Tea Party

Last weekend my good friend Meredith had a tea party...it was so much fun...I am so sad to leave all my friends here! But, I am definitely not sad to leave the cold. It is getting colder by the minute...literally, there is a huge snow storm hours away that is supposed to bring an inch of snow a minute. Oy! I am happy to be leaving this place for nicer weather.

Also, I look very pregnant in this photo. Don't get excited though...sadly, there is nothing I am not telling you.

Cooking Club

The theme for the November meeting of my cooking club was "beautiful presentation". And, it just so happened to my my turn to host. Talk about pressure! Of all of us, I am the least well-supplied for hosting a dinner party, despite the fact that I just got married. Matt and I haven't really ever settled in to our place or accumulated muc stuff because we have always had it in our mind that we are moving soon. Hopefully, our next place will be more permanent. Anyway, our cooking club dinner may have been more beautifully presented if it had been at someone else's house, but hey, I tried! Also, I just noticed that my photo of my cooking club looks just like Maria's photos of her "girl's nights"....a bunch of ladies sitting around a table smiling and waiting to eat. Haha!

I made three things: Soup in pumpkin, gado gado, and cheesy spoon bread. I had a really hard time finding things to make that would be "beautiful". In the end, I don't even know if they were beautiful, but luckily they all tasted ok. I am an experimental cook and I usually don't make the same thing twice (unless I love it and Matt seemed willing to eat it again)....so often what I make will not be very good and it definitely won't be beautiful. Anyway, I had a brainstorm session with my mom while I was In San Diego and she suggested that I served soup in a pumpkin. It was a great idea, especially since Matt and I never got around to carving our pumpkins for Halloween. I got the recipe from my favorite cookbook by Mollie Katzen and I think it was pretty good.





I also made Gado Gado. It was also from the Mollie Katzen cookbook....can you tell I am obsessed? I loved this recipe, it was so easy and pretty, and it tasted good and was healthy. Katzen's recipe for peanut sauce is great!



As an afterthought, I also made cheesy spoon bread. It actually looked pretty cool when I took it out of the oven, but it deflated by the time I took the picture. It didn't taste that great to me...it needed more salt or something. If people like really bland things, this might be good. It was very easy...just cornmeal, eggs, cheddar cheese, dried milk and a few other basic things. I bought dried milk for another recipe, and didn't know how to use the rest of the box so I googled dried milk recipes and this came up. I think little kids might like it? Not sure.



Everyone else made delicious, beautiful items also but I didn't get pictures of everything. For me, it was bittersweet because I only have 2 more cooking club dinners left before I move! These were the first people I met when I moved to Boston, before I started school or work or anything, and we have been having the monthly dinners for the whole 2.5 years....I will be sad to leave them! And sadly, if Matt and I move to Hong Kong I will probably never cook at all. Not enough kitchen space and too much socializing and having dinner out...it is fun but the cooking goes by the wayside. Oh well. Hong Kong definitely has other benefits that make up for the lack of cooking.

An Old Friend

Walking Through Harvard Square


A group of Chinese tourists taking photos of Harvard


Matt and Meagan on the Charles River (Notice Matt's pose. He cannot take a normal photo!)

Last weekend we had a visitor: an old friend from Hong Kong who now lives with his wife in England. It was so great to have him with us, although of course, the topic of conversation was primarily Hong Kong! Matt and I are contemplating our next move, and Hong Kong is at the top of our list. So, it was good to sort of hash out and remember all the details with our old friend. Of course, we all commented on how boring our lives are now that we have moved away from Hong Kong! Our friend and his wife are having a baby in December...I am so excited for them! Seeing him made me miss her, because she was my first friend when I moved to Hong Kong.

Halloween

My sister Maya and I have really bonded through text messaging. Now we are in contact like, twice a week rather than twice a year! Anyway, she texted me that I need to post photos of my Halloween costume. So here it is. I was Sarah Palin. Do you think I look like her?



Matt was much more creative than me. He made his costume himself. He is so crafty! Or, maybe he just didn't know what to do with himself while I was in San Diego for the week preceding Halloween. No, seriously, he is super creative.



We went to a party, and someone else dressed like Hillary Clinton. Perfect photo op!

Apples!

One of my favorite parts about Fall in New England is APPLE PICKING!!! It is so much fun. I am going to miss it SO much. They taste so much better when you eat them straight off the tree. So crisp, so sweet! And then you get to take them home...LOTS of them. But I like the challenge. How many apples can I eat? How many things can I make out of my 20 pounds of apples? And believe me, Matt doesn't help with either. (Although he does help eat my creations...so I appreciate that!)

I eat a lot of apples year-round, because I have one with my oatmeal everyday. So that sort of relieves the "burden" of having so many apples in the house.

I have had a lot of fun making things with the apples, and I am proud to say that most of my recipes haven't been the old apple stanby's, like apple pie or crisp or applesauce. This is what I have made so far (I still have lots of apples left!):

1. Carrot-apple-yogurt salad from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook

This was easy and SO delicious! I brought it to a potluck. I think I liked it more than everybody else because I brought most of it home.

