One of my favorite things about Dique is his community of friends. Having lived here most his life, many of his friends date back to junior high school, if not elementary. One of the lovely ladies from his schoolboy days is our friend red-haired Molly, or Molly L., who started a Supper Club a few years ago. She is also a native San Franciscan so her social circle and city knowledge are to be envied -- which means more friends and good foodie finds for us!
Follow these simple steps and you, too, will have a monthly supper club in your area!
1. Make list of people you love, and people you know who love food.
2. Email all of them saying:
-Let's start a monthly supper club - I'll be in charge this month.
-[Enter name of restaurant you want to go to] is where we'll be headed this month.
-These are the dates on the table for dinner [enter dates that work for your calendar -- we try to avoid Saturdays and Sundays because people are busy with other plans]
-Send link or as much information about the restaurant as you can so people can get excited about the venue, food, etc.
3. Wait for responses, and book a reservation accordingly.
4. Go to dinner and have a grand time.
4a. Make sure someone has a calculator for dividing the check.
5. Ask for a volunteer for the next month's gathering.
6. Rinse and repeat.
Bada Bing. Bada Boom. Instant good times.
When Dique and I started dating, he'd have these "supper club night with Molly and her friends" that we would schedule our time together around. Eventually I was inducted into the Supper Club Hall o' Fame, but it took a while for the invite. If I'm being honest, I was a tad jealous of the Supper Club gang. He's hanging out with women? And he's going out to THAT restaurant that I've been dying to try? WTF?
You see, Dique and I spent many (many many) nights and days of courtship in the kitchen. Sure, we occasionally went out to dinner, but we love cooking and cooking together. It's one of the things that drew us closer - we realized very early on that we could cook a meal we'd want to eat in a restaurant and we could ensure the music was just right. Another benefit is that there was no corkage fee for the wine we brought. That said, we love going out to restaurants. And frankly, it's a combination of my very favorite things: reading menus, talking about food, eating food and having food brought to me. A little bit o' heaven.
The problem is that in this city there are so many places to eat and limited dollars to spend on them. Yes, there are cheap eats (and you can bet your proverbial bottom dollar I will blog about them) but for the most part, dinner for two at a notable eatery is $50-$75 after drinks, shared appetizers/desserts, tax and tip. A couple of times a month won't break the bank, but some of us have a mortgage to pay... and if you think restaurants here are expenses, try real estate.
I digress.
Supper Club is a great way for us to have an enforced "night out" where we can try new places or visit old favorites, have good conversation and not empty our wallets completely. We mostly try to pick places that are two dollar signs -- reasonable, doable and generally delicious. Sometimes we find a spot that's an economical gem, and other times we leave feeling we paid Neiman Marcus prices for a Macy's brand. However, we never regret the dinner. Ever. When we've laughed and eaten and we're headed home, we always are happy to be part of the club.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
She Bangs
Me again, with your afternoon dose of vanity.
Did I mention I got bangs this weekend??
My mom and I were trying to figure out the last time I had bangs. We decided it was at least 20+ years ago, when I was still wearing pink bunny slippers and jammies that matched.
I think I always liked bangs, because I'm really excited in the picture below and yet I was never into being a Brownie. Heaven knows I'm saying HOORAY about something, and I doubt that something is my fancy sash.
Sidenote: The 1980s were so, so cruel fashion-wise. And this picture is proof that I was always and will forever be a huge dork.
And now for something completely different...
Remember when I told you about our honeymoon and our adventures in Mexico (in-between the endless dessert buffets)?
Well, we got our pictures back from the first excursion, the "Outdoor Challenge" in Puerto Vallarta. This day included riding on mules, zip lining over jungle canyons and repelling into streams. We were indeed very outdoorsy, even if Dique's helmet was too small and my harness gave me awkward bulges.
Being unattractive has never been so exhilarating! We hope to zip line again, and definitely recommend it to our pals who want to do something literally off the beaten path.
Here are a bunch of the photos of the day - enjoy!
Well, we got our pictures back from the first excursion, the "Outdoor Challenge" in Puerto Vallarta. This day included riding on mules, zip lining over jungle canyons and repelling into streams. We were indeed very outdoorsy, even if Dique's helmet was too small and my harness gave me awkward bulges.
Being unattractive has never been so exhilarating! We hope to zip line again, and definitely recommend it to our pals who want to do something literally off the beaten path.
Here are a bunch of the photos of the day - enjoy!
One Man's Trash
On Saturday, April 18th, Dique and I had our first garage sale, or as we liked to call it, our "Moving On Sale". Merging two adult lives makes for a lot of stuff - hers, his, ours, our parents'... our garage has been packed for months and we desperately wanted to clear it out. Making some extra cash was a bonus, the real goal was getting things GONE.
