No Time for Us

Last weekend's activities review:

Saturday we got up at 8:30, early for us, and "rushed" to Mission Gorge for Oak Canyon and Grassland hikes. It happened to be "Mission Trail Days" and very busy.

We had been waiting for this section to open for a while, so it's quite exciting to explore new territories. However, the beauty was destroyed by fires last October and we could only image what it might be like. Brushes and grass grew back next to charred remains. The nature had such amazing self-healing power, which always moved me so profoundly. I remember the first time we visited Mt St Helens National Monument and witnessed the transformation 20 years after the disaster.

So much to explore yet so little time. We also planned to make it to the precious one-hour lap swim time at 12:30pm. By 12 pm, we had to turn around and on the way returning to the parking lot, we saw a tiny snake with brown spots on its yellow belly and green back, which was the first time we had encountered with any no-legged reptile in the park.

We were supposed to do laundry this weekend but I just couldn't drag myself to do that. Instead we hung out at a Kensington coffee shop for a while. John really craved for Bordeaux then we drove all the way to Vintage Wines in Miramar for 4 bottles of reds. Grocery shopping came next.

By the time we got home, it's 7:30.

I had copied down a pork chop recipe from Bon Appetite, which I thought it was Bordeaux style. It turned out to be Burgundy. On top of that the potatoes we had at home went bad. Just great! I couldn't make the dinner as planned. But I'm always very resourceful. I decided to take the "stew-like" cooking technique from the Burgundy recipe and fixed up the chops with pearl onions, a Red Delicious Tamyra gave me on Friday, some Bordeaux wine, then paired with buttery wild rice pilaf.

The result was awesome though our dinner started nearly at 10 pm. John asked me what style of food that was? What would I know? He said it could be German. Whatever it was, I might not be able to re-create again. The chops didn't go with Bordeaux but better with Duck Pond Pinot Noir (Oregon) we had. I wondered if Burgundy would a better choice of wine? The only (red) Burgundy we had contained less smokiness than Oregon Pinot and more delicate. It could be the match.

Both of us got so tired that we didn't even have energy to watch TV.

+++

Sunday, main activity was to attend "Sicilian Festival" in Little Italy.

In the morning, John cooked up his famous pancake-omelet breakfast. Afterwards, he dropped me off at the laundromat and went to Hillcrest Farmer's Market for more fresh produce. Quite disappointingly, he bought only 2 unripe avocados and a bag of salad mix.

We arrived in the Sicilian Fest scene around 2 pm. John was hoping to find the octopus salad he enjoyed so much from last October's event. Sure enough, Zagarella's Restaurant set out a stand selling octopus salad, fried calamari, pasta, etc. We had one order of octopus and calamari each. Later, I had to try some homemade gnocchi in Alfredo sauce and ravioli (half moon shape) in marinara sauce from Buon Appetito (caf�). John bought a cannoli without hesitation. By this time, I was stuffed.

It's very hard to resist gelato once we saw someone eating it. Then we went to Cafe Zucchero (the dissert side) for some Italian ice cream.

Needless to say, I was in pain after the gelato. Why did I overeat like this?

The festival was nothing like Little Italy Festa in October. The cultural performances were great but the arts and crafts vendors were ordinary. We seriously came here for a late lunch (and too much of it). Honestly, Little Italy Festa was unparallel and Chalk La Strada simply can't be missed. For a Little Italy affair, come October. You didn't miss much in Sicilian Festival.

On our way back to the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of Star of India. It would be fun to take a look at that antique ship. We changed course and headed the harbor. We hadn't been toured around the Bay much, thus it's a good time for sight seeing.

The entire afternoon excursion was done in 3 hours. We made it back to Horton Plaza and got out at the last minute of our free 3-hour parking.

Caribbean jerked chicken was supposed to be John's contribution for the night. His sister had given us a bag of spices she brought back from a recent Belize diving trip. He planned to make it this weekend. The chicken should be marinated with those spices for 12 hours. Saturday night he re-read the instructions and found too time consuming than he had thought. He gave up the jerked chicken idea but we didn't further discuss what to do with already thawed poultry.

Again, it's up to me to save the day. I turned it into an herbed garlic chicken fettuccine dish. Not bad, eh?

Sunday night was always a stressful time. We had wine to relax but it didn't help much. Before bedtime, exhausted, we both realized that we should mail out some bills and pack lunch for Monday.

So much we had done and so much fun we had in two days. We didn't have time for us, to be intimate.