To kick off our Winter Solstice and the holiday, Earl and I threw what I hope turns into a yearly winter bash.  Feastivus:  a big schmorgashborad of chowing down with a bunch of our dear friends.

It took a whole day of shopping, (I am NOT exaggerating here, it took 5 hours straight of shopping at four stores, Earl was about ready to kill me by the end of the day!), an entire day of prep work and cleaning and then another whole day of cooking to pull it off.  And pull it off we did!  Despite last minute fears of not having enough food, having too many people show up (do you know how nerve wracking it is to hem and haw over whittling down a guest list, finally settle on who you are inviting, and send out belabored invitations only to have 2/3 of your guests ask “I can bring a date, right?”), not having enough places for people to sit or enough silverware and more essentially NOT HAVING ENOUGH BOOZE, things went off without a hitch.

The success of Feastivus supports my theory that as long as company is true, the home is warm and welcoming and there is plenty of food and booze to go around the party will survive any major kerfluffle.  I figured worst case scenario we could dole out a bunch of tequila shots and order a couple of pizza pies. 

Blessedly, it did not come to that!  I spent approximately 12 hours net in the kitchen and by the skin of my teeth pulled off a fabulously complicated and intimidating gourmet meal which I siphoned the recipes from a secret professional chef who shall not be named.  What follows below is the photo and text documentary of how things went!  I hope you enjoy the write up as much as Earl and I enjoyed throwing the party.

Just to recap, here was the planned Feastivus menu, in all it’s arduous glory:

• Appetizers: mulled wine, devilled eggs, hummus & pita chips, pickles, jams
• Entree: stuffed pork roulande in puff pastry, ratatouille
• Sides: creamed carrots, pecan wild rice pilaf, greens & berry salad with a pumpkin vinaigrette
• Dessert: Grand Marnier bread pudding, poached pears, spiked eggnog

Going into the night before the party, the only thing I had changed on the menu was to sub in a vegan olallaberry pie for the poached pears.  Upon doing menu prep (the dreaded “do I have enough pots and pans to get all this food ready at the same time” calculation) I realized that poached pears were far too labor intensive for a dinner party and I would much rather spend my evening schmoozing and socializing with my guests than reducing and re-reducing a poached wine sauce.  So, you could say I cheated and took a shortcut because Earl and I picked up the vegan pie pre-prepared from Rainbow Grocery, the hippy grocery store.  We’d actually served the same exact pie the last time our vegan friend Dom came over to dinner, and it was STUPENDOUS- even better than a bunch of non-vegan pies I’ve had, so we knew it would be a failproof hit.

Enough chatting, let’s get to the cooking.  I actually had MAJOR problems getting started with cooking this meal.  I don’t know what it was!  I was puttering around on Monday morning, delaying the inevitable, to the point where Earl, who was at work by this time, found me on gchat and asked “what are you doing online?!?!? Shouldn’t you be cooking by now????”  My friend Tracy- the inflabbable type you can always lean on in a crisis- fielded my frantic “help I am throwing a dinner for 14 people and I can’t seem to get started!  What is wrong with me?” phone call with skill.  She pointed out the astute observation that I miss the hectic pace and pressure of the trading floor i-banking environment and therefore seek out and create these high pressure scenarios with cooking and parties so that I may sink or swim under harsh deadlines.  She has a point.  She ORDERED me on the phone to get started.  “While we are talking, you better be chopping,” she barked.  “Are you chopping?  I don’t hear chopping!”  Tracy got me out of my rut while we chatted and caught up and soon I was peeling carrots, dicing onions, grinding up oranges and on my way.  In a sense, you could say she is the Woman Who Saved Feastivus.  I owe her a thank you letter!

First thing I made was the “stuffing” to go in the pork roulade.  It is an orange cranberry reduction with herbs and spices.  The base of it is five oranges ground up, then sautéed with two bags of fresh cranberries while you add a bunch of herbs.  Because my trusty Magic Bullet blender is currently BROKEN and we have been too cheap/lazy/busy/forgetful/unorganized to order a new part for it, I had to slice, dice, cut, chop and otherwise peel and pulverize into faux-ground up mush FIVE ORANGES BY FREAKING HAND!!  This took a while- long enough for Tracy to tell me all the ins and outs of her new life in Utah while I developed a massive neck cramp from holding the phone between my shoulder and ear while I chopped.  The results of my labor:  Mush of Five Oranges (and I also threw in zest of one orange peel for taste), ready to go!

Add this to saute with two bags of fresh cranberries:

You add cinnamon and ground chili powder while stirring continuously for about 15 minutes over medium heat.  Secret Chef instructed that the cranberries should “pop naturally” as they cook, and that you want to end up with a mixture where most of the cranberries have popped and the result is “semi-solid.”   It eventually looked like this while the house started to smell sooooooooooo good:

Here is the final result, almost a gelatin, in a bowl, set aside ready to be stuffed into a pork loin roast:

Next prep work:  Toast a gazillion pecans!  You are going to need them for your greens and berries salad and also your rice pilaf.  By the way- pecans are freaking expensive!!  Despite buying all these nuts in (supposedly cheaper) bulk, they really killed our budget.  I knew the roast would set us back, but who would have expected pecans to be the next most expensive thing on the menu!  And they’re really just a freaking garnish!!

