Ozapft is!

Gropius and I went to the local Turn Verein's Oktoberfest with a couple of friends of ours on Friday evening.


We went last year, so we knew what to expect, but we had a good time nonetheless. We enjoyed some schuheplatte tanzen (sp?), wurst, bier, wein, and kuchen at the kaffeeklatsch upstairs.

Gropius didn't wear his lederhosen like he did last year (much to Jess's disappointment!) because it was raining. But, I did catch someone from faaaaar eastern Germany wearing his lederhosen!


As you may have noticed, Jess and Esen have a newborn of their own, Ella, who is only 2 weeks old!



Both Jess and I got scolded by the elderly German woman taking tickets at the door for bringing Ella and Louisa with us to Oktoberfest, claiming it was "too loud!" I wish she could've seen the babies later when they were sleeping away in their slings, happy as could be! Jess and Esen took pictures of us which you can see here.

Inspired by the Deutsche Kultur, Gropius and I made vaguely german food for dinner this weekend. I say vaguely because while we had German Spatzle, we paired it with a French red wine-beef stew from Julia Child. So, I guess we ended up somewhere in Alsace? Either way, it was delicious with fresh green beans from our garden (some of the beans had gotten too big, so we had to shuck them rather than serving them whole).

Potato Pizza

We took my mother to Masullo's for potato pizza the first week she was here and she was so tickled by the idea of potato pizza (and surprised by how tasty it was!), that we had to take my father there once he arrived as well!

The potato pizza has very thin potato slices with Niman Ranch bacon and fontina cheese. Mmmmmmm!

We all shared our pizzas with each other. Walter and Dad both ordered the potato pizza while Mom got a margherita and I got my favorite: a salami pizza with red onion and fennel slices. Yum!

Milk-fed

Gropius had fun with the sticker that comes on our milk bottle last night. If she's 1% fat, then she's definitely 99% milk!

Mmmmmmm......cake!

Here are a few shots of the Dr. Pepper cake that my mother baked for me in honor of my birthday last month. I figure it's the last birthday cake that's truly all-mine since I will be (gladly) sharing birthday celebrations with Louisa from now on. This is a family recipe--my Grandma used to make it for major holidays.

We put all 33 candles on it.

Gropius lighting them--quickly! There are shots of my blowing them out, but they're on Mom's camera.


Mom serving pieces

I got one of the red flowers!

Feliz Cumpleanos!

My loving husband prepared a delicious meal of osso bucco with risotto milanese for my birthday dinner last night and served it with a tasty bottle of chianti classico (no fava beans though, just some English peas). I played a part though by keeping the baby occupied so he could work his magic mojo:



And, yes, that is our coffee table. His other present to me was letting me eat this meal in front of the TV so we could watch Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Stan's Donuts

Gropius and I ventured to San Jose to pick up a pair of nightstands this past weekend which allowed us to indulge in our donut fetish at one of the best donut shops in the Bay Area: Stan's Donuts of Santa Clara. We discovered it, compliments of our Slow Food Guide to San Francisco and both Gropius and I agree that it's a good thing Stan's is located 130 miles away from Sacramento!

It's located in a nondescript strip mall between a BBQ joint, and various other ethnic eateries.


Immediately inside the door is a guy kneading donut dough and cutting them out. The other two guys were responsible for frying them and glazing them.



The inside of Stan's is narrow and long with a counter and griddle in the back. Apparently, you can eat donuts AND enjoy a hamburger and shake if you want to (but honestly, after a donut, who cares about hamburgers?). As you can see, this particular Saturday the counter was full of folks enjoying their donuts.



Gropius and I, however, took our half dozen to go because we had furniture to pick up. So, we enjoyed ours in the car, parked in some shade. Important note: they were still warm and gooey from the fryer.




Will post pics of the furniture later...

'maters!

Gropius and I have been anticipating the ripening of our West Virginia "Hillbilly" heirloom tomatoes. We had two absolute monsters which finally were ripe yesterday, in addition to two slightly smaller ones. We couldn't resist putting the monsters on the scale to see just exactly how much they weighed:

Yup, you read it right--2 lb, 12.3oz. How 'bout that?

These tomatoes are in addition to the yellow pear, black cherry, black prince, and garden peach tomatoes I harvested yesterday, not to mention the tomatillos and the habaneros, anaheims, hungarian wax, and cayenne peppers. Oh, and three yellow squash.

Tasty!