Cake for Sandy

February 27, 2008

Sandy's birthday was on Sunday (24th) and as I was a bad friend and went out of town for new snow instead of going to her birthday dinner, I just had to have the girls over for dinner to celebrate her belated birthday. It was also convenient that Will is out of town for work on the east coast, so our place was free to be invaded by the ladies.

Wendy made an awesome catfish dish with an asian caramel sauce, which complimented the mango rice that I made. I also made some baked sweet potatoes, Gail whipped up a salad and Kat brought a great Devil Food Cake from Sweet Inspiration Bakery on Market St. in the Castro.




Happy Belated Birthday Sandy!

Tahoe Delight

February 24, 2008

Nothing screams good times more than a winter storm warning during the ski season. Oh goody!

I skiied on Saturday with Will, Heather and Scott, and I got to check out a bunch of new terrain in Heavenly and out of bounds through back country gates that I never go to because the traverses on a snowboard are usually very awful. But on skis, I could actually make it. However, I quickly realized that my legs are not "ski legs" and I was struggling in powder on my skis. Oh, to be 10 years old again. We went to Fullstone (backcountry gate), did some runs in Mott Canyon and Killebrew, headed to Firebreak (another backcountry gate) and then to Raley's Gulch (yet another backcountry gate). The snow was awesome pretty much everywhere we went, and the big snow was yet to come!

When we got back the cabin, Will was excited to do some silly jump building again (an annual indulgence), and I helped him up. This time, the design was to take off from the top of the upstairs deck, down past the driveway and off a lip of snow that was from snowplowing. I took a bunch of pics and videos are below.









Here are a series of videos from Will, Chevy, Wendy and Pat (with a sled!) going off the deck. Ridonkulous.



















Saturday night brought another 18 inches of new snow at lake level, sweet!



Will and I headed to the mountain early (in time for the first lifts!) to do laps of Gunbarrel before heading back to the bay area (he had a red-eye flight on Sunday night, so we had to make sure we had plenty of time to get back). I snowboarded on Sunday, and realized that I'm not a very good powder boarder either. It's so much work! But I had a much better time when I went into the trees beside Gunbarrel, where I didn't have to deal with rock-hard moguls underneath the powder. Phew!

No matter how tired I was, it was well worth the effort to spend quality time with good snow. Oh, lovely pow-pow.

President's Day

February 18, 2008

After yoga in the morning, I hung out with the my sister's little cutesies in the afternoon of President's Day.






Here's Olivia showing off her little temporary tattoo of a dog. Olivia told me that she had named the tattoo "Skinny Dog", and when I asked her why, she replied "Because it's on my skin!". Of course it is.


I went back to SF to have dinner with Wendy. She brought over a whole roast duck and we made peking duck. It was rather gluttonous and wonderful, all at the same time, we stayed true to our peeps. I have a great picture of Wendy wielding a massive cleaver over the duck that I need to post later...

Alamere Falls

February 17, 2008


On Sunday, Key and I headed to the southern part of Point Reyes National Seashore to do the hike to Alamere Falls from the Palomarin Trailhead along the Coast Trail. I had been meaning to do this hike for some time, and it's great that I'm back to tackling my list of things to do in the bay area (other than play frisbee).

This is an out and back hike that is approximately 11 mile round trip. The Coastal Trail is moderate to easy, with rolling hills and sights of two lakes (Bass and Pelican) along the way.

The Alamere Falls Trail is not maintained and is less than half a mile to the falls.

At the first bluff, there's a scramble down dirt and rock faces to get to the small feeder water falls (this is already kind of sketchy, but I imagine it would be extremely sketchy with lots of people and if it was wet). We were lucky and there weren't that many people there already.




From the top part of the falls, there's another scramble down a much sketchier face that has crumbly and loose rock, making this descent a lot more difficult.




We had lunch at the top of Alamere Falls and turned back to hike back to Palomarin. On the way back, the trails were noticeably much busier, with lots of groups tramping towards the falls.

It took us 1.5 hours to get to the falls, and just under that to get back, so about 3 hours round trip.

After we got back to the Palomarin trailhead, we headed northward to Tomales Bay so that I could get my fresh oyster fix at Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall, CA. I had brought a big cooler, some oyster mignonette that I had made the night before, and all the tools for us to enjoy some oysters right at the farm.

It's such a great deal to visit the oyster farm ($1/oyster for Kumamotos, $0.64/oyster for X-small Sweetwaters), versus ordering oysters at a restaurant (usually $2.50-3 a piece). I bought some extras home for Will and I to enjoy later.

We also made a short pit stop at The Marshall Store on Hwy 1, just south of Hog Island. They make an awesome clam chowder that we had to have.

By the time we got home around 5 pm, we were spent. It had been a wonderful California day.

Alembic

February 15, 2008

Will took off for Oahu on Friday for a frisbee tournament (Kaimana Klassik) with a men's team that our friend, Stephen, had put together. So, I started off the long weekend with dinner with Key and Wendy at Alembic, a great bar in Upper Haight that has a fantastic small plates menu.

Alembic's mantra is that they stick to a fairly simple recipe: local foods, small dishes, big drinks and home brews. From what I hear, this bar is also the brainchild of the owners of Magnolia, just down the street and another standby bar with good food.

We got there around 6:45 pm, which was perfect timing, as we managed to grab a tall table by the front windows and beat a big early dinner rush. By the time we left, there were many anxious folks eyeing our table.

The small plates menu looked delicious and was only surpassed by the magnificent cocktail menu (their cocktails are $8-10). The entertainment value from reading the drink descriptions was definitely high. If you are a connoisseur of bourbon, you will love this place.

We shared the following small plates:

• Wine Forest Wontons (wild chanterelle, goat cheese, green onion, red pepper coulis)
• Truffle Mac N' Cheese (cowgirl mt. tam, three sisters serena)
• Sliders (moroccan spiced lamb burgers, harissa aioli, roasted peppers, tapenade)
• Spaetzle (braised rabbit, niman bacon, portobello mushroom, gruyere, dijon mustard and tarragon)
• Herb and spice dusted frites with lemongrass, garlic, aromatic mayo

Instead of taking individual shots, here's a shot of our table with all the yummy food:

All the food was fantastic, and pretty rich, so 5 small plates was enough to tackle our stomachs (which is a good feat, have you seen how much Wendy can pack in???). My faves were the truffled mac n' cheese and the wontons, just thinking about them make me want to go back.

I tried two cocktails, which were also wonderful (descriptions from the cocktail menu included below):

• The Bee's Knees - the cat’s meow, quite simply, the best. a light and sweet cocktail of plymouth gin, lavender honey, and a splash of lemon juice. because you would never order
  anything called “the dog’s bullocks” would you?
• Southern Exposure - another refreshing elixir plucked straight from the garden, our spin on the classic southside uses junipero gin, fresh mint, lime juice, a touch of sugar and a little shot of fresh celery juice. loaded with antioxidants to help deal with the haight’s population of free "radicals".
  

I wish I lived stumbling distance away. I heart Alembic.

Happy VD!

February 14, 2008

I'm not a big fan of commercial holidays, specifically Valentine's Day, and we usually don't do anything special on this day. But, I was excited when Pete and Natasha invited us over to their place to have dinner with some other folks and see their new home in Potrero Hill.




Peter made dinner and served up fantastically tender chicken, spinach greens and poutine!

Hope you all had a good day, even though it was VD :)