I seem to have trouble with “toasting” nuts.  I always end up burning some of them and then others in the pan not reaching sufficient level of toastiness.  I’ve tried both my toaster oven and real oven to unimpressive results.  Now when I toast nuts (and this even happened with my green apple green chili pie from yesterday!  I still can’t get this right), I expect, unfortunately to ruin about 1/4^th of them.  Add some more room to your budget to accommodate burned, inedible nuts!

Next, I got started on other things I could prepare early and then just warm up at time of eating.  Unlike the roast, I knew a rice pilaf and creamed carrots would both heat well after having been prepared in advance.

Now, holy cow, this rice pilaf.  It was SO GOOD, but I think I discoved the secret as to why restaurant food tastes so amazing.  At this point, following Secret Chef’s recipe, my jaw was agape at learning you basically BOIL THE VERMICILLI IN A HALF POUND OF BUTTER.  You know how you normally bowl pasta in WATER?  Sometimes salted water?  Or water with a bit of olive oil in it?  Ohhhhh noooooo.  Here, for the richest rice pilaf recipe in the world, you are going to BOIL YOUR RICE AND PASTA IN BUTTER.  At this point I realized poor Dom was not going to have any of the rice pilaf as it was decidedly NOT vegan!  Here is the vermicelli, broken up into 11/2 inch- 2” pieces, boiling in butter for about 10 minutes while stirring constantly, until it reaches a nice “toasty” color:

Yeah, that’s not water it’s boiling in, prep for cardiac compromise because it’s ALL BUTTER!

At this point I think I got a little into the cooking “zone” and lapsed on the picture taking.  I think it’s because I had about 4 different edible Irons in the Fire and was more concerned with not ruining any more food than photo-documenting for this blog.  I’ll just tell you what I did.

After the pasta is “toasty” looking, add rice and-surprise- more butter and boil them both in the butter for another 5 minutes while stirring constantly.  Then add three cans of Cambells undiluted chicken broth, stir for another minute, reduce heat to a simmer and cover for 30 minutes.  Open the lid only once and add 2 cups chopped and toasted pecans, fluff with fork, recover and let sit until serving time.  Good god this recipe is a heart attack in a pot.  It’s supposedly Secret Chefs’ mother’s recipe from Armenaia and it’s the first time it’s been translated into English.  Maybe something critical- like ½ pound of butter really meant two tablespoons was lost in conversion.  Regardless, it was a lucky, if unhealthy mistake because holy cow the rice pilaf tasted like a DREAM.  I was hesitant to tell my raving guests exactly how it was prepared lest they accuse of me trying to give them MIs at the party just to show off my EMT skills.

The other thing I prepared without really photo-documenting was the creamed carrots.  For them, you peel and boil three pounds of carrots until they are tender but not mushy.  This took about 15 minutes.  Secret Chef did not specify the boiling time in his instructions, leading me to frantically consult google “how long boil carrots” several times in a frenzy as I worried about overcooking them.  That’s the problem with vague Chefs.  They can be brilliant and their obscure instructions yield delicious bounties, but cause an intrepid beginner cook like myself many anxieties and headaches!!

Carrots boiled, add butter (only ¼ lb of butter in this one- what waistline watching restraint!) , cream cheese, heavy cream, and cinnamon and blend.  Or, if you are a fool like me with a broken blender, utilize some elbow grease and your Capririnia masher to get the job done.

Butter melted, cream and cream cheese blended, add four full very thin-sliced green onions to the mix.  This came out AMAZING and I really think the tartness of the green onions contrasting to the smooth creaminess of the carrots is what made the dish.  Here it is, in all its pre-prepped glory done gloriously in advance so that I could concentrate on the rest of my labors.  See those thin sliced green onions in there?  Don’t forget to add them, they are the secret ingredient that MAKES this dish.

Next!  On to the Grand Marnier bread pudding.  Chop up one loaf of French bread into 1” cubes.  Because the booth at the Farmer’s Market only had a teeny tiny French loaf (what gives??), I also threw two cubed brioches into the pudding as well to round it out.  The farmer’s market baker assured me that brioche makes a great bread pudding as well.  I figured- heck- add enough heavy cream and Grand Marnier and nobody could tell the difference anyways.

Sliced up bread:

Meanwhile you whip SIX eggs with two cups whole milk, two cups heavy cream, cinnamon and 1 cup of Grand Mariner.  You pour this mixture over the bread, then spoon and mix in 2 cups of golden raisens.  Bake the whole thing in a 375* oven “until the top is toasty brown.”  … :-/  Took me about an hour.

You are going to mix up some orange marmalade with another cup of Grand Marier, pour this over the top of the bread pudding and rebake for another 15 minutes right before serving.  This recipe was perfect for a big dinner party because it let me do the bulk of the prep in advance and then just add booze and marmalade on the top and heat right before serving.  Easy, peazy.  Screw you, poached pears!!

Onto le pork!  Ever heard of a “Z-cut?”  Me neither.  Fortunately, my butcher had.  He prepped two loins into z-cuts (to accommodate the stuffing) and even threw in a bunch of butcher’s twine for me free of charge.  This is what a z-cut looks like:

Get your cranberry l’ronge stuffing and stuff up that pig!  Use bakers twine to tie it all up, then wrap in foil. 

Into the oven these piggies go, at 375* for one hour.   Note- make sure to wrap REALLY well cuz otherwise cranberry orange mush and pork juis will drip everywhere.

