Treats for the Boys

Saturday was a day for the boys of my house. In the morning, we drove Koa to Fort Funston and he was riddled with excitement. Just look at how hard he was trying to contain himself in the backseat of the car.   He really is a good passenger.

When we arrived, he couldn’t seem to get out of the car fast enough and raced down the field.

It was gloomy at the beach but he still had a great time running, sniffing, and darting from place to place.

There’s something so satisfying about watching a dog run off-leash.

When we got home, we took a trip to Safeway and Jes got the highly anticipated Coors Light Football Keg. He walked home with a smile on his face and it was cradled in his arms like a newborn baby. It’s not exactly the shape of a football but it’s brown, sits on its side, and has a tap!

There’s a CO2 cartridge that makes the beer fizz and it took a little trial and error initially to figure out how to make it pour out without a lot of foam. Jes was so excited about the keg that he didn’t care and just kept muttering to himself, “It’s ok. Foam is just future beer.”

Here is the keg in our fridge.  We had to push everything around to make it fit.

Aw!!!

Susie sent this to me today and I couldn’t help sharing.  Now I KNOW that I can have a pet elephant. Thanks, Susie!!

New Toy Alert!!

My point-and-shoot is dying (mostly from overuse and my clumsiness) so I went shopping online for a replacement a few weeks ago.  I also had some money saved up from my photo gigs so I thought I’d treat myself to a new toy.  After looking at Leica, Canon, Panasonic, and all the other brands out there, I decided to get the new-ish Canon S90.  Why?  Well, here are a few reasons:

  1. I’ve owned countless Canon compact cameras (film and digital) and they’ve always given me good results.  In fact, half of the stock photos that I’m still selling (and making money on) were taken with a Canon compact digi.
  2. It has a nifty ring in the front that can help adjust zoom, aperture, ISO, or whatever else you want to assign to it.
  3. It shoots in RAW format!  Nice.
  4. It has manual mode, which allows me to control the aperture and shutter speed.
  5. It still has the convenience of a small camera with all the automatic modes that I’m used to having.

So, I went on Amazon two nights ago, used my free Amazon Prime membership (thanks to DiDi!), and it arrived at my door this evening!  Yippee!!  I just charged the battery and it’s ready to go.  Can’t wait to start snappin’!!!  It’s supposed to be able to take decent photos in dimly lit places so I’ll have to test it out next time we go out to eat.

Birthday Fries

Tonight we went out for Stephanie’s birthday and she chose to go to Palomino for her favorite gorgonzola cheese fries.

It’s basically a big plate of criss-cut fries with cheesy seasoning and a big dollop of gorgonzola cheese sauce on top.  It’s pretty good and for Happy Hour it’s only 5 bucks!

We had a fun time celebrating, eating, drinking, and trying not to talk about work.  Happy Birthday, Steph!

The Odd Couple

Jes has a history of scaring small children and making them cry as soon as he picks them up.  However, that streak was broken when Jack was born.  Jack has never been intimidated by Jes and has grown quite fond of him.  In fact, he’s always climbing on top of him, calling out his name, and bossing him around.  If you want some examples, go here and here (video).  Sunday night was no different.  We went to the Bangs’ for an Italian dinner and Jack and Jes played with the truck that can be taken apart and then screwed back together again.  There was plenty of “Here, Uncle Jesse” and “That one, Uncle Jesse”.  And Jes just sits there confused and mildly amused.  It’s always entertaining for the rest of us to watch their interaction.

Iron Chef Sighting!

Masaharu Morimoto is one of the original Iron Chefs and he has a restaurant in Chicago, NYC, and now Napa!!  It just opened a couple weeks ago and Jes and I went last night.  As soon as we walked into the restaurant, there he was!  He was on the line with all the other chefs hard at work.  So cool!

We opted for the Omakase tasting menu and were delighted with an 8-course meal.  My favorites were the toro tartare that came on a bamboo platter with a dipping sauce and 6 little flavors to try with the tuna.  It was so much fun to eat with a paddle and it was oh so tasty.

My other favorite was the foie gras chawanmushi topped with 2 slices of savory duck.  I already LOVE chawanmushi and now they went ahead and added foie to it!  Wowzers.  The broth was light and flavorful and the rich foie/egg custard was hiding underneath.  It also came with a tiny ball of wasabi on the side.

Everything was presented in such a classy and yet interesting way and the production of having 8 surprises arrive at you table was so much fun.  He also has a bunch of really nice housewares in the front.  Check out all these sake boxes and cups!