snowed in

Snowed in, ambulance, 14 hours of labor, emergency C section and then KAIA was born! December 18th at 6:26pm, 7 lbs, 9 ounces and super cute! I am in love.

snow!

Yesterday Jersey and I were talking about how much we miss California, but he mentioned that it would be nice to see snow for once, since he hadn't felt snow on his face in years. Well, last night we went to see Milk, a FANTASTIC movie at the Egyptian. It was kinda sad to watch it in Seattle, because there were several San Francisco inside jokes, I felt like only Jersey and I were laughing about, but I loved that the sold out crowd clapped and cheered at the end.
As we were leaving we saw snow flurries gathering in the sky and by the time we got home there was at least an inch of snow on the ground.
This is a picture of our backyard. Jersey got his wish!

sea lullaby

I have three favorite poems. Today posted is "Sea Lullaby" from Elinor Wylie. I first read this poem when I was in the 9th grade and thought it was brilliant in setting the mood and cadence:

The old moon is tarnished
With smoke of the flood,
The dead leaves are varnished
With colour like blood.

A treacherous smiler
With teeth white as milk,
A savage beguiler
In sheathings of silk

The sea creeps to pillage,
She leaps on her prey;
A child of the village
Was murdered today.

She came up to meet him
In a smooth golden cloak,
She choked him and beat him
to death, for a joke.

Her bright locks were tangled,
She shouted for joy
With one hand she strangled
A strong little boy.

Now in silence she lingers
Beside him all night
To wash her long fingers
In silvery light.

manka's breakfast

One of my favorite reasons for going to Manka's is the AMAZING breakfast we get delivered to our door every morning.

thanksgiving

It's our last Thanksgiving together, just Jersey and me. We spent it at Manka's Inverness Lodge. If you ever want a relaxing wonderful place that's close to San Francisco, go there!


This year we had dinner in our room, which was nice, cause I am big as a house and would have been uncomfortable eating 6 courses around strangers.

We were so stuffed, that we had to finish our chocolate, Port course the next day!

baby shower shout out

Thank you to all my friends for their wonderful support during my pregnancy, all the gifts, and to the ladies that showed up to the baby shower! Kim, Divo, and Heather- I will for sure be at yours!!!

primavera

Primavera! When are you going to have an everyday place? I can't just wait on Saturdays that I am in San Francisco to eat your wonderful food!

opera cake

My last class with Binko for the year.

mankas!

I got an email from Manka's today. Here's what we will be having at Thanksgiving:

On the Feast to Give Thanks For
Two Thousand Eight


Brick Oven Bread, Dinner Rolls,
Coastal Dairy Butter
And Devilishly Housemade Ham
Held by Local Leaves of Endive

A Soup of Wild and Tame Mushrooms
Including Our Local Gold: The Grand Porcini

Heritage Turkey Last Seen Roaming
On the Range of Historic ‘H’ Ranch
Served Alongside Lodge Mashed Potatoes,
A Chutney of Point Reyes Plums,
Bolinas Butternut Squash
And Dressing Laced with Sausage
Fashioned from Dr.Pasternak’s Rabbit

A Pie of Woodacre Walnuts
Laced with Lance’s Scotch
Crowned with a Cloud of Local Dairy Cream
And a Confetti of Candied Pumpkin
Plucked from Warren’s Patch



sweet dreams

we heart portland soule

Last weekend Jersey and drove down to Portland. Jersey has never been and I really wanted to see my dear friend Damon Soule, whom I hadn't seen in four years. Damon is one of the most talented artist in America and he's also an amazing person. I missed him so much! We stayed at the cool Ace Hotel. The staff is friendly, the rooms are decent, a very hip hotel.
Portland is such a cute and wonderful city. The people were genuine, sweet, and dressed WAY better than here in Seattle.

We went the Portland Farmer's Market and I was impressed. I always talk about my beloved Ferry Building, but I gotta tell you, it was BIG and the vendors had yummy food to offer.

We got some bread from Dave's Killer Bread. Now we only bought the bread, cause of their interesting marketing, but the bread ended up being a great treat. I wanted to buy more stuff, but we didn't bring a cooler. We ate brunch at Byways Cafe in the Pearl district. Try the ginger pancakes if you go there!

On the way to meet up with Damon we saw a fat rainbow!

We went for dinner at Delta Cafe. Jersey and Damon got the low brow champagne. The best thing on the menu was the tater tot casserole!

It was so great to see Damon, I wish I lived closer to him. I really miss hanging out. It's very rare in life for a woman to meet a decent man and be good friends without any weirdness. I am lucky to have Damon in my life.
Before we left we ate at the BEST PLACE EVER! Simpatica, located in a loft building. I had the most amazing frittata with porcini and butternut squash. We ended our best brunch ever with pear gelato and a chocolate hazelnut torte.