Next I worked on chopping and prepping these veggies (red peppers, green peppers, basil, garlic, eggplant, tomatoes, yellow squash, green onions, yellow onion and parsley) for the ratatouille.  If you’ve ever seen the movie Ratatouille, you may be like Earl and I and expect this dish to be super complex and hard to cook.  Perhaps I had a doozy of a recipe (this one was an online find from Emeril, not Secret Chef- Secret Chef doesn’t “do” Vegan), however this dish couldn’t be more simple!!  You basically slice and dice a gazillion veggies, throw em all in a saute pan, add some spices and cook em up!  The ONLY hard thing about it is getting the order down that you throw the veggies into the mix.  Ones that take longer to cook (onions, eggplants, peppers) get added before ones which cook faster.  Guess they got it right in the movie- so easy, even a rat could do it!

Waiting to be chopped, sliced, and diced:

While you’re running around trying to clean the house and organize your nerdlove’s piles and piles of math annotations on various scraps of paper that float around your home and also HAZMAT clean up his dirty-bomb of Trident Spearmint gum wrappers, your pork roasts are done (with phase 1)!  Here’s a peak under the foil of what they look like after their 1 hour bake:

Do I have to even tell you that the HOUSE SMELLED SOOOOO GOOD??????

Next what you’re gonna do is the coolest step of this entire meal.  One of my guests hit the nail on the head.  You are basically making “fancy pigs in a blanket.”  These stuffed pork roulades get wrapped in puff pastry and re-baked.  I used Pillsbury crescent rolls.  Secret Chef calls for Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry, however Luckys only had Pillsbury crescent rolls, and 4 hours in to our epic shopping trip I was mitigating a long day and grumpy overshopped boyfriend, so that would have to do!

They did.  Here are piggies wrapped up in their crescent rolls.  I even schmanced it up using cooking cutters (actually, must give credit where it is due, E got home from work by this time and was helping out, HE decorated these piggies all by himself!) to have some little puff pastry hearts and stars on the tops.  Beat two egg whites together and brush liberally over your wrapped piggies and puff decorations to “glue” everything.  You could go as crazy as you want with the decorations.  Seeing as time was short and guests would be coming soon, we went with the cookie cutters we had on hand.

See those egg whites glisten!

By this point I had worked so hard and was so irrationally emotionally invested in these stupid pork roasts that you would have thought I had given birth to them myself!

They go in a 400* oven for 20-30 minutes, uncovered.  I waited for the guest to arrive before I even started this last step.  Who wants to eat straight away when they show up at a party?  I figured it would be more fun to give people (and myself, heh) time to leisurely chat, get to know each other (we had a mixed crowd of my skiing friends and Earl’s coworkers) and sip cocktails before the main eating event.

Speaking of booze, on to the mulled wine!  I must admit, this was my favorite part of cooking this crazy meal.  For your next winter or fall themed dinner party, I implore you to make some mulled wine.    Did you read me?  I said,  I IMPLORE YOU TO MAKE THIS MULLED WINE.  It was faaaaaaaaaaabulous.  And it looks so good!  Doesn’t it look soooo good????  Smelled superb, too:

The recipe for this mulled wine called for a lot of foreign sounding foofaraw of which I had never heard.  Cardomon pods?? WTF are cardomon pods??  To the hippy grocery store, we go!  Same deal with liquorish root.  I thought liquorish was this black candy that my mom loves (in cute Scottie Dog shapes!), not anything that came with a root.  Here is the recipe in full for you.  You basically simmer a bunch of red wine (for our drinking purposes and per people’s suggestions on TGR I tripled the amount of wine in this and halved the amount of cider.  I advise you to do the same).  Simmer some wine with a bunch of oddball spices- sliced oranges, fennel seeds, cardomon pods, black peppercorns, cinnamon sticks and a whole vanilla bean to yield this wonderful looking mixture.

Guests started to show up!

The roast was done!  Like my apron?

Sliced up the roast and ready to eat.  We didn’t even tuck into that second one.  Ratatouille is also looking nice.

The spread!

My plate.  Did I mention we served everything on paper plates?  A bit backwoods… but didn’t change the deliciousness of the food.

Some of our guests digging in.

Last stage of the bread pudding- with the extra Grand Mariner and orange marmalade mixture poured over the top and re-baked.

It didn’t last long (nothing did!)

This tired pooch is worn out from socializing.

Here’s to good food, great friends and a holiday filled with warmth and love.   We survived 2009!! Cheers until next year!

Hope you have a Wonderful Holiday!
All our love,
Santa Ceej,

Reindeer Dog,

Elf Lucy,

and Santa Nerd

and a bonus shot of Santa Woof

(Too much fun tonight with props!)

As always, I am mega behind on uploading photos from my camera and catching my dear readers up on them and what I have been up to. Please accept my apologies, and I hope you enjoy the following smorgashboard, which dates alllllll the way back to Halloween! Ack

For Halloween, we threw a bit of an impromptu dinner party for our friends Matt and Amy, then we walked down over to Belvedere Street and hit up a bunch of spots on the party circuit.
Matt Preparing the drinks. We served Stone Fences, which are a mixture of whiskey and apple cider.

Dinner was great- we made pumpkin fritters from this recipe. Amy actually ended up cooking most of the fritters while I rushed around and got in my costume (Earl and I were running late coming from the gym).
Amy fries up some fritters

The (still steaming) fritters! They’re basically a thicker pumpkin pancake. Served with cinnamon sugar (optional maple syrup, for those with a fierce sweet tooth).

