Three Dog Kitchen

When I’m bored, I mill around Chowhound. I’ve gotten pretty good at not reading posts with titles that I know will annoy me. I now ignore them. Sometimes I get tricked and read a post only to discover that it’s a stupid question (yes, there are stupid questions AND stupid answers in this world) or completely unrelated to the title. These days, Chowhound is most useful to me for providing insight on new restaurants in the area. Of course, I don’t trust chowhound praise outright. No, typically I’ll see a few restaurants named and I’ll read about them and try and get an idea if the reviews are balanced enough to believe. I don’t trust gushing at all. Especially if it’s accompanied by PRAISE in CAPITAL LETTERS. So, I make a mental note of these places and then if I see it pop up on a couple local blogs it triggers a “hmm..” moment. At that point, I probably write it down somewhere and tell T that I want to try it. Or Cami. And then a few months go by before we ever get to where it is we’re craving. So, I’m totally not a trendsetter when it comes to new restaurants. Except for places in Poway, I guess.

My actual point, however, was to say that I don’t actively try to annoy myself with Chowhound. I feel like I’ve been on that site long enough for the vast number of topics to actually start repeating themselves. What to make for V-Day. What to cook to impress a first date. What to do with leftover ham. What’s your favorite cheese. OMG - Greek yogurt rocks. How long do I roast a chicken. Where to eat during Comicon. No car in SD - what food is bearable. And on and on.

What I don’t understand is what people think the site is for. I see questions pop up that make me wonder if they think they’re having live conversations*. Like, there’s a chicken burning in the oven and the dinner party starts in half an hour - what should they do? If I had a dinner party in half an hour and my food was burning, my first instinct would not be to consult a message board for an answer (and then wait for said answer to eventually appear). I would turn on the vent hood, stick the food outside, and either run to Costo for a roast chicken or make a frantic call to Joey’s Smokin’ BBQ. But, I also plan my dinner parties very carefully, so the chances of this happening to me are small. Also, for small get togethers, I don’t tell people what I’m cooking. For all they know, I was planning on having take-out all along!

Or someone will pull out chicken, a pepper, cheese, and couscous and ask what they can make for dinner that night. In half an hour. Do you really think people are sitting at their computer, constantly hitting “refresh” to see what last-minute disasters they can solve?

My latest favorites, however, involve broken appliances. My oven sometimes bursts into flames - should I worry? My refrigerator is leaking water - what should I do? Weird noises, odd smells, random flames, and puddled liquids are not questions for a message board. That’s when you start calling repair people. Some problems don’t get better the longer you wait to fix them (actually, I don’t know of any problems that do that). The concept boggles my mind.

But, just so I don’t end this post on a grumpy note, I will tell you about a cookie from Trader Joe’s (I know, surprise, surprise!) that I bought and didn’t like that later grew on me to the point where I took the bin to work so I didn’t eat them all. In one sitting. They are like Nilla Wafers, if Nilla Wafers were made with butter and vanilla beans. They’re called Ultimate Vanilla Wafers. They come in the plastic tubs, like the chocolate chip cookies that are also addictive. The cookies are crisp-soft. Not as hard as Nilla Wafers, but not as soft as a chewy cookie. You can definitely taste the butter, but sometimes you can also feel the vanilla bean seeds (some people don’t like that). It’s kind of nice to know that you could use a more natural cookie in place of Nilla Wafers (remember making mini cheesecakes with the wafer as the bottom crust?), but I also take comfort know Nilla Wafer are always on grocery store shelves. For all I know, the vanilla thins are “seasonal” and will disappear once summer is over. All in all, it’s a good butter cookie, with just a hint of vanilla.

* Some message boards really are like real-time chatting. I know friends who frequent boards like this and they form their own little odd community. This comes in handy if, say, your car is stolen and you need hundreds of eyes keeping a lookout until it’s spotted, at which point they band together, block said stolen car in until police arrive, and help you get your car back. I’m just saying.

I’m still here… I’m just really tired.  That’s so lame to admit, especially because I don’t have any good reason.  Maybe it’s because we didn’t really get to sleep in over the weekend.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to get up earlier in the morning before work.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been slacking on exercising.  Maybe it’s because my brain is exhausted just thinking of everything we need to do before going on vacation next month.

