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lillibetMost of this is going to be meal-reports, really, since other than eating
fabulous meals, we've been packing and there's just not much to write about
that.
I think that when last I wrote, I'd just gotten back from my night out with
Barbara and Rachel & Phi, on the Tuesday night after the wedding.
On Wednesday I left the house for lunch at 9:15am. I drove into the city to
pick up Barbara and realized on getting there that while I was certain of
the street and the block, I actually had no idea which house she'd gone
into, much less an apartment number, and I'd left the phone number at home.
I had the bright idea of calling Linda Marie and getting it from her and
calling Barbara to say that I was outside. Of course, when I picked up the
phone to call Linda, my battery died. Luckily, Barbara emerged very shortly
after that and we were on our way down to Mountain View, where we met up
with Rob and Pete & Linda at the NASA Ames gift shop. We went to Frankie,
Johnny & Luigi's (where I'd been with Jason a couple of times) and had a
lovely lunch. I had the "involtini" which were basically manicotti stuffed
with spinach. The spinach was a bit undercooked, but tasted very nice.
Everyone indulged me by looking at the 23 rolls of film from the wedding.
Barbara and I drove back to Berkeley and she picked up her car and took
off. An hour or so later, Pete & Linda showed up to hang out until their
dinner plans took effect in Oakland. Dave & Paulo arrived and we hung out
for a while. Pete & Linda left to meet his brother and I went with Dave &
Paulo to the Rockridge Bistro, a steak place that Jason and I had been
eyeing for a while. I had their excellent seared day boat scallops with
mango salsa and arugula, followed by their New York steak and then their
crhme brulee, which wasn't right, but was good all the same. They, too,
indulged me by looking through all the pictures and then dropped me off at
home to collapse.
On Thursday I did very little and saw no one and that was, in some ways, a
delightful change.
By Friday evening I was very ready for company (and to show the photos to a
new victim). I met Alicia at Zuni at 6:15pm to use up my last gift
certificate there. We had two dozen oysters (two each of the six they had
on offer, then three each of the three kinds we liked best), followed by
beef carpaccio with celery tempura for each of us. Alicia had their salt
cod, which was light and delicious and not at all salty. It was served in a
ramekin with corn and potatoes and bacon in a creamy sauce, so the effect
was almost like chowder. I had the grilled tuna with heirloom tomatoes and
breadcrumbs. That was wonderful. For dessert we split the raspberry peach
tiramisu (no chocolate, no espresso, but it did have layers of stuff on top
of a ladyfinger crust) and that was light and delicious. They were pouring
glasses of Veuve Cliquot again, so it was a perfect evening. I will really
miss having someone in town who appreciates oysters and champagne as much as
I do.
On Saturday I worked all morning, so Jason wouldn't think I'd done nothing
while he was gone. I met his flight at the Oakland airport at 5:40pm and he
decided he wanted to try the Rockridge Bistro, too, so we went back there.
I couldn't resist the scallop appetizer a second time, but decided to give
their filet mignon a try this time. It was quite good, tho' the scalloped
potatoes I'd requested instead of more mango salsa and arugula were dry and
the flavor was sharper than I care for. Since I couldn't recommend the
crhme brulee, we decided to forego dessert this time around.
On Sunday we packed all day, then cleaned ourselves up and headed over to
Sausalito to enjoy Glen & Trina's wedding present to us: dinner at Ondine.
It's in a fabulous location, on the upper floor of a building built out onto
the wharves, so the whole Bay and City are spread out around the dining
room. We thought it was particularly clever of our hosts to have picked a
restaurant decorated in our wedding colors: burgundy and gold. The food
there was not only very good, it was also fascinating in the combinations of
flavors and the architectural style of presentation. Jason's appetizer was
one of the two big winners of the evening: kung pao shellfish sausage served
under a fried potato net. My appetizer was the Seafood Triangle of the Day:
amberjack, fluke and vinegar-marinated mackerel sashimi, each served on an
individual bed of vegetables, with a dollop of different sauces to
complement each fish. Jason's entree was the pistachio & herb encrusted
rack of lamb with a lentil ragout and an assortment of root vegetables.
