32 Above - Life in Monterey County

Official Move Day

2011-01-09T20:52:00.001-08:00

Saturday was the OMD - Official Move Day. My dad and Kyle helped pack up an Explorer, my Mazda, and a baby semi. It all fit! :) They were both so helpful, I definitely couldn't have moved as quickly if it weren't for them. THANK YOU!

The "Big Truck" is so handy LOL. When we got to San Jose, all cars were unloaded and I got to work unpacking. Approximately 5 minutes later I decided I'd rather bake some cupcakes so I gave up.

Nicole, her friend Vanessa, and I made a quick trip to Safeway for eggs and cheesecake filling. Once home, we whipped up some de-lish fudge brownie cupcakes with a cheesecake filling, and cream cheese frosting.

Nicole and I grabbed a couple to bring over to our dad's new place.

Him and Lauretta moved to a beautiful and big new house a mile or so from their old house.

On the menu for dinner: steak, salmon, salad, and veggies. Lauretta prepped the salmon with s+p, lemon, and horseradish on half the filets.

I got to work choping green beans and brussels sprouts, which I roasted in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Before putting them in the oven, I coated them in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, s+p, and other random spices.

Meanwhile, Nicole prepped the salad and sauteed mushrooms, garlic, and 1/2 a red onion on the stove.

Dinner was amazing. It was fun to get involved with the prep this time - usually Nicole and I just show up to a huge feast so we both appreciated getting to help out this time.

After dinner we played Apples to Apples, ate cupcakes, and overdosed on Muddy Buddies haha. Then Katie led us in some drama-club inspired creative dance moves. "Be an orange, be, be, an orange. Peel an orange, peel, peel, an orange..." I loved it.

When Nicole and I got home, our cousin Aaron was there waiting for us! We chatted, told secrets, moved furniture, and then Kyle showed up.

Aaron, Kyle, and I drove to Campbell for Kevin + Kit's "move" party (coincidentally on my move day). After a couple of beers, cupcakes, embarassing story swaps, and a trip to In n Out for Aaron, we called it a night!

Oh, Telephone

2011-01-07T11:55:00.001-08:00

I owe this guy a phone call.

I need to hear about Chicago!!

Also want to catch up with everyone here... I will. Promise.

Aunt Connie's New Year's Wedding

2011-01-07T01:41:00.000-08:00

My mom, sister, and I flew to St. Louis last week for my Aunt Connie's wedding in St. Louis. The whole ceremony was beautiful and it was great to be back with family. My last midwest trip was over 1.5 years ago.

Mia & Sam were the adorable flower girls. So cuuuuute.

New Year's Eve we had the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, then Nicole and I convinced our cousin Jordan to take us to Walgreens to get ice cream. We spent the hours leading up to the countdown chowin down on yummy desserts and spinach and artichoke dip haha. Classico.

This is one of my favorite pictures - great bouquet action going on.

The family, most of it.... no, some of it. We are a big family!

Gotta get a picture of dessert, of course. Wonder what flavor is inside...

Snapped this shot while my mom and I set up some of the candy jars near the card/present table. All of their decorations made me think of Sleeping Beauty's castle at Christmas time. Does that make sense? It wasn't Cinderella castle-like. More medieval?

Nicole, you might not like this picture, but I do.

Dinner was delicious. But I most enjoyed the cake and ice cream! Plain ol' chocolate was a nice change from the "gin + tonic w/ a splash of sprite"'s I was downing.

I wanted to put up a picture of me and my momma and I liked this one the most. Left to right, Aaron's girlfriend, his mom, me, and my mom. At this point I believe I was running on and off the dance floor, a bit in Lauren La La Land aka Trouble Time (La^4 = Tr*Ti). I about had it when someone from the other side of the family rammed their spiky heel into my little toe. Apparently I cried? Nah. I'm sure I held it together and my family is just exaggerating.

This little tyke lasted longer than I did that night. Her and her sis ran up and down the halls, meanwhile I was in a deep dreamy sleep. It really was a great reception - the DJ was perfect.

It made me beyond excited for the August wedding of my cousin Krista and her fiancee Adam!!! Oh gosh I cannot wait!!

A Farm Stand Thanksgiving

2010-12-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Turkey-Day Recap!

Check out this map... You've got Monterey Bay on the left, what is probably Elkhorn Slough up top, and Highway 1 going up the center.
That star-arrow thing in the middle is pointing right at one of the neatest/cheapest/diverse produce stands in the whole entire world: Farm Fresh Produce.
Check out the Price indicator on Yelp. ONE DOLLAR SIGN. That's not a joke! This place is super duper di doooper cheap! Also check out "Hours Today: 6:00 am until 5:30 am" That's not true, because that would mean that they are open for 23 1/2 hours a day. You know what? They are actually open 24 hours a day!
They get new produce around the clock so why not stay open around the clock? Driving from Santa Cruz to Monterey at 3 am and need 10 oranges? Want to get them for a buck? Well this is where you should stop!
My roommate Sarah originally told me about this place and the first time I went I was overwhelmed by all the deals. Now I've got it down to a science... I like to get grapes there, and freeze them for snacking on during the week. I'll also get some apples, plums, and usually an onion.

Before Thanksgiving, I made a booklet of all the dishes I wanted to prepare on turkey day:

1. Seared Brussels Sprouts
2. Orange Cranberry Sauce
3. Alton Brown's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole
4. Honey Glazed Carrots
5. Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms
6. Cornbread and Dutch Crunch Apple Stuffing
7. Pumpkin Pie!!
8. Salad stuff <- but I didn't end up making the salad

I bought my brussels sprouts from the Marina Farmer's Market on Sunday and the rest of my veggies came from Farm Fresh Produce in Moss Landing. Check out my spread:

Orange (#2), Green Beans + Portobello Mushroom + Onion (#3), Parsley + Carrots (#4), Baby Mushrooms (#5), Apple + Onion + Celery (#6), Lettuce + Tomatoes (#8)... Lemons are for beer... MMMMM I love lemon in my beer. Better than orange fo sho.

Yeah... and my total for ALL of that was $12.78 (plus I got a bunch of frozen grapes, not pictured).

Thanksgiving morning David, my mom, my sister Nicole, and I drove at the crack of dawn in the freeeezing San Jose weather to go run the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot!
One of my favorite traditions is running this race with my Mom and Nicole and Aaron, but sadly he couldn't make it this year because he has a girlfriend and she lives in LA area.

We quickly started the race, and finished the race, and grabbed a bunch of freebie snacks - hoping for any sort of warm sun rays (didn't get any though). Instead of sticking around for a while, we jammed back to the car and drove back to my moms.

After showering, I got to work in the kitchen. Timing things is pretty difficult. I was so nervous that it would be 5pm and everyone would be starving with no food ready. With Nicole and Kyle's help, we actually got a lot of the food ready to bake ahead of schedule.

Adding to the list above: the turkey, Kyle's mashed potatoes, Nicole's secret-ingredient banana bread, and my mom's sweet potatoes (favorite dish), we had 5 things that needed oven time.

Luckily, everything finished on time and was warm and delicious. While it sounds kind of corny, Thanksgiving dinner truly was delightful. In attendance: Mom, Nicole, David, his 3 sons: Nathan, Sam, and Ben, David's coworker Doug, family friends Becky, Megan, and Andrew, and good ol' Kyle Dozeman... and myself. After my pumpkin pie slice, Ben brought me a chocolate chip cookie he took home from Starbucks - perfect end to the perfect meal. It was so much fun to spend the day cooking in the kitchen with Nicole and Kyle.

I wish I had more time to make fun, creative meals. Sadly, during the week I just don't feel as motivated to make tricky things for just myself to enjoy. Maybe if I had the "Cooking for One" cookbook I could learn how to spice things up without having to eat leftovers for lunch/dinner 2 or 3 days straight!

"Cooking for One"??? That sounds like a depressing gift. Nobody give it to me out of pity! I will make do until my move to San Jose. Hopefully then I can cook with my mom, Kyle, friends.... any takers for dinner dates??

While there weren't any pictures taken of the Thanksgiving dinner spread, I did take pictures of breakfast the next morning: Apple Walnut Sticky Buns!!

Adapted from a Sandra Lee recipe I saw on a Bake Sale special on the Food Network:

You'll need:
1 Granny Smith apple
1/2 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C brown sugar
2 T. softened butter
1 (8-count) tube of refrigerated cinnamon rolls
1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1 to 2 t. water

Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a 12-count muffin tin a lil' bit.
- Peel/core/dice apple into 1/2-inch cubes
- Stir together diced apples with walnuts and brown sugar.
- Divide apple mixture evenly into 8 of the 12 muffin tin slots.
- Put the 8 cinnamon buns, cinnamon side up, on top of the apple mixture.
- Put the muffin tin on a baking sheet and bake until the tops are golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Put a clean baking sheet on top of the muffin tin and flip to remove the sticky buns.

For glaze:
- In a small bowl, combine the frosting from the cinnamon roll tube with the pumpkin pie spice and 1 to 2 teaspoons of water.
- Mix until very thick and of pourable consistency. Drizzle over buns and serve.

SO YUMMY!

Now let's start thinking about Christmas dinner... I'm thinking Vegetable Parmesan?

Wild Plum Bakery and Cafe

2010-12-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

On Saturday two of my friends from San Jose were in town. Sarah and Brian drove down the night before for their pal's housewarming party. We decided to meet up for lunch and it was my task to find a "cute spot" to blog about! I'm glad Sarah keeps me accountable.

But where to go? Little known sandwich spot? Somewhere on Alvarado? Hit up the municipal wharf?

A few weeks ago, my friend Maren wrote a review of Wild Plum Cafe and Bakery after she had lunch there with her bf Max. I hadn't ever seen the Wild Plum Cafe, hadn't heard about it, but oh man - based on her pictures, I definitely had to file it away in my "gotta try" list. So, when I met up with Sarah and Brian for lunch, the Wild Plum was the place to go!

I'm a big fan of Yelp. I don't really ever write reviews, but I love reading them. Before texting Sarah and Kyle (yep - he met us there) the address, I quickly looked at what Yelpers had to say. Cons: unprofessional, stressed owner, understaffed. Oh Phooey! They don't know anything.

Check out that one ^^ "Yum. Lunch." My thoughts exactly.

Wild Plum Cafe is right behind Denny's (I think) and has a couple of outdoor tables. We went on a rainy day, and were lucky that an inside table opened up right as we walked in the door. Our waiter brought coffee and water as soon as we sat down.
We grabbed our menus but didn't look closely look at them for another 10 minutes or so. Our waiter returned probably once every 2 minutes to see if we were ready to order. That means that we had to apologize about 5 times for not being ready to order. Can you blame us though? We had to catch up!!

So 10 minutes later, we had made the HARD decision and each figured out what we wanted to order. Of course, that's when Kyle walked in and he had about 10 seconds to make his mind up...

I chose the 1/2 sandwich (veggie sandwich) 1/2 salad (sesame chicken) option. So effin good - the bread started crumbling apart, but it was covered in avocado and pesto and who cares if I need to attack my sandwich with a fork? Not me, and not when it's this good!

Brian picked the 1/2 sandwich (grilled chicken sandwich) and 1/2 soup (...soup of the day?). Kyle picked the same sandwich, but the full size. I had a bite and it was warm and cheesy - highly recommend.

Sarah went with the full sesame chicken salad.

Everything was delicious! There were about 5 or 6 things on the menu that I still want to try, so I'll have to come back someday.

MMM food & friends FTW! (I just learned that means For The Win and now I can't stop saying it in my head). We talked about lots of stuff - jobs, challenges facing the educators of America, secret clearances, wedding parties, and... my impending MOVE. Dun Dun Dunnnn... Yup, I decided to move back to San Jose to be closer with the ones I love: family, friends, Jan Hagel, Valley Fair, Orange Leaf frozen yogurt...
As I write this it's easy to see why moving is the right thing for me. I LOVE Monterey. It's a beautiful town, has lots of charm, and is great to explore with people who make you happy. However, I'm a numbers girl, and the numbers point to San Jose. I am eager to be back in a city that has a higher percentage of people I can go out and experience life with. Let's bring back the kickball games, the random mall trips, and MOM time :) I'm going to miss living here, miss my roommates, but there's absolutely nothing stopping me from future weekend trips.....

Pumpkin Pie to Pictionary

2010-11-20T17:39:00.001-08:00

We had a holiday potluck at work yesterday and I decided to use it as a way to test out one of the pumpkin pie recipes I'm thinking of using for Thanksgiving. After looking online I decided to test Cook's Illustrated's recipe.

From their website:

The crust:
1 1/4 c. AP flour
1/2 t. salt
1 T. sugar
6 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/4 c. cold vegetable shortening, cut into 2 pieces
2 T. cold vodka
2 T. cold water

Process 3/4 cup flour, salt, sugar in food processor until combined, about two 1-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until dough starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 10 seconds (there should be no uncoated flour).

Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining 1/2 cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.

Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Flatten dough into 4-inch disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

I made two batches of the crust. One went into the fridge and the other went into the freezer - that's the one that I will use for Thanksgiving!

