I can’t believe it’s November already. We’ve had a busy last two months and of course it will only get busier once the holidays start. I thought I’d share some of the highlights of what we’ve been up to these last few months.
Wedding Food
A few weeks ago we attended a wedding in Rancho Santa Fe. It was quite warm for October, making it seem almost like a summer wedding. It took place at a club house with a pretty water view.
Right after the ceremony, there were passed appetizers and a sushi station for guests while the wedding party took photos. I definitely wasn’t bored with so many food options.
Some sort of crab bite:
Lobster roll:
Sushi station:
Combined sushi for Mr. K and I:
Dinner was served outside with twinkling lights.
I like that they provided menus for each of the guests:
Dinner started out with some bread.
lettuce, sangria poached pears, caramelized pecans, gorgonzola, currants, sherry vinaigrette
For the main course we got a choice of beef or fish. Mr. K and I chose different ones so we could sample both.
Grilled Sea Bass, Lobster Ravioli, Beurre Blance, Snow Peas, Broccolini, Sesame Chili Oil
Flat Iron Steak, Red Wine Demi Glace, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Grilled Asparagus
Both entrees were pretty good. I don’t think you could have gone wrong with either choice.
Wedding cake, of course, was dessert.
Mom’s Garden
Every time I go home, my mom has done something different with the garden. Last fall and winter, it was filled with kabocha and wintermelon. This past spring it was filled with celery. Over the summer, I came home to find almost 20 tomato plants.
I brought home a lot of tomatoes and Mr. K and I were so spoiled by how sweet these vine ripened tomatoes were. It’s been hard to eat store bought tomatoes ever since.
I also got to pick some fresh goji berries.
Recently my mom made a trip down to San Diego and she brought with her the persimmons from her garden.
Have you ever seen persimmon so big?
Here’s a side by side picture next to a fuyu one I bought at the supermarket.
Unfortunately these are the astringent kind which I don’t really like eating because you have to wait until they get soft to eat them and I like the crunchy fuyu variety better. I do plan on making a lot of fruit leather and dried persimmons though.
Recent Finds
I recently finished reading this book, A Diet to Die For. It’s a really fun, light mystery read. I couldn’t put it down once I started and finished it within two nights. I think a lot of people who read my blog can identify with the main character, especially her love for food and struggle to hold down a diet. And it takes place in the food tv world. Surprisingly, I felt much more motivated to eat healthy while reading the book and for a few days after.
With the Fall and Winter weather, my skin is getting more dry and my lips more chapped. I recently began using this Knorres Lip Butter which I absolutely love. I wish it wasn’t so darn expensive, but it really works well. I usually have to reapply chapstick every few hours, but I only use this lip butter twice a day. I feel like it really penetrates beyond the surface layer and keeps my lips really hydrated. My favorite color is Jasmine because it’s a light pink color.
So that’s about it for now. Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the weekend and enjoys the extra Sunday hour!
That persimmon looks like a Fuyu to me. Maybe it’s the angle?
No it’s an astringent variety. Yes they do look like giant fuyu’s, not just the angle. I know the ones in the store that are astringent are usually really pointy (hachiya), but there’s actually several other variety of astringent ones not usually sold at stores which look like the giant ones my mom grows. She actually doesn’t know which one she has, so I haven’t been able to figure out which variety it is. I just know they are definitely astringent!
Last night I just read an article about the pumpkin tree
and was wondering how it looks like. Then I saw the picture of this post, it is a pumpkin tree right? It is really cute.
I think so. It’s a pumpkin blossom tree. They sell it at Trader Joe’s every year and I usually get one and it lasts most of the Fall.
I love wedding food so much and all those appetizers looks so elegant.
I was planning to email you about running into you at Zion. I was so embarrassed that I looked like a mess. But I found it funny our husbands were the ones that spotted each other while you and I were looking at products! Ha ha!
I am always most excited for the food at a wedding! I didn’t notice you look like a mess at all! But yes, of course it would be the husbands that noticed. hehee. I was totally in the shopping zone.
The wedding food looks amazing! I’m glad to see you and hubby making the most of the hand passes appetizers 🙂
Your mom’s home grown stuff looks beautiful. She’ll have to let us know if it’s hard to grow goji berries. I have a blueberry bush but it only produced berries like one time (I’ve only owned it for like 5-6 months though?).
I read that blueberries are pretty hard to grow because they need acidic soil. That may be why, though I’m not much of a gardener so I don’t really know.