On Tiny Tyrants, the Importance of QT & Date Night @ PAON, Carlsbad...

When the big monsters were babies, I always had built-in family babysitters if I ever wanted or needed to go anywhere, so it wasn't that long ago that I thought the mere concept of Date Night a silly one. I likened it to one of those clumsy, rife with expectation and potential for failure sitcom scenarios in which a marriage counselor tells you to get gussied up, "accidentally" meet at a bar, pretend to be strangers, try to seduce one another, and let the general awkwardness and hilarity of role playing ensue.

a goat cheese and puff pastry small bite to
enjoy with our wine tasting

Because - who does that? 

I mean, who needs to try that hard to spend a little QT with someone to whom you have presumably cleaved for the rest of your life??

And aren't you spending all kinds of time with that person anyway???

Don't you live under the same roof and sleep in the same bed????

Well, YES. You do generally breathe the same air, eat the same food, sleep under the same covers, vegetate on the same couch and zombie walk through the same hallway...

carrying over the paon (French for peacock) theme...

Because you are also both slaves to a tiny, curious, wide eyed tyrant who demands you pay whatever is left of your frayed, frazzled and generally sleep deprived resources to her, loves to climb things and terrorize the family pet, thinks sleep is for weenies and weaklings, and only succumbs to it as briefly as is needed to recharge her evil but adorable internal Energizer bunny battery. Oh, and when she does, it's sideways, in the middle of your bed. And she happens to be a very tall evil but adorable tiny tyrant...

And then all those hours spent in the same space are no longer together. What's left of you is often tired, testy, and generally unfit for human consumption. Someone is getting the Q from your T, and it's not either one of you.

La Cuadrilla 2011 by Stolpman Vineyards

Which is mostly as it should be. That someone is only little once, and in the grand scheme of things, only for a short while.

But then one day, and sooner than you know it, she'll be off in her own home, fighting her own sleep deprived battles with her own tiny tyrant, trying to find some QT with the father of said tiny tyrant, and the two of you will have several many chapters of your lives left to spend together with more T on your hands than you've ever had before and know what to do with.

Veal Sweetbreads

Whether there's any Q in that T will largely depend on whether you took and/or made opportunities to nurture your relationship and give it a life both integrated with, and independent of, your parenting careers.

And all of a sudden, Date Night starts to sound not only like a not silly thing to do, but an absolutely intelligent and necessary thing to do.

Mission Fig Salad

A few unhurried hours away in which you can both remember yourself, the other, and your relationship for what it is and can be beyond the things that take you away from it - even the good things, like tiny, amazing, adorable, precious tyrants.

Enter Paon Restaurant and Wine Bar. A rare find in our neck of the woods - a lovely, quiet and relaxed environment with a sophisticated but casual menu, a great wine selection, music that lends to the ambience and doesn't detract with its volume, a proprietor who still makes the rounds to ensure the quality of your experience, and friendly, attentive, unobtrusive and ungimmicky service. All for about what it would cost to eat at that noisy, mediocre, overrated, oversalted upper-ish end chain restaurant.

Braised Beef Short Rib

The kind of place that was made for Date Night.

That we happened to stumble upon their inaugural wine tasting event and were warmly invited to partake of it was just extra scrummy caramel sauce on our cannoli.

Cannoli with Banana Creme & Caramel Sauce

A little splurge at their wine shop didn't hurt, either. 

And then you come home nourished, refreshed, recharged, reenergized, and recommitted.

To each other.

And all your awesome current, and once were, tiny tyrants.

Date Night. It's not just for weenies anymore.

shinae

Paon Restaurant & Wine Bar
2975 Roosevelt Street
Carlsbad, CA 92008
760.729.7377
www.paoncarlsbad.com

Full album HERE.

This is Not Ridiculous *Horny,* I Don't Believe in Retail Therapy, & Good Eats @ San Marcos Brewery...

Before I write about yesterday's best laid plans, to the accidental readers who found this post looking for "sex with giant clams," or "sex with geoduck," I'm sorry to have disappointed you.

NOT.

Moving right along...

BBQ Ranch Burger

Notwithstanding the fact that The Man and I both hate big box strip center shopping (which is second only to mall shopping on the Migraine Meter) this morning started out with the best of intentions to get to Old Navy before 9am to take advantage of their $1 Flip-Flop Sale as well as to get some Summer clothes for the older monsters, after which we planned to head to T & H Meats to buy some pig parts to smoke when The Man's parents visit next week.

Chicken Wings

Well, by the time I'd had my morning coffee, posted a pic of the sunrise, gone grocery shopping at two separate markets, cleaned the kitchen, fed the family, folded some laundry, watered the plants, barked at the kids to get ready to go out, packed up Izzle's diaper bag and waited for The Man to put The Separation Anxiety Wiener in her prison of forlorn misery dog pen, it was practically lunch time.

By the time we got to Old Navy, the line just to get in was at least thirty to forty people deep, and girlfriend does not do lines... Specially not for non-food shopping. (If you guessed that I don't do Black Friday, either, you would be entirely correct.)