The filling:
1 c. heavy cream
1 c. whole milk (I used 2%)
3 large eggs and 2 large yolks
1 t. vanilla extract
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
1/2 of a 29-ounce can drained cadied yams
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. maple syrup
2 t. grated fresh ginger (hard to grate!)
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1 t. salt

Not going to lie, pies are freaking hard to make! Maybe I should have used real "pie weights" instead of rice... Nevertheless here are the instructions I followed. Might I add that I also had tonnns of dishes and surfaces to clean afterwards...

Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place rimmed baking sheet on rack, and heat oven to 400°F. Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out on generously floured (up to 1/4 cup) work surface to 12-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. DIFFICULT!! I need to YouTube the proper way to roll out dough without being a complete dunce. I'm considering changing my Facebook name to Duncely Olerich in exchange for $2200. Thoughts? I got an offer to do it...

Continuing on... Roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll into pie plate, leaving at least 1-inch overhang on each side. (I did NOT have a 1-inch overhang. Oops?) Working around circumference, ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Gotta keep the fats cold!

Trim overhang to 1/2 inch beyond lip of pie plate. Fold overhang under itself; folded edge should be flush with edge of pie plate. Using thumb and forefinger, flute edge of dough. (Fun part!) Refrigerate dough-lined plate until firm, about 15 minutes.

Remove pie pan from refrigerator, line crust with foil, and fill with pie weights or pennies. (Why would I use dirty coins around something I'm going to eat?? Yeah I know there's the tin foil but still... Wouldn't the penny smell at least blend in somehow?)

Bake on rimmed baking sheet 15 minutes. Remove foil and weights, rotate plate, and bake 5 to 10 additional minutes until crust is golden brown and crisp. I did the full 10. When I removed the pie plate and baking sheet from the oven, the crust was super puffy, which I don't think is desirable. Next time I'm going to leave the pie weights and foil on and bake for 20 mins - then remove and bake for only 5 mins uncovered.

When the pie shell was baking, I combined the pumpkin puree, yams, sugar, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in large heavy-bottomed saucepan. While that came to a boil, I whisked the cream, milk, eggs, yolks, and vanilla together in a medium bowl.

The truth is that I might have left the saucepan contents at a "sputtering simmer over medium heat" for more than the recommended 5 to 7 minutes. While it simmered, I stirred constantly and mashed the yams against the sides of the pot. The goal was to wait until it was thick and shiny (10 to 15 minutes) but I don't think it ever quiiiite got there...

Remove pan from heat and whisk in cream mixture until fully incorporated. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer set over medium bowl, using back of spatula to press solids through strainer. Rewhisk mixture and transfer to warm prebaked pie shell.

Return pie plate with baking sheet to oven and bake pie for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 300°F and continue baking until edges of pie are set, 20 to 35 minutes longer. I kept it in for the full 35.

This is what I thought the pie was going to look like when I took it out of the oven! Luckily it wasn't quite so devilish! I let it cool overnight, covered. The pie didn't get as much love as these gluten free pumpkin mini cupcakes, with an AMAZINGGG creamy cranberry macadamia goat cheese frosting.

Our potluck was a success!

We played games afterwards... Gotta love team bonding!

And PICTIONARY!

HAHA peg leg!

Dollar Scoop Night!

2010-11-16T22:58:00.001-08:00

Oh hey there Baskin Robbins...

I love getting ice cream on Tuesday with my roommates! A scoop of Gingerbread Man ice cream for a buck :) quite a festive flavor....

And might I add that the Baskin Robbins attached to Subway smells SSsooOoOooo good. What if they made a mix between a meatball sandwich and sundae on accident??

Berkeley Eats and Sweets

2010-11-15T17:48:00.001-08:00

Saturday I went with Katie and Nick to Berkeley to explore College Ave and eat our way over Shattuck.

After a pit-stop in Belmont at Nick's, we drove across the bridge and up the East Bay and in to Berkeley. We parked at the Rockridge BART station (free on weekends!) and began walking towards Cal, stopping in cute shops along the way.

For lunch, we ate at Manpuku (2977 College Ave, Berkeley). We ordered five different rolls, and the total after tax was under $21! Super cheap... and the sushi was good too! We got an imitation crab CA roll, a roll with eel and mango, a shitake mushroom and spinach roll, a spicy white tuna roll, and the fancier one was... um... I forget. But it had lots of avocado on top!

Grabbing hot tea and water

Check out the tuna!

Mixin in the wasabi - a must!

$20 bucks never looked so tasty.

We walked up the street and found this cute candy shop! (Sweet Dreams)

We enjoyed looking at their scocks and tasting fudge!

Next stop was Ici Ice Cream, a must-try in Berkeley's cold dessert arena.

Ici is a self-proclaimed "one of a kind ice cream shop." They make their ice cream, sorbets, candies and cookies in the shop in small batches. They pride themselves on their local/fresh/quality ingredients. (ie. all dairy is certified organic, fruits/nuts/chocolate exceed organic standards, no artificial preservatives, etc). Mary Canales, former pastry chef at Chez Panisse (ONE DAY KATIE!) left her 9-year tenure and opened Ici a little over 4 years ago. We had our choice of 11 flavors of ice creams/sorbets/sherbets: Pear Ginger Sorbet, Earl Grey, Kirsch Cherry-Fudge Swirl, Vanilla, Lemon Vanilla, Meyer Lemon Sherbert, Chocolate, Brown Sugar-Porcini, Brandied Allspice, Coconut-Rum, Candied Cacao Nib.

Ice cream elves in the back of the shop doing their small-batch thang

The three of us decided to enjoy our picks in Ici's hand rolled, chocolate-filled-tip, cones. Seriously, don't even consider going with a cup. The cones were soooooo good. It tasted like a cookie.

After Nick reassured me Candied Cacao Nib would be tasty, I chose a scoop of that!

I ordered one of their peanut butter bon bons too. I thought the inside was deliciously peanut buttery, but the hand-dipped, bittersweet chocolate casing was a little too rich for my tastes. Gimme that milk chocolate haha...

We went into a lot of shops.... Including this Hat Shop ;)

After we went up and down College Avenue we decided to go to Shattuck area, specifically to check out a highly-recommended cupcakery. Apparently Nick and Katie had been here before and remembered that it was sort of in an off-the-beaten path upstairs building thing. It makes sense when you see it. (1510 Walnut Street Suite G, Berkeley).

Such a cute shop! I like how open it is

Chocolates and Vanillas... standard.

Here's the good stuff. What would you choose between Sweet Potato, Cookies and Cream, and Peanut Butter Cup??!?

I went with PB Cup... of course. That frosting is SOO AMMMAZZINNNGG.

We continued walking around and ended up at The Cheeseboard Pizza Collective (1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley). So it has 1647 reviews. But why you might ask? From their website I learned that The Cheese Board (not the pizza part - yet) was founded on November 6, 1967 by two people as a privately owned business. In an effort to treat customers in a way that they would want to be treated, the owners decided to let all workers having equal power, as well as equal wages (= pay cut for owners). "The Cheese Board began making pizza on Tuesdays for lunch in 1985. Gradually this expanded to Wednesday lunch and Friday evening. In 1986 the Cheese Board acquired the space vacated by Pig by the Tail Charcuterie... This space was used to create and sell pizza three week day lunches (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and Friday Evening. On Saturdays this space was used as a bread outlet for the main Cheese Board. Some Collective members worked at both sites." They serve one type of (vegetarian) pizza a day. $2.50/slice or $20/whole pie. QUALITY ingredients. "In 1990 six members of the Cheese Board Collective formed a committee to seek out new members to form another collective–The Cheese Board Pizza Collective–which would allow the pizza operation to run full time...Pizza eventually brought in new members, expanded its hours and now is open six lunches and five evenings each week. The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is run as its own business, but Pizza and the Cheese Board are under the same financial umbrella and operate under the identical corporate by-laws." While Katie and Nick went to the bathroom I watched the assembly line. These collective people were fast! One man was handling all the pizza ovens, another was slicing and adding "finishing touches," and a girl was acting as cashier and boxer-upper.

The line might be reeeeally long, but it moves quickly!

Our time in Berkeley was really fun! Usually I avoid Berkeley because I got lost driving there once and the East Bay really confuses me. I hate being lost. However, I'm glad I gave it another shot because after all the walking around we did, I definitely saw spots that I want to come back too... Ici that means you. (And Chez Panisse - for a known-in-advance (?) special occasion OBVIOUSLY).

We headed back to the car and drove south to San Jose. We split for about 45 mins to prepare for a pretty amazing, quickly thrown together, Harry Potter Party (watched the 6th movie in anticipation for the 7th on 11/19!)

Pandas!

2010-11-13T12:46:00.001-08:00

Missing them...

Can't wait til April!

WUSSing around San Diego

2010-11-13T12:38:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday I arrived in San Diego for a SAS conference called WUSS. I won't go into the specifics of the conference (just imagine lots of coding and semi-colon usage) but it was really fun and I learned a lot! I'm particularly excited about this new concept and want to find ways to incorporate the (more efficient) code into the things I'm working on!

When I arrived in SD I drove to Salon 5th on 5th Avenue in Hillcrest. I purchased a cut/color Groupon from them and I'm glad I got to use it! Note: best shampoo/head massage evvvvver.

Then I drove to USD to pick up Nicole. We decided Mexican good would be a good choice for dinner so we drove a couple of blocks towards Old Town an ate at Casa Guadalajara...

The place has such a fun decor -very Dia de Los Muertos.

And guess what? It was happy hour! Buy a drink and you get access to the (sort of lame) happy hour buffet. Chips, salsa, plain cheese quesadilla triangles, and a fried chicken-y thing.

Not pictured: our yummy yummy yummy seafood enchiladas! Then Nicole and I went to the hotel in Mission Bay. Check it out!

First official work trip! :) I was excited...

I didn't take a lot of iPhone pictures, but above you'll see some food I munched on before the half-day class started. Each day I thought the food was really good! Especially at the networking dinner Wednesday night! (oh hey crab cakes)

I also got to see a lot of San Diego while I was there (besides trips to and from USD haha).

Wednesday night I hung out with Nicole before her dance practice

Blah blah blah... I'll write part 2 later!!

Kickass Cupcakes

2010-10-09T15:35:00.001-07:00

Guess where we went and guess what I got...

PB & J
Cookie Dough

My favorite of the two was the PB&J because, let's face it, I love peanut buttery anything.

Story: Kickass Cupcakes is located in Davis Square and they have something called the Kickass Dairy Bar where they sell gelato. I sampled their "Kickass" flavor that has bits of cupcakes in it and teeny tiny fudge chocolate chips. Super delicious!

They bake from scratch daily in "small batches, and use only the best all natural ingredients - no hydrogenated oils, no trans fats, no artificial flavors or preservatives."

Also... Kickass Cupcakes supports a couple of nonprofit organizations & schools in Boston and across the country.

378 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA 02124

Open Mon-Wed 11am-7pm; Thu 11am-8pm; Fri-Sat 11am-10pm; Sun 12pm-6pm

Lou Lou's Griddle in the Middle

2010-10-07T14:55:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, October 6th, was Sarah's birthday. Because I was flying from SJ to Boston later that night, we decided to go to breakfast together.

After a Yelp search we settled on Lou Lou's Griddle in the Middle (LLGM). This quaint little place is located on the calm, less-traveled, Municipal Wharf.

There are 4 booths inside, 4 tables outside, an a handful of bar stools. Each table has a unique set of salt n pepper shakers. Take a long look around this place and you'll notice a lot of unique items... "don't be humble"...

We were handed the breakfast menu (they will not serve you lunch until 11:30 I think). Too many interesting choices! One thing you'll notice is the heading "crazy waitresses" on the menu. Um, understatement!

Our waitress definitely made this an abnormal breakfast experience. She sat down next to us and took our order, offering up some great additions. When she heard it was Sarah's 22nd, she offered a celebratory mimosa. They were out of OJ so she brought out this glass of Chardonnay. Props for improvising.

She also brought out these two desserts, which were originally going to be gifts for one of the cooks' sweetheart. (She never showed up to breakfast, as promised.)

I liked their exposed kitchen.... We were able to interact with the cooks - they've got a good sense of humor. Plus, they made us a freaking amazing breakfast spread:

Sarah's seafood omelet with a side of their acclaimed breakfast potatoes.

My roomates! :)

My order: oatmeal brûlée style. WOW oh WOW. Okay, it's settled. I reeeeally need a kitchen blowtorch!

My other order: 1 crab cake. Definitely tasty.... Mik ordered the crab cake and eggs which came with toast... Kinda.

We had these farm and grain silo salt n pepper shakers. Hey mom, remember how we used to collect salt n pepper shakers? Why did we stop doing that? (Oh wait, you don't read this....)

Me and the birthday girl! ps: I really liked LLGM and I definitely recommend the oatmeal brûlée style!

View from the wharf, such a nice day out! ...then I went back to work for the day.

BOSTON!

2010-10-07T08:17:00.001-07:00

After a red-eye flight from San Jose to NYC and then an early flight to Boston, I'm here! Can't wait to spend time with Katie doing all sorts of east coast things :)

Now I just need to find out why this baggage carousel isn't spinning around? Could it be because I spent 10 minutes waiting for:

DUNKIN DONUTS!!! America runs on Dunkin, apparently, and as an American runner (uh...) I am saddened by the fact that there are no DD's near me!

Large coffee and a pumpkin old-fashioned (not overwhelmingly pumpkiny, tear)....

