April 2009

Dining in San Francisco; The Moss Room and SPQR

April 11, 2009

On our trip to San Francisco, we visited the California Academy of Sciences and had lunch at the museum’s fine dining restaurant, the Moss Room. That night we had dinner at SPQR. Both meals were on a Sunday in early April.

sf09mossroomThe Moss Room

After seeing the Planetarium show at the museum, we decide spur of the moment to see if we can get into the Moss Room (http://www.themossroom.com) for lunch. The restaurant is full and we don’t have reservations, but a table for two opens up as we are standing there. There is also an cafeteria filled with interesting choices but D really wants a “nice meal” and we are on vacation, right?

 

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The restaurant is downstairs and a bit dark with the only natural light coming from windows topping a staircase on the far side of the room. There’s a bar, a smallish dining room, and a …

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San Francisco Ferry Building Farmer's Market

April 9, 2009

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This past week we visited San Francisco.
The first place we head after dropping our bags at the hotel is the weekly Saturday Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building. http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/

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The weather is glorious, sunny and almost hot. There are dozens of stands selling beautiful produce and all sorts of other food products. By now I’m really wishing we had a refrigerator in the room so we could buy some cheese, bread and other goodies for later.
I make note of a stand with a huge rotisserie selling whole chickens and rolled, roasted pork. Like the markets in Paris, they also sell roasted potatoes. But the thing everyone seems to be buying is a Porchetta Sandwich and the line is about 40 people long.

 

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Jiffy Pop Greenhouse, Part 2

April 8, 2009

In five days, my seedlings have gone from this…

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to this…

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Pretty amazing, huh? It’s like my own science project. I love the fact that the beet sprouts are so red and I’m stunned at how fast the Blue Lake Green Beans have grown.

I’d like to plant them, but unfortunately, the nocturnal creatures are still out in force. While we were gone they tore up plants again and my cucumber plant disappeared completely. Tomorrow we will come up with a new plan to protect the plants.

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Quick post

April 3, 2009

Just a quick post here to say a couple of things:

  1. I love that people are commenting! I really appreciate the feedback, especially when you have tried the recipes.
  2. The digging monsters are still in my garden, undeterred by black and cayenne pepper, though no more plants have gone missing.
  3. Thanks for subscribing! This post is also a test to see how well the email subscription service works.

More to come soon!

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Jiffy Pop Greenhouse

April 1, 2009

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This past weekend I planted some seeds. I wanted to give them a fighting chance against the Little Monsters in my garden so I decided to start them in a tray instead of in the ground.

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At Home Depot when looking at the seeds I found this nifty Jiffy Greenhouse. Just add water and POOF!, the little peat packets expand like your favorite stove-top popcorn of yore. All for under $5.

I planted Leeks, Beets, Blue Lake Green Beans, Lemon Cucumber, Sugar Snap Beans, and Arugula seeds.

After 3 days it looks like the Arugula seeds are starting to sprout.

 
 This means WAR!

This morning I went down to check on my garden and discovered that not only have the Little Monsters been digging in the beds, they are now doing irreparable damage. They pulled up my Japanese Cucumber plants and Crook-neck squash and tossed them about …

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