Happy St. Patty's Day

Did you wear green on Monday?

I was pretty surprised at how many people really celebrate St. Patrick's Day and conscientiously wear green. There were alot of guys at the gym wearing green shorts and some interesting hats worn by the Ralph's employees. Also saw some guy wearing a bright green soccer shirt tucked into his khakis. I'm sure there were more "green" sightings but those were the only places I went today and when you work from home there aren't any co-workers to comment on.

Anyways my mom raised me to be big on traditions. One of those was eating corned beef and cabbage for dinner every St. Patrick's Day. So I got out my crock pot this morning and started slow cooking the corned beef. Pretty cool that its called Shannon corned beef, huh?


8 hours later I had tender corned beef with a bit of cabbage and of course my asian staple, rice. I know its a bit odd (others in the past who have shared corned beef with me have asked where are the potatoes) but my mom always served it with rice. Looking forward to some corned beef sandwiches this week.

Around The World in Seven Courses

This past weekend the Swensons hosted one of the Outlet's Dinner By Designs. We got to travel "around the world" in the comfort of their home as they had prepared seven courses from different parts of the world.

Dana made this super cute menu itinerary to prepare us for our travels.

Sorry not alot of pics. Camera is having issues and there are all these blue lines running through my screen that seem to be coming through on the pictures. It might be time for a new camera or I might really need to come up with quality thoughts to blog about.

You've Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold 'Em

Allison and Nickki kicked off our Ladies Poker Nights by hosting our first poker night this past Friday at their place.

Being ladies, of course, it's all about the outfit so we headed to Walgreens to grab our $4.99 Texas Hold 'Em Poker t-shirts.

Brandon was gracious enough or perhaps because as he said, "I've got a Fat Tire in the frig" (not sure my female readers are going to get that) to explain (and re-explain) the rules and strategy of the game to us for several hours.

I'm definitely going to have to improve my poker face, apparently I'm a bit too expressive. I was the first one out. I had a few hands that I folded after the "flop" that would have turned out to be winning hands if I had waited for the "river". Finally I got a straight and went all in only to have Angela beat me with a stronger straight. So this really isn't my poker face, I was just entertaining Allison when she came out after me.

Open The Bottle Night

Open The Bottle Night was created in the late 1990s by John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter, who wrote a wine column for the Wall Street Journal. They had noted that many people would buy special bottles of wine, store them in their homes or wine cellars and never opened them because they were deemed "too special" for almost any occasion. Dottie and John thought that once a year people should get together with their friends and "open that bottle".

Matt & Becky opened up their home for their 3rd Annual Open The Bottle Night. I've been out of town for the past 2 so I was pretty excited to go this year.

Three years ago, I think I actually had a great story to go with my bottle of wine, but I'm sure I drank it between then and now so I brought a Rosenblum 2006 Petite Sirah that my Auntie Jann introduced me to this past Thanksgiving and a Sunstone Syrah dessert wine. There were wines that traveled from as far as Italy to as close as local establishments in the Gundo. Each had their own story, some with a few embellishments.

A Bit Disappointed...

I don't know about you, but it kind of bugs me when I have my mind set on something food related and then its not available. So here are my issues over the past month.

1. I think I sort of noticed about 2 months ago that I wasn't seeing Wonder white bread on the shelves of several grocery stores in the South Bay (namely Ralph's, Vons, Cooke's and the Air Force Commissary). Wonder is a staple so I just figured they were out of it. About a month ago, I was craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which is best on soft white Wonder bread (yeah I know wheat is healthier now but I still love super soft white bread for PB&J) so I headed to Ralph's to purchase said Wonder. Apparently they weren't out of stock. I can't find it anywhere.

2. My friend, Jen Carpenter, always orders the Blue Cheese Tri Tip sandwich whenever we go to Sharkeez (mostly during football season). I was never inclined to order it although she raved about it because I've always had dry steak sandwiches. Finally this past November, I decided to order it. It was AMAZING!!! French roll toasted with butter and garlic, topped with thinly sliced onion rings, tender tri tip, blue cheese crumbles. Am I making your mouth water? Had another one in January. Well...I went to Sharkeez this weekend all set to order this sandwich. When it comes out, it looks so different that I immediately tell the waiter that he brought me the wrong sandwich because there is a fat roll without any butter or garlic and some creamy mayonnaise looking sauce on the roll. The onions and the tri tip are still there. The manager comes out and explains that management has decided to take blue cheese crumbles off their list of items but assures me that low end blue cheese dressing will taste better and this sandwich is better than before, just different. Yeah it wasn't.

3. Decided to make chicken quesadillas for dinner tonight with Sam and Sarah since Brigitte was going out to dinner. I like to put my quesadillas with corn and mexican rice. Not just any mexican rice though, its a Lawry's mexican rice spice mix that you put with your own rice (I use Calrose rice so its kind of a mexican/japanese cross culture thing but it makes for super good mexican rice). I forgot to get it when I was at Ralph's earlier (yes I'm still shopping there even though they've discontinued carrying Wonder bread), but I recalled seeing it at Cooke's so I headed over there. Nope didn't have it so I headed back to Ralph's. They didn't have it either. So I ended up with Knorr Mexican Rice mix which wasn't so good and none of us ate. I'm sure I can find it somewhere else but at 530p I wasn't about to traverse the South Bay. The rest of the meal was super good though.

So that's my 3 food disappointments. I realize it's pretty petty in the big scheme of things, but sometimes I just have to find something to blog about...