SoCal Specials

The good eating continued the rest of the week. The competition for the title of best meal is super close; dinner and catching up with Lindsay at the Prado restaurant in Balboa Park was top notch (I was enjoying myself too much to take any photos) but I also really liked the food from the Kogi truck (very California; see bottom of post.) My least favorite meal was probably lunch in La Jolla...too greasy. The restaurant did have a great patio overlooking the road down to the ocean though.

The morning of the day we decided to tackle the zoo we indulged in a gigantic Mexican-style breakfast. I ordered the breakfast burrito which was full of eggs, cheese and more cheese. Slathered with fresh salsa, it was pretty good, but mixed with some stolen turkey chorizo from Keizo's plate it was even better.

As mentioned above, Keizo ordered the turkey chorizo con huevo which also came with rice, beans and tortillas on the side. Our plates were both pretty clean when we left.

Two days later, we had our last lunch in San Diego at Seaport Village, a nice little tourist trap of a destination with shops, restaurants, and a promenade not far from downtown. We picked a restaurant on the water with some really slow service, but the food was brought out eventually. We both ordered salads; Keizo got a giant Cobb salad and I had the house salad with a bowl of clam chowder.

Keizo enjoyed his salad, especially the blue cheese crumbles. At one point on our trip he said he loved me almost as much as cheese! A high compliment indeed!

My chowder and salad. I suppose chowder is supposed to be thick, but I almost always think it is too thick. This probably comes from being raised on my mother's brothy soups, which my brother disdainfully referred to as "salad in water" in his younger days. The salad was pretty basic, but really fresh and the croutons were nice and garlicky. Mmmmmm.

Our last dinner in California came courtesy of the Kogi BBQ truck, which just happened to be a few blocks away from Cal Poly Pomona, where my college roommate, Kim is in grad school. What an experience! Food trucks are where it's at these days, and now I see why. And really, is there anything more Southern California than Korean BBQ tacos?

This is probably one of my favorite photos from the trip. Thanks Kim! Keizo is holding his spicy pork burrito, I have a spicy tofu taco in my hand and a kimchi quesadilla on my knees. Everything was good, but I think the burrito had a bit too much going on. Some of the meat flavor and spice got lost in the tortilla and rice in my opinion.

I loved the kimchi quesadilla!! Very messy to eat, and the taco plus bites of Keizo's burrito filled me up enough that I passed the last 1/4 off to Kim's classmates to finish. I don't think they minded though.

I can't wait to try and make my own version at home, although it probably won't be nearly as drippy and messy as this one. Nor will I make the tortilla and fry it in a bunch of grease. But I think it will still be pretty good.

Do Nothing Day

Keizo arrived in Arizona July 18th, and said something like "let's go back inside" the second he stepped out of the elevators in the parking garage at the airport. Welcome to summer in the desert!

As if the heat wasn't rough enough, I had four more days of work to finish up. Faced with sitting home alone without a car for 6 hours a day or coming along and volunteering at camp, Keizo chose the latter and learned what it was like to try and keep the peace among a dozen feisty campers. Every evening after work we had some sort of social engagement; so much for a vacation! Finally Saturday rolled around and we made preparations for our much anticipated trip to San Diego. Saturday evening and Sunday morning were spent with Andrew and Megan in Tucson and we spent Sunday afternoon in the car heading west. We arrived at our rental bungalow around 8 PM, grabbed some snacks at the grocery store, made a quick trip to the beach just to prove to ourselves we had actually made it to the coast and called it a night.

It wasn't until Monday that vacation truly started, and we made sure not to overtax ourselves. After sleeping in, we grabbed bagels and coffee on the way to the beach. We tossed a ball around, Keizo splashed around in the waves and we walked out to the end of the long pier in Ocean Beach. By the time we got back to land, we were feeling a tad hungry. We stopped in an ice cream shop that only took cash and emerged with two mini cones. I had Blueberry Cheesecake, which was nice and creamy and just enough to tide me over until our next stop...

...2 PM happy hour at the Blue Parrot! We started out with Stone Pale Ale and added

a giant plate of nachos and

shrimp cocktail. The nachos were pretty average, but by 2 PM we were ready to eat anything. The shrimp cocktail was good, although I don't think cooking shrimp and pouring cocktail sauce from a bottle is really that difficult.

With our tummies extra full, we decided to get out of the sun for a bit and went back to the house for a nap. We finished off the afternoon with some relaxing on the patio and got ourselves cleaned up just in time to see the sunset on our walk to dinner.

We weren't too hungry, so we decided to try The Joint, which was a combination sushi/tapas bar. There was even a samurai painting on one side of the door facing off with a conquistador on the other. Clever.

We ordered wine, salad and two sushi rolls. The salad was arugula, cherry tomatoes, candied pecans with a light vinegarette dressing and helped counteract the heaviness of lunch.

For sushi we got a California roll (because we were in California!)

and what was listed on the menu as "Tempura Yam Roll" which was a thin slice of kabocha tempura with cucumber and yuzu (Japanese citrus) The yuzu stole the show, giving the roll a very unique flavor. It took me a few minutes to place what it was, but it instantly reminded me of Japan!

So "nothing" actually included a lot of eating and walking to and from meals, but no cooking and no real schedule and that is good enough for me.