Even though Amy did most of the cooking, I somehow managed to pose taking credit for them in this photo. Doesn’t it look like *I* cooked them in this photo?

Amy and Matt getting ready to hit the down. Look at those abs on that woman! That is what being a semi-pro level triathlete will get you, apparently Amy is rocking my old latex cop uniform (a holdover from undergrad sorority days) which I coerced her into wearing.

The handsome knight of my heart and his unicorn steed. The “unicorn” didn’t last very long on the streets as he was a little overstimulated with everyone running around trick or treating. This was basically a pre-party walk! He got walked home and hung out while we hit the town.

Bustiers and pizza. Pepperoni, naturally.

Matt, Andrea and Mattius (Andrea was a tree, if you can’t tell)

Bearded lady! The theme of the first party we were at was Old-Timey Carnival. These people pulled out ALL the stops!

Here is the woman who gets shot out of the cannon.

En route to our second party, I was assaulted by a very naughty (and perverted) cookie monster! If you can’t tell, I was a dragon, same as last year.

By our third party of the evening, Amy and Matt had gone home and I had converted into a devilish dragon. The full-face dragon mask, while a lovely work of art, made it hard to consume beverages. Here we are with our ski friend Spencer, who is a music journalist and gets to interview all kinds of stars.

We were certainly tuckered out after this evening. Let’s slide right into Thanksgiving, shall we?

For Thanksgiving, we went out to my wonderful Aunt Mimi’s house in Pleasanton, CA. My friend Amy, who is from CT though going to Stamford for their PA program right now, came with us as she wasn’t going home to see her family.

I lobbied Amy to meet me at my Aunt’s house early, at 9:30am, so we could do this awesome 30 mile ride through Palomares Canyon loop.

Ride starts out on Foothill Drive- look at the peaceful serenity of this beautiful road! Who says there are no fall colors in California?

Amy’s self-portrait on the hill. She doesn’t even look like she’s breathing hard! This girl is a machine.

Amy spent a *LOT* of time waiting for me to get my out-of-shape butt up this hill. Eons. She was bored enough not only to mess around with taking self portraits, but also to take this amusing video:

On the way up Palomares Canyon, Amy (who is holding the camera) spots this sign. What does it MEAN? Looks like a drunk guy crossing the street, right?

At the summit! This is a long, slow climb. Amy actually got a flat tire here from parking in the gravel.

Back from our ride and showered up, we are greeted by quite a spread.

Hey! Down here! Lemme have some! I’ll take some! Don’t want that stuffing? Just a little crumb?

Post meal scritches lead to corgi grins.

Bellies full, Earl and I pile onto the couch to zonk out for a bit.

As I wrote on Saturday, I threw an impromptu breakfast party Sunday morning for some of my long-lost ski friends who were staying with us and my friend Amy who came in from Stanford.  Amazingly, I pulled everything off (never cooked breakfast for that many people before) and it all came out well! Even Kevin, who claimed to “hate tomatoes” held good on his promise to at least try it, and he ended up liking it! (I thought this might be the case, as I “hate tomatoes” myself, yet love this dish).  I woke up at 7am to walk Linus to the market and get more food, then got started cooking… while three large guys caught Zzzz on the floor in my living room. As they woke up one by one I recruited them to help in the kitchen and put them to work peeling pomegranates and mashing basil for pesto.

I made the baked eggs in prosciutto-wrapped tomatoes recipe which I had cooked for Earl before, however as we had bacon in the house I subbed bacon for prosciutto. This worked out okay, though I did pre-cook the bacon on the Foreman beforehand and I think it could have been a little less cooked; it turned out pretty crunchy. Also, I think I liked the flavor of the prosciutto a tad more, however bacon tasted fine.

Ready to go in the oven- these are tomatoes hollowed out, then coated on the inside with a homemade pesto and wrapped in bacon.  Bake those for 10 minutes to roast the tomatoes a bit, then fill each with an egg and bake again for 10 more minutes.  Couldn’t be simpler!
Notice the pre-cooked bacon is not wrapping around the tomatoes very well. Another reason why not to pre-cook the bacon as much and also why prosciutto might work better- more supple. I also threw on some parm cheese into the tomatoes which you can see in the pic:

Your chef, with no makeup, messy hair, her glasses and rocking her pajamas and a hangover:

We are ready to eat!! Amy brought the OJ.

After 10 more minutes in the oven, here’s how they looked. This is for 10 minutes at 350*… if it were just Earl and I dining, I would go for 8 minutes as both of us like a runnier yolk… however with a bunch of people, tastes vary and I figured a harder yolk is safer… easier to err more towards “done” than “raw” when it comes to egg cooking times.

Plated! Served with a pomegranate seed and arugula simple salad. Turns out, 2/6 of my guests hated pomegranate seeds. Should have checked beforehand, I guess! What a waste of peeling effort

Linus got in on some tableside petting action.

Earl snapped a post-breakfast group shot. I love these people!! The last time we were all together was Straightline Ski Camp last Feb. We’re trying to plan another meet up soon- be it at Straightline Camp 2010, Argentina next summer (doubt I’ll have the $ to pull that one off) or even a long bike trip up the Lost Coast.

