Tons of fun: Cana and Pacific Grove

Whew! Last week was full of adventure, starting out with pupus and salsa dancing at our neighborhood Cuban club, Cana. A crabby-melted-cheesy-wonderful-toast thing, an order of sweet fried plantains, a minty mojito, a sultry cuba libre, and then a few turns around the PACKED dance floor before making our way on foot up the hill and home...couldn't be better on a Bay Area Sunday afternoon with temps in the 80s.

Then mid-week we took off on a little driving jaunt to Pacific Grove, on the Monterey Peninsula. Have you been there? What a gorgeous little town, and really nothing like the hustle and tourist vibe of Monterey and Carmel, except that it has the same beautiful non-stop scenery. Right on Monterey Bay and Pinos Point, the sparkling blue water and white sands are hard to beat.

We went there theoretically to play golf, but the golf was really the least enjoyable part of a very enjoyable 2-day stay. We stayed at the Butterfly Grove Inn, and while we were too late for the Monarch butterflies that throng here October through March, we still really liked the Inn. It's pink, of course, and quite 50s motel-like, but the rooms are huge and nicely, if simply, decorated. It's clean and attractive and comfy - we even had a gas fireplace in our room. Sweet! Not expensive, either, at least at this time of year. Outside is the beautiful grove of trees that the Monarchs return to, and in both directions we were close enough to the Bay and to downtown Pacific Grove to walk it.

Here's a view of the Bay:

 and some of the flora:

Gosh, it was pretty. That purple flower is iceplant and it was all over the rocks on the way down to the Bay. There are some beautiful homes here too. Quite a nice little city, and just minutes from Monterey if you wanted to go to the Aquarium or to the Monterey Jazz Festival, both worthwhile activities.

We had fabulous food too. We tried Fishwife for dinner, and loved it. The calimari appetizer is the best I've ever had, and very substantial. We also shared the Baja Fistherman's Bowl (shrimp, scallops, lobster) and thought it was great - lots of food. For breakfast the next morning, we first tried Red House, which looked great but we were too late getting up - they stop serving breakfast at 11. They sent us to Holly's, which was wonderful. Wayne had the carrot cake pancakes...unbelievable. So good! I had poached eggs and buttermilk pancakes - also to die for. So it was an eating frenzy in PG.

The golf? Well, it wasn't the course, it was us. The course was fine, although it was right on the Point (beautiful) which meant we were whipped by wind the entire time. I mean whipped! I'm not a huge fan of wind. Anyway, we golfed 13 holes and called it a day. We did get a special treat, though, and that was to see the Point Pinos Lighthouse, which is right next to the course and is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast. Cool!

This week we're recuperating...

How to make a lion comforter for Baby Leo

My brother's family is exploding with baby boys! My brother has two daughters. The youngest, Kristin, had a beautiful baby boy, Lincoln, in October and Great-Auntie (me!) helped her celebrate with a baby owl comforter, because owls were the theme of her nursery. See Lincoln and his owls here.

Now Kristin's older sister Amber and her husband Jason have adopted Leo, also a darling brand-new baby boy. In the way these things are, they waited for a long time for Their Baby to show up, and then when he did, it happened overnight. Suddenly they were new parents! So the idea of a "theme" didn't happen - in fact the nursery was still a dream in their heads. When I went to get fabric for a welcome comforter for Leo, I was on my own. Well, not really, because Leo pretty much means "Lion", doesn't it, and what could be better than a comforter full of lions!? I definitely had lions in my mind.

Lan at Piedmont Fabrics, my favorite neighborhood fabric store, came to the rescue as always with the perfect fabric. First she said, "You have to make a book, because I have this great fabric with lions that is meant to be cut up and made into a book." Then we said, "Well, why couldn't it be made into a comforter with all the book pages on the front?" And that's what I did.

Here it is in my sewing room. I bought one set of pages and cut off the instructions on the side. You can see it in the photo. The remaining fabric with all the pages was 33" x 32", a perfect size for a baby comforter.

 

I also bought a yard of soft flannel baby-blue-and-white striped fabric for the backing, some soft cotton batting for the stuffing, and a ball of baby blue yarn for tying the comforter.