Mine was the "Two Way Duckling," a leg stuffed with dried cherries and bread
and a pan-roasted breast sliced and served on a bed of bright purple
Peruvian potato and yam puree. There were two triangular yam chips embedded
in the latter, with holes punched in them to allow scallion shoots to twine
through them. Unfortunately this left the chips looking a little like KKK
hoods on closer inspection. Jason's dessert was probably the most
interesting concept of the evening: lemongrass blancmange (almond milk
pudding) served with a scoop of pear sorbet on a sesame cracker. Mine was
the "Queeny Aman," an upside-down apple pie drenched with a very light
caramel sauce and ice cream. That was absolutely delicious. All of it was
pretty stunning.
On Monday evening we ordered take-out pizza. That was very satisfying and a
good change of pace.
On Tuesday evening we met Ken Miller, Susan Groppi and their friends, Dave
and Jeff, at Oliveto, in Rockridge. The four of them had been out all day
sightseeing. It was a table of life changes: Ken was celebrating having
accepted a new job, Susan has just moved cross-country to start grad school,
Jeff is between jobs and very excited about his new one, Dave has left his
job in Boston and was on the first leg of a three-month tour around the
world, and we've just gotten married and are moving to another country. We
had another great meal there (Oliveto being one of our favorite places). I
started with endive served with a Meyer-lemon, garlic, anchovy vinaigrette
and parmesan (so basically a Caesar with endive instead of romaine) and had
the spit-roasted loin of veal with green beans for dinner. Jason started
with the mixed greens and had the "Arista" pork chop as an entrie. We both
had the warm pear tart with huckleberry sauce for dessert. It was neat to
meet Dave and Jeff and to see Ken & Susan again--we're very excited that
those two are talking about visiting us in London soon.
On Wednesday we went into the city and stopped by Laurel to pick up the last
three packages of wedding presents that had come there. Katie was in and we
had brought the roll of pictures Beckie had sent us, so we had a reasonable
amount of photos to show people. It was good to have one last chance to say
goodbye to those folks. We had an hour to kill, so we went over to B.Dalton
and bought a few books for our trip. Then we headed over to Boulevard to
use up my last gift certificate and had a simply fantastic meal. I started
with the Maine lobster risotto, while Jason had their Caesar, which is
justifiably considered one of the best in the city. Jason's entree was the
rack of lamb served with a cake of mashed potatoes crusted with pesto and a
mixture of olives, artichoke hearts and roasted tomatoes. I had the filet
mignon topped with herbed butter, julienned sundried tomatoes and capers,
served on a bed of baby spinach sauteed in butter and shallots, with roasted
German potatoes. The meat of both entrees was really exquisite and the
flavors they used with them really complemented the tastes, instead of
masking them as they can too easily do.
On Thursday I went up to Santa Rosa and picked up the proofs of our wedding
pictures from which we will choose our album. We will be bringing them on
our trip, so those of you whom we'll see will be able to see them and to
order copies, if you'd like. We're very pleased with them, overall--as with
our engagement pictures, while there are ones we prefer, there really aren't
any that are terrible.
I stopped in Tiburon on my way south and had a lovely lunch with Alicia at
an Italian place on the waterfront (Sorvino's, maybe?). I had lovely
mussels in a mustard cream sauce, followed by a completely serviceable veal
parmigiana. The service was extremely slow, but that gave us time to pore
over the pictures. I finally got to see the lovely library where Alicia
works and to see her friend and co-worker, Heather, again. It was nice to
have more time together--I will miss her so much!
I came back to Berkeley and had a frustrating round of errands. My dress
wasn't ready at the cleaners and when I picked up my rings from the jeweler
where they'd been soldered together, I realized that somehow she'd managed
to internally shatter the sapphire, so that the front third was milky white,
like a windshield that's been shattered, but hasn't fallen apart yet. She
seemed as shocked as I was, but said she would replace the stone.
Wes & Juliana arrived around seven and we looked at wedding pictures and
then walked up to Blake's, a bar on Telegraph that has surprisingly good
food. Jason, Wes and I all had their excellent fish & chips while Juliana
had one of their wraps. We walked back to our house and Jason went to work
in the study while the three of us played some Trivial Pursuit. We stopped
after an hour and they left and I did some work and then went to sleep,
while Jason stayed up all night, finally coming to bed around 7:30am.
