Street Photography # 6

I almost forgot that I had a series going on Street Photography. This one comes from Barcelona.

Is it Friday yet?

Here's What's Coming Up

Brace yourself for the pretty....








Have I whetted you appetite for spring photoshoots?

In Pursuit of Perfection and Other Weird Things

Be forewarned this is a PMS-induced post. Having blurted out the situation I am in, it is no wonder to you gals that food is in my mind today. And I thought I'd write about something I wanted to eat.

I am in search of the perfect:

HAMBURGER: I am not much of a burger person, but I get my usual 10-12 burgers a year allotment. However, I have yet to be mesmerized by the PERFECT burger. I have tried the burger joints or fastfood places and so far the one I like is In-n-Out burger. I even tried different hole-in-the-wall, but nope I have never met the perfect burger for me yet. Any help?

CUPCAKE: The trend of cupcake cuisine has given rise to my curiousity. Often ignored, I now am in search of the one cupcake to end all cupcake searches. So far there is this local bakery that makes and specializes in Red Velvet cake/cupcake and their cake and cupcake is the one that is on top of my list right now.

SPAGHETTI: A lost cause if you ask my husband. First, he said my Filipino palate could not handle the authentic Italian spaghetti. Second, I often skip this dish when I'm in a restaurant because they often charge a ridiculous price for a bowl of spaghetti. I always think I can make spaghetti at home for 1/8 of the price. If we are talking of the Filipino version, I love the one at Jollibee.

CHEESECAKE: Traditional or flavored. The problem with cheesecake is that I like it so much that even crappy ones in the cafeteria can give me a bit of satisfaction. I am leaning towards flavored variety when it comes to cheesecake. I like anything with chocolate marbleing in it too. Any suggestions?

Let me know if you have any ideas about the above mentioned items.

Now on to the weird things............

Today is February 17. I looked at the calendar and the date jumped out at me. It's like this date meant something. I cannot remember any significance, however. I wracked my brain trying to recall any birthdays or anniversaries, or any kind of event, but nothing.

Do you dream about things that make no sense at all? Do you remember your dreams months after they occur?

Okay, a few months ago I had a dream. Inside a house, a vacation house. I was getting the family into the car, the vacation is ending and we have a long drive home to California. The vacation house - in the dream we owned it - was in Colorado. Telluride, Colorado. I have not seen any images of this city, but I heard of its name before. It makes no sense at all. But the whole dream sequence is still very vivid, a testament to that is this post I am writing months after the dream. Makes no sense at all. But I'm intrigued at my ownership of a vacation house :)

Welcome to Buster's Corner

My name is Buster. My mom is busy with work and her hands are full with church stuff. She's about to cry, so I volunteered to write a post to this blog.

Well what can I blog about?

I love to eat - just about everything. At dinner time, I lean on my dad's legs and stretch myself to see what they are eating. My parents find this funny. Oftentimes, this action results in a piece of meat. Oh I love human food. I just don't like it when they have Mexican food. This cat doesn't like meat with Mexican seasoning. Yuck. My big sister Emma also turns up her nose at any offerings of Mexican food.

I live in this household for almost 4 months now. Dad picked me out in the shelter. I was merely 5 months old then. Mom was with dad at that time, but she was busy ooohing and aahing at the cute little 2-week olds. Dad said the little kittens were way too young to be adopted by them. He said they would be too much to handle. So he picked me.

When they brought me home a few days later - I had to get all the necessary stuff like neutering and getting microchipped before I could go home with them - I was a bit spooked. They had this carrying container and I somehow managed to get Mom to let me loose inside the car. It was dark and I was spooked at the lights on the road. I have never seen a road before.

Mom was happy to bring me home. My grandma wasn't. The least happy in the household was my sister Emma. Dad was complaining that Emma was acting too spoiled and too baby-baby (his word) for her age. So they brought me in to complete their family. Emma wasn't pleased at all. It took Mom a lot of coaxing and long sessions of combing to get Emma to settle a bit.

(Me and my sister Emma playing on the bed while Dad is sleeping. Mom thought this was hilarious, while Dad woke up grumpy)

Later on we got along. Infront of the parents, we act indifferent and barely could tolerate each other. But when they go to work, we have the whole house and the whole bed to ourselves and we share harmoniously.

I overheard Mom ask Dad if I will be as comforting and as affectionate to her as my sister Emma. Dad said that maybe not since I am a boy and boys are not like that, unless you're in GLEE or something.

Anyway, I give Mom a bit of enjoyment. I sit next to her motionless - and believe me that is a hard task. I have tons of energy that needs to be used. Mom and Dad make me use up that energy with the laser light work out. Oh boy I go gaga (babagtit - their word) over this exercise/play activity.

I think I may have shared too much. I will be seeing you all later, when Mom cannot find time to post here, I will be doing it.

Tata - it's naptime.

How Are You?

How are you dear blog? 

I knew I was away longer than I expected, nor wanted.

But work is eating much of my free time.  And whatever is left at the end of the day, your sisters my two other blogs have split that up between themselves.

Plus, the much-needed vacation from last year actually happened a week ago.

So I'm here dropping by with a hi and hello and nothing else to say.  I will make a point to pencil you in for a little lunch some other time where I'll tell you ALL about what I saw and ate and did in Mexico.

