USA Day 2024

It was always different when we would go to Conrad's home town in Michigan.  Small town USA does Independence Day better than anywhere.  Things get lost in urban areas, and there is less a sense of a community coming together.  On the other hand, that makes it easy to kind of ignore the holiday.  Just take it as a day off and that's that.  Spoken like a non-USian, right?

We didn't do much for the day.  The late afternoon and evening at Van's, enjoying some brats on the grill and perhaps imbibing a little much.  We tried

the huckleberry vodka that Matt brought me from Montana

(verdict:  probably better in a drink like a cosmo where it would add some extra berry layers to the flavour of the cocktail) and then moved on to mai tais. 

They were my downfall.  Oh, I wasn't messy, have no fear.  But I was less than great yesterday when I woke up!🤣

the conference that was

I'm going to do one conference post to collect thoughts and photos on the time there that I haven't yet posted.  It's already a few days behind me, and, honestly?  I'm glad it's behind me.  There was a lot of contentious stuff in meetings, and I had to say some things that have probably ruffled some feathers.  Certainly, I can think of one or more people I essentially will not be speaking to any longer.

Happy thoughts, though, Peter.  Let's do this.

A nice train trip down to San Diego from Los Angeles.  I rode in comfort

and had the ocean side view on my trip. 

The hotel was then an easy walk from the train station.  Once I got to my room, well, whoa! 

Big suite.  No view to speak of, but come on, a pool table? 

Wow.  I wish I had had meetings in my suite (it had a small conference room), but at least I had folks over for drinks and snacks and chat a few times.

I didn't take a lot of photos during the conference, I realized.  Just wasn't in the mood for it, maybe?  But I did get good morning walks every day with Amy, or Sam, or both. 

I snuck Conrad in

to see the opening session with Lessa interviewing Trevor Noah,

and I got some photos with folks like Loida and Peter,

Sam,

Cindy,

and Andrew and Janice then. 

A really great turnout for that session!

There were a few other events and opportunities to get shots with folks.  There I am with Bill. 

There I am with Matt. 

There I am with Matt again but in a different setting. 

There's Conrad on a hotel balcony at a reception. 

There's a view from that same deck. 

There's me on that deck.

After that, I mostly only took occasional photos at dinner.  We had a nice enough meal but weird experience (a fire eater?  photos at the table then offered for sale?) at a place called Salvatore's.  Good cocktail, though! 

We had an underwhelming dinner at Juniper & Ivy

(interesting menu, but the dishes were less than we hoped, and the service was lagging).  We had a nice meal of pasta

at Cesarina punctuated a little too frequently by the planes low overhead coming into the airport.  We had a decent meal

with Peter and Matt at Barbusa (and another good cocktail:  the Italian Love Affair),

and then came back to the room to toast Peter with Champagne.  A lovely, affectionate end to our time there.

And then it was Wednesday and the drive home.

So then, the conference is done, and hooray for that.  May the ones next year be better.  Based on this one, though, I'm inclined to skip going to Minneapolis at least.

a return to Kingfisher

Conference started over a week ago.  Wow.  I arrived in San Diego on Wednesday of last week, and my first order of duty (after checking out my enormous suite and unpacking and ironing) was heading out to dinner with some good folks.  Happily, this meant a return to Kingfisher, where Conrad and I had dined with Courtney and Robert earlier this year.  Dinner for four of us:  Sara;

her husband, Peter;

and Amy. 

All of us adventurous eaters and enthusiastic imbibers.  We were going to have a good evening, for sure.

And oh yes, we did!

Cocktails first, with the Saigon Moped for me.  Fresh, a little vegetable-y.  Tasty!

They coursed out the food for us, so here's a rundown of what we enjoyed.

Duck liver pate.  SOOOOOO smooth.

Beef tartare.  Delicious!

Poached shrimp.  Very good, overshadowed ever so slightly by the pate and tartare.

Littleneck clams.  Wonderful broth.

Wild mushroom congee.  Yes, I ordered something with mushrooms.

Grilled Japanese eggplant.  So good, not photographed.

Baja striped seabass.  They told us before it came out that it would be comped because the portion was small.  Thank you to them for that!

Grapefruit semi-freddo.  Refreshing end to an ambitious meal.

Best of all?  Our friend Van, who worked at Maestro for years, was there.  Our server Isaac was terrific, too.  Come for the food, return for the hospitality, I've heard it said, and it's very true in this case.

And then it was home to clutch my belly!

June online happy hour

Still taking us back, this time to June 25 when the gang got together online for cocktails.  Funnily enough, I was running around the condo, getting packing together when one of the gang messaged to say they'd be late, and I thought, oh shoot!  I had forgotten, which meant I hadn't researched the theme:  New Wave/80s.

A quick search, and I found a typical eighties drink, and then while we were sipping and chatting, I found two more I could make fit the theme.  So, then, friends, I present

The Kamikaze. 

The recipe I used was far too tart, and I ended up adulterating it with some simple syrup after I took the photos.  Once sweetened, it was probably my favourite of the night.

The When in Roma (get it?). 

I fudged this a little, and maybe the original recipe would be good.  This was not.  Sorry.  Pretty enough in the photo, but after giving it a handful of sips, I consigned it to down the sink.

The When Doves Cry. 

I wanted to like this more.  The photos showed a dramatically purple drink, befitting Prince, but mine was more a reddish, pinkish hue.  Not too bad, but the cassis just didn't taste right with it.

Ah well, it was a fun time.  Since we all found that a lot of cocktail recipes used cranberries (think cosmos), we decided on cranberries for July!

Saturday, June 22

My conference is over, a long weekend(ish - I am working from home tomorrow) lies ahead, and I have neglected this blog more than enough!  I shan't try to recreate ever moment from the past few weeks, but let me catch up a little.

All the way back to June 22 with us, then!

I cooked for a small group of us that night.  Natasha and Marina came over, and the five (well, six - Olive was there, too) of us caught up over a dinner I cooked.

I won't say it was my best effort, but it wasn't bad.  I was pleased with how tender the pastry on the fried quesadillas turned out,

and the zucchini and onion mixture complemented the cheese in the filling nicely.  The halibut was fine, but the pieces were huge, and perhaps unevenly cooked. 

The achiote marinade was good, though.  The plum cardamom cake looked a mess - the fruit slid off somewhat -

but it was tasty as ever. 

I sent that home with the others so I would not keep snacking on it!

A nice night for us. 

I haven't cooked much since then, so I look forward to getting back in the kitchen!