Greetings from Deutschland

I have had a serious few weeks, folks. Well, fun weeks. But serious. Seriously fun. Work has been nuts, and my dad was in town. There was much beer drinking and good food eating. He flew in two Fridays ago, which happened to also be Mike's last day at Greenpeace. As a result, my father and I watched a movie on bees (The Vanishing of the Bees) at the Hayes Valley Farm while Mike got tanked on whiskey with his now-ex-coworkers.

We got up bright and early the next day to head up north and get a campsite at Pomo Canyon, so that we could show off to my father the glory that is Northern California. Mike was none too perky, but we got ourselves a campsite and then got our butts to a brewery so Mike could watch UT get absolutely spanked by UCLA. College football is rough, man. We then retired to Pomo for a sunset hike out of the redwoods and up to a ridge, then spent the rest of the night cooking over the campfire and scaring raccoons away from our neighbors' food, since they were too dumb to know to put it away while they went night hiking. Raccoons be wily bitches.

In true My Dad fashion, we managed to get to a brewery the next day, too - Lagunitas. My dad complained that we were trying to kill him by making him drink beer so soon after breakfast, but since breakfast was delicious and filling bread from Wildflour Bakery (seriously, go), I figured it was just a natural progression from real bread to liquid alcoholic bread. When we got back to San Francisco, for good measure, I took my dad to my brewstore so he could meet the epic Griz, the curmudgeonly savant-like mountain of an owner. He was very friendly to my father, and it turns out he loves Lyle Lovett like I do, so we're all good.

My dad spent the week walking around San Francisco all day every day. I drew up a few itineraries, and so he went down to Dolores Park, up Buena Vista Park and through the Haight, out into Golden Gate Park, and up Fillmore into the Marina. In the evenings we ate our way through my hoarded Groupons and drank fine beers. Dad was impressed by Toronado, if not by the decor or the clientele.

Last Wednesday I took the day off work and we hit up Tartine for breakfast, because their bread pudding makes me the happiest girl in the world.

We then visited the Anchor Steam Brewery for a 10 a.m. tour. We were drunk by noon.

We slept it off, walked up to Amoeba, and my dad helped me pick out a half dozen albums to start a classical music collection. Nothing too adventurous here, but I'm glad to have a good foundation. And I'm taking suggestions, if you have any.

Over the weekend we continued our tradition of religiously attending the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in the park. We rode our bikes each day, plopped down our blankets, drank some homebrews, caught up with friends, and relaxed. We were lucky enough to have Katie and Larry and Avery in town, so I got some baby snuggles in. The weather was decent, the company was great, and the music was excellent.

My dad flew out Sunday night, and I boiled up some beer so that Mike will have it ready for me when I get back. Because: Monday I flew to Germany, and now here I am, at 6 in the morning, wide awake and jetlagged. Yesterday we had an all-day meeting (fresh off a redeye) to prep for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which starts today. Last night we had our regular Frankfurt team dinner at a traditional German restaurant, in which the apple wine tastes vaguely like pee, the pig knuckles still have hair on them, but the sauerkraut is delicious. It's fun, trust me.

And now I am off to the gym, because my colleagues convinced me that a 6:30 gym party was a good idea. Guten morgen, or guten nacht, wherever the hell you are. I'm here for a week, then off to Berlin, so I'll make sure to keep everyone updated with more tedious lists of my comings and goings.

Oopsy

Each week I put together a newsletter for several thousand of my coworkers, to recommend books they should read. I look at bestsellers, Googley books (sci fi, cool nonfiction about how the brain works, etc), and books that are already popular with Googlers. Yesterday I recommended a book that my data showed to be particularly popular. It turned out to be this book, which is - oh yes it is - lesbian erotica from the 1950's.

So I should have read the description; this is true. But it didn't occur to me to check. And while the description should have alerted me to the fact that the book looks like it sucks, it also doesn't sound porny.

In some ways a title that's horribly derivative of other, earlier, Olympia works, involving determined actresses (like James Sherwood's "Stradella"), Satanic black masses (as Baron's "Play This Love With Me" did), and even a Greek-mythology-evoking intro (well after Trocchi's classic "Desire and Helen" floated past similar ground). However, The Gilded Lily is extremely well-written. This work gives a credible and quite vivid account of Lily, the girl with Spanish Fly in her veins, her lesbian friend Janet, directors, producers, night club owners, young boys, and, sadly, the cops at the end.

