My weekend - long post with cuts
Feb. 16th, 2004 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raganiAs mentioned, my weekend so far has been somewhat busy. Therefor, I will make Sunday a separate post.
Friday night my BF and I met after work at the Emeryville CPK for a lovely dinner. We had talked about going to a movie, but nothing was playing at the Emeryville Bay Street AMC that interested us enough to make the effort. So instead we went home and watched a Flemish comedy from NetFlix I had ordered called Everybody's Famous. Although it starts slow, it turned out to be a fun movie, and my willingness to try oddball foreign films payed off again.
The next morning was a lovely sleep-in, something we both dearly needed. After a frisky shower, and a um... nap, we finally made an effort to get dressed and on to the rest of our day. We agreed that we both wanted crepes to break our fast, and someplace nicer than Crepes-a-go-go. I did a little research and discovered Crepes al la Cart listed in the Berkeley 4th Street area, which I knew would be near Sur la Table for which my BF had a gift certificate from his Aunt we had been looking forward to spending.
This seemed like a good combination, so we hoped in the car and made our way through the traffic and crowds. We were lucky to find parking in this busy shopping district, and headed out on foot to track down the crepes. Because of the non-logical numbering of the buildings in this area, we had some difficulty finding our first destination, and ended up wondering around a bit. This was not too bad since there were both kittens and puppies on display for adoption which we stopped to admire, but we were running out of places to look, and I could only remember the first three numbers of the address, so was unsure what side of the street we should look.
I don't know if I believe in fate, but our wondering did cause us to encounter a woman handing out meal vouchers and info on the Square Meals Project (there is not much on the web about them but this at least has the contact info). The SMP is a charity organization that collects and distributes food and clothing (among other items). What impressed me was that the meal voucher they gave me was designed to given to a homeless person instead of spare change. My BF also donated a few dollars, of which each .50 ¢ would provide someone in need an entire meal!
On a somewhat recent post about a girl who had been seriously harassed (basically mugged) by a panhandler in San Francisco (that post seems to have been removed), I commented the following:
My general rules on panhandlers is that:
a) I would rather give someone food than money (I used to keep peanut snack bags handy for myself, but would also hand them out to panhandlers instead of spare change)
b) if they cannot be polite about it, there is even less motivation to help someone out. This is charity they are asking from us, for Pete's sake, so there is on reason not to be polite.
c) I rarely ever give money no matter the sob story, unless it is someone who I have reason to know won't spend it on drugs, booze or cigarettes. I will not support anyone's self destructive habits no matter how bad off they are. It is possible that habit that contributed to their condition in the first place.
d) I have enough friends who are jobless, and nearly homeless, so my charity starts at "home," and with those people I have a good idea how my charity will be used
Now, with all that in mind, I found the idea behind the the Square Meals Project meal vouchers a great idea. Now I have something I can hand out to someone and keep within my guidelines. And since they also take donation of clothes, etc. I am thinking this might be the right place to donate some of my purged items.
Well, after wondering back the way we had already been, we finally hunted down and acquired some very yummy crepes. I had one vegetarian (cheese, avocado and tomato) crepe, and was satisfied, but my BF went back for seconds of his Florentine crepe. It turns out that Crepes al la Cart was tucked behind the Peet's, so we followed our meal with the requisite coffee drinks, and headed over tothe toy store Sur la Table (which was just across the little side street) to do some shopping. We have a short list of gourmet cooking tools we both want, but the one that seemed the most timely was a butane torch and a cook book on making créme brûlèe. We had talked about making a flan for dessert that night, and crème brûlée worked just as well.
This seemed like a good time to go shopping for crème brûlée and other dinner ingredients we needed. We made a stop at the huge Albertson's near our house, and were dismayed to find that they were out of cream (an essential ingredient in crème brûlée). A trip to Trader Joe's fixed this dilemma and we were home shortly to start going over the recipes. Turns out we were not as prepared as we thought, and I had to go back for more ingredients, as well as butane fuel for the torch. This was fortunate in the end, because it gave me a chance to find something I have looked for before and not been able to find that made a great V-day gift. OK, so we have a couple of coffee grinders already, so why did we need a Cuisinart DCG-12BC Grind Central? Well, ever since seeing Spice Capades, we have both been hooked on the idea that fresh ground spices is worth the effort.
