It Continues

But wait, there's more:

Friday we were lucky enough to have Natalie and Maggie join us on our trip to Sonoma. Kevin is working hard to develope a better ebook for Sony. He is a reader, but not an e-reader. I used to be an e-reader and this is a good device for that. It only does one thing - books. It's fun to see how this can be modified to give it features that would make me want to buy it as well.


We four drove to Sonoma to meet Cindy and Eric. Cell phones are little miracles. How would we have known what to do without it? We knew where they were at every step and could make reservations at the Girl and the Fig restaurant. Adrian and I are attacking the tower of cheese. It was expensive and not bountiful. The waiter said it would be good for a table as an appetizer, but extreme sharing was necessary. Adrian and I split a hamburger and salad. The food was good. I've wanted to eat there for some time. I'd recommend this.


Then we all went to the Chocolate shop, http://www.winecountrychocolates.com/. Rachelle's husband's cousin owns this place. They have great chocolate there. I didn't know that Karen had been there earlier in the day. We had tastes and purchased a bit and then looked for the wine tasting that was supposed to be in the complex. It was there, but closed.



We went back to Sonoma to drop Natalie and Maggie at the Cambells' farm. The kids, above, are in the wine tasting room of the farm. Pretty nice to have a bunch of wine across the street from your house. Adrian and I visited, I tasted wine and joined yet another wine club. Then we went on to Ramekins to check in just before going to eat yet again.


We joined my brothers and Eric's children
for dinner at the El Dorado Kitchen. You can't see them very well. I'll be using mine until I can figure out how to get full sized pictures from everyone else. The El Dorado Kitchen was very good. I had tomato soup and frito misto like vegetable tempura. I also ate Sandi's ricotta gnocchi. Loved the meal and the company. We had to have a kid's table. Adrian joined us old folk. The kid's table looked like a lot of fun, though.

Just Once Before You Die

I know, that's pretty ominous. But everyone should try to have a weekend or month or year that includes such joy as I experienced this weekend. Since my happiness meter tends to move more toward joy than dispair, I often get close. But let me tell you about this last weekend.



Thursday: Adrian and I drove up north, picking up bags of stone fruit and staying with the Fremont Campbells. I like to listen to books while driving. Having a picky listener in the car with me meant that I had to select very carefully. Like picking a wine. Red or white? Fiction or non-fiction? Non-fiction. Adrian likes fantasy as well, but I didn't have that. Born on a Blue Day written by an autistic man? or Goodbye Darkness written by William Manchaster about WWII in the Pacific? So we picked the Merlot, Manchester and the war on Guadacanal. Relax, no drinking occurred on the road.



The stop at Andy's Orchards wasn't as wonderous as I thought it would be. There was a lot of variety, but the fruit seemed a little hard. I got a lot, but not as much as I would have if... If I had known that these varieties would ripen by the time we drove the 30 miles to Fremont; if we had known that they would drip down your arm and neck with the sweetest juices. OMG. We couldn't stop eating.



I had brought shirts that Laura sent me. Most were too small for me, so I took them north to share. Natalie is wearing one. One was too funny. It had a huge dangling bobble on the neckline. Natalie was correct in thinking that it would look best on a four year old. Maggie wore that and her tiara. What a princess.



Natalie cooked a wonderful dinner of grilled vegetables and Hawaiian marinated beef. The focal point was the lemon pudding cake. Natalie once asked us all what our favorites were. The only one we remember is - what is your favorite dessert. Mine is lemon pudding cake. It wasn't on the menu for the dinner at Ramekins, but Natalie decided we had to have it for my birthday. It was beautiful and tasted great.

A Reason to Celebrate

♫I just want to celebrate, another day of life♪

But some days require just a little bit more celebrating than others. This Saturday, therefore this extended weekend, will be just one of those “days”. I’m having a little birthday celebration in Sonoma, CA with most of my family. Here’s the agenda:

Thursday – Adrian and I drive north and pick up lugs of stone fruit (peaches, plums, nectarines) to share with family. Staying with my nephew Kevin, Natalie and Maggie in Fremont.

Friday – All but Kevin leave after rush hour to drive to Sonoma. We’ll be meeting my brother Eric and Cindy in Sonoma for lunch. We will find a chocolate shop that is owned by Jack (please, don’t ask this relationship)’s cousin. Ummm, chocolate.
Then to my sister Karen and Peter’s weekend residence to meet up with the rest of the family for wine and visiting. They are staying at a winery! Is that not too cool?
Nephew Mark and Trina arranged dinner in Sonoma for most. Some will be staying at the winery because they have ALL the children and they will need to rest up for the next day.
My brothers and I will be staying at the cooking school that night. Ramekin’s beautiful and has a great B&B upstairs. Jeff and Sandi are flying up from San Diego. Eric and Cindy fly in from D.C. Eric’s 3 adult children will be staying at a small, cute hotel in town. Besides Mark, there will be Chris and Gabriella and Tara and Ivan.