Location:Boston,United States

Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Co.

2010-10-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

"Coffee Lovers Appreciate The Difference..."

A little less than a month ago I purchased a Groupon for $8 that gave me $20 worth of locally roasted Fair-Trade coffee (and more!) from Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company. I really wish that Monterey had Groupons, but I'm glad that Santa Cruz started featuring daily deals!

Today I got a chance to drive to San Jose and I figured why not take Highway 1, the coastal route, through Santa Cruz to pick up my coffee? The drive is a lot prettier than Highway 101 and it takes only about 10 minutes longer (because the cars go no faster than 65 mph)

The Groupon could be applied to any of their three locations:

1330 Pacific Ave. (Coffee Learning Center location)
Santa Cruz, California 95060

19 Rancho Del Mar, # A
Aptos, California 95003

920 Pacific Ave. (Brew Bar location)
Santa Cruz, California 95060

The Groupon writers are brilliant at summing up what SCCRC does best so here you go, straight from the source:

Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company provides caffeine devotees with bulk portions and single-serving sips of delicious, locally roasted beans. Its signature BrewBar allows the baristas to brew a single cup of made-to-order coffee according to drinkers’ discerning taste buds for $1.85. (You can also get a fast cup for $1.65 if the brew bar is too slow.)

SCCRC sells bluk beans, about $9.95/lb. They have an array of other products too:

Triple chocolate truffles ($2 each) or cinnamon rolls ($2 each) help jittery stomachs absorb caffeine kicks like a delicious bulletproof vest. Customers who are handcuffed to their computers in a wacky romantic-comedy scenario can go online to order beans to their door, including the two-roast-toned BluesBreaker ($9.95 per pound) and the insomnia-enkindling Zooom Brew ($9.95 per pound).

Groupon continues: The staff at Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company has focused on bringing its customers fair-trade, singularly tasty java since the Reagan administration assumed control of Jimmy Carter’s White House and demolished his prized Oval Office ball pit. Offering everything from inventive organic and classic blends, single origins, and flavored coffees to the accessories needed to grind and brew them into a steaming, screaming cup, Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company is the perfect pit stop for persons in need of boldly roasted human fuel.

I ordered 1 pound of Brazilian Hazelnut (I LOVE HAZELNUT EVERYTHING) and a half pound of Sumatra Dark, which I might just roast and incorporate into an adventure-inspired cupcake.... hmm....

I also got a cup of their drip coffee. I chose the Santa Cruz Full City, which is described by SCCRC as a cup with fragrance notes of sweet vanilla-nut and warm spices [that] unfold in this blend of South American and high-grown Central American coffees from rich volcanic soils. Flavors reminiscent of chocolate and oranges emerge in the cup. Roasted to the point where the first delicate oils burst to the surface, this coffee has bright acidity, rich mouthfeel, and a fruity finish.

To round out my $20 Groupon I also grabbed a Peanut Butter Fudge Collision cookie which actually looked better than it tasted. I mean, of course it was good, but I was hoping to bite into a cookie that tasted more like a peanut butter cup.

Do you want to know how to brew the perfect cup of coffee? Here are some of Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company's tips:

- Use fresh, cold natural water (coffee is 98 - 99% water ya know)
- Do NOT use distilled water
- Use 1 tablespoon of coffee to 5 ouces of water
- Do not brew coffee with water that reaches a temperature greater than 205 degrees F! It will damage the flavor.
- Do not brew coffee with water that has a temperature less than 195 degrees F... it won't extract the coffee flavors properly

Pumpkin: Roasted, Pureed, Baked

2010-09-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

I dream about cooking and baking with real pumpkin. For the past few weeks I've flagged a bunch of pumpkin recipes - but I wanted to try using an actual pumpkin, rather than canned pumpkin. When I was driving back from Santa Monica/SLO two weekends ago, I stopped at Walmart to stock up on food for the day (I was also looking for suspenders - FYI nobody sells FFFing suspenders!)

Sidetracked.

Right, so the week before I went to London to study abroad I watched Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True:

And I really liked Cinderella's haircut, so I asked my hairdresser to do my hair just like hers...

Cinderella reminds me of pumpkins.

"Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage!"

Sidetracked again.

So there I was standing in Walmart, the carton of pumpkins calling my name... "Cinderella!" (too cheesy?)

It was stashed in my pantry for a week. I could have kept it in there for a month as long as it wasn't bruised (pumpkins grow mold faster when bruised FYI). On Monday I decided to finally transform the fruit (yes, pumpkins fall in the fruit category) into something delicious. Indecision got the better of me, as it usually does, so I decided to try two methods.

Here she is. Preheat your oven to 450.

Rinse!

Cut off the stem. It's the only part you won't be eating.

Cut pumpkin in half crosswise.

Scrape out those seeds!

Try to remove all the stringy bits too.

Pull out your peeler.

Peel the skin off of the side(s) of the pumpkin you want to roast.

One half is naked!

Throw away the scraps.

Start slicing the pumpkin. Looks like cantaloupe?

Cut into 2-inch chunks.

I roasted half the pumpkin with olive oil, cut up shallots, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne.

Before: toss the olive oil, shallots, and herbs directly on the baking sheet (I covered mine in tinfoil)

Roast until the pumpkin is tender, a little over 30 minutes.

My roasted pumpkin went into a bowl with potstickers and veggies, covered in a random satay I whipped up in my food processor.

MMM tender!

There were enough pumpkin chunks for 4 meals!

What about the other half? Well, I reduced the oven to 350, lined the baking sheet with parchment paper, scraped out the seeds and placed the pumpkin half, flesh side down, on the baking sheet.

I covered the top of the pumpkin with tinfoil and baked it in the oven for an hour.

You'll know it's done when you can easily pierce it with a knife.

Let it cool and then simply scoop the flesh from the skin. Very easy!

You can put it immediately into the food processor, but I decided to put mine in a sifter, over a glass bowl, in the fridge, overnight. This helped drain some of the excess water from the flesh.

In the morning I scooped the pumpkin flesh into the food processer and processed until nice and smooth.

1/2 a cup went into the container (back) and into my fridge for later. Refrigerated pumpkin puree will last a couple of days. 1/2 a cup went into the freezer bag (front) and into my freezer. Frozen pumpkin puree will last about 4 or 5 months in the freezer and not lose any of its va-voom. Cool, huh? All you have to do is take out the little bag and let it thaw for about 20 minutes and you're good to bake!

So what did I end up using the pumpkin puree in?

Clue: apples

Clue: batter (?)

Still guessing?

Waffles!

I chose to go with the Ultimate Pumpkin Waffle recipe from The Ultimate Pumpkin Waffle. Yes, it is a blog all about the quest to perfect pumpkin waffles. I halved the recipe and made a few alterations.

I ended up using:

- 1/8 cup light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. cornstarch
- 1/2 & 1/8 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. ginger
- 1/8 tsp. cloves
- 1/8 tsp. nutmeg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 large egg whites
- 1/2 cup soy milk, with a little of that half cup actually being chai concentrate mix and hazelnut coffee creamer < < I'm weird
- 1/2 cup FRESH PUREED PUMPKIN!!
- 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and warm
- An apple, finely chopped and divided (1/2 went into the batter, 1/2 went into my syrup)

I followed all of his crazy instructions too. Whipping the egg whites at the end, folding them into the batter REALLY gently.

Gorgeous!

The pumpkin waffle master advises to let the waffles cool on a wire rack to let the pumpkin flavor really sink in. He recommends putting them back on the griddle for a little bit to warm up before digging in.

Look! Syrup-y waffles.... mmm!

These were really really really really good.

What about the seeds?

I cleaned the seeds, placed them back on the same parchment paper, and popped them into the oven for about an hour at 250 degrees. When they came out of the oven, I put a tablespoon of canola oil in a skillet and heated it up with a tablespoon (or more?) of sugar. I quickly added the pumpkin seeds and swish swashed them around for about a minute. When they looked caramelized, I transferred them to a bowl and tossed them with cinnamon, sugar, cardamom, more sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and sugar.

All in all I say my first pumpkin experience was a success! Do any of you have recommended pumpkin recipes? I want to bake the most legit pumpkin pie ever for Thanksgiving - pie dough from scratch, bake and puree a pumpkin, do a fancy crust design, the works.

No Garlic Ice Cream

2010-09-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

What's that sign say? Garlic Ice Cream??

Sadly those are not my hands (eek! man hands attack!) ... and no they are not Kyle's hands. Those babies belong to a stranger. A stranger holding the mystical garlic ice cream. To make it better (or more strange?) the ice cream is served in half a cantaloupe. We went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and I was so excited to try the garlic ice cream but that never happened. Here is why:

We got to the fairgrounds and did a loop around to check everything out.

OMG. LOVE DUNKIN DONUTS! Bring the stores to CALIFORNIA!!

We stopped and spun the prize wheel. No cool winnings.

We stopped to check out these giant chickens. They were really well trained.

We walked into this demo area and someone tossed us some free garlic!

They told us how to make their prize-winning scampi sauce.

He was afraid of the giant chickens from earlier.

We continued to walk ... SO MANY PEOPLE! And lots of food options...

For example, these enchanted escargot.

If you are a real badass you could just eat the garlic like an apple.

Then we found one of the 2 stages and listened to a lady rock out. SERIOUSLY she was a rocker.

Okay. HUNGRY now! All the food was locally grown.

MMM... this sounds delicious.

And it was! It was overflowing with green and red peppers, onions, garlic of course...

Ultimately this was the reason why I did not have the garlic ice cream...

Can you blame me? Nicole knows about my love for anything related to frozen yogurt. I'm not going to say I would always choose froyo over ice cream, but today froyo won! Kyle and I also had the garlic fries (in fact it was the first thing we ate!)

General thoughts about the Gilroy Garlic Festival:

- tons of people!

- repetitive food stalls (all of them had garlic for some reason ...jk)

- art sampling (diverse but nothing that sticks out as WOOOAHHHH)

- pickled garlic: I liked it while Kyle thought it was detestable. If you ever decide to try it, make sure you are a fan of brine preservation.

- Dunkin Donuts spin wheel is rigged so no one can win

- giant chicken Halloween costume might not be a bad idea

- garlic fries are awesome, if only Jan Hagel would have let me try the one with crab (I don't care if it's fake crab!)

- there really isn't a whole lot to do - eat, walk, eat, sit, eat ... eat eat eat!

Breakfast Club, Biking, Homemade Thai

2010-09-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

Remember how we won two free meals at The Taste of Seaside's Breakfast Club booth? Well the morning after the event we decided to check it out. A lot of my friends have tried it before and all have said really great things about it....

The inside was big - lots of tables. When we got there, we waited behind two other groups, but everyone was seated fairly quickly. While we waited I enjoyed a cuppa coffee.

I brought the coffee with me to the table and kept asking for refills! They have the best creamer selection at The Breakfast Club. Coffee-mate? Are you for serious? I lovooovovoeeeee Hazelnut Coffee-mate! Nicole knows. Anyways, free coffee refills + hazelnut creamer = dangerous combo. Check out the other goodies they have - Pepper Plant Hot Sauce AND Cayenne Pepper shaker? SO AWESOME!

psst they also have a special stash of Tapatio and if you ask nicely they'll give it to you.

Kyle and I split the mixed berry + banana waffle. YUMMMM

Second pick: an omelet with biscuit & (spicy) gravy on the side and breakfast potatoes.

Honestly, this all happened so long ago I don't remember what was INSIDE the omelet. I remember it being yummy. I'm guilty of always choosing the waffle/pancake/crepe over any sort of omelet/scramble so I think that justifies why I can't recall (?)

After breakfast we drove from upper Seaside to the McDonalds in lower Seaside to park his car and pull out Murray - my shining tandem bike.

All aboard!

We rode the coastal trail through Cannery Row area and continued towards Pacific Grove.

Pretty...

The sun started to come out and views across the bay were gorgeous. I love riding the tandem bike!

On our way back into Monterey, we parked the bike near Cannery Row and walked around.

We popped into a random magic shop and peeked around. Strange stuff in there!

It was the same weekend as the Red Bull U.S. Moto Grand Prix at Laguna Seca so Cannery Row was FULL of crazy cool looking motorcycles and lots of biker dudes.

I'm pretty sure this was the same day we ducked into Cannery Row Brewing Co up the street and tried one of their house brews. They have over 70 beers on tap so I knew I wanted to do a return trip soon (plus their menu looked awesome).

PS I went back with Katie (read her recap here) and plan on writing up about that too!

For dinner we decided to try our own take on a Thai dish. We chopped up lots of veggies.

That looks like a potato, but I don't remember (nor can I figure it out from the picture haha)

The sauce we relied on to bring it all together.... it wasn't all that good to be honest. The red curry flavors just fell flat.

Add some chicken....

With Trader Joe's brown rice....

And a cupcake to finish it off a la Hugo from LOST. Bottom goes on the top to make a sandwich. These red velvet cupcakes were SOOOO good.

Taste of Seaside

2010-09-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Taste of Seaside seemed like it happened a loooooong time ago. I took a lot of iPhone pictures because it seems like my real camera has bit the dust :( Time for a new one!

At the entrance they were giving away these cute little sea horse cookies. Kyle said he would grab his on the way out, but he forgot. I ate mine 2 days later and it was a delicious shortbread treat.

