dinner with friends

Hooray for when folks I know and like so much come to town.  Janice is here for a few weeks, running a program at UCLA.  Andrew flew in to be a speaker yesterday (I was a panelist for Janice the day before).  What an opportunity!  Even though it's a 50+ miles slog round trip, Conrad and I happily met them for dinner at Wolfsglen.

I didn't photograph the food.  Low lighting plus chat conspired against that.  I liked the food - my pork chop was about the most tender I've ever had.  The service wasn't great, though.  The hostess was delightful, the bar staff (Conrad and I arrived early, so we had a drink) were terrific.  But after taking our order, our waitress disappeared, and the man who replaced her never seemed to give us much attention.  I think he was the last waiter there, but well into our meal, the place was pretty emptied out.  We might have had dessert, but we sat a long time (and he didn't even mention it as an option).  Ah well.  The restaurant isn't all that close, so I likely wouldn't have gone back anyway given the distance.  What's important is that we got a chance to get together with some very lovely people.

hey there, buddy!

A short post, a little beastie found outside the library as I was leaving work yesterday.  That colour doesn't seem quite real, but it was!

it's hardly worth talking about

I mean, smile aside just, meh.

But hey, Conrad was there!

And no, we're not sun burnt.  Just standing near a large, read canopy shading the seating.

recent cooking

Temperatures are getting into the 90s these days, so what do I do?  I cook.  Yep, turn on the oven and everything.  No one ever said I was smart.

I made ribs on Saturday for dinner, and they were ribs, perfectly fine, no photographs.  For dessert, something new:  Rainier cherry clafoutis. 

Kind of a cross between crepes and custard, baked in the oven, studded with fruit.  I've never had one, only heard of it.  So I pitted my cherries I had on hand and made us up dessert.  Verdict?  Hmmm.  I loved the flavour, but I think I weighed down the batter too much.  Not much puff on it in the oven, and a trial getting it out of the pan.  But tasty!

So tasty that yesterday I promised Conrad a simple, oven free dinner, and yet ended up baking another clafoutis, a berry one. 

Plus focaccia. 

And also little turkey meatballs that I tossed with a sauce I made for a pasta dinner.  Oh, and burrata with tomato and nectarine. 

Because I invited Natasha to come over, that was my excuse.  That second clafoutis was better than the first, I think.  I'll try making those again.

Tonight?  Leftover focaccia and another similar burrata salad with prosciutto added this time, and leftover clafoutis.  Barely an oven turned on!

bless you, decaf latte

And thank you, Amara, for providing it!

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!