick's off in Tahoe again this weekend (this time with his coworkers instead of mine), so I took this chance to sample the fruit cake that I won at my company's white elephant party in December. You know, I think I actually like fruit cake. All the candied fruit in neon colors is so pretty! And it's so nice and dense and sweet. I guess I'm weird.

Sadly, I have no idea how long this fruit cake was around before I received it (I got the impression it was at least ten years old, but maybe my coworker was joking). It looked and smelled normal, so I figured it would be okay. Still, it makes me really nervous to eat something of such dubious age (apparently you're only supposed to store it for 3-4 months, and it has been in my fridge for that long!). I mean, it didn't make me nervous enough not to sample it, but I think I'll get rid of the rest of it without eating any more. I'm afraid that consuming ancient fruit cake might cause long term ill health effects, even though the slice I tried didn't make me sick.

Anyway, yeah--fruit cake. Not so bad! Hopefully my body doesn't rebel in anger at my consuming such a well-aged specimen. Maybe next Christmas I can get some Christmas Cake from June Taylor. When I took the marmalade class with her, one of my classmates bought a Christmas Cake, and it looked really good. I would've bought some too, except I already had two bricks of decades-old fruit cake in my fridge. Sad.

In addition to the fruit-cake-eating, today I cleaned our apartment a little, read the latest Real Simple (my boss got a free subscription for a friend with hers, and she gave it to me--she's so nice!), and watched some movies. A good lazy Saturday. Patrick doesn't like Real Simple because it reminds me of all the life-simplifying things I'm supposed to be doing. Like vacuuming behind the fridge! Real Simple makes my to-do list longer instead of shorter. True, reading it doesn't always relax me, but I still enjoy it. I'm just going to pretend I never read about how I'm supposed to vacuum behind the fridge and watch The Wedding Singer instead.

We went on our first ski trip this past weekend. I am bruised and sore, but I enjoyed myself overall.

We left work early on Thursday and drove up to Tahoe. We ran into some nasty traffic in the East Bay and actually got to Tahoe a little after my coworkers who left 3 hours after us. Go figure. We stopped along the way in Davis to get a little dinner. Patrick's friend Arnold went to school in Davis, and Patrick remembered Woodstock's Pizza fondly, so we went there for dinner. We split a Mediterranean Masterpiece and enjoyed the pizza parlor ambience. It seemed like a good place.

We had a bit of a time finding the cabin in the dark. I was super impressed when we got there. My coworkers found it on Craigslist. There were about 20 of us there for the weekend, and we all fit comfortably in this cabin (with a few people on the couches instead of in bedrooms). It was nicely furnished with a well-provisioned kitchen (and a nice Safeway a mile or so away) and plenty of wrap-around porches on which to enjoy the balmy Tahoe spring weather.

On Friday morning, we all got up at a reasonable hour and headed to our ski areas of choice. Patrick and I went to Kirkwood, because it was relatively close and had affordable snowboarding lessons. We had rented our gear down in the Bay Area, so we just had to pay for lessons and a beginner lift ticket.

We put on our boots (they're so hard to walk in!) and signed up for a 2-hour first-time snowboarding class. We got out there just before the class started. There were about 6 other people there. The instructor, Ian, was really nice and patient.

I had worried that the lesson might not go very well, as I have a tendency to get frustrated when I can't do something right the first time. When I was in junior high, I took a group tennis class one summer and hated it because I just could not hit the ball, and everybody else learned things so quickly. My fears for the snowboarding class were well founded. I didn't pick things up as quickly as the others, and I kept falling down and getting more and more frustrated and upset with myself. I wish I could be more patient and have a sense of humor when I suck at something, but I can't control it.

I was pretty miserable during the lesson. I fell on my face while getting off the ski lift (I wasn't the only one, so that wasn't too bad), and then it took me an hour and a half to get down the bunny slope because I would fall back down every time I got up (the rest of the class went on ahead because I kept falling so much, and the instructor came back to check on me and encourage me every so often). I was miserable and kept bursting into tears on and off throughout the lesson. The crying and the falling made me really tired, which just made things worse. I would stand up and lose my balance and fall back over, or else I'd get going too fast and panic and forget how to stop and totally wipe out. Blah, it sucked.

I wasn't the only one having an awful time on the bunny slope though. There was a teenage girl who skiied halfway down with her class and then sat down and refused to move any farther. Her instructor had to call ski patrol to come get her. So I didn't feel so bad. At least I got all the way down the hill without taking off my snowboard. It just took me a really long time. It's so hard to get back up after you've fallen down 20 times in a row.

The instructor was really sweet about the whole thing. He said that this may be one of the hardest things I ever do in my life (it sure seemed that way at the time). He made me agree to try snowboarding twice more before giving up on it forever, and my coworkers said the same thing. Once was enough for this winter though. I actually did start feeling a little more comfortable toward the bottom of the hill, once Ian came back and showed me some stuff after everybody else in the class was done (he gently suggested that next time I get a one-on-one lesson and said he'd be happy to be the one to teach me).

Patrick picked up the snowboarding much faster than I did, and he went down the mountain a few more times after lunch, while I sat in the ski lounge, exhausted. I'm glad he enjoyed himself. He even went back on Saturday and by the end of the day got off the ski lift and made it all the way down without falling once! He's awesome.

Although I was absolutely miserable during my lesson, I'm willing to give snowboarding another chance next winter. Maybe I'll be able to do it without any tears next time (though I'm sure there will still be plenty of falling down).

We were the first ones back to the cabin that afternoon, totally sore and exhausted, and it turned out that the cabin was locked, and we didn't have the key. Luckily, Patrick is resourceful. He found an open window, popped out the screen, climbed in, and let me in the front door. That could've been bad; we would have been sitting on the front steps for 2 hours if that window hadn't been open. Instead, I got to take a wonderful hot shower and ice my knees. Most of my snowboarding falls were forward, so my knees were totally banged up, but my tailbone was spared.

