Party Time Saturday

Our Saturday started by turning these...

...into this! Delicious banana bread!

 After some errands and Erik surfing, we went out East for our friends son's birthday. He turned 6 and she made this awesome cake for him!

 They also had a huge blow up water slide at the party for the kids, which some adults went on a little later. After the Kids party was over, we had fun playing some drinking games and reliving college. We broke out the beer pong with Kelsey & I won TWICE as a team. Then, we did a few rounds of flip cup and the girls one that again. Woot! Still got it after being out of college all those  years! haha

  
From instagram this weekend....

We got home and crashed, immediately. We cannot hang or drink that much anymore! haha.

Here's a pic of Evie from the weekend...hiding out. She hates when we cook certain things on the stove. She is afraid the fire alarm will go off and she HATES that noise.

Umami in Oakland

Last Friday, a SF restaurant opened in Oakland. Erik and I went to Umami Burger for dinner. There was a long line at the door since it JUST opened but we snagged a seat at the bar and sat down immediately!

I had the "Greenburger" which is a turkey burger with avocado, butter lettuce....so good. Erik had the Ahi Tuna burger. Check out the photo - great presentation!

There is an Umami location in the Marina in SF that we've been to that is pretty good and this new location tasted exactly the same. Good new spot in Oakland!

Purple Potatoes and a Raccoon Visitor

Our week started off by getting THIS in the mail....BLAH!!

I have to call in starting on 8/5 and see if I have to drive over there and show up for jury duty. 

Erik grew some PURPLE potatoes. I THINK these are the variety of potatoes although we don't live in South America so I'm not sure. They tasted like regular potatoes though and I made them into mashed for dinner. Delicious & fun to eat. 

We also have a visitor in our neighborhood -- a raccoon that comes out in DAYLIGHT. Our neighbor leaves food out for her cat on her porch. This raccoon goes up and eats it! We've seen him in the driveway just walking around. He is not scared of us, at all, which is scary!!

See him up there?

Erik went out to see him and the raccoon just looked at him like, Hey what's up!?

He looked at Erik and then just went back to eating the cat food. He eventually waddled away. He doesn't look rabid, just looks like he is comfortable with everyone and is hungry. I thought about calling animal control but I don't want it to be a big scene with them capturing him and putting him to sleep. I guess if he tries to attack us, then we'll call. 

Chickens, goats, and now raccoons....Life is different in Berkeley!!

Erik's Potatoes

Erik's garden is proving QUITE successful this summer and most recently, he pulled up potatoes!

Check out all of these potatoes he had in his garden!

Potatoes grow in the dirt. He planted them, a plant grows up from the dirt, but to get the potatoes out, you just dig your hand into the dirt and grab them. 

And there you have it...lots of potatoes for us. He dug up another plant and he had some huge ones in there!!  

Tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and peppers are also actively growing!

My DIY Project

A few weeks ago, I found this table on the street. I've actually found a lot of great stuff on the street over the past six years including a weight set (that we still use today), books, workout DVD's, and who knows what else. After watching many episodes of Flea Market Flip, it made me start to see how easy it can be for "one mans trash to be another ones treasure."

I found this table on the street one day and decided to pick it up. 

Scratched up and painted a gazillion times but in good shape

I bought a sander to sand off this paint and re-paint. My vision was to make this into a bench with a cushion on top to simply live in our bedroom.

Sanding...

Painting...

I wished that I didn't try to sand this thing down. I could NOT get all of the paint off. It was painted literally six times and it was not possible. I tested out spray painting a leg and realized it looked fine on a non-sanded area. Oh well, you learn! 

The finished project!

The body is sprayed dark gray and I made the cushion for the top. It looks great! The paint job is not perfect  due to the sanding but it is perfect enough for me. 

Can't wait for the next thing I find on the street to fix up!

Wimbledon Win and Tomato Basil Chicken

First of all, can we talk about that plane crash at SFO? Wowzer. Very scary but also crazy that people walked away from the plane. Out of the 200+ people on the plane, only two were killed and while that is NEVER a positive thing, that is pretty remarkable. We keep hearing tidbits about what happened including the latest that the pilot was in training and had only 40 hours of flight time on that plane!

