Hanging with John, Emily & James!

September 13, 2009


Will and I are very excited that John, Emily and baby James will now be relocating back to North America (Vancouver, to be exact!) in the near future... their NA moving tour started in San Francisco for 6 days. It was great to spend some quality time with John and Emily again, and I was so excited to meet James (he's so big!)...










On Sunday, we headed down to south bay to my sister's house to have an extended family get-together...






Simey looks a little grumpy post-nap:







We'll see John, Emily and James briefly again in a couple weeks as they make their way up to their new (again) home in Vancouver! Welcome back!

Girls' Nite!

September 11, 2009

Katharine hosted some ladies at her house for dinner on Thursday night, and we were long overdue for a good catch-up session.

Katharine made a pretty phenomenal penne pasta dish:

Thanks for hosting, Katharine! I heart my ladies!

Starbelly

September 7, 2009

On Monday night, Will and I had a chance to catch up with Kerry Soo, who was in town for a frizzer tournament over the weekend. We headed to the new eatery, Starbelly, located in the Castro in the old Asquew Grill location. Close to spanking new, Starbelly was opened up in mid-August by the owners of Beretta and has been welcomed with open arms by the neighborhood. The place was jumping.


The menu is fun and offers a variety of "snacks", "small", "salads", "vegetables", "pizzas", and "plates". We ordered a variety of these...
Popcorn clams with Old Bay remoulade
Sweet corn with house smoked ham hock and olive oil
Grilled baby octopus with fennel and raddichio slaw

Pizza with market mushrooms, gruyere cheese, thyme and roasted onions
Lavendar pot de creme with shortbread sugar cubes

Overall, the dinner was fantastic and I loved the great menu and very reasonable prices. Definitely a "go back".
Great to see you Kerry! We miss you!

Labor Day

September 7, 2009

I heart long weekends. I was particularly looking forward to this one because work has been kicking my butt...

So I had a nice sleep-in, and then met up with Katharine and Key for a luscious brunch at Slow Club (their turkey sausage hash is to...die...for...).

After brunch, we headed down to the Ferry Building to be like tourists. We stopped at Blue Bottle, and Key had the Affogato (espresso with the Secret Breakfast ice cream from Humphrey Slocombe...it was to...die...for...).

Awesome day!

Kiddie Playdate

September 6, 2009

On Sunday, I went for a run in the morning and then headed down to South Bay to hang with my sister's family. Arissa and Aisha also came for a playdate...




Poor Charlotte has a big owie under her nose from a big playground bail:







I ended up staying through the night to babysit the kiddies while my sister and her hubby celebrated their anniversary. We had fudgesicles.


Ah, good times. Happy Anniversary to Angie and Jack!

Mos & Erykah

September 5, 2009

On Thursday night, I caught up with Will, Robert, Sue Hee, Sara, Henrik and Jo for a quickie dinner at Double Decker (yummy cheap food! hooray for wings!) in Hayes Valley before we all headed over to the Davies Symphony Hall to catch Mos Def, Erykah Badu and Jay Electronica in concert.

Henrik had gotten an extra pair of awesome tickets (9th row!) and Will and I were the lucky takers:

Jay Electronica is a pretty dope emcee, but he didn't have a chance to really get into his stuff (he was the first opener), and he seemed a little uncomfortable being in a large venue, as opposed to a smaller hip hop club. His lyrics are pretty profound, though.

Erykah Badu played with a large group of DJs surrounded by something like 9 Mac computers, who call themselves the Cannabinoids. They have a more "extraterrestrial" sound and it was a quite the departure for Ms. Badu. I love her old stuff, she did harken some "Love of My Life" and did a version of "Appletree" on crack. Interesting set.

Mos Def is always awesome. However, I preferred him at Yoshi's with his full jazz band, compared to being supported by two DJs. Mos did take on some drumming, which was fun. And, he did a sweet tribute to Michael Jackson.

The concert was pretty fun, but I was one tired puppy, with work taking an extra special toll on my lately. I do however, always love hearing music in the Davies Symphony Hall, the acoustics in that place are out of this world.