In all, one of my favorite cookbooks.
Page 94 of 162
How can lemons cost $1-$1.25 at Safeway, and only 30 cents at the Mexican market a couple of blocks away? How can Safeway get away with fleecing people that way? I really wish there were alternatives to Safeway. Well, Grocery Outlet is opening in a couple of days – hopefully they’ll sell lemons at a reasonable price.
Last night I forgot to cook. Really. Earlier in the day I baked a cake to eat after dinner – but the thought of actually cooking dinner did not occur to me until it was too late. I had bought the ingredients to make lime and coriander chicken, but I had to marinate it for 3 hours and had not done so.
Safeway had advertised meatloaf for $5 for Friday only, so I thought I’d give it a try. Lord, was that the wrong decision – the meatloaf was horrible. It has no flavor of meat, actually, it had no flavor a all, and it had an unpleasant, gritty texture. The sauce on top was disgustingly sweet – but you had to mix it in with the meatloaf, to make it edible at all. In other words, don’t buy it.
Harvest time is approaching (and in some cases, it never goes away), and we often have more veggies and fruits that we know what to do with. Why not exchange them with neighbors for their surplus veggies & fruits?
If you are interested, please join the blog at http://growinggroup.posterous.com/
These are some postable items:
– What you have to giveaway or barter
– If you have seeds, compost or plants to giveaway or swap
– If you need help harvesting
– If you need help in caring for or identifying your fruits, vegetables, hens, etc… (We might be able to help you!)
– If you’re interested hosting a harvesting party (i.e. marmalade, ketchup, jam-making party)
– Need to borrow gardening tools
– Would like food donations for a local charity
Personally, I’m interested in getting lemons (so expensive at the market), herbs of all kinds, and flowers that you can use for cosmetics. I’ll have persimmons and green figs to give away in the fall. I also have roses – but I haven’t pruned them yet, so I don’t have very many.
Finally, if someone is willing to help me set up a vegetable garden in our backyard (I know NOTHING about gardening), I’d be more than willing to share the produce with them.
Note: My complete review of the Golden Tea Garden is now available here.
I’m planning to write a full review of the Golden Tea Garden, a new and fabulous tea house in Hayward. But as the editing of my restaurant reviews is soooooooooooooooo slow, I figured I’d write about it here first.
I went there last Sunday with my friends Charlotte and Vienna and we had the best time. The little place is darling and very relaxing – they have harp music & a running fountain. The food (mostly sweets) was delicious and moderately priced and the service was out of this world. Indeed, at this point I’d say it’s one of the two best tea houses in the Bay Area (the other one being Lovejoy’s). I am planning to return this weekend with my daughter (they don’t have teas for children, but Mika likes fruit teas) – and then in May with another group of friends.
Golden Tea Garden
22630 Main Street,
Hayward, CA
(510) 538-4832
Tea Houses Reviews
Saigon 2, a Vietnamese restaurant, has opened in San Leandro. I haven’t been there yet, so I can’t report on it, but it’s getting mostly postive reviews at Yelp.
That said, do we really need a new Vietnamese restaurant in San Leandro. As far as I know, we already have 5: Vo’s, Le Soleil (my favorite), Pho Anh Ha, Tu Tai (where I haven’t been) and Halan (is that the one near K-Mart?). There might be others (if so, let me know). Now, in a town with just one Thai Restaurant, with no Indian, no Ethiopian, no French, no South American and no Middle Eastern restaurants – do we need six Vietnamese restaurants? How about some variety!!!!
Anyway, I may or may not give it a try. If you do – please let me know what you think of it. It’s located at 2113 Marina Blvd (between Menlo St & Doolittle Dr) and there is a 10% off coupon in last week’s San Leandro Times.
I also saw in the San Leandro Times an add asking for waiters/staff for a new restaurant in Manor Square. The restaurant is called Double B Bar & Grill and I know absolutely nothing about it. They don’t have a phone number in the ad, so I can’t even call and ask. Again, if you know something about it, comment here or e-mail me.
As Mike (my husband) reports in San Leandro Bytes, his blog about all the goings on in San Leandro, Grocery Outlet, a discounter of mostly canned/boxed food, is coming to San Leandro. The store, which is almost finished, is located on East 14th, near Estabrook Street – a stone throw away from my house. It occupies the lot previously occupied by the Salvation Army. An affordable housing unit for seniors is being built next door.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to a Grocery Outlet – but I’m hoping this one will be cleaner and neater than others of its kind. I’m also hoping it will not add a lot to the traffic on Estabrook St. – which is already congested at rush time.
That said, I’m happy that we’ll have a grocery store so close to our house. Though we don’t buy much in the way of packaged food, it’ll be useful for emergencies.
In other news, the Starbucks downtown, near Safeway, is going out of business. Starbucks is shutting many of its stores, so it’s not a huge surprise. The Starbucks which is /at/ Safeway seems to be safe for now.
I just saw this video in Salon.com and I cannot get over the shock of seeing Padma Lakshmi, of Top Chef fame selling herself in this commercial for Carl’s Junior (or another burger company, I can’t imagine anyone paying attention to what the product actually is). If you are a guy, you’ll probably think the video is really hot. As a woman I find it repulsive. Doesn’t she make enough money on Top Chef, modeling and writing cookbooks
I also just heard that she is Salman Rushdie’s ex-wife – which doesn’t surprise me, the guy may be a great writer, but he’s also a publicity whore.
I made lamb chops from this epicurious.com recipe last night for the adults, given the lamb chops were on sale at Lucky’s for 50% off. I followed the recipe exactly, with the exception of using unfiltered apple /juice/ rather than /cider/ – because I could either get filtered cider or unfiltered juice. The results were quite good, but not spectacular. I’m not sure that there is a spectacular way of preparing lamb chops, though 🙂 Still, next time I’ll try something else.
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