A Slice of My Life – Weeks 28, 29, and 30

July 29, 2013

I several weeks worth of Slice of Life posts to catch up on, so I figured I’d do them all in one.  In rough chronological order:

I announced that I am starting up teaching again!  This is the screen shot on Instagram.  I can’t tell you how excited I am for all my upcoming classes.

Speaking of classes, this is some of the prep for the July/August Warm Weather Soups and Salads class.

A different kind of prep.  Beets!

I decided I needed a new shoe to teach in.  I used to always wear flats but flats are not great for your feet when you are standing for 6+ hours.  My feet don’t really like clogs, especially Dansko clogs, but for some reason, these really worked for me.  Plus, don’t you  love the color?  It’s actually surprisingly versatile.

We left a perfectly sunny and 72º day in Oakland to be enveloped in fog at Half Moon Bay.  Totally worth the temperature drop and lack of sunshine.  It is so beautiful there and we will certainly go back in the fall.

What is it about sand and sand toys?  The boys could have played there all day.

In a sweet shop, I saw slices of gorgeous frittata topped with stalks of broccolini and just had to try and make it myself.  It didn’t come out exactly like I wanted it to.  The middle wasn’t set and the broccolini sank more than I wanted them to.  Still, eggs for dinner are always nice.

Our old coffee table.  We got it right after we moved into our “black house” in Seattle.  Some friends came over and their young son ran a toy car over the top and it scratched the surface.  Our friends were horrified that he had “ruined” our table.   We had no idea how destroyed the table would get over time.  A friend of ours is an interior designer and she found us something a little more artistic.

We are in love with it but it makes our couch, which we need to replace anyway, look frumpy.

A lovely neighbor had a mobile knife sharpener come to our street.  My knives hadn’t been sharpened in almost two years so I was so excited to get them back.

The view from an empty lot on our street.  Takes my breath away every time.  At this time of year, the fog is almost like an animal, settling itself over certain places and avoiding others.  San Fransisco is often fogged in as are parts of Marin County, which is where it sits in this photo.  We continue to think that Oakland has the best weather in the Bay Area.  Even Berkeley, which is just north of us, gets more fog than we do.

At the beginning of the summer, we joined a community pool.  It is so nice to be able to just pop over there for a few hours of swimming on a nice day.  I also signed up the boys for swim lessons and they have made a staggering amount of progress already.  I feel like such a suburban mom taking my kids to swim lessons.

Eggplant and porcini meatless meatballs in sauce.  This made a huge amount and I thought we would have tons of leftovers.  The boys didn’t like it (big surprise) but even so, we only ended up with two leftover meatballs and a bit of sauce.  SO GOOD.

This past Friday was my birthday.  I took BART into the city and shopped a bit.  I walked down Market St. to the Ferry Building and had lunch there, followed by a food shopping trip.  I love that place so much.  So many treasures.

This wasn’t written for me, but I still appreciated it.

When Randy asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said I wanted to go to Healdsburg for the day.  I had never been and had heard so many great things about it.  So we packed up the boys and headed up there.  It’s such a great place.  Lots of galleries and wineries all on the square, plus easy proximity to lots of Russian River and Alexander Valley wineries.  I want to go back next year again but stay the night and without the boys.

Birthday celebration continues!  We took the boys to an A’s game on Sunday – a day game.  We were able to take BART and it was so easy!  They came from behind for a big win and we all had a really good time sitting in the sun and cheering on a winning team.

I wanted to end my birthday weekend with a recipe I’ve been wanting to try for a while.  This is an attempt at the Saveur method of making pizza.  Basically, you allow your dough to rise for 48 hours and then heat up your stone with the oven turned to “broil” for at least 30 minutes.  I was expecting blistered charred crust, but it was pale and flabby.  Very disappointing.  At least the flavor was good.  Spring onion, the most amazing burrata from Italy, and arugula.

Finally, file this under “start your week with a smile”.  The boys used their Lego’s to make a “wine store”.



4 Comments »

  1. Love this – especially the new teaching shoes and the boys lego picture – I love their sticky up hair!

    Comment by Charlotte — July 30, 2013 @ 10:15 pm

  2. Hi Dana,
    Keep coming with the “slices” of your life- love them. Is the eggplant and porcini meatballs from food and wine? Would love to make it.
    Thanks!
    Liesl

    Comment by Liesl — July 31, 2013 @ 12:15 am

  3. Happy belated birthday love! Sounds like you celebrated fabulously. :) I’ve been dying to make those meatballs since a friend of mine made them a few months ago. Time to put them on the menu plan!

    Comment by Joanne — July 31, 2013 @ 1:26 am

  4. I loved this post! What a great little recap … which reminds my I need to get my knives sharpened as well. :) And I think your frittata looks amazing!

    Comment by Kimber — August 21, 2013 @ 12:40 am



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