Maybe I’m just tired.

We had a good weekend, though.  We met with two landscape contractors who should be working on a proposal or rough quote or something that would, I hope, help us figure out who to hire.  That is, of course, unless the cost to redo the backyard comes in ridiculously high.  I mean, the plans we have aren’t that grand, but it does require ripping everything out and starting from scratch, including a new irrigation system.  I think it we got it done the yard would look amazing, though.

We also ventured out to Earth Day in Balboa Park to wander among earth-friendly folk, people just looking for free samples, and a corridor composed of disgusting abortion pictures.  Is that really an effective way to get the message across?  Because it doesn’t really sway my mind one way or the other, I just think the pictures are unnecessary and graphic.

Because Earth Day always draws such a huge crowd, we took the opportunity to have brunch at Cafe Chloe and then ride our bikes from downtown to the Park.  It was a quick ride and much nicer than dealing with the lines of cars and terrible parking.  Plus, we had a lovely brunch with amazing coffee!  On the way back, we had lunch at Neighborhood Bar and, while my tuna salad was refreshing and good, T’s burger was out of this world.  It was like the cow knew it was going to become a burger so it worked really hard at becoming the best burger a cow could become.  Seriously, the burger didn’t even taste like a burger.  It was like a juicy, rich, decadent meaty sandwich on a soft roll.  Really good.

T leaves on Thursday for his Vegas hockey tournament.  I think it’s just a good excuse for all his buddies to get away for a good boys weekend without too much wifely nagging.  I’m going to fly out Friday night and then drive back with him.  The next week he goes off to D.C. for an ASCE meeting, throwing in a family visit and high school reunion in PA.  I wish I could go out with him for that trip, but I just don’t have the time to take off from work, especially since the next week we leave for our cruise to Alaska.  So busy.

Tonight was a meeting with our financial advisor where, if all goes as planned, reinvesting money from the condo sale should provide us a nice cushion in our old age.  Money for the deluxe RV and premium food for the RV-dog, and that’s not counting our retirement accounts.  At least, that’s what I hope will happen.  I do feel good about having money invested in different types of accounts.  Different income streams and all.

Tomorrow we do beer tasting to see how the home-brewed beer turned out.  I’ve had a headache for the last 3 days, so it would be nice if it went away by tomorrow.  I guess we’ll see.  Then, more meetings with the landscape people.

I’m off to bed.  My nice, comfy bed with the soft pillows.  A good night’s sleep would be pretty awesome.

Those are my flowers (please ignore the various work documents spread across my desk) that I received Tuesday.  Aren’t they pretty?  I don’t think there’s anything more fun than getting an unexpected flower delivery at work.  And then you get to tell everyone who asks that your sweet boyfriend sent them to you, totally unprompted.  Then you are told that your boyfriend is a) really sweet, b) really smart, c) a really good guy, or d) a keeper.  And he is all of the above. 

Sorry, ladies.  I depleted the dating pool of one of the “good guys” and I don’t plan and throwing him back in any time soon.

I always forget it exists, and sometimes it’s really not all that funny, but when I rediscover it I find that those LOLcats crack me up.  I guess today it was an LOL-panda that made me giggle.

ps - this is one sad kitty

pps - happy anniversay to my baby.  I’m certainly glad the PE exam exists, for how else would you have come up with an excuse to ask me out?  Has it really been 3 years since you led me into a broken elevator?  I love you more than I love lolcats, for the record.

I’m off to Hawaii to bury my grandpa on top of my grandma.  Yes, it sounds weird, which is how the whole thing feels.  It starts with a cemetary filing bankruptcy and just goes from there.  I will probably be emotionally bereft as we actually place him in the ground, but so far it hasn’t hit me as much as I thought it might.  I think this is partially because Alzheimer’s disease took my grandpa from me years ago, so the body that was left had only a hint of man I remember.  The grandpa who used to dig holes in the sand in Waikiki and bury us with piles of sand.  The grandpa who helped carve mermaid tails and turtles on the beach with us.  The grandpa who would bring a large bag of birdseed to the zoo so we could feed the hundreds of thousands of pigeons in the park, even though I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.  The grandpa who used to take us crayfish fishing using grandma’s dried shrimp as bait.  That’s the one I miss.  The grandpa who would sneak food to the dogs when he wasn’t supposed to and then act innocent when caught?  Somehow, he was still there to the very end.

