dinner at home.

For dinner last night, I made a frisee salad with lardons, duck confit and squashed potatoes. For dessert, caramel cake. Daniel provided the champagne (and roses). 

{flower arranging}

{duck legs}

{dutch yellow potatoes}

{frisee with shallot vinaigrette & lardons}

{dinner}

{dessert}

Dinner at home can be so very nice. 

with hearts

Ah, Valentine's Day. As I mentioned before, it's not such a big deal in these parts, but who can resist red velvet cupcakes with hearts? Not I, said the fly. Anyway, I'm using today as an opportunity to make a few special treats for dinner and to partake of some fancy champagne on a Tuesday. 

It's going to be deeelightful. 

Happy Valentine's Day.

Image via Canal House Cooks Lunch

berkeley

When I was fifteen, I came to Berkeley for the first time. I think my dad had some sort of meeting on the UC campus and so my mother and I tagged along and spent the afternoon wandering around the grounds and the south side. For me, it was love at first sight. 

It's been ten years, almost to the day, since that first visit to Berkeley and I have to admit that the place still  knocks me out.

{Cheese Board Pizza Collective}

On Saturday, Daniel and I drove out to Berkeley for the afternoon. He's a Berkeley alum as well, though we didn't know each other in college, so we each have our own distinct memories of the place. We decided we'd stop for lunch in North Berkeley and ended up Imperial Tea Court. Lots of puerh tea and dumplings and hand pulled noodles with spicy broth. Afterwards, we went across the street to the Cheese Board.

The Cheeseboard is a delight to behold. It's just like a French cheese shop except for the fact that they freely give samples. The sheer quantity of cheese is incredible- there are hundreds of different kinds- but we narrowed down our choices and ended up selecting three- an aged gouda, a soft goat from Indiana, and a silky epoisse. 

We wandered down Shattuck a bit and I bought a new pair of sunglasses. We snuck a peek at the menu at Chez Panisse.

Afterwards, we drove up closer to the University. We walked by my old apartment on Virginia Street.

{Virginia Street}

And then we walked through campus.

{view from the east steps of Mulford Hall}

{Daniel, in front of the Li Ka Shing Center}

{Doe Library}

{Free Speech Cafe}

{the Campanile}

It's amazing what has changed and what has stayed the same. Even since I graduated, not so very long ago, new buildings have sprouted up. But the feel is the same.

{sunset seen from the Berkeley Rose Garden}

The light started to fade and we were due at our friends' house in El Cerrito for dinner. We drove up Euclid to stop by the Rose Garden just as the sun was setting behind a heavy bank of clouds. It was a beautiful afternoon. Oh Berkeley, we love you still.

looking forward to that

To be honest, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about Valentine's day this year. Part of that may be because Daniel and I promised not to exchange gifts and vowed that we wouldn't go out for dinner. Really, it just doesn't feel necessary- I'd much rather make a dinner at home for just the two of us than be crammed in shoulder to shoulder at a packed restaurant with an overpriced Valentine's menu (can you tell we're both still bitter about our dinner last year? A pox on you, l'Ardoise!). Still, I love any excuse to drink champagne and eat rich food in the comfort of my cozy apartment, so I have to admit I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, apart from my Valentine's day chatter, there are a number of other reasons I'm happy the weekend is approaching. We have dinner plans with friends in the East Bay on Saturday, so we're going to head over early and spend the afternoon in Berkeley. I'm hoping to squeeze in visits to the Cheese Board, Twig & Fig, the Berkeley Botanical Gardens and perhaps a walk down College Ave. We shall see.

 In the meanwhile, here are a few items for you to peruse this February weekend:

le croissant du jour

oh god it's wonderful

to get out of bed

and drink too much coffee

and smoke too many cigarettes

and love you so much

                                                   

                                                            -from Steps, by Frank O'Hara

pub quiz

Every so often, Matching Half- a small cafe near our apartment- has a pub quiz night. I didn't know this until last week, when Daniel and I were out for a walk after dinner and we saw a flyer for it posted in the window. We decided we should check it out and enlisted our friends Morgan and Joanna to accompany us.

We showed up around 6:45, just in time to grab a table and order a round of beers. The game started. Here are some sample questions from the first few rounds:

• What is the name for the colored lights you see when you press down on your eyes? 
• Who played Superman 2?
• What does a spermologist study?
• Who lives at 221B Baker Street?
• What is the name for the semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols?
• Who discovered penicillin?

There was also a music round where a somewhat pretentious hipster fellow played music and then asked us to name the artist or the title of the song. At the end of the music round, after Joanna was able to identify Handel's Water Music and I remembered that the name of the band that sings "Teenage Dirtbag" is Wheatus, we were declared champions of the music round and each of us received a free half-pint of the beer of our choice.

The last round was all about being able to identify sitcom pets by name- so for example, the quiz master would say "Comet" and we were all supposed to know that Comet was the dog on Full House.

I did not do very well at that round.

In the end, we came in second- the winners each received a half pound of coffee (Matching Half is, after all, a cafe). But I was pleased with our beer winnings and motivated to beef up on my random trivia. Next time, it'll be us going home with a half-pound of Sightglass coffee from Rwanda!


Matching Half
1799 McAllister St.
SF

hello, february

In San Francisco, it already feels as though spring is here. This weather this weekend was soft and lovely- on Saturday, we drove out to the Legion of Honor and sat on the patio drinking coffee and basking in the morning sunshine.

{Legion of Honor}

{Spreckels Gallery}

{the Shades}

{Daniel, over coffee}

Usually when we go to the Legion of Honor, we go to see some exhibit or other. Daniel has a membership and so we go fairly often for short periods of time. At the moment, they have Bernini's Medusa on display, which is something to see, but apart from that there's no big exhibit going on, so we spent our time checking out their collection of Rodin sculptures. When we'd had our fill, we left and drove up to Napa. We'd hoped to stop for lunch at the Fremont Diner, but it was closed due to some sort of electrical problem and so we pressed onward to the Oxbow Market. 

{duck tacos}

We ended up lunching on various fancy tacos at C Casa- duck with spinach, bison with chipotle sauce, lamb with goat cheese- and then poked around some of the shops in the market. Daniel bought a very smelly chai tea mix and I picked up some sea salt and saffron. It was really the first time Daniel and I have had together, just the two of us, on a weekend, in a while. It made our time spent at the museum and at lunch feel particularly precious. Sometimes it's hard to believe how lucky we are to live where we do and to find such enjoyment in the activities available to us.