 

I washed the fabric front, the batting, and the flannel backing in the washer on "hot", dried them in the dryer, and then ironed them. Who wants a baby blanket that's not perfectly clean? And besides, someone (probably Amber) is going to be washing this baby blanket every other day from now on - might as well get all the shrinking out of the way from the start.

After the ironing was done, I cut the flannel backing to match the size of the lion fabric, and laid the two pieces of fabric right sides together (see photo) and pinned them on three sides, plus a couple of inches into each end of the fourth side. I machine-stitched the pinned edges together using a 1/2" seam, and left the remainder of the fourth side open so I could turn the "envelope" right side out and stuff the batting in through the opening.

 Then I used the fabric "envelope" as a pattern to cut the batting. I used two thicknesses of batting, which in this type of cotton batting results in a thickness of about 1/2". We don't want it to be too thick, because it can overwhelm a tiny baby and even restrict his breathing if it's so thick and stiff that it sticks out over his face. Not good!!

 

Stuffing our batting into the envelope is a piece of cake if we roll it up first.

 

 

 

Then stick the whole roll into the farthest end of the envelope and unroll it toward the opening. Adjust the batting inside until it's smooth and even all over. Pin the open edge closed, folding under 1/2" seam on each edge. I hand-stitched this seam closed. It could also be sewn close to the edge with a machine, but the stitches will show and it won't look nearly as nice. Hand sewing is therapeutic... let's put on some nice music and find a comfy chair.

 

Our lion comforter is nearly finished! All we have to do now is tie it in regular intervals with yarn to keep the batting inside from shifting around, and also to provide a pretty pattern. In this case, I tied the comforter at the corners of the printed book pages, more or less, and kept up the geometric pattern where the pages became irregular at the top. Here's a photo of how to tie a comforter; of course we are putting the yarn through all layers of the comforter, so a stitch of yarn shows on the back too. Then  tie a square knot on the front and clip the ends off to about half an inch long.

 

 

One more pressing, and we're finished. Here's our beautiful storybook comforter for beautiful Baby Leo!

 

Through a train window

We live in a beautiful country! Wayne and I had an adventure - we took the train, the California Zephyr, from our neighboring town of Emeryville to Denver and back, where we visited our friends the Dinars for Passover celebration. Whew! 30+ hours each way and, believe it or not, it was fun!

We took hundreds of photos out of the window of the train.

I'm serious, the beauty that went by our window in Colorado and Utah took our breath away. Craggy mountains, snow-covered peaks, wild turkeys, a sparkling Colorado River, elk, green hillsides, bald eagles, pine forests - we couldn't tear ourselves away from the window.

It was comfortable too. We had big seats with lots of legroom. There was a dining car and a bar car, although we brought food and wine onboard with us. Occasionally we wandered down to the Observation Car, with its big windows and swivel seats, but mostly we just sat staring out our window and snapping photos.

Here's the inside of "our" car. See a few more photos here!



More later on our trip on Amtrak. All aboard!!

 

The New 1970s stereo system

Wow, Wayne's really on my good side now. He has found an incredible turntable from the 1970s era (the BEST electronics for playing vinyl) for $25, replaced its stylus (a.k.a. needle...I'm learning new terminology here), researched and found a top-of-the-line pre-amp (who knew you needed a pre-amp as well as an amplifier??) from the same era online for $45, dusted them off, and hooked them all up.

 Now we're finally listening to some of our many hundreds of old record albums. It's fun and the system sounds great!

It wasn't really as easy as it sounds. First we had to clear out the little library, where we keep all our records and CDs and books on shelves, and where the stereo equipment is housed. That's the part I helped with. We had used that little room as an office for awhile, so it was filled with a desk, a filing cabinet, a computer, and lots of paper. We couldn't even get to the music! Once all that stuff got moved out, voila! It was a music room and library again.

Of course then we had to organize the wires and decide which of the three sets of speakers and amplifiers to keep and where to put them. That was a bit of work, but it was well worth it.

Here's the first record we played (one of my favorites). Yay, Jimmy Cliff and reggae!!




And here are some of the rest of the records. We're still working our way through ...