When we started going out just over two years ago, we did not have enough time to plan a night out that first Valentine's day so we decided to make a romantic dinner at home. Since my BF was out of work, and had the time, he was in charge of cooking. This was a great opportunity for him to finally make Alton Brown's French Onion Soup from Good Eats (see Spice Capades above - a show he introduced me to and now we are both big fans). Well, this was just fine with me as French Onion Soup is one of my absolute favorites.
That first V-day dinner was memorable, and not just because the soup was so good. The effort that my BF put into the meal was compounded by the two parking tickets he got while purchases the ingredients, the second after he went back to get a bottle of wine. I was very touched about the wine because he (without knowing) got my favorite white wine: gewurztraminer. In order to chill the wine quickly, he put it in the freezer. No, it did not burst in the freezer. It did, however, fall when one of us opened my overstuffed freezer to get it out and made quite a mess on the kitchen floor. Fortunately, I had another bottle of gewurztraminer so we were able to still have some lovely wine with our yummy dinner, and have something to laugh about to boot.
I don't recall if anything broke last year, but this year we did have a couple of glass items that made the sacrifice, as if to remind us of that first dinner. We still made FOS, of course (why mess with a good tradition?) and while chopping up all those onions, my BF was engulfed with the fumes. With seeing in mind, he opened the window to let in some fresh air, and accidentally knocked down the fire extinguisher, which broke a glass that sits near the sink with our collected corks. Oh well, not a big deal (it was left here by our landlady so no sentimental value for us and I hope she has forgotten about it). Later, while I was trying to figure out how I was going to dress the salad I had made, I opened the cupboard, only to have a bottle of cranberry vinegar volunteer rather violently for the job. However nice the vinegar might have been, neither of us wanted glass shards as part of the dressing, so the salad was basically a loss.
Well, the FOS was yummy, as usual, and the crème brûlée worked out well enough for my first try (I picked up some remikins, including a couple of heart shaped ones for the occasion). After we finished the soup, he opened the present (he was pleased), then we decided to cuddle on the couch to watch a movie. My brother gave us the Criterion Collection of Akira Kurosawa - 4 Samurai Classics which includes Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, both favorites of mine. Since he had not seen it yet, my BF decided we should watch The Hidden Fortress, so we settled down for the remainder of the evening (with a quick break to caramelize the sugar on the crème brûlée when we were ready for dessert), while sipping some 10 year old port.
All in all, a satisfying Valentines day.
Friday night my BF and I met after work at the Emeryville CPK for a lovely dinner. We had talked about going to a movie, but nothing was playing at the Emeryville Bay Street AMC that interested us enough to make the effort. So instead we went home and watched a Flemish comedy from NetFlix I had ordered called Everybody's Famous. Although it starts slow, it turned out to be a fun movie, and my willingness to try oddball foreign films payed off again.
The next morning was a lovely sleep-in, something we both dearly needed. After a frisky shower, and a um... nap, we finally made an effort to get dressed and on to the rest of our day. We agreed that we both wanted crepes to break our fast, and someplace nicer than Crepes-a-go-go. I did a little research and discovered Crepes al la Cart listed in the Berkeley 4th Street area, which I knew would be near Sur la Table for which my BF had a gift certificate from his Aunt we had been looking forward to spending.
This seemed like a good combination, so we hoped in the car and made our way through the traffic and crowds. We were lucky to find parking in this busy shopping district, and headed out on foot to track down the crepes. Because of the non-logical numbering of the buildings in this area, we had some difficulty finding our first destination, and ended up wondering around a bit. This was not too bad since there were both kittens and puppies on display for adoption which we stopped to admire, but we were running out of places to look, and I could only remember the first three numbers of the address, so was unsure what side of the street we should look.
I don't know if I believe in fate, but our wondering did cause us to encounter a woman handing out meal vouchers and info on the Square Meals Project (there is not much on the web about them but this at least has the contact info). The SMP is a charity organization that collects and distributes food and clothing (among other items). What impressed me was that the meal voucher they gave me was designed to given to a homeless person instead of spare change. My BF also donated a few dollars, of which each .50 ¢ would provide someone in need an entire meal!