Patrick and I went to Nepheles for dinner. They offer post-dinner hot tub reservations, but we just went for a meal, no hot tubbing. It was a nice, cozy restaurant with good food. We started with their famous swordfish eggrolls with black bean dipping sauce. I had the venison stew with portabello mushrooms and roasted peppers, and Patrick had the house salad, which had a great creamy herb dressing (the waitress told me it had tarragon, shallots, honey, and balsamic vinegar). Next, I had the pork loin with ginger-soy marinade and pear-guava barbecue sauce. Patrick had the cashew-encrusted ahi tuna with lemon-coconut-ginger sauce. He wasn't impressed with the tuna, but I really liked the pork. I felt entitled to dessert after my crappy snowboarding experience, so I got the Tahoe glacier crepes (berry sorbet and cream cheese in crepes with blackberry preserves). It was pretty good, but I liked the rest of dinner better. I would definitely return to Nepheles on future Tahoe trips.

On Saturday, I got up early and made waffles for everybody. The waffles were well received. I went with buttermilk, multigrain, yeasted, and honey-yogurt. I had pre-mixed all of the dry ingredients before we left for Tahoe, so it didn't take too long to get the waffles going that morning. I made way too many waffles, so now we have even more waffles in our freezer!

After breakfast, people left to go skiing or hiking, and I had the whole cabin to myself. I washed all the breakfast dishes, had a snack, sat in the sun on the balcony, read some Sunset, and made some brownies (Classic Brownies recipe from Cook's Illustrated), half with pecans and half without. It was a good, relaxing way to spend the day, and people were really grateful to have brownies waiting when they returned. The brownies were really good. Cook's Illustrated knows what they're doing.

On Sunday, we all packed up and left Tahoe. Patrick and I stopped in Davis once more for lunch, this time at Bistro 33. We had some yummy panini and made it home pretty quickly compared to the drive up. We stopped in Burlingame for pearl milk tea at Tea Celsius (good stuff!).

We walked to Gambardella's for dinner. My boss had recommended it, and we enjoyed our meal there (not as good as Osteria, but better than Angelo Mio and Carpaccio). I started with a salad of roasted shiitake mushrooms (which tasted eerily like crispy bacon), aged ricotta, and mixed greens. For our entrees, I had egg-battered petrale sole with capers atop artichoke risotto, and Patrick had shrimp fra diavolo. Both dishes were good. We shared an excellent chocolate souffle for dessert. We ate well this weekend.

Okay, this is the last round of waffles for awhile, I swear! Patrick thinks I've gone a little crazy, making so many waffles. But I had buttermilk and sour cream to use up before the weekend, and I wanted to try out a few more recipes. Starting at 12 o'clock and going clockwise, we have:

• Sour Cream Waffles from Waffles by Donna German. These were good--light, tender, and a little sweet. But there wasn't anything remarkable about them, and if you're going to load up waffles with sour cream, they've got to be awesome!


• Buttermilk Waffles from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (same recipe I wrote about here, but with 1/4 of the baking soda). These tasted much better than the buttermilk waffles from last time, and they had a good sturdy exterior with a tender interior. A classic waffle, done right.


• Buttermilk Waffles with Bananas and Pecans. This is the buttermilk waffle batter sprinkled with slices of banana and chopped pecans, at my coworker's recommendation. This waffle took a little longer to bake than the others, and I had to press down on the top of the waffle iron to cook it properly. Patrick wasn't impressed, but I liked it. Tasty!


• Gingerbread Waffles from Waffles: From Morning to Midnight (recipe included in this article). These were tasty, but real gingerbread is so much better! They were also kind of floppy. Of course, the original recipe pairs them with ice cream and crystallized ginger, and I bet that would be good. On their own, they fall a little flat.

Ski trip is this weekend; it'll be waffle go time! We've decided to snowboard instead of skiing, and we bought some snowboarding clothes on sale at Any Mountain. They're not exactly my style, but I don't think I'll be wearing them very often. But you never know, I could totally love snowboarding! We definitely need to try skiing at some point too. We thought about trying both this weekend, but it seems better to choose one and take a few days to learn how to do it right (or just fall down a lot and get really sore).

I went a little crazy two weekends ago and decided it was finally time to buy a (very) nice Dutch oven. I didn't have a very good excuse for it, though it will be good to replace the peeling non-stick Dutch ovens from our grad school days. Plus I wanted to make a pot roast, which required a large-ish oven-safe pot. Anyway, Patrick was cool with it, so I went on down to Williams-Sonoma and bought a 7 1/4 qt. red Le Creuset Dutch (French) oven. Oh, it is so beautiful! And it is, as expected, a joy to use.

I used it to make Classic Pot Roast, accompanied by Potato and Cheese Biscuits, baked in our cast iron skillet. Our beautiful new pot got pretty dirty, but it cleaned up pretty easily with some Bar Keeper's Friend and some elbow grease, courtesy of Patrick.

It was a fine dinner (considering that both recipes were "light," I'd even say it was a good dinner). I used my scalloped biscuit cutters for the biscuits, but the dough was pretty wimpy, and they kind of oozed into each other. Still tasty though!

Later that week, after the pot roast leftovers had been exhausted, we had a meal similar to this one, but not quite as good: Pan-Seared Salmon, Multigrain Pilaf with Sunflower Seeds, and Braised Fennel with Orange.

The fennel wasn't nearly as good as the Moosewood recipe linked to above, and the salmon wasn't quite as good as last time (maybe because I used coho salmon instead of wild salmon). I liked the pilaf a lot though. The flavor was good, and the sunflower seeds added a nice muted crunchiness. My only complaint was that the overall pilaf texture was kind of mushy and creamy. I like it better when pilaf grains are distinct from each other and retain a little more bite. I would definitely make this recipe again though.

To celebrate Patrick's birthday, I made yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting (using the Cook's Illustrated recipe, as usual) this weekend. My frosting job didn't turn out quite as pretty as before, but they still tasted good.

We conducted our second round of waffle tasting this past weekend (round 1). This time we tried Cinnamon-Raisin Whole-Wheat Waffles (on the left, from Waffles: From Morning to Midnight) and Multigrain Waffles (on the right, using the Cook's Illustrated Multigrain Pancake recipe from a few weeks ago, but doubling the amount of butter and beating the whites of the eggs until moderately stiff and folding them in at the end).