This bottle of wine was the door prize. Everyone was given a raffle ticket. I wonder who will win it?

The check-in area. The venue was an empty space in the same shopping center as Me n' Ed's pizzeria (corner of Fremont and Broadway in the "City Center").

Notice - there are no overhead lights. Very warehouse-y.

Tickets in everyone!

First stop, beer!

Second stop, Pho King.... sound it. Yeah.

Third stop, Fishwife (the original!).

One of the many wineries.

The little combo thing from Fishwife was SOOO good. Too bad my other experience with them (and Nicole and my mom) wasn't the best!

Desserts!!

Blurry emcee picture.

Oils and marmalades, I think....

More desserts!

By far the most happening booth. The ladies from The Breakfast Club were riling the crowd!

Phat Burger sliders, mmm!

Lots of sushi options from Harumi sushi. Note to self: go there.

Spin the raffle wheel Doze....

And your prize is......

Free meals at The Breakfast Club and Phat Burger! Jackpot!

"Will we use these?"

Phat Burger bucks, too.

Other prizes, Snickers bars and Salt. Nice salt! Can I have your salt?

It's getting darker... remember, no lights. See?

Oh, hi.

We had a LOT of samples from places all over Seaside. Ventana Vineyard, Scheid Vineyard, Baywood Cellars, Marina's English Ales Brewery, and more were all out pouring tastings. As for restaurants, there was everything from pizza from the next door Me n' Ed's, curried meat from Kahn's Kabob House, cupcakes from like THREE different places... and lots more! Kyle and I had a really good time and we definitely got our $25 worth. He won two free meals from Phat Burger, which I'll write about later. He also won a gift certificate to The Breakfast Club which we used the following morning for breakfast! And don't forget about his salt and snickers bars... oh and remember that door prize? The $40 bottle of wine? Well guess what... I won it! I never win raffles!

Alright folks, off to work!

Strawberry Fields Forever

2010-08-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

I don't think I ever wrote about the outcome of the Strawberry Fields Forever bicycle ride I did on May 16th. It was a 100 km bike ride in Monterey County.

There were three stops along the way for food and drinks.

At stop number one: fruits, trail mix, biscotti, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...

... and a barista making espresso or pouring coffee...

We stopped at the warehouse of Bamboosero...

Bamboosero is a custom bike company run by frame designer Craig Calfee. His bikes are primarily made of bamboo, which grows in the developing countries where most of his bikes are built. If I remember correctly, he teaches people in developing countries HOW to build the bikes, and then they take over and build them all. It helps the struggling communities because now people have jobs, they can better support their families, there is more money flowing through the community, it makes bamboo a more valuable resource, etc.

... just keep pedaling ...

... world class unicyclist in our midst ...

... second stop: lunch!

... fruit, make your own sandwiches, cookies, crackers ...

.... third stop: Gizdich Ranch!

Summary of what you can find on the Gizdich Ranch website:

Pick your favorite fruit of the season right off the tree or vine
Purchase a jar of fresh jam, a delicious fresh-baked pie, or an antique/craft
Pick up apples (pay by bushel or pound) during the apple season, September through December.
They seriously have so many apple varieties!! I've never heard of half of these.
Pick yourself is for 3 weeks only 9 - 5 daily (Red Delicious, Newton Pippins, and Golden Delicious are pickable - Other varieties available for sale only)
All Gizdich berries are grown, harvested and packed at the ranch
Call to reserve a flat of berries ahead of time (frozen available all year round)
The pie and baked goods shop will tantalize your senses!
Gizdich sales pies, shortcakes, pastries, deli sandwiches, etc
Walking tours available

PIES:
Strawberry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Apricot and Pumpkin (seasonal) Boysenberry, Verry Berry, Apple, Olallieberry, Apple/Raspberry, Dutch Apple, Double Berry Dutch, Apple Olallieberry, Raspberry, Lemon Meringue, and No Sugar Apple (special orders)
SHORTCAKES: Strawberry and Olallieberry (seasonal)
APPLE DUMPLINGS: Smothered in a decadent apple dessert topping.

They had a live band there!

... one of the final hills ...

Final stop! Back at Watsonville High School. Whole Foods catered an amazing dinner!

Let's not forget the strawberries!

What a good group!

... my dinner plate ...

... dipped the juicy strawberries in chocolate ganache and whipped cream ...

The ride was really pretty. We bicycled through lots of strawberry fields and other crops. I remember it being freeeeezing but luckily somebody lent me a jacket. The 63 ish miles was long, but definitely do-able with all of the food stops.

Attention Anyone:
Let me know if you want to go next year!

Sake for 1 cent... not even!

2010-08-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

I've been to Yama Sushi three times now. It's located in the Del Monte Shopping Center in Monterey (Bldg A Ste 92). I'm definitely not a picky sushi eater. Throw some spicy tuna in my roll, add sriracha on top, give it a hokey moniker - I'm yours.

These are some photos from the first time I went with a few coworkers and friends.

They've got the sushi makers over yonder making all the rolls. They are so nice! Once, when on my way out, one ran up to me and did that "pound" thing (modern high five). He's so with it.

So about the title of this post. This place is fairly new and has been advertising 1 cent sake Mondays - Thursdays. Also, their sushi rolls are 50% off! All the time! That means I can order the Lobster Delight or Victoria Secret or Fuji Mountain or ... or ... or ... all for half the price! Pretty sweet deal.

This is the sake fountain. It's kind of like a soda machine, but for sake!

They've got lots of seating, but it does get packed!

My group!

Where are the turkeys?

2010-08-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

Living in Fort Ord...

... there are always turkeys roaming ...

... these turkeys were walking towards my front door ...

... two of them, maybe lovers?

.... I haven't seen turkeys around in a while ago ...

... maybe they know what's coming in a few months...

I cannot wait for THANKSGIVING!! Turkey Trot, family, food, pumpkins everywhere!

Mission NOT Orchard

2010-08-21T14:13:00.001-07:00

I just met with Fran and Krizia for lunch in Fremont. Today was one of those magical days when everything just sort of worked out. Fran was up in Tracy for a wedding and she had time to meet the both of us for lunch.

Designated meeting location in between Tracy and Morgan Hill? Mission Coffee, 151 Washington Blvd, Fremont.

While waiting for Krish, we ordered chai lattes - Fran's had mocha. We chatted and caught up for a bit ... I love my old Cal Poly roomies so much! I miss being 100% caught up with their lives...

We also learned about the history of this couch. It was donated to the coffee shop by the president of San Francisco's USO office. It dates back to the 60s!

Menu board.

The crowd.

Freakin amazing looking cookie.

When Krish arrived, we walked around the corner to ...

The Cheese Taster delicatessen! (43367 Mission Blvd, Fremont) Don't you think there is something awesome about a deli that uses the -catessen ending? Maybe it's just me...? Anyways, the lovely lady behind the counter, Judy, took our orders. After we finished the yummy sandwiches, we decided it was time for pictures!

Fran took them with her real camera... I need a new real camera. Mine is falling A-P-A-R-T. No joke. Krish told us how she is planning to get a new digital... I digress.

We went to the Mission of San Jose and set the camera on a timer. Timer pics always turn out pretty interesting :)

We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I'll be seeing Krish in a few hours at our 5 year high school reunion and I'll hopefully see Fran sometime Labor Day weekend!

Location:Washington Blvd,Fremont,United States

Beatrice gets a face lift

2010-08-18T08:45:00.001-07:00

Brought my beautiful car in to an auto body shop this morning as a result of a recent minor crash.

Geico suggested Robert's Collision Auto Repair, 234 Ramona Avenue, Monterey.

I freaking love this gecko. Everyone at Geico was so helpful and made it easy to fix everything - easy peasy.

Hopefully both of these "beauty marks" will be fixed. Beatrice Milton Alfonso only deserves the best!

The shop looks pretty clean, huh? I think I'm going to like this place! And when I get Beatrice back I'm going to treat her to a deluxe car wash (I have a groupon :) and an oil change...

Sleeping beauty is coming with me to breakfast at the Breakfast Club in Seaside.

Location:Ramona Ave,Monterey,United States

Shrimp burrito please

2010-08-18T00:05:00.001-07:00

Nicole visited me tonight in Monterey! She leaves in a little over a week :( so sad! We watched Make It Or Break It (one of my favorite shows ever) as I cleaned my room. I had sososo much stuff to put away after the crazy weekend of baking up in San Jose.

Right after MIOBI was over, we went to Papa Chevo's taqueria in Marina. We called Lalla's but they close at 10 and then we called Isidro's but they were closing at 10. Seriously where are the Monterey late night eateries? Any suggestions?

Well don't fret, Papa Chevo's was open at 10 and they said they weren't closing til midnight! ¡Aye carumba! We went through their [convenient-at-10pm-in-cold-weathered-Marina] drive thru, marveled at their picture menu, and both ordered the shrimp burrito with rice and beans, yum!

They have tasty salsa!

Goodnight, gonna go checkout groupon and then fall asleep. I have a car appointment in the morning! Bleh... Bad bumper.

Fishwife, Seaside

2010-07-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, July 17th, my mom, sister, and I ate at Fishwife (789 Trinity Ave, Seaside). We drove there after the scary, slightly dangerous Toyota Camry ride through Fort Ord's mountain bike trails (NOT recommended). I chose this place because it's on my "Best Of" list. Fishwife won the title of "Best Restaurant in Seaside." I beg to differ.

Yelp

The three of us decided to each order a plate and share. I don't get why people don't do that everywhere.... obviously a better idea to try three things instead of just one. We chose:
1. Line caught Sea Bass ($14) grilled, with sauteed spinach & tomato on a bed of rice on a bed of pineapple cream sauce - really? on two beds?
2. Fishwife's Combo Wrap served with a small salad ($13) with sauteed scallops, shrimp, and crab in a lobster sauce rice and beans; wrapped in a flour tortilla
3. Fish/Calamari n' Chips ($?) - their lunch menu won't download on their website so can't get you the info about this dish.

The Monterey County Weekly boasts that locals can get their fix of "the true gift from the Pacific - seafood" at Fishwife. They laud the fish sandwiches, gumbo, chowder, and seafood salads. As you can see, we did not order any of those. Instead, my pick - the fish n chips - was probably worse than a boxed, frozen, back-of-the-supermarket-shelf-variety! My mom's sea bass was delicious, and Nicole really liked the sauteed spinach. I thought the spinach tasted like BOOZE. Maybe that's why Nicole liked it? JK Coley.... She also really enjoyed her seafood wrap. I liked it a lot too, but it was basically a $13 seafood burrito. Hope that means it's loaded with REAL crab. AHEM. Oh, and tip: get it with the Turtle Bay Taqueria hot sauce (their sister restaurant is right next door and stocks the good hot stuff).

I want to give Fishwife another try, maybe for dinner? It won best Seaside restaurant for a reason. Yup, there was good service (only two occupied tables at the time though), but I just don't think their lunch menu really delivered.

Monterey County's Herald newspaper notes that Fishwife's cuisine has a "Caribbean accent featuring fresh seafood and pasta." Supposedly the daily specials highlight "local fresh catch and seasonal fish including sanddabs, wild caught salmon, mahi mahi, halibut, and swordfish. The chef uses only the freshest produce from the Salinas Valley and offers delicious housemade desserts daily." - Same info is listed on the company's website.

Considering it is in Seaside, this restaurant has a lot of potential. After looking at the menu a little bit further, I'd probably choose an appetizer and one of the Fisherman's Bowls (daily special of fresh catch served in a bowl of rice, black beans, Caribbean cabbage drizzled with a ginger sesame vinaigrette and garnished with fresh vegetable, fresh salsas and golden-fried tortilla spears) - and split both with a friend because the bowls are all $16 - $19.

Have you ever seen fish n chips breaded like this??
It's a cornmeal breading - not what I was hoping for....

Calamari - best part of my dish!

Inception!

2010-07-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I drove back to San Jose with my mom and sister. Nicole and I met up with Kyle, Jeremy, and Kim and watched Inception at the AMC theaters in Santa Clara. We opted for the IMAX screen, which I highly recommend. Before the movie started, Nicole and Kyle and I grabbed food at one of shopping center's restaurants.

We did not choose sushi, or sub sandwiches, or Jamba Juice, or In N Out burgers, or pasta from some Tomato place. Instead we went with World Wrapps a fairly local chain that began back in SF circa 1996 (Yelp)...

Notice the world map? That's not the only part of this place that is "worldly" - their menu is pretty diverse too, with Thai chicken, Bombay Curry chicken, Teriyaki chicken, Argentina steak, Spicy Caribbean sole, Samurai salmon, Tequila lime shrimp, etc. Diverse flavors? Check. Vegetarian options for my sister? Check. You can even get your wrap served naked in a bowl with some rice. They have smoothies, salads, and bento boxes too.

I was really satisfied with my Thai ~~chicken~~ shrimp wrap that had Thai peanut sauce, jasmine rice, ginger slaw, cucumbers, green onions, and sesame seeds in a spinach tortilla.

We went to the 7:45 pm showing, and stood in line for a bit to ensure we got some decent seats. Check out this crazy line for the late showing! Inception was reeeeeallly good and I'm glad to see that there's a vampire-free movie out right now that's able to attract such a big crowd. Go Leo.

