pork and cabbage

Another short post, another photo of a dinner I made.  Wednesday night dinner at home, accompanied by television and time with Conrad.  As tempting as it was to go get sushi again or otherwise go out, we stayed in and I cooked.  Pork tenderloin first seared then popped into the oven.  A wedge of roasted cabbage each.  And a loose puree of cauliflower, onion, and yellow carrot that functioned as starch and sauce both.  Nice little meal for a midweek evening. 

quiet Sunday in August

Well, howdy!

It's been another quiet day with Olive.  She didn't even want to go for a walk this morning - maybe I tuckered her out yesterday.  She did enjoy a drive late morning to go check up on the condo, though, and I got her over to the park for a brief stroll. 

Otherwise, we're two mellow souls, having a day of (so far) reading, music, napping.

I may write some more note cards this evening before I turn on the television.  We shall see.  But dinner is done for both of us.  I poured a Kamikaze

and served up some leftover pork

and a few other things scrounged from the fridge. 

A basic meal, and that's fine.  It's not been the best day for eating, I admit.  Ah well.

A new week ahead, the library closed, Conrad and Van due back later on Wednesday.  Let's see what else the week brings! 

Saturday evening with the LG

It's been a super easy day.  I did make the mistake of going back up to the condo this afternoon, and that got me caught in all the traffic for the Noah Kahan concert at the Rose Bowl (and I would have loved to have see that - I've been enjoying his most recent album so much),  But that was a blip in an otherwise easy day.

Time spent with Olive today, once again. 

She is such a good girl.  We had a good walk this morning. 

By the end, she was tuckered out.  And I confess:  we both had a late morning nap.  Just that kind of day!

I poured another Italicus martini while I made dinner. 

Tasty drink for summer, I have to say.  Dinner was a hodge-podge.  I had a pork tenderloin that needed cooking, so I seared then roasted it, slicing it to serve along with some sweet potato leftover from dinner with Denny and some green onions in a bowl of Trader Joe's noodles. 

Not a bad dinner.  I feel pretty satisfied here.  Leftover pork for tomorrow as well!

Olive is used to television in the evenings, so I shall hop offline and get to watching with her.  Happy weekend, folks! 

Tuesday night dinner in

Hello!  I'm taking a midweek day off today to go enjoy the city a little with Van - all too often it's either the weekend or holidays when we have that opportunity, and we thought it would be nice to take advantage of the slowness of summer at work to grab a day off at a not-usual time for us.  Should be fun!

Van, however, is not a morning person, and although I've been up for about 4 hours now, it's before 9:00, and it's unreasonable to expect him to be up.  So I've had my walk, I've had a Starbucks decaf latte, and I've had some oatmeal.  Now to blog a little before I head out to meet him....

A quick post, then.  Dinner last night. 

Slices of pork tenderloin atop a farroto (sure, let's call it that), a mix of farro, pancetta, onion, peas, and corn.  A relatively light meal, and a nice one to enjoy together sitting out on the deck.  Now to think about what to cook for tonight! 

third weekend in July

Hey, it's the weekend update!  Lucky y'all, right?  Here we go!

Friday started out with me doing a mighty mighty long morning walk:  just shy of ten miles.  I was understandably a little worn out the rest of the day, but I rallied for dinner at Maestro.  No Van this time - he was a little under the weather - but we did have a nice time with Stephen. 

Ah, Stephen, someone we didn't see often enough despite him living just over in Glendale.  And now he is all packed up and moving to Texas.  This week.  We wish him well there, what with the new job and being much closer to his daughters and grandson.

Anyway, it was a nice evening outside. 

I stuck with the Maestro margarita, a hibiscus-flavoured drink, and we shared some good food:  guacamole with plantain chips, oysters, the roasted beet salad, and the cochinita pibil.  

I really love that last dish.  Yum!

Conrad and I came home from dinner, poured a little wine, watched some television.  An easy Friday done.

Saturday started out with less walking than the day before.  And, of course, we ended up at Amara.  Rather than having my usual arepa, I split a breakfast burrito

with Conrad. 

Have no fear:  there was a decaf latte for me.

