Food Craving Wednesday

If tehre is one Filipino dish that I wouldn't be tired of eating, it's the lumpia, espcially if it's home made. And especially if it's made by my niece. She has the knack for cooking that one.

When she was little and was about 9 or 10 years old and she would need money for a little fishball fix in the afternoon after the naps, and she knew no money would be coming her way because well, kids only get so much allowance and nothing more.

Her entrepreneural spirit coupled with resourcefulness kicked in. She would get rice from the rice bin and make lugaw (porridge) and she would sell this to all of us, her aunts and uncles and cousins. She would charge 50 cents per bowl of lugaw. At the end she would have enough money to have two orders of fishball.

Now that she's grown and mother of three boys, her family is well fed. She continues to enjoy cooking and this is her lumpia.

Yays and (oh) Noes!

Yays:

• Shoe shopping.  Got 2 on sale.
• Dress shopping.  Got 2 also on sale.
• Reserved camping cabin for July.
• Drive to our favorite route Highway 128 to visit the "ghost trees", which are actually California oaks all covered/dripping with Spanish moss, looks eerie on a misty rainy winter day.
• San Francisco 49ers going to the Super Bowl this Sunday, a little viewing party at home to boot.
• Bought a dining voucher that includes a 5-course tasting menu with drink pairings.

(Oh) Noes:

• Emma still not fully healed with whatever is ailing her. 
• Pet insurance has not reimbursed me yet.
• Headaches - go away!
• Failure to pick up a book and a month is almost gone.
• Unable to start with craft/needlework project.
• Cannot get with the American Idol vibe this year.  Maybe when the shows are in Hollywood.
• Big Bang Theory not getting love from critics as evidenced by their inability to snag any awards so far.  They were the toast before and when the show skyrocketed in popularity with the viewing masses, the critics looked the other way.  Isn't that always the case?  Still, I'm frustrated.
• "Haven" has had it's season finale already. I want more of it. 
• Cannot seem to start losing weight.
• Still have not inquired about swimming lessons. Or pilates. Or Zumba.

Weekend Reporting

Time for weekend reporting again.

It was a 3-day weekend in this country, well for some people. My dear hubs had to work, they never get Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.

Here's how the weekend went:

Saturday:

• Lunch at China House with Mother.  This is one of her regular go-to places to dine.
• Drove out to Vallejo to get some supplies, like empanadas and puto bumbong from Valerio's Bakery and a stop at Andrea's for some cooked food for Mother. 
• When I finished running errands with Mom, which included stops at a shoe store and grocery store, my hubs and I went food sampling at Costco .  Oh we did some shopping too.

Sunday:

• Church in the morning.   Lunch at a little Cambodian/Vietnamese restaurant in San Pablo where I had to make sure my stomach was full for the sake tasting at Takara Sake.  I particularly don't find sake tasty and only have it when I'm in a Jap restaurant and sake is free with the meal, but I scored this really good deal from one of them (Travelzoo, I believe).  So we bought an extra voucher so we could have  dear friends come with us.  What was very fascinating about this whole deal is that I would not be persuaded to come here otherwise; therefore I would have missed learning about sake making (video show was informative and interesting) and looking at all the instruments/utensils needed in the tradional sake making process.  The sake tasting part itself is pretty educational.  They have menus on what to taste and of course I chose to taste the sweeter variety of sake.  While I enjoyed one or two kinds of sake from the tasting, I don't think I would be buying a bottle soon.  Also included in the package is a set of 3 little bottles of three different sakes.  All in all what a wonderful experience.
• The sake tasting took up most of the time that we're supposed to watch the football game on tv, it being a conference championship and all.  By the time we got home, it was 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter.  Fortunately, the local team, the Forty Niners emerged victorious, which means they'd be playing for all the marbles in 2 weeks at the Super Bowl.  Hubs is thinking of hosting a viewing party for that.  No concrete plans yet, but we'll see.  We're not even avid fans, just casual onlookers, but a party is fun.
• Plans for watching The Hobbit went down the drain after the game, as I felt a bit sluggish after all the sake I tasted/ingested.  Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in front of the computer.

