The heat, the bridge and a little wine tasting.

In short, a little update.

Last week was all hot and humid, and by the end of the week it was still hot and no longer humid. Thank heavens for little mercies.

It was too hot to do anything on Saturday, so after driving mom to her errands I watched some movies on tv. There was a weekend marathon of Harry Potter, which ABC Family channel has periodically throughout the year. Each time, I find myself rewatching the movies over and over.

On Saturday afternoon they were showing the Sorcerer's Stone, the first one, my fave of all. When ABC does a marathon, they usually skip the first movie, for reasons I don't understand. As a fan of the movies, it gives me a kick to see the characters again when they were very young and cute.

Even the hubby who dislikes staying home on the weekends sat and read newspapers and whatnot. I didn't realize that he had plans later in the day.

We drove off at quarter to 5. Unbeknownst to me we were meeting up with his carpool buddy and his wife and we'd have a walk to the new bridge date.

When we got there, the hubby called him and he was already walking on the trail about 10 minutes ahead of us. We encountered heavy traffic, that's why it was 5:30 by the time we were starting our walk.

The path/trail starts just outside of Ikea in Emeryville and winds under freeway and beside freeway lanes. The path was well paved and very popular. We had many companions walking that afternoon; many more pedalling ahead.

Then we reached a point where we could see where the path would curve and apparently that's where the beginning of the bridge path is, but it was already closed. The sign that says dusk to dawn at the beginning of the trail meant something. At 6:00 pm for now the trail is closed for pedestrian. Bikers have no restrictions. We heard that later on they would make the trail accessible 24/7.

Sigh! From Ikea to the bridge is 2 miles, very doable. Not difficult at all. We'll try again someday.

When we got back to the parking lot, we both decided to browse at Ikea, while the other couple decided to grab a yogurt and go. We stayed and I was most tempted to buy something, but since hubby was with me (and the thought of long lines for paying) it was easier to resist the urge to spend.

Spend we did however for food as we were quite hungry. We split a meal of chicken tenders and fries. All I want is fries anyway, been craving for them lately.

By the time we finished eating, we were hoping the traffic to the city would ease up a bit so we could do our mandatory first drive over the new span thing. Thankfully despite all the traffic, we were able to cross the beautiful span in less time than what I feared. After all, it's past 7 PM.

Since we crossed the bridge anyway, we might as well go to Embarcadero and take photos. We found parking easily and snapped a few shots. Afterwards we took a short detour to Treasure Island for more shooting. Hubby did the shooting. I was using my smart phone, he brought his camera.

We got home nearly 10 pm, and the house was still hot.

Sunday was going to be in the 90s here; but we weren't going to be home all day. Our friends invited us to a wine tasting in Napa; and we told them we're taking them for early dinner once the wine tasting was over.

Napa was hot, but it was beautiful, as always.

Our first order of business was light lunch so that we won't be tasting in empty stomach. Our friend found this Mexican grocery store with a little taqueria at the back. Their specialty is carne asada so the hubs and I split a super carne asada quesadilla, while our friends split a carne asada burito. It was a good spot for these dishes. Affordable too. We ate at a picnic table behind the store with views of the vineyard. So very Napa valley!

We went to 2 different wineries for wine tasting. On the first one, where we have reservations, we took our time and sampled about 6 wines. I like only 2 of them. We sat in the garden underneath the umbrella and have fans on us; it was a hot day, but the garden seating was inviting. I didn't melt, although I was sweating like a pig.

The second winery was all spur of the moment. We finished tasting at the first winery and found that we had so much time to kill before the restaurant would open. Our friends like this second winery and they have been tasting here for years. The good thing about it also is that the tastings are free. So few of the wineries nowadays offer free tastings. I begged off this time, but when it was time to taste the port, hubby just had to make me sip. Glad he did, because it was a good port. It's the best wine I've tasted that day (not including the wine we brought for dinner).

Another stop we made was at Dean and Deluca, a gourmet food store. I really like browsing here and tasting. We left empty handed.

We arrive at the downtown area with plenty of time to go before the restaurant opens for dinner service, so we walked around the riverfront, giving tour to our friends who often visit Napa but don't come to this side of the city. We browsed at stores, enjoyed the gardens, photographed the tile mural and then it was time to eat.

