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!

drag night at Maestro

Hey, sorry.  I've been kind of ambivalent about posting in recent days.  Sorry.

I'll catch up a little here.  I'm in a hotel room in San Diego, and I have time this afternoon (and still have to do some ironing) before I head to my first reception.  So let me finally check in.  No, I won't provide a lot of narration - I'm still kind of lazy - but at least I have photos!

Last week Wednesday, Conrad, Natasha,

and I went to Maestro to enjoy dinner and a drag show.  Nice evening for it.  A shame Van couldn't join us.  We got parked at our table, got our cocktails,

ordered our food,

and settled in to the show.

All in all, a lot of fun.  My only criticism?  The crowd was a bit of a dud.  The queens deserved more cheering and hooting and applause and enthusiasm.

But we had fun, and I tipped well and cheered.

So, thank you, Melissa Befierce,

Mya Befierce,

Queen Angelina,

and Athena Kills. 

And thank you Maestro.  Wonderful show!

gin basil smash

Hi everyone!

Just a lazy little post.  A few bigger posts to come when I have the willpower and wherewithal, but for today, a cocktail from Friday night.  The gin basil smash.  Enjoy!

Cheers!

shrug, with added Conrad

Ah, I kid.  It wasn't a terrible swim. 

A mile in sunny weather, a lane shared with Conrad.  I always enjoy when our schedules align and we can go swim together.  Hooray for us!

shrug

I mean, I was a swim.  I guess.  Meh.

a splash of wine

I had some leftover bolognese in the fridge, so dinner last night was a simple pasta and salad affair.  Nothing too amazing, just basic food.  And with it, a nicer bottle of wine, one of our most recent Epoch shipment. 

A GSM, though I think the proportions were more MGS.  Tasty enough even if some more aging would have been fine.

Cheers!

bolognese

I'm not sure that I mentioned it, but we're off to Italy in just under three months.  I think that three months from today (as this get posted), we'll be en route from Ischia to Bologna.  Hooray!  We've planned this for ages, and we're excited.  So it's appropriate that we went a little Italian tonight.

No, not the cocktails.  Those were the preamble.  A Don't Give Up the Ship for Van. 

A martini made with vermouth bianco for Conrad. 

An Alaska for me. 

A nice start to the evening even if I did dither for ages over what cocktail I wanted.

I spent time this afternoon making a bolognese according to a cookbook I know and like and trust.  Was it the best bolognese?  Nope.  Far from it.  But it was tasty enough with fettucine. 

I also made a caesar salad. 

No, not Italian at all, but typical of USian Italian restaurants.  Can I confess?  It was OK.  I made the dressing twice - my oils were, sorry to say, not rancid but not as good as they could be, and the first attempt was horribly bitter.  Ah well.  It was still a nice meal.  We opened a 2006 wine Conrad and I picked up when we were in Chianti in 2017,

and while it wasn't as big as we might have hoped, it had some nice age on it.

All in all, a good meal for the three of us.  The countdown to Italy continues!

so. darn. cute.

Come on.  If you don't think she's cute, then why are we even friends?  Because Olive?  Is so frickin' adorable.

Friday night, Saturday morning (I think you've seen this before)

So let's see:  Friday night at Maestro followed by an easy evening at home.  Check!

Saturday morning at Amara.  Check!

Our regular life in a nutshell.  Fear not, there will be travel by the end of the month!