Both turned out well. The cinnamon-raisin waffles were enjoyable, but not amazing. The multigrain waffles were great. I think I like them in pancake form a little better, but the waffles had the same sweet, nutty flavor and slightly crunchy texture as the pancakes. Yum! I'll definitely be making the multigrain waffles this weekend, along with a few other recipes, still to be determined.

It's a good thing waffles freeze well!

In unrelated news, the weather has been beautiful recently (sunny and mid-seventies, compared to overcast and mid-fifties in Portland--we kept checking the weather forecast for the two cities this weekend, trying to convince ourselves that we could handle the change), and our poppies are all blooming. They make me happy.

We've been preparing for a ski trip we'll be going on in a few weeks with some coworkers of mine. Neither of us has ever been skiing or snowboarding, so this will be interesting. Patrick's in charge of researching snow sports, and I'm working on finding a good waffle recipe to make for a group breakfast during the trip.

This morning, I made two different Cook's Illustrated recipes--Best Buttermilk Waffles (on the left) and Yeasted Waffles (on the right), topped with a little maple syrup. Patrick squeezed us some orange juice (made with a blend of tangelos and blood oranges from our box).

I felt sure one of them would turn out to be the perfect waffle, but neither was quite right. The buttermilk waffles had the right texture, but they had too much baking soda--they had a funny salty chemical flavor. I doubled the recipe (to use up buttermilk, of course), so it's possible I shouldn't have doubled the amount of baking soda; I know leaveners sometimes don't scale the same as other ingredients. However, I think the blame at least partially rests with Cook's Illustrated; after the fact, I checked The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and they had the exact same recipe, except using 1/4 of the baking soda listed in the original recipe. Too bad I didn't see that earlier! So it's possible their buttermilk waffle recipe would fit the bill if I used less baking soda. I'll have to give it another chance sometime.

The yeasted waffles were exciting to make (I love doughs that rise overnight in the fridge!) and turned out very light and crisp (some might even say they were ethereally light and crisp). There was nothing wrong with them, but I'm looking for a waffle that is denser and more filling. Also, I prefer a sweeter waffle. These certainly have their merits.

So neither of today's waffle candidates were winners (and now we have a freezer full of waffle leftovers; not a bad situation to be in). I'm going to try two more next weekend, and if all else fails, I have two recipes that I know are pretty good (Plain and Easy Breakfast Quickies and Honey-Yogurt Waffles, both from Dorie Greenspan's Waffles: From Morning to Midnight). While searching for waffle recipes, I was reminded of the totally awesome Belgian sugar waffle that Patrick had at Le Pain Quotidien a while ago. It looks like these waffles go by many names, frequently called Liege waffles. I found a few recipes online that look promising (1, 2, 3, 4). I'll have to try making them someday when we're going to go on a long bike ride after breakfast, to work off all the butter and sugar.

Late last week, Patrick prepared dinner at my request: Apricot and Lamb Tagine, whole wheat couscous with pine nuts and scallions, and Roasted Cauliflower. The tagine was easy to make (slow cooker!), but the lamb turned out kind of dry. Also, I'm not sure if I actually like lamb. The apricot part of the dish was nice though, as were the couscous and cauliflower (I like the Cook's Illustrated approach of cutting the head of cauliflower into eighths instead of into little florets).

Last night, I made my third and final fresh pasta dish with the borrowed KitchenAid pasta maker attachment: Shrimp Fra Diavolo with homemade thick spaghetti (using the same Fresh Egg Pasta recipe as before), accompanied by Orange-Glazed Acorn Squash and steamed broccoli.

Of the three pasta shapes I tried, the spaghetti was the most tedious to make, because I had to separate each and every strand as it came out of the extruder plate. It was good, but not worth the work, in my estimation. Patrick took care of the sauce (including the flambeeing), which turned out very well. The shrimp was perfect--firm and slightly sweet. The squash was yummy, as before.

We watched Patriot Games tonight, and afterward we decided to keep up our Jack Ryan streak by watching our copy of Clear and Present Danger. Sadly, when we opened it, the DVD was missing (the security sticker on the side had been slit). We bought it at Borders a while back, and apparently somebody stole the DVD out of it and put it back on the shelf. That sucks. Sadly, we have no other Harrison Ford DVDs (we need to get the Indiana Jones trilogy one of these days, even though Temple of Doom kind of sucks), so we had to make do with Ocean's Eleven instead.

A good movie at our local independent theater (with frozen Junior Mints!) followed by a nutmeggy cup of custard and a tall glass of steamed milk at Cafe Borrone. It was a good Friday night.

We had our second Dutch baby face-off (sorry I insist on calling them Dutch babies instead of puff pancakes, Tracy!). We compared the 2-egg recipe (left) with the 4-egg recipe (right), and both of us liked the 2-egger better (but from the first face-off, I like 3 eggs even better than 2--I always have to make things difficult!).

Here's our final recipe (though I reserve the right to decide I like a different recipe even better sometime in the future). As Shuna says, Dutch babies are very forgiving, so play around with the recipe! Next I get to try using less ordinary ingredients, like almond extract and buckwheat flour! (But first a brief waffle excursion in preparation for an upcoming coworker ski trip)

---

Caitlin's Basic Dutch Baby Recipe
(makes 2 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 T white sugar
• 1/8 t salt
• pinch of cinnamon
• 2-3 extra-large eggs (2 for Patrick-style, 3 for Caitlin-style)
• 1/2 c milk (we use 1%)
• 1/8 t vanilla extract
• 1 T unsalted butter

1. Place shelf in the lower third of the oven. Preheat two 6-inch cast iron skillets at 425F (or double the recipe and use a 12-inch skillet).
2. Stir together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon) in a medium bowl.
3. Whisk together wet ingredients (eggs, milk, vanilla) in a measuring cup.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and blend (I use a stick blender) until no dry pockets remain.
5. Split the butter between the preheated skillets, and let melt for ~1 minute in the oven. Swirl the skillets to distribute butter.
6. Pour half of the batter into each skillet and bake for 20-25 minutes. Watch through the oven door as the pancakes puff up majestically!
7. Remove skillets from oven, transfer pancakes to plates, and serve immediately, sprinkled with powdered sugar with lemon wedges on the side.