In the meantime, I've got to split.  My work load is still neck high and a week after my vacation, I'm still playing catch up.  I'll play catch up with you too.

Tata!

It's Thursday Again

And I suppose I need to write something here again, right?

My offline life is getting busy - work is getting hectic - and other extra-curricular activities start piling up, and with two other blogs aside from this, something is bound to be neglected.

Unfortunately, this blog is the one victimized by my busy schedule.

I'd like to rectify that today.  And fingers crossed my next post won't wait another week to be published. 

Anyway, I can't remember what exactly we did over the weekend.  The weekend was a blur, especially now that another weekend is upon us. 

I'm going to be riding a plane this weekend, which will take me to a place where I'd catch another ride to my week-long vacation destination.  Oh, the much-needed get-away is here.  Thank heavens!

I didn't intend to tell you that, it just slipped into the post.

Last night I went to dinner with "friends".  Why the quotation?  I don't know if I'd categorize them as friends or they belong to the gray area where they are more than acquiantances but less than friends.  But for the sake of this post they are friends.  They are my husband's colleagues, they have been to the house and eaten my food more than once, so I guess friends is not an exaggeration.

January is California's Restaurant Month, wherein the Visitor Bureau encourages you to patronize local businesses by going out to dinner.  In return, the business gives special deals, like lower prices for prix fixe meals/3-course meals for $30.  Oakland has it's Restaurant Week this week.  After work last evening, I met with friends for dinner - to Mezze - which is about 5 minutes from my work. Isn't that mighty convenient? 

Anyway, there were 3 girls and 4 boys that went to dinner - and no one brought a camera; I don't know how the photos of food taken by cell phone turned out.  6 of us ordered the 3-course meals.  The menu is quite limited, and on a Wednesday at 7 pm we were told that the tuna is sold out and they only have 2 orders of scallops - that went to our table, I ordered one with butternut squash soup and bread pudding for dessert.  M ordered the salmon entree, which we all agreed was overcooked. Two ordered the steak entree which was according to both who ordered it was too spicy and that the pepper crusting is too overwhelming.  My husband ordered ala carte of Morroccan lamb shank.  The portion is huge and delicious.   I ordered the scallops.  The order consists of three huge scallops over parsnip puree and some veggies with pancetta. 

I like my entree.  It is flavorful.  I always like anything pureed - even parsnip.  The scallops weren't as flavorful as I'd like, but if you bite into the pancetta, you get the maximum flavor.  The accompanying corn succotash looks like it came from a frozen veggies bag.  All in all I enjoyed the dinner.

However, we were all united in saying the highlight of the dinner was the chocolate croissant bread pudding - so delicious and rich.  It will make anyone happy.

On Wednesdays they waive the corkage fee so we brought two bottles - which were both Bordeaux, a pleasant surprise.

We chatted all through the three courses sipping wine and agreed to dine about town every month.  M assigned me to pick the next restaurant.  I'd like to choose one where the entree prices are under $20, because this dining out can get very heavy on the pocket too :)

And because I went out last night, I missed American Idol and I failed to record it.  I also missed Top Chef, but I believed that there was no new show last night, so no harm there. 

Happy Weekend everyone.

What's The Verdict?

Or is too soon?

You don't know what I'm talking about?

It's about the new season of American Idol, silly. 

Oh you no longer care for AI!

I came to this new season with the attitude of "well I have nothing better to do" so why not watch.  I don't think the show has much staying power beyond this season, unless something earth-shattering thing happens.  Let's say they find that one superstar in the making.  Still I thought the show is really showing her age.

Now what do I really think?  What grade do I give?

Too soon.  After all, only one show has aired and it's the auditon part of the search. 

But, I did find J.Lo's cringing at her reluctance to crush the aspirant's hopes pretty refreshing and elicited giggles on my part and my husband's.

That's a good sign.

And I liked the fact that all three judges are singers/musicians and that they can put themselves in the auditioner's shoes.

I'm still weighing my feelings for Steven Tyler.

And Randy?  I though he should be playing more of a "lead" role, but well, he continues to be....Randy - the third judge.

So I am taking a wait-and-see-what-happens approach to AI this year.  That is until a more interesting show comes up somewhere in the same time slot. 

ON TO ANOTHER SHOW

Wednesday is also the day my other favorite show, TOP CHEF, airs.  And the All-Star version is midway to the season. 

I have jumped into the bandwagon pretty late in the game. I believe I have been watching the show 3 years now.  They have been on air longer than that.

Which only means that many of the chefs participating in this All-Star version are all new to me, including Dale, who I googled because I had serious questions about his heritage.  Yes he is of Filipino heritage and I am happy that he's doing fine so far.  But the fortunes on Top Chef are fickle and they change pretty quickly from one show to the next.  So no one is really safe.

I have come to this season with Angelo as my "bet" to take it all the way.  You see I have seen the season where Angelo was one of the top three in the end.  And while his morals and ethics are in constant question on the show, I still thought that he makes good food - I would love to eat what he's cooking on the show.

I just previewed this post and read what I've written so far and I thought I'd come out as pretty much a couch potato with nothing better to do on a Wednesday night.  You are right in that assumption. 

So with this I end this post. But be certain I'll be sitting on the same couch come Wednesday night and tuning in to these 2 shows :)