07.12.09
Posted in Film, Food, San Francisco at 5.32 pm by Caitlin
I have finally landed in San Francisco after nearly two months of separation from my beloved husband. The flight from London was fairly long – about 10 hours – but uneventful and comfortable. I flew premium economy with Virgin Atlantic and was quite impressed with the service.
The last week or so in London was hectic, with last minute packing and finishing off work before the big move. My visa does entitle me to work here but I have to complete some paperwork first and it can take a while to process. In the mean time, I am a lady of leisure. It’s a good opportunity to take time to set the house up, look for work and make contacts, and work on my novel.
My husband stayed in corporate accommodation when he first arrived but moved into our new rental property last weekend. He’s found us a lovely Victorian cottage with a garden in an old neighbourhood. It’s huge compared with any of our London abodes and bigger than our house in Sydney five years ago – we have two bedrooms, separate living and dining rooms, a laundry room and a private garden. It is unfurnished and all my husband has bought so far is a bed so I also get the pleasure of decorating it.
San Francisco is pretty amazing visually with steep streets and wooden Victorian houses with amazing paint detailing. Our neighbourhood has really nice cafes and shops and a good vibe. Downtown is not too far away by public transport, though we are thinking about getting bikes (those hills would give us a good work out!).
On Friday we went to the opening night of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (or the SF Squared Festival) at the Castro Theatre, an old movie palace. It is an amazing theatre with beautiful period features – I especially loved the light fittings on the ceiling. The theatre was packed and the audience was very enthusiastic – clapping and cheering throughout the opening speeches and giving a standing ovation at the end of the film. It also shows new releases at the cinema, though only one at a time.
We saw The Gaucho, a Douglas Fairbanks movie set in Argentina, and it was great, both funny and dramatic in equal measure. The film had been beautifully restored and it was accompanied by an orchestra playing the live score, just as it would have been in the old days. The scenes with the Virgin Mary were originally in technicolour and this was yet to be restored, but we got to see out-takes that had never been seen since the original showing and it was pretty visually impressive. It’s just green and red but it somehow it fools the eye into believing you are seeing a fuller spectrum of colours. I guess 3D films where you have to wear red and green glasses must use a similar concept.
Yesterday morning we went to the farmers’ market in the Ferry Building downtown. It’s open Saturdays and Tuesdays and I think it’s going to be a regular for me – lots of lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, plenty of them organic, and great bread and cheese too. This place is amazing for fresh produce – at the moment we are eating some exquisite white nectarines, which have a really unusual flavour as well as being sweet and juicy. It’s not quite so good as Europe for things like cheese though, even in the artisanal shops, but it’s not bad. The bread is fantastic – we bought a lovely sourdough loaf and another loaf of crusty cranberry and walnut bread.
This morning we went to a local cafe for breakfast. In Sydney, breakfast was probably my favourite meal to eat out, especially around the Inner West where we lived. In London, it was possible but it always seemed like more trouble than it’s worth. San Francisco is much more like Sydney in terms of its cafe culture so this morning the hubby and I loaded up respectively on eggs florentine and pancakes with nutella and banana. The key difference with Sydney is that drip (filter) coffee with free refills is ubiquitous.
In general, the vibe of the city reminds me a lot of Sydney – it’s built around a bay, the houses are old, the streets are lined with trees (including eucalpytus, bottle brush and jacaranda), and the pace of life seems similar. It’s a lot colder though – this might be California but we’re in the middle of summer and the temperature is hovering around 16C. It’s about 10 degrees warmer in London right now! Part of the reason it feels so cold is because there’s quite a bit of wind. I fear my lovely collection of cotton summer dresses may be slightly redundant here, unless it gets warmer soon.
***
I’ll put up photos when I can.
***
For the past few months, I have been doing an automatic daily post of my tweets. Now the feed seems to be broken – the last update was nearly a week ago. I’m not sure if this is such a bad thing as it was overwhelming any other content on the blog. You can always look me up on Twitter if you miss it, but meanwhile I’ll try to keep this blog updated with original content.
