Hurrah for Costco!

Well, I'm still not sold on Costco, but everyone keeps telling me it's worth the membership fee. I must say though, I love their mini restaurant. And you don't even need an active Costco card. Tonight we dined at their mini restaurant, feasting on pizza and salad. If it had been up to Corbin we would have had pizza and hot dogs and I'd currently be in the queue for a heart transplant. Corbin loves his pig products. On Sunday we had brunch with friends. I seriously believe Corbin ate the entire package of sausage. I believe he will be coming down with a severe case of "hot dog fingers" soon.

After our fine dining, we stocked up on our immediate food needs as well as food storage. Each time we go, we buy a few items for our food storage. This time we purchased canned evaporated milk and stuffing. Corbin promised me that we will have TONS of things to do with the evaporated milk. Let's hope so.

P.S. This is NOT a picture of Corbin for those of you who have not seen him recently. His hot dog fingers have not kicked in yet.

Hurrah for Israel!

A picture, or in this case, a college football rankings listing, says a thousand words. Hurrah for Israel! Need I say more?For those of you who may be thinking something crass about BYU or thinking I'm praising any of the 1-7 ranked teams, you're wrong!!! You're supposed to be saying, "My, I am SO tickled to see that my favorite football team, BYU, is doing so marvelously." Yes, my friends, my alma mater is rocking the college football scene. I'd like to draw everyone's attention to Corbin's alma mater, Virginia Tech. Hmmm, a measly 18. We'll be wearing cougar blue in this home...at least until Corbin manages to post a blog :) And while I'm on my trash talking soap box, I'd also like to bring to everyone's attention that BYU is creaming the apostate school, Utah.

Dark Knight

I realize the hype around Dark Night has mostly died down by now, but the legacy lives on. One recent Sunday afternoon, Corbin was lying in bed. I pounced on him and discovered that he was a little grouchy. So I did what any good wife would do, I teased him relentlessly about how he was a grump. Finally I tired of my teasings and left the bedroom. Soon I heard a ding from my iPhone telling me that I had gotten an email. I checked it and found an email from Corbin! The subject line said, "I'm not grumpy." I opened the email and saw this picture.For those wondering, the red text under Corbin's chin says, "Why so serious?" Corbin downloaded an application to his iPhone that allows you to make anyone a Joker victim. Seeing his picture, I had to do it too.

Sunday Pleasures

Last week we returned from our 2.5 week vacation to Portugal. We have got a TON of blog topics ready to post...but one at a time! Hopefully we haven't lost all of our readers. Today has been an awesome Sunday so I wanted to blog about this first before any blogs on Portugal overshadow it.

Sunday has become our day to try new recipes. Corbin and I LOVE to cook. Today we had soup, salad, and bread. Fairly normal sounding but I have to admit, we did this in style, as you can see by the pictures.

Corbin made his awesome carrot soup, which we put in my favorite bowls. You can sort of see that there are lion heads on the side of the bowl. I think the soup tastes even better in these bowls. This is a soup Corbin learned to make on his mission in Portugal, but we didn't actually eat this soup while we were there (we did eat other kinds of soup though).

We had a very untraditional pear salad. And for our bread, I made a very very salty grape and basil foccacia. I love salt but I over did it a bit on the coarse sea salt :)

We really loved our travels in Portugal, but as cheesy as it sounds, there's no place like home or home cooking. This was quite poignant to me as I paused in my reading this afternoon. On my lap sat Papel taking a nap. (Since we've been home he's been very clingy.) Corbin was on the couch learning to play Silent Night on the guitar. And the air was filled with a mixed scent of stargazer lily and baking bread. I can't imagine anywhere else I'd rather be.

Mmm, mmm good in the neighborhood!

What do Campbell's and Applebee's have in common? Not only are they both purveyors of fine cuisine, the former from a can and the latter from a butter soaked, wood paneled restaurant with crazy crap on the walls, but they are both owned and operated by world class golfers!

For those of you who are poor and therefore do not follow golf, this week is the US Open. And it is being played right in our own back yard at Torrey Pines Golf Course! I, of course, was among the privileged to be let in to grace that sacred grass with my footsteps. Among the giants I saw play were none other than Michael Campbell and Stuart Appleby. Campbell won the US Open a few years ago and Appleby was leading this year, last time I checked. Both gentlemen, gourmands, gastrologists, and golfers extraordinaire! [For those of you who believe I made a typo with gastrologist, I can assure you I did not. Def: gastrologist (g-strl-jst) - n. a gastronomist who can predict the future of deliciousness.] I do love Campbell's Chicken and Stars and the buffalo chicken sandwich invented by Appleby has no equal.

I am truly grateful for the game of golf, not only for creating a recreational water hazard between us well-to-do and the great unwashed, but also for bringing us such culinary greats as these two, ironic though it may be that golf originated in Scotland, home of the world's worst cuisine.

"Mmmmm. Open faced club sand wedge."


P.S. Neither of these two made it to the final playoffs today. That was reserved for Tiger, ranked 1st in the pro tour, and Rocco, ranked 158th. I spent most of the morning glued to the streaming 18 hole playoffs that ended in a tie and then went to sudden death! It was riveting. Even though sudden death is a misnomer and not quite as exciting as it sounds. Golf. Who knew?