That night was very fun. Hope we can do it again some time soon.

We got into NJ (my parents’ house) around 2am last night and crashed into bed after some hugs and story telling. I still managed to get up in time for 10am meeting this morning though. It was nice to see some old familiar faces and meet some new people. I also took a walk through Yardley (where meeting is; it’s right across the river in PA) and scoped out a yoga studio. I’m not sure how long I’ll be in this area so I don’t know if it’s worth it to get a card.

My dad made us French toast this morning; no picture. It was fabulous. Some other good eats of the day…

A ham and swiss sandwich (with a little bit of mayo and mustard) on Nature’s Pride Nutty Oat bread (freebie from the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival). This bread isn’t actually available yet but it’s coming out soon. It was so good. I loved it. I will definitely buy it when they release it in stores.

My mom made Vegan Dad’s Burgundy Stew for dinner. It was pretty good. I de-veganized it with parmesan. I don’t think she made any significant changes to the recipe but I’m not sure.

Lots of other yummy eats today, but I’ve been spending time with my family and not worrying too much about foodie pictures. I got to take a long walk with Julia and Bobby this afternoon (and Benji the psycho dog). It’s so nice to be back in NJ (soon NYC).

What do you do when you visit your hometown? I like to eat at my favorite restaurants and spend time with my family and friends. We sit around chatting about nothing but it’s a great way to just sit around enjoying life. Happy Monday! (Or Sunday night, if you’re up this late.)

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• March 20, 2009 -- Sleeping in again, apartment, yummy yoga, & oats
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• Driving in a car with 2 cats is not always fun. But I still love our little monsters.
• Arizona is too cool for daylight saving time.
• McDonald’s is gross.
• Dairy Queen is pretty cool.
• Things always take longer than you planned.

Breakfast – a few warren pears from Frog Hollow Farms (samples from this weekend). They’re almost too ripe at this point, so I wanted to use them up.

Snacks throughout the day – more pears.

Lunch – Southwest chicken salad from McDonald’s. Not very good! I am not a McDonald’s fan. There are many other better fast food salads out there. I also snagged some of Bobby’s fries. They were gross.

1st Dinner (7pm) – a side salad and a grilled chicken ranch wrap from Dairy Queen. This wrap was fantastic – yummy cheddar, creamy ranch, and a nice piece of grilled chicken on a tortilla.

2nd Dinner (11pm) – a shared grand slam with Bobby from Denny’s. We got hash browns, eggs sunny side up, hearty whole wheat pancakes, a biscuit, and turkey bacon. Both the bacon and the pancakes were “healthier” options on the menu. Bobby had all of the hash browns. I had most of the pancakes, some of the biscuit, some eggs, and 1 of the bacons. I heart Denny’s.

We are staying at a Motel 6 in Kingman, AZ. Anyone ever been there? I think we might get Denny’s for breakfast tomorrow, too… I plan on keeping it a little lighter (probably just a huge bowl of oats).

Off to get some rest and get ready for more driving tomorrow… I’m gonna try to get a massage out of Bobby. Happy Tuesday!

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Brandi‘s Stuffed French Toast:

Sabrina‘s Egg White Veggie Frittata Muffins:

Frog Hollow Farm‘s dried fruits (and Warren pears! So amazing).

Frog Hollow Farm also had a variety of chutneys and conserves, which were incredible. This was my favorite booth of the afternoon.

Some kind of shrimp and scallop ceviche from Fuego (can’t find a link):

A cool table with non-traditional shortbread made by Botanical Bakery:

Handmade marshmallows (pumpkin was one of the flavors) by Gateau et Ganache:

Chocolate covered nuts. I brought some of these home for Bobby and he has been calling them "poo balls". They are delicious despite their odd nickname.

My favorite candy of the day, made by Nina. Her Single Malt Scotch Bar was awesome.

Annie the Baker‘s cookies. Amazingly buttery and delicious. They tasted just like cookie dough.

p.o.p. candy‘s toffee – I had so much of the chai one. It had nuts and dried fruit.

Yummy (and pretty) chocolates.

Fabulous spreads.

479 Popcorn. My favorite was the curry (odd because I don’t like Indian food).

My other favorite dish of the day – Vineyard Pantry‘s Autumn Savory Tartlets (little pastry filled with wild rice, butternut squash, blue cheese mustard, cheese, and more). I can’t wait to experiment with their products.

