July is for Birthdays

We start with mother, move to Jeff, then comes Maysen, and finally Brian. There is cake around all month. The banner never comes down. Mother enjoys chocolate so this is hers. We turned it into a three-layer majesty. Her frosting was half room temp sour cream, half room temp melted chocolate chips. Don't make me repeat this. Let it be the key to your success in life. You will never regret it, unless your name is Brian. Jeff requested lemon poppyseed so I trusted a tried and true girl and went with this one. Another upside to this recipe was ridding my mother of two cans of rancid poppyseeds. Never buy these in bulk. It will not pay. Donn and Nancy left today. We enjoyed several recipes with them and also for 4th of July. They are potato salad, coleslaw, and apple pie. Brian looks forward to his Albertson's sheet cake: vanilla with vanilla custard.

Year One

We did almost everything on our list. What was not done: a nighttime walk at the beach and remaking a flat apple pie. Jeffy is very open to a "new possible favorite" so we went to Bangkok Bay in Solana Beach for dinner on Saturday, our anniversary to the day. We celebrate the day of our second date, not the day we met, or our first date. It was a mutual decision. I ordered red curry with tofu. He ordered Bangkok fried rice with squid. We started with chicken satay. It was quite lovely and our evening was very much in focus though this image is not.

It's a shame you can't see my outfit. It was cute especially in the daylight. Before dinner, we had a few spoonfuls of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup and Mint Cookie something or other. For his stay, we had two nights at my place and two nights at Gloria's neighbor's house. It was ideal to have a mix and a good time was had by all. We made a crock-pot meal on Sunday, a hoisin beef stew. Sadly, we ate the leftovers of the Thai before eating the stew. A comparison was rough. After not enough sleep for three nights, I began to wane on Sunday, perking up when Jeffy revealed he had M&Ms in his car. I envisioned a pocket-sized bag. My face lit up. My spirit lifted. He went on to say it was a 3-lb bag. I remember something high-pitched coming from my person. I was redeemed by the mere thought. We watched 1/2 of Chocolat that evening and he left before the sun on Monday. I slept a good long time.

A Fling for Spring

We had a fling this weekend. Jeff came for a good time and it was had by all. He drove down on Friday, joining me at work for the last few hours. He came to the temple on Saturday morning and we loved being there again. The rest of the weekend was made of quality time: long walks (day and night), church fun, and eating. In fact, he told me when he called on the drive home last night that the meals were a highlight. In addition to the other stuff that is. One of my favorite moments of the weekend was when he described to Cami how easy the apple pie was to make. Clearly, neither of them had ever made an apple pie and I chortled without ceasing. He lamented how long dough takes to make (I tried the TJs pie crust and recommend emphatically) and proceeded to list what goes in the pie, stopping after apples. Quite the time, my friends, quite the time.

Saturday saw us making meatloaf sandwiches. I will again state I am not a carnivore. But, I had made Lenny Schwartz's Market Street huge meatloaf on Thursday and had always heard tell of the appeal of a sandwich. I ended up using whole wheat kaiser rolls, havarti, and spreading mayo and mustard. We (ok, I) heated the loaf slices in a pan to warm and brown. Taken with Lay's Kettle Chips and veggie sticks. On Sunday morning we made sour cream pancakes (two pans going . . . it was fast and fun). Sunday evening we shredded pork from the daylong simmering crock-pot for Chile Verde. We were true to form, using a tortilla. The blessed tortilla. It is so precious.