sunday brunch, nopalito

One of the things I like best about my neighborhood is the food. There are so many fantastic restaurants within walking distance of our apartment. This morning I drove out to pick Daniel up at the Oakland airport- he was down near LA for work all week- and we went out for brunch at Nopalito.

Nopalito is one of my favorite places to go for brunch. The food is always excellent and they have marvelous cocktails. I had the El Diablo (Pueblo Viejo blanco, cassis, ginger beer, and lime) and Daniel had a Mayan Sidecar (Hacienda Vieja Reposado, Xtabentun, and lemon)- both were delicious.

We started with the totopos con chile and then split a quesadilla stuffed with cheese and fresh squash blossoms. For our main course, we shared and an order of carnitas. 

It was an enormous quantity of food, but I'm not complaining. I love Sunday brunch.

Nopalito

306 Broderick St.

San Francisco 94117

short friday

Friday! And a short Friday at that, since today is the day of my company's annual picnic. The weather's still sort of gray and gloomy but I hope it'll burn off by the afternoon and I can enjoy eating a hamburger in the sunshine.

Anyway, apart from that, I'm glad this week is drawing to a close. I have plans to go out to drinks/dinner/etc. with some girlfriends- my friend Kinzie just found out she's moving to London for her job, so celebration is imperative.

Hope everyone has delightful plans for this last weekend of July. Summer is flying by. 

Image: Modernhepburn

five things

A few things making me happy these days:

• Cypress Hill Chevre Purple Haze
• Watching the Barefoot Contessa while I'm at the gym (but only at the gym)
• The Avett Brothers
• Listening to the audiobook of A History of Love on my drive to work
• Ballet slippers

oh, mondays

I love to cook but when I'm home on my own for the evening, I tend to get fairly lazy. I've just never found cooking for one to be as satisfying as cooking for two. But that's not to say that I don't eat well. I just usually pare the meal down to its simplest components. Last night, for example, I came home from dance and fixed myself a plate of heirloom tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar- but no basil because my herb window box is infested with aphids and I'm terrified to go near it until Daniel comes home from his work trip to LA and sprays it with pesticides. 

After dinner, I went over to my friend Ashley's house to hang out and have a glass of wine. Ashley tripped over an uneven spot on her floor and (maybe) broke her second toe, so we drank wine and watched her toe swell up to look like one of those little Vienna Sausages in fascinated horror. We ended up watching The Bachelorette (just awful) and then another show called Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition (also awful, but in a different way) while Ashley iced her toe with a bag of frozen peas.

Oh, Mondays.

housesitting in napa

Friday after work, we drove up to Napa. It was a long work week for both Daniel and myself, so we spent a quiet evening at his parents house and went to bed early in anticipation of a busy Saturday.

Saturday started with French toast. Daniel's parents left us a loaf of cinnamon bread from ABC Bakery (heaven) and I made French toast with maple syrup and blueberries.

Willy, Daniel's family dog- a Weimaraner- behaved very well and kept his nose out of our breakfast. Daniel rewarded him with lots of pets and ice chips.

After breakfast, we took him down to Yountville for a walk. 

We walked by the French Laundry gardens and saw that they now appear to be raising chickens on the property.

The chickens were all very small with enormous fluffy feet. I'm not sure what kind of chicken that is, but they were amazing.

After walking around for a while, we decided to stop for lunch at the Oakville Grocery. 

f

 After lunch, we headed back to the house and spent a few hours sunning ourselves out by the pool before going to meet our friends for a spot of wine tasting.

Rough life.

Dave and Lindsey (and their puppy) met us at Pine Ridge and we spent a few hours sitting out on their patio tasting various wines. The puppy slept under the table.

Dave and Lindsey got married in Sonoma last year and for their one-year anniversary, the bakery that made their wedding cake made them the top of the cake as a gift. We got to tag along and mooch some of the cake.