After breakfast, everyone packed up and Nick and I got ready to make the trek to Sacramento for the race. We went to the expo and got Nick registered, then had a pasta dinner at 5pm and went to bed pretty early. I did spend time making my Fan Extraordinaire sign (I actually love making signs to cheer people on, I think it’s a holdover from my days as a highschool cheerleader) while we watched bad cable before bed.

Here is Nick getting in “the zone” on the way to the Marathon Expo:

And here is a snap of the sign I made. It reads, “GO NICK, RUN FAST.” Simple enough instructions

Race morning, Nick left at 5am to catch the pre-race shuttle and I stumbled out of bed at 7am to go cheer. I planned to see him in three spots- mile 10, mile 18 and the finish. My plan worked and I did get to see him at each of those locations. We weren’t sure it would work because he wasn’t running with a phone or anything (he’s a Serious Runner… unlike me who races with cellphone in hand and tweeting the entire time… lol).
Nick during the race! He was literally running so fast it was hard to get a good pic! You can practically see the “zoom” lines coming from behind him.

Ninja on the course!

Nick was a bit bummed about his final time- 3:32. He’d been trying for Boston, which he needed 3:10 to get into. He went into this admittedly a bit undertrained (apparently he likes biking a lot more and has been mountain biking most weekends instead of doing long runs), and also the pretty cold temps (it was 32* at the start!) threw him off. Selfishly, I am a tad happy he didn’t get boston because it means he’ll be running a lot this next year and hopefully we can meet up for another marathon evil of me, I know.
Post-race shot. Don’t we look cold?! It was pretty freezing while cheering, and I was in a bulky fleece. The orange tree behind us is misleading!!

There was even a corgi spectator! This adorable guy was named Frodo Baggins. Such a great name for a corgi.

After the race we drove back to SF, stopping at a post-race nosh of In & Out. Then I dropped Nick off at the airport and headed directly to work. A shift had opened up which apparently they needed someone badly enough to offer DOUBLETIME THE ENTIRE SHIFT. Sweetness! I worked a 20-hour shift, from Sunday at 10pm to Monday at 6pm. I’m loving these open shifts at work, makes picking up a day really simple and earning some extra $$ pretty easy.

This week is super busy for us- tonight we have Earl’s company Christmas Party, tomorrow I picked up another shift at work from 6am-6pm, Thursday I’m doing a hike with my friend Andrea, and then I work Fri, Sat and Sunday 5am-5pm. Finally, on Sunday night we have our ambulance company Christmas Party, which I am ALSO psyched about! Also in the meantime I am trying to write a TON of Christmas cards and otherwise do errands for the upcoming holiday. I’m writing a tad over 50 cards this year, and I try to write a personal message on them all. I’ve been writing them between calls on the ambulance I normally crank out about 5 a shift.

My friend Nick, who I met many years ago at Straightline Ski Camp and have since hung out with at ski camps, Ironmans, New Orleans, and NYC is in town to run the California International Marathon this weekend.  Our friend Jason, also from ski camp, came down from Reno to hang out, also bringing his brother.

Nick and I had a fun day being tourists around the Norcal Coast.  I brought him around SF in the morning to see some non-touristy neat “only in San Francisco” stuff, and then in for lunch we went to the world’s greatest sandwich shop and Gray Whale Cove Beach.  We met Jason and his brother for dinner in Pescadero at Duartes.

Nick, Jason, and Kevin are all crashing at our pad tonight.  Tomorrow our friend Amy is driving up from Stanford and I am cooking EVERYBODY BREAKFAST!  Ack!  That’s five people (including me and Earl).  No pressure, Greene.  I’ve never cooked breakfast for that many people before; hope it goes well :-/

Tomorrow late-morning, Nick and I are driving up to Sacramento for the race while Amy plays tour guide to Jason and Kevin.

Whirlwind of a weekend.

For once I am on the ball with pics (meanwhile I still haven’t gotten my Thanksgiving and Halloween ones edited, but… working on it!):
Linus at our picnic spot:

Nick wisely guards his sangwich from ravenous hound:

Really not a bad place for a picnic lunch

Down at the beach it was time to PLAY!

and run!

and dig!

keep digging!

WHOS GOT THE BALL?! I’VE GOT THE BALL!

and climb on rocks while the fog rolled in

come on, let’s go explore!

we went to the harbor at half moon bay and went out on the piers to see the crabbing boats

met up with Jason and Kevin at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for a beer (and sat outside by a fire pit, it was awesome)! Jason has some great license plates:

Duartes for dinner was perfect. Hurrah for oyster season (I’m not sure why, but I have been CRAVING oysters lately… enough that I am contemplating attempting to cook this oyster wild rice casserole from Paula Dean. These ones hit the spot.)

Cream of artichoke soup was also scrumptious, though less photogenic:

Long lost friends reunited! I only get to see these guys about twice a year, but when I do it’s such a treat, and we tend to catch up right where we left off. Just such great guys all around. Love them!

We ordered a WHOLE olallieberry pie “to go” and brought it home to share with Earl, who was working late. I thought this was a nice touch since Earl is sweet to put up with me having random skier dudes (he’s met Nick many times, so not really random) crashing at our pad

However… while we were waiting and waiting for Earl to get home, it was SO TEMPTING to eat the pie! We were dying!! We tried to kill time by playing rummy:

Fun day Fun night! Off to Sacramento tomorrow for the race… after cooking what will hopefully be a class-act breakfast. I’m doing this prosciutto, tomato and baked egg recipe. Hope it turns out well.

ps- GOOD LUCK NICK ON SUNDAY!!!(he’s hoping to qualify for Boston… I bet he will)!