Ch-ch-changes

Summer is in full swing here, and probably almost everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. And while that may be good news for gardeners in cooler climates, it seems long days of scorching desert sun are a bit much for my tiny plot.

There are still some watermelons, but when I did some garden maintenance last week I ended up composting about 1/2 of them. Hopefully the remaining ones will stay firm and green now that the mushy, yellow ones are no longer around to influence them otherwise.

Rotten, wonky fruit salad. Bye-bye!

One scraggly cucumber vine left after I took out about 4 dead ones.

One zucchini left too. The plant in the front yielded most of the zucchinis earlier in the season and is still producing flowers. I fed everything after pruning back the dead stuff with the hopes I can coax a few more fruits out of them.

The tomatoes are thriving though. It seems to me that they have taken much longer to ripen this year than last, but with everything else pooping out on me right now, they're really nice to have.

There's nothing quite like a homegrown tomato!

The garden isn't the only thing experiencing some changes around here. In a few hours I will go pick up Keizo from the airport!! He's here for a mere two weeks, but we have a lot planned, including a trip to San Diego next week after I finish my last week at work. Then when he heads back to Japan, I have 10 days to clean/pack before driving east with Mom to start grad school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Full steam ahead!

Bagelicious

Sometimes I have breakfast for dinner. Other days, like today, I eat lunch for breakfast. You know you have probably done it too (cold pizza, anyone?)

Toasted sprouted wheat bagel with thin layer of cream cheese, spinach, avocado and tomatoes from the garden.

Tasty. Now I am thinking about having eggs for lunch. My meals are all mixed up today!

Teamwork

The groceries were most likely purchased on Mom's credit card, the main dish was a collaboration between Andrew and Megan, I made the fruit salad and set the table, and Dad did the dishes. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.

What is cilantro doing in the blender...

...on top of Greek yogurt, avocadoes and four jalapenos?

It's waiting to become green salsa for the fajitas.

Lots of bell peppers and onions got mixed with some turkey bacon and Andrew's secret blend of spices.

I cut up some bananas, mango, peaches and washed some grapes for the fruit salad.

Then we put it all on the table and assembled our fajitas.

Delicioso!

Tea Time

Unsurprisingly, my 5 days off last week went by in a blur. All of a sudden, it was Friday, and despite having diligently crossed things off on my to-do list all week, there really wasn't a whole lot to show for all my hard work. A bit frustrating to say the least.

Time to head into the kitchen and make something. At least there I can get some results!

I thought about baking something, but given the number of other things to get done and the outside temperature (in the triple digits!) turning on the oven was not going to happen.

Instead I made iced tea. Simple and quick, yet still more exciting than brewing a single cup of tea and adding an ice cube. I bought this tea at the end of winter, and despite the delicious sounding name, I don't care for it much hot.

The photo shows 3 tea bags for a 1 quart container, but after actually reading the instructions, which suggested brewing the tea double strength when intending to drink it cold, I added two more.

Seepage. I am sure there is a more appealing technical term for this, but I certainly don't know it.

By the time the tea had cooled on the counter from boiling to merely warm to the touch it was time for lunch! I heated up an Indian-style veggie patty in the microwave, sliced it and added it to a tortilla with spinach, bell pepper, cheese, mustard and ketchup for a delicious wrap.

The ketchup is Trader Joe's Organic, and it contains no high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It was a sad day for me when I realized that HFCS is about the third ingredient on the list in Heinz, and I am glad that Trader Joe's measures up. I can be pretty particular about my ketchup.

Complete lunch with tea and a perfectly ripe, juicy mango on the side.

It was back to the tupperware over the weekend, for my 2nd to last shifts at the stationary store. Just two more weeks of work!!

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday Keizo!! As part of your present, I won't post how old you are ;-)

Not only did the delivery company wake him up on Thursday with an awesome yakiniku grill from yours truly, but Keizo got to spend Wednesday evening in Kurume with some of my all time favorite people.

The beloved Naoko-sensei put out quite the spread as usual for the combination birthday/going away event. Let me take this opportunity to say a big おつかれさまでした to Jamie and Praju who are bidding farewell to Japan after 5 and 4 years respectively of awesome English curriculum. You will both be missed!!!

Not only was there dinner, but dessert too, in the form of a giant flaming cake!

Keizo said he got all of the candles out in one breath. May all of your birthday wishes come true (and maybe include something about coming to see me in a few weeks!)

Red, white and blue!

Happy 4th of July!!

I have been thinking about this patriotic breakfast since Saturday, when I stopped at Paradise Bakery on the way home from work and picked up a dozen cookies to share with dinner guests. In the box, between the snickerdoodles and plain sugar cookie was a sugar cookie all dressed up for the 4th in red, white and blue sprinkles.

Thankfully, there was still a chunk left this morning when I opened the cookie tin. Had I wanted to use a chocolate chip cookie, I would have had no such luck. And when you have a good thing going, why change it? My oats also got a healthy dollop of Greek yogurt, strawberries and blueberries under the cookie crumb dusting.

Plus, I used the red and white bowl and a blue mug!

Delicious cookie crumbles! My mom gives me a bit of a hard time about adding dessert to my breakfast bowl, but I really have been trying to limit it to special occasions recently. Pretty sure Independence Day is a special occasion, and the the perfect one to be an independent, out-of-the-box breakfast eater!