We had hundreds of CDs (that we've burned onto computers and ipods), DVDs, books and kitchen items that have been upgraded thanks to the wedding registry system. Dique put out hundreds of comic books - but fear not, he only put out duplicates or issues he didn't really want (there are thousands more where those came from and they will always remain happily in the house). I put out loads of shoes, clothing that lived in storage for the last seven months and wasn't missed. All in all, we had A LOT of STUFF.
Dique was the lead on Operation Good Riddance. He posted and updated an ad on craigslist.com the week prior to the sale. He even managed to sell some bigger items the night before the sale so we could start with $44 in our pockets! I have to hand it to him, for a novice garage sale-r, he worked the crowd, and made the most money for us... all while enjoying a lovely mocha in his monkey mug.
I, on the other hand, hung up posters in the neighborhood to advertise our sale. We said the sale would be from 10am - 2pm, which of course meant we had people out front going through boxes as we were setting up at 8:30am. I am generally a pushover (you want three pairs of decent brand name jeans for a nickel? sure!) but I did hold my ground against a woman who was determined to buy the farm for $0.50, and decided to keep both the hula hoop and the old perfectly fine typewriter, because both things are cool.
When I wasn't selling my old clothes for a quarter a piece, or drinking champagne whilst hula-hooping in the street, I was taking pictures of my haircut.
I got bangs. I dig them, and Dique loves them, so I'm keeping them for a while.
At the end of the day we made $300 and got rid of at least half of our stuff. The rest we'll donate and finally we'll be able to use our garage to store stuff we want to keep. Now if only we can stick to that "one thing in, one thing out rule"... otherwise we'll be having an Annual Operation Good Riddance Extravaganza!
Monday, April 6, 2009
"When my sugar walks down the street...
...all the little birdies go 'tweet tweet tweet.'
And in the ev'ning when the sun goes down, it's never dark when he's around."
I love Ella Fitzgerald. She sings the kind of songs I want to sing lazily in the kitchen while stirring risotto as the sun sets. I put her music on when I want to really enjoy whatever it is I'm working on: making a meal, wrapping presents, planning a party, covering a lampshade. She makes me calm, centered and focused. And she makes me wish I could really sing, especially a song as sweet as When My Sugar Walks Down The Street.
I hadn't heard that song until a couple weeks before our wedding, and happened upon it accidentally. We wanted to make, and had always planned on making, a wedding CD as one of the favors for our guests. Music is such a big part of our story and lives, we wanted to reflect that and create a Soundtrack of Us, if you will.
Most of the songs had been selected long before our wedding day - heck, we met at a Journey revival concert where we couldn't escape Don't Stop Believin! Our first dance together was at a birthday party where a quartet plated Ain't That A Kick In The Head - the Barenaked Ladies song Easy would pop on the radio far too often when we first started dating. It seemed the music was choosing us, and not the other way around. And when it didn't, we were happy to dig through piles and files of tunes to find the perfect little ditty.
When it came time to burn the mix, I couldn't find my CD containing Ella singing Sunny Side Of The Street. A minor hiccup, I searched for a replacement. We needed a song that represented our time spent walking - we needed a song that represented our love of walking.
You see - Dique and I are professional pedestrians.
Yes, we're homebodies. Yes, we're totally happy watching three movies back-to-back-to-back on the couch. Yes, we'll eat whenever food is available. But we like going outside, getting some ocean-infused air and checking out the city on foot.
In the early stages of dating, we would make pancakes on a Saturday morning, and then set out on a long meandering walk. One of my favorite memories is walking down through Golden Gate Park, along the Pacific, through the Presidio and then? Having a fatty feast of carbohydrates and cheese (Monte Cristo sandwich and a Shirley Temple, yes please!) at Liverpool Lil's. It was heaven. We walked up the staircase on Lyon Street and back home through Alamo Square, the Panhandle and eventually wound up on the couch in front of three movies, which we happily watched back-to-back-to-back.
The thing is, to us, walking is not only a mode of transportation or a good way to get some exercise and Vitamin D. It's how and when we talk the most. Tough discussions about mortgages, budgets and credit scores are a lot easier when you're holding hands. Maybe the magic that San Francisco shares on a sunny day also helps grease tricky wheels. Whatever it is, walking = talking and it works for us.
