Bill Turns 40 (for the first time)

I had a secret plan for Bill's 40th birthday, and by jove, I was able to keep it a secret!

I told Bill to be home and ready to leave for a destination unknown by 3:30 on his birthday. I told him to bring lots of layers as we may need them where we were going. I juiced up the GPS, brought water, and packed up the car, and we were off! Bill was ready for a fairly long drive, so he was a bit confused when, 5 minutes after departing, I pulled into the Monterey Bay Inn... Surprise!

Bill is constantly saying Monterey is beautiful but we're too busy to notice most of the time, and that he'd love to take a vacation in Monterey. So for his birthday, I took him on vacation in Monterey!

I booked us an ocean-front room with a balcony:

and on the Aquarium sailboat's evening wine & cheese cruise:

where Bill got to help hoist the sail:

and we got a view of the Aquarium we don't often see:

At the end of the cruise, the whole boat sang Bill Happy Birthday. He even got an Aquarium birthday button to wear (which came off as soon as we disembarked the boat). We then dropped off our extra layers of warm clothes at the hotel, and walked to a yummy steak & potato restaurant for dinner.

All in all, I think his birthday was a big success (if I do say so myself)!

Adventures in Food!

When you can't cook with wheat flour any more, what the heck do you cook?

That was my initial reaction in January when Bill found out he had an intolerance to wheat gluten. It turns out, there's a heck of a lot you can cook, and it's all tasty & pretty darned healthy to boot! We ordered ourselves one of the local CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes, and every Monday I collect our box filled with organic fruits & veggies picked that morning. Then the fun begins: "What do I do with 2 pounds of fava beans?", or "What can I do with bok choy?", or "Eee gads - how are we going to eat 2 whole heads of cabbage before we get our next box?" This week alone we received 1 fennel bulb, 1 head of cabbage, 1 pound fingerling potatoes, 1 pint strawberries, 1/2 pint golden raspberries, a head of celery, 2 summer squashes, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, basil, parsley, 10 kiwi fruit, and 1 bunch red chard. The CSA box makes cooking fun, but definitely keeps us on our toes!

One of my recent kitchen experiments was whipping up a batch of "humitas", which are similar to tamales; very tasty, but quite a lot of work. First, I cooked potatoes & quinoa, then mashed them together with spices:

Then I sautéed zucchini, onions, black olives, and walnuts in oil & spices:

I soaked corn husks in water, then wrapped 2 scoops of the potato filling and 1 scoop of the zucchini mix into the husks, and tied them up:

Steamed them:

And then we got to eat them!

Thank goodness they were tasty. I would have been pretty ticked off, after spending all that time, if they'd been inedible! And I made enough for several dinners, and one yummy breakfast: