switching gears

The rest of Thanksgiving weekend was a bit more exciting than that Friday, when I resorted to photographing Christmas ornaments. I joined Dan, Carmen, Elsa, and LJ on Saturday for the Christmas tree procuring expedition. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon by the time we made it to Santa's Tree Farm in Half Moon Bay, but we found a suitably tall and skinny tree before it got dark and the place closed. This year, the role of Steve was played by LJ. (Steve was busy cooking the turkey mole for dinner, and the car was full anyway.) The role of Enzo was played by Elsa, except that she slept most of the time and did nothing to tell us if other dogs had peed on the trees.

When it was all done, we took the tree back home and had our mole sauce with the rest of Tyrone, the Thanksgiving turkey. It was officially time start the Christmas season.

330/365 christmas tree hunters

The next day, I babysat Elsa while Dan and Carmen and LJ put up the holiday window display at Eye Q. Elsa's nap was pretty short, so we played for a while on the floor and then went out for a walk to Noe Valley. She finally fell asleep after probably half an hour, so I kept strolling for another half hour while she slept. When she woke up, we dropped in at Eye Q and chilled with the others until the display was done, taking a quick break for some pictures of Elsa in the topiary, of course.

331/365 daily dose of cute

Our lunch plan from the weekend ended up being rescheduled to be Monday's dinner. It was the pear-filled pasta with taleggio cream sauce and asparagus that we had at Trattoria I Quattro Leoni in Florence. I had found the recipe online, and Steve planned to make it that night. It was going to be dark by the time it was ready, though, so I took a picture of the pear that afternoon to make sure that I'd have an acceptable picture of the day. I did end up shooting the finished pasta dish, but the light was better in the pear shot.

332/365 pear-ed down

On Tuesday, I took a late afternoon walk with Carmen and Elsa down Valencia Street. It was getting darker outside already, but I got a picture of a couple giraffes on a Noah's ark toy in the window of Aldea Niños.

333/365 giraffes!

I felt that I needed to go out again to find a picture on Wednesday afternoon. I went to Pot + Pantry to see if they had the coasters I wanted, but they didn't. So I walked back up Valencia and stopped at the parklet outside of Fabric8 on the way home. In the last year or two, these little parklets have started to spring up around the city. They take up potential parking spots, but they make nice places to sit. My favorite part is that each tends to be a little different, with the design reflecting the location. I especially like the colored pieces of wood on this one.

334/365 a walk in the parklet

For December 1, I got out my tiny Christmas tree, some ornaments, and the last page of my 2011 calendar. This was the day that I actually decorated the place a little, so it was fitting. After taking the picture, I decided to keep the tiny tree unadorned this year and just add my terrarium of wool mushrooms to that corner. I was digging the woodland theme more than flashy, colorful Christmas.

335/365 december

It was time to start my Christmas shopping on Friday—at least for Steve's presents. I took a walk to Omnivore Books, where I scoped out several of the new cookbook options. (So many pretty ones!) I came away with signed copies of Eleven Madison Park and Ruhlman's Twenty. I was still on the fence about whether I was going to stick to a Christmas theme for December, so it was someone's large penguin decoration that became my picture of the day.

336/365 unruly penguin

And with that, I am now only about one month behind in blogging. Here's the November mosaic.

countdown to thanksgiving

Happy 2012! My first resolution of the new year: catch up on the ol' blog.

November ended with a lot of food, as most Novembers do. The Saturday before Thanksgiving was yet another dreary day, with little to tempt me in the way of photos. Then, I saw the bread that Steve had laid out on the table to dry for the Thanksgiving stuffing. Gray days may be darker and more depressing, but they can provide interesting light and shadows.

323/365 countdown to thanksgiving

For Sunday's lunch, Steve made a beet salad that I had found on What Katie Ate. It had beets, butternut squash, goat cheese, and pumpkin seeds—Steve used the seeds from the butternut squash. He also used mixed greens instead of romaine lettuce. It was a pretty salad, but I didn't have very much time to fuss over the plating for my picture. I had to leave for the closing matinee of Bat Boy.

324/365 squash & beet salad

Lacking inspiration again on Monday, I decided to get a mocha from Ritual and finally sit down to read some of Helene Dujardin's food photography book. I got it for my birthday in August, but I was so busy with trip planning, traveling, and then trip photos that I hadn't gotten a chance to look at it much.

325/365 in search of inspiration

On Tuesday, my friend Chrissy came to visit. I picked her up at the Millbrae train station, we came back to the city, and we went to see the Twilight movie. (I'm sure our husbands appreciated being spared another cheesy vampire flick.) Afterward, we had lunch at Mission Cheese, where I took my only pictures that day. We were too busy chatting and chilling for me to do much else. Then we came back to my house, watched a little How I Met Your Mother—trying to get Chrissy hooked—and Steve brought home burritos for dinner.

326/365 mission cheese

Wednesday was another show day, seeing Fela! at the Curran Theater. Steve and I had dinner at Gitane beforehand, and I took a couple pictures of the fancy mannequins in a shop window nearby. Dinner was great; the show was kind of long and one-note for me.

327/365 sophisticated lady

On to Thanksgiving! As is tradition, Carmen cooked the bird. (This year's was named "Tyrone.") Meanwhile, Steve made a bunch of sides: mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, roasted vegetables. I made my usual pumpkin ginger swirl cheesecake, and Carmen made an apple pie. (I also provided some pre-dinner entertainment for Elsa, taking her for a walk when Carmen was trying to clean the house.) Salads and a macaroni & cheese were brought by other guests. There were about 10 of us, plus one kid and Elsa. For the picture of the day, I give you Tyrone.

328/365 thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving behind us, I allowed myself a Christmas-themed picture on Friday. I didn't actually decorate the place until December 1, but I was desperate enough for a picture that day to break out the snowman and owl that I bought after Christmas last year. That was the year I was obsessed with felted wool ornaments.

329/365 christmas decorations

Almost done with November now! Stay tuned for a quick 5-part tour of December (and the last few days of November).

powering through

Yup, two posts in one day. Continuing with the month of November...

Steve and I went to the Ferry Building one Saturday in order to get some ingredients for dinner: squab, sunchokes, and mushrooms. It was nearly closing time for the farmers market by the time we got there, but I managed to get a few shots as the vendors were starting to pack up. I went with the colorful rainbow chard for the picture of the day.

316/365 rainbow chard

We had our squab with sunchoke puree and mushrooms on Saturday night for dinner, but Steve saved some of the mushrooms to go on top of Sunday's lunch as well. He made the Richard Olney garlic soup that was featured on 101 Cookbooks a couple years ago. It's not a very colorful soup, but the mushrooms and some thyme on top helped for the picture. The flavor was, not surprisingly, very garlicky. It was good, though.

317/365 garlic soup

After a few days of learning the keyboard 2 part of Bat Boy: The Musical as fast as I could, it was time to go to a dress rehearsal for the show on Monday afternoon. I was going to take the easy way out and shoot a picture of my score on the seat of the car, but then I caught sight of some flowers in the parking lot.

318/365 parking lot flower

So I saved my easy shot for Tuesday afternoon, on my way to another rehearsal. It was a good thing I bought the Bat Boy CD about 5 years ago, because I don't really buy CDs anymore. They take up more space than mp3s, but they do make better pictures.

319/365 bat boy

Carmen and I went on a walk on Wednesday afternoon, since I didn't have to be at rehearsal until that evening. It was a surprisingly warm day, so we headed in the direction of Bi-Rite Creamery and tracked down the new location of Pot + Pantry while we were at it. We chatted with the owner a bit, and I took some pictures. The new store is super cute, like the old one, but a little bigger.

320/365 pot + pantry

Back to less exciting pictures on Thursday, I took a walk around the block and shot some purple flowers.

321/365 shrub with purple flowers

And more flowers on Friday. I went to Noe Valley for something that afternoon and saw some interesting ones peeking through a fence on the way.

322/365 escaping flower

This may be one of my shortest posts yet! I was too busy editing photos and playing for Bat Boy that week to do much else that was worth talking about—or photographing.