staycation: part tres

For the third and final part of our LA staycation, we decided to chill a little bit. What better way than to start slow with a cup of coffee and an avocado and radish sandwich, then visit your friend's new Manhattan beach house??

staycation: part II

Something about living a cloistered, self-sustained life in an old Spanish mission really appeals to me. Maybe because there would be chores like making olive oil in a stone grinder and squishing grapes in a huge brick pool. That is what I learned at the Mission in San Juan Capistrano on day two of our LA staycation. We braved the unpredictable weather, packed a picnic lunch, and headed south for a taste of Spanish colonialism. And we crossed it off our LA to do list!

 

staycation: part I

Thank goodness for presidents, we get a long weekend!

We went exploring in Little Tokyo to commence our LA stay-cation.

First stop, the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Big interactive installations about color, space and light. The suprasensorial exhibit was really fun, plus we got to take our shoes off. There was a swimming pool with a projector, too, but I didn't really get it...

v-day

February 14th also happens to be the birth date of a couple of our friends and mom chung. We went out for a birthday dinner, so we had a nice breakfast together instead. Blueberry pancakes, oh so delicious.

farmbox

We really have the best pals. The kind of pals that gift us fresh local farm food for a year. The kind that know cooking and eating together is the bestest of the best and that it can even mend the sores from last night's hatefest (unc v. duke).

Our box this week (from the growing experience) includes: 9 assorted radishes, 2 avocados, bunches of parsley, swiss chard and collards, a couple lemons, six guavas, a heavy bag of gorgeous salad mix, dried sweet bay leaves (what do i do with this? we get this, like, every week, and i don't make that much soup!), and three handfuls of tart and sweet rumbly tumbly kumquats. We ate them before we could unpack everything, skin and all.

ode to citrus

oh grapefruits! oh lemons!
oh orange! oh lime!

picked from the in-laws' backyard - to be squeezed into dressings, zested into cake, candied into sugary lemony rinds - but best of all to be eaten fresh, straight off the cutting board, with juice running down our hands and faces.