2. Apple bread

I made 2 loaves. The first was an experiment. I made it in my crockpot! THe crockpot lady on this blog made banana bread in the crock pot, so I decided to modify another recipe (not hers) and make it in the crockpot. It worked! It was moist and delicious...even Matt liked it even though it was very healthy. (By the way, I am addicted to the crock pot blog I linked to above...I highly recommend it!)

The second loaf was from an "official" recipe. I followed it exactly. It wasn't half as good as my first "experimental" loaf. The problem is that I didn't write down what I did on the first loaf.

3. Yogurt-apple cinammon dessert thing

This was easy...I just grated the apple and mixed it one cup of plain yogurt, cinnamon and chopped pecans. So sweet! This is also from Mollie Katzen's cookbook. I am addicted to that cookbook!

4. Baked apples in the crockpot

This was luscious and warm...but really I think I like baked apples to be baked in an oven. The texture that resulted form the crockpot method was too mushy. I still ate it though, and forced Matt to eat his. (And no, I don't feel bad about forcing Matt to eat fruit...if I didn't he never would. And I only force him to eat it about twice a year.)

5. Next recipe....Curried Apple Soup from Mollie Katzen's cookbook. It sounds strange but I have total faith in Mollie Katzen. After the soup recipe, I will only have about 5 or six apples left. So sad...I don't want apple season to end!

Glorious Fall

Fall in New England is glorious. Sometimes I complain about New England...it is cold...people work to hard...but despite these things, it is truly a gorgeous place, and I am happy to have had the opportunity to experience it.


Usually we go up to New Hampshire and Vermont to hike in the Fall leaves, but this year, with all the mayhem of Matt's parents being here and Matt having just returned from Hong Kong, we decided to enjoy the Fall with little day trips. Plus, it saved lots of money on gas and hotels! We did a little hike on a nearby "mountain". It wa an easy, crowded hike, but the views were great and the fall leaves were so pretty!



On the way home, we went to a pumpkin patch and and a cornfield labyrinth. It was fun! I am sad....this is my last Fall in New England! Sigh....



By the way, Matt told me to stop posting pictures of him. But if he would stop doing silly poses like in the picture above, he wouldn't have to worry about it!

Visit from the Masseys

Matt and I had a visit from his parents this month....it was a lot of fun, and they came at the perfect time, weather-wise...it was perfectly sunny and not too hot or cold. (It was "San Diego weather"). It was Marti's 60th birthday, which is a very important one! Matt, being the wonderful son that he is, treated Marti and Liam to a play called "Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher. Apparently Marti loves Carrie Fisher. Sadly, I couldn't go because I had class.

I love the picture I posted...I think this will be a good one for my children.

Rosh Hashanah

Devika in the kitchen



Gorgeous fruit!




A feast



Honey to ensure a sweet year


One of my friends from school had a Rosh Hashanah party. It was so much fun! I am going to miss Boston...So many nice people and fun things to do. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, and based on this party, I think you are supposed to eat huge quantities of amazing, delicious food to celebrate, including honey with apples to ensure a sweet year. (I love that...maybe I will start the honey and apples thing with my own family as a New Year tradition.) The spread was AMAZING...and you know I love food.

Jamaica Plain Arboretum

I am trying to take more photos of Boston while we are here. We are leaving soon and I am going to miss it! Boston really is a great city...it has so much to offer. If only it the weather were nicer! We would probably stay a lot longer if the winter was a few months shorter.

These pictures are from the Jamaica Plain Arboretum. Is is very pretty and natural...and the best part is that it is accessable by the subway. It is aso important that cities have access to outdoor areas...we were so spoiled in Hong Kong and we didn't realize it! There are so many great, well maintained hiking spots in Hong Kong.

Red Sox

Everyone knows that if you live in Boston you have to become a Red Sox fan. People here love it...it's a city-wide obsession. Well, I guess I am not a "true" Bostonian because I never became obsessed (or even mildly interested!) in the Red Sox. If I am going to cheer for any baseball team, I would still go for the Padres. I guess I am a San Diego girl at heart, even though I have been away for so long (over 12 years! gasp!) because no team will ever be better to me than the Chargers or the Padres.

Anyway, since this is my last summer in Boston, I figured it was now or never...so Matt got some tickets and we headed to the game with our friends, Kevin and Christine. They are real sports fans and they keep track of the stats and everything. We played in a fantasy football league with them this summer but neither Matt nor I paid much attention to it. I tried to get into it, but then I headed to India and it seemed like a world away, so I lost track. I ended up in the middle of the league, woo hoo! And poor Matt was at the bottom. Oh well. He is a soccer guy, anyway.


Kevin and Christine

I kept hearing about the "Green Monster" at Fenway Park...I thought it was going to be something really cool and amazing...but then it was just a green wall that people sat on. I was like....Oh...Ok. And the game was...just like every other baseball game I have been to. Not that that's bad, but I think I had it built up in my mind, like because the city is so obsessed with the team and everyone talks about them All. Day. Long. that the game would be an extraordinary experience. I built it up in my mind too much! But, it was fun, because baseball games are fun...And any time you can sit outdoors comfortably in nice weather in Boston is wonderful. And the Red Sox won, woo hoo! Yay team.