The Whole Enchilada, Moss Landing

2010-07-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

There are three "Whole Enchiladas" in southern California. One is on Yorba Linda Blvd. But that one has nothing to do with this one. They offer a combo punch card, get 9 entrees and the 10th is free.

This Whole Enchilada is different. Located at Highway 1 and Moss Landing Road in Moss Landing, this restaurant has a WHOLE lot going on. HAH. Wow, bad bad joke. Sarah and I were hoping to go to the Thai Seafood place in Moss Landing two weeks ago. When we got there, though, we saw a sign informing us that the place was closed Mondays... there was only one other restaurant in sight, The Whole Enchilada. This coastal cuisine eatery is open from 11:30 am to 9:30 pm weekly.

"The catch of the day is right off the local fishing boats and prepared in the authentic Mexican coastal style. You've never tasted tamales like ours, fresh sweet white corn tamales filled with chicken and topped with our cilantro cream sauce. Oaxacan tamal filled with fresh albacore or chicken, wrapped in a banana leaf and drenched in a rich, dark mole salsa. Check out Tamale Wednesday and try them all."
- Whole Enchilada's website

Both of us ordered the Camaron Chon ($14)

House made corn tamal on a banana leaf, filled with prawns, spinach & cheese. Topped with a cream cilantro lime sauce & guacamole. Served with a side of rice and beans.

It was amazingly delicious and they gave a very generous portion! Seriously it was exploding with prawns. There were about three on top and I was like "okay cool, here are the prawns" but then, as I forked into it, more prawns were mixed in to the mushy gooey tamale innards. Their tamal (tamale? why no e?) was probably one of the best tamales I have ever had. Not kidding.

The B&R side was a LOT bigger than than I thought it was going to be!

Waiters bring by a "salsa pitcher" so you can refill your own salsa bowl! What a clever idea...

The owner/chef guy came by and made sure we were enjoying our meals. Nice touch!

Their bar offers up fresh fruit margaritas (they even have cucumber ones!) and many different flavors of Tequila. On Sunday afternoons there's live jazz and blues music next door at Moss Landing Inn.

Such a fun bar, makes me want to be a mermaid!

So what's the deal with Moss Landing? The tiny town is overshadowed by the giant towers of the Moss Landing PG&E plant. A few decades ago, most townies were employed by either the power plant or were fisherman. Now there's mostly antique shops, a Monterey Bay Aquarium research institute, and small yachts (can there be a small yacht?) in the Moss Landing harbor. Back in 1864, Moss Landing was a whaling station established by Captain Charles Moss, a sea captain from Texas.

Unknown fact: the last Sunday in July, Moss Landing hosts the Annual Antique Street Fair. TODAY was that fair! 40th annual, no doubt.

The rest of the menu features quesadillas, nachos, and enchiladas - of course. They also get local and offer up some Castroville artichokes (either steamed or deep fried)...

Next Moss Landing restaurant stop: The Thai Seafood place

And after that... Phil's Fish Market & Eatery, known for their cioppino. Even Bobby Flay can't top Phil DiGirolamo's cioppino making abilities - he lost to Phil on a Throwdown.

Taste of Seaside

2010-07-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

I first heard about The International Flavors of Marina food, wine, and beer tasting event via Special Edible's blog. I got really excited about it and wanted to go, but the two people I invited couldn't go because it is on Thursday (tomorrow) from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. The participating restaurant list looked amazing, there's live music and a silent auction. Boo Radley's Cupcakes is donating 2 dozen custom cupcakes!

Much to my delight, the Special Edible blog just posted something about Taste of Seaside, a similar event happening on Friday! Hopefully I'll be able to go to that with sommmmebodyyyy hint hint.

Highlights from the event page:
- What: Seaside’s culturally diverse community will be reflected in the wide range of foods served, and local wineries will pour outstanding wines from regional vineyards.
- Where: Seaside City Center
- Time: 6-8:30 pm
- How can I go: Pay $25/ticket and order from the Seaside Police Department; contact Tina Rosa (831) 760-0967 – trosa@ci.seaside.ca.us ; or Patty Perez (831) 760-0968 – pperez@ci.seaside.ca.us
- Why: To get a special Taste of Seaside, while benefiting the Seaside Police Activities League (PAL).
- Also: music, raffle, silent auction
- What's PAL: PAL provides athletic, recreational, and educational activities for at-risk youth in order to enrich lives and help prevent juvenile crime. Police officers, volunteers, and police personnel serve as coaches, mentors, instructors, and role models in PAL.
- Participating restaurants/wineries:

• ACME Coffee

• Angelina’s

• Baywood Cellars

• Breakfast Club

• Chef Rachel

• Coeur D’Olives

• Del Monte Cafe

• Fishwife

• Hahn Winery

• Harumi

• Kahn’s Kabob House

• Me-n-Ed’s Pizzeria

• Orient Express

• Phat Burger

• Pho King

• Saigon Noodle

• Scheid Vineyards

• The Chocolate Dipper

• Turtle Bay

• Ventana Vineyards

I'll let you know if I go!

Mountain biking is dangerous

2010-07-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

What: DIRTY GEARS MTB XC SERIES 4
Where: Fort Ord Public Lands
When: Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Distance: 13 miles
Pro-biker who participated in the race: my Aunt Cori!

There she is, waving!

MTV girl aka Emily

Off they go!

My mom, sister, and I went to cheer on Cori last Saturday. If I were to list top 5 most dangerous sports I would definitely include mountain biking as one of them. Loose gravel, steep slopes, downward chutes - sounds like a recipe for disaster. There are some badass chicks out there who can conquer all that ISH and my aunt is definitely one of them! She finished the 13 mile figure eight loop around the hot HOT hot Fort Ord trails in 1:26:35. Such a great time!

After watching the cyclists take off, we tried driving the "back way" to Highway 68. Bad idea. My mom's hybrid Toyota was almost halfway through the craziest dirt trails before she insisted we turn all the way around. And by "insisted" I actually mean screamed/threatened/scared me. FOR the record, Google Maps told us that the "roads" were car accesible. Um, yeah Google, if my car was actually a HORSE. Even then....

Upside: We crossed paths with the bikers.
Go Cori!

MTV crews were there shooting the final scenes for an upcoming episode of Made. A girl named Emily Highland was turned into a "mountain biker" I guess. Here they are filming her employer, a bike shop owner. We heard him say "she's definitely not NOT girly" - two thumbs up for double negatives!

This is right after a quick turn/downhill bit.
She's handling it like a pro.

Despite the heat and jeans, Nicole, my mom, and I hiked up a nearby hill. It was at that moment I was not NOT glad I decided to wear sandals. It gave us a great view:

Click it.

Cheesy - glad she's smiling though!

Photo Op!

Looks like tears - one of her eyes would not stop watering all day!

Zwetschgenkuchen

2010-07-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Is that a zwetschgenkuchen?

My mom has a plum tree in her backyard that’s dropping plums faster than LiLo’s career. Every morning my sister wakes up and picks the fallen plums off the ground to avoid attracting hungry rats. If nobody picks them up, rats infiltrate our backyard, drive our dogs nuts, and then we all suffer – well, not the rats.

Plums are in season May through early October. To combat the onslaught of plums our tree produces, my sister and I decided to make Zwetschgenkuchen, a German dessert.

We didn’t make the Mürbeteig Crust from scratch, instead we used one of the circular, 9-inch roll out ones from Pillsbury.

Zwetschgenkuchen filling:

1/3 cup peach preserves
1/4 cup no sugar added, natural applesauce
1 teaspoon ground flax seed
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 pounds Shirley Olerich’s plums, washed, quartered, and pitted
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
A few shakes of nutmeg
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

1. Preheat oven to 375 °F.
2. Optional: pre bake the pastry for a few minutes, take it out, and fork the bottom and sides.
3. Mix peach preserves, applesauce, flax seed, and vanilla extract and spread on the crust.
4. Starting on the edges of the 9-inch pie plate, place the plums in a circle, overlapping each slightly, eventually form a spiral into the center. Keep spiraling in until you run out of plum bits.
5. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon rind, and sprinkle over the plums.
6. Bake about 40 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the plums juicy. At about 35 minutes I put tinfoil over the top so the crust wouldn’t overbrown.

Step Four plums going right round like a record player

Step Five sprinkly sprinkly do daaah!

Our snack while the pie bakes!

Shirley's beautiful flower arrangement

How to find a ripe plum: look for plump, nicely colored fruit that yields to gentle pressure – sort of squishy. Avoid the ones with shriveled skin and extremely mushy spots. Refrigerate ripe plums for up to three days and ripen the unripe ones in a loosely closed paper bag for a couple of days.

We sprinkled toasted oats (oats, cinnamon, dark brown sugar over a skillet on medium heat for a few minutes) on the top as a crunchy garnish.

Tastes like: "The pie's slightly gooey consistency made a spoon necessary to enjoy this delectable dessert. The first bite was different from most pies I've tasted - there was a tart sweetness, but also hidden hints of cinnamon throughout. The toasted oats on top and the hardened pie crust provided the perfect amount of crunch to accompany the soft plum/jam filling."

Pros: yummy dessert, starving rats, quiet dogs, German pride, truly organic plum baking, creating something new with Nicole, something to do on Sunday.

Cons: baking in 100-degree weather, waiting for it to cool when all you want to do is try your creation, this will only subdue the barking dogs, hungry rats, and over-fertile plum tree for a day.

Eclipse Premiere

2010-07-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday June 29th, Maren and I went to one of the coolest things ever. So you know how in the old days people would go to the movie theaters and get dinner served to them at their seat and then watch the feature film … okay, my mom just informed me that didn’t actually happen. A part of me doesn’t believe her.

My point is that going to watch a movie used to be so much more of an ordeal. Now you just flash your debit card, grab a seat, and then two hours later you leave with your pockets $10 lighter. BLAH!

I’m not the biggest fan of actually going to the movie theater. Yes, I go to watch the Harry Potter movies, anything with Miley Cyrus in it, or to see Dennis Quaid. Other than that I usually just wait until I cross paths with this or that flick. Superbad, I Love You Man, Bourne Identity VII – I’ll see them sooner or later!

When Twilight came out everyone went GaGa over it. I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t get all hyped about it. Then when I was on my graduation cruise (with the lovely Katie, Kerry, Krizia, and Franimal) they were looping it on one of the channels. I caught bits and pieces of it. A part of me wondered why the movie seemed to be only shot in green, foggy, settings. …Twilight. Oh. Gotcha.

I had about six months between graduation and my job – so I read a bit more than usual (which is barely anything, sadly). I read Twilight and then watched the movie in our family room. I liked it. And for the record, I vote Edward.

Then I read New Moon and watched that movie when it came out in theaters. I thought it was better than the first one – I liked how the love triangle was developing. I’ve always found love triangles fascinating. Super scandalous.

A week before the Eclipse premiere, I got a delightful text from Maren:

She called me and told me about an amazing event hosted by Bahama Grille.

Needless to say, I was stoked!

June 29th rolled around and I drove across town to Salinas (not far if you go the back way through CSUMB/Marina btw). Maren and I found parking on one of the side streets in downtown Salinas, close to Maya Cinemas.

The lines that wrapped around the block were intense! It was barely past 9pm and these folks still had a couple of hours of being outside in the gusty wind. Meanwhile, we walked straight into the theater and got to enjoy yummy food, desserts, and spa treatments haha….

They had an assortment of food from Bahama Grille, including delicious beef skewers, spring rolls, pork sliders, veggie sandwiches, cinnamon sugar pita chips, and shrimp skewers.

For dessert, one of three cupcakes were featured by local baker Fluff cupcakes.

Team Bella: Vanilla with vanilla buttercream
Team Edward: Red velvet with cream cheese frosting
Team Jacob: Chocolate with dulce de leche frosting

They also had chocolate covered strawberries. DELICIOUS.

This was such an awesome event – for only $18 you could avoid the line and cold weather, get some food before the show, and cross your fingers to win one of the 50 or so things they raffled off!

Maren and I got tinsel put into our hair. Hair Flare or Hair Bling – which do you prefer?

They were also giving out massages! I almost fell asleep during mine; it felt so nice after a long day at work!

The ladies from g’Syl Hair Salon and Aquablue Skin & Body Spa (229 Main Street, Salinas) put so much effort into organizing this event. One of their fellow salon mates, Frankie, helped emcee the event with Sybil, a radio host from 101.7 The Beach.

Makeup ladies applied sparkles and glitter to everyone who wanted to glisten like a vampire in sunlight. When they opened the doors to the theater, the emcees set up music and continued raffling off items and gave out candy.

Buckshot, how I love thee.

2010-07-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

On the subject of weekend nights spent in San Francisco, I would like to recap Saturday, June 19th.

First and foremost, I spent the day with my sister, Dad, Lauretta, and Katie at Great America. We went on Top Gun, Drop Zone, and got a $6 coffee smaller that a tall from Starbucks! It was really nice getting time to hangout with my dad the day before Father's Day. He told me about Monty Python's silly walks and my dad and I started doing these kinds of walks around the amusement park.... Nicole wasn't happy.

After a late picnic lunch in the Great America parking lot, I dropped Nicole off at our mom's and then drove up to Palo Alto.