So, in lieu of an actual service, we’ll be gathered at the burial site with a lot of friend and family, which kind of makes it a service in itself.  And we’ll be doing a lot of eating.  And sorting.  And probably more eating. 

It makes me feel old that I only have one grandma left.  Like, this wasn’t supposed to happen for at least a few more years. 

Thank you everyone for your happy birthday wishes.  I had a pretty rockin’ birthday dinner at The Linkery with our friends.  It’s good to have a solid core group of friends… everyone should be so lucky.  As always, we ate very well, enjoying sausages and beer and beverages and cake.  And lamb.  I try to check in with the Linkery blog before we eat there to see what’s new.  The menu is always changing, but if you can get down there while they still have lamb I would recommend doing so.  I had the lamb sopes, which were so good, and now I want to try the grilled leg of lamb.  T mentioned it was too bad they ran out of abalone before we got to try it.

After dinner, we came home to a very toasty bed.  Every winter, I take my old electric blanket (which totally does not fit on the queen-sized bed) and plug it in so I don’t freeze while trying to fall asleep.  T is always warm, so it didn’t seem like a problem that the blanket only warmed half the bed (because it only covers half the bed, not because half the wires don’t work).  My half, of course.  It also seemed to do a good job, so why replace it?  Well, because T knows me better than I know myself, he decided a new blanket would be worthwhile.  And, because he is often right, this new blanket puts out more heat, covers the bed so that the whole bed is warm and the edges aren’t cold, and it somehow makes the bed even more snuggly.  We already sleep on top of a feather bed and under a down comforter, so for me to say the bed got more snuggly you know it must be good.

On Saturday, my wonderful friends came out again to go to brunch at the Marine Room in La Jolla.  This is a fancy-schmancy restaurant that is expensive and right on the beach.  In the winter, they hold a few High Tide brunches where you can watch the waves come up to the windows.  Because they only have brunch during the winter high tide season, the brunches fill up pretty quickly.  We were seated at 10:30am, kind of the low end of high tide, but it was still pretty cool seeing the beach right out the window.  The food was very good, too.  I only got one picture of food because, as I’ve mentioned before, once we start eating I get too excited to remember to take more pictures.

I started with oysters, shrimp, and stone crab claws (the crab claws were the best).  Then I went to the hot foods area to get: bacon, apple sausage, potatoes with carmelized onions, Grand Marnier french toast, bread pudding, cheese blintz, black forest ham quiche, and a mushroom frittata (or maybe it was quiche and the ham one was a frittata?).  It was all good.  The french toast wasn’t very Grand Marnier-y and the bread pudding was just okay.  The egg dishes were so good.  Tasty, light, not overwhelmingly eggy, and each had crispy parts along the edges.  Yum.  My favorite was the cheese blintz.  The filling had some cream cheese in it instead of all ricotta, which made it moist and tasty.  I think it was the best cheese blintz I’ve ever eaten.  There was another station with cheese (the brie was awesome), three kinds of smoke salmon, pate, bread, couscous, and fruit.  And an omelet station.  And desserts.  So much food. 

Considering the view and the quality of food, I think the Marine Room brunch is worth the $32.  We all left quite full, and we were full of good food, so I have no complaints.  There’s no carving station, but that would probably bump the price up by $20, so I’m fine that it’s not there.  It’s not a brunch we would go to every year, but it was fun to experience it, especially with all my friends for my birthday.

Then!  As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we gathered later that night to play Rock Band.  Even though my singing score progressively went down as the night went on, it’s a totally fun game, especially if you get to play the drums.

Sunday we held a little bbq at home to watch the Chargers play.  They didn’t win, but we were still rooting for them a little.  Anyway, we still had a lot of good bbq food, so all was not lost.  T even finished smoking more albacore later and it turned out very nice.  cured, smoked, but still moist. 

What an exhausting birthday weekend!  Now we have to finish the food in the fridge and get packed to go up to Mammoth for a few days.  I hope they get some nice fluffy snow to help cushion all my falls!

