MEET THE PARENTS

In the lyrics to Beautiful Boy, John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”  Yesterday, the heat having derailed my plans for yard work damage control, Husband and I made plans to escape the heat by going to see Inglorius Basterds in the middle of the afternoon, and after have dinner at a nearby cafe.  Then the phone rang….

Jen called to invite us to the beach for a cook out to celebrate SG’s birthday and to meet SG’s parents.  We would meet at Jen’s at 3pm and caravan to the 13th Street Beach at Carmel.  Truth be told, we weren’t feeling particularly energetic and the thought of leaving for a party almost 2 hrs away at 3pm made me kind of tired to think about it.  However.  We hadn’t been to the beach in a long, long time and we did want to meet SG’s folks.

Taking all the gear for cooking tacos (carne asada and grilled veggies) to the beach is a prodigious effort, not to mention the boogie boards and surfboard and chairs and towels and, well, you get the picture.  The overflow from Jen’s van spilled into our Honda, we picked up the girls and a little friend at the friend’s house, doubled back to pick up the forgotten table and headed out.

Carmel is such a quaint little village; no house numbers, not a curb in sight on any of the narrow streets, fairytale houses nestled in what is really a woodland.   All this right on the beach.  Parking is something of a challenge and luckily for them, they found a spot along the street right by the stairs.  Husband and I drove around a bit finally settling for a place all of 4′ from a fireplug directly across the street from Jen’s van.  Several trips down the stairs finally deposited all the gear on the sand.  The weather could not have been more perfect, but the waves were too rough for boogie or surf boards.  The girls dug in the sand and  ran along the edge of the waves screaming  like, well, little girls.

SG cooked the meat, the veggies, chopped tomatoes and avocados and warmed the beans, warmed the tortillas and we all ate chips and salsa (red and green) and watched.  Jen helped and herded kids.  We basically sat and watched the waves and basked in the sun.  SG’s parents arrived with Spencer the Jack Russell terrier and some wood for a bonfire.

Really nice folks and SG and his dad are totally look alikes.  The old folks sat and visited and we all ate lots and lots.  I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of these people and that’s a good thing.

We sat around the bonfire for awhile while the kids roasted marshmallows for s’mores and then, fearful of turning into pumpkins, decided we should head home since it was after 9pm.  We haven’t been up so late in a LONG time!  Cait even called while we were on the way home to see where we were!

It’s really great that Jen and SG work so hard together and I hope the kids appreciate the time and trouble they go to so they will have a good time and lots of good memories of their childhood.  They make me tired watching them.  They are going to Hawaii for a week or so this weekend.  Good. For. Them.  They both work so hard and deserve to have some time to just lay around and do what only they want when they want to.  Both sets of parents are really proud of them.

NEAR MISS

Husband emailed me at work late last week to tell me that our TiVo was concking (that’s a term of art, doncha know?) out about every hour.  It would just say ‘bye now’ and then reboot.  This is so not good.

We are a TiVo family.  We have stock purchased in the initial offering (which will probably always be under water), we bought the first box with lifetime service – which we passed on to Jason & Staci and then got them a new one when we got an offer from TiVo to ‘upgrade’ the ancient version with accompanying lifetime service.  We’ve got an old box in the closet in the den and a DirecTV/TiVo HD Series 2 currently.  TiVo and DirecTV parted ways for awhile but I have it on good authority (Ashley works for TiVo – I work for the wife of the inventor) that a new box will be out next year.

So, Husband calls DirecTV and this, in itself, is indicative of how important this little gadget is to him.  HE called them.  On his own.  The service guy said, well, you can try this:  completely reset the whole thing – delete and start from scratch.  Gasp!  So drastic!  So, we tried something a little less frightening.  We just went through and deleted all the crap.  You know what I mean, specials from 3 years ago that you’ve never watched again, the PBS special on the making of Duets with Tony Bennett and all the singers who sang with him on that CD, last year’s Olympics.  Hundreds of Cait’s Roseanne’s – well there would be hundreds if it were up to her.  I can’t explain it – I’ve done the best I know how to infuse some actual culture into that kid.  Dragged her to museums, etc.  Digression here.

After the housecleaning, our darling is back to its old self – working away and delivering us from commercials and offering up what we want to watch when WE want to watch it.  Boinking at us with its silly little voice – which I laid in bed and listened to that night as it was clear it was going to survive and smiled as Cait navigated through probably what was left of the Roseanne episodes. I can’t tell you how relieved we are.  One of the options was that DirecTV would send us a replacement (fake) box with their DVR.  Oh. No. This would never do. So, hooray for our best friend and loved family  member for making a comeback from what we were afraid was its deathbed.  THIS, I would put on life support if it kept working.  I want my MTV TiVo.  The real one.  Not a fake.