Recent meal roundup:

Farro Minestrone with Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, and Chestnuts with Buttermilk-Dill Rolls from the freezer. The soup was pretty good, though a little strange. I love the chewy texture of the farro (spelt) and the sweetness of the squash and chestnuts. Not bad!

Pasta alla Amatriciana with Fresh Egg Pasta, accompanied by a spinach salad with bosc pear, shallots, and blood orange-honey-mustard dressing (based on this recipe). My boss lent me her KitchenAid pasta maker attachment, and I was excited to make fresh pasta. Using the pasta maker was a little tough starting out, because the dough was too moist, and it all stuck together as it was extruded. After I added a little more flour, it was easier, though it still stuck together a little bit. When we had pasta alla amatriciana in Italy, it was served with bucatini (thick, hollow spaghetti). I figured maybe if I made long macaroni noodles, it would be similar. But it turned out to be too much pasta. Macaroni is short for a reason. The sauce was good though.

Lentil-Chestnut Soup with Multigrain Pancakes (to celebrate Pancake Day!) and roasted cauliflower. The soup was still good, and I really enjoyed the pancakes! The secret is using ground up muesli in place of some of the flour. They were sweet and nutty, and I am very happy to have some more pancakes waiting in our freezer for a rainy day. Yum!

Pork and Stir-Fried Vegetables with Spicy Asian Sauce with brown rice and Ginger-Garlic Broccoli. The stir-fry was pretty good, though not great. I liked the ginger and garlic flavors with the broccoli, but 10 minutes was way too long to cook it. Even though I stopped cooking it early, it was still kind of mushy. Maybe broccolini takes longer to cook than broccoli.

Fresh Egg Pasta (fettucine this time; much better) with Classic Bolognese Sauce and an arugula, fennel, and parmesan salad. Apparently ragus are in at the moment. Although it took 4 hours to cook, most of that was unattended stove time, and it tasted just like I'd expected it to. Cook's Illustrated comes through again. It was a good dinner.

And for dessert--Chocolate Pudding made with a mix of whole milk and 1% milk. I used a beautiful brick of Callebaut semisweet chocolate. I kind of just wanted to gnaw at the chocolate and forget the pudding, but I'm glad I didn't. It was gooood pudding. My only mistake was that I didn't cover it with plastic wrap because I like pudding skin. But the skin that formed wasn't very good. It wasn't as thin and uniform as Jello pudding skin. Oh well!

I made a batch of White Chili to take for lunch this week, along with some Chipotle Cornbread sprinkled with pepitas. It wasn't as good as regular chili, but at least it was healthy!

Our latest dinner was quite enjoyable--meatloaf sandwiches with homemade challah (similar to this recipe, but from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook) and Barbecued Meatloaf with mayo, melted Bellwether Farms Carmody cheese, and caramelized onions; accompanied by a salad of fennel, red onions, parmesan, and Phat Beets, which sadly did not taste as good as I'd hoped. I liked the jar label though.

The meatloaf was fine (it generated a lot of liquids while it was cooking, but it was still pretty moist after draining); the challah was great, if I do say so myself. I'm sad we don't have any leftover for French toast. I'll have to make more sometime soon.

P.S. Music and Lyrics was better than Because I Said So. Perhaps I have earned back a little of my chick flick credibility with Patrick now.

We celebrated Valentine's Day a few weeks ago with an evening out in the South Bay. We got some free tickets to Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night at the SJ Rep, which turned out to be one long, depressing play (the fact that it was described as heartrending and searing kind of tipped us off ahead of time). It was well-performed, but I think we would've enjoyed a more upbeat show. We had to leave a few minutes before it ended to make it to our dinner reservation on time, which made me feel kind of bad. Hopefully nobody took our early exit the wrong way.

We drove on down to Los Gatos, where we had a dinner reservation at Manresa (Tree, their logo looks awfully familiar! They totally ripped you off!). This was our first visit, and based on reviews by internet food celebrities (not to mention those two Michelin stars), I was looking forward to it!

We had some trouble finding it, but once we did, everything went smoothly. The hostess was very nice, as was our waitress. A group near us seemed to be a little drunk and was being loud, but other than that, it was a very nice atmosphere. The older couple sitting next to us must have been important, because the chef sent them extra food (which we didn't get, sadly--I was really looking forward to getting the baba au rhum in a jar for dessert, but it wasn't part of our lineup) and invited them to tour the kitchen after their meal. There was a little kid (maybe 9 years old) at another table. It's such a nice restaurant that I bet they put something nice together for him so he wouldn't feel left out.

We went all out and got the chef's tasting menu. So many courses! Needless to say, they were all awesome. I didn't take any pictures, but other people have.