So we decided to shop some other big box retailers in the area to get what we needed and then have lunch at San Marcos Brewery in Restaurant Row before heading over to the butcher's.

Snausage Platter

Refreshingly drinkable beer that isn't overly complicated, hyper hoppy, or shrouded in craft brew elitism.

Golden Ale & Oatmeal Stout

Great chicken wings that weren't overly sauced or overcooked and even better burgers with perfectly pink and juicy medium rare patties on super-fresh brioche-y buns. The sausage sampler with stewed red cabbage, while not as well executed as the burgers, was easy enough to finish.

All in a casual, friendly, Old West-inspired, and well air-conditioned (which was a huge plus on one of the hottest and most humid days we've seen this year) environment with prompt, friendly service.

I would return in a heartbeat for those burgers if I found myself out San Marcos way again.

San Marcos Brewery & Grill
1080 West San Marcos Boulevard
San Marcos, CA 92078
760.471.0050
www.sanmarcosbrewery.com

shinae

Full album HERE.

Back In Black - Day 116 (Saturday) & Something About Fatness & Happiness...

In 2012, I learned, probably for the first time in my adult life, what it means to be

FAT 

and

HAPPY.

I learned what it feels like to be

- content enough in my own skin and with my own life,
- fulfilled enough in my pursuits,
- accepting enough of my flaws, and
- embracing enough of my unique beauty,

that while I knew intellectually that I should endeavor to better maintain my body, I was so happy in my soul that I didn't mind being "fat". And I think that's evident as I look back at the posts in this series to date.

The truth is that there are so many reasons we watch our weight that have nothing to do with being healthy, though that is a most excellent reason. Many of them are good reasons in their own right, if approached with a sense of balance, and they mostly have to do with vanity of some sort.

Well, they do for me anyway.

And I wasted plenty of life, into my 30s actually, drinking the Kool-Aid that vanity of any sort is some kind of crime against intellect and inner beauty. Thank Goddess I discovered that it's much more liberating to acknowledge and accept that some days you really do give a fuck how you look, that there's nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty, and that you generally don't lose any capacity for intelligence or human decency on those days, either...

But for the most part, unlike any year of my life before it, 2012 left almost nothing to be desired, and I reveled every day in doing exactly whatever felt good and right in the moment. Even those moments in which I chose to putz around on the couch, share air and space with The Man, and do nothing particularly productive, when I could have gone for a run instead, felt right. As did the moments when I chose to sit at the keyboard and write a post or a recipe instead of practicing yoga. And the moments when I drank that extra glass of wine after dinner when I didn't need the extra calories because I was basking in a warm, fuzzy, red wine buzz...

But all things have their season.

And after a year of all that basking and reveling, as I'm soon approaching 40, it's starting to feel right to give a little more of a fuck about the jiggling of the squish. To choose tight buns over loose pours. To regain a belly that looks closer to a cutting board than a muffin top...

Because in the course of a life, you can cycle through all the permutations of BMI ranges and degrees of happiness.

So while 2012 was deliciously fat and happy, I think I'll cook up some

THIN

and

HAPPY

for 2013.

Do wish my atrophied muscles luck. :)

BREAKFAST

was half a PB&J.

LUNCH

was a long overdue haircut...

...and a most yummydelicious lunch of cha gio, bun bo hue, and soursop smoothie at Hien Vuong in Little Saigon.

DINNER

was a lazy woman's mashup of avocado with salsa verde, a couple of slices of roast turkey breast, a handful of roasted almonds, and a piece of something like Almond Roca but much better whose name I don't recall.

EXERCISE

Have we already established that leisurely strolling around retail establishments is not exercise? Because if we have, then I didn't.

Off to brew more coffee and give some thought to breakfast.

shinae

Phil's BBQ - San Diego, CA

Let me be the first to say that I am a somewhat recovering dickhead foodie. Which is to say that I am always a dickhead foodie, and I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that fact, but I am learning that sometimes you need to reframe a dining experience in order to be able to enjoy and appreciate it on its own merits, rather than as against your own subjective hifalutin POV, and calibrate your expectations accordingly. 

That said, Phil’s BBQ, by all indications but the many glowing yelp reviews that have earned it 4.5 stars, is exactly the kind of place a dickhead foodie like me avoids like The Plague. Blaring (blues) music, glaring red fluorescent signs, theme-y decor, more than one location - you know - one of those concepts.

But sometimes you go to a place against your own strong intuition that you won’t like it because you think there’s no way that many people could love a thing without there being a good chance that you’ll at least like it a little. A been there, done that, if you will. Something you’re pretty sure you’re not going to like at all, but need to have experienced to arrest any lingering doubts you might have that you really can’t trust your own nose to guide your belly. Someplace you figure you might as well visit because you’re running errands just down the street from it, and you’ll probably not find yourself down that way again, and, well, there are all these other San Diegans who seem not to mind making the drive to that hood just to eat there...