Monday:

• Our church had a Clean-Up The City program in the morning in connection with the MLK Day as well as the National Service Day (?).  Members of our church as well as high school kids from the neighboring town's High School (the same high school kids that helped with our Tenderloin Project over Christmas and then some) came to church at 10 am and by 10:30 we were all signed up and have our routes mapped and with gloves in hand and the other carrying a trash bag, we walked away from the church to our clean up route.  I was with three lovely ladies from church - Chris, Susan and Margaret.  We chose to clean creekside and the levee side.  But it was really clean, hardly anything was picked up except for cigarette butts.  It was a lovely upper 60s day with lots of sunshine that we felt a bit guilty about not filling our bags with trash because well there wasn't any in our route.  So we decided to veer from our route, which according to the leader of the program is okay, and headed to the little park by the waterside.  I told the ladies that I have spied a group of kids going that way earlier.  I was right, the park was clean as well.  We chose to return to church and see if there are any routes that needed more cleaning.  We chose another one that we had in previous clean up programs picked up the most trash. It was clean, must be another group had finished collecting trash.  Back at the church, our lunch consisting of hotdogs, cole slaw, cookies and potato chips was ready.  The firetruck came that moment to the delight of the children.  The firefighters were very accommodating to the children, they let them climb up the truck, ask many questions, begged to fire up the siren (which they did eventually ONCE).  With food in hand, we all trooped inside the nave and watched MLK speech, which was introduced by our deacon, who was at there when the speech was made.
• Came back home to see the kitties sleeping in the master bedroom (where else?) and decided I'd join them.  Planning on napping with them, but I wasn't too sleepy or tired, so I switched on the tv and decided to check out what's ON DEMAND and thankfully I did because I saw there's a new epi of my show, SMASH.  The new season is in February. 
• Hubs came home from work to say, "Let's go to Happy Hour."  I wasn't really feeling it because I think I may have eaten more hotdogs than I could handle (2), but he was insistent and so we did have a little drink and some nibbles at La Revolucion.  While we had high hopes for this restaurant, Latin/Spanish fusion in this part of the Bay, we were disappointed.  Only judging by the bar bites menu, we will not be in a hurry to return. 

I just realized after writing this down that I ate too much this weekend.  The month is halfway over again, way too quickly, isn't it?

7 Years Ago

Seven years ago tomorrow, I was here. Beautiful island no? It's called Catalina Island, about 45 minutes boat ride from LA, so close to LA but feels like a different land altogether.

Wonder if I could ever make a return visit?

Bullet time

What's going on?  It's been a week since my last post. 

A few of the things on my mind lately:

• Cold here. Having a cold snap.  It's 36 F (2C) when I went to work this morning.  I love the cold weather.
• Looking forward to having sake tasting this weekend with another couple, friends of ours.
• Might miss the SF 49ers game though.
• Watched the entire 49er V Packers last Saturday.  Must admit that Kaepernick is pretty good.
• American Idol is back tomorrow.  Are you ready for another Idol season?
• The Golden Globes was Sunday.  Happy but surprised that Ben Affleck bagged the Best Director award.  I am so looking forward to watching Argo.
• Personally, I feel blah - physically, emotionally, mentally.
• I think I need baseball to perk me up.
• No concrete travel plans for 2013 yet.
• Must plan vacation times this year, deadline for submission at work is by the end of the month.
• Zoom lens for my DSLR still broke.  Boo hoo.
• Need massage, ASAP.
• Pancit palabok from Red Ribbon was dinner last night, courtesy of Brother #1.  Thanks Kuya, I needed that!
• Dreaming of Mendocino this year. 

Well that's all folks.  Still not in the mood to blog here. I don't know why. 

Home Alone

It's Monday and I'm home alone. I'm out sick. Hubby is at work and my brother just picked up mom. So I'm home alone with two cats. I cannot remember the last time I'm home alone. I'm watching some old GIANTS games on DVD.

Day 1 of 365

We went out for a long walk and enjoyed it!

Food Craving Wednesday

It's been a while since I've done a food post, so why don't I pick up where I left off?

I'm craving for some home-made snails in butter and parsley sauce and corkscrew pasta and a side of steamed broccoli florets. Paired with a good Pinot Grigio. One of the many "gourmet" creations my dear husband whips up for dinner.

My food cravings are here.