Date Night

Now that we're 'homeowners' we do fun things like spend Saturday night at the hardware store... fun! :P

Pizza Pizza Pizza!

Lately we've been on a pizza kick and now that C is actually trying new and unusual pizzas from someplace Other Than Pizza My Heart we've been to quite a few different places in the past few weeks. Last weekend it was Pizza Antica with my cousins and this weekend it was Willow Street. Pizza Antica was very good and we got to try a lot of different flavors since we ordered 3 pizzas. My favories were the potato and the margarita. There are two types of crust at Willow Street and I definitely preferred the Italian thin crust to the California style which I found to be too doughy and way too cheesy. I would go to Pizza Antica again, but think we still need to keep looking for that perfect pizza. Next place to try will be Flour+Water in San Francisco - it looks GOOD!!!

hot in the city

I am in San Francisco this week for work - I love my job!

I missed the fun of Pride, but the flags are still flying

Cin Cin

I'm finally coming out of my hermity-hibernation and have been doing stuff OUTSIDE THE HOUSE so Cody and I went to Cin-Cin in Los Gatos for some wine and appetizers Friday night and, oh my God! This place is beyond delicious. So beyond delicious in fact that I made him take me back on Saturday so I could re-live the deliciousness. Friday we had the white wine and sparkling wine sample flights. When we went Saturday we tried food from the Happy Hour menu and had cocktails. The Cin-Cin cooler had vodka, mint, basil, and ruby grapefruit juice and was exactly what I needed to cool down in the blazing heat that afternoon. I'm already thinking about going back to this place on Tuesday when C gets paid. The chicken liver crostini were my favorite dish with the sliders a very close second. I can't wait to share this place with everyone we know!

BLT and Arugula Salad

I've been trying to pay more attention to what we eat since I wanted to include lots of food pictures and information on recipes, etc on our page. The other day I was craving a BLT hard so I went shopping for delicious red tomatoes then went home and put this together. I may even make another one now. The arugula salad pictured is from a previous recipe I posted awhile ago and it remains one of my top 3 favorite salads. It's super simple to throw together, goes with everything and is especially good in the summer since you can let it sit out and it just gets more delicious.

Chicken sandwich

Tonight for a late night snack I grilled up this chicken and brie sandwich. It's crispy, ooey gooey, and totally decadent. I really didn't want to share it, but did let Cody have some because I was thinking of the outrageous calorie count this thing probably has. Secretly I was hoping he'd hate it since he has a thing against mixing sweet foods with savory ones, but he loved it and was eyeing my piece after he finished his. I butter two slices of sourdough, add cut up meat from a rotisserie chicken, thinly sliced brie, put a layer of strawberry preserves on one side and grill until crunchy and melty. Apologies for yet another blurry photo - I can't seem to focus properly!

U.S. Air Guitar Championship

The U.S. Air Guitar Championship is making it's way to the area on June 26 & 27. Cody and I went a couple of years ago and it was actually incredible. I had expected it to be lame and cheesy, but sort of funny and was surprised to see that these guys really could (air) rock. The one we went to was in San Jose at whatever the latest variation of Fuel 44 was at the time and the club was packed with people. Cody and I managed to get drinks and squeeze our way through to the middle of the floor in time to watch the air-guitarists hit the stage. Each performer passionately rocks as hard as they can - and for the most part it looked like they were actually rocking harder than someone holding a physical guitar. It takes skill and a lot of practice to do air-guitar right and to give a performance worthy of the crowds awe. Some of the more advanced moves are the behind-the-head air guitar, the double neck guitar, the flying V (the hard part is making people see that you're playing a flying V that's invisible), and the double guitar solo. Here's Hot Lixx Hulahan, the Air Guitar Champion of 2008. He's REALLY good.

and bonus video of William Ocean the NYC Regional Air Guitar Champion!

happy friday

Wishing I was sipping prosecco by this pool here in Tuscany where Jon & Olivia were married last September. Can't wait to go back to this dreamy vacation spot...

Pete's Chanel Rocket Launcher!

Our friend Pete is an amazingly talented artist and also a very nice guy! I was so excited this morning when I saw on his FB page that Bruno was pictured posing with Pete's Chanel rocket launcher at the LA premier of his movie! Yay Pete! This is huge!

buy one here

love these!

think I know what I am going to spend my anthropologie discount voucher and gift card that Bill and Barb gave me for my birthday...