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Baggin' it

Alameda County, where I live, finally decided to do its part to reduce non-compostable garbage and try to save some trees. Effective January 1 this year they outlawed plastic bags in grocery and other stores, and mandated a fee for paper bags, if customers fail to bring their own.

I fully support this action, having seen enough photos of dolphins choking on plastic bags and knowing those bags have a half-life of nearly forever. And I have nice cloth bags that will work fine and, even better, are reusable almost to infinity. Nevertheless, it took weeks for me to remember to bring the bags to the store. At first I had trouble remembering to take them from home, so I put a bunch into the back seat of the car. Then I had trouble remembering to bring them from the car into the store. Drat. I can't tell you how many times I left Trader Joe's with my arms full of milk, orange juice, yogurt, and bananas, clutching a box of dishwasher detergent in my two free fingers. I got tired of it.

Now, almost three months later, I've got it down. This post is in celebration of baggin', and of course the bags that make it possible. . .

A few of the bags I have in my car.

Some wine bags I also have in my car. Who knew I needed FOUR wine bags that hold six bottles each? Oh well!

A few more bags from my traveling life (Cambridge, UK, Maui, Holland America Cruise Lines). And that's not all of them. I guess I have enough bags!







Last week I got a new kind of bag, and are they ever cute! And good for the environment too! These are planting bags, and they're made from recycled plastic bottles. I'm using them to plant potatoes in a plot that's become way too overgrown with roots, and I don't have the time or energy to dig the silly thing up and put new soil in.


Here are the Potato Bags, each filled with dirt and a seed potato (some are Reds and some are Yukon Golds). Not only are they cute as can be, they're sturdy, are supposed to last several years, and let water through for good drainage. I got them from GreenhouseMegastore.com. Gonna be some yummy potatoes...


So, here's to baggin' it!

Too-many-plums tart

Wayne picked up a box of big purple plums at Costco last week, but they weren't quite ripe yet. Suddenly it became clear that when they did get ripe, they'd all be ready at once! Yikes...there must be 15 of them!

I'm not much for making desserts, but I do like something sweet and fruity for breakfast. So I dug through the cookbooks and came up with a blueprint for a simple plum tart. It wasn't bad for a first try. Actually it was just fabulous with a good steaming cup of coffee.

Make a single pie crust, or you could use a frozen one. It's easy to make, though, and flakier:

• Put one cup all-purpose flour in a medium bowl with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Mix it up with a fork.
• Put an ice cube into 1/2 cup cold water and set it aside till you need it.
• Cut up 6 tablespoons cold butter in little pieces.
• Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until it resembles course meal. Some small pieces of butter should still be visible.
• Add some of the ice water to the flour and butter, mixing with the fork until it just holds together. You probably won't use all the water.

Gather the dough into a rough ball with your hands and wrap it tightly in cling film, pressing it down to flatten it a little. Put it in the refrigerator to rest and chill for 1 hour, or in the freezer for 20 minutes. [It could also be refrigerated overnight (not freezered!!) if you want to eat quicker in the morning. Take it out first thing in the morning, before you do the plums, if you do this.]

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Meanwhile, seed 4 large or 5 medium plums and cut them into slices. It's better if they're not quite ripe. Toss them with a little sugar and whatever else you want...I put in some chopped candied ginger and grated orange peel. You could use raisins or dried cranberries instead.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator or freezer. Put a sheet of parchment down on your rolling surface and discard the cling film. Lightly flour the parchment and the top of the disk of dough. Roll it out until it is fairly thin and more or less circular. Carefully brush off extra flour and transfer the dough-laden parchment to a big cookie sheet.

Pile the plums in the center of the crust, fanning the slices out until you have about 2 inches still free all around the edges. Fold those edges of dough back up over the plums...they'll only come up partway leaving the center beautifully plummy.

Brush the foldover dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter, dripping any remaining over the center plums. Sprinkle all with about 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the tart is lightly browned. Let cool for 10 minutes or so before digging in. This is a perfect time to put the coffee on. Yum!!

Aging outrageously

I had forgotten this poem, and just came across it again while cleaning out a desk drawer. It's from Warning, by Jenny Joseph, and, oh boy, I think it's exactly how I want to be when I grow up!

When I am an old woman

I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people's gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and a pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.