Today we packed all morning. The international movers were supposed to show
up at two. When they hadn't shown up at three, I went off to do errands. I
got my ring back with a new sapphire that looks very much like the old one,
though I think it's slightly darker. I faxed the form to my travel agent
that will allow them to book our 8-day tour of Egypt for January. I dropped
off my bike at the used bike shop around the corner and went to the pharmacy
and finally got home at 5:15pm, just after the movers finally showed up.
They were very fast and got all of the fragile stuff packed and all of the
London stuff out the door in just over 2 hours. I walked in and said "How's
it going?" to one of them and got back "Sorry--muy poquito ingles." So I got
to speak Spanish with the crew, which was lots of fun.
They left at 7:30pm and we raced up to the Marina to have dinner with
Jason's great-aunt, Ivanelle, and cousin, Rodney, and his housemate, Bruce
at His Lordship's. It was an old fashioned steak & seafood kind of place. I
had their passable clam chowder and a surf & turf of New York steak and
shrimp scampi. Jason had the Caesar and the special chicken fettucine with
hoisin sauce. We looked through pictures and chatted about the wedding and
London and generally had a wonderful time and were very glad to have had the
chance to see them again before we leave.
Tomorrow the domestic movers are due at 10 am. We are curious to see what
relationship that estimate has with reality. Tomorrow night we are staying
at the Rose Garden Inn. On Sunday Alicia will give us a ride to the airport
and keep my car and we will be off on the first leg of our trip. We'll be
in Seattle until the 4th, when I go through Boston to my parents' for a
couple of days and then back to Boston on the 7th. Jason will join me there
on the 8th. We'll be in & out of Boston for the rest of the month (we're
planning to be in New York for a few days in the middle of the month, Jason
has a week-long meeting in Toronto the third week and I'm spending the last
weekend of October in Colorado Springs for SkateAmerica). So my reports
will probably continue to be erratic, but perhaps I'll see you soon!
fabulous meals, we've been packing and there's just not much to write about
that.
I think that when last I wrote, I'd just gotten back from my night out with
Barbara and Rachel & Phi, on the Tuesday night after the wedding.
On Wednesday I left the house for lunch at 9:15am. I drove into the city to
pick up Barbara and realized on getting there that while I was certain of
the street and the block, I actually had no idea which house she'd gone
into, much less an apartment number, and I'd left the phone number at home.
I had the bright idea of calling Linda Marie and getting it from her and
calling Barbara to say that I was outside. Of course, when I picked up the
phone to call Linda, my battery died. Luckily, Barbara emerged very shortly
after that and we were on our way down to Mountain View, where we met up
with Rob and Pete & Linda at the NASA Ames gift shop. We went to Frankie,
Johnny & Luigi's (where I'd been with Jason a couple of times) and had a
lovely lunch. I had the "involtini" which were basically manicotti stuffed
with spinach. The spinach was a bit undercooked, but tasted very nice.
Everyone indulged me by looking at the 23 rolls of film from the wedding.
Barbara and I drove back to Berkeley and she picked up her car and took
off. An hour or so later, Pete & Linda showed up to hang out until their
dinner plans took effect in Oakland. Dave & Paulo arrived and we hung out
for a while. Pete & Linda left to meet his brother and I went with Dave &
Paulo to the Rockridge Bistro, a steak place that Jason and I had been
eyeing for a while. I had their excellent seared day boat scallops with
mango salsa and arugula, followed by their New York steak and then their
crhme brulee, which wasn't right, but was good all the same. They, too,
indulged me by looking through all the pictures and then dropped me off at
home to collapse.
On Thursday I did very little and saw no one and that was, in some ways, a
delightful change.