A crazy cool beet meringue goat cheese savory dessert thing. It was a work of art (and quite tasty).

Olives.

Shannon‘s savory bread pudding.

I still have pictures from dinner, but I’ll save them. I met so many amazing people, including Emily from Foodzie – what a cool woman. That is a company I would love to work for.

A big thanks to FOODBUZZ for an amazing weekend.

In other news… wish me luck – we’re moving this week. (We’re taking off Tuesday instead of Monday.) Road trip from Sunnyvale to Princeton with two cats. Will be interesting.

Happy Monday! (Or Sunday, if you’re up late.) What did you do this weekend?

Like this post? Check out...

• November 8, 2009 -- Foodbuzz Festival Day 2: Hearts
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• September 24, 2009 -- Cheesy Roasted Veggies
• September 28, 2010 -- Tea Time and Relaxation

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Tonight we drove up to San Francisco for the first Foodbuzz Festival event. The welcome reception was from 5-7pm at the Hotel Vitale. This wasn’t the main food event of the day, but they did have two cool appetizers: gruyere gougeres with bacon and mascarpone and pork rillettes. They were provided by midi.

I tried the rilletes. Pretty good, but kind of salty. I didn’t try the puff things, but they looked cool.

After the reception we headed over to the Ferry Building for an amazing dinner event. Foodbuzz rented out a portion of the building and had restaurants serving food all the way down the alley.

As soon as we entered I saw mini cupcakes, and I couldn’t resist. Dessert first! I tried the pumpkin cupcake, but they also had red velvet, chocolate cinnamon, and an almond flavored one. I had an almond one on my way out for my real dessert. These were provided by Mission Minis.

I also tried this delicious vanilla bean ice cream by Straus Family Creamery. Awesome.

Then it was time for some real food. I had a bean burrito from Tacolicious. It wasn’t that good. I wanted chicken, but they were out. They had cool shirts though.

I also tried these savory vegetarian and meat pies from Pie Truck. Pretty yummy!

And a raw oyster from Hog Island Oyster Co…. awesome.

I passed on these chicharrones (fried pork chips) but they were cool looking. From 4505 Meats.

Alive had a selection of raw foods – 2 raw pizzas and raw cheesecake. These were okay. Not my favorite, to be honest.

The best items of the night: Spencer on the Go‘s Beet Salad with blue cheese and "far west fungi vol au vent" (creamy mushrooms on top of a puff thing). I went back for seconds on both of these.

Then there was some incredible thin crust pizza from Pizza Politana. This was the best pizza I’ve had outside of Italy and New York. And I didn’t think I was a pizza person.

Lastly, there was a cool pork sandwich and potatoes from Roli Roti. This seemed to be really popular with other bloggers, but I thought it was just okay.

They had this funny shirt: "I heart Crispy Skin". (TWSS? Not.)

My favorite of the night was absolutely the mushroom dish from Spencer on the Go (second favorite was their beet salad). Holy amazing yum. On the way out I snagged some more ice cream and the almond cupcake.

Don’t worry, I didn’t finish everything pictured. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow… Happy Saturday!

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After the capital building we got lunch at a local diner-ey place. It was called Pancake Circus. It was on a top 50 list of things to do in Sacramento. I love diner food, so I’m really glad we went.

My camera managed to eat the one picture I got of my awesome meal – a belgian pancake topped with tons of whipped cream and a large fruit salad. So freakin’ good.

Bobby got a breakfast-y dish – eggs, hash browns, ham, 2 big pancakes (unpictured), and a biscuit (unpictured).

My dad got the lunch special – a “chicken parmesan” sandwich (which was not what you’d think – it was just chicken and bacon on bread grilled with parm) and sweet potato fries.

I so wish that I had a picture of the waffle – you couldn’t even see it because there was so much whipped cream (which I finished).

Tonight we got Sweet Tomatoes for dinner – my favorite. I’m super stuffed, but happy.

Off to watch 30 Rock with my dad… tonight is his last night

Happy Tuesday! (Or Monday night, if you’re up late.)

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• 10 standing lunges
• 10 walking lungues
• 10 pushups
• 1 lap around the park (< quarter mile?)

Repeat 3 times.

We also walked to and from the park, so I’d add at least another quarter mile to that. It took about 40 minutes total. I think my time for the 3 cycles was about 10 minutes, but we did stretching before and I’m also counting the walking time. During the day I walked a lot (shopping) and I think I did some of the DVF exercises in the morning.