Saturday then unspooled through a day of groceries, some laundry, and tackling some of the accumulation in the one storage room.  That felt good to get done.  Eventually I took up residence in my kitchen where I cobbled up from dim memory a lentil and bacon tart

to serve at room temperature for dinner and served that along with a salad platter (no lettuce - we are being wary of that like many other people) of burrata with crispy prosciutto, tomatoes, nectarines, basil, and mint. 

We had barely finished when Erik from next door showed up at the door to say hello.  That turned into a longer evening with him and his friend, Barry, joining us.  And then, because the dishwasher is on the fritz, I was up until after 11 washing and drying all the dishes by hand.  A lot of time on my feet despite a shorter walk that day, and man oh man, was I exhausted by the time I went to bed.

I let myself stay in bed longer yesterday, and our morning walk was meager.  It was nice to get a morning with some oatmeal and decaf and writing a few notecards to friends.  I made some dinner for Conrad to reheat tonight while I'm at Van's, then set to work on the happy hour cocktails.  That was fun.  Van stuck around for sushi after drinks, and then he headed home while Conrad and I finished up with some travel planning we'd been doing earlier in the day.  To bed after that.

Just a rather ordinary, easy weekend for us.  Nice to have! 

Girl and the Goat with Amy, Andrew, and Ed

I've blogged the Rose Mary dinner, now for the other Top Chef meal.  Girl and the Goat, now a Chicago establishment, the flagship for Stephanie Izard since she became the first woman (and first Chicago chef) to win the show back in season 4.  I hadn't been in years although I had been to the LA outpost with Conrad and Van and had also been to Little Goat a couple of times when that was still open.  It would prove to be a welcome return.

I am a fan of Chef Izard.  During her season, she showed time and again that she was creative, technically skilled, managed her time well, and wasn't into drama.  Immensely likable on television, small wonder there was such buzz for Girl and the Goat when it opened - the fans wanted it.  And she delivered.  The first time we went there many years back, Conrad and I were joined by vegetarian friends.  For a restaurant that has goat as part of its name and identity, Girl and the Goat delivered on vegetables.  We had a wonderful meal.  Since the restaurant wasn't too far a walk from work, I went a few times after that for early bites with friends.  I don't think, however, that I had been back since we moved to SoCal.

Sunday dinner at conference was a nice little group affair, with Amy, Andrew, and Ed joining me and Conrad.  Three friends I absolutely treasure, and I know they all like good food, so I was excited about our meal.  The five of us rode the green line several stops, then walked on down to the restaurant.  We had a nice table tucked just inside the door, which gave us a view of the street or the busy restaurant interior.  We ordered cocktails - the Sun Kid for me

- and then food.  Ready? Here we go:

Green garlic brioche. 

Who doesn't love starting with some bread?  This was tasty!

Chickpea fritters. 

Oh, I loved these.  These were a surprise - no one was wowed about them on seeing them on the menu, but my gosh were they tender and good.

Goat empanadas. 

And I loved these as well.  A cocktail, two rounds of these, and a green vegetable, and we would have been happy with just that.

Roasted asparagus. 

Quite fine.

Pan-roasted halibut. 

Cooked nicely, and it was good, but it was also just halibut.  Happily, I rather like halibut.

Roasted pig face. 

Yum!  So good.  I love that they are getting that meat and using it.

I didn't get photos of the other four savoury dishes, but we had kohlrabi salad, grilled kalbi short ribs, wood fired chicken, and crispy pork belly.  The pork belly was good - I often find that pork belly is crispy outside and then a ton of fat, and this wasn't nearly so fatty.  The ribs were my least favourite course.  Not bad, just kind of chewy and alright.

For dessert, we got all of them.  All four. 

I wish that restaurants would post their dessert menus online more consistently.  I can't remember what all four were, but there was one that I think was an homage to ball parks with caramel and corn involved,  It was also the best of the four.  I liked the desserts, but they all struck me as more or less some sort of cake base with an ice cream, and some greater variety would have been terrific.  But I quibble, and we did finish off all of those desserts, after all. 

All in all, a terrific meal.  A couple of items that didn't shine as brightly, but nothing at all that I didn't like, and lots more that I would have been happy to try.  Aside from our friends being such good company, a group meant we could try and share a lot more from the menu than just two of us would.  We had such a nice night, then capped it off with drinks back at the hotel with some others.  And oh yes, I'd be very happy to go back to Girl and the Goat again some day. 

a Thursday night dinner in June

The slew of posts on the Nashville/Kentucky trip has helped cover for the fact that it's been quiet times indeed.  Really not much to write about during the week.  Simple dinners, movies or television.  Morning walks.  Few people coming through the door at work.  A lull before the conference and in-laws travel at the end of this month.  In short, sorry.  Not much to blog about.

