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Christmas Eve eve
Dec. 23rd, 2011 10:38 amHere I am, holding the fort and taking time out from mindless office housekeeping chores with my radio on louder than I ever play it at work because there's maybe five people in the whole building. The good news is that I get to bug out at 11 AM. Given that I fell asleep on the sofa two evenings in a row, I can use this afternoon to work on sewing.
Office gifts have included a bottle of a sparkling pinot noir/chardonnay blend (instead of the usual sake) and a bottle of Fire Engine Red (the label is great!) cabernet, a monolithic tin of Almond Roca (which is going to get put out at Twelfth Night), gift cards to a restaurant in San Leandro, another restaurant gift card I can use at Macaroni Grill or Chili's, a Starbucks gift card (I got a chai this morning, Peets is still better and the Beanery's better still), and a soy candle from one of the girls. Unfortunately, I hate vanilla scent, so I'll find a home for that. (I did candy and nice scented soaps for folks here.)
Purchased an ungodly amount of cheese at TJ's as I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with two different sets of friends. Will pick up fresh bread at Feel Good Bakery tomorrow, and maybe some fruit as well.
Found another Amazon package outside my door first thing this AM, it's got to be the shave ice grinder I ordered for Twelfth Night. I should probably do a test batch of matcha syrup and see what that's like, but the original plan was to flavor the ices with umeshu (plum wine). The Twelfth Night party menu I requested of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
layla_lilah was "stuff my guests can enjoy fearlessly." I recall the Japanese spread Anna Serre did for the Midsummer Feast a few years back and a number of people at my table gave several dishes the hairy eyeball (while I was squeeing "Oooh, QUAIL EGGS!!!"). Most non-Asians don't do crunchy dried fish bits or quail eggs and so forth, and a great many of the things we associate with familiar Japanese cuisine have been influenced by contact with the West or may even be relatively modern developments. We've got a good list of stuff worked out and it'll be fine.
Office gifts have included a bottle of a sparkling pinot noir/chardonnay blend (instead of the usual sake) and a bottle of Fire Engine Red (the label is great!) cabernet, a monolithic tin of Almond Roca (which is going to get put out at Twelfth Night), gift cards to a restaurant in San Leandro, another restaurant gift card I can use at Macaroni Grill or Chili's, a Starbucks gift card (I got a chai this morning, Peets is still better and the Beanery's better still), and a soy candle from one of the girls. Unfortunately, I hate vanilla scent, so I'll find a home for that. (I did candy and nice scented soaps for folks here.)
Purchased an ungodly amount of cheese at TJ's as I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with two different sets of friends. Will pick up fresh bread at Feel Good Bakery tomorrow, and maybe some fruit as well.
Found another Amazon package outside my door first thing this AM, it's got to be the shave ice grinder I ordered for Twelfth Night. I should probably do a test batch of matcha syrup and see what that's like, but the original plan was to flavor the ices with umeshu (plum wine). The Twelfth Night party menu I requested of
layla_lilah was "stuff my guests can enjoy fearlessly." I recall the Japanese spread Anna Serre did for the Midsummer Feast a few years back and a number of people at my table gave several dishes the hairy eyeball (while I was squeeing "Oooh, QUAIL EGGS!!!"). Most non-Asians don't do crunchy dried fish bits or quail eggs and so forth, and a great many of the things we associate with familiar Japanese cuisine have been influenced by contact with the West or may even be relatively modern developments. We've got a good list of stuff worked out and it'll be fine.