The Green Monster


Kevin, Meagan and Matt

Demolition Derby

After I got back from India, I had a little bit of time to enjoy the end of the Boston summer. Summer in New England is glorious! I am sad that I missed most of it, since I will probably never live here again. I got a good dose of Americana at a country fair south of Boston. It was a lot of fun, and I got to see my first Demolition Derby. I was really excited to see the derby, but it was sort of anticlimactic....it is boring to watch after a few minutes because allof the cars seem to get stuck in gridlock! Maybe other d-derbys are more exciting...There were also a lot of fun rides there, but I couldn't even look at them. After I got back from India (and while I was in India) I was very sick...even looking at the rides made me feel queasy.

Bastille Day

Harvard Square hosted a Bastille Day celebration, so I met my friends Jen and Mayumi there. Mayumi is from Japan, but is living in Boston for 2 years with her husband...she is learning English and doesn't have a work visa (I think...anyway, she isn't working). She reminds me of me when I lived in Hong Kong with Matt! Luckily for me, she has lots of time on her hands, and my friend Jen is just really nice, so they let me practice teaching them yoga. It is a lot of fun for me, so hopefully I will start teaching yoga for real some day.



There was a woman at the festival singing Edith Piaf songs.



There are lots of cool buildings in Cambridge...this is one of them. I am trying to take more pictures of all of the interesting things in Boston and Cambridge before I move. I love it here (when the weather is nice) and I know I am going to miss it!

Day at the ICA

Matt and I in front of the harbor.


The ICA from below. All of the galleries are on the top floor.


Matt inside the ICA. It's a good thing the view is so nice, cause Matt was on the phone with work for quite a while.


The front of the ICA has steps that overlook the water. During the summer, a jazz band plays and people bring picnics and sit on the steps.


Boston building in the South End


B and G Oysters on Tremont Street

Matt had his doctor appointment for his collar bone during the day yesterday, and it gave me a rare chance to see hi during the day on a week day! I left work early and we headed over to the Boston ICA.

The ICA was built recently, and I kept reading in the papers about how cool the building was. With school and work and everything, I never had a chance to go check it out, so I was happy to finally be able to visit it! Matt and I are trying to really enjoy Boston and New England while we are still here...there really is a lot of cool things and beautiful places to see. (Especially in the summer!)

The weather was perfect...you appreciate great weather so much more here because it usually sucks...it is either too hot or too cold, too windy or too rainy, too humid or too dry. So, yesterday was a perfect "San Diego weather" day. I asked Matt if he thought we would miss seasons when we move and he said, without any hesitation, NO. The interesting thing to me is that with the new, beautiful weather, all the women dress so cute. Everyone wears dresses and skirts and nicely composed outfits. I am not sure if they actually look extremely cute or if it is just in comparison with how drab and heinous everyone looks in the winter. Seriously, I can't stop myself from staring at everyone's clothes and newly exposed skin. That sounds weird, but I think it is just because it seems new (no more floor-length quilted jackets!)...also I just came back from India where you don't see very much skin at all.

Anyway, the ICA was cool...modern art...I love looking at it but I always leave confused. What is art? I have no idea. I respect that people have the drive to create art but I admit that I am thoroughly confused by it. One piece was a drawing a skateboarder and a ramp, and the skateboarder is posed in mid air doing a trick. Um, do you want to come to my junior high? I think every boy at Muirlands has drawn this same image in his notebook. The accompanying explanation of the picture was something to this effect: "The artist captures the exhiliration of being in mid air" or something like that. Um, ya...that is why people skateboard and boys draw this picture in their notebooks. I probably shouldn't write this...I am sounding SO uncultured!!! Haha! But then, you don't have to like all art just because it is in a museum.

There was another piece that I thought was pretty cool. The artist somehow got people's wish lists off the internet and posted them on the wall. It sounds so simple, and it is, but when you read each person's wish list, you develop an image of the person and with each subsequent item on the list that mental image is refined. I really liked that one.

So, I guess I can safely say that I don't undestand art...but I must like it because it keeps me coming back. When I lived with dad he was a member of the LA MOCA, and that was always a fun excursion for us. We also got to go to the openening and other member events. I got to do so much with dad...he had so many interests and I feel lucky I got to live with him while I was a teenager. He was a good dad but also a really cool dad. He used to take me out on school nights to see concerts and plays and stuff...haha, unfortunately I am not as cool as him and probably won't do that with my kids. I mean, I hope I will...but unfortunately, I think I may not be as open-minded as he was.

The other cool thing about the ICA is the view...another reminder of how gorgeous Boston can be.

After the ICA we went to B and G Oysters in the South End. THis place had been highly recommended to me by several people, but I was sadly disappointed! I would have much preferred Legal Seafood. The oysters were great but the entree was not to my taste. I have realized that Boston people love rich, creamy food (hence, the ice cream obsession) and fried food (hence the fried clam obsession). In California, I think collectively we prefer more fresh flavors. I could be wrong here. But in general, having eaten in many restaurants in both places, this is what I have noticed.