Marco's Third Birthday

Happy, Happy Birthday Sweet Marco:

It is always a treat for me to cook with Jeff, and especially fun when it involves his wood-burning pizza oven.  On this visit we made Osso Bucco - insanely huge and beautiful veal shanks, cut to order for us at Whole Foods!

Thank you Sarah, Jeff & Marco for a wonderful weekend.

Dinner in Sacramento

We drove up to Sacramento the weekend before last to get together with family.  Dinner was at Club Pheasant.  Here is part of the group:

G-Pa with our beautiful granddaughters Selena & Vanessa:

Happy Birthday Laura!

For Laura's birthday lunch she requested homemade pizza.  I made a margherita, sausage and a chicken pesto pizza.  But our favorite was a garlic & cheese pizza (above). Mmmmmm good.

Winter Salad - Southern California Style

I don't usually think about preparing salads for lunch in the winter, but the rain has finally stopped and the sun is trying to poke through the clouds and after a trip to the Farmer's Market this morning a salad sounds pretty darn good.  Our Ventura Downtown Farmer's Market has been closed the last two weeks for the holidays and we were antsy to wander the vegetable stalls and see what the farmers had been able to harvest in spite of the rain.  Neighbors Bonnie & Nancy went with us, it felt good to see our favorite vendors and hear their "Happy New Year!" greetings.  January is usually the sparsest produce month and we've had to laugh at ourselves more than once when we leave a January market and say "well, that wasn't the greatest market this week" and then remember 90% of the country would be delighted to have our produce this time of year!

Except for the leftover turkey and salad dressing, everything on the plate (Romaine and leaf lettuces, roasted beets, asparagus, Haas avocado, tomato and eggs) is straight from this morning's Farmer's Market:

I love where I live - even when we're having the wettest winter in sixty years!!

Happy New Year

We decided at the last minute to have a New Year's Eve Happy Hour aboard Poseidon.  Happy Hour turned into a quite nice little party. It was fun getting to know a few of our "newer" neighbors and sharing holiday cheer with some of our dearest (and dare I say it - oldest) friends.

Here is a picture of some of the group:

Our New Year's Eve dinner was postponed until New Year's Day - and it was worth the wait:

Incredibly delicious Alaskan King Crab Legs and a salad with mixed greens, red pears and dried cranberries in a Champagne vinaigrette.  A beautiful and simple dinner to start off the New Year.

We wish everyone a  Happy, Healthy & Prosperous New Year!