Permalink
11.30.08
Posted in Family & Friends, Food, London, Media & Internet, Writing at 8.00 am by Caitlin
Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo – I’ve managed to blog every single day in November. It’s certainly not been as hard as NaNoWriMo last year!
Have you enjoyed the extra blogging? I can’t promise to keep it up at this rate but it’s been fun and has helped me recover my blogging mojo, so hopefully I’ll be around a bit more.
I have friends coming to lunch today and house guests arriving tonight. I’ll keep this brief as I need to get the lamb in the oven – not the Jamie Oliver version this time since it’s quite boozy and our friends are bringing their kids.
I have two other blog posts today as well:
- A post on unusual vegetables featuring pics of Romanesco cauliflour on The Gooseberry Fool.
.
Permalink
11.24.08
Posted in Food at 8.40 am by Caitlin
Today’s post is also over at The Gooseberry Fool – I’ve tested the recipe for pumpkin pots de creme from another food blogger.
I have a busy day ahead of me so I need to press on.
Permalink
11.21.08
Posted in Food, Media & Internet, Travel at 3.19 am by Caitlin
Today’s posts are both submissions to Photo Friday, a weekly travel photo blogging event run by Debbie at Delicious Baby.
The idea is to show a photo with a story behind it and tell the story behind that photo. I regularly take part on Roaming Tales and this week’s post is on penguins and polar bears. I’ve also done one on Tasmanian seafood for my food blog The Gooseberry Fool.
You can see all the other Photo Friday submissions on Delicious Baby.
Permalink
11.17.08
Posted in BookCrossing, Family & Friends, Food at 1.43 pm by Caitlin
Yesterday’s post officially marked the halfway point of NaBloPoMo. I’m pleased to say that I’m still in the game, as are my friends Natalie, Tash Reid, Tash Judd and Jessica.
My post for today is a round-up of foodie links over on my food blog, The Gooseberry Fool. Please check it out!
Permalink
11.15.08
Posted in Family & Friends, Food, Life, London, Running at 10.35 am by Caitlin
Our friends Katrina and Dylan arrived to stay with us last night. Last time they stayed, we were still in our old flat had to make do with an inflatable mattress crammed between two sofas on the living room floor. This time we have a spare room to give them, and we even have space for our friend Misty who arrives this afternoon.
I have a lot to do today as we are holding a housewarming and engagement party tonight – the theme is ‘winter warmth’ so I’m planning mulled wine, roast potatoes, baked apples and so on. I think it will be a fairly intimate affair – maybe around 20 people, though it could be more if all of the ‘maybes’ show up.
I’m off for a run now and then breakfast, shopping, cooking, cleaning. Hopefully, I’ll also get to relax a bit and spend some time with my friends.
Permalink
11.10.08
Posted in Food at 8.00 am by Caitlin
Another compensation of autumn is the food. It’s harvest season and fresh produce is still plentiful and varied. What better symbol of nature’s bounty than a surfeit of pumpkins and squashes, fat and golden with the summer sun?
Today’s post is about decorative gourds and seasonal pumpkin recipes, over at my food blog The Gooseberry Fool.
Permalink
11.04.08
Posted in Food at 8.00 am by Caitlin
The lamb dish I made for Sunday lunch was ‘braised five-hour lamb with wine, veg and all that’ from Jamie Oliver’s The Return of the Naked Chef. It was really delicious! If you want to know more, I have reviewed the recipe over at my food blog The Gooseberry Fool.
The review is part of my Recipe Road Test feature. The idea is that I follow a recipe for the first time and share my experiences looking at how easy it was to make, what it tasted like, and whether I thought it was worthwhile. (I give the recipe in full, as it is written in the book, but since I give full credit, add my own commentary, and only ever take one recipe per book, I’ve been told that this counts as ‘fair use’ in copyright law).
Permalink
11.03.08
Posted in Family & Friends, Food, London at 8.00 am by Caitlin
What could be better than a lazy Sunday afternoon with friends, eating wonderful food, drinking wine and playing games?