Kyle, Jeremy, Kim and I carpooled to San Francisco and found parking a few streets from Union Square. We took an elevator up the giant Macy's building to the 6th floor to join Jessica's birthday party at Burger Bar (251 Geary Street, San Francisco).

I ordered Burger Bar's turkey burger - "freshly ground free range Shelton turkey."

FYI: because I like to google things - Shelton's Turkey Ranch started in 1924 with one hen and one tom...

WHO KNEW that male turkey's are called TOMS? I always thought they were called Jan Hagels. Hmm.

Shelton's evolved into a champion breeding facility that received many awards for body conformation and feather color. As an offshoot of the trophy breeding business, the Shelton family began growing holiday turkeys for the folks in the Pomona Valley of Southern California...

Kyle ordered cupcakes for Jessica's 25th birthday! How thoughtful of him, huh? He chose a devil's food cake with oreo chunks folded in, topped with cookies and cream ice cream and a half oreo.

After we ate our burgers and cupcakes we drove down Geary to Buckshot. As soon as we walked in I fell in love with the place. It was still early, so we were basically the first people there. The bartender was chewing on a red vine. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Is that a red vine?
Him: Yup, do you want one?
Me: Yes please!
Him: They are a little old...
Me: Even better! That's how I like em!

(they are better when old - harder and chewier!)

Buckshot (3848 Geary Blvd, San Francisco). Just go to their website. Seriously. Right click that link and open it up in a new tab. Read their intro page and then return to this blog post.

Do do doo..... okay, so now that you've read that, do you see why this place is so amazing?? I will recap in case you did not read it (I am using more polite language) SKEE BALL, SHUFFLEBOARD, POOL TABLE, PHOTO BOOTH, DARTS, PICNIC TABLES, $2 PBR, the list goes on!

What really made the night one to remember was a game introduced to us by Ed a few weekends back in SLO. Don't let the name scare you - it's called Kill Your Friends. For every drink you buy for your friend, you get to tell them how they must "die." Then they act it out. Look below for an example...

Somebody bought Kevin a PBR. They told him to pretend the edge of the picnic table was a plank (like on a pirate ship) and he had to jump off of it. Problem was that the bouncers were NOT playing and did not appreciate somebody standing on the table, jumping off, and lying motionless on the ground.

Er... oh well! Another good one that got us all was when Kyle bought a round. He chose death by the following: I got to shoot at the other guys with the pretend gun attached to the video game BIG BUCK HUNTER, Call of the Wild. They were scattered all over the bar and started dropping like flies. Then I turned the pretend gun on myself. Seconds later we all stood up! Fun FUN Fun FUNnNNNnnNn

I also loved the decor! Reminds me of a bar I'd find in Illinois or a better version of Bull's in SLO. Before we left, when the clock struck midnight, the DJ played a song honoring Jess and we danced around her, bowing.

Happy Birthday Jess!!

The Case of the North Beach Hotdog

2010-07-14T20:14:00.001-07:00

I just found pictures stashed away on my phone of a place Megan, Paul, Kali and I stopped at for fourth meal this past Friday night. (ps Kali has a blog and posted a fantastic review of her SF weekend! Check it out here! It's nice and sassy :)

Anywho... I vaguely recall getting food that night. Let's work backwards to figure out what happened!

Here's the picture found on my phone:

Saturday morning Megan told me the dog was covered in perhaps marinara and onions - looks about right. She also said it was called the North Beach Hotdog. Time to Yelp search. The only late night hotdog spot in North Beach with Yelp pictures that match the one I snapped on my phone (below) is The Dogfather (532 Green Street, San Francisco). UrbanDaddy describes it as a "low-key sausage joint—or salsicceria, if you're Italian—meant to satisfy your gourmet, quick-bite fix."

Okay mystery 1 is solved! I must have had the The North Beach "Our mild Italian sausage, with peppers, onions, marinara sauce, and mozzarella cheese" ($6) - Nice memory Megan! Let's continue backwards... Megan also let me know that before the hotdog stop, we went to a place called Savoy. I've got a couple of pictures on my camera of us in a spot with red lighting... This must have been Savoy Tivoli (1434 Grant Street, San Francisco). On Yelp the settings seem to match up! Wahoo!

Mystery 2 solved! Prior to that our group got some drinks, courtesy of Kali, from the upstairs room at a Thai restaurant named King of Thai Noodle. One Yelper perfectly sums up the perks of this place - "The best happy hour everyday till 12:30AM.. $2 beer $6 cocktail drinks and $5 entree.. Unbeatable.. My favorite place to hang out.. They have free popcorns and peanuts and nice wide screen tv.." YEAH. AWESOME.

Rewind even further to when we all met up. This part is not hazy! Megan, Kali, Paul, Kelley, her friend who knows Lauren Sweeneeeyyyy, Joe, his roommate, and myself met up at Paul's apartment.

We drank a bit, ate some of Megan's homemade cookies, indulged in some of my cupcakes, the usual. It was so-awe-some seeing everyone and getting the opportunity to go out and get a little irresponsible. Plus, I'm sure that hotdog tasted damn good.

LOVE THEM!

Right on target!

2010-07-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

Another great reason to own a bike: emergency mode of transportation when your car decides not to start! Perfect way to get to Target.

Might go whale watching this weekend if the whale action continues in Monterey Bay (there are a bajillion out there lately!) Would they be offended if I snacked on these?

Mills-Monterey! Day 4

2010-07-11T23:54:00.000-07:00

Monday morning Kerry and I woke up and grabbed coffee from the Starbucks in Sand City and bagels from the Bagel Bakery next door. We walked over to Savemart and stocked up on fruit. When we got back to my house we pulled out Murray, my tandem bike, and took her for a riiiiide.

We pedaled through Fort Ord Dunes State Park, parked the bike, and read each of the eight educational panels that "inform the public about the natural and cultural history of the park." Hopefully one day I'll get the footage off my iPod of our bike adventure. We then biked through CSUMB and back to my house! It was a great day for a bike ride, nice and sunny but not too hot.

Sadly, the next stop was the airport :( I had to get back to work since it was Monday and all. Kerry's flight was delayed. A part of me wished that the whole airport would have just disappeared so that Kerry could never leave. I love that girl and I miss her so much when she's down in Anaheim....

If you've read these recaps and think - oh snap - that sounds like fun, please give me a call and come visit. I love love LOVE having visitors and Monterey is such a great area. I won't force you to dance in a cage with me and I won't force you to eat lots of sugar treats - but that might just happen!

Mills-Monterey! Day 3

2010-07-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

After a loooong night at Mucky Duck we woke up with unpleasant physiological effects, to put it nicely.

We began making cupcakes for the day. We went with a yellow buttermilk cake. Simple and delicious. We paired the cake with two different frostings - raspberry buttercream and hazelnut buttercream, made by combining raspberry puree and Nutella (respectively) to an Italian Meringue buttercream base.

Once the cupcakes were frosted, Kerry got to work decorating them with sprinkles. She is a pro decorator.

We got into the car and headed to Vanessa's grad party in San Jose. She had a lot of family and friends over for a BBQ. She graduated from San Diego State University in June! Congratssss!! Vanessa, if you are reading this, where are the pictures that your mom was snapping?

Kerry and I had to leave to go to my Aunt Cori's house for a birthday BBQ/pool party. My cousin Collin's birthday the previous Monday and my 23rd birthday the previous Wednesday. Mills and I went swimming and then Nicole showed up with a beautiful French braid and she went swimming. Katie was splashing all over the place - oh the joys of being under 10.

Kyle came too! I got to be with some of my favorite people!

We had delicious salmon, tri tip, salad, veggies, etc.

For dessert, Cori had a chocolate/mint chip ice cream cake for Collin and a decadent chocolate cake for me. Don't forget that we also brought a bunch of cupcakes! Needless to say the options seemed endless...

After we ate, we played around on the trampoline. It was Katie's first time playing "crack the egg" and she LOVED it. She kept asking us to crack her. She also gave us nicknames. Slappy (Kerry's nickname the night before) became Kirby. I asked to be Sonic. Kyle was dubbed Ganondorf. And Katie was Zelda (yeah?) - all characters from Super Smash Bros.

On our way out of the Bay Area we went to Psycho Donuts. Kerry and I both OD-ed on sugar the whole weekend, but we were going to at least get donuts for Monday morning because Psycho Donuts are so effin AWESOME.

HOWEVER, they decided to close early! We left a note for them expressing our sadness and then they sent me a tweet on Tuesday apologizing! Can't wait to try out the Stone Cold Psycho Psandwich! Donuts and ice cream. Kind of scary thinking about how much sugar that would be BUT let's get real - it's ICE CREAM AND DONUTS. Can't pass up something like that.

When we got back to my place we crawled into bed and slept like babies. Trampoline workouts and long car drives are truly exhausting!!

Mills-Monterey! Day 2

2010-07-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

Deep breaths. I'm scared about how long this post is going to be.

Saturday morning we went to Tommy's. I've blogged about this place before, so I'll just remind you all why I love it so much: everything under $3. Yup.

We are so cool sitting at the bar.

We both ordered the Tommy's special - eggs, pancakes, hash browns, and bacon (or sausage if that's your thing).

After breakfast we drove from Marina to Carmel. The plan was to start as far south as possible and hit up the tourist spots as we headed north. First stop, the Carmel Mission!

The Mission itself isn't that tall looking, but somehow when Kmills stood in front of it and I snapped this picture, it looked so much taller! Optical illusion making is one of Kerry's hidden talents. Inside the choir was practicing. It was nice to see the inside because last time I was here (for Easter mass) we had to stand in the entrance because of how packed it was!

There's something so pretty about the Catholic Missions. Kinda creepy how people are buried right there in the church - reminded us of our trip to Westmister Abbey back in the summer of 2007, where patriots like Oliver Cromwell, scientists like Isaac Newton, poets like Chaucer, etc are buried under your feet!

Throwback pic on right: Okay so this guy's not dead - but it is from our trip to London, and yes, I want everyone to know we met Zac Efron... plus, I didn't take any Westmister Abbey pictures :)

We played around in the strange room, taking fun mirror pictures, then we went outside and painted.

Isn't Kerry's picture coming together beautifully? She's such a talented artist.

There was a small little fair. We rubbed olive oil on our hands to make them smooth....

Then we passed through their gift shop. Kerry begged me to get her BibleOpoly but I refused to spend another dime on buying her versions of Monopoly. I've already given her Birdopoly, Elvis edition Monopoly, The Lord of the Rings edition Monopoly, and Sponge Bob Square Pants edition....

Next stop: Carmel-by-the-sea's Ocean Avenue!

We walked around for a while with one major destination in mind: the Cottage of Sweets! I've blogged about this place a lot too so here's why I love it: SWEETS, sold in a COTTAGE.

Kerry chose white chocolate covered pretzel balls and salted carmel fudge. I went with chocolate covered gummy bears in memory of Natalie, peanut butter chocolate malt balls (my recent favorite), and their peanut butter squares.

We grabbed coffee from a cafe up the street and then walked down to the beautiful beach to enjoy our treats.

Continuing on our journey, we drove 17 Mile Drive the back way through Carmel towards Pebble Beach. They still had some of the tents up from the US Open, which was going on the week before.

Look! It's the Lone Cypress ("a salt pruned tree which is the official symbol of Pebble Beach and a frequent fixture of television broadcasts from this area" Wikipedia... and since I know you are curious: "Salt pruning is the process by which saline mists generated by seawater are driven ashore by winds to alter the shape of trees over considerable times throughout the growth cycle of the affected plant... [it] selectively degrades foliage and branches on the windward side of the plant facing the body of saline water. The resultant growth form is an asymmetrical plant form, swept back away from the ocean")

Much to our delight there was a wedding party that arrived via trolley to take pictures. When they abandoned their vehicle to walk down to the Lone Cypress, we hijacked it for our own pictures hah!

The 17 Mile Drive continued on along the coast. We drove through Pacific Grove and then parked on Lighthouse. After a quick stop in the liquor store nearby and then another quick stop at Nob Hill for a light lunch of fruits, we walked to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Get ready for a compilation of Kerry Mills at the Aquarium photos:

Kerry with the jellyfish

Kerry with the crazy looking seahorses

Kerry with this cow statue

Kerry getting ZAPped!

The clam shell! Max if you are reading this: this is my first time actually seeing the clam shell at the Aquarium. Up until recently I didn't think it existed, only in your photoshopping abilities.

We left the aquarium and walked up and down Cannery Row. We stopped in the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a second and I saw these chocolate covered potato chips. Weird!!

When we were driving back to my house, I spotted Mrs. Delish's Cupcake Boutique. I was literally like "WTF?? Since WHEN has that been there?" Kerry, I don't know if I said that out loud, but I was definitely thinking it! Since Kerry's visit I've read a review about the place on Special Edible's blog. I really want to go check that place out soon!

P.S. If you are local to Monterey I suggest you start following that blog because the author, Mark Anderson, works for Monterey County Weekly and reviews a lot of awesome local spots!
P.P.S. Also, if you don't yet, pick up a copy of the Weekly or read their stuff online. LOVE the local paper. I hear about neat events and free stuff from it. Oh and they have the Best Of list that I'm trying to tackle.

We decided to get Baan Thai takeout for dinner. We picked the pumpkin curry (no surprise, if you know me) and pad thai. Kerry let me order, so I of course chose extra hot. The combination of EXTREME heat and an ongoing sinus cold made it impossible to taste our high class $2 bottle of wine.