This morning began with some WIMBLEDON. We were up by 8am to watch the match and how thrilling it was!! You can tell Evie was excited...

After so many years or playing, reaching the Semi's and of course, last year's Wimbledon final, it was so great to see Murray win!

Back to Evie for a second...

She has this thing on her face. We thought she had a cyst or got stung by a bee because she had this big bump on her face. Then, the bump burst the other day...

 I noticed that one of her whiskers looks broken off and now we think it might be an ingrown hair? I don't know. Always something with this dog!! Speaking of always something, it was one year ago on 7/4 that she tore her CCL.

Erik went surfing again today and I finished my project and did some chores. Then, we took Evie to Tilden Park to get some running in.

Got some errands done and then we had a DELICIOUS dinner using some ingredients from Erik's garden. 

Yum....tomatoes and basil. Yes, purple basil!

I made this recipe and it was delish!

Tomato Basil Chicken

Ingredients: (4 servings)

• 2 chicken breasts 
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 tsp minced fresh garlic
• 4 Tbsp cold butter
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• freshly grated Parmigiano reggiano cheese, for garnish

Season chicken breasts with kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  Add a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to your skillet.  This may seem like quite a bit, but it will form the base for the sauce.  While waiting for the oil to heat up, go ahead and get your water going for the pasta. When the oil is HOT, add the chicken breasts.  After about 4-5 minutes, the chicken breasts should be ready to turn.  By the way, when did chicken breasts get SO HUGE?!   You'll want to cook them on the second side another 4-5 minutes,or until the juices run clear when you pierce them with a small sharp knife.  If you pounded yours out thinner, they will cook faster than this.

After the second side has been cooking for about 4 minutes, go ahead and add in the fresh tomatoes that you have chopped up.  Next, add the fresh basil that you have chopped into ribbons, the cold butter, the minced garlic, and you will probably want to add some more kosher salt and black pepper to season the sauce.  Now give it all a good stir so all those flavors will marry together.

When your chicken is "done," turn the sauce down on the lowest setting to keep it all warm until the pasta is cooked, which should be any minute now.  At this point, if still waiting for the pasta, you can remove the cooked chicken to a cutting board, and after resting just a couple of minutes, cut the chicken into slices on the bias.   Divide the pasta among individual bowls, and top each with half of a chicken breast, sliced into pieces, and equal portions of the tomato basil sauce.  Top with more fresh basil and freshly grated Parmigiana reggiano cheese.

Drake's Brewery and a Chupacabra

On Saturday, Erik went surfing and I worked on my "project". Remember I found this table on the street a few weeks ago? Well, yesterday was painting day so I will show you a before and after shot. 

In the afternoon, we went over to Drake's Brewery in San Leandro. The brewery and barrel room are located in the same spot. It was a very industrial building that was no frills but they had a great deck with outdoor seating that worked for us!

What's on tap...

Yesterday was a big day because they were serving some beer called "Aroma Coma" which was an IPA of some sort so I did not have one sip.

I tried the Hefe and also a beer that was a Blonde/Hefe mix aged in an oak barrel. It definitely had a Chardonnay taste to it. Interesting blend!

Erik tried the Aroma Coma and the Ferkin, which who knows what that was. 

For dinner, we went to Little Star in Albany. Albany is a town just north of Berkeley and Little Star is a pizza place that was up the street from our place in SF. The place in SF was always packed and had a line to get in. We went to the Albany location and literally, walked right in. We said that we found the "chupacabra" because this is something very rare!!

Great Saturday and the best part was that we STILL had another day in our weekend left!

Davenport, CA

Sunset Magazine had an article about the small town of Davenport, CA this month. Davenport is a town with a population of 400 about 10 minutes north of Santa Cruz. So, I wanted to check it out since we were already down there. 

Davenport Landing Beach

So pretty and quiet

The "town" is literally a strip of shops off Hwy 1. We stopped at the Whale City Bakery and got a piece of homemade pie and ice cream. 

They make everything in house!

So good!

We stopped at a roadside berry farm to pick up some strawberries. 

 These strawberries were delicious!!

Fun little day trip down south. So happy to have two days left in the weekend!