Zuzu was our choice. We wanted to have them taste and see what they think. Overall we had about 11 or 12 small plates including the desserts. Rioja was the bottle that hubby brought with our dinner, and it's one of my favorites. The meal was satisfying. You know what they say, good food good friends good life. It was a good day to spend in Napa Valley with friends.

Oh, I think the temperature is going south starting Tuesday. Hey Autumn, aren't you coming in yet?

Twas a rainy weekend.

My favorite thing in the world is a rainy and cold weekend where I could spend the day curled up in bed or in the couch watching tv or reading a book or both with both cats in my lap.

The past weekend was rainy and cold, super cold for this California resident. Nonetheless I had to run some errands. No lazing about in the house watching Pride and Prejudice for the nth time.

Saturday started with a trip to the vet for Emma, who had a follow-up after her emergency visit the past Sunday. I found this clinic that's not too far from us that people on Yelp seem to regard highly. So I chose this clinic and made appointments. Unfortunately on Saturday Emma's records from her emergency visit were not faxed over to the clinic despite my phone call requesting said records to be faxed ASAP to the new vet.

Thus, Emma's visit was somewhat limited to physical examinations. The vet examined her thoroughly and talked us through the possibilities of Emma having stones versus just having UTI, if that is what she have so far.

In the end, the vet wrote script for another round of general antibiotics, since Emma was responding positively to the first round. I raised concern about back-to-back dosage, but the vet assured me that it's okay and normal for pets to take antibiotics longer than the humans do.

Upon returning home, mom and I went on in the rain to run her regular Saturday errands, which consists of eating outside (Chow King that time) and getting some supplies (food).

It was gloomy all day so it got dark way too soon. When we got home from the errands, it was very late afternoon and time to just laze about the bedroom with the tv on and the laptop on my lap and the cats bodies touching my legs as they slept.
Sunday again was busy. I really wanted to skip church at least one Sunday, but well I didn't. We got out of church nearly noon and decided to drive to Napa just in case there are still any fall colors left to photograph. Last year we hit paydirt when we drove out to Napa the day after Thanksgiving and saw the valley gorgeously donning fall colors. I knew this time it was a lost cause but the hubby was adamant. I reasoned that it had been raining all week to begin with and add the fact that it's late in the season to still have colors. But he was unyielding.

The trip was originally planned with another couple, so he rang them up as we were leaving church. However, they weren't in the mood to go out for a drive. Who could blame them, the weather called for cuddling by the fire, with some football on tv.
And so we drove out to Napa and no fall colors, just as I expected. But we managed to stumble upon Bouchon bakery and the Marketplace shopping complex just across from it. We explored the Marketplace first hoping there was some eats and coffee to be had, but the no food stalls, only stores selling clothing.

So we crossed the street to Bouchon and entered the crowded little place, got some coffee and yummy pastry to go. We drove out farther until we didn't want to go any further at all.

We turned back and spotted some vineyards still carrying some fall colors so we stopped to photograph them in the rain.

Leaving Napa, we drove out to our next destination for the day, in Alameda, where our department Christmas Party was being held. It's amazing that I've lived here for 2 decades and still haven't been in this part of the Bay Area. It's lovely and we showed up at the party, took photos, ate and drank, and stayed for a bit, then said goodbye.

The day was not over yet for us because we had some shopping to do. We were supposed to go to 2 different stores, but after going to Costco where we got the bulk of our items, we decided not to go to the second store. It was late after all, I was hungry and tired and cold.

This weekend, we'll be having our family Christmas lunch. I suggested the date because Christmas day is Tuesday and we have no vacation before or after the day, it would be difficult to stay up late :)

I got my Christmas gift from hubby. We both picked it up at Costco last Sunday. It was the same one that I said in the previous post that I'm not getting for Christmas. I actually got it.

Hope your Christmas celebration is filled with love from family and friends.

Of Weekend Eating

It's Monday again, drat, I haven't even digested the weekend yet.

Oh the weekends of adults are mostly running around doing errands and performing chores at home. If I knew it was going to be like this, I'd have delayed my adulthood (wink).