1. Tiny red bell pepper pate de fruit and black olive madeleine - These were yummy! A good combination of sweet and savory flavors, with complimentary textures. Even Patrick liked them, and he hates olives.
2. Winter croquette filled with foie gras and chestnut - We were instructed to eat these in one bite. Patrick likened them to Gushers fruit snacks. Tasty and surprising!
3. Oyster in a sea urchin gelee - We weren't sure whether to slurp this or use the teeny utensils that accompanied it (we got new utensils with every course, many of them very small and endearing).
4. Foie gras royale with layers of custard, turnip soup, and apple infusion
5. The famous soft cooked egg with sherry vinegar cream and maple syrup - This is one of the chef's signature dishes, and for good reason--it was yummy! One of my favorite dishes of the night.
6. Wood-grilled foie gras with apple puree and quince consomme - Our first non-amuse-bouche. At this point, we were feeling a little foie gras overload. Luckily, this was the last foie gras of the night. I guess you're not supposed to complain about eating too much foie gras.
7. Sashimi-style sea breem
8. Monterey Bay spot prawns with exotic Indian spices - We were presented with full prawn halves, head and all, with what we believe was the roe still attached. We weren't sure if we should eat the roe or not. It didn't separate from the shell very well, so we left it. The exotic spices complimented the prawn meat very nicely.
9. Monterey Bay abalone with cauliflower and anchovy - I was excited to have another chance to try abalone, but once again I was underwhelmed. Our waitress said it was her favorite dish, but I didn't agree. Oh well, it's better for us if I don't like abalone, since it's so expensive. I just keep thinking that since it comes in such a pretty shell, it must be delicious!
10. Black cod with roasted meat juice
11. Suckling pig confit, boudin noir, and a tuille of chocolate chile - I actually thought Suppenkuche did a better suckling pig, though this was delicious too. We were both a little wary of eating blood sausage (boudin noir), but it was fine. Not my favorite sausage ever. I liked the tuille though.
12. Milk-fed veal on black trumpet mushroom puree with green garlic - As with the other entrees, this was very good, but overall the amuse bouches were more exciting and innovative, in my opinion.
13. Citrus salad with candied rhubarb and citrus granita - A delicious palate cleanser. It was nice to have something sweet and light after all the meaty dishes.
14. Mini Belgian waffle, bananas in passionfruit syrup, condensed milk ice cream - The waffles, bananas, and ice cream were great. I was less taken with the passionfruit syrup.
15. Rocky road parfait topped with housemade marshmallow - This was awesome. There was a hidden nugget of nut-studded chocolate in the middle of the layers of chocolate mousse and marshmallow. Halfway through this dessert, it finally struck me how full I was. This was one of my favorite courses though.
16. Strawberry pate de fruit with chocolate madeleine - I liked how the meal began and ended with a gelee and a madeleine, but with very different flavors. So clever!

I definitely liked the amuse bouches and desserts the best. I think it's hard to make main dishes exciting for me. It was all delicious and super-high-quality. I think it was worth the price, but after eating at Manresa, I felt like I'd had enough decadent super-fancy restaurant meals for awhile (this could have been exacerbated by our five-day-long fancy restaurant extravaganza in Portland the week prior). It almost made me not want to go to the French Laundry because the French Laundry costs even more, and I think I'd inevitably be disappointed in the meal. Even though our meal at Manresa was awesome and creative and flawless, I felt a little disappointed by it too, just because we were paying so much money. Judging by my experiences at Chez TJ and Manresa, when we pay so much money for a meal, I'm bound to be a little disappointed no matter how great it is or how many courses we get. I just wasn't enchanted by the experience at either restaurant, and for that much money, I think I should be. Perhaps that is expecting too much. And really, on a price-per-dish basis, Manresa is a bargain :)

Anyway, it was a great special occasion meal (we're so lucky to be able to splurge like this every so often), and I would gladly go back if we weren't paying, but I think I've had my fill of Michelin-starred restaurants for the time being. I don't think I'm able to fully appreciate them yet. Maybe in a few years I'll have a better appreciation for super-upscale places. Right now, I prefer restaurants that are more laid back and cozy with an emphasis on local ingredients (and we certainly have plenty of those kinds of restaurants around here). Of course, the most important thing is being able to spend time with Patrick, no matter what we're eating.

Sunday, February 11

Sunday was our last day in Portland. We took the bus up to the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood (NE Fremont St) for brunch at Bumblekiss, a relatively new restaurant. The restaurant is located in a small house painted in a bright orange-yellow (cheddar orange, as this review describes it). A signboard outside advertised the day's specials, which included white chocolate-cherry French toast. Patrick was excited! There were only ten or so tables, and not much of a waiting area, so we stood awkwardly near the door for about 20 minutes waiting for a seat. We didn't mind though; it was such a cute little restaurant, full of happy families.

The menu had so many exciting choices that it was hard deciding what to get! I liked the fact that many of their combos included small portions of baked goods and egg-based dishes (like pancakes and a cheddar scramble). I like that better than a big stack of pancakes and nothing else. Sadly, we overheard the waitress (pictured in the lukewarm review linked to above) saying that they were out of the special French toast. Bummer. Patrick opted for their normal cinnamon-swirl French toast (with a feta-spinach scramble on the side), and I got the Plain Jane (a highly customizable combo with a little bit of everything--I got 7-grain toast, scrambled eggs, chicken-apple sausage, and potatoes). I also ordered a lavender-coconut mini muffin to start, because who can resist mini muffins?

Although the muffin liner was practically welded to the muffin, I loved it (a little paper doesn't hurt anybody). It was sweet and dense and satisfying. Sadly, we watched the waitress mistakenly deliver our order to a couple who had shown up after us and ordered something very similar. They looked confused, and we should've spoken up, but that's kind of an awkward situation to be in--what if it really was their food? Instead, we kept quiet and waited for somebody to realize the mistake. Finally, the other couple (after eating some of the food so that the plates couldn't simply be exchanged) called the waitress back over and told her the food was wrong. The kitchen rushed to remake everything, and our waitress apologized to both parties and brought complimentary mini muffins to make up for the mistake (yay, another lavender-coconut muffin as well as a liner-free blueberry muffin!). She seemed nervous around us for the rest of our meal, which was unnecessary, as we didn't mind the mix-up once we got our food.

While we were waiting for our food, we overheard the woman next to us talking about her meal at Screendoor the night before. She had the special--fried chicken with sweet potato waffles. Mmm, that sounds so good! Patrick shot me the look of death for making him miss chicken and waffles in favor of going to Simpatica (he wasn't serious; we both loved Simpatica). Our food arrived, and it was very good, especially the French toast. They make it with cinnamon-swirl bread. I had been wondering how they would make the special white chocolate-cherry French toast, and my guess is that they made white chocolate-cherry bread, and that's why they ran out of the special--when you're out of special bread, there's not much you can do in a pinch!

Despite the small mistakes, I really liked our meal at Bumblekiss. It's a charming little restaurant, and it has so many delicious breakfast choices that I'm willing to overlook small problems. If we lived in the neighborhood, I'd definitely go there for brunch a lot.

