Good food = Best medicine

I wasn't feeling well today, and stayed home from work so I could herbal/vitamin-supplement myself back to normal. As I tend to do when I'm putt-putting aimlessly around with no agenda &/or feeling under the weather, I decided to spend the afternoon doing what I do best: making dishes from our abundant Terra Firma Farm produce. We were overloaded with basil, garlic, walnuts, and apples, so I made some pesto and an apple pie.





For dinner, we had mushroom tortellini with fresh Basil-Walnut pesto and sliced Brandywine, Marvel Stripe, and Lemon Boy tomatoes, and warm Gala Apple pie for dessert. Happy Tuesday!

Haute Dawgs

Lauren and Charles held a DIY Hot Dog Barbecue Party at their place today. Lauren has her own successful catering business (she makes a kickass award-winning chocolate-chipotle chili), and she put together some creative gourmet twists on these regular old turkey franks.



Ahhhh so many fond memories of partying with our girl Lauren. It's no surprise why we love her so.


More pics HERE. Congratulations to Charles and Lauren on your engagement!

Saturday Night Chicken Adobo

One of our favoritest joints of all time, Rick's Aloha, was a Hawaiian restaurant in the Sunset District within walking distance from our house. We spent many a Friday night knocking back a few pints, wailing on their makeshift karaoke stage, and cheering along with the rowdy regulars. Rick's closed last November 2008 after a couple decades of operation, and as we went through a period of mourning, we also waited impatiently for what would open in its place.

The Parkside Tavern finally opened a few days ago. Has the same owners as Foley's Irish Pub downtown, with an interesting menu featuring "upscale" pub food. Hmmmm. That's good news for my dad, who now can get his steak dinner fix a few blocks away.

So we checked it out after work on Friday. Boy was this place SLAMMED on its opening weekend! We said hello to former Rick's Aloha bartender Jason, who was hanging out at the other end of the bar. We spotted a couple other folks from the old Rick's karaoke crew. We noticed a lot of older folks like our table neighbors, very casually dressed down, who were also former Rick's regulars checking the new joint out too. In all the madness, our server forgot our order, and eventually forgot about us, leading to an unhappy word with the manager, who comped our entire meal. It was actually pretty delish, and we understood it was a crazy night for the staff, so giving us this freebie was very cool on their part.

We then strolled back home, stopping by The Spot Lounge for more booze. The beer was fine, but the soju was our downfall. Doing shots with one of the owners, yikes. This morning, I had one of the most brutal hangovers I've had in years. YEARS, mind you.

Which brings me to the topic of this post: Chicken adobo. After eventually getting back to a semi-queasy normalcy in the afternoon, I needed to make something comforting and hearty (and easy!) for tonight's dinner. I also considered arroz caldo, but Russell helped me settle on adobo. Which was perfect, since I had been craving this since I started following The Adobo Hobo on Twitter.

Throw it all in a pot

Terra Firma Farm heirloom tomatoes

Lookin good, smellin good

Time to eat!

Ukelele all-a dayday

Some friends spent the weekend with us in San Francisco for some nonstop ukulele madness

Mando+Linda

Russell, Corser, and I drove down to LA and kicked it at my sister Isa's & Jay's swank new place in Toluca Lake over the weekend. We were attending the wedding of our buddy Armando and his ladylove Linda, who got hitched this past Saturday, July 27. The wedding ceremony and dinner reception took place at the beautiful Ambassador Campus in Pasadena.

Click HERE to see a few pics from our camera.


Here's a peek at Armando from the archives:


Felicidades, Mando y Linda!

Jammin 'Cots

Our friends Tony & Asuncion have a prolific apricot tree in their backyard which is just sagging with fruit. They can't give away their apricots fast enough, and we saw bushels of the almost-ripe fruit covering the branches. We managed to take home a bagful (shoulda taken more, dangit!), and I made some apricot-lime jam with our loot. I didn't want a sweet jam, and using a judicious amount of sugar with juices/zest of 2 limes resulted in some amazing tart-yet-fruity-sweet jam, thick and luscious like lemon curd. This stuff was heavenly on thin-sliced toast, and even better on Kashi TLC crackers with cream cheese. Now I want to try it with some chevre, or on top of cheesecake, ice cream, or waffles...

Garden of Eatin

We spent Sunday afternoon gawking at our friends Tung & Lisa's backyard garden in San Leandro, which they've been attending to all summer. It's their first garden in their first year at their first house, and it's growing like gangbusters.

In one corner of the yard, they are growing different kinds of tomatoes, Chinese gourd squashes, cucumbers, melons, eggplants, snap peas, and various Vietnamese herbs & mints.

And along the fence, they've got several hot chili pepper & bell pepper plants, different basils and more herbs, a row of corn, and and apple tree.

Lisa's kids Nathan and Isabelle are enthusiastic gardeners and veggie eaters too. Seeing them care for the plants, talk so enthusiastically about their gardening, and munching down heartily on the healthy food harvested from their back yard is just the coolest thing ever. Tung generously gave us a little chili pepper plant to take home (along with his instructions), and we hope that it survives the cold San Francisco beachside weather.