Kidding aside, I'm already feeling run down early in the year, and this despite the gorgeous atypical weather we've been having. 70F in January, no kidding. I was wearing short sleeve! I cannot remember when our weather was this gorgeous. However, all this beautiful weather has some bad side to it. If we continue to have this spring-like and summer-like conditions, we might get in trouble come summertime when we need our water. Our water reserve mainly rely on the snow in the Sierra in the winter and rain down where we are during fall and winter months. We haven't had rain down here, nor did it snowed in Sierra yet. All the snow that's in the resorts right now are all man-made. Somehow, we need to get our winter going here.

Still, the gorgeous weather makes one want to be outside. Which meant that we found time to remove our "lightings" from the Holidays. We didn't really put many stuff outside, so when I was done, hubby was surprised that we put in too little time getting the decors back in their boxes.

I have to still get our Christmas tree down, maybe one of these nights. Not tonight I have a church meeting, which means I may have to miss CASTLE.

Let me tell you about some eating I have done this weekend.

Every Saturday I take my mom around to run her errands. Among her errands is lunch in either Chow King or Jollibee. Now that she completely dumped Jollibee (price is high for the serving they give you, she said), she has found a regular lunch place in Red Ribbon. She simply adores the combo meal - half an order of arroz caldo and 2 mini siopaos. I on the other hand either gets the palabok by itself or the half palabok + half arroz caldo.

So you see I don't really miss so much of the Philippine food scene. Next door is Max Fried Chicken. There are plenty of other restaurants that serve cafeteria style Pinoy food around.

On Saturday evening we took our newly widowed friend Gay to a little dinner over at Villa Romano. Our plan was for lunch but for pete's sake the restaurant doesn't open for lunch on the weekend.

So dinner it was. We drove to Napa where the restaurant is located. You see we pass by this restaurant each time we drive to Napa and every single time I let out a sigh wanting to try that restaurant. We never got around to it, until last Saturday.

We made reservations at 5 pm the time they open. There was one table already occupied. It's an old house converted into a restaurant. It feels like eating at a friend's house.

The waitress said we have to have the garlic bread, it's a must she says. So we had it. It's actually like a half of a round french sweet bread that was baked until the crust was crunchy and brown and it was topped with cheese and served in a nice platter. The waitress then took a broiled/baked whole head of garlic, pinched it and all the goooey garlic goodness oozed out and was spread thickly on the bread. It was too die for. Not only was the bread really delicious, the presentation was superb. Never had a garlic bread done this way before.

For appetizers, we got only one order of fried calamari, which in my experience is always enough for four people. I was right. There were only three of us, but we ate the whole thing all thru the meal, we couldn't seem to finish it.

Caesar salad followed. I didn't really want a salad, but said okay when hubby suggested we split one order. Thankfully we did that because as always the Caesar salad itself looks like an entree portion.

For our entree I chose risotto with chicken. The husband had the three cheese tortellini with pancetta. Gay had the seafood linguini.

I simply adored my risotto. The serving was large, the chicken was delicious, I don't usually order chicken in the restaurant. The creaminess of the risotto was wonderful. Although it's not the traditional big grain risotto that we're so used to. It was marvelous.

Gay's seafood linguini looks very soupy, which didn't escape her notice. But it's supposed to since she ordered seafood and seafood is watery. Anyway we asked the waitress to give us some extra cheese to counter the soupy nature.

Hubby's tortellini dish was right on the spot too. However, there was more pancetta than I or he wanted and needed more tortellini, but otherwise a good dish.

After all these dishes and wine, we had room for dessert. We ordered one sampler dessert and that was just fine serving. The dessert plate had a sorbet, which was a palate cleanser, an espresso tiramisu and flourless chocolate cake. While the chocolate cake was good, the best flourless choc cake I had eaten so far is at Ristorante Due Rose, Italian restaurant in my neighborhood.

And so it was a fun 2.5 hours of dinner we had. We even saw the sunset while sipping wine.

You know I do have photos of the dishes, although I don't think they turned out well. I was only using a point and shoot, because I cannot bring myself to whip out a DSLR when dining, do you?

I'm going to keep track of all our dining out expenses this year. While we were really good with budget last year, we didn't really know how much of it goes to eating out.

This Is Us Being Spontaneous

We have no plans, travel or otherwise, for the next few months. Nothing. Sad isn't it?