We walked down Fremont St for a little bit, passing Wall Beds of Oregon. Portland seems to have way more specialty stores than we do around here. During our visits, we noticed the wall bed place, as well as a Globe meat slicer store on Division (or was it Hawthorne?), and the Oregon Artifical Limb Co. on NE 7th. I guess that's what it's like in a city. Something for everyone!

We walked back down Fremont to the bus stop and hung out at Ristretto Roasters until the bus came. I had a cup of tea (with a cute blue cast iron teapot), and Patrick had some good chai. A guy from clarklewis stopped by to pick up some coffee for the restaurant while we were there. Exciting! I love the spirit of cooperation and the support of local merchants that's so common in Portland.

Next, we rode the bus down south to the Reed College neighborhood. I didn't have any restaurants on my list in that area (except for Delta Cafe, which was closed), so we just looked around and walked down Woodstock for a little bit. It wasn't a very exciting neighborhood, and we ended up getting slices of pizza for lunch at Pizza Roma. It was a perfectly fine pizza place, but we both felt like if we were going to have pizza for lunch, we should've gone to Hot Lips! Oh well. One dud meal in five days isn't bad at all!

We rode the bus back to Bluebird Guesthouse, grabbed our bags (they kindly let us stash our stuff there after we checked out in the morning), and headed to the airport. It was time to get back to our normal lives (which are awesome in their own right, but it's hard for real life to compete with vacation).

As you probably divined from my entries about our trip, we loved Portland, even in the winter. It has quite a few charming neighborhoods that we would be happy to live in; tons of awesome restaurants; great outdoor activities; and a general attitude toward life that I think we can get on board with. It's not perfect, of course. There's the weather (it's possible we could learn to love it--rainy days hold their own charm--but it's also possible we'd get really sick of it), and some aspects of big city life aren't so nice (some of the bus-riding population, for instance). Another possible issue is finding employment in Portland (and making enough money to maintain the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed). Portland has a big enough computer industry that I think Patrick will be able to find a job (he might even be able to stay with his current employer, if we're lucky), but Portland's biotech/pharmaceutical industry seems pretty non-existent. Not many places can compete with the Bay Area in terms of career opportunities and weather, but we certainly pay for it. Also, we should probably live someplace other than California at some point in our lives, for variety's sake.

The next Portland-related item on my to-do list is looking into career options (not a fun task). Patrick's in charge of looking at the housing market (we wouldn't be buying right away, but one of the main reasons we would move is so that we could buy a house within the next few years). We've both been pretty slow getting to these next items, because even though we really like Portland, we're comfortable and happy here in the Bay Area, and making big life changes is hard (I love my job--how will I find another job as good as this one?). We'll see how things work out. We won't be going anywhere until September at the earliest, since that's when our apartment lease is up.

Saturday, February 10

On Saturday, we walked up to Wild Abandon on Belmont for brunch (and passed this cool superhero garage on our way). I had enjoyed my breakfast there on our last visit, and Patrick wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Since it wasn't exactly patio weather, we were seated inside. The interior of the restaurant felt cozy and was decorated in dark, rich colors. I especially liked their mismatched jewel-toned lamp shades. Once again, it felt very unpretentious and welcoming. Just a good place to enjoy a good breakfast.

I had the Benedict Abandon (eggs benedict with salmon and capers instead of Canadian bacon), and Patrick had the pancake special--banana walnut pancakes. Both were yummy. (I noticed that quite a few of our Portland breakfast plates were garnished with grapefruit slices instead of orange slices. I like it!) I maintain my original assertion--Wild Abandon is an all-around good restaurant. I hope they continue to do well.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about Wild Abandon was the neighborhood. After brunch, we waited at the bus stop down Belmont for about half an hour. It was across the street from an unmarked building that turned out to be a drug rehab clinic, and it was depressing to see all of the people standing around smoking and towing oxygen tanks and stuff. Quite a few women from the clinic rode the bus downtown, and they were talking about people they knew who had died of drug overdoses recently. Kind of a downer.

Once downtown (where I noticed two intriguing crafty stores next to the bus stop--Knit/Purl and Josephine's Dry Goods), we switched to the streetcar, which we took to the brand new Portland Aerial Tram! The tram was giving free rides all day Saturday, and there was a big line of people (mostly parents and kids) eager to ride it. Better than Disneyland!

The line moved pretty quickly, and soon we boarded a tram car along with ~30 other people. We were packed in pretty tightly, but it wasn't too bad. The ride was only about 3 minutes long, and the nice cabin attendant pointed out points of interest and warned us about the steep dip that occurred as we went over the middle support (the dip was the best part of the ride--everybody squealed with excitement as we swooped downward). We disembarked at the OHSU upper campus and relaxed in their nice sitting area for a little bit. Then it was back on the tram for the ride down to the South Waterfront. If we move, I should get a job at OHSU so I can ride the tram all the time! On the return trip, there was an OHSU employee in a white lab coat who got to cut in front of everybody else in line. Sweet!

We took the streetcar back downtown. There seemed to be a lot of dads and children out and about that day. We went to Mother's Bistro for lunch. I was very impressed with the decor--lots of chandeliers, fancy framed mirrors, brick walls, luxurious black and gold wallpaper, and classy celadon-on-cream stripes. I want a room decorated just like that in our imaginary house.

It was busy, and our waitress seemed a little distracted, but it wasn't a big deal. We split a plate of pierogies (yum!) and had some decent sandwiches (chicken salad for Patrick, tuna salad with roasted red pepper soup for me). I considered getting the mac and cheese instead of a sandwich, but it seemed too indulgent on that particular day. I'll have to go back and try it some other time.

It had turned cold and rainy, so we walked around Powell's some more, and then took shelter in Pearl Bakery again. We took our sweet time eating our ginger cookie (yum!) and hot cocoa (a little bland), trying to decide what to do next. We had originally planned to explore the Japanese Garden, but the weather made me want to stay indoors.