By Friday evening I was very ready for company (and to show the photos to a
new victim). I met Alicia at Zuni at 6:15pm to use up my last gift
certificate there. We had two dozen oysters (two each of the six they had
on offer, then three each of the three kinds we liked best), followed by
beef carpaccio with celery tempura for each of us. Alicia had their salt
cod, which was light and delicious and not at all salty. It was served in a
ramekin with corn and potatoes and bacon in a creamy sauce, so the effect
was almost like chowder. I had the grilled tuna with heirloom tomatoes and
breadcrumbs. That was wonderful. For dessert we split the raspberry peach
tiramisu (no chocolate, no espresso, but it did have layers of stuff on top
of a ladyfinger crust) and that was light and delicious. They were pouring
glasses of Veuve Cliquot again, so it was a perfect evening. I will really
miss having someone in town who appreciates oysters and champagne as much as
I do.
On Saturday I worked all morning, so Jason wouldn't think I'd done nothing
while he was gone. I met his flight at the Oakland airport at 5:40pm and he
decided he wanted to try the Rockridge Bistro, too, so we went back there.
I couldn't resist the scallop appetizer a second time, but decided to give
their filet mignon a try this time. It was quite good, tho' the scalloped
potatoes I'd requested instead of more mango salsa and arugula were dry and
the flavor was sharper than I care for. Since I couldn't recommend the
crhme brulee, we decided to forego dessert this time around.
On Sunday we packed all day, then cleaned ourselves up and headed over to
Sausalito to enjoy Glen & Trina's wedding present to us: dinner at Ondine.
It's in a fabulous location, on the upper floor of a building built out onto
the wharves, so the whole Bay and City are spread out around the dining
room. We thought it was particularly clever of our hosts to have picked a
restaurant decorated in our wedding colors: burgundy and gold. The food
there was not only very good, it was also fascinating in the combinations of
flavors and the architectural style of presentation. Jason's appetizer was
one of the two big winners of the evening: kung pao shellfish sausage served
under a fried potato net. My appetizer was the Seafood Triangle of the Day:
amberjack, fluke and vinegar-marinated mackerel sashimi, each served on an
individual bed of vegetables, with a dollop of different sauces to
complement each fish. Jason's entree was the pistachio & herb encrusted
rack of lamb with a lentil ragout and an assortment of root vegetables.
Mine was the "Two Way Duckling," a leg stuffed with dried cherries and bread
and a pan-roasted breast sliced and served on a bed of bright purple
Peruvian potato and yam puree. There were two triangular yam chips embedded
in the latter, with holes punched in them to allow scallion shoots to twine
through them. Unfortunately this left the chips looking a little like KKK
hoods on closer inspection. Jason's dessert was probably the most
interesting concept of the evening: lemongrass blancmange (almond milk
pudding) served with a scoop of pear sorbet on a sesame cracker. Mine was
the "Queeny Aman," an upside-down apple pie drenched with a very light
caramel sauce and ice cream. That was absolutely delicious. All of it was
pretty stunning.
On Monday evening we ordered take-out pizza. That was very satisfying and a
good change of pace.
On Tuesday evening we met Ken Miller, Susan Groppi and their friends, Dave
and Jeff, at Oliveto, in Rockridge. The four of them had been out all day
sightseeing. It was a table of life changes: Ken was celebrating having
accepted a new job, Susan has just moved cross-country to start grad school,
Jeff is between jobs and very excited about his new one, Dave has left his
job in Boston and was on the first leg of a three-month tour around the
world, and we've just gotten married and are moving to another country. We
had another great meal there (Oliveto being one of our favorite places). I
started with endive served with a Meyer-lemon, garlic, anchovy vinaigrette
and parmesan (so basically a Caesar with endive instead of romaine) and had
the spit-roasted loin of veal with green beans for dinner. Jason started
with the mixed greens and had the "Arista" pork chop as an entrie. We both
had the warm pear tart with huckleberry sauce for dessert. It was neat to
meet Dave and Jeff and to see Ken & Susan again--we're very excited that
those two are talking about visiting us in London soon.
