for reasons unexplained, she loved the monkey man

Today is the engineer's birthday. And while I can't be with him to celebrate, I've been reminiscing about the birthday trip we took last year.

The Florida Keys are all spectacularly beautiful, but one in particular is near and dear to my heart. Bahia Honda is unique in that the entire key is a state park. Which means no tacky tourist places, no high-rises on the beach, and lots of camp sites.

Not to mention the fact that it's a (sub-) tropical paradise.

The water is crystal clear and comes in about a thousand shades of turquoise.

The beaches are white sand (although a little heavy on the seaweed last year, darn hurricanes).

And there's no shortage of shady palms to relax under.

And it's only a short trip over the causeway to Key West if you really need your tourist trap fix. (The shiny new causeway on the left, which doesn't have giant holes in it, I swear.)

It's pretty much the most restful vacation spot ever.

Don't you want to find out for yourself?

i don't care if i'm a guilty pleasure for you

After Dad and I went to Chez Panisse for lunch the other day, we headed off down the street in search of somewhere he had seen some time previously.

The Cheese Board.

The Cheese Board is a collective, owned and operated by local dairy farmers and cheesemakers. Now, I love cheese, and I like to imagine that I've tried a fair few in my time, but I hadn't even heard of 3/4 of the cheeses available here.

After much consultation with one of the cheese experts behind the counter, we got a tellegio, a gran cru, a vasterböttenöst, a bleu d'auvergne, and some buratta. We had them for dinner with a crusty bread and some lovely red wine and it was spectacular. So if you're looking to expand your cheese knowledge, I can't think of a better place to go.

Do it. You'll thank me.

hang on little tomato

So I'll be the first to admit that my Dad and I are two of a kind.

And what that means is that when he comes to visit, we go hunting for good food. Which today led us to Chez Panisse, in Berkeley.

It's a small, quiet sort of place. The decorating is dark and sparse, with some fresh flowers and fruit for color.

You can see back into the kitchen, where the chefs work their magic.

We shared the antipasti of roasted chicories, prosciutto, spicy celery root salad, and broccoli toast.

Dad had the grilled California white sea bass with cannellini beans, chard, Meyer lemon, and savory.

I went for the chicken roasted in the wood oven with black olives, potatoes au gratin, and some kind of green that I wish I could remember the name of because it was amazing.

The food was delicious and we had a great time.

Everything is a little pricy, but if it's a special occasion and you find yourself in Berkeley, I recommend trying to get a reservation here. You just might get lucky.

an illustrated book about birds

I've been absent for a bit because I'm with my engineer for too few days, as usual. But, seeing as it's Valentine's Day, I just wanted to share the love.

Valentine's Day gets a bad rap. It is indeed a holiday much beloved by the greeting card and teddy bear industries. It is also the day that the poor excuses for significant others use as a get-out-of-jail-free card. But if you aren't shelling out wads of cash for another singing teddy bear, and are in a loving relationship every other day of the year as well, I see no problem with taking one day to focus on the people you love.

So share the love. With your boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses and parents and siblings and best friends. Because life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. (Kahlil Gibran)

Be excellent to each other.

heads i tell the truth and tails i lie

So, it's been one of those weeks.

And by "those weeks", I mean a 5 day period that has left you exhausted, with a sink full of dirty dishes, and a post-it note reminding you to be in a murderous rage the next time you regain consciousness.

Other people have those too, right?

Right?

So here is my favorite pick-me-up. And rage-me-down. It's simple, delicious, and alcoholic enough to make you want to be kinder to your fellow man.

The Moscow Mule:

Take a tall glass, add a few cubes of ice, the juice of one lime, a shot of vodka, and top with ginger ale. That's all there is to it, folks.

You can even print it out.

Catch you on the flip side.

fancy poultry parts sold here

I cheated.

And I have no regrets.

But please, allow me to explain myself.

I'm a southern girl at heart. Iced tea runs in my veins and I can y'all with the best of them. My grandmother will feed you no matter what time you show up at her house and I've had my heart blessed by more relatives than I care to list. As a result, some of my worst vices involve my beloved southern restaurants. Cracker Barrel (okra and biscuits *swoon*), Sonny's (I get my fix of their Sizzlin' Sweet BBQ sauce in care packages from home), and... Chick-fil-a.

Chick-fil-a was the highlight of my every childhood shopping trip. They tout themselves as the inventors of the chicken sandwich, and even if that isn't true, I think there is something to be said for a company that even McDonald's has tried to imitate. They serve chicken in about a dozen different ways, and all of them are delicious.

But it isn't all about the chicken. It's all about the waffle fries.

Somehow the waffle fries are everything a french fry should be. Crispy, greasy, salty... despite being cooked with no trans fats. These will haunt your dreams, I promise. No other french fry will quite fulfill the waffle fry craving.

The same goes for the lemonade. (The little LEM button is down!)

While this picture clearly doesn't do this nectar-of-the-gods justice, no picture could. This lemonade is a poem. Tart, sweet, made with real lemons and sugar, everything that powdered dreck dreams of being. I know this sounds ridiculous, but trust me, one sip and you'll be hooked for life.

And now for the greatest of my indiscretions. The spicy chicken wrap. Yes. Chicken. As in, meat. Perfectly seasoned, tender meat, wrapped in a whole wheat wrap with fresh vegetables. But meat nonetheless. (The grilled chicken totally makes up for the fries. Right? Right?)

And this, my friends, is why I am "mostly" vegetarian. Sometimes I just can't deny the cravings. And since this fits in with my reasons for being a vegetarian anyway (a topic for another day), I'll be honest. I sometimes don't fight them very hard.

And while I'm not fighting them, I'm putting spicy dressing on my wrap. Because it would be a crime if I didn't.

And save some of that spicy stuff for your fries. You won't have any regrets either. I promise.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter

So I know that my posting has been a little lame of late, this has been a busy winter. My family came to see me for Christmas, which was a lot of fun, but very action-packed. And now I have my engineer for a few days.

He hadn't seen snow since he was a kid, so I took him up to Lake Tahoe.

It was supposed to begin blizzard-ing any minute, and the skies were definitely stormy. But the lake was beautiful, frozen, and serene. The engineer loved it.

He was also impressed by the mountains in the distance. They don't have those where he comes from.

We had intended to sled and make snow angels, but we made footprint art instead.

And an itsy-bitsy snowman.

I hope your holidays were as happy as mine!