I wanna go here

found on flickr here

The Turtle

I met my friend Keri years ago when I was working at KPMG as an assistant. Keri was the receptionist and apparently had her eye on me for quite sometime as her future BFF. She says she noticed me first in the cafeteria where I was reading and immediately made the decision to woo me. I did notice her eyes had a tendency to follow me when I walked past the reception desk, but I didn't realize she was waiting for her opportunity to make me her friend. She made her move on the elevator and asked me to go to "lunchy munchy" with her. I remembered her long lingering stares and assumed lunchy munchy was lesbian code for a date. I said yes and hoped for the best. I can't remember if the first lunch was when she confessed her secret courtship (stalking), but I came to agree that we were destined to be friends forever.

I first met the majority of Keri's family when I had been invited to her grandma Rosie's to go for a swim. As Keri and I headed to the pool to take a dip, Rosie stuck her head out and shouted, "give Kahrmann the turtle!!" I didn't know what that could mean until her uncle Chris revealed a huge inflated turtle pool toy. He threw it into the pool and Keri and her uncle looked at me expectantly waiting for me to get on. The turtle was pretty daunting because it's dome shaped shell rose at least 2 feet off the surface and since the pool was above ground I was going to have to climb up the side of the pool and somehow mount the turtle from behind. I am nothing if not a good sport, so I climbed up the side of the pool and went for it. The turtle thrashed as I leaped onto it's back and threw me into the air. I went under and as I came up I saw uncle Chris turned bright red and fall to the ground. I screamed to Keri, "He's having a heart attack!" and we swam to the edge to watch over the side at her uncle who was now choking and apoplectic. We started splashing water on him to try to revive him and that's when I felt a tickle on my leg. I looked down and saw that my sting bikini bottoms had come off when I had my fight with the pool toy. Uncle Chris's fit was a laugh attack that happened when he saw my bare bottom go flying through the air.

Sadly, Keri called me a couple of years ago to let me know that the turtle had popped and had been replaced by an octopus that, as she put it, "has many arms to hold you" but it was no replacement and I never went back to the pool to give it a try.

is it sad that I am excited about laundry appliances?

today my new washer and dryer arrive and I am excited!

After researching lots of brands, asking around, going to the scratch and dent stores, visiting retail stores and looking online for deals, I got exactly what I wanted (in the colour I wanted) much cheaper than I could buy the boring white ones in the store from here. Gotta love google!

My sad laundry room won't know what hit it when these babies go in. I didn't go with the pedestal drawers as I thought they were a bit of a waste of money and I want to make a nice folding bench on the top of the washer and dryer like this

3D wonderland

after seeing my first 3D movie, UP! the other week, I am excited to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland will also be 3D, and with Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter it's sure to be fun.

Johnny Depp, as Mad Hatter

Helen Bonham Carter as Red Queen

more here

just moved in

it's been a really big last few days moving into our new place but we're in! Thanks to Melita, Cody and Jane for helping us move on Saturday!

moving is never fun and we are both exhausted, but really happy to be in a place we can call our own, even though everywhere we look there is something that we need to fix...

now it's just a matter of where do we start???

image from Sam Brown here

mysteriously beautiful

another artist I found while stumbling on stumbleupon

see Krista Huot's work here or here

Australianophile

My obsession with Australians started when I was living in San Francisco and met my first Aussie at one of those after hours warehouse parties. We were both slouched together in a bean bag chair and ended up talking for a hours, telling each other every dirty joke we knew. He came over and helped me break into my little studio in the Mission (believe it or not, it wasn't because I lost my keys it was because the locks on the door were finicky) we lay on my futon mattress and I listened as he read my high school year book out loud in his best Crocodile Hunter impression. "It waaas the most daaan-gerous prom night in the woooorld" and right then and there I knew he was special. However, at this time in my life I was very, very fickle and his specialness quickly wore thin, what with the calling me for dates and all and wanting to spend time with me. We lasted about a month or so of him pursuing me and me not wanted to be tied down. Much to my surprise he got the clue, found someone who liked him back, and ended things with me. Naturally I was devastated and thus began the epic WALLOWING where I cried non-stop and couldn't stop obsessing about the love of my life (who's last name I don't even remember at this point) was gone forever and how he was never coming back to me. After several days of exhausting weeping I finally called my friend Taylor to come rescue me. I don't know what it was, probably the desperation that came through when I screamed "Save me!" and then threw the phone down, but Taylor literally leapt off the treadmill at 24 Hour Fitness and raced to my rescue. At this point I was so weakened from the wallowing that I didn't even have the energy to open the door for him. Fortunately Taylor had a key, so I didn't have to get up off the floor. This is how he describes the sadness that awaited him when he burst into the room: "You were laying on the floor all sweaty, wearing nothing but a pair of blue sparkle panties and a black turtle neck sweater. When you looked up and saw me you screamed, "WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT HAT??" and started crying hysterically." In his rush to get to me Taylor had forgotten to remove his souvenir "Australia" hat from a recent vacation. After my rescue I recovered from my heartbreak, but had developed a crush on the Australian race and set out on a quest to discover new and exciting Australian friends.