On a somewhat recent post about a girl who had been seriously harassed (basically mugged) by a panhandler in San Francisco (that post seems to have been removed), I commented the following:
My general rules on panhandlers is that:
a) I would rather give someone food than money (I used to keep peanut snack bags handy for myself, but would also hand them out to panhandlers instead of spare change)
b) if they cannot be polite about it, there is even less motivation to help someone out. This is charity they are asking from us, for Pete's sake, so there is on reason not to be polite.
c) I rarely ever give money no matter the sob story, unless it is someone who I have reason to know won't spend it on drugs, booze or cigarettes. I will not support anyone's self destructive habits no matter how bad off they are. It is possible that habit that contributed to their condition in the first place.
d) I have enough friends who are jobless, and nearly homeless, so my charity starts at "home," and with those people I have a good idea how my charity will be used
Now, with all that in mind, I found the idea behind the the Square Meals Project meal vouchers a great idea. Now I have something I can hand out to someone and keep within my guidelines. And since they also take donation of clothes, etc. I am thinking this might be the right place to donate some of my purged items.
Well, after wondering back the way we had already been, we finally hunted down and acquired some very yummy crepes. I had one vegetarian (cheese, avocado and tomato) crepe, and was satisfied, but my BF went back for seconds of his Florentine crepe. It turns out that Crepes al la Cart was tucked behind the Peet's, so we followed our meal with the requisite coffee drinks, and headed over to
This seemed like a good time to go shopping for crème brûlée and other dinner ingredients we needed. We made a stop at the huge Albertson's near our house, and were dismayed to find that they were out of cream (an essential ingredient in crème brûlée). A trip to Trader Joe's fixed this dilemma and we were home shortly to start going over the recipes. Turns out we were not as prepared as we thought, and I had to go back for more ingredients, as well as butane fuel for the torch. This was fortunate in the end, because it gave me a chance to find something I have looked for before and not been able to find that made a great V-day gift. OK, so we have a couple of coffee grinders already, so why did we need a Cuisinart DCG-12BC Grind Central? Well, ever since seeing Spice Capades, we have both been hooked on the idea that fresh ground spices is worth the effort.
When we started going out just over two years ago, we did not have enough time to plan a night out that first Valentine's day so we decided to make a romantic dinner at home. Since my BF was out of work, and had the time, he was in charge of cooking. This was a great opportunity for him to finally make Alton Brown's French Onion Soup from Good Eats (see Spice Capades above - a show he introduced me to and now we are both big fans). Well, this was just fine with me as French Onion Soup is one of my absolute favorites.
That first V-day dinner was memorable, and not just because the soup was so good. The effort that my BF put into the meal was compounded by the two parking tickets he got while purchases the ingredients, the second after he went back to get a bottle of wine. I was very touched about the wine because he (without knowing) got my favorite white wine: gewurztraminer. In order to chill the wine quickly, he put it in the freezer. No, it did not burst in the freezer. It did, however, fall when one of us opened my overstuffed freezer to get it out and made quite a mess on the kitchen floor. Fortunately, I had another bottle of gewurztraminer so we were able to still have some lovely wine with our yummy dinner, and have something to laugh about to boot.
I don't recall if anything broke last year, but this year we did have a couple of glass items that made the sacrifice, as if to remind us of that first dinner. We still made FOS, of course (why mess with a good tradition?) and while chopping up all those onions, my BF was engulfed with the fumes. With seeing in mind, he opened the window to let in some fresh air, and accidentally knocked down the fire extinguisher, which broke a glass that sits near the sink with our collected corks. Oh well, not a big deal (it was left here by our landlady so no sentimental value for us and I hope she has forgotten about it). Later, while I was trying to figure out how I was going to dress the salad I had made, I opened the cupboard, only to have a bottle of cranberry vinegar volunteer rather violently for the job. However nice the vinegar might have been, neither of us wanted glass shards as part of the dressing, so the salad was basically a loss.
Well, the FOS was yummy, as usual, and the crème brûlée worked out well enough for my first try (I picked up some remikins, including a couple of heart shaped ones for the occasion). After we finished the soup, he opened the present (he was pleased), then we decided to cuddle on the couch to watch a movie. My brother gave us the Criterion Collection of Akira Kurosawa - 4 Samurai Classics which includes Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, both favorites of mine. Since he had not seen it yet, my BF decided we should watch The Hidden Fortress, so we settled down for the remainder of the evening (with a quick break to caramelize the sugar on the crème brûlée when we were ready for dessert), while sipping some 10 year old port.
All in all, a satisfying Valentines day.
