Elkit in Wonderland

Closest Thing to Heaven

At The French Laundry, originally uploaded by elkit.

My best friend Holly and I took Friday off and drove up to Yountville in Napa Valley, for a lunch at the famed French Laundry, considered by many to be the finest restaurant in the country. I tried very hard not to expect the best meal of my life - just a good meal well worth the experience. And I figured that if anything would turn out less than wonderful, at least I would be able to say I'd been there, and now I knew what it was like.

But you know what? It really WAS the best meal I have ever had, and I have a hard time trying to tell you what the best thing was, or which course I liked best.

It was the most expensive meal I have ever had (it's a ten-course prix fixe meal, and costs $240 per person), but it was honestly worth every penny. The service was impeccable. Classy and not snooty at all. Everybody made us feel welcome, and the staff took such excellent care of us that I wanted to marry at least three of the gentlemen on the spot. We showed up at 11am, were led gently and professionally without a rush through all the courses, and left full (but not overstuffed) and happy around 2:30.

The dish in this picture is well worth mentioning: Santa Barbara sea urchin with black truffle "pain perdu", tokyo turnips, granny smith apple (those pale green pearls), mizuna, and sauce périgourdine. I keep thinking of how this tasted. I've never had fresh sea urchin before, which was one of the reasons I picked this course over the other fish option, the bass. The orange bits are the urchin, and oh wow, it was like a mouthful of ocean become flesh. It was wondrously delicious, and this alone was worth the drive.

What a meal!

*sigh*

I'm still swooning. [Oh, and here's more pornographic pictures and details for all you foodies.]

Everyboy Here Wants You

Cake or Death?, originally uploaded by elkit.

The Food Librarian made me do it. She said it's Bundt Cake Day today, so I made a Bundt Cake today. We picked the Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lime Glaze, which turned out really yummy, even though the tips got a little blackened.

Building A Mystery

The headline says, "Sweden returns skulls to Hawaii". I am going to enjoy wondering what it all means, and not knowing, rather than reading the article. 

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven Day Weekend

Mine is not seven days long. But four ain't bad at all. I took today and Monday off, so I could bracket my weekend retreat nicely and stress-free. I'm cleaning up around the house and in the yard, and after lunch time, I'll take off for Santa Cruz, where I will spend the weekend a half dozen intrepid NaNoWriMo veterans. Rob found us a great house on Black's Beach, and we'll write and write and eat and drink and have a good time. 

Don't let me forget to pack my Bundt pan, the flour sifter, and the zester. The Food Librarian declared Sunday Bundt Cake Day, and who am I to protest? There were several votes for the Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lime Glaze, so that's what it'll be. It also meant that I could snatch limes from my neighbors' tree as I dropped off the winter seedlings on their patio table: purple kohlrabi, shelling peas, broccolini, and a cluster of spindly leeks that were tested and declared edible my Ms. Maia. Her thinking seemed to be that it looked close enough to cat grass. I may plant more leeks for her. Good on her for eating her veggies.

Random trivia tidbit: a Bundt cake in German is called a Guglhupf [Google-hoopf]. 

The Good Old Days

Monday Music for you: Weird Al Yankovic and The Roots, Good Old Days. Found this because Weird Al twote it.

Ell Oh Ell Oh Lola

I attended two Yale literature lectures today. They're from the course "The American Novel since 1945", and I watched two of them on the internet, thanks to Academic Earth. 

I think I'll try to finish this course, and definitely check out the lectures about Cormac McCarthy (whom I still haven't read). Of all the novels the course covers, I have only read one. Hrmpf.

We Don't Need No (13/2009)

Hadn't been to the movies in quite a while, and then I read the A.V. Club interview with Alfred Molina and remembered that Peter Sarsgaard was in this movie, and I didn't have any candy for trick or treaters, and running off to the movie theatre would be a good idea. 

I liked it a lot - especially Peter Sarsgaard; he has that look of almost harmlessness, but you always wonder what's lurking under the surface -, and I kept thinking there was something familiar about it, until I finally remembered that I had read about this in The Guardian a few months back. 

As usual, I couldn't possibly say it better than Roger Ebert.

Ashes To Ashes

Tea bags. Egg shells. Veggie scraps. Potato peels. Paper receipts. Cat hair. Coffee grounds. Apple cores. Leftover noodles. Stale bread. Fallen leaves. Twigs. Egg cartons. Yellowing salad greens. 

I Like Dirt I Like Dirt I Like Dirt

Monday Music for you: Red Hot Chili Peppers and I Like Dirt, from a Rockpalast concert in Germany. I know they're not singing about gardening, but this is what I hum when I dig around in the back yard. 

I Sleep All Night, And I Work All Day

Here's what I did this week:

• worked
• ate lots of snacks
• worked more
• watched loads and loads of Monty Python programming on IFC, which is why I keep singing the Lumberjack Song
• slept very well

And this weekend is mostly spent in the backyard, with brief excursions online to blog, pay bills, and tend my virtual farms in Farmtown and Farmville. I did my gardening math homework, made a shopping list and went to the farm and feed store, where I bought such lovely items as

• worm poop
• blood meal
• bone meal 
• Sustane organic fertilizer
• diatomaceous earth (took me a minute to type that correctly)
• humate soil conditioner, to loosen the brick factory clay that is my backyard
• and six huge bags of compost

Came back home with all these goodies, and set my seedlings out into the wonderful October sunshine. Reseeded the dead spots in the lawn, broke down the summer veggies' raised bed, and picked a bucket of apples. Left to do today and tomorrow: set up a new raised bed with all the freshly purchased goodies, transplant the seedlings from the seed tray into their own pots, and add compost and fertilizer to the strips of dirt in front of the house, all the while thoroughly ruining what's left of my manicure.