I want to fall asleep here...

find other spectacular photos just like this one by Nicolas Matheus here

Dutch Baby

This morning I made a Dutch Baby for breakfast and it was delicious! They're simple to make, but are very impressive because they get all big and brown and puffy. And they're delicious! They're sort of custardy in the center and crispy at the edges. Here are some pictures of today's baby with a side of turkey sausage with apples and onions.

Here's some bonus video of the bubbly thing that happened to my egg mixture when I added the vanilla. Weird.

Dutch Baby recipe

Put a large heat proof metal pan in the oven and heat to 400 degrees

Mix 4 eggs with 1 cup of milk & 1 cup of flour until smooth.

Add pinch of salt a little sugar and as much vanill as you like (I probably added a tbs to mine)

When the oven is heated take the pan out, using a pot holder of course, put in 4 tbs of butter and swirl around until melty then pour the mixture carefully into the pan. Bake for about 18-22 minutes until puffy and golden and a knife comes out cleanly when you stab the center. I like mine drenched w/lemon juice and powdered sugar. Cody has his with berries and maple syrup. I think the recipe could serve about 4 people, but we ate the whole thing.

Turkey Polenta Enchilada

Tonight's dinner was a recipe I made up that turned out to be a winner. I sliced up a roll of polenta, brushed both sides with olive oil, sprinkled with grated parmesean and baked at 400 for about 25 minutes. While the polenta was cooking I browned some turkey, added fresh corn kernals (2 whole ears), and a bottle of Trader Joes enchilada sauce. I let this simmer until the polenta was done then covered the polenta with the turkey and topped with low fat sour cream. Very yummy and easy!

and you wonder why I am so strange...

Happy Fathers Day Dad :)

Even though it is not Fathers Day in Australia until September, it is here today in the US, so hope you have a great day and know that I love you

sold...

now the moving begins...

happy friday

Bryce, Rita, Anthony, Jamie and I took a road trip a few years ago from Vancouver to Banff, via Victoria, Whistler and Kamloops, for Steve and Ami's wedding. We saw so many spectacular sites and had a blast - this is Lake Moraine with a glacier in the background, the photo just doesn't do it justice...

The horror. The horror.

Here's a picture of lovely Kate as she watches my booze fueled dance moves on my b-day this year. Please enjoy her expression of disbelief and horror as she helplessly stands by, watching me create the next morning's hangover and sore neck.

La Pizzeria in Campbell

I haven't been out and about at night in downtown Campbell in forever. I like to go to the park with the pooch, or to the farmer's market on the weekend, but tonight I suddenly got an urge to go check it out and have a drink. There are quite a few new places to eat and we ended up at La Pizzeria where we had an Insalata Italiana (fresh mozzarella, fresh tomato, avocado, all drizzled w/olive oil and fresh black pepper) and the Funghi Cotto (mozzarella, Italian ham, and fresh mushrooms) all rinsed down with a delicious glass of Sauvignon Blanc! Molto bene! Please forgive the bad quality of the pictures. I'm a lover, not a photographer.

random gibberish to brilliant inspiration

...in an earlier conversation between Melita and I today

k: we need to make our b

log look better, we need a logo or something

m: yes, but I think we need to make the whole thing more snazzy, it doesn't look clean so much as empty

k: what do you think it needs to be more 'snazzy' as you say? :P

m: color

k: ewww

m: a tighter layout

k: sigh...

several hours later...

m: what are we going to do about our blog design?

k: yeah I know it's lame...

m: no one knows what a flufflefritz is, not even us

k: it's a fluffle... with fritz duh!

m: fluffy and fizzy, fun and sunny

k: but a little creepy

m: a bit pervy (that'd be me, sorry)

k: ha ha jinx!

m: do other people even get flufflefritz?

k: we could do something with the ff's

I dunno, I haven't asked anyone... have you?

m: how can we find out? no

it's a good special feeling that should be shared

k: cheese :P

m: um?

k: we should write a post about it 'what does flufflefritz mean to you?'

m: contest?

k: omg - totally (do I totally sound like a valley girl yet???)

m: we need a cool design for our logo and we have lots of creative friends...

