Sunday, January 27, 2008

It Never Rains. . .

I know we post a lot of stuff about the great weather here in SoCal, but to be fair, the old song that says "it never rains in southern California" is not quite true. You may have been hearing about the storms out here, and it's true, it has been raining buckets out here for a week. This picture is out our front door at noon Sunday.




If you recall, the following line in the song says "it pours, man it pours." They measure rain events in inches out here, because when it does rain, it does not mess around.

Still, in the middle of the weather system we woke up this morning to bright sunshine for a few hours, so we went to the farmer's market in Long Beach. I've mentioned the market before, but it is such a cool place. Everything is guaraneed locally grown and most of it is organically grown as well. Here is a short video of one of the stalls where we purchased the strange looking cauliflower that I zoom in on. He told us the purple type tastes "nutty" and the yellow is sweet. The heads are only baseball sized, so we got one of each.


This is a shot down the center aisle. The clouds were already moving in, and we just beat the rain home.

Another shot of the cauliflower and other produce in the background. We also bought some fresh asparagus, one pound of fresh Salmon from the fish monger, and a loaf of strawberry banana bread from the baker. We also bought a pork tamale from the mexican stand, which we always do, and ate it on the spot.


This stall has every kind of potato known to man. This is only one side of their display.


Last night we went to dinner with friends at Cafe Piccolo, a nice italian place in Long Beach. It was a great ending to a very nice day. Yesterday morning was clear and warm as well, so we drove along the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains in order to see the snow-capped peaks better. We stopped off at Griffith Park (where the Hollywood sign is) but many of the roads were closed due to mudslides. So we rolled on down to Manhattan Beach, had lunch overlooking the beach, and took a nice stroll before the weather began to turn.

Well, I'm going to watch the rain pour down while watching Tiger Woods trounce the competition at Torrey Pines. Hope you are all well. We miss you!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Nothing too Exciting

Hey Everyone!
Nothing too exciting in this post. We have enjoyed some time off during the holidays, and did many of the typical things I have blogged about before. The weather has been nice, with a lot of sunshine (what they refer to as "severe clear" here in SoCal), and so we have spent a fair amount of time hanging at the beaches. We went to Hermosa Beach today, taking along our folding camp chairs, and sat watching the heavy surf. We took a long walk along the beach at low tide (in a pathetic attempt to walk off some of the holiday goodies), and returned home after visiting Whole Foods where we purchased some nice cheeses and bread for an evening snack.

Last night we decided to go out for a nice meal in downtown Long Beach followed by a walk around the marina and then home. We took the Metrorail as there is a train station just a few blocks from our house. It is better for the environment, eliminates the cost and hassle of parking, and mostly allowed us to drink all we wanted without worrying about driving impaired. The train dropped us one block from our restaurant, L'Opera, a beautiful Italian place we had never visited before. What a meal! We had a 3 cheese platter appetizer, which contained a nice goat's milk brie, a peccorino, and a gorgonzola, along with a spoon of orange blossom honey, a dollop of quince chutney, and some candied walnuts. We asked the waiter to pair a nice wine with each course, and he brought a New Zealand sparkling white that complimented the cheese very nicely.
Then, we had a pasta course which was a plate containing three pastas of our choice from the menu. We chose a black truffle and wild mushroom ravioli, pasta pockets filled with butternut squash and cheese, and a gnocce. The waiter paired a New Zealand Chardonnay with this course. Delicious!
Next was the "third plate", a filet mignon for me and lamb chops for Laurie. The wine selection was a Napa Valley Merlot/Cabernet blend. Yummy!
We decided to pass on dessert, right up until the menu was placed before us when we chose to share a tiramisu and drink a cup of coffee.
WOW!
So, our walk around the marina was more of a drunken slog. Lucky we didn't fall in.

Tomorrow it's back to work, and back to a reasonable diet and excercise. We sure have enjoyed the goodies that arrived in packages from our friends, though. Thanks for thinking of us!

A Happy and Peaceful New Year to one and all! We love you!