THE WAY TO A MAN’S HEART….

is really through his stomach.  Really.  Case in point:  Paul Childs.  Husband and I went to see Julie & Julia Sunday afternoon.

I remember Julia Childs from The French Chef.  Growing up, I thought she was just weird.  I grew up in Texas, so I was food challenged, to say the least.  My mother cooked only what my picky-eater father would eat (stomach=heart).  Red meat.  Five nights a week, we had broiled steak, buttered potatoes and maybe something green like green beans or peas, or in the summer, sliced tomatoes.  The butcher delivered club steaks to our house: five packages of 3 steaks each.  Weekends were fried steak w/cream gravy, meatloaf, roast, smothered steak, mother’s goulash (really pretty damn good) or, in the winter, beef stew.  The very occasional fried chicken.  When faced with an artichoke in my late teens, I didn’t know what to do with it.  I was 16 before I ate asparagus and that was also the year the first pizza place opened in our town.  My mother and I went – my father having served in WWII in Italy, apparently scorned all food Italian, particularly garlic – I know, I know – certifiably insane.   I scalded the roof of my mouth with hot cheese in my eagerness to eat something so different that smelled so divine.

I heard about the Julie Powell blog but never followed it.  Having had a cursory glance at Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I thought she was a crazy masochist.  I mean, some of the recipes are more than one page long!  To this day, it’s hard for me to cook something that takes more than about an hour to put together, and having become a vegetarian in my 30s, was not interested in deboning a duck.  Although, to my credit, I did one Thanksgiving prepare a turkey that I deboned and stuffed.  That might have contributed in no small part to my eventual conversion to the joys of a plant-based diet.  That, and the voices in my head.  ahem.

But, as usual, I digress.  I read My Life in France when it came out and Loved It.  What’s not to love?  I read Julie & Julia and loved the Julia parts.  Julie?  Not so much.  I was excited when I heard they were making the movie, tho!  And, like the rest of foodie Californians, eagerly awaited its release.

So, Sunday afternoon, waiting in line.  Watching the previous audience stream out of the theatre.  Struck by the number of really old people…….really old mothers and daughters who were only just old.  Like me.  Old couples, like us.  Some younger folk, as well.  But, really, mostly old folk.  Even Husband remarked about it.

So, this is not a spoiler – just the first scene of the movie.  A big old Buick roadster stationwagon is being unloaded on the dock and I’m taken right back to My Life in France.  Where we get to linger for an all too brief stay.

I just want to say that I freakin’ loved this movie!  Meryl Streep positively channels Julia Child.  It’s like when you see Meryl, you are really seeing Julia.  Awards will be bestowed.  Stanley Tucci is perfect.  Jane Lynch as Dor(othy) was stellar.  Nora Ephron can really make a movie.  This is about food.  Really.  But it’s also a wonderful love story – a truly wonderful LOVE STORY.  Made me cry several times from the sheer tenderness of it – the Julia parts.  The Julie parts – well,  I did find her to be a more sympathetic character in the movie than in the book and her husband really was/is a saint.  I would like to see it again.  So, if you need company, let me know!  If you don’t bawl like a baby at the last scene, you are one of the walking dead.

“Previews of Coming Attractions” Oh, and Hilary Swank is playing Amelia Earhart -  coming soon!  Whatever that means.  2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months?  What?  Just tell me already!  They really need to make a movie of the book West With the Night!  Now, there was a woman!  Beryl Markham.  Awesome book.

FOODIE HEAVEN

Husband and I had not been to the Ferry Building for a long time – not since the Annie Liebovitz exhibit at the Palace of Fine Arts.  I emailed him from work and asked if he would think about going on the weekend and he emailed back and said he would not only think about it, but he would agree to go!  So, hooray!  I asked work folk if they’d like something and came home with a list of McEvoy Olive Oil, Blue Bottle Coffee and June Taylor flavored syrups.

There is an enormous farmer’s market around the Ferry Building on Saturday and the good news is that half of northern CA shows up to support their local farmers and ranchers….and the bad news is half of northern CA shows up.  Of all the places we go in the City, getting to the Ferry Building is by far the easiest – 280 to King to Embarcadero.  Park and walk a block.  Here are some photos of the “approach,” most interesting, the Bay Bridge.