On Wednesday we went into the city and stopped by Laurel to pick up the last
three packages of wedding presents that had come there. Katie was in and we
had brought the roll of pictures Beckie had sent us, so we had a reasonable
amount of photos to show people. It was good to have one last chance to say
goodbye to those folks. We had an hour to kill, so we went over to B.Dalton
and bought a few books for our trip. Then we headed over to Boulevard to
use up my last gift certificate and had a simply fantastic meal. I started
with the Maine lobster risotto, while Jason had their Caesar, which is
justifiably considered one of the best in the city. Jason's entree was the
rack of lamb served with a cake of mashed potatoes crusted with pesto and a
mixture of olives, artichoke hearts and roasted tomatoes. I had the filet
mignon topped with herbed butter, julienned sundried tomatoes and capers,
served on a bed of baby spinach sauteed in butter and shallots, with roasted
German potatoes. The meat of both entrees was really exquisite and the
flavors they used with them really complemented the tastes, instead of
masking them as they can too easily do.
On Thursday I went up to Santa Rosa and picked up the proofs of our wedding
pictures from which we will choose our album. We will be bringing them on
our trip, so those of you whom we'll see will be able to see them and to
order copies, if you'd like. We're very pleased with them, overall--as with
our engagement pictures, while there are ones we prefer, there really aren't
any that are terrible.
I stopped in Tiburon on my way south and had a lovely lunch with Alicia at
an Italian place on the waterfront (Sorvino's, maybe?). I had lovely
mussels in a mustard cream sauce, followed by a completely serviceable veal
parmigiana. The service was extremely slow, but that gave us time to pore
over the pictures. I finally got to see the lovely library where Alicia
works and to see her friend and co-worker, Heather, again. It was nice to
have more time together--I will miss her so much!
I came back to Berkeley and had a frustrating round of errands. My dress
wasn't ready at the cleaners and when I picked up my rings from the jeweler
where they'd been soldered together, I realized that somehow she'd managed
to internally shatter the sapphire, so that the front third was milky white,
like a windshield that's been shattered, but hasn't fallen apart yet. She
seemed as shocked as I was, but said she would replace the stone.
Wes & Juliana arrived around seven and we looked at wedding pictures and
then walked up to Blake's, a bar on Telegraph that has surprisingly good
food. Jason, Wes and I all had their excellent fish & chips while Juliana
had one of their wraps. We walked back to our house and Jason went to work
in the study while the three of us played some Trivial Pursuit. We stopped
after an hour and they left and I did some work and then went to sleep,
while Jason stayed up all night, finally coming to bed around 7:30am.
Today we packed all morning. The international movers were supposed to show
up at two. When they hadn't shown up at three, I went off to do errands. I
got my ring back with a new sapphire that looks very much like the old one,
though I think it's slightly darker. I faxed the form to my travel agent
that will allow them to book our 8-day tour of Egypt for January. I dropped
off my bike at the used bike shop around the corner and went to the pharmacy
and finally got home at 5:15pm, just after the movers finally showed up.
They were very fast and got all of the fragile stuff packed and all of the
London stuff out the door in just over 2 hours. I walked in and said "How's
it going?" to one of them and got back "Sorry--muy poquito ingles." So I got
to speak Spanish with the crew, which was lots of fun.
They left at 7:30pm and we raced up to the Marina to have dinner with
Jason's great-aunt, Ivanelle, and cousin, Rodney, and his housemate, Bruce
at His Lordship's. It was an old fashioned steak & seafood kind of place. I
had their passable clam chowder and a surf & turf of New York steak and
shrimp scampi. Jason had the Caesar and the special chicken fettucine with
hoisin sauce. We looked through pictures and chatted about the wedding and
London and generally had a wonderful time and were very glad to have had the
chance to see them again before we leave.
Tomorrow the domestic movers are due at 10 am. We are curious to see what
relationship that estimate has with reality. Tomorrow night we are staying
at the Rose Garden Inn. On Sunday Alicia will give us a ride to the airport
and keep my car and we will be off on the first leg of our trip. We'll be
in Seattle until the 4th, when I go through Boston to my parents' for a
couple of days and then back to Boston on the 7th. Jason will join me there
on the 8th. We'll be in & out of Boston for the rest of the month (we're
planning to be in New York for a few days in the middle of the month, Jason
has a week-long meeting in Toronto the third week and I'm spending the last
weekend of October in Colorado Springs for SkateAmerica). So my reports
will probably continue to be erratic, but perhaps I'll see you soon!