So Earl and I decided to throw a Christmas Feast Party (more accurately- I decided, then Earl agreed), and the invitations are going out tomorrow!  In a stroke of spectacular brilliance, I christened the party “Feastivus,” only to find out a bunch other people also throw holiday parties also named Feastivus.  But… screw em .  FEAST WE SHALL, and FEASTIVUS IT SHALL BE CALLED!

So psyched for this!  Here are the invites I made up… to be schmanced up with some red and green glitter and Christmas-y drawings on the envelopes by yours truly.  Yes, we are going old school and actually sending physical invitations out in the snail mail for this one: evite, schmevite- simply not my style.

I must confess, it was a bit of a challenge to come up with the menu for Feastivus- mainly because my buddy Dom, who is vegan, is coming. Normally around here it’s meat, meat, and more meat, with a side of butter and sour cream.  I didn’t want to make him feel singled out with a “special” meal just for him. Hence the menu is a mish-mash of vegan and non-vegan foods.   So far (and I’m sure I’ll change this last minute as things get hectic… lol)… but here is a rough outline of what I’m thinking we’ll be serving:

• Appetizers: mulled wine, devilled eggs, hummus & pita chips, pickles, jams
• Entree: stuffed pork roulande in puff pastry, ratatouille
• Sides: creamed carrots, pecan wild rice pilaf, greens & berry salad with a pumpkin vinaigrette
• Dessert: Grand Marnier bread pudding, poached pears, spiked eggnog

In case you were curious, here is the text of our Feastivus invites… if you suspect I had a *tad* too much fun writing these, you would be correct

It’s Christmas time, and if that’s not an excuse for a slap-up meal, nothing is!

Always keen on cooking, when it comes to Christmas dinner, I’m pulling out all the stops.  To give y’all a meal to warm the cockles, I’ve scoured the city and neighboring farms for the freshest ingredients to make this festive feast.

Making our merry band of revelers earn their supper, Holiday attire (ugly Christmas sweaters, reindeer ears, Santa hats or the like) is encouraged.

We’re planning a feast to make the table groan! Here on Buena Vista West you’ll be tucking into a gluttonous roast of stuffed pork roulade in puff pastry. If that doesn’t get you reaching for the Pepto, there will be ratatouille, creamed carrots and pecan wild rice pilaf. To round off the opulent offering, we fill feature a greens and berries salad with pumpkin vinaigrette, deviled eggs, and a hearty offering of pickles, preserves, poached pears, and Grand Marnier bread pudding.

Wash it all down with some spiked eggnog and mulled wine, and it sounds like we’ve got ourselves a party.

Please bring a bottle of wine to share and perhaps an ornament to decorate our Christmas tree!

Looking forward to seeing you on the 21st!

ps- a special thank you to the Happy Medic, who pointed out a great place in SF to buy the Christmas printer paper for our invitations!

Well, I’m in a bit of a freaked mood because I had a scary and violent run in with a crazy homeless guy in the Tenderloin this afternoon (and had to call SFPD), but am going to try and let that go and instead focus on appreciating all that is good in my life.

A smattering of stuff that I’m thankful for this year:

• My new EMT job!  I’ve worked two shifts so far and really love my new company.  Think I’ve been doing well, gotten a few “good job, Rook” from my FTOs on my assessments these past few days.  Oh and the cookies went over well, too!  New company just seems like a friendly, supportive, and CARING place to work… it’s got a very “family” vibe and a refreshing lack of attitude in the employees.  We even are having a Christmas party on December 13th!
• My career change.  Occasionally I’ll still get my mind boggled when I’m in the back of an ambulance, doing a patient work up and it strikes me that I now make my living helping people.  I’m so happy and proud that I had the guts to go through with the career change from finance, and really thrilled to be now working in the EMS industry.  It’s so nice to feel that after a long time of being professionally lost that I have found what I was looking for.
• That I learned how to cook.  We miss NYC food scene something fierce, however living in SF has its advantages: namely- the lack of cheap, quick and good delivery which forced my hand into learning how to cook.  And cook I’ve done.  I’m not intimidated by anything anymore!  Did I tell you that Earl and I even roasted our own turkey a few weeks back?  I’ve been cooking up a storm- we eat homemade dinners almost 4x a week now.   A Jim Beam, maple hazelnut pie is currently in the works for Turkey Day tomorrow.
• Family- long distance ones and the close ones.  I’m so grateful that even though my parents and sisters are all the way on the other side of the country that we still keep in close contact and update each other on our lives.  As for my family out here, man they have just been incredible, welcoming us with open arms.
• Friends- seeing my friend Amy tomorrow, as she’s meeting me out at my Aunt’s in Pleasanton and we’re doing that awesome 30 mile bike loop together through Palomares Canyon pre-big family dinner.  Sort of a bike-version of a Turkey Trot… so we won’t feel guilty chowing down later.  I’m lobbying Earl to join us on the ride, but he is more leaning towards “sleep in” than get up at 8am and ride 30 miles… we will see how that goes.  Also, my friend Nick is flying in next weekend and we are going up to Sacramento for the California Marathon.  I also feel like I am *juuuuust starting* to develop some close friends out here in SF proper.  It hasn’t been easy.  I have to remember when I moved to NYC it took about 4 years before I had a really close circle of friends…  have to try and relax, let that happen naturally and stop stressing over it.
• Getting back in shape.  Have I told you that I’m currently at my lowest weight in well… almost a year and a half?! !!   Yep!  Very exciting… and even more exciting is the fact that I’ll soon be able to fit into old clothes.  It’s like getting a whole new wardrobe for free   HURRAH to that.
• Speaking of getting back into shape, I’m thankful to have found a great yoga studio!  I joined a Bikram in the Castro last week and so far have really been loving it.  The studio is so clean and warm (in both temperature and mood) and the fellow yogis are down to earth and welcoming to a newbie.  Trying to go 4x a week.  I feel so great after.  I think with my new schedule of working four 12-hour shifts it’s going to be all the more important to decompress and relax when I can, so should be a pretty healthy routine to get into.  Going to try and keep a primary focus on running and have yoga be secondary to that.  The yoga studio is just about 1 mile from our apartment, so I’ve been walking over for classes.  It’s a beautiful walk through the city to get there, too!
• Volunteering in the Emergency Department at San Francisco General Hospital.  After 8 months of trying, I finally got in there (they had a huge waiting list and backlog of wannabe med students and others hoping to become volunteers).  Their Trauma Center is truly state of the art- I watched a UCSF presentation on their trauma stats breakdown a few weeks ago and was blown away with the not only the volume of patients and diversity of injuries, but the level of care the facility is able to provide while dealing with so many varieties of patients from all walks of life.  I’m extremely proud to be a small part of such a top notch facility and to be giving my time there.
• I negotiated $300 a month off our rent.  We won’t be as strapped any more!  Plus with my new raise (and lots of overtime ), it looks like the edge has been taken off the lean times.  Even though we aren’t rolling in cash there is no shortage of love in this house.
• Of course my two four legged lovies.  No matter how much of a funk I’m in, when Lucy kneads her paws against me while sitting in the small of my back (which she is doing right now as I type this!) or Linus waggles his butt in excitement and grins his corgirific “smile,” I will with happiness.
• Finally, my beloved Midwestern hunk o’ nerd, the love of my life.  For once, I’ll be succinct about how crazy I am about this guy Speaking of, here is an adorable photo of Lucy sitting on his chest while he’s trying to work.  How is he supposed to get any work done with a fatty purring fur “wall” between him and the computer screen?!?  Silly kitten.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Love and Turkey to you,
Ceej

Friday night we had our lovely friend Kathleen over for mini dinner party and to carve up some pumpkins.
Now- let me tell you about this recipe I cooked- Woah doggy! It was CRAY-ZAY. Insane. Tedious. Expensive to make. Gourmet. Challenging. ¡Muy difícil! Laborious.  Should I go on…?

Friday and Sundays are my two days off this fall. In that respect, I was lucky to have ALL DAY on Friday to devote to slaving in the kitchen, because that is what this recipe required. Here it is, in all its arduous glory.  Seems so simple, right?  It’s macaroni and freaking cheese, for Pete’s sake!!  Did the recipe’s creator not get the memo??  Mac and cheese is a COMFORT FOOD!  It’s supposed to be easy, cheesy, simple, yummy goodness.  Stuff yer face, feelin full, no worries, down home chow.  But- no, no- Unassuming Beginner Chef… this is Food Network CHALLENGE mac & cheese.  That means complex.  And challenging.  WINNING effort required!  No room for amateurs here!  Let’s take a look, shall we:

The Recipe that Will Break Your Soul… aka: Goat Cheese Mac & Cheese, stuffed in Artichokes

Step 1: prep, cut and clean 9 artichokes

Having never cleaned artichokes before, I was unaware of what a pain in the butt this would be.

Ta-da!  Several artichoke-leave pricks later (egads, those things are spiky!), these suckers are ready for the pot

Step 2: Simmer artichokes in a mixture of white wine, water, garlic, lemon juice, coriander (yum!- one of my favorite spices, needs to be used more often), bay leaves, peppercorns, and AN ENTIRE FREAKING CUP OF OLIVE OIL.  Really?!  A whole cup of olive oil???  Do you people not realize how pricey olive oil is these days…. also… by this point it is striking me that this is probably not the healthiest recipe in the world.

Step 3:  Realize that, as the recipe called for two and a half cups of wine, you still have a goodly amount of white wine leftover in the bottle.  Rejoice!  Contemplating the daunting afternoon ahead, go ahead and pour yourself a glass.     Note: as you see here, I am *not* a wine snob and in fact have an ice cube in my glass (*sheepish*)… enough to get one automatically evicted from the state of CA?

Step 4: cook artichokes in mixture for about an hour or until soft.  since they keep floating to the top of the solution, use baster to continually soak their insides and smoosh them down to the bottom of the pot

Step 5: while artichokes are cooking, prepare bread crumbs.  this is a major pain in and of itself, involving blending up a loaf of bread, then toasting breadcrumbs in a pan of olive oil.  once these are done being toasted, let them cool and then add zest of three lemons, blended up fresh parsley, ground pink peppercorns, salt and parm cheese

Step 6: meanwhile, you gotta make some mac and cheese to stuff in the artichokes.  get out your goat cheese!  (btw- the midnight moon goat cheese was AWESOME, would totally recommend that for just plain noshing)

Step 7: Also in the meantime, start your dessert.  I was making miniature individual strawberry pies.   Started out by making this all-butter pie crust.  Cool thing about this recipe is that it made enough for two pie crusts, which means I have one left over in the freezer now for Thanksgiving.