I forget how really huge the bridge is – I don’t see it that often and have only been on it a few times.  I think I read somewhere that it’s 7 miles long and it’s a double-decker, connecting the City with Oakland.  The 89 earthquake collapsed a section of the bridge and one car was stuck right on the end of the section that collapsed.  I thought cars went into the Bay but Husband says he doesn’t think so.

They have been working on the bridge to retrofit it for a long time and over Labor Day weekend, it will be closed.  That kind of huge construction with minute detail amazes me.

The bridge goes out to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the Bay and then to Oakland.  You can’t see Oakland for the fog.  Fog makes everything look mysterious.

Saturday was the warmest day we’ve had in several weeks and in the City, it was perfect!  Not cold, not foggy, not windy!  Everyone was out in sleeveless tops and shorts and enjoying the sun.

The farmer’s market that surrounds the building draws a huge crowd and everyone looks like a pack mule carrying assorted bags and baskets.  We saw a very ingenious carrier – like a golf bag carrier but with a pole sticking out with lots of hooks on each side.  Probably hold 20 or more bags.  Pretty neat.

The clock tower at the building is a kind of landmark.  When the 89 earthquake knocked down a double decked freeway that ran just to the right of the building, the City just removed the whole thing and it made the waterfront on this part of the Bay much more beautiful.  New buildings sprang up and the Ferry Building got a facelift and became a gourmet food location.  It’s really quite a lovely place, particularly on  a weekday when it’s not crammed with people.  There are restaurants and bakeries and mushroom purveyors and olive oil and coffee and gelato and chocolate and fruit and – well you get the idea.  Here’s a sign that makes me laugh!

TASTY SALTED PIG PARTS!  Hahahahaha.  I guess it’s not funny if you are a pig.

I took a LOT of pictures – food is so beautiful.  We saw the largest avocados I’ve ever seen.  They were as big as your hand and I took a picture of one in Husband’s hand so you would believe me.

And, Husband has man hands, so you can see they were whoppers!  The prettiest stand sold peppers.  Every kind, shape, color you can imagine.  I bought a mixed bag of them and wanted to buy some of every kind and then learn how to cook them.  And, I was thinking of all the times I’ve had recipes that called for a particular pepper and I couldn’t find it – would be great to live closer and know you could pop over on a Thursday and pick up whatever you needed.

These are the bags – it’s hard to see them but the little tags are the tops of the bag.  I bought corn and peppers and made a new recipe I made last week.  Corn, green pepper, onion, paprika, cayenne sauteed and then you add frothed up milk and eggs and cook.  The texture is a little odd but it’s sweet and hot and not fattening!  The colored peppers made this batch prettier.

I took too many pictures – I always do.  I’ll show you the macarons, tho, because I do love them.

These are a bit different from the ones at other bakeries because they use a rougher grind of almond flour, I think.  The ones in Paris (and at Santana Row) are smooth and glossy.  These have a heavier texture – like the difference between fine brioche and crusty peasant brown bread – but you know, you take your macarons where you find them!  And, they are tasty!

The mushroom store tempted me sorely but I couldn’t actually spend $30 for dried morels.  I know – worth every penny but I just didn’t.  I like them best fresh in the fall.  I did see a mushroom I’ve never seen before called Lion’s Head.  It’s weird and looks like cauliflower!

Odd, yes?  Well, maybe another time after I look them up.  Right now, we are going to see Julie & Julia and Husband is pacing around waiting for me to finish up.

So, Bon Appetit!

POISON

Lunch with a young associate who works for another firm now and the other paralegal in the office.  I order shrimp and avocado salad.  They order and include a butterscotch bread pudding (scoop of vanilla ice cream) to share.  Grrrr.  And, the place we are eating gives everyone a slice of cheese pizza on the side.  I had the very best intentions – no gluten.  I won’t eat the pizza. (Never mind the episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate the other night that focused on pizza when we almost got in the car and drove to LA to arrive in time for Breakfast pizza!).  I won’t eat the bread pudding. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!

And, of course I did.  And the pizza!  My body does not like gluten.  It tells me in no uncertain terms:  headache, fatigue, fuzzy thinking, sleepy, joint aches, hives on my face, internal combustion, and the general overall feeling that a giant flu bug just beat me up with a big stick.  I ask you, what person in their right mind would eat gluten?  I guess right mind is the clue.