However, we expect to be quite deep into our church's fundraising this summer. So we are clearing our schedules for that - and oh we are saving up for some big vacation - like a 2-week Turkey tour :)

Anyway, my Saturdays are always the same. It's a routine. In the morning, and I don't wake up early either, I have to take my mom out to eat and then run her errands. Later on in the day we do groceries, et al. Not this Saturday. We didn't run our errands after my morning with mom.

Instead we attended my nephew's housewarming party. In all these economic worries, he managed to buy a condo/townhouse. It's a 2 bedroom 2 1/2 baths built in 2005 so it's fairly new. It was foreclosed and thankfully he had 20% down, I wouldn't have guessed. Not to knock him down, but I certainly did not think he was geared towards his future. I am so delighted and proud.

The condo overlooks International Market - across from the college. It's a gated community so it's pretty safe. The 2-storey townhouse has a lovely floorplan that I liked a lot. I went home satisfied after seeing his new digs. Beats the rent he pays for the apartment.

On Sunday, we had church. Afterwards we went home for a little brunch. While chewing, I was also making a list of what we needed to buy at the grocery store.

And then I thought why not drive to Napa. Napa is less than 30 minutes drive from home and a favorite place to go to if we feel the need to go out of the house.

Halfway to Napa, the skies opened up and poured wet blessings on us. I was disappointed because I was looking forward to exploring the revitilized riverfront district on foot. I knew that Iron Chef's Morimoto's new restaurant is in that area. I wanted to take photos.

I told my husband that next time we plan on being spontaneous we check the weather report first.

While we toyed with the idea of making a U turn and watch movie instead, we decided to go ahead with our plans, since the movie tickets were sitting in my computer desk at home.

Despite the rain which was on and off, when it was on it was really pouring, the visit to the riverfront was very nice. Morimoto's restaurant is right there two doors down from Tyler Florence's store. You see these are my name brands. I don't do Dolce Gabbana, or DKNY or Gucci. Those names don't mean a thing to me. What matters to me are Morimoto, Alice Waters (mother/founder of California cuisine, owner of Chez Panisse), Tyler Florence, etc.

Just like those who buy Louis Vitton, I too cannot afford to eat there, but I save up so I can and today was not the day to eat.

We walked around poking into restaurants to see what their menus would be like and how much they charge :)

Went inside Kohl's and grabbed a few shirts, my idea of shopping.

Walked some more and found ourselves in need of some sustenance. We ducked into SWEETIE PIE and had coffee and coffee cake. We found a wonderfully looking chocolate cupcake with almond butter creme frosting that had to be wrapped for enjoyment at home.

The rest of the afternoon went by as we ran our errands. I shall be back when the weather is pleasant and would redo the walk I took.

My Starbucks Experience

My experience here in the United States taught me that people tend to make small talk, polite conversations, usually about mundane topics such as the weather, when in a public place, while waiting for something, the bus, or your coffee. And I liked that. I thought that was really friendly. I don't usually instigate the casual conversation but that day I did.

We were driving back from a pleasant afternoon in Napa when we spotted a Starbucks store. Needing a caffeine boost, we stopped. This one did not have a drive through window. So we went inside. The store was as expected at about 5 pm empty except for two or three people ahead of me in the line. When it was my turn to give my order, I thought it would be nice to chit-chat with the barista. My husband at this time was using the facilities. So I asked this lanky pimply-faced young lad who looked like he's not old enough to drink coffee what they put in my Americano. Cafe Americano is my signature drink when we go to Starbucks. Not only is it priced modestly, I also enjoy its taste, which is very important. I don't go frap or something, I get shocked thinking about the calories in each of those ventis. Anyway, he must have not expected me to say something else outside of my Americano venti order so he asked if I could repeat what I just said. I did. I asked him what do you put in your Americano? The lad found his composure and confidently answered: "Hot water and coffee beans."

My husband caught the last part of this conversation and could not help but give out an audible chuckle at the response. He chastised me; he said I got what I asked for. He said I asked a stupid question so I got a stupider response. Did you think my question was stupid? Maybe I did not phrase it correctly. I wanted to know what combination of coffee beans they use for their Americano, so I could copy that when I brew my own at home.

Enough for chit-chatting with baristas. I learned to just smile and comment on how glorious our weather has been. It's a much safer topic for everyone.