Summer in Winter

So, I am finally getting to posting the photos of our California trip back in March. Only a month late! I blame my tardiness on the hustle and bustle and responsibilities of life when one is at home: some folks call it WORK! :o)

We jetted west during our spring break in March for some fun in the California sun and to visit family and friends, and of course to eat fabulous food (some comments and photos on that is coming). Boy do we need some of that sun! We have had a really cold snowy winter here in the mid west. Seems like there has been snow continuously on the ground since Christmas.

We arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) to the fabulous winter temperatures of the mid 60's and upper 70's during the day. We could feel the sheet of frost melting off of us the minute we stepped off of the plane. Our first stop was to our dear old friends Tim & Dave at their new home in Lafayette. They have traded their old view of San Francisco from the El Cerrito hills of the east bay for a new view of the beautiful California oak covered green hills in the Briones Regional Park area of the east bay. Just a beautiful landscape to live in.

Me and Timmy

 

David and a partial view of the parkland in the background.

The house sits atop a hill, so the view from the entire backyard is of the beautiful green hills. The landscaping is a very well established Mediterranean garden. Oh! how we wish we could have this type of garden in the mid west!

The front of the house with more Mediterranean  gardens

Tim loves to cook too and wasted no time in whipping up a simply delicious Caribbean grilled pork tenderloin for dinner using an outstanding marinade. YUM!!!

Oh, and lunch the next day was escargot, cheese, homemade carrot pickles and a french baguette! Heaven!

We basically laid around their fabulous yard like lizards for two days in the sun. We did take an evening trip over to SF to visit our old friend Bob at his restaurant, Memphis Minnies, in the Haight-Ashbury district. He has been serving up delicious traditional Tennessee BBQ here for many years now and we always really look forward to having a meal here. The really fun thing was that he had no idea we were in town, so we really surprised him.

You gotta love the mustache (the one on Bob! :o)

A gut buster assortment of food was delivered to our table. Mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, beans, braised greens, grilled onions, beef brisket, pulled pork, pork ribs, beef ribs, spring rolls, beer, and of course, a bottle of very fine Saki. Bob is really into good Saki (due to the years he spent in Japan), so he serves it in the Q joint. And I must say, it was REALLY good Saki!

Here is the Saki

 

After we gorged ourselves on BBQ, we rolled out onto Haight Street and waddled down to the car.
Tim and Dave then took us on a whirlwind ride around The City. We ended up on some extremely narrow streets winding through the Knob Hill neighborhood and down into the North Beach area (mmmm.. Italian food!) and around the Pier 39 waterfront (mmmmm.. seafood!) and down to the Embarcadero so we could have a look at the new art installation covering the west span of the SF Bay Bridge. The FABULOUS light show was created by artist Leo Villareal and is really something to see. It reflects the water and fish and the life around the bay. It is on every night from dusk to 2am. If you have a chance to go see it, do it. The huge scale is amazing.
Here are a couple of websites for more info on the installation:
http://thebaylights.org/   and
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/tech/innovation/bay-bridge-light-installation

Whew! The next morning we went off to spend some time with our dear friends Ian and Val in the East Bay hills. Val swooped us right off to the San Francisco Ballet for a matinee to see The Rite of Spring. The production was choreographed by Yuri Possokhov and features the music of Igor Stravinsky. There were 3 pieces in the production- Beaux (nothing more amazing and beautiful than a bunch of REALLY fit men in tights!), then Guide To Strange Places (hauntingly beautiful) and then The Rite of Spring.
Go here for a review and short videos of the pieces:
http://www.sfballet.org/tickets/production/overview/program-3-2013
Sorry, but the only photos allowed inside the Opera House are before and after the production.
Here is Val and Rowan inside.

Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Memorial_Opera_House

We then went back to the Bailey's for an evening of fun, food (of course!) and catching up on life. We were joined by our other dear friends, Tony and Elna. 

Here is a photo of me and Ian, by far one of my favorite people on the planet! Fun is his middle name! :o)

Ian took me right down to the wine cellar to look at his collection. I can't tell you how many hundreds of bottles of wine this man keeps. He has been collecting for years and is an amazing resource when it comes to what to drink at the right time and with what food. This is only a fraction of his stash.

One of the offerings for the evening...

The amazing Val (Ian's wife) has the natural ability to whip up the most delicious, simple food to go with that wine. Here are some pasties she made as an appetizer.

Then there was the roasted chicken, split down the middle, flattened and grilled on the Bar-B.

I helped to whip up the kale salad. Garlic, kale, olive oil, lemon juice, croutons and shaved Parmesan. YUM!

One of the dessert wines.

The pot-O-cream dessert.............. :o)

We had a delightful evening and so appreciate our old friends on the left coast.
Jenni, Ian, Val, Tony, Rowan and Elna.

The view of San Francisco form Val and Ian's place. One of the best views in the world.

OK, so don't think the food stops here...........the next day, Rowan went off to Berkeley to consult science with her colleagues, I got to hang out with our dear friend Charles and go foraging for dungeness crab and oysters.

This one's MINE!!!!!!

We didn't stop with the seafood...........that evening we met up with our old friends Sandy and Pam and went out for Mexican food in Alameda at a place called La Penca Azul - http://www.lapencaazul.com/. Mexican food is by far our favorite and it's very hard to get anything worth eating in the mid west (unless we make it ourselves), so it is always on the menu when we are out in California.
Sandy, Me and Pam

Me with Charles

The absolutely delicious, fantastic, wonderful fish tacos I had for dinner.

A howdy from us!

The next day we went out to the valley to spend a few days with my family. The weather was just fantastic, in the mid to upper 70's, and this is WINTER! We definitely are not missing the 30's we left back in the mid west! This is one of the reasons why everyone wants to live in California.

We spent some time with my cousins over a fantastic meal (of course there is more food!) prepared by my cousin Muffin.  Here is a photo of Little Jack and my dad, Big Jack, or Uncle Buddy as he is known by all my cousins.

Muffin and I had a duel taking photos of each other.

We were able to catch up with brother Ben too.

My parents backyard where I spent many hours of my young life laying like a lizard by the pool.

Me and the folks.

We had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends and are already looking forward to our next trip out west - especially when we come home to THIS!...............

More home improvement news coming..........yes, there is more of that! :o)