Hooray! It's the long weekend!
FRIDAY
On Friday night, Will and I stayed in and watched "The Guardian" with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. It was a decent movie, only slightly cheesy (especially with a closing credits song by Bryan Adams), and with the typical mentor-tough-love story and plenty of insinuations from "Top Gun".
Our friends, Kareem and Geneve, were crashing at our house on Friday night, en route to Napa. But due to the long weekend travel craziness, they missed their flight and managed to finally get on a flight to SFO two stand-bys later. They rolled into the house sometime around 1 AM, what a way to start a weekend...phew!
SATURDAY
We woke up and got in a little catch-up with Kareem and Geneve before they headed up to Napa with their friends. It's a very exciting time for both of them as they've quit their jobs, are going on a quick trip to Thailand, and the will return to pursue their passions (Geneve with cooking school and working with Sweet Riot, and Kareem with a new start-up). Good luck you two!
What a gorgeous day Saturday was. We were inspired to enjoy the sun, so we recruited Ashley and the three of us headed down to The Ramp, a fave place to enjoy food and drink in the sun by the bay. Unfortunately, I forgot the little digicam, so you'll have to take my word that the 1/2 pound beef burger with cheddar, bacon and avocado was absolutely delish, the two pints of Wyder's Pear cider went down like water, the sun was wonderful on the skin, and Ashley looked hot in her summer outfit.
After such an exhausting lunch, I took Will home and then went on a campaign of errands, which included a pedicure for me! Yay!
Early in the evening, Will and I scooted over to the Financial District to meet up with a gaggle of folks for an early dinner. The event was a surprise birthday dinner for my friend, Beth, whose husband Tony planned a soiree for 10 folks at Frisson.
(BTW: Beth is an amazing artist and if you like botanicals and have a sense of humor, you should check out her newest collection which was inspired by famous hair-dos...my favorite is the Alfalfa!)
Anyway, we were ushered into one of the private dining rooms at the back of the restaurant, that had a nice little entrance to a "private" garden as well. Swanky! The dinner party included some folks that Will and I had met previously at Beth and Tony's wedding last September, a really nice group of people with eclectic backgrounds and varied life stories.
To start the evening of dining, a featured appetizer was ordered for the group to share, a charcuterie plate. I love charcuterie plates, but never seem to order them, so this was a perfect start. The plate included house-cured duck carpaccio, a chicken galantine, horseradish cream, and a terrine of foie gras accompanied with toasted brioche. I'm a lover of foie gras (don't hate me all you treehuggers out there!), so the terrine was divine. But the winner here was the duck carpaccio, slightly salty but with a lovely texture and the flavor of the duck wonderfuly preserved.
Both Will and I started with the crispy pork croquettes with yukon gold potatoes, bacon-frisee salad, sherry vinaigrette. We tried to order one to share, but they brought us two orders...oh well. So we just had to eat both of them, right? This was lovely as well. The croquette contained really tender pork that was spiced with some veggies (I couldn't discern which ones, I was eating too fast), and the breading was really light, not greasy at all.
For dinner, Will chose the roasted red snapper with house made chorizo with forbidden black rice, crispy lotus root chips, red beet reduction. Will has been on a snapper kick lately, and this dish was not disappointing. The red beet reduction was a nice complement to the fresh and light fish.
Of course, I stuck with my meat theme, and chose the Fino sherry braised short ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes, shallot roasted dino kale, herb & caper relish, truffle jus. First of all, the horseradish mashed taters blew me away. Maybe it's because I'm a lover of horseradish, but they were so damn tasty. The short ribs were incredibly tender and had wonderful flavors. Of course, the truffle jus was delightful, and I couldn't get enough of the kale. I was happily satisfied with this entree.
Tony had the organizational prowess to call ahead and arranged for the pastry chef to create a chocolate cake personally for Beth's birthday. The chocolate ganache was lovely, but the cake was a little on the dry side, so of the entire meal, only the dessert was not up to par.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETH!
SUNDAY
On Sunday morning, after a nice long post-fantastic meal slumber, I woke up and got some stuff together to go for a hike with Katharine and Key in Marin. We headed to Stinson Beach to do my favorite hike in the Bay Area, which is a 7-mile loop from Stinson Beach, through Muir Woods, through Mt. Tam State Park and back to Stinson. From Stinson, we hiked up the Matt Davis Trail for about 4 miles to the Pan Toll Ranger Station, then proceeded on the Steep Ravine and Dipsea Trails back to Stinson Beach. It takes about 2.5 hours and takes you through lush woods, sunny grasslands, and a ravine.
Katharine was on a banana-slug-saving mission, as every banana slug she came across on the trail was moved off the trail to prevent an early demise.
Far off views of the tips of GG Bridge and Sutro Tower:
After the awesome hike, we rewarded ourselves with a late lunch at the Stinson Beach Grill.
I started off with 6 large Miyagi oysters on the half shell. They were large and delicious with the mignonette. Then, I polished off a burger (two in two days...look at me go! Good thing I went on a hike...)
From Stinson, we headed back to the city, after some grocery stops in the Sunset and at Andronico's. That night, Will and I were pretty weary (he went mountain biking in the Santa Cruz mountains all day), so we tucked in and got through only part of "An Inconvenient Truth"...
MONDAY
On Monday, I headed down to SJ to see the little ones.
I could go on and on about how cute and lovely and big the twins are getting, and how smart and adorable Olivia is as the 4-year old who knows everything...but I won't.
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