Step 8: A-ha!  An hour later your artichokes are done cooking.  Take them out, let them cool, put em in a pan.  Then you have to remove the hearts and saute them SEPARATELY in another pan for another 5-10 minutes while doctoring them up with all kind of spices.  Meanwhile, you’re supposed to take three of the other cooked artichokes and blend them up in a blender and add some different spices.  I didn’t (and still don’t) really get this part, because the recipe at this point stops differentiating between the sauteed hearts and blended ‘chokes and never specifies what you’re supposed to do with each.  I wing’ed it and just sort of stuffed the bottoms of the ‘chokes with both mixtures.  Consult recipe if you seek more specific clarification.

Step 9:  How’s that mac and cheese coming?  I used regular milk instead of three cups of heavy cream as called for in hopes of making this a smidge healthier.  Btw: mac and cheese on its own was CRAZY good.  Might make this again just doing the goat cheese mac & cheese part, completely skipping the ‘chokes.

Step 10: Stuff those artichokes!  You can see next to it, I had enough mac & cheese left over to make a separate dish of plain baked mac and cheese which was AWESOME.

Mac & Cheese filled artichokes

Pie filling, bread crumb topping, mini-pie filling and ‘chokes

Step 11: Line pie crusts in buttered muffin pan and fill with pie filling.  I didn’t use anything special for the pie filling than just a simple strawberry pie filling I made and marinated while artichokes were cooking.  It was sliced strawberries, marinated for about an hour in sugar with their juices, a bit of corn starch, some lavender and a tad of lemon zest.  At this point I left the pie crust TOPS off the mini pies so that we could each carve out our own individual designs for our separate pies.  What did I tell ya, it was a crafty night! 

Step 12: prepare appetizer of Persimmon chips.  These are sliced up persimmons, with a dash of cinnamon, baked per recipe taken from Andrea’s blog.  these were SO SIMPLE and amazingly good- would totally recommend them if you’re looking for an easy, quick and scrumptious appetizer, snack, or dessert.

Step 13: Take artichokes out of oven and plate on simple arugula salad.  Ta-da!!

A few more photos of final result:

Step 14: Most essential step: CHEERS!   We toasted to: Earl’s new job, my passing my midterms, and Kathleen surviving a rough week at work

The persimmon flowers hardly lasted long enough for me to snap a photo

Before dessert we decided to have at our pumpkins and carve away

I set up a bunch of newspapers on the floor.  Kathleen gets first choice of pumpkin seeing as she is the honored guest!

I face down my foe

Lucy came over to be part of the action

She even batted at some pumpkin gunk

One of our pumkins ended up being ROTTED and Earl volunteered to take the rotted one.  So he got to relax while Kathleen and I carved.  Linus came and helped too.

Not only carving pumpkins, we all also carved our own pie-tops.  Not sure how well you can see these, but I carved a C and a heart, Earl carved… a triangle and a blob?  I dunno… he wasn’t feeling all that crafty i guess…  And Kathleen carved a K and a pi symbol.

WHOOO DONE!!! Pumpkin-y goodness!  Mine was the goblin and Kathleen’s was the Trick or Treat.

This was Earls… the big rotted out circle

hurrah!

meanwhile, pies were done!

oh- you know what i forgot to mention before- remember to brush with egg whites before you put the tops on, so the tops don’t pop off after baking.

mini pies are AWESOME, would totally recommend this recipe again.  we ate them a la mode

look at my decorative gourds!!

we went outside to check out our pumpkins “in action” on our windowsill 

ps- I am still over the moon about my new hair color and cut!

All in all, a super fun night. Heck of a lot of work, but worth it for some good times with a great friend. ¡Fin!

Today is my day off, and Linus and I are heading out to suburbia to play a little social call on my Aunt Mimi and Uncle Terry. I’m excited because it has been far too long since I’ve seen them, and Linus is excited because they have a penchant for giving him all kinds of snacks, particularly his beloved CHEESE (ohboyohboyohboy).

One of my favorite recent memories of my aunt is her munching on some cheez-its as Linus sat afoot. She asked me, “can I give him a chip?” “Sure,” I told her. She tossed Linus a chip and as he inhaled it, she was delighted. “Oh boy, look! He liked it!” ….. as if there was ever any doubt??! Lady, ye know not my dog. To this day, she always gets a thrill when she’s eating something, gives some to Linus, and he “likes it.”

ha ha. You could give Linus a rock, and if you pretended it was edible, and he would eat it.

Another funny thing Linus does at their house (now that we are wise to this, we don’t let him do it anymore) is wait until we are all distracted, then wander into her flower garden outside near the driveway AND EAT HER STRAWBERRIES OFF THE VINE. I find this hilarious. I’ve never seen a dog eat strawberries directly off a plant before. Guess he learned how to forage well during his time in the wild!

Additionally, while out in Pleasanton I have to run the thrilling errand of arguing at the Verizon store to get a new phone for free because the one I have now is a total dud which has been shutting off randomly and giving me a very static-y connection.

Finally, I’m hoping to sneak in a little hike/run up Pleasanton Ridge, time permitting.

I did it!

No time for more photos because I am running out the door for lunch with my long-lost, NYC-based friend (and former coworker when I was on the trading floor at JP Morgan) VJ. He’s in town to look at Stanford’s MBA program. Psyched to see him!