Wednesday I did the Diane von Furstenburg exercises again. I love these. They are so simple. I did most of them while watching “Faces of Culture“, a video series that I have to watch for one of my anthropology classes. I also walked 2 miles – 1 mile each way to and from the grocery store.

Here are some foods I’ve been meaning to share. Kabocha with goat cheese (why not? It works with parm).

A “grilled” (waffle iron grill) sandwich with a chicken burger from Trader Joe’s, alfalfa sprouts (alfa-alfa is what Bobby calls these), and some cheddar. Lightly buttered on the outside for crispiness.

A classic bowl of oat bran. Oat bran, ground flax, coconut flakes, protein powder, cinnamon, vanilla, salt (always). Topped (post-picture) with real maple syrup. Real maple syrup appears on all of my oat bran bowls now. It is a staple. This bowl was put in the freezer for 10+ minutes after cooking.

Do you have a “staple” food? Mine is certainly kabocha, all the darn time. Others that make frequent appearances include oat bran, homemade ketchup, and stir-frys. Nut butters go in and out, depending on how I feel. Recently I have been rather obsessed with burdock as well.

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• November 3, 2009 -- Walk This Way
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I love it. What do you guys think?

My own crazy love is helping me change up my diet. I’m trying to eat pretty much the same stuff he does. For breakfast we made grilled cheese on Nature’s Pride bread. I had the 2 heels from the white one and he had 2 slices of the brown one. Cheddar oozed out the middle as we grilled them on the waffle maker. The outsides are lightly buttered for extra flavor. Bobby’s is in front; mine is in back.

I had coffee with breakfast; I have finally forsaken tea for coffee. I’m not sure what took me so long.

I was pretty starving for lunch. We made chicken burgers from Trader Joe’s. I sauteed up some veggies (Brussels sprouts, red pepper, burdock, collard greens) in chicken broth and added some Asian salad dressing. I had my burger on top of the veggies with some extra parm and ketchup; Bobby had his on bread with some cheddar and veggies on the side. He also had 3 pieces of veggie bacon (unpictured).

I got these yummy Pepperidge Farms cookies this morning at CVS, so we each had one for dessert. They are trail mix flavor – chocolate, raisins, and almonds.

Tonight we are making dinner for friends and we’re debating between baked French toast and my classic pizza recipe. Right now we are leaning towards the pizza because it’s always a hit.

What’s your favorite dish to make for friends or family?

In the news today…

• 6 year old boy missing from an experimental hot air balloon (UPDATE: he was found alive)
• It’s global handwashing day
• Report links smoking bans and heart health

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We have been watching Dexter obsessively and we’re now midway through the third season (the fourth one premieres in the end of September). There was a character in the second season that ate cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches for lunch every day, and Bobby wanted to try them (he never had before). I was shocked, so we immediately went out to whole foods for some soft whole wheat bread and cream cheese.

It was simple to prepare – 2 pieces of bread, cream cheese on both sides, and sliced cucumber. Some dill would be a nice addition. He loved it – it’s a new favorite.

Another nice meal was Whole Foods lamb (on sale this week) with wild rice and grilled red peppers and fuji apples. I stole a few bites of this and it was delicious. It was another new thing for Bobby – he doesn’t think he’s had lamb before, but he really liked it. I love lamb – I just don’t have it that often. It was a nice treat.

I was influenced by Dexter, too – there was an episode in which Deb started listening to Chopin, so I downloaded a CD of “Favorite Piano Works”. I used to play piano (I suppose I still can) and they make me miss it.

I signed up for an Anthropology class at a local community college, and it meets tonight. It’s once a week for 3 hours on Wednesday nights. It’s a Physical Anthropology class – “The study of human origins, including evolution, genetics, variability, fossil evidence for human evolution, comparative primate anatomy and behavior.” I’m pretty excited for it.

I found a ridiculous word this morning – floccinaucinihilipilification – it means “the action or habit of estimating as worthless”. I think someone needs to estimate floccinaucinihilipilification as worthless. It’s a combination of 4 Latin words (flocci, nauci, nihili, pilifi) that all mean “at a small price”/”for nothing”. Apparently uber-literate British men used to make up words like this all the time just for fun. I just wrote a piece on crazy English spelling which was also influenced by British men wanting to seem smart or dandy.

What’s your favorite after dinner treat?

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