14/2011

Bath Crashers

Posted in Everyday, Pictures

One of the things I was really looking forward to doing when we were looking for a new house was the opportunity to redecorate. I had been talking about redecorating my bathroom for a while but never actually got around to doing so, but with the new house, I knew I didn’t want to bring anything from the old house so let the decorating research commence! The bathroom was really gross so we pretty much tore out everything [the only thing that's original are the walls and the tub] and had the walls painted, replaced the mirrors, vanity, light fixture and added tile flooring. This renovation gave me the perfect empty canvas to work with. I didn’t really have much of an idea of what style I was going to try to capture; all I knew was that I wanted something modern and trendy but not too trendy. That was as specific as I got.

Normally I would have trolled through some design blogs for ideas but I didn’t do that. I guess since I kind of had a half-baked idea of what I was trying to achieve, I didn’t really need to check out those design blogs. For the bathroom, it all came together once I settled on a color scheme [it took more work for the bedroom but that will be a separate post]: purple, silver, and yellow. Sounds like a winner right?

It looked fantastic in my head but convincing Lindsey and my mom that it was fabulous took a lot of work. They didn’t believe in it until they saw the bathroom all put together. Lindsey hated it and openly protested my idea and my mom just was confused why I would glom those random colors together. But I had a vision and I could not be deterred, so I ignored their contentions and trudged ahead because I knew I was right.

This is how we bought it: kind of a hot mess

The main problem was that when they heard the color combination, they saw purple, shiny silver and school bus yellow but that was not what I envisioned. I had the walls painted a really delicious lavender color [Behr Silverberry 670F-4], and outfitted the visible fixtures [the faucet, toilet paper holder, toothbrush holder, standing shower caddy [even though that's technically not visible] and towel rack] in a brushed nickel and added small accents of a soft yellow for the pops of color in the bath rug and a picture I painted. We got the vanity and sink top at Lowe’s. My favorite thing is the sink; we found a rectangular bowl that swoops down!

The hardest thing to find was the perfect shower curtain. I don’t even know how many times I wandered through Target, Walmart [online at least], Bed, Bath & Beyond, CB2 and Ikea to find something that was just right. I goldilocked my way through shower curtain shopping. There were a lot of shower curtains that were almost right but not quite there. What made it so difficult was that I wasn’t sure what I wanted but I knew I would know it when I saw it. I couldn’t say I was looking for something specific since I only knew I was looking for something modern and contemporary and definitely not floral. After some random traipsing through Amazon and Target, I finally found the perfect shower curtain. When it was finally delivered, I was so excited. I loved how it looked and it definitely fit in with the look I was going for.

Now its a place I WANT to be in

While it’s far from the perfectly designed spaces on the design blogs, I’m quite pleased with how my bathroom came together. I smile every time I’m in there and it gives me hope that I’ll be able to decorate my future home. Now if I can only convince the bf to let me have accents of green in every room of our house.

1227/2010

Why I wish Tyler Florence was my friend

Posted in Food, Pictures

While I don’t watch Food Network as much as I used too [or SportsCenter for that fact but that's neither here nor there] I do usually stop to watch just about anything Tyler Florence is in because his recipes have been on point. Plus, I think he’s kind of cute. There. I said it. And I may or may not have had a dream in which I was actually friends with him where he may or may not have cooked me lunch in his house.

I may or may not have woken up slightly disappointed after realizing it was just a dream.

Anywho, so I’m a fan and I was excited to hear he that he moved to Mill Valley and was opening a restaurant in Downtown Napa [I'm still itching to check out Wayfare Tavern in the City - any takers?]. I want to say that I was anxiously awaiting the opening but in reality I just plain forgot it was even happening. You know how long it takes for restaurants to be built? A while, plus, I don’t think they ever open on time in the first place so of course I was going to forget about all the exciting news swirling around.

But then my dear friend Christina from way back in the day [seriously, since the fourth grade!], writer of East Bay Dish and my partner in gastronomical crime, reminded me of it when we made plans to hit up Bouchon Bakery so she could experience the joy that are Thomas Keller’s macarons. Afterwards, we jetted down to Downtown Napa to check out Rotisserie & Wine. We didn’t have reservations and crazily braved a two-hour wait for a table by wandering around the block a few times and sitting outside on the patio [they had these cool rockers PLUS throw blankets to keep warm. Snazzy].