In mid-September we moved to the East End, after two years in West Hampstead (and the two years before that in Clapham). We wanted to try a different part of London and, just as importantly, we wanted a bigger place. We are now renting a rather spacious two-bedroom flat and I am using the second bedroom as my home office. Our previous flat was quite small and we only had a small fold-up card table with two chairs so it was difficult to have friends over for a meal. Now we have a good-sized wooden table that extends so we can fit six or even eight people comfortably.
I love to cook so now that we have the space I’m planning to have friends over more often, especially now the cold weather is here and the urge to cocoon in our cosy flat is growing stronger. Hopefully it will also allow me to save money by going out less. The last Sunday in October we had Emme and Jon over for lunch. My fiance did the honours in the kitchen with a fantastic vegetarian aubergine moussaka and we followed with baked apples with marscapone for dessert. After lunch we played a game of Cranium (which combines Pictionary, trivia, word games and charades) and the boys won by a whisker.
Yesterday we had Jess and Andrew and Tash and Matt over for Sunday lunch and again we spent the afternoon eating and playing games. We started with mulled white wine – a new one on me, since I’ve only ever had mulled red wine before, but totally delicious. For lunch I made slow-cooked lamb with wine and veg served with crusty ciabatta – a Jamie Oliver recipe, which worked fantastically well. I also made a Middle Eastern aubergine and chickpea stew – a Nigella Lawson recipe – for the vegetarian contingent. My guests brought plenty of wine and soft drinks and sweet treats. Jess brought homemade brownies, which we served with vanilla ice cream and dulce de leche, and Matt brought homemade dark chocolate cookies to have with coffee later. Totally decadent, and I didn’t need dinner at all that night!
Jess and Andrew gave us Kerplunk! – or rather, the new and improved Kerplunk! with a spiffy spiral funnel for the marbles – as a housewarming gift so we had a couple of rounds of that, then we played Whist, which is like Five Hundred or Euchre but more of a party game. It was all loads of fun and the perfect way to spend a cold November Sunday afternoon.
Permalink
05.11.08
Posted in Family & Friends, Film, Food, London at 2.46 pm by Caitlin
Summer is here early in London. There are green leaves and flowers all over town, we’ve enjoyed beautiful sunshine for days on end, everyone is out enjoying picnics in the park, the pubs are doing a brisk trade in cider and Pimms (one of the quintessentially English signs of summer).
It’s actually unseasonally hot – it’s expected to peak at 26C today and I can well believe it. I think I must be acclimatised because, for the first time, I can understand the English male’s desire to take his shirt off when temperature climb around the high 20s.
I was out this morning, doing my Japan tour at the British Museum and having coffee and lunch with friends. Now I’m spending a relaxing afternoon at home, perusing the Sunday papers. This evening we’re catching up with Kimberley, who is in town briefly on holiday from her native Vancouver.
Last night we met with our friends Emme and Jon. We saw a movie at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) and then had a picnic in St James’ Park. The picnic was lovely – homemade sushi, salad and parsnip cake (like carrot cake but with a straight substitution of parsnips). It was a beautiful night and really great to catch up with our friends as we hadn’t seen them for a few months.
The movie, however, was awful – it was a Japanese film called Vexille – and it was probably the worst thing I’ve seen in a few years. I usually enjoy Japanese animé but I guess I’ve only seen the good stuff – this was a highly implausible and emotionally vacuous story with ridiculous plot holes and even more ridiculous dialogue. Also, they seem to have used the cut-and-paste job with the animation – the Americans look Japanese and the two main female characters are identical except for their hair and clothing.
I did see Iron Man the previous week and that was surprisingly good. Robert Downey Jr was superb in that role – utterly convincing. It’s not that Iron Man is any more plausible than Vexille when you get down to it but solid storytelling means you are willing to suspend your disbelief and that makes all the difference. It’s not going to change the world or win any prizes, but the characters are charismatic and believable, and it’s all round good fun.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