Saturday – This is the birth day. Everyone is coming to Ramekins to cook lunch. My niece Julie and Adam will be there with their boys, Palmer and Torin. Palmer is 7 and will be my cooking partner. I am very excited about this. This is what they will be cooking:

Valley of the Moon Spring

GrandeProsciutto and Basil Wrapped Shrimp with Garlic Dipping Sauce

Wild Mushroom Quesadillas with Smoked Poblano Pesto

Pear Gorgonzola Salad with a Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette

Grilled Hanger Steak with Salsa Verde

Roasted Garlic and Chive Mashed Potatoes

Spring Vegetable Ragout

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisps with Cinnamon Sauce Anglaise

We will be going out to dinner that night, although I just really can’t imagine being hungry. I guess we’ll have to just drink.


But wait, it isn’t over yet


Sunday – Cindy and I are Peju Winery club members. I can’t imagine how she found this place in D.C. We will be tasting wine there and will try to emulate a favorite Tuscan experience of mine. I had cheeses, salumi, bread and such with wine while at visiting a couple of years ago. I decided at that time that wine goes best with food and that was the best way to do a tasting.
Probably a stop at Karen and Pete’s in Albany, then back to Kevin and Natalie’s to play with Maggie. I’m taking Monday and Tuesday off.

To synopsize:
Thursday – drive eat
Friday – eat drink eat
Saturday – cook eat eat
Sunday – drink eat drive

Yup, on Monday we all all be singing the hang over blues.

A Good Story, Well Told

The people I lunch with at The Times hate it when I’m in the middle of a good non-fiction book. The books take forever to read. As the painful process goes on and I get more absorbed in whatever story is unfolding, it is all I can talk about. I’ve been able to control myself fairly well with my Demon book, “The Demon Under the Microscope.” I still have 4 hours left, however many pages that is. The connections to other flotsam floating around in my brain is causing overload.

I loved Chemistry in high school. I wanted to be a lab tech, but found out you work alone and have no one to talk to. What a bore. Of course, that was before CSI and the knowledge that you get to look through microscopes and carry a gun. Now that would have been fun. One day when my mother and I were in the car, I was telling her about the wonders of the carbon chain and how you could tell so much about the composition of the compounds just by their names. Jabber, jabber, jabber. It was thrilling to me. Then I lost my chemistry book and had to learn everything from lectures and an adorable lab partner. But that’s a different non-fiction story.

The Demon book is about the discovery of how sulfur can be used to cure strep related illnesses. Probably more types of illness, but that may be told in the last 4 hours. How bad were these illnesses? Thousands of women dying of child-birth fever; more people dying of infections after an operation than were helped by the operation. This book tells a good story. The author makes it very clear how dangerous life was before these cures were discovered. Little Calvin Coolidge jr. was running across the White House lawn in tennis shoes without socks. Got a blister, it became infected, he died. And then the stories of all the women who went into “lying in” hospitals to have their babies. They may as well have just slit their throats.

Then the synapses in my brain started to connect to stories I’d heard when I was a kid. What about Cinderella’s mother? She pricked her finger and died! Same thing almost happened to one of the researcher’s children. She broke a needle in her finger and almost died, but was cured by a sulfa compound. And I remembered hearing my parents and neighbor talking about a famous singer who had an injury in her leg and the “whatever” spread to her heart and she died. Man, I lived in horror of having a leg injury. But it was probably pre-sulfa and she had an infection.

Then there is the political intrigue of this book. The discovery was made in Hitler’s Germany, pre-war. Patents are involved, money to be made. The Franco-German rivalry plays a part in this story. Keeping Jews out of the lab; testing on animals is frowned on by Hitler, he calls it a Jewish tactic. Yes, that man was insane. The release to the public of these wonder drugs was delayed for years because the Germans were afraid of losing their patent, which only covered the process, not the drug. The French knew that and exploited it to their advantage. Maybe in the last 4 hours, Hitler stomps the French to get even.

This type of story combines all my favorite genres: mystery, history, science, biography. If any of those interest you, this is a good book. And the science is presented very clearly. You don’t have to worry about the author assuming any prior knowledge about chemistry. Just don't lose the book, because I don't think they make cute lab partners anymore who will share theirs.