Once we were seated, we looked through the menu and began to plot our march as we munched on the complimentary cornbread sticks with honey butter:

We started with the cheese puff and scrapple. The cheese puff was filled with a bacon mornay sauce of awesomeness, aged vella jack cheese and chives. I waffled a bit on ordering on but am so glad I did because there was no way we would have been able to share one of those things. One bite and we were both sold [we even scraped up the bits of cheese and bacon on the serving plank]. I can’t begin to describe the amazingness of that little puff but to say that I would go back just for that appetizer. If you go, order one for everyone. Seriously, even one is not enough. That little puff made me fall in love with Tyler all over again.

Cheese puff of bacony AWESOMENESS!

The scrapple with smoked honey mustard came next. Christina ordered this out of sheer curiosity. I wasn’t too hot on the idea having seen it featured on Food Network and knowing it was basically meat scraps smooched together. Our server even explained it like being almost like a hot dog. Uh, okay. After some convincing, I sampled a bit and promptly offered the rest of Christina. I was not a fan. It was kind of mushy and I’m not a big fan of mushy textures. The smoked honey mustard was light on the honey and heavy on the mustard and seeing how I’m also not a fan of the mustard, well, I think this dish was doomed from the start for me.

After a small break, our entree arrived: beef and bones (prime rib eye with bone marrow, yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce), Hudson Ranch collards, and Arbuckle grits draped with lardo and “baked” peanuts. The collards were pretty good but they did taste very vinegary [they are dressed with hot pepper vinegar], the grits were absolutely divine and buttery, practically melting in your mouth though I did not enjoy the baked peanuts that are included. I just felt that they kind of took away from the smoothness of the grits. The beef & bones were delicious, well, the beef was delicious. I wasn’t so much a fan of the bone; the marrow was too mushy for me [though I did love the crispy crust on top]. The prime rib eye was cooked perfectly [the steak knife was seriously heavy! It felt like a kitchen knife] and the Yorkshire pudding was nice and airy. I wanted to eat both halves but alas, I had to share.

Overall, the food was pretty good. The service was really good, which was shocking considering it had just opened. I appreciated how my water glass never reached half empty since someone was always there to refill it, though there was some confusion about splitting our bill at the end of the evening. I would definitely go back to try something new and, of course, get another cheese puff. Mmmm, cheese puff.

The next day, I tweeted my love for the cheese puff and was excited to see this:

I die. Seriously Tyler, let’s be friends.

1223/2010

November showers…

Posted in Everyday, Family and Friends, Pictures

About a month ago [yeah, yeah, I know I'm waaaay behind] I hosted a baby shower for my bestie, Jacki. It was a little bit stressful but a whole lot of fun. The moment I found out she was pregnant, I volunteered to host her shower, if her mom didn’t want to do the honors. Of course, I’m at a point where I’m incapable, or more accurately, unwilling, to do things simply so you know her shower quickly morphed into quite the production.

I quickly came up with the “Baby Circus” theme after seeing a fancy, schmancy circus themed shower on Hostess with the Mostess and the insanely adorable “Animal Parade” on Meri Meri. Seriously, how adorable are those little animals? And the carousel? EEEEEEEE! [Too bad we forgot to bring it!] The food was loosely inspired by carnival fair. We served mini steak and cheese sammies, florentine and swiss cheese and smoked applewood bacon quiche, mini chicken tacos, mini corn dogs and vegetable crudites. Tammy took care of the dessert table and served brownies, lemon tarts, red velvet and funfetti cupcakes, and caramel and pink popcorn.

Of course I wouldn’t bring this up without sharing pictures with the class!

The food and dessert tables

The food was one of my favorite parts. We were a bit late getting everything ready [seriously, people showed up at 1 on the dot! I was not prepared for that. Obviously my social circle tends to roll in fashionably late] so we were still cooking up a storm and decorating cakes when people started showing up. That was a bit stressful for me and I really wish I could have been done before then but oh well, can’t do much about it. I was pretty much excited to eat everything we made for this shower, especially those steak sammies. Oh so good. And don’t get me started on those mini chicken tacos. I was excited that we didn’t use the fourth box I bought so now I get to snack on them myself. And the swiss cheese and applewood smoked bacon quiche? Just lovely. I honestly believe bacon is a magical ingredient. Seriously, when was the last time you had something bad that had bacon in it?

The dessert table was other wordly. Tammy did a great job of making all the desserts [my hand was only in the pink popcorn - she did the rest!] and everyone raved over them, though the funny thing was that because the table looked so display worthy, people were afraid of taking anything from it! People would wander through the kitchen and help themselves to the desserts that were waiting to replace the ones on the table so we had to make a general announcement that it was, in fact, okay to raid the dessert table, and boy did they.

Let’s just say there were no survivors.