Empty! :)

Victor, Max, Maren, and Tyler came over (except that Tyler now lives here so I can't really phrase it that way anymore haha) and we busted out the deck of cards!

King's cup is always such a fun game to play.... especially when the rule made up is you have to say your appointed nickname before you say ANYTHING. Slippy Slappy Hippy Happy Trippy Trappy. TOUGH STUFF.

Slappy and Hippy make me Happy.

Sarah was there too - her bro showed us his new tattoo. Then Tyler iced her. Despite the fact that she was on her way to bed, she took it like a champ on one knee!

Then we went downtown.... if you take one good look at the picture below you'll realize how much fun we were having at the Mucky Duck.... such a good dance spot ;)

Not pictured: our trip to the Hippodrome "club" that had cages ... annnnddd yes - we did dance in them.

Mills-Monterey! Day 1

2010-07-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

Kerry Mills came to visit me the last weekend of June and we had such a blast! I LOVE KERRRRRRYYYY!!! (She has a blog too! 100 Things to do in the OC) She flew up here from San Diego on Allegiant Air. They have the best Monterey/SD flight deals but because of low interest, they are getting rid of them July 31st. SO DUMB.

Anyways, Kerry arrived Friday night around 7. We got in the car and quickly stopped at my house to pick up Tyler, Max, and Dave. Then the five of us road-tripped up to Santa Cruz to spend some time at the Boardwalk.

A few people from the Bay Area (old kickball teammates and Megan & Paul) met up with us and we listened to the Blue Oyster Cult perform. Can't remember their hit song, but it was nice sitting on the beach. Every Friday a band plays two sets at the Boardwalk. Place gets packed. No joke.

The hungry bug bit us and we went to find food using my coupon book. We settled on buy one get one free corn dogs. Believe it or not, this was my first corn dog experience. It was delicious!! Corn dogs remind me of a mix between hot dogs and doughnuts, not hot dogs and corn bread.

We rode the iconic Big Dipper next. It is such a classic!

Then we rode the Fireball... It was getting pretty late and we were supposed to go to this bar in downtown Santa Cruz called The Red Room.

However, Megan and Paul (-->) told us about a place (<--) called Marianne's Ice Cream (1020 Ocean St, Santa Cruz) where they serve up crazy delicious flavors like Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough and Heaven (vanilla ice cream with brownie bits, peanut butter and fudge) and Mud Pie and Horchata and Lavender and Pumpkin and Orangesicle.... over 40 flavors that they make themselves.

We got lucky finding parking because we got there pretty late (open til midnight Friday and Saturday) - I'm definitely making that a staple Santa Cruz stop! If you are reading this and want to hang out in Santa Cruz anytime soon please invite me and we'll go here together!

So by now it was practically 11:30 maybe and we finally got to the Red Room. Kerry, the lovely lady she is, bought me a PBR and one for herself. PBR Love. The Rrrred Rrrrroom was a rrrrreally cool spot! Obv. they had red lights and it was very old school with mahogany, rich carpets, lots of plush velvet seating and what not. Most of the San Jose people left and we went downstairs to the "other" red room type place. They allowed smoking in there. Weird. Not a fan of indoor smoking! After a wee little bit we drove back to Monterey and crawled in bed. Saturday was going to be a busy day!

Defining a buttload.

2010-07-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sup readers.

Yes, I say SUP.

This past week included a buttload of driving.

"How much is a buttload?"
"A thousand dollars"

Okay so not a thousand dollars worth of driving, but Monday night was San Jose, Tuesday night was Palo Alto, Wednesday night was San Jose, Friday night was San Francisco, Saturday night was Palo Alto, and now I'm back in my Marina (at Starbucks!)

Time to catch up on a post about the fabulous Kerry Mills, who came to visit me 2 weekends ago!

Good thing my car can handle anything! Love this throwback pic. Miss po5 :(

Plans

2010-07-09T15:12:00.001-07:00

SF, North Beach, Palo Alto, FIFA, me time, shopping?, blogging, picture uploading, run, Rihanna, downtown PA.

Weekend Warrior!

Post lacking a picture. Here's what a space toilet looks like.

As seen at the Chabot Space Center in Oakland.

Sister Sister

2010-07-08T01:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight I drove up to San Jose to hang out with Nicole. I saw her Monday night after camping (also in SJ) but I guess I just can't get enough time with her before... dun dun dun...she goes all the way to San Diego :'( for college TEARZ.

When I got home we began baking. (Boo Radley has an order for cupcakes this weekend!!) On the menu is a fruity, decadent Sangria cupcake. Also being served is a moist chocolate Guinness cupcake - probably the most requested cake flavor!

For dinner we drove to Pasta Pomodoro. I love their bread and olive oil-green dipping liquid thing (pesto-y?) ... While Nicole and I discussed her college future, incl. classes, social ish, and how much she will miss me, we waited eagerly for our angel hair/pesto/shrimp/sun-dried tomato dish and butternut squash ravs. Yum. Yum. I am excited to eat our leftovers tomorrow at lunch!! (aka a nice break from frrrrozen meals thank gawd)

Next up: our dessert of choice - froyo! We went to Whimsical off Curtner and endulged x2! Finally we drove back home and continued baking...

Nicole is such an amazing kitchen helper I'm so lucky to have her with me, especially when there's a lot on my plate (har har). I don't say it enough but thank you so so so much Nicole!

The cuppies turned out great! I'll get some pictures up soon hopefully! Night!

ps vanilla beans are so cool! Must find a cheaper place to buy them!

Location:Desert Flame Dr,San Jose,United States

Happy Birthday Gramps

2010-07-06T23:33:00.001-07:00

Today is Kyle's birthday; he's a grandpa. Silver hairs have sprouted from his scalp. His lack of upper body mobility has resulted in an atrophied left bicep.

...But at least we get to celebrate!

Tonight we went to Mantra (632 Emerson St, Palo Alto) for dinner. It's a nice Indian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto a few streets off Castro. We ordered the hummus and naan to start - the naan was delicious, fresh, and warm. For our main plates we shared a scallop & shrimp risotto and a slow roasted lamb dish that had noodles, tomatoes, cucumbers, and artichokes.

The food was yummy and so was the birthday dessert they brought out. It was ... I forget. I'll try and remember/fact check soon. As we walked back to Kyle's house, we stopped at Patxi's and said hi to Jeremy. After finishing two Hoegaardens, we continued our walk and got ready to go to his indoor soccer game.

Before the game we went to a sports bar, met up with Kit, and watched some FIFA highlights. The game was close but... Kyle's team (green) won!

YouTube Video

Happy Birthday Doze!

Monterey Beer Festival

2010-07-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Lauren goes to the fairgrounds....

Accompanied by fantastic, amazing, wonderful friends....

Let's back it up a little bit....

On Saturday June 5th I went with a group of my comrades to the Monterey Beer Festival, which is held annually at the fairgrounds.

The website described this event as the "greatest assortment of Beer ever assembled on the Central Coast. Sample varied styles of Ales, Lagers & Ciders from over eighty (80+) breweries with hundreds of beers to taste. On hand will be the best of beer from around the world, including:

America, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Australia, Thailand, Italy, Asia, Ireland, Russia, Mexico, Jamaica & California."

These folks weren't kidding.

The weather was absolutely perfect.

The night before Beerfest, Sarah and I had friends over for a game of battleship. Guys vs. Girls... the girls won, naturally. Before heading to bed I went with Chris and Combo to a liquor store to buy some Smirnoff Ice. Yes, the Icing phenomenon was unleashed this weekend.

We woke up Saturday morning and headed to Tommy's in Marina. Kyle's keys were stashed away next to a Smirnoff Ice. Therefore he had to get on one knee and down it like a ~~chick~~ bro.

Between the seven of us, our bill was only $27 bucks. I ordered the French Toast with a side of hash browns. $3 dollars. Combo ordered 9 pieces of toast, 6 eggs, and 3 chunks of hash browns. $3 dollars. This place is crazy! So back to beerfest.... the line to get in was extremely long. 12:30 came and passed and the doors did not open.

Finallllyyyy we were let in and were able to taste the yummy beers (I just wrote 'bears' ha). My personal favorite was the Russian-made Baltika's wheat ale. I sampled almost all Baltika had to offer but the wheat stood out.

Other favorites include the pear and raspberry ciders from (I believe) Widmer's, and a mix of beer and champagne offered up by First Awakenings, a breakfast/lunch spot on Cannery Row.

As the hours passed, my focus strayed away from the beers and on to food - I vaguely remember pizza. I also strayed into the tent that was showing bits of short films as part of the Short Pour Film Festival. We all spent the last half hour (or was it longer?) listening to some of the bands and apparently there was a chicken fight?

We left the fairgrounds, headed back to my place, and a few people took some naps. After what seemed like a while, we decided to go get food. Restaurant of choice? SAFEWAY! People grabbed a variety of food, including ICE CREAM SANDWICHES! MmmmmMMmM...

We took our eats over to Tyler's house and checked to see if anyone wanted to go downtown. Those who were willing - the Safeway crew - drove down to Alvarado Street and went to the Mucky Duck. But first... a sneak Ice attack:

The Mucky Duck is such a fun bar! They have an outdoor dance floor, fire pits, a DJ, an outdoor bar, and $2 jello shots haha.... Oooh and they had a photographer. I informed him that we love getting our picture taken. That might have backfired considering my coworker told me she saw me on Mucky Duck's Facebook page :S

I had such a great time with all my friends and I owe each of them a big huge THANK YOU!!! for driving from all over California to visit me. See you all next year!

P.S. Sarah - I had no idea this happened! HAHA :)

Communication today... and Twitter.

2010-06-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

Not like I am encouraging a less intimate relationship with you or anything, but my twitter accounts are @peppereppep and @BRsCupcakes.

St. Louis, Missouri: Ted Drewes' Frozen Custard

2010-06-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

Note to self: NEXT TIME FLYING THROUGH STL TO GO TO ILLINOIS, STOP HERE.

St. Louis, Missouri: Ted Drewes' Frozen Custard

'These concretes are so thick that the servers make a show out of holding the them upside-down with the spoon suspended in the mix without any danger of it (or the shake itself) sliding out of the cup.'

..."Not wanting to tie up the line I kicked it omakase style and the server surprised me with one of their most popular mixes, the Dutchman—vanilla custard blended with butterscotch, chocolate, and pecans. This was wobbly-knees good and, while it's probably not fair to compare frozen custard with soft serve, blew away any Blizzard or McFlurry that's ever crossed my lips." - article

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard
6726 Chippewa, St. Louis, Missouri, 63109 (map)
314-481-2652

4224 South Grand Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri, 63111 (map)
314-352-7376

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

FX Photo

2010-06-15T11:54:00.001-07:00

I think I love this new iPhone app (FX Photo Studio)

Cheesy, fantastic. Cheesetastic!!

p.s. I can't wait to watch Cupcake Wars tonight on the Food Network!!

SLO haiku

2010-06-14T00:45:00.001-07:00

A SLO haiku:

Great weekend weather,

I loved each sunny moment.

Feeling my sunburn.

Pictures from the top of Bishop's Peak. Hiked it this weekend with my mom and David.

Other SLO highlights: Bali's x2 (both locations :), Firestone's (and seeing Kali there!), Creeky Tiki (my new favorite spot), live music, UFC fight, Aaron's graduation, wine tasting at Edna Valley winery, voicemails from Claytone, mini "things" and borrowed pajama pants, quality family time!!

I lovvvvveeeee going to SLOOoooOOOOOoooo

Wild Thyme Deli, Marina

2010-06-03T17:04:00.001-07:00

So far I've had this job for five and a half months. Not once have I gone down to the cafeteria and spent money on lunch. I bring food from home and if I ever forget a lunch (hasn't happened yet), I can just walk home and grab something. Super convenient! Not only have I successfully avoided the cafeteria, but I've also only ordered lunch ONE time from a restaurant. About a month or two ago some coworkers got Thai take out. Helloooo! I love Thai food. You all know that though. (cough::pumpkincurry::cough)

Last week Tyler mentioned that he and Peter went to Wild Thyme Deli (445 Reservation Road) in Marina. I had looked into eating there with Kyle a while back, but we decided to go to Tico's Breakfast and Lunch instead. Nevertheless, I thought Wild Thyme's website was done beautifully and that their menu merited a visit (eventually).

Today was the day. I woke up, got ready for work, and when I opened the door - wait for it - sunshine and warmth! :) At 8 am! That's when I knew it was going to be a beautiful day. Tyler and I phoned Wild Thyme (831-884-2414) and ordered our sandwiches. I struggled between the Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich and Turkey, Swiss, & Avocado Sandwich.

In the end I went with the Curried Chicken Salad ($7) off the "Cold" menu, which came with chutney, red onions, and tomato on sliced 3 Seed Whole Wheat Roll (more like a sub!). Tyler picked off of their "Hot" menu. He ordered Wild Thyme's Own Marinated Tri-Tip ($7), which came with provolone, grilled onions, horseradish, mustard, lettuce, and tomato, served hot on a sourdough roll, with optional jalapenos.

