There was no shortage of street food vendors, but some of the restaurants were also offering some great discounted prices on platters, so Dan jumped at the opportunity to get some Indian food!
Last night, I was eating some sherbet in an ice cream cone when Mio suddenly started trying to grab at my treat. I don’t know if it was the colorful colors (it was watermelon-flavored, so it was bright green and red), or how deliciously I was eating it, but no matter how much I’d try to pull it away, she’d keep going for it.
I suppose this is one of those signs that they tell you to watch for of when your baby is ready to start solids, but Dan and I are on the fence. We had been thinking of waiting until Mio turned six months, since we read that starting solids on the earlier side can lead to a higher risk of the child developing food allergies as well as obesity issues later in life. For now, we’re thinking of sticking with our plan to not introduce solids until she’s closer to six months of age. She will have decades to eat lots of yummy food, so waiting a couple more months shouldn’t hurt.
For now, Mio will just have to be satisfied with milk and attempts to eat her stuffed animals:
On a completely unrelated note, here are a couple photos of Mio playing with some of her older toddler friends this past weekend:
We’ve been spoiled by some gorgeous weather the past few days in the Bay Area — Â the temperatures were in the mid-seventies all weekend, and we were prancing around outside in T-shirts, with no need for a jacket! Being an East Coaster, it feels weird to have such warm, beautiful weather in early February — but I’m not complaining! 😉
It started to cool down again today, though, but not before I got my ice cream fix! I was really craving some ice cream last night, but wanted to make it extra yummy… so I made myself a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sundae!
I baked some chocolate chip cookies to couple with the ice cream, and drizzled over the combination with some homemade fudge sauce. Both the recipes for the cookie and the fudge sauce were passed onto me by my lovely coworker and friend Tarrin. (She’s a baking aficionado and some of my best recipes come from her!) Â The chocolate chip recipe is my favorite because it’s so unique and produces such delectable cookies! It uses canola oil instead of butter, egg whites instead of whole eggs, brown sugar instead of white, and calls for a bit of vinegar and a whole bunch of mini chocolate chips! They make the perfect cookies, with just the right degree of chewiness that I love.
One of my good friends from college came to visit this past weekend. Mimi is a couple years older than me and has always been like the older sister I never had — when I kept getting sick freshman year, she always brought over soup or jello to help me feel better, and she would frequently invite me over for yummy home-cooked Korean meals. After she graduated, I hadn’t had many chances to see her, and it’s even harder to meet up now that we’re on opposite coasts. The last time I’d seen her was over a year ago, at my wedding. This time, Mimi and her friend Cindy decided to take a trip out here for a little over a week to go hiking and camping around Yosemite and Tahoe, making stops at Santa Cruz and Monterey along the way. They arrived on Friday night and spent Saturday with us before embarking on the rest of their Northern California adventure Sunday morning.
I’m always uncertain about where to take friends when they visit the area, since for having lived out here for two years, I still don’t know the area too well, especially San Francisco. But Mimi made things super easy for me because she did a whole bunch of research and talking to Bay Area natives back in Richmond, Virginia before she flew out. When she got here, she had a whole list of places to go and things to eat before I even had to come up with suggestions. She’s been to the city before, so she knew the streets of San Francisco much better than I did!
We spent a good amount of time in both Berkeley and San Francisco on Saturday, making it a full day. It was fun being a tourist in our own city! Here are some photos…
Breakfast at Bette's Oceanview Diner in Berkeley
corned beef hash and cream scone... a satisfying start to the day.
pie in the sky: a giant pie hanging from the ceiling
reunited with Meems!
Indian Rock in Berkeley... never heard of it until Mimi told me about it.
Enjoying breathtaking views of the bay from Indian Rock.
The ladies on Indian Rock! (It was rough scaling that rock in a dress.)
Big thanks to Mimi for telling us about this place!
Cindy and Mimi meet Diesel for the first time.
Ice cream stop at Ici.
Enjoying refreshing treats from Ici... my current favorite is the raspberry lemon ice cream sandwich, flanked by gingersnaps.
Driving in the Russian Hills in San Francisco.
The zigzagging roads of Lombard Street. This was actually my first time there! I've always wanted to see it.
Visiting friends always want to stop by the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.
obligatory Japanese bridge photo.
Dry-fried chicken wings from San Tung on Irving Street.
They were seriously the best chicken wings I've had in my entire life.
Shrimp and leek dumplings... delicious.
Spicy seafood noodle soup (Cham Pong) - pretty hot but soooo good.
Back in Berkeley, finishing off the day with bubble tea from Tapioca Express in downtown.
(See more photos of our Berkeley/San Francisco excursions on Flickr.)
Dan and I had a great time with the girls (although Dan only accompanied us for the Berkeley portion of our adventures), and we wish them a safe and memorable trip around NorCal before they return to the East Coast.
July is National Ice Cream Month, and what better way to celebrate than with a heavenly ice cream sundae from Fentons Creamery? Fentons was recently immortalized by the Pixar film UP, in the ending scene where Mr. Frederickson and Russell sit on the curb and count cars.
Fentons has enjoyed a long history of over one hundred years in Oakland since they opened in 1894, and is a favorite among the locals. The ice creamery is dedicated to preserving the tradition of creating ice creams and toppings batch-by-batch, scoop-by-scoop.
I indulged in my first taste of Fentons about four years ago when I was visiting Dan from Virginia, and loved it — although I couldn’t quite finish the ginormous sundae. We hadn’t gone back in a while but we finally had a chance to go for a second time with some friends last week. Dan and I got their cookie sundae, which features cookies n’ cream and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream piled on top of a chocolate chip cookie, and it was a heaping pile of sweet deliciousness. (and we were able to finish it!)
Megumi and I with Doug from UPwith my lovely lady friends!
Oh, how I love summer and all the yummy desserts that come with it — ice cream, gelato, sorbet, frozen yogurt… bring it on!