We love Portland, the land of hazelnuts and tater tots!

fromage blanc cake

I took a baked cheesecake class from Binko's that was so yummy. A few days ago I saw a mascarpone/yogurt cake on La Tartine Gourmande. I felt like the lemony tartness of a cheesecake would be a perfect pick me up for the dreary weather in Seattle. I took what I knew from Binko's class and used the recipe on La Tartine Gourmande, but instead of the mascarpone, I used 5 ouces of Fromage Blanc and 183 grams of Strauss's Vanilla European style yogurt.

tom morello

The one thing I am going to praise Seattle for is the wonderful way music is supported. My favorite record store here, Easy Street Records, had a free show that Tom Morello play. I LOVE TOM! He's one of my top 5 fave guitar players. If you aren't familiar with the guitar genius called Tom, he played with Rage Against the Machine and Audio Slave. He not only rocks the guitar, but he has a Poly Sci degree from Harvard and very much the revolutionist. Poly Sci and Guitar??? MY KIND OF GUY! Anyway, he played some songs from his The Nightwatchman project. I have a movie I took, but it's a million MB's and it's taking forever to load up on here, so I'll try to figure out how to get it smaller.

happy halloweenie

I tried so hard to make an Obama pumpkin. All I had at my disposal was a huge 16cm cook's knife, a corn on the cob holder, and a steak knife. It was really frustating, so I kinda gave up. Oh well, maybe it's scary enough for Halloween!

kaia inside

I have been kinda down lately, so for a nice cheer up Jersey and I wanted to see our daughter today. I booked a 4D ultrasound at Pregnancy Journal. It was so wonderful to actually see little Kaia's face. Now I don't feel I am giving birth to a dragon!

She's so cute. We both think she's going to look like me. She's got my lips and nose so far!

This is her in the yoga pose Padahastasana, hand to foot!

vashon

Since we moved to Seattle I have been aching to go to Vashon Island. I read that the farms there are organic, even though they aren't certified. I got back from work in San Francisco this week and decided to take the ferry over. Jersey and I haven't taken a car ferry since we were kids so we woke up early all giddy!

We drove into town and got to the Farmer's Market on time to get my knives sharpen (finally!), had some soup, and bought some amazing melons and fall squashes.


The main reason I wanted to check out Vashon Island was for Sea Breeze Farm. I read that they had the most amazing meats, dairy, and eggs. You can also purchase and eat there. By serendipity we ran across their brand new retail cafe off the beaten path.

They were serving lunch. Jersey had the ham and biscuit and I had the chicken and dumplings.


I can't tell you how amazing both dishes were. I devoured most of Jersey's collard greens. They both tasted better than any of my southern relatives' recipes! I love the hint of vinegar on the collard greens, not overwhelming like you normally have at a lot of places, enough to brighten that natural collard green flavor. The biscuit was light and flaky. I didn't investigate too much of the ham, as it wasn't my dish, but it tasted salted enough but wasn't tough at all. My chicken was full of flavor and the dumplings were at that right consistency of tender and not mushy or too hard. We bought a few things at the counter, including duck eggs! I can't wait to bake with them this week. Another shiny item we got was their cheese. I should have bought a whole wheel! It was delicious and salty. We ate the whole thing when we got home!

I gotta tell you, this place is my FAVORITE place in all of Seattle. I am hoping to visit at least once a month.

After lunch we headed back to the car to drive around the island. I jumped back to the farmer's market to pick up a caramel apple. Not only was the apple delicious (grown right on the island), but the person who made them was clever enough to use an apple branch as the stick!

We drove around and found the coolest thing! A SkatePark! What a great place to live and raise a family. You got the beauty of the island, the great produce and a place to rip it up after school (or work!)

healthy snacks

We made some health snacks at Binko's. Persimmon tarts and pumpkin pudding. Another student brought in cream cheese bread. Yet again I forgot my tri pod, so most of the pictures came out really bad due to the lighting. I will recreate the recipe at home soon! At Binko's we used Kombacha for the pudding, but for my recipe I will use some french pumpkins.

mushbrella

Just think, ants use these to cover from the rain.

happy big eight clara

Today was Clara's birthday party. Karen arranged a cool and culinary educated party at Eat Local. A sushi chef came and taught the girls how to make California rolls.


The adults got to try too, mine was oishii!

The lovely antics of Jersey makes everyone laugh.

Happy Birthday Clara! I hope you like your Barack Obama birthday card! Thanks Karen for inviting us!

bagelmania

I got some really good rest last night. It's been a while. I woke up so refreshed, that I decided to make bagels! I used the recipe in Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess." I found that the recipe tends to make my mixer stand do a lot of work and I didn't get quite the look I wanted for the bagels. Next time, I am going to reduce it in half.

It takes a while to make them, but I found that my bagels, even though they weren't uniformly pretty, tasted amazing.

I made simple cheese scrambles to accompanied the bagel.

last day farmers' market

Today was the last day of the Queen Anne Farmer's Market. I put on my raincoat and wellies and headed two blocks down the hill. I didn't get much, just eggs, corn, and tamales. I wanted to get some winter squashes, but there wasn't a ton of organic ones that caught my eye.



There is a cute community garden near there as well. You can pick the lettuces, tomatoes, and herbs right off the plants.

These are the roses in my backyard.