So here is what has become a rare-these-days cooking entry.  Van came over last night so that the three of us could hammer out our weekend plans (a friend's 60th birthday celebration in Newport Beach).  I took one of our dinner staples (pork tenderloin) and served it up a little differently than normal.  A corn and leek puree went into the bottom of the bowl.  Alongside the pork came a couple of roasted slices of sweet potato and a small mound of sauteed cabbage and onion. 

Summery flavours, perhaps?  Nothing too rich.  A nice little dinner.

I've been looking ahead for some time now to retirement down the road.  When I finally do, oh boy will I be getting into the kitchen a whole bunch.  Baking, cooking.  Just you watch out. 

Friday night before vacation

Writing this on Friday night, posting on Saturday.  Conrad and I have an afternoon flight from Burbank to Denver and an overnight at the Westin at the airport there.  I wish we were getting together with Laurie and Marc, but next time.  I hope!  My spring break looms, and time in New England beckons.  And what better way to head off on vacation than by enjoying dinner at Maestro?  You got me!

Mild evening temperatures meant we could sit outside.  No live music tonight, alas, but we still had a good time, and the restaurant (indeed, many of the restaurants in the neighbourhood), was doing some good business.  We ordered cocktails - a mezcal negroni for me

- and a starter of queso fundido,

and settled in to enjoy the evening.  Conrad and Van were across the table from me,

sipping their drinks.  Conversation ranged all over.  We had a good time.

Calamari followed the queso,

and then the cochinita pibil. 

My gosh, that last one, a pork dish, is so good.  Yum.

No dessert for us.  We came back to the condo for a bit, discussed Olympics tickets purchases, and then Van headed home.  A nice night before heading out of town, very welcome.

Happy Saturday, happy Easter weekend! 

a weekend was had

Yep, it was a weekend, and not at all a bad one.  There are remnants of my cold lingering even now, but for the most part, I'm doing alright and was that way through the past weekend.  And that meant, happily, some welcome and familiar things.

Such as dinner at Maestro on Friday night!  It was a nice, warm evening, so Conrad and I sat outside.  I've been having a mostly dry month, so I had a mocktail made with coconut, pineapple juice, and cafe de olla syrup. 

We shared guacamole and plantain chips, a roasted beet salad,

and the black bean and huitlacoche tetela. 

It was only toward the end of dinner that we realized that we'd had a vegetarian meal.  Great!  It was nice to be back.

Saturday morning we walked.  After a few days of inactivity, I was sluggish, I admit.  But we hauled ourselves around Old Pasadena for a couple of miles and landed at Amara for a light breakfast. 

On  the way home afterward, I stopped to get a shot or two of the "snow" of fallen tabebuia blooms on the sidewalk. 

From a distant, they looked like crumpled caution tape.  Really striking.

We got things done at home and at the bank (but ugh, I won't go into the whole story, just...grrrr), and eventually I got into the kitchen to make us a simple dinner of pork tenderloin and cabbage. 

And after the bank thing I thought, you know what?  I will join Conrad in a cocktail with dinner.  And so I did!

I have no photos from yesterday, alas.  A much lazier day, and I wish I had slept better the night before.  The time change over a week ago is still kicking my butt, and my sleeping hours have been wonkier than I would like.  We ultimately ended up at Van's in the afternoon for a handful of hours of watching the Oscars and then dinner together.  Nice time of it, but nothing that I captured with a lens.

Wednesday dinner in

A brief post on a Wednesday after dinner.  I made a standby tonight:  pork tenderloin.  Alongside I put a wedge of cabbage roasted and with prosciutto inserted between leaves.  Some farro to complete the plate along with coarse mustard. 

Not a bad Wednesday dinner.

And beforehand, it was nice to chat with Conrad while we sipped daiquiris. 

No, none of the frozen slop that so many bars give you.  The real thing.

Tomorrow is my Friday.  Hooray for a long weekend ahead!