We made quick work of several slices of cake and then parted ways with Dave and Lindsey. We headed back to the house to drink more wine and I forced Daniel to watch The First Wives Club with me. At eight, we went out to dinner. I'd made reservations at Ad Hoc- neither of us had ever been- and it was fantastic. We brought a bottle of Heritance Cabernet Sauvignon from Daniel's father and let the courses wash over us. Frisee salad with figs, ham, and walnuts. Beef short ribs with garbanzo beans. Goat cheese with apples. Tres leches cake. It was one of those great meals you never want to end and we stretched it out as long as possible, lingering over glasses of tawny port and tokaji.

Afterwards we went home, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and sat out on the deck and stargazed. At this point I was feeling about ready to up and move to Napa. You can actually see the stars there! I love housesitting! 

It it was a perfect summer weekend. 

advice to little girls

This morning, my father sent me an article from the New York Review of Books with a series of illustrations meant to accompany Mark Twain's Advice to Little Girls.

I loved the drawings (look at the little dachshund in the corner of the last one!) and also the mean little words of wisdom. I also liked the comment- "Twain did not squat down to be heard and understood by children, but asked them to stand on their tiptoes—to absorb the kind of language and humor suitable for adults."

 Thanks for sharing, Dad.

plan b, or spaghetti & meatballs

This afternoon, a strange and inexplicable craving for spaghetti and meatballs crept over me. We had been tentatively planning to go out and see the latest Harry Potter movie tonight, but when we found out that the theater with comfy chairs and booze had sold out of tickets, we quickly nixed that plan and decided on a plan B:  hang out at home, make spaghetti and meatballs, and watch re-runs of How I Met Your Mother on TV.

Making pasta is a little tricky in our household because we fight over who gets to prepare the sauce. You would think we could share our duties evenly, but you would be wrong. If Daniel is cooking, I have to quietly sit at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and try very hard not to ask pointed questions about his cooking methods. I definitely can't go over and start stirring the sauce or turning vegetables in the oven because before you know it, I've seized the reins and am barking orders at him to chop the onions more finely and for-heaven's-sake add them to the pan before the garlic, and...it really isn't conducive to a relaxed meal at the end of the working day.

So! We decided Daniel would make the tomato sauce and I would be responsible for the meatballs. Division of labor, you know.

Anyway, it all turned out all right in the end (although you don't get to see the end result here because even though I took a few photos, I hit a wrong button on my computer and f'd it all up, so all you're seeing here are the sad raw meatballs. sigh.) and now I'm off to immerse myself in a sea of corny sitcom humor.

la danse

Had ballet tonight with a new (and very tough!) instructor. Zory made a point of learning all our names at the beginning of class so that he could make sure to critique us all individually. It was a tiny bit scary, but helpful too. It's nice to have a little change thrown in to keep us on our toes.  I ordered a new leotard today, one with long sleeves (which I always prefer). I held off until I was sure I was going to keep this up past the summer...now I'm sure I will.

sunday afternoon strolling

After a somewhat lazy morning and early afternoon spent lounging around the apartment and watching the Women's World Cup, I finally dragged Daniel out of the apartment for a walk around the neighborhood. We headed over to Matching Half for iced coffee and then strolled towards the Panhandle.

We wandered through the park for a while and then up through the Haight and to Buena Vista Park. Neither of us had ever walked through the park, so we decided to do a little exploring. The park was much larger than I had thought, and the paths were quite steep. But we were rewarded with some excellent views of the city.

After skipping lunch and going on an unexpectedly hilly walk, we were ready for an early dinner, so we stopped in at Ragazza, which is possibly my favorite place for pizza in the entire city. After dinner, we headed home to curl up on the sofa and watch Star Wars (Daniel's choice.) A very agreeable Sunday afternoon, it turned out. 

Hope everyone had a pleasant weekend.

row eleven

We woke up today and drove up to Santa Rosa. A few months back, our friend Jared arranged a picnic out at Row Eleven and we went out to do some wine tasting and take a tour of the vineyard.

I had been expecting...well, I don't even know exactly. But the picnic most definitely exceeded my expectations. The vineyard is family owned and a lot of the family members were around...the patriarch,  his shy-eyed little granddaughters, a wee little three-month old baby. We ate a lunch of ling cod with frisee, vegetable fritatta, and lamb chops along with many, many bottles of wine. 

It was a wonderful afternoon of good food, delicious wine, and friends.