To me!

I know, you’re not supposed to go around telling people it’s your birthday because it’s impolite or something.  Whatever.  It’s my birthday and I’m happy about it!

To celebrate (on Saturday), we are going to The Marine Room in La Jolla for one of their last high-tide brunches (of the season).  I’m pretty excited and I’m betting we’ll eat some good food while we’re there!

We’re also heading to The Linkery for dinner, tonight being my actual birthday and all.  I wonder what tasty dishes they have this week.

Ahh… I love birthdays!

Okay, before I get going on the required 2007-reflection, I have to point out that someone came to my little site by Googling “crushed eggshell toothpaste for sale” and I have to say, “What?!?” First, that sounds awful. Second, why not just crush up eggshells at home and rub them on your teeth? Ew.

I am borrowing this meme from SundryMourning, whose site I came upon for reasons unknown but I keep going back because she has a really cute kid and I like her SundryBuzz posts. Some of her questions require too much thought on my part so I am only anwering those I feel like. Because I can. So there.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Wow. I feel boring already… is there anything new that I did this year? Okay, I had to actually flip through my desk calendar to refresh my memory: I flew somewhere for a business meeting and spent less than 24 hours in Tucson, AZ; I had my wisdom teeth taken out (I guess you can really only do that once); I sold my condo; I joined a CSA; We attended a wine dinner at Thee Bungalow; and I went to Epcot for the first time.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don’t think I made resolutions in January. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t because I knew I wouldn’t keep them. I guess I will resolve to use our elliptical machine more often in 2008. And maybe brush the dogs more often.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope. But I’m totally waiting for friends to have kids because I think it’ll be fun to spoil them rotten. With love. Not with candy and toys and other materialistic goods, of course!
4. Did anyone close to you die? Not this year.
5. What countries did you visit? We did go to Scotland this year. And London (the city, in England the country).
6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Umm… a properly landscaped backyard?
7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I have nothing… my birthday’s a pretty good date (January 17); I guess T’s is, too (February 18). December 24th is cool because this was the first year we got the whole day off from work.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I think I remained fairly civil and not-crazy as T learned to drive on the left side of the road in Scotland. On tiny one-lane roads, where “one lane” means one lane total, not one lane for each direction of traffic. We also managed to survive the crazy roundabouts, which is a huge achievements since it’s also on the “wrong” side of the road and going “backwards”!
9. What was your biggest failure? Me? Fail? Pssh… whatever.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Maybe a small cold or something.
11. What was the best thing you bought? The Elfa shoe rack assembly from The Container Store.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Our friend Ben became a registered engineer!
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Dulci. Except it wasn’t depressing, just frustrating because she’s so cute and we love her, but it is not fun to be constantly steam cleaning everything. Poor thing, we had to rehome to to Vegas where she sleeps undisturbed on a bed, is bigger than all the dogs, gets fed kitty treats daily, and has her every whim attended to.
14. Where did most of your money go? I’m pretty sure it went to DSW for shoes and Ann Taylor Loft for clothes. And Petco for cleaning solution and pet food.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Being at Epcot for their Food and Wine Festival.
16. What song will always remind you of 2007? I don’t think there is one. Years from now, you could play any song and I would be hard pressed to associate it with one particular year.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Always happier, definitely fatter, and I guess richer?
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish we had gone on more bike rides. Considering my bike wheels were always broken, I don’t think this was my fault.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Maybe watching less bad tv when there are dogs to brush and things to dust.
20. How did you spend Christmas? At home, with T and the dogs, in my pajamas all day long. It was so awesome.
21. Did you fall in love in 2007? I stayed in love, does that count?
22. What was your favorite TV program? Before or after the stupid writer’s strike? I think I really like Pushing Daisies on ABC.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope. I’m a lover, not a hater.
24. What was the best book you read? David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Groucho, the singing African Grey parrot at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
26. What did you want and get? My own singing (sort of) parrot!
27. What did you want and not get? A new kitchen.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? I wouldn’t call it my favorite, but Transformers was the most enjoyable to watch due to the excitement.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 28 in 2007 and I have no idea what we did on my birthday. We probably went out to eat during San Diego Restaurant Week.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Winning the lottery without even playing? If my neighbors would stop hanging their kid over the fence, driving Lexi crazy, and then wondering why “the little white one” doesn’t like them?
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Cute, yet comfortable, and yes, I do wear heels with everything.
32. What kept you sane? Clair-bear. And T, the only person who knows I’m hungry before I do.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I don’t think I pay enough attention to them to care that much.
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Meh. Politics make no sense and you can spin any issue any way if you use the right words.
35. Who did you miss? I miss my grandma. When we were in Scotland I saw so many little things I think she would have liked.
36. Who was the best new person you met? I think I’m just glad I didn’t meet any new people that I can’t stand.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. If you have found someone who spoils your cat more than you do and allows your dog to lick him on the nose while getting mad only 1 in 5 occurences of said nose-licking, he is truly special.  Bonus points if he tells you that it’s really his fault you’re snippy and uncooperative because it’s his job to feed you so that you don’t get hungry-cranky!