Well slap my ass and call me Sally for once again not listening to that very loud inner voice that said, “Don’t do it, Shinae. They call themselves a BBQ joint and they don’t even have the big pig ribs. And they’re playing lots of loud music that only drunk white people dance to. And a bunch of other San Diegans love it...” (See? I told you I’m a dickhead somethingorother...)

An odd five spice note to the rub and/or sauce that made me think of pho while I was sinking my teeth into ribs and chicken that were swimming in cloyingly sweet and uncomfortably tart sauce. Greasy (as in even greasier than deep fried things should be) onion rings. Unremarkable sides. To my palate, that is.

Been there, done that. 

That just means more Phil’s for the rest of San Diego! :D

Dean will have to compensate for this one by making me some ribs sometime in the very near future.

PHIL'S BBQ
3750 Sports Arena Blvd
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 226-6333
www.philsbbq.net

Lers Ros - Civic Center/Tenderloin, San Francisco

Dinner on our last day in San Francisco...

Sometimes people ask me why I open myself up so much on the interwebs when it often subjects you to trolls and stalkers and other kinds of bad juju. But when I had to walk away from just about everything from my old life except my parents and my children about 5 years ago, opening up on the interwebs in a number of ways often saved me from a sense of utter loneliness and disconnectedness.

pad kee mow with chicken

It was an opportunity to start fresh and often find comfort and healing in the kindness and camaraderie of strangers with whom I had no baggage and who had no expectations of me, or a need for me to be any number of things for them that took a toll on my psyche. People who accepted and understood me for the person I had partly chosen and was partly forced to become.

koong chae nam pla
(fresh raw prawns with chili, lemon grass,
a fish sauce/lime based dressing,
fresh mint and sliced raw garlic)

A small handful of those many kind strangers would become trusted friends - something I desperately needed after a long period of wondering if I could trust myself to choose friends anymore.

And one of those friends is my friend Maria, whom I met through chowhound and whom I got to know over a series of chowhound posts that diaried our daily meals and little tidbits of our daily lives. And then through a series of facebook posts that diaried even more of our meals and even bigger tidbits of our lives. And then eventually through almost daily communications of some kind or another where we shared even more of our lives, characters, and personalities, and where I often found myself feeling like a girl who had girlfriends again.

larb ped yang (duck larb)

So you can imagine how super fucking excited I was to finally get to sit down and actually share one of those daily meals with her on her turf. 

And since she knew I'd been craving some really good Thai food for the longest, Maria treated me and Dean to the best meal of our trip at Lers Ros. And we proceeded to have one of the best Thai meals I've ever had over almost five hours of great conversation and laughter and a little bit of Sauvignon Blanc for me, a little bit more of it for them. :)

koh moo yang
(grilled pork shoulder w. chili & rice powder sauce)

Each dish was beautifully seasoned and balanced and felt elevated in its preparation in a really clean, comfortable, casual, and unassuming environment that doesn't look or feel like it's aspiring to anything - which is really rare these days in a sea of restaurants that often look and act like they aspire to some kind of greatness and don't really deliver. And their menu is a wonderfully staggering selection of dishes you don't often get to see on a standard Thai resto menu.

pad kra prow moo krob -
stir fried pork belly with crispy rinds
and fried basil leaves

I can't recommend this place highly enough for really excellent Thai food, regardless of where you think you've had great Thai food before.

shinae

Lers Ros Thai
730 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94109
415.931.6917
www.lersros.com

Ferry Building Marketplace - San Francisco

Lunch on our last day in San Francisco...


On our last full day in The City, we decided to head down to the Ferry Building Marketplace, which, if you've not been to San Francisco in a loooooong time, is the upscale foodie restoration of the Ferry Building that began back in the late 90s.

And it really is a nice little collection of food shops, specialty purveyors, and restaurants, albeit a little spendy, and well worth your while if you've never been, specially on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when they have the farmers market going on outside as well. (Tuesdays and Thursdays are mini FM, Saturday the full one.)

The monsters each got $25 to spend as they liked at the marketplace, and Mads spent her first three bucks to buy Joey a bottle of this Original brand ginger ale that he discovered the other night when we went to dinner at Heaven's Dog, another $5 for gelato at Ciao Bella. Joey spent some money on white Balsamic and olive oil with which he plans to cook dinner for us when we get back home this weekend. 

Then we met up with my girlfriend Gen and her adorable baby Dio for some lunch, and since Mother Nature smiled on us today, we dined al fresco, with everyone picking and choosing what they wanted from the farmers market food stands.

And +Dean Robinson and I, while big fans of the Bay Area municipal transportation system, are really glad we opted to drive down to the Ferry Building on our last day here to minimize Grandpa related grumpiness and/or complications. :P

We were going to try to make it to the giant rock slide in Golden Gate park with the kiddos, but we're planning to meet up with some friends for dinner (our only chance to sneak away just the two of us during the entire trip), and we know better than to wipe ourselves out before then.


Full album of more goodies to be found at the Ferry Building Marketplace! :)

Now to sit back and chill on this comfy bed for a while.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH...

Ferry Building Marketplace
One Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111
www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com