Summer Manifesto -- How'd I do?

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Remember the Summer Manifesto? Since it's now Fall, I thought I should recap and see what I actually accomplished.

What did I do this summer?

.Spend daily time with God I tried, but for sure there were days I failed at this

.Be more active outdoors Hiked the 9+miles around Lake Chabot for the first time in my life, does that count?

.Go to the Alameda County fair We ended up making it to the fair twice! Thanks to finding free tickets online

.Write a speech for my sister's wedding Yes! I did it, and I made the speech too feeling less nervous than I thought I'd be

.Decide if we want to do any work on the house After some debating and thinking, we've settled on finishing off our garage and adding shelving. Hopefully this will happen before the end of the year.

.Go fishing FAILED, utterly failed at this. I think we fished all of once this year.

.Find a rug This we did do, found us an affordable rug with a pop of color that we can change out if we get tired of it.

.Try at least 3 new recipes (without modifying) meh, probably didn't do this one so well, i took a brief hiatus from cooking after getting preggers

.Clean out closet & donate clothes Got through some of this, but not everything

.Take care of our fruit trees Yes! Trimmed our apple, orange, and lemon trees. Even getting fruits on the lime this year!

Now we're reaching the end of the year. Can you believe it's almost November?

10 Million Dollars

The question was posed to us at church this Sunday, what would you do if you won 10 million dollars...

I couldn't think of an answer right away, but I thought, some food-related business. After giving it some thought, I think I would love to have an event planning / catering business. Nothing big, but something that would allow me to explore what I'm interested in.

Funny how I didn't think about purchasing anything? Must not be how I'm wired. Although, I did also think, I'd love to take a nice long trip.

How about you? What would you do with 10 million dollars?

(oh yea, I'd also hire a housekeeper...no more cleaning!)

My Summer Manifesto

Inspired by Meg Tsang

What would I like to do this summer?

.Spend daily time with God
.Be more active outdoors
.Go to the Alameda County fair
.Write a speech for my sister's wedding
.Decide if we want to do any work on the house
.Go fishing
.Find a rug
.Try at least 3 new recipes (without modifying)
.Clean out closet & donate clothes
.Take care of our fruit trees

Bridal Shower

A few weeks ago, we threw a bridal shower for my sister (she's getting married in less than a month!!! AH!). As a tribute to her love for the Oakland A's, we played off a green & gold theme.



Some of the crafty bridesmaids created the pinwheel backdrop along with the pom-poms. Along with a "Yes Dear" sign.




In the entry way we setup a station for guests to fill out these fun fill-in-the-blank tags and pick up a favor on the way out. For the favors, one of the girls found that M&Ms makes MLB team candies! So we ordered some A's M&Ms and supplemented with some generic white and cream candies. We also did a box of mint almonds with yogurt pretzels.




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Decorations: DIY by the bridesmaids
Food: Catered by Christine of Full Belly
Flowers: Trader Joe's & Safeway
Tags: Seafoam Safari
Cake: Nothing Bundt Cake

NOLA {Part 2}

On to the best part, the food of New Orleans. The food did not disappoint; although the hubs was mostly looking forward to a crawfish boil, but crawfish was not in season!

Our first night there was Christmas Eve, and we went to Borgne one of John Besh's restaurants. Borgne is Besh's coastal Louisiana cuisine restaurant. They had a reveillon menu to celebrate Christmas.




The hubs had the Crispy Boudin Balls -- Duck & Andouille Gumbo -- Black Drum -- Citrus Olive Oil Cake


I had the Duck Poppers -- Alligator Soup -- Whole Stuff Flounder -- Pot de Creme


On Christmas night we tried another John Besh restaurant, Domenica, his Italian restaurant inside the Roosevelt Hotel (featured here. We had a Meat&Cheese Board (the duck liver pate was amazeballs) -- Clam Pizza -- Stracci (oxtail + fried chicken livers) -- Tagliatelle (rabbit + porcini) -- Banana Zuppa Inglese. The appetizer and pizza was great; the pasta was way over salted (they ended up remaking the hubs' tagliatelle)

(see that big fluffy pillow dough on the top left corner, they were pretty amazing: its Domenica's savory version of a beignet fried in DUCK FAT. so yummy with the duck pate. anyway..moving on before i drool...)

I think I'll stop here for now and do one more post of the more casual foods we had.