I’ve been reading The End of Overeating in America (let me just say right here, that there is no option to underline in this program – I know book titles are supposed to be underlined – it’s crazy-making for someone like me, but it is what it is) and finding myself described with painful accuracy.  I’m the one that just goes into some kind of trance and eats like there was no tomorrow – not every day – and not enough that I’m severely overweight.  I’m addicted to fat, sugar and salt, just like the rest of America.  The author describes how restaurants and fast food chains lure you in.  The perfect example is buffalo wings.  They come frozen having already once been fried.  That’s 1 layer of fat and 1 of salt.  Then, when prepared, they are fried again.  That’s 2 layers of fat.  When served, they are offered up with ranch dressing or a sweet/sour sauce.  That’s 3 layers of fat, 2 layers of salt and a layer of sugar.

The insidious part is that your body is trained to like that and want that and go out of its way to GET that combination of salt, sugar and fat.  You are in a vicious cycle that’s damn hard to break.

I haven’t gotten to the part of the book that describes how to combat this onslaught………..and wouldn’t you know that another book I ordered arrived just in time to distract me?  Provenance (this word is underlined).  It’s the story of the greatest art con in the world – copies of master artists passed off as originals and accepted by collectors all over the world, including the venerable Tate Museum in London.  I ripped open the box from Amazon and sat right down and started devouring this little gem!  Can’t wait to get back to it tonight!

And, we’re having shrimp with saffron sauce over rice for dinner.  Butter, heavy cream.  Heaven.  Food rectitude will have to wait.

FACE TIME

For Mother’s Day, Cait gave me a gift certificate to the Preston Wynne Spa in Saratoga.  I assumed I would get a massage until I looked at their web site and realized they offered facials.  I’ve never had a facial………heck, I didn’t have a manicure (that I didn’t do myself) until I was 50!  So, I thought I’d give it a try.

I scheduled it for a Friday afternoon and chose an “add on” for eyes called, “Eye Like It.”  The young man who answered the phone and booked my appointment assured me I would look 10 years younger when I was finished……I told him I was holding him to that.

The day arrived and I struck off for Saratoga.  Let me say that I’m not a Saratoga kind of gal……I’m pretty comfortable in Los Gatos, but Saratoga?  not so much.  The shops and restaurants are definitely upscale although there are exceptions.  I found a parking spot and walked to the main street, Big Basin Way.  I was about 15 minutes early, and here’s where my neurotic “be on time or early” tic comes in handy…..I can easily spend that 15 minutes in Saratoga Chocolates!  A girl can never have too many dark chocolate salted caramels, and then there was the chili spice chocolate, the hazelnut, the orange and raspberry…well, you get the idea.  As it turns out, the Spa is right next door to The Plumed Horse, a kind of icon in the local restaurant business – complete with the requisite black Maserati parked in front.  Also in the block is La Fondue, a fondue place.  duh.  The decor of the place was incredibly cheesy before they moved and now cheesy in a different way at the new location.  The menu boasts kobe waygu beef, but then you have to cook it yourself….. but people still head there for special occasions.  The one time I ate there, a friend and I lost a bet and we had to pay.  And, for that very special occasion, a waitress managed to slosh a beer down my back.

The Spa is lovely enough and the staff is very professional.  I confess it’s hard for me to be that still for that long….a good 1 1/2 hour.  There is lovely zen music and a comfortable table on which to recline while wearing a little snap on shorty robe just under your armpits.  There must have been 20 different potions applied and removed, steamed and swabbed and spritzed on my face.  A lot of it got in my hair.  The woman who did all this was raving about my hair cut, so I gave her Michele’s number in Santa Cruz.  I bought the face wash and some eye goop to use at home.  As if it will make any difference.  I asked the woman if there was any way to actually reduce the size of pores.  Nope.  Apparently, exfoliating can make them appear smaller (the caverns don’t look quite so deep if the top layers are removed).  Awesome.  And, there really isn’t anything to be done for the crepe paper that has been substituted for the skin on my hands and arms except slather goo on them and encase them in plastic for a time.  Which just makes them slick.  In fact, when I left I never felt so slick in my life.

Driving home, I cranked up the air conditioner and the CD player with the opera CD in it.  And was glad that my sunglasses are a bit oversized because I had absolutely no make up on and that, let me tell you, is a frightening sight these days.  I had planned to stop by Whole Foods on the way home, but thought I’d spare them.

Was the experience pleasant?  Yes, in a weird sort of “someone waiting on you and slopping goo all over your face,” kind of way.  Will I do it again?  Probably not, but I can at least make an educated choice about it now.  I am, however, going to go for my pedicure appointment now because, people, no one should have gnarly feet if you can help it.  Especially if they are bare in public.  Which mine are because I do love my flip flops and attend a pilates and yoga class twice a week.  And, my feet are about the only part of me that doesn’t look old, so let’s reward them.