Takeaway lesson for you: don't follow my recommendations. Takeaway for me: read the first few pages of any books you're going to recommend, to see if they involve a woman dreaming about getting attacked by a swan that turns into a dude's twig and berries.

Super harvest moon

Last Wednesday was a super harvest moon, which apparently only happens once every 20 years. This fact was drawn to my attention by a friend of Mike's, who we met for beverages and cookies on top of Alamo Square to bear witness. The sun went down while the moon came up, and Jupiter followed. A Gollumesque dude stood behind us and whispered (to himself or to us, I do not know) about Pisces and important signifiers and stars in alignment. It was eerie, and very very beautiful.

Creations continue

Emboldened by my purchase, use, and enjoyment of my new immersion blender, and overwhelmed with piles of summer squash, last week I whipped up this garlic zucchini soup. I made one addition that had a bit more of an effect than I had anticipated - celery. I don't think of celery of having much of a flavor, but that is like thinking a boring politician will remain boring, and will not make stupid, harmful voting choices. Not that celery is stupid or harmful. Just that it doesn't figure into my life very often, and so I forget it has some bite.

As a result, my soup was zucchini-y, garlicky, and significantly celery-y. But good! But I would have liked more of the first two, less of the third. I would not discourage you from using it, just from using 4 stalks. But what the hell else do you do with a poor wilting bunch of celery? And don't say I should put peanut butter and raisins on it.

Also in the vein of when-experimentation-isn't-the-answer: last night we had several people over for football watching. I served:

• a homebrewed pale ale on ice (out of our keg, biotches!)
• homemade salsa (can you tell I'm obsessed with this blender?)
• pizza with homemade dough and sauce (obviously I need to learn how to make cheese to complete the picture)
• Smitten Kitchen's blueberry cake (it's called Blueberry Boy Bait, but that's embarrassing to me)

Mike and I broke the gauge on the keg's CO2 regulator the first time we tried to move it, and so we accidentally overcarbonated our beer to a comical extent. In order to serve it, I had to decant the foam into pitchers and let it settle down. Which it did after a few minutes, during which I spoke soothing words to it, and it was delicious.

Another lesson learned: when your cat tangles himself in your blender cord (in this case I was using it with the whisk attachment, so handy) and pulls a bowl of cake batter off the counter, attempting to estimate how much is on the floor and adjust the flour amounts to match is not likely to be effective. It is, however, preferable to my first instinct, which was to somehow retrieve the batter from the floor and put it back into the mixing bowl. I'm not above that, but the cat was already having his way with the batter.

I figured I lost a half cup of butter/sugar/egg mixture, and I used my mediocre maths to correspondingly decrease the amount of flour I added. The cake came out just fine (I mean, it's blueberry cake) but not very cake-y; more, um, fudgy-brownie-y. Consistency-wise, I mean. I also added way too many blueberries because Mike and I panicked when the lady at the farmer's market told us it was the last week for blueberries and we bought a quart or something. But too many blueberries is never a bad thing, and I would do it again, dammit!

Oh, and also I promise that the next post will have fewer made-up adjectives.

Bike storage

Yes please.

My baby's got sauce

Last night I made a shit ton (actual measurement) of tomato sauce from scratch. Start to finish the process took about 3 hours, but that's mostly because I kept running into the living room to yell at the TV. The Jets blew it last night, bro.

I used this recipe, and started with 12 pounds of tomatoes from the Divis farmer's market. Here they are, all ready to be blanched and peeled.

Post-peeling, I squeezed their little guts out. On the left is the tomato flesh; on the right are the skins and guts.

The flesh got added to a mirepoix and cooked down. I had some ciabatta set aside just for the purpose of dipping and sampling, and I'll tell you what, this was some tasty sauce.

Today I need to get an immersion blender to smooth the whole pot out, then I'll freeze for later. Then I will be done, and will have gained both A Sense of Accomplishment and Several Months' Worth of Lazy Dinners.

Fix Up

This gorgeous yellow pickup has been parked outside my apartment for days, and I want it. I'm probably not cut out for grand theft auto, nor do I actually want to own a truck while living in the city, but I'm now seriously considering both.

