Likely Story

Back From San Francisco or I Left My Heart In, pt. 1

    Well we're back from a week visiting family in San Francisco.  It was delicious!  That city has the best food.  The first few days my parents were with us so we made a point of going outside of the city.  We spent a day in Napa and it was amazing.  It was so beautiful there, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince my father that he should buy a winery and retire there.  I don't think he went for it.  We visited Trefethen and tasted yummy wines and then went to Botegga for lunch.
    Botegga was a complete surprise.  We were aiming for Bouchon, without reservations, but we did not have time to wait 2 hours for lunch.  We had resigned ourselves to the chicken caesar and quesadilla joint across the way when I say a cheeky little orange awning peeking out from behind the back of a huge brick touristy-looking Napa souvenir area.  While the family waited for the boring looking place to seat us, I ducked around the corner and through the building to find Botegga, not at all knowing whose restaurant it was and am I glad that I did.  It was fantastic!  Check out the menu.
    The calamari was the best I've ever had.  Ditto for the gnocchi - they quite literally melted in your mouth with a little "poof" of goodness.  Of course, I had to go for something a little more interesting and I was rewarded for it.  The wild nettle tortelli was phenomenal - light, lemony, pine-nutty, brown-buttery goodness.  Everything we had was outstanding. 
    We did manage to get a take away assortment from the Bouchon Bakery.  The standout item had to be their signature little chocolate cakes, called simply Bouchons.  They were dense, rich, almost smoky, fudgy and delicious, but ultimately, they were brownie-like.  Which is fine, but not amazing.  They are quite pretty though.

All in all, Bouchon was good, but everything pales in comparison to my favorite bakery, Tartine.  Sure, Tartine is all attitude where you have to fight for a seat and hunt for parking (my two least favorite things), but it is always, always worth it.  more on this later in the series.

I have pictures of Napa, but not yet.  Actually, my mother has pictures of Napa and she's in Vancouver, so we must wait. 

Next time, in part 2 of our on-going series on San Francisco, Muir Woods and Alice Water's Chez Panisse!

Here's A Better Picture

And yes, those are my spindly bird feet sticking out the bottom.

A Very Blurry FO

Look, a blurry FO!  Actually, the object itself is quite clear, its the picture that's rubbish.
Its a man-sized lap quilt made for my brother's birthday, which was in January.  But as we're going to SF to visit him, I figured now would be a good time to finish it and bring it along.  I told you I've been doing *something*!

I didn't follow a pattern or anything, I just used a couple of Moda Marbles Jelly Rolls and off I went!
I think it turned out pretty good.  Its also the first quilt I've made that I've actually bothered to send out to be machine quilted.  I found a great local guy who did the whole thing (its about 5'x6') including batting for 50$ in only 1 week.  You can't beat that!

Better pictures to follow.... at some point.

Floors!

Well, its been planned for a month and rescheduled 3 times, but this week we ripped up the nasty old carpet and got new floors through a good chunk of the house.  I have no before picture, but imagine beige turning gray carpet in the living room and beige vinyl in the kitchen.  Now look at the pictures!
Isn't that better?

 

Spring Has Sprung And Summer Is Heating Up!

There are many updates (now that I've found my camera) and the first and largest is garden-y goodness!  This is going to be v-e-r-y picture heavy, but with good reason.  I must show off all of the hard work.  I've earned it!

OK.  So, the bed which borders one of our bedroom walls has been under tended for a while now.  It came with three huge oleander bushes and nothing else.  I have been wanting to get rid of those things for ages and put the space (one of the ONLY good gardening spaces in our backyard) to good use.  I tried plant killers, saws and hatchets.  Finally, the only thing that removed the offending triffids was a good length of chain and a riding mower.  Anyhoo, we got them out about 4-6 weeks ago and I planted this instead:

There are tomatoes in assorted types (grape and yellow heirloom I started from seed, big boy and patio I bought to hedge my bets):

There are squash of indeterminate variety (they weren't labeled properly at the greenhouse) filled with flower buds:

New this year we have Japanese eggplant (already fruiting!):

There are yellow and red bell peppers and of course, more tomatoes:

And there are flowers!  Marigolds to chase away the hornworms and purple daisies just because!

There has even been knitting!  After Jemima broke my heart (I haven't given up on her, but I do need my space) I decided to get on the Buttercup train and so far, so good!  I am knitting it in the lovely Nilo in Blueberry (which is actually purple) and its good.  Really good.  Like, I might actually wear it good.  But I am only 3 inches into it so I may be jumping the gun a little.  See for yourself:

 Quincy Likes it!  This is the face he makes when you try to get him to sit still to take his picture by holding a tomato over his head. 

HELP!! Raglan Seaming??

Hi.  If anyone is reading this I NEED HELP!!  Could you point me in the right direction for detailed instructions, preferably with pictures, on how to seam up the sleeves of a raglan sweater?  I can easily seam horizontal to horizontal or vertical to horizontal but the whole slanted sides of the raglan sleeve connected to the slanted front/back panel of the sweater is totally throwing me off and it looks terrible!  Is there an invisible method to seam this?  How do you do it?  I've been knitting this bloody sweater for ever now and its making me batty that I  a) can't get the sleeves right and b) can't find the stupid answer anywhere on teh internets!!!

Thanks!

Obama <3s Libraries

President Obama has requested $265,556,000 for fiscal year 2010 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The request, which was transmitted to Congress today, represents an increase of $1,453,000 over the FY 2009 enacted level for the Institute’s programs and administration. The proposed budget will support museums and libraries as they provide unparalleled value to the public, fuel knowledge sharing, and energize our economy, creativity, and competitiveness.

read about it here