(no subject)

Holidays were, in short, pretty damned nice.

And quiet. This is very important.

We had my dad over on Friday afternoon/evening - made lamb in a garlic cream sauce (Julie Sahni - Classic Indian Cooking, for all your needs) and watched lots of No Reservations. As usual, this involved much laughter over Bourdain's adoration of pork, discussion on CAFOs, food production, genetically modified food, knowing what you eat, and, well... yeah. Just watch Food, Inc. and you get the gist of the discussion.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Along those lines - two calls from dad, the second one boiling down to "Get up here today, damn it." meant we hit up a new Oriental Supermarket on La Cholla and Orange Grove - Lee Lee - yesterday. This place is awesome. Seriously. And they've got good prices on meat (and produce), a large variety of stuff, and just... well, dad and I kind of drooled... Since dad's pretty much canvassed most of the grocers of this nature in town and about these days only cooks for himself and focuses on Thai and the like food, he was great to go with.

And they have Silkies, ie Blue Chickens. And a good fish counter. And! And! And! I could go on. It boils down to the simple fact that they are well worth checking out. Do so at your earliest convenience, even if they're a bitch to get to.

Oh, and domnall bought a big pot. Dad pointed it out and said "That would be great for brewing..." and then we turned back to see him putting it in the shopping cart. Hee!

But, back to Christmas and stuff.

I'll shamelessly admit, as I've gotten older (egads! I'm only 23. another reminder I'm about the youngest in my social circles.. *sigh*), Christmas seems to involve less OMG!Presents and more just kind of kicking back and relaxing. And domnall and I seem to be fond of large presents to ourselves (last year? cookware. this year? pavilion) and a few little ones. I got the Walton Ford Pancha Tantra, which I've been drooling over for years. Taschen being, well, Taschen, it's taken this long to get out something reasonably affordable. I love the publisher dearly, I just shudder at their prices. I also got two Nancy Silverton cookbooks - Bread from La Brea Bakery (my dad on the bagel recipe - "you can get in touch with your jewish roots! even though you're not jewish...") and Pastries from La Brea Bakery (which meant a discussion on the making of puff pastry).

We opted not to hit Chocolate Decadence on Saturday night, instead going to Something Sweet for shade_scribbler's Birthday-Like Thing. Which, I must say, was well worth it. Nine of us just chatting and stuff for a few hours. I really miss her and yu_gi_oh_freak as they've moved to San Diego now, but it seems like things are going well and that's what matters.

And then we bought paint and stuff at Home Depot. And worked out a vague schedule for finally tackling the end of the house and the rest of unpacking (yeah, yeah, yeah) and all that jazz. Plus decided to hit IKEA on Friday in the name of a TV center thing and a few bookcases and then seeing Shaun and Megan in Phoenix.

I've got a four-day workweek (meh.), but it's going to be quiet, and we all kind of like that. I suppose I could use sick time or something like that, but I don't really feel like it. It is to be hoarded, it is.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

(no subject)

Holidays were, in short, pretty damned nice.

And quiet. This is very important.

We had my dad over on Friday afternoon/evening - made lamb in a garlic cream sauce (Julie Sahni - Classic Indian Cooking, for all your needs) and watched lots of No Reservations. As usual, this involved much laughter over Bourdain's adoration of pork, discussion on CAFOs, food production, genetically modified food, knowing what you eat, and, well... yeah. Just watch Food, Inc. and you get the gist of the discussion.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Along those lines - two calls from dad, the second one boiling down to "Get up here today, damn it." meant we hit up a new Oriental Supermarket on La Cholla and Orange Grove - Lee Lee - yesterday. This place is awesome. Seriously. And they've got good prices on meat (and produce), a large variety of stuff, and just... well, dad and I kind of drooled... Since dad's pretty much canvassed most of the grocers of this nature in town and about these days only cooks for himself and focuses on Thai and the like food, he was great to go with.

And they have Silkies, ie Blue Chickens. And a good fish counter. And! And! And! I could go on. It boils down to the simple fact that they are well worth checking out. Do so at your earliest convenience, even if they're a bitch to get to.

Oh, and domnall bought a big pot. Dad pointed it out and said "That would be great for brewing..." and then we turned back to see him putting it in the shopping cart. Hee!

But, back to Christmas and stuff.

I'll shamelessly admit, as I've gotten older (egads! I'm only 23. another reminder I'm about the youngest in my social circles.. *sigh*), Christmas seems to involve less OMG!Presents and more just kind of kicking back and relaxing. And domnall and I seem to be fond of large presents to ourselves (last year? cookware. this year? pavilion) and a few little ones. I got the Walton Ford Pancha Tantra, which I've been drooling over for years. Taschen being, well, Taschen, it's taken this long to get out something reasonably affordable. I love the publisher dearly, I just shudder at their prices. I also got two Nancy Silverton cookbooks - Bread from La Brea Bakery (my dad on the bagel recipe - "you can get in touch with your jewish roots! even though you're not jewish...") and Pastries from La Brea Bakery (which meant a discussion on the making of puff pastry).

We opted not to hit Chocolate Decadence on Saturday night, instead going to Something Sweet for shade_scribbler's Birthday-Like Thing. Which, I must say, was well worth it. Nine of us just chatting and stuff for a few hours. I really miss her and yu_gi_oh_freak as they've moved to San Diego now, but it seems like things are going well and that's what matters.

And then we bought paint and stuff at Home Depot. And worked out a vague schedule for finally tackling the end of the house and the rest of unpacking (yeah, yeah, yeah) and all that jazz. Plus decided to hit IKEA on Friday in the name of a TV center thing and a few bookcases and then seeing Shaun and Megan in Phoenix.

I've got a four-day workweek (meh.), but it's going to be quiet, and we all kind of like that. I suppose I could use sick time or something like that, but I don't really feel like it. It is to be hoarded, it is.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.