not pillows

caffe d'bolla's "Soul Finger" espresso.

John's been roasting a bunch, and since he's also our roaster maintenance guy, technician, tech support, and everything else, he's been quite busy.

And I think he's really enjoying it despite of the hard work he has to put into selecting and roasting the coffee, and all that comes with it.

The other day we got another shipment of green coffee, and I asked him to pose for a picture with the bags of  coffee for me:




"These are not pillows!" he says.

it's like an upside-down chicken pot pie

So you'd put two cans of thick and chunky soup (chicken based) in the casserole, and top it with biscuits dough pieces (I dropped mine with a spoon,) and bake it in a hot over (350F sounds good) for about 30 minutes, and voila! Yummy and quick dinner casserole bake.

And I think this tastes like an upside-down chicken pot pie, even though in theory it's more of a chicken and biscuit/dumpling bake.

my old phone has a higher calling

I don't remember how many cell phones I had owned so far, but after I retired those and upgraded to newer ones, I tossed them out.

Last week I upgraded my phone at Verizon. When the new phone arrived, a mailing pouch arrived with it. It was for me to recycle and donate my phone and batteries to help victims of domestic violence. The no-longer-in-use cell phones are put to work, and into support for domestic violence victims and survivors, and the project is called "HopeLine."




I love how on the bag it says,"Your Old Phone Has a Higher Calling." I'm glad it does.

little gifts for Katrina

Katrina has been reading my Taiwanese blog for a while and she hit the number 100,000 visitor on the site... and therefore she got a couple little gifts! :D

A cute pair of earrings for Katrina.

And a big Blythe tote for Katrina and her baby... the bag is big enough to be a diaper bag!

I hope she likes and enjoys the gifts!

"crown" muffins

I had been struggling with making muffins with proper "muffin tops" that are rounded, tall, and delicious. The muffins I made (for the shop) this summer had been tasty, but with flattened tops. Sad.

But one day, I found a special muffin pan that's labeled as a "crown muffin pan." It doesn't even have a brand name on it... all it had was a bar code with a tiny line of words indicating what the pan was.

And it made all the difference!




These are almond-poppy seed muffins!

I made cinnamon-crumb cake muffins a few times, and look how HUGE this muffin top got! (The tip collapsed when I pulled the muffins out of the oven and knocked on the rack... otherwise it would have been rounded, too!)

So I say, getting good and cool bakeware is a wonderful thing to do.

100000!

Some of you know that I have another blog that's in Taiwanese/Mandarin Chinese. The other day I noticed it was approaching 100,000 hits (the blog site has a counter built-in!) It's no big deal, but a couple friends suggested that I made a game out of it to see who would hit the fun number of 100,000.

So I posted the "game rules" and proposed that whoever hit the number 99999, 100000, or 100001, to take a picture of it and send it to me, and I'd give away a present to whomever hit one of these numbers.

And I got a response!




It's from my friend Katrina! Now I'm looking for a proper gift to send to her. It's nice to know that people read the silly little things that I post. Thanks Katrina!

San Francisco 07.11 (13) - quick Taqueria lunch

I totally do not remember the name of this little taqueria, but it was at a corner on Valencia... maybe it's called "Taqueria on Valencia?"

Anywho. John and I stopped for quick lunch and the food was delish. There were lots of choices, and I don't think you'll go wrong with any of them.




Yum.

San Francisco 07.11 (12) - YakiniQ

The first night we arrived at JapanTown I saw across the street from the hotel that there's a yakinikyu (Japanese-style Korean BBQ) place called YakiniQ, and since then I had been eyeing it until very late one night, I dragged John there to have ourselves some grilled meaty happiness.

For us out-of-towners, we had to go with the slightly higher-priced menu options.

Of course there had to be Hite beers when having Korean BBQ!

The sides were good. My favorite were these thin rice wraps that I used to wrap the grilled meats later on. Yum.

I believe these were sliced cow tongues!

Mmm. YakiniQ!

Nothing beats late night grilled meats, I say.


YakiniQ
1640 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

(415) 441-9292

San Francisco 07.11 (11) - Ritual

After the afternoon Mission District explorings and Four Barrel coffees, we headed out to Ritual.

As a side note, riding the bus in San Francisco at night was interesting and fun.





It was around 9pm when we got to Ritual, but there was still coffee drinking that needed to be done.



We started off with two cappuccinos.



As we drank our capps we looked around and enjoyed the shop decors and artwork. The shop was cool and spacious.

The coffees were tasty, and the baristas were quiet (but friendly,) and very skilled.

We got a second round with two macchiatos and an iced Americano. Yum.





We left satisfied, filled with tasty coffee, and walked back to take the bus to return to the hotel. The streets were quiet, but bars and small eateries were filled with people. It was a very lovely evening.

curry chunk art

OK it's a bit stretched when I called this "art," but every time I cut or chop Japanese curry chunks I think it looks a bit artsy!

I love Japanese curry. I make them at home, and I go to small curry houses or specialty curry udon shops when I'm in Japan. Yay for Japanese curry.

San Francisco 07.11 (10) - murals

Saw some cool murals and wall art when browsing the streets in San Francisco.

Some of the artwork was inspiring, others made me think, and still others simply made me smile.

Even simple wall art at a local business was lovely.

San Francisco 07.11 (9) - Four Barrel

We took a bus out to the Mission District to have coffee at Four Barrel. The shop was HUGE! It was spacious and beautiful, and the coffees were lovely. The barista who made us our drinks was cool, friendly, and very skilled. It was a perfect day for coffee!






John and I got an espresso, a macchiato, and a cappuccino. Tasty tasty!






And of course we had to check out their roasting areas. Great setup and layout.






Four Barrel Coffee
375 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 252-0800