And check that license plate: Fix Up. Well, at least now I know what I want to do when I move to the country.

Are you mad?

My mom Gchatted me before my cousin's wedding to tell me she had bought a dress that was the same color as mine. Our exchange is one of my favorite of all time.

Mom: jUST THOUGHT i'D GIVE YOU THE HEADS UP. i BOUGHT A BLUE DRESS. I refused to buy another black one. We'll look like Arnie and danny Devito from the TWINS MOVIE.

me: excellent

i am looking forward to that

Mom: ARE YOU MAD?

Why on earth would I be mad? Especially since my brother came through with this gem.

I'm not going to stop asking people that for a very long time. Say it. "Are you mad for some raisin?" It's just a delight to say.

Mike picked up on the other nugget in that Gchat; Arnie and Danny. And lo and behold, look at what we have:

And, even better:

Many thanks to Mike, whose photoshop skills were invaluable in extending this joke into its third week.

FiDi

Wednesday was Umbro's birthday, and I met her downtown for drinks. I never have a reason to go to the FiDi anymore, and it was a really nice change of pace. The bar was on a little alley, and I had just enough to drink that I became enamored of the local fire escapes.

We sat outside, and it was aaaalmost warm enough for me, though I had to ditch beer for red wine. I'd still like a bit of east coast summer, but I'll settle for a lack of chilly fog.

The birthday girl drank her way through the evening with style, flair and a surprising lack of slurring. And I got to ride my bike home in a dress, which always makes me feel like I have an exciting life. It is like, "Woo woo, you might be able to see my underwear but I don't care because I'm going FAST!" There's really no arguing with that.

Moved

While I was away, my team moved from one building to another at work. The new building was just renovated and is lovely. Here's the space outside my cube.

I feel like I should be drinking a martini and feeling discontented with my increasingly empty upper middle class existence which has gotten me a glamorous mid-century modern house but a loveless marriage. So happy!

Home again home again

Holy peanuts, it has been a couple of weeks, if you know what I mean. Boston to New York to PA to New York to PA, weddings and bars and jogs and heat and rain and bagels. I mean, a real couple of weeks.

I have hundreds of pictures to go through, but here is a sampling of the last week. First, upon Mike's arrival in NYC, a boat tour around the isle of Manhattan.

My brother, visiting from Oz.

My parents' house and property, where we cavorted on land, on river, and on horseback. And on the porch, with beers.

My cousin's wedding, at which at least a dozen middle-aged family members absolutely FREAKED OUT to the live band's rendition of Lady Gaga songs. The bride had the tiniest waist and the biggest smile I've ever seen, and it was a beautiful party.

As I write, it is 4 p.m. here in San Francisco, and 7 on the east coast. If we were still at my parents', we'd be having drinks on the porch right now. Mike would be looking very satisfied from the time he spent clearing brambles on the Bush Hog (photos to come, I promise), and I would be sore from the athletic undertaking of the day. And it would be good.

But also good is the end of vacation, since I'm back with my cats in my apartment, with my things and my smells. And a suitcase full of my dad's homebrew and my mom's zucchini. So there you go.

Do it now

Chrome is an amazing, browser, and the Arcade Fire is an amazing band. Thus, I recommend you delve into this interactive video immediately. I found it really moving, but I am just a sucker.

Muffins

I'm not a muffin person, but I made these Smitten Kitchen muffins for friends yesterday, and they were fabulous. I substituted raspberries for blueberries. Recommended.

Oh, boo

My dog Skip has a cataract.

See?

This makes me very blue, because he still seems like such a puppy to me. My mom pointed out that he's actually almost ten, but thinking about that puts me into a panic.

Validation

The other day Heidi from 101 Cookbooks retweeted a recipe from Debbie of Smitten Kitchen.

101Cookbooks One for me please? RT @smittenkitchen raspberry limeade slushies http://tinyurl.com/2d2tont

It was a very happy moment for me. And now I am reading Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods", and he quotes John McPhee's "In Suspect Terrain"!

"In three months, as John McPhee notes in In Suspect Terrain, the endearingly named Pithole City went from a population of zero to 15,000."

It's all coming together, guys!