Two of my pet projects were the personalized water bottles [yeah, I went there] and the favors. I made my trusty vanilla bean sugar cookies in the shape of little animals to mimic the Mothers Circus Animal cookies [I subbed blue frosting for the signature pink] and made my own label that was based off the Barnum Animal Crackers boxes. The water bottle labels were super easy thanks to Mrs. Lemon’s handy dandy template she shared on Weddingbee. It was super easy to do and made a big difference. Yet another reason to love the Internet.

Yummy, yummy in my tummy…

All in all, the shower was a success. Everyone who attended had a great time [my other partner-in-crime, one of Jacki's coworkers did a fantastic job at hosting the games]. Jacki was floored by the amount of effort we put into her shower and I’m glad I was able to gift her such a wonderful time.

819/2010

A sweet beginning to the end of my 20s

Posted in Everyday, Pictures

Last Saturday I had my “Ice Cream Social” 29th birthday party and I had such a great time. Y’all know how elaborate I tend to get with my birthday parties and this was no exception. I had several different ideas of what I should do however, I had to pare it down a bit while I wasn’t receiving any checks and at first thought I wanted to do a bit of a mini eating world tour, with different food for different countries, like bruschetta, mondu, mini tacos and the like complete with decorations. It sounded awesome in my head but completely daunting to make happen roughly on my own. Then somehow I got in my head that ice cream would be the way to go.

So glad I went with that. I had a blast making all the ice cream [I plan on doing a separate post just on the ice cream and recipes] and now want my own ice cream maker. Everyone had a blast trying all different flavors: Cake Batter, Raspberry Mascarpone, S’mores, Nutella and Candied Bacon [yes, I KNOW!]. The Cake Batter was probably the favorite of the day though Candied Bacon was the dark horse. Several people were skeptical but they were totally on board after trying it. The bacon threw them off and I had to explain a couple of times that the bacon was merely a mix-in and not a flavor.

My mom was a HUGE help too, making the mondu, kimbap and these awesome chicken wings for the party. I rounded out the menu with mini calzones, beef and chicken tacos and pulled pork sliders. And for dessert, cupcake cones!

I was really glad to see everyone who was able to attend and we had a great time stuffing our faces with food and ice cream [and in Pat's case, a face full of cupcake]. It was very casual in comparison to my other parties but that’s probably because it was at home instead of out somewhere else. People were scattered all over the house chatting and relaxing and most importantly, eating. I had so much food that I told everyone their party favors were plates of food. For serious.

So a quick story: I was posing with Pat for a picture to prove that he actually attended a party [he was a pleasant surprise] and for some reason, I pushed my cupcake cone into his face. He’s a weirdly good sport with me and took it in stride only to reveal that he thought about doing the same thing to me. Good thing I beat him to it! So after he cleaned up, we finally took our picture and I made sure to keep my hands empty and where he could see them.

All in all, the party was a total and complete success. I’m already having people asking me what I plan on doing for next year. The expectations are high since it’ll be my 30th birthday and that alone deserves a big blow out. What to do…what to do.

How much do fireworks run?

420/2010

Reflections of love

Posted in Pictures, Relationships

As part of the bf’s last visit way back in February, I arranged a photo shoot with Eddie as a surprise for the bf. Well, it started out as a surprise but I eventually had to tell him so he could dress accordingly. During my last Christmas visit in 2008 [I know, so long ago], I had noticed he was hovering around this photographer studio at Somerset Collection [yes, the fancy mall with two sides but only 3 jewelry stores. WTH?]. We didn’t take any pictures there but I thought it would be a great way to surprise him. In the five years we’ve been together, we don’t have that many pictures together and most of them are of the self-portrait variety. It would be nice to have professional pictures of us, so I floated the idea to Eddie and he was totally on board.

Fast forward to this year, we were able to score some time with the ever popular Eddie [check out his schedule. EVERYONE wants him!]. We met him on First Street in Benicia to begin our picture taking marathon. It was a little weird in the beginning, posing and being all lovey dovey in front of strangers who would stop to watch [one of the passersby actually congratulated us on our "engagement"] but after a while we forgot about them. We all had a lot of fun during the photo shoot, there were plenty of laughs and jokes all around. The photo cd actually arrived the day of my dad’s memorial service so it was a real extra joy on top of the day, and even though my family made fun of all the kissing and stuff, I am so in love with our pictures. I made sure to lay my claim on Eddie for our wedding. Again. And yes, it was at his daughter’s baptism on Sunday. I have no shame.

Looking through the pictures always makes me smile. I love just how natural we look despite being semi-posed in some of the photos. Though I think the best part are the pictures where we’re laughing because Eddie managed to catch us in a moment where we were actually talking or joking around.

So here are a few pictures from the day. Thank you so so so so so much Eddie!