We ended up returning to the warmth and comfort of Bluebird Guesthouse, where we lounged around and drank some tea. Come dinnertime, we took the bus up to the industrial area near the Hawthorne Bridge for our meal at clarklewis.

Although I think I prefer cozy, laid-back restaurants, I appreciated clarklewis' industrial-chic design. It was, as others have noted, very dark inside, and it was hard to read the menu. We were seated near the entrance to the restaurant, next to a bank of windows lined with candles (they were actually like garage doors made of glass, and I'm guessing they could be rolled up in nicer weather). The waiters were very unobtrusive. Coupled with the candlelit setting, I could see it being a good restaurant for a romantic date, though it felt a little cold and impersonal (I guess building a restaurant inside a warehouse can have that effect). We had a good view of the open kitchen from our table. The chefs, in their orange shirts, were very much on display. Although it was fun to watch them work, it made me realize just how much butter goes into food at restaurants. Oh well, we were on vacation! In that spirit, we decided to get the chef's tasting menu.

Patrick had a pear sidecar made with pear brandy from Clear Creek Distillery (a small Portland-based company), cointreau, and Meyer lemon juice. I'm not much for alcohol, but it was good! Very intense pear flavor. Because we went with the tasting menu, we got to try a bunch of dishes for each course, which was great. We had (reproduced as best as possible from my scribbled notes on the back of a receipt--man, it's tough knowing which words to capitalize when describing a dish; no wonder clarklewis does everything in lowercase):

• A passato (soup) of butternut squash with sage and parmesan
• A salad of Bull's Blood beets with cheese, radicchio, blood oranges, and mache
• Puget Sound mussels with salami and wild fennel
• Pasta with Monterey Bay squid, Calabrian chiles, and Basque paprika
• Tagliarini with braised Carleton Farms pork, anchovies, and oil-cured olives
• Seared yellow-fin tuna on a bed of carrots with green olives
• Strawberry Mountain beef tenderloin on a bed of roasted Russet potatoes
• Pistachio cake with Kirsch crema and Amarena cherries

It was a very good meal, in part because we got to try so many different dishes. The food was all delicious, and although the decor wasn't really our style, the variety and quality of the dishes made up for it. I especially liked the soup, the pasta with squid, the beef, and the pistachio cake. I'd definitely go back for a special occasion. The same could be said of many of the other Portland restaurants we visited this time around. We ate very well on this vacation.

Friday, February 9

We had planned to go to Gotham Tavern for breakfast on Friday, but when we arrived (after walking around unwelcoming industrial areas in the cold and damp), it was closed, although there was a sign on the door suggesting that they might be open for brunch on the weekend. Damn!

Luckily, the MAX yellow line stops right next to Gotham Tavern (a fact I wish we'd known when we were trying to get there; the bus route recommended by the TriMet trip planner wasn't very straightforward, and the bus was crammed with obnoxious junior high students on a field trip downtown), so we hopped on and took it a stop north, then walked over to N Mississippi Ave to Gravy, another restaurant I'd earmarked as a breakfast possibility. I'm so glad we ended up going there!

Gravy felt welcoming, hip, and homey. Their menu explained that they believe in repurposing old items (thus their name--gravy is one example of using leftovers to make something great). A lot of the furniture was salvaged, including the tractor seat stools at the bar (pictured below). The curtains in the front window were made of squares from old sweaters, with curtain loops made from old ties. The waitress was wearing a half apron made out of the front of an old pair of jean shorts. The kitchen was separated from the dining area by a large salvaged window, hung from the ceiling (I've seen something similar at two letterpress stores in Portland, and I loved it there too). The walls were hung with cartoony paintings done on pieces of plywood in vibrant colors. It was just so unique and creatively decorated--I loved it! And I haven't even gotten to the food yet!

We were hungry and ordered what we thought was a reasonable amount of food, but we were rather embarrassed by the volume of food that arrived--their portions are generous! Although it was all delicious, we couldn't finish it all, sadly. We split an order of two (huge) biscuits was sausage gravy to start. The gravy was surprisingly orange (delicious sausage drippings, I guess) but so good! I had a bowl of oatmeal brulee with apples and raisins. It was awesome (very sweet, but I like sweet things), but way too much for me to finish, even without the biscuits. I love the idea of oatmeal brulee though; I'll have to remember that.

Patrick had two eggs over easy, sourdough toast, and a side of fry cakes, which turned out to be amazing cinnamon-sugar-coated donut pucks, basically. I keep thinking about how delicious they were. It's probably a good thing we can't get them around here, because they can't be good for us.

The couple at the table next to us seemed to be having a French lesson, and I was tickled pink when the girl spoke rapturously about how she loves the word "gerund." It was just such a nice moment with the food and the decor and the happy customers.

The rest of N Mississippi Ave was just as lovable as Gravy. I don't think I'd want to live there (the surrounding neighborhoods don't seem very exciting at the moment), but I'd definitely take the bus there for breakfast and shopping if we lived in Portland.

We walked around after breakfast and came across Flutter, aptly described as a "delightful disarray of found objects and clutter." I'm not much for clutter, but I loved looking around the store. I considered buying a set of cute flowered teacups and saucers, but the prospect of carrying them around with us and getting them home was daunting. Too bad! While we were there, a girl came in and bought one of the mounted deer heads hanging on the wall. Apparently this particular deer head was famous, as it was featured in a recent Flutter photo shoot. For a brief moment, I, too, wanted to own a famous deer head. How silly is that? (it would've been even harder getting that home!) That store charmed me, I'm telling you!

A little further down Mississippi was Pistils (see, olive and rust are all the rage right now!), a super-cute nursery with a smattering of home goods and gifts thrown in for good measure (we succumbed and bought a cute little framed drawing of a rooster by a local artist. It's now hanging in our kitchen). They had a selection of plants out back, including a pretty tree that turned out to be a eucalyptus camphora. While there, we learned that it is legal to have up to three chickens per person in Portland (yay, fresh eggs! So exciting!). I do believe we'll take advantage of that if we live there. Not only that, Pistils sells baby chicks and offers classes in chicken-rearing. Eee!