We drove the back way into Marina, behind CSUMB, and picked up our subs from the deli. It was so nice inside and out their little shop... Lots of people were outside eating yummy sandwiches, enjoying the sunshine under umbrella tables. FYI they serve Peet's Coffee inside.

Madonna and Ratatat accompanied us during the drive... I longed to stay outdoors a little longer, but I was also eager to eat my sandwich! The curried chicken was SO DELICIOUS. The flavors reminded me of Top Ramen haha.... My sandwich was NOTICEABLY heavier than Tyler's was, almost like a brick! Definitely recommend it if you are a hungry hippo. I splashed some Tapatio on mine, obviously.

Maybe I'll abandon my paper bag lunches a little bit more often :)

Serendipity & Frrrozen Hot Chocolate

2010-06-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

Who's seen the movie Serendipity?? So cutesy and romantic. Did you know that they have a restaurant called Serendipity 3 in Las Vegas? It's right in front of Caeser's Palace. (Yelp)

Katie, Andrew, and I went there on our last day in Vegas. Tyler had a coupon for a free Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, their specialty drink, if you ordered a certain amount of food. Between the ~~three~~ two of us, it was a great little treat on that hot day (Andrew only had one sip, Katie and I guzzled the rest down).

After decades of keeping their frrrozen hot chocolate recipe a secret, like Bush's Baked Beans, they released it to Oprah. Of course!

You'll need:

1/2 ounce of Chocolate (bittersweet, semisweet, milk - you choose)

2 t Hot Chocolate Mix

1 1/2 T Sugar

1 1/2 C Milk

3 C Ice

Whipped Cream

Chocolate Shavings

1. Chop the chocolate into teensy pieces, then use a double boiler to melt it.

2. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stir until melted.

3. Take it off the heat and SLOWLY add 1/2 cup of milk. Continue stirring and then - hardest part - let it sit and cool to room temp! Resist the urge to drink.

4. When it's cool, put the remaining cup of milk, the mixture you made above, and the ice into a blender. Blend it on a high speed and when it's all smooth and delicious looking, pour it into your favorite goblet.

5. Top it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings!

If you decide to order one at the REAL restaurant you'll be indulging in a concoction that blends 20 different kinds of chocolate into an icy, rich cocoa flavor. 20 different kinds?? That's crazy!

Add 3 straws and it will look like the one we had...

While eating our food we looked over and saw a tiny man eating this ENORMOUS French Toast LOG. Look at the size of one of the eggs for comparison purposes. It was HUGE! $15 for bacon, sunny side up eggs, breakfast potatoes, fresh berries, whipped cream, and a foot long of French Toast!

And the guy ate the entire thing....

Katie and I split The Summer Bries ($16) - a turkey sandwich, served open-faced on a raisin pumpernickel bun with apples, cranberry mayo and brie. (LOTS of brie FYI). The sandwiches all come with a side of sweet potato fries.

Oreo Cupcake with Cookies and Cream Frosting

2010-06-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I went camping and rafting with friends to celebrate a birthday.

It was the perfect opportunity to bring along cupcakes. The birthday boy was a fan of chocolate. Originally he asked for an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins - World Class Chocolate flavor. Well ice cream wouldn't have lasted too long at our campsite, waiting for us to raft down to it. And plus, I've got cupcake fever. Furthermore, there was a Boo Radley's Cupcakes idea floating in my head that centered around Oreos. Perfect timing.

Thus, the Scout Gets Into an Oreo Tire and Rolls Into Boo's Front Steps cupcake was born!

I'll share the frosting recipe with you:

2 sticks butter, room temp

2 #s powdered sugar (you won't need all of it, just to be safe)

1 t vanilla

1 1/2 T milk

10 crushed up oreo cookies, minus the cream insides (or more, if those are your faves)

Cream the butter for a little bit, about 2 minutes. Then start to add the powdered sugar a bit at a time. The slower the better! It will help avoid granularity (is that a word?). Then add the vanilla and milk. Add more powdered sugar to get it to the desired consistency. Now the fun part! Throw the crushed oreos into the mix and gently fold into the frosting.

This frosting is sweet. But perfectly cookies-and-cream-like ... you will love it. I'm keeping the oreo chocolate cake a secret, sorry!

Dutch Processed, finally!

2010-06-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

Check out my 6 pound tub of dutch processed cocoa powder. I've been pining after this stuff since the baking bug bit me back in February. I tried to convince my mom to bring me back some legitimate dutch cocoa from her trip to Amsterdam. When she returned empty handed I decided to just go ahead and purchase some from cocoasphere.com - their prices are amazingly low. I made a nifty Excel spreadsheet and, after factoring in taxes and shipping, they sell it at the lowest cost per ounce. (Me <- geek). I didn't want to order a 20 lb. tub, so I went with the cheapest under 7 lb option... Guittard. I believe it is manufactured here in California. Dutch processed cocoa has 22 - 26 % cocoa butter (or something - I'm too lazy to Wikipedia right now, I feel like rambling without fact checking) whereas the American "natural" version has around 12%. That's a sizeable difference and I can already tell how much of a difference it has made in the various chocolate desserts I've made! One day I'll order Valrhona... one day.

Kerry's Visiting!

2010-06-02T21:38:00.000-07:00

Attention all: Kerry is coming to visit me!! I can't wait until June 25th when she arrives! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!

So Patriotic! Memorial Day and 4th of July info

2010-05-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Monterey's Fourth Of July Parade Canceled: "Budget problems in Monterey may have forced the cancellation of the annual Fourth of July parade, but that's not stopping some from fighting to bring the big celebration back." - From KSBW.com

My plans for the Fourth of July include camping in Big Sur with Jan Hagel and his friends. However, if you are going to be in the Monterey area and you were looking forward to the annual Fourth of July parade downtown, I'm about to crush your hopes and dreams big time.

A rep from the Monterey Recreation and Community Department (I'm picturing Amy Poehler in my head - are you?) said that the city's 20% budget reduction in anything recreation is really limiting what her department can schedule. Sadly, they have cancelled this year's parade. No one wanted the cancelation, but by scrapping it they were able to save a few year-round community programs.

Dry your tears, readers! The Fourth of July lawn party is still happening! With a price tag of $60,000, city leaders decided it was best to host the day-long lawn party vs. the 1-hour parade (which would have also cost about $60K).

Bring your lawn chairs, family, and friends to Colton Hall between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on July 4th to celebrate! If you are still in the parade mood, pop over to Seaside for their Parade of Champions.

In other patriotic news, I'll be driving down to San Luis Obispo for Memorial Day weekend. I cannot wait to go to Firestone's and get fro yo from Bali's or Yogurt Creations (can't decide which to support! help me pick?), spend some time with lovely AOIIs, enjoy the weather, hit up The Shack on Sunday with Jan Hagel and friends....

All this after Nicole's HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION!! Can you believe it?? Waterproof mascara is a must because I'm just so proud of her I know that I'll be balling as she gets her diploma. Not only does she have amazing grades, she has such a strong head on her shoulders, is very mature, is a beautiful dancer, is caring and loving and kind, and she puts up with me!

What are your weekend plans?

Mi Tierra, Seaside

2010-05-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

After I bought my 3rd and 4th scoops of ice cream from Baskin Robbins during their 31 cent cone promotion, I giddily ran back to my car. Perhaps it was the sugar coursing through my veins or maybe it was just because of my fondness for legitimate mercados - regardless, I decided to pop across the street and check out Mi Tierra Taqueria (also a Mercado y Carniceria) (1000 Broadway Ave, Seaside).

I really liked the inside of this place. Compared to Mi Pueblo in Mountain View, they have a much wider selection of pre-made salsas and ceviche stuff:

- Seasoned Pork Ears $4.40/lb.
- Seasoned Pork Feet $2.69/lb.
- Cactus Salad $3.49/lb.
- Ceviche de Camaron $5.99/lb.
- Salsa de Guacamole $4.99/lb.
- Salsa Mexicana $2.99/lb.
- and... Salsa Verde, Roja, Molcajete (<- anyone know what that is?)

They also have a more extensive butcher bar. I'm guessing that's where the carniceria part comes in...

Beef tendons, beef tongue, marinated pork, pork marinated steak (how does that differ from the one before??), marinated chicken, marinated flap meat, pozole mix (??), patas de puerco (??), pork leg, higado de res (??), beef intestine, cornish, marinated chicken leg, etc!

Enough talk about random animal parts! There was a taqueria in the back of the store, I didn't check out the prices, but I'm sure they were reasonable...

I ventured over to the fruit area and that's where I stayed and ate my ice cream - that's correct, I was not eating my ice cream and staring at the beef tongue display. Instead my mind was whirling around the Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge. I wanted to use Haitian flavors such as mangos and plantains, but I was unsure which to pick and how much I should grab. I used my iPhone a bit and decided to purchase a couple of plantains, a papaya, and a few mangos. (Or is it mangoes?) I also bought a coconut creme that I'd like to integrate into a coconut recipe some day, some chocolate wedges for Mexican hot chocolate (used some in the billiard ball cupcakes I made for my dad), and sugar cane (<- impulse buy! NO IDEA what I'm going to do with it). It was a fun place to shop, cheap, I'll definitely go back to find secret/mystery ingredients!

Tacos and Rainbows

2010-05-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

I had a great post in draft form and then my Internet cut out… pooey! Plan B: use the iPhone to create a blog post so I don't fail my personal challenge of one blog post/day.

Today I woke up as UNusual as possible, after snagging a full 8 hours of sleep! That's practically unheard of in LO-land. I went to work and watched as the skies turned from sunny and clear to slate gray and overcast. After work I went with Dave, Victor, Tyler, and Max to El Torito's Taco Tuesday. We haven't been in a while and it was nice to get out there... We grabbed a table right against the window with a prime bay view. The water below us was crashing in a miniature pool, creating the most beautiful green sea foam -> sea foam green! A rainbow popped up a couple of minutes before we left...

31 Cent Scoop Night Recap

2010-05-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

It probably seems like ages ago when Baskin Robbins had the MOSTunFREAkinBELIEVEABLE deal ever... And yes, I do still daydream about that glorious day... but it is never too late to look at pictures and celebrate the short, but sweet, life of the 31 cent cone.

I had no idea what to order! They gave everyone the option of buying three $0.31 cones. So technically you could snag a triple scoop beauty for under a buck! I bought two scoops (to start). Tyler, Max, Maren, and I ate our yummy cones at a nearby comic book store. So precious, right?

I hopped in my car and began driving home... I called Kerry on the way and asked her if it would be completely barbaric of me to stop at the Seaside Baskin Robbins location to get more ice cream. There were two flavors I still wanted - coffee and chocolate/peanut butter. At first Kerry was on the no-don't train (which was why I called her, so she could talk some sense into me), but I eventually said "screw it," and convinced her that it would be okay because the scoops are just so small!

I'm glad I stopped! At this location the Seaside Fire Department was behind the counter serving the scoops! They parked their big red fire truck outside of the store and a few non-scooping firemen were there supporting the cause. I snapped the picture (below) of a retired fireman whose son (left) was serving me my ice cream. All the profits went to the National Fallen Firefighters Association.

On the organization's website it reads: "The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) and Baskin-Robbins would like to thank everyone who participated in the Annual 31 Cent Scoop Night held on April 28, 2010 to benefit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) and local fire service organizations nationwide... This year's event was a tremendous success; Millions of ice cream scoops were served in support of our firefighting heroes across the U.S. ... We would like to thank all of the fire service organizations that came out to support the event. Almost 700 partnerships were created between local Baskin-Robbins shops and fire service organizations."

So GLAD I could help! Anytime, really.

Side note: 4 scoops of ice cream!!!!! WAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Spiciest Thing I've Ever Made

2010-05-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

Personal challenge: At least one blog post every night this week (minus Friday). I know I've been a little distracted lately with Boo Radley's Cupcakes, and I apologize for that. I'm going to try my best to sift through all of the pictures I made sure to take for 32 Above and get them up on here. I REALLY want to share with you guys what I've been up to so I hope you enjoy reading :)

On the right is a photo I took four nights before my most recent Vegas trip. I had some almost rotten collard greens that I really needed to use. They were smelly. And drippy - dripping slimy vegetable ooze. But I used them anyways. I mixed in some chipotle adobe sauce. Thing was, I used them straight from the can aka all of the seeds were mixed in.

I can handle HOT. ...Like, really extremely HOT.

I could NOT handle this though. My nose was dripping it's own ooze at an uncanny rate. My tongue sweat was sweating. Visualize it. I mixed in a little bit of finely chopped carrots with cilantro and lime sauce (previous leftovers) to quell the heat. That didn't help! What else is a girl to do? How about turn it into the craziest salsa-spread known to man?

I pureed the leftovers and grabbed a pudding cup from the fridge to tame my taste buds. Pudding solves a lot of the world's problems. I brought the carrot-collard-green-chipotle-adobe salsa-spread to Taco Tuesday the following night and Tyler and Max dipped their chips in it. Who knows if it is/was safe, but I ended up using the remaining stuff on everything from lean pockets to veggie medley's to raisin bran -er- nevermind...

If you've had a bad day...

2010-05-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

GET OUTSIDE!

Run down the coastal trail, snatch up free clam chowder on Fisherman's Wharf, chat with a far away friend on the walk back...

... be ambushed by a clan of Marines

Location:Monterey, CA