Great Thai food dinner with friends of Santa in Vallejo Friday night after setting up for Photos with Santa for Saturday morning.
Getting Ready for Photos with Santa
Category Archives: Food
February 2023 Vallejo Art Walk
Every Vallejo Art Walk (which is monthly and year-round), we make a point to stop in Anchor Pantry for specialty food items. it’s very vegetarian-friendly and has novelty items, which always keep our visits interesting. I love supporting local businesses and I really appreciate that they stay open late on Art Walk nights so we can explore their wares.
This pasta product doesn’t have an Italian name at all, but my daughter showed me this brand when she was at an Italian supermarket in the East Village of Manhattan years ago. I can’t believe it’s a thing, but yes, it is our last name! It’s very cool that they have it here in Vallejo too!
Hayden Crackers
Who knew? My daughter found these in an Italian specialty supermarket near Union Square. Even though I’m mostly Italian, these are the least Italian last named product in the place!
Food porn
Shando made homemade pizza with artichoke on an Italian roll with one of our crazy favorites, balsamic glaze. Amazing!
East Bay Bears Dinner
Shando had to work that evening, so I went with friends to one of our favorite Italian restaurants in the area.
A few days later, coincidentally, my colleagues at work and I, went to a bear-themed restaurant in Concord, so I had to take some a picture of the most iconic decor:
Shando and Joe’s Third Anniversary
After some anniversary shots in our house and backyard, we had a vegetarian meal in the lovely Rockridge part of Oakland at “Millennial,” and then walked over to this “home-made” (delicious) Smitten/Red Wagon ice cream place that we didn’t previously know about, with a diversity placard in the window.
Accidental Cake
Happy Halloween! I was organizing my spices and shelves and saw that I had some ingredients that I wanted to use up so I thought I’d document how I made a cake for the first time in my life completely UNINTENTIONALLY! I tried to read the instructions, but just didn’t have the patience to do it their way, so….
I put virgin coconut oil in a cake pan. Manually mixed 3 packages of cinnamon muffin mix, added (I don’t really measure, because I”m Italian) about 5 teaspoons of extra white flour, 3 jumbo eggs, one cup of milk, a few teaspoons of cinnamon, a few packages of chocolate chip oatmeal. Baked at 400 degrees for 16 minutes. I took this picture and then I sprinkled a little more cinnamon on top and applied vanilla icing on each piece individually.
The muffin-ish cake is amazing! It’s not even over-the-top sweet, but the moisture and thickness is divine. I’m sure I could probably not have this kind of luck the rest of my life, but it was great to use up those ingredients and at least for now we can enjoy something very tasty for the holiday.
Now I think I can start cooking!
Baked Pear Recipe
All of these ingredients are healthy and the combo was guilt-free heaven. The next time I have a family event I want to make something like this in large numbers and I’ll take a picture.
- Wash then cut the pears in half long ways
- pit them, removing the stem, etc.
- sprinkle a little cinnamon on
- put a few drops of TRUFFLE oil in each pit
- bake pit-up at 400 degrees for one hour on foil
- spread almond butter over side with pit
- use cool plain yogurt as a dipping sauce
2013 Thanksgiving Dinner
My daughter prepared a mostly vegan meal the day after thanksgiving, which was more convenient for everyone who was not hanging out with their in-laws on Thanksgiving Day this year, which also would have been my father’s birthday.
I paid for the groceries and Alexandra did a lot of the work, with Rob’s help, especially cleaning up. My daughter featured this on her blog prominently and was happy to mention that none of the family or friends who also were able to partake even asked where the meat was because it was so fulfilling and tasty, despite being very healthy.