We stopped briefly at a very nice comic book store and two nice clothing stores chock full of stuff I'd love to wear. And at the end of the street was a beautiful, imposing building (with molded benches similar to those at People's Coop), which turned out to be the Rebuilding Center. If we were building or improving a house (and had a lot of time to do things exactly right), I'd totally go there. They had aisles and aisles of old things--screen doors, window frames, etc. They even had an aisle of art made using repurposed items (like picture frames made from old barn wood). Awesome. I believe N Mississippi was my favorite street in Portland (at least in terms of the ratio of street length to awesome store content).

Next, we walked up N Williams, which turned out to be unexciting. There was one block with a nice-looking restaurant and Lark Press and another Pix Patisserie branch a little further down, but not much else at the moment. Overall, it wasn't a very inviting street, with quite a few dilapidated and boarded up homes, but I guess that's just part of the cycle of growth in a city. Not everything can be cute and gentrified and Caitlin-friendly.

We continued walking until we got to NE Alberta St, which is reputed to be an artsy, creative kind of neighborhood. It's another street that I would definitely visit for a day of shopping, but it didn't feel as comfortable as SE Portland. We stopped at Random Order for a pear soda and a bathroom break (their bathroom door had issues, and both of us almost got stuck inside the bathroom, but it all worked out okay). It seemed like a nice little cafe. I like the ostrich logo!

Tumbleweed was on my to-visit list, and they had some cute dresses on display (and a "wear more dresses" sign--I wish I could in my line of work!), as well as pretty curtained-off dressing areas. However, the store reeked of varnish, so we just did a quick lap and went back outside. I guess we picked a bad day to visit.

A few blocks down were the two Alberta St. stores that I was most looking forward to visiting--Bolt (fabric store) and Close Knit (yarn store). They didn't disappoint. They were totally cute and carried beautiful products (Amy Butler fabrics! Yay!). I could spend a long time browsing in either store. Beautiful!

Patrick took all of the shopping in stride. What a guy! He even sat around PedX while I admired all of their ballet flats and mary janes (I was drawn in by these shoes in the window). Usually I only like a few shoes at a given store, but this one had my number, yessir. I was strong and didn't buy anything. I was also tempted by the screen-printed bicycle baby onesies at Red Bird Studio, but I didn't buy anything there either. They had a store cat, by the way. More stores should have pets! I guess that wouldn't be very nice for people with allergies, but those of us who are pet-deprived would appreciate it.

Next, we rode the bus for a bit and then walked down NE 28th Ave, back to Burnside (which is where we had stopped the day before). We stopped at Staccato Gelato, where we had a Prince of Darkness donut (made fresh on the premises!) and a cup of honey-lavender and chocolate-cherry gelato, both yummy. As we enjoyed our snack, the shop was overrun by kids from the nearby arts magnet school (middle schoolers, by the look of it). They were more fashionable than I'll ever be (in fact, that's true of most of Portland's population). But I'm happy to be me and not them, all the same.

We decided to see a movie, and to kill time until it started we returned to Crema and shared a slice of pumpkin bread and a cup of strong Urban Assault hot chocolate. The hot chocolate wasn't my favorite, but the pumpkin bread was very good.

Next was a late afternoon screening of Stranger Than Fiction at the Laurelhurst Theater (one of the many theaters at which you can buy beer in Portland--ingenious!). Patrick enjoyed a Rogue hazelnut brown beer, and we both enjoyed the movie. Ah, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

One of the restaurants on my list, Screendoor, was near the theater, so we walked by. The menu looked really good, but we already had dinner reservations at Simpatica Dining Hall, and there was no way we were going to miss that!

We took the bus over to Simpatica and arrived a little early. When I made the reservation, they said we could arrive anytime after 6:30 (dinner starts at 7:30), but I guess they didn't really expect anyone to take them up on it. When we got there, there weren't any signs out front, but there was a man (who turned out to be one of the head chefs) grilling something that smelled delicious on a big wheeled barbecue, so we figured we must be in the right place. They opened the doors to us shortly after, and we were seated.

The dining room was located in the basement of the building. From our seats, we could see into the kitchen, where various hunks of cured meat were suspended from the ceiling. We were seated across from each other in the middle of a long table, and we were prepared to talk to our tablemates, but they mostly kept to themselves. Everybody seemed nice though. The service was pleasant, and the food was awesome. The delicious smoky smells emanating from the kitchen suggested we were in for a treat, and we were not disappointed.

Before the meal started, the chefs came out and talked about the different courses and where the foods came from. How great is that? And then we settled in for the meal. It was served at a relaxed pace, which was fine with us, though the chairs were pretty uncomfortable after 3 hours of sitting. Not a big deal, since the food was delicious. Here's what we ate:

• Risotto fritters with melty, cheesy centers


• Salad of Singing Pig Winter Greens with Ossau Iraty (a semi-soft sheep's milk cheese) and Grilled Bread. The greens were fresh, and the cheese-bread combo was delicious.


• Cattail Creek Lamb Merguez Sausages with Honey Onions and Parsley Potato Pancakes. It was all yummy, especially the onions.


• Cedar Plank Sturgeon with Creamy Fregola (kind of an upscale mac and cheese) and Brussels Sprouts. This course was served family-style and was a hit with everyone. The sturgeon was imbued with an amazing smokiness from the cedar planks (upon which it was served--these were some hefty planks!), and the sides were just as good as the fish. Man, I could go for some of that fregola right now. And some brussels sprouts too. Mmm...


• Chocolate Hazelnut Meringata, accompanied by tea and coffee (cow creamers!). This dessert was light and satisfying. Hazelnut and chocolate go so well together.

We ate at so many great restaurants on our visit to Portland that it's hard to choose favorites, but our dinner at Simpatica was definitely among the best, especially for the price! I felt honored to be able to partake in the meal. It felt more like a large dinner party than a restaurant.

After waiting around in the rainy cold for almost an hour, we caught the last bus of the night back to Division St. It was nice to come back to our warm cozy room at the guesthouse. It was another good day in Portland.