These days Dique and I walk to work together two days a week, normally Wednesdays and Thursdays. He often will walk to and from work independently of me - these are the days that I have a morning run, or an evening workout planned. When we walk together we have to leave the house around 6:45am, so that we can both be at work on time. The route is more or less the same: walk up to 19th Avenue, enter the park, cross in-front of or behind the de Young Museum, pass the rose garden and into the Richmond District. Sometime we go up California, sometimes we go up Lake. We've stopped going up Clement Street after a pigeon episode that rendered my pink fleece jacket dirty and smelly (lots of telephone poles = lots of birds on wires = Tuni yelling "I've been shat on! I've been shat on!" at 7:15am on a Thursday morning).
(Did I just digress into a tale of poop? I did. I apologize.)
We drop each other off on Broadway and Webster around 8:00am, Dique goes down the hill to his office, and I go up and over the Broadway Tunnel, through Chinatown to mine.
We get to see the city in the rising sun and lifting fog. We try to remind ourselves of how lucky we are. And then we settle in at our respective desks and enjoy a nice big breakfast that's NOT a Monte Cristo sandwich. Because they're bad for you (but very, very delicious).
And in the ev'ning when the sun goes down, it's never dark when he's around."
I love Ella Fitzgerald. She sings the kind of songs I want to sing lazily in the kitchen while stirring risotto as the sun sets. I put her music on when I want to really enjoy whatever it is I'm working on: making a meal, wrapping presents, planning a party, covering a lampshade. She makes me calm, centered and focused. And she makes me wish I could really sing, especially a song as sweet as When My Sugar Walks Down The Street.
I hadn't heard that song until a couple weeks before our wedding, and happened upon it accidentally. We wanted to make, and had always planned on making, a wedding CD as one of the favors for our guests. Music is such a big part of our story and lives, we wanted to reflect that and create a Soundtrack of Us, if you will.
Most of the songs had been selected long before our wedding day - heck, we met at a Journey revival concert where we couldn't escape Don't Stop Believin! Our first dance together was at a birthday party where a quartet plated Ain't That A Kick In The Head - the Barenaked Ladies song Easy would pop on the radio far too often when we first started dating. It seemed the music was choosing us, and not the other way around. And when it didn't, we were happy to dig through piles and files of tunes to find the perfect little ditty.
When it came time to burn the mix, I couldn't find my CD containing Ella singing Sunny Side Of The Street. A minor hiccup, I searched for a replacement. We needed a song that represented our time spent walking - we needed a song that represented our love of walking.
You see - Dique and I are professional pedestrians.
Yes, we're homebodies. Yes, we're totally happy watching three movies back-to-back-to-back on the couch. Yes, we'll eat whenever food is available. But we like going outside, getting some ocean-infused air and checking out the city on foot.
In the early stages of dating, we would make pancakes on a Saturday morning, and then set out on a long meandering walk. One of my favorite memories is walking down through Golden Gate Park, along the Pacific, through the Presidio and then? Having a fatty feast of carbohydrates and cheese (Monte Cristo sandwich and a Shirley Temple, yes please!) at Liverpool Lil's. It was heaven. We walked up the staircase on Lyon Street and back home through Alamo Square, the Panhandle and eventually wound up on the couch in front of three movies, which we happily watched back-to-back-to-back.
The thing is, to us, walking is not only a mode of transportation or a good way to get some exercise and Vitamin D. It's how and when we talk the most. Tough discussions about mortgages, budgets and credit scores are a lot easier when you're holding hands. Maybe the magic that San Francisco shares on a sunny day also helps grease tricky wheels. Whatever it is, walking = talking and it works for us.
These days Dique and I walk to work together two days a week, normally Wednesdays and Thursdays. He often will walk to and from work independently of me - these are the days that I have a morning run, or an evening workout planned. When we walk together we have to leave the house around 6:45am, so that we can both be at work on time. The route is more or less the same: walk up to 19th Avenue, enter the park, cross in-front of or behind the de Young Museum, pass the rose garden and into the Richmond District. Sometime we go up California, sometimes we go up Lake. We've stopped going up Clement Street after a pigeon episode that rendered my pink fleece jacket dirty and smelly (lots of telephone poles = lots of birds on wires = Tuni yelling "I've been shat on! I've been shat on!" at 7:15am on a Thursday morning).
(Did I just digress into a tale of poop? I did. I apologize.)
We drop each other off on Broadway and Webster around 8:00am, Dique goes down the hill to his office, and I go up and over the Broadway Tunnel, through Chinatown to mine.
We get to see the city in the rising sun and lifting fog. We try to remind ourselves of how lucky we are. And then we settle in at our respective desks and enjoy a nice big breakfast that's NOT a Monte Cristo sandwich. Because they're bad for you (but very, very delicious).
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