Every year I marvel at how fast the months fly by, yet January 2007 seems like a lifetime ago. I’m sure 2008 will go by even faster.  Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with family and friends and loved ones. We were fortunate enough to have gotten both Christmas Eve and Day off from work and we relished the time at home with no set schedules.  We celebrated a friend’s birthday and also exchanged gifts and, I have to say, we made out like bandits.  We have a generous group of friends, and although we always say how hard it is to shop for each other the presents end up being perfect every year.  Even the four-legged ones get presents.

So, the very nice Chestnutter people sent me a Chestnutter to keep my fingers safe, so I tested it out with lovely chestnuts from Trader Joe’s and something seemed to work well. I found it worked better with the large chestnuts, making a nice, deep “x” in the chestnut. With the flatter ones, it couldn’t reach to make a cut, but I found that if you stack two flat ones on top of each other that works. Then you just flip them to make an “x” on the other chestnut. The process was fast and easy and not once did I have to worry about hurting myself. Here’s what it looked like after getting its mark:

I roasted them in the oven at 400ºF for half an hour (I think, I just followed the instructions on the chestnut package) and then pulled them and let them cool a bit.

Do you see how the shell has pulled back quite a bit? And how the chestnut doesn’t have the papery skin stuck to it? Amazing! Maybe the trick is to get a deep enough cut into the chestnut so it can all peel away like that. I was able to peel off the shell and only one chestnut was stubborn enough to hold onto its skin. My fingers didn’t hurt afterwards and the dogs only got one chestnut and only because they looked so cute. I’ll probably only roast chestnuts once or twice a year, but I’m definitely using the Chestnutter every single time. And buying chestnuts from Trader Joe’s. Why mess with a successful formula?

We are on our way to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with my family (they live there, no I did not grow up there).  We plan on eating quite well, both at home and dining out around Vegas.  We’re also toting three dogs and a cat with us (Clair is staying home to guard the house and probably enjoy the peace and quiet) and coming home with just the pups. 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll list what I’m thankful for, not just this year, but in general:

• Of course, my friends and family and our collective good health.  I’m blessed to have a tight cluster of friends that I can count on and always have fun with.  I also consider myself fortunate to have a wonderfully close relationship with my mom and a decently expressive one with my dad.

• It’s no surprise I’m thankful for T.  He makes life fun, takes out the trash, keeps me from letting the fur pile up too much, lets Lexi lick his nose, rarely complains, and makes a mean omelet.  He simply makes me happy, which is just really cool.

• I’m glad my dogs occasionally like to cuddle on the couch.  what good is a dog if they don’t keep your feet warm?

• I have a good job that keeps me busy, interested, but also lets me go home at a decent hour. 

• I live in a city that’s small enough to be quiet, but large enough to have a Costco.  Also, we could eat our way around the world in a 30-mile radius if we tried.

• My co-workers and aquaintances are slowly merging into friends, which also makes me happy.

• Down comforters and featherbeds produce a cloud to sleep upon, which makes for snuggly mornings in the winter.

• My cats have never thrown up in my shoes.

• My cats have also never stolen my shoes and chewed them up.

• I’m thankful that I have so much to be thankful for!