k: yeah

m: and yes, you do sound like a valley

k: it needs to be something that prints well - like totally

on tshirts and hats and carbon fibre dog bowls...

m: lets put out a post for people to send us their flufflefritz ideas

k: ok cool, then we can twitter about it

but we need a cool prize, not something lame that nobody cares about

m: their fun, sunny, fluffy, fizzy, pervy, creepy and cheesy designs

what about a Flip camera?

k: what if we hate them all?

m: anything's got to be better than what we've got!

k: true... (I was calling you cheesy btw)

oooooh yeah! great idea, and we can customise it :D

the flip mino

m: with the winning design!!!

k: totally - hahahaha :P

m: that's a great idea - we are flufflefritz GENIUSES!

post this bitch and we'll run a contest!

k: alrighty then!

So as you can see we're running a contest and we're going to give away a Flip camera and will post the details soon - Paris would be so proud...

More music to love

Here is Band of Horses a band I found thanks to the wonderful Pandora.

"Is There a Ghost"

how many times have you wanted to say this to someone...

find more insightful works by Sam Brown here and here and buy them here

time to paint

Last weekend while visting several hardware stores (because that's what you do when you are about to buy a house that needs lots of work...) we checked out paint colours for the house. We know we want to paint the ceilings first with a semi-glossy white to highlight the gorgeous exposed beams that are currently green, but are still deciding on the rest of the house.

The walls will need some work before we paint (ie removing that lovely wallpaper etc) but after some research on paints we decided that we really want to use something that is zero VOC and environmentally friendly too. We have looked at a couple of brands and for about $4 more per gallon you can buy paint that doesn't make you and the planet sick. Which sounds like a great idea to me especially since the 3 of us Bryce, Coop and I all have allergies...

There are a few companies out there and so we have options.

Yolo Paints, a company from Oregon (scores points from Bryce) make zero VOC paints, and their colours, though limited, are nice earthy tones and look like something we'd like - we couldn't take samples to see them in the house though unless we paid money, which I think is the main reason they were not selling in the store we visited.

Olympic Paints was the next one we found at Lowes, and the unhelpful guy in the paint section said it was good, but the darker colours were harder to cover (which is pretty usual anyway I think)

Then I came across this great article in Dwell about just this topic and they had done the ground work for us and compared 3 different brands of paint Yolo, AFM Safecoat and Benjamin Moore Natura. Natura won as it emits the least amount of VOC's and still has great coverage and range of colours. Now we just have to choose the colour we want :)

Thai dinner at home

Tonight I made a pretty good red curry w/chicken and red peppers. I used red curry paste, fish sauce, brown sugar, basil, red peppers, coconut milk, and chicken. After cooking the chicken in a pan, I removed it and added the curry paste, cooking until fragrant, after the cury was ready I aded the coconut milk, chicken, and everything else and simmered for about 10 minutes. Cody loved it and even finished my bowl! We had these pot stickers on the side w/light soy sauce mixed w/rice wine vinegar and a little chili paste. Yummy!

and just like that, we're homeowners...

about a month before my birthday Bryce asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and my answer was 'a house of our own'... the day before my birthday we got a call from Jane our agent to tell us that an offer we made had been accepted, so as it turns out I did get a house of our own for my birthday...

17 days later and everything has gone through nicely and it looks like we are going to get the keys on Friday, which just happens to be my favourite day of the week...

Seven Day Cleanse

After my accidental cleanse from food poisoning a couple of weeks ago I've been thinking about doing an actual cleanse to get a jump start on getting rid of some of the excess toxins and junk I just know my body is storing. While I've been feeling very guilty about not exercising, I think it may actually be a perfect time to try a liquid cleanse of some sort to try to get my body balanced and restore some of the energy I'm missing. While my body is resting (aka sitting around in front of the tv not going to yoga or kickboxing) I can purify and detox. Surprisingly, the fast that looks the best to me I found here on Goop which is Gwyneth Paltrow's blog. It's very natural and doesn't require any expensive special potions and I think I still have my juicer somewhere in the kitchen so I may give it a try this week and see what happens. I'm scared the cleanse itself will not be pretty, but am hoping it'll put me on the right track for getting rid of some of this pig fat.

500 days of summer

Hannah got us tickets to see the pre screening of 500 days of summer which I am excited about as it looks really good from the preview and it has a kick arse soundtrack too!

awww

Coop in his 'less hairy' days...

cool photographer's website

another I found while stumbling on stumbleupon...

Click here as this one is quite interactive

let there be light fixtures

I have always been so hard to please when it comes to lighting fixtures, there are just so many blah lights out there I guess... here are some that I think would be fab in our new place