Tragic Sandwich

Category: Family and Friends

  • Grillmasters, part 1

    This weekend my dad and stepmom came to visit, and to see the new house. We had family and a few close friends over on Saturday, for the first of many (or at least several) housewarmings. In spite of the fires raging around the Southland, we cooked burgers, dogs, and chicken drumsticks over a borrowed charcoal grill.

    Indeed, we are good citizens.

    But we didn’t set fire to anything–not even the food–and a good time was had by all.

    The next day, the four of us (Mr. Sandwich, Sandwich Père, Sandwich Belle-mere, and me) traveled to more than one hardware store so that we could host future events–and just cook dinner–on a grill of our own. We decided on propane; while both of us appreciate the romance of the charcoal grill, we also appreciate the ease and predictability of propane.

    Last night I stopped by the supermarket to pick up a New York strip steak for the inauguration of our new grill. We sprinkled Barbecue of the Americas (a Penzeys spice mix), black pepper, and rosemary, and let it sit for 30 minutes. Then we grilled it about three and a half minutes per side, so that it was seared on the outside and pink in the middle.

    The rest of the meal? Maple-glazed carrots, mashed potatoes, and the ubiquitous Ranch Style Beans for Mr. Sandwich. (He does love those beans.)

    I don’t have the camera on me, so photos will come in a later post.

  • Meme

    Yesterday our new modem arrived. Turns out it doesn’t support wireless. Which means that AT&T sent us the wrong modem.

    So to distract myself from my (in my opinion) righteous but tiresome (also in my opinion, and I can only assume in yours) ire, I present this meme, courtesy of my friend Chelsea.

    Here are the rules:

    Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions.
    They have to be real places, names, things. Nothing made up! You can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

    1. What is your name? Tragic. Clearly it’s not my real name, because my parents were not that mean. Actually, they were pretty fantastic. But it’s what we’ll work with here.

    2. A four-letter word: Tote. The knowledge that I should get rid of some of my totes makes me feel like saying other four-letter words. But I do have a lot.

    3. A boy’s name: Thomas. I’ve had more than one neighbor named Tom or Tommy, and I’m starting to wonder if a scamp-like nature goes with the name.

    4. A girl’s name: Trixie. Not sure why I came up with this one, as I was never a Trixie Belden fan.

    5. An occupation: Tollgate attendant

    6. A color: Teal

    7. Something you wear: Toe shoes. Actually, I didn’t wear them much. I could never break them in, and finally my ballet teacher let me do my solo in ballet shoes. I really don’t think anyone minded, especially not me.

    8. A beverage: Tea. My favorite is English Breakfast, hot, with sugar.

    9. A food: Tortellini

    10. Something found in the bathroom: Toilet. Well, it had better be there.

    11. A place: Tuolomne Meadows. I remember driving through there more than 20 years ago (oh, that makes me sad) on a trip to Yosemite. While I’ve been back to Yosemite many times since, I have never been back to Tuolomne Meadows. I remember it as beautiful and completely unrelated to the majesty of the more famous valley floor. And I suspect that when I do get back there, I should make sure that I have plenty of insect repellent.

    12. A reason for being late: Twisted an ankle. Not today, fortunately. So far.

    13. Something you shout: Time out!

    Anybody else want to give it a try? Put your link in the comments so I can see what you come up with.

  • A Wonderful Weekend

    Saturday morning I ran a bunch of errands. On my way home, I passed Mr. Sandwich on his way out for a long ride. I continued home and lounged around on the bed reading magazines (normally I lounge around on the couch to read magazines, but the carpet was still drying, and the couch had some extra stacks of things to be sorted, with nowhere else for them to go). Mr. Sandwich came back, and we headed up to Santa Clarita for dinner with friends. They grilled steaks and tater tots, and I made a tomato-avocado salad and roasted asparagus. After dinner we played board games and stayed up much too late talking.

    On Sunday, we went to the real estate office and signed still more papers to raise our offer. After looking at (and eliminating) a few more houses, Mr. Sandwich and I decided that we couldn’t waste such an unusually clear summer day. We went on a long drive through Malibu, and then across town and along the spine of Mullholland Drive. The views into the valley were stunning (see earlier post for shaky video). And it was the perfect end to the weekend.

  • My Dream Vacation

    Before J and I were married, I was working on a project that was extremely stressful. I told him that I wanted a beach vacation–“But not just any beach vacation. I don’t want to have to cross the street to get to the beach, or take the elevator down from the 15th floor and walk through the lobby to get to the beach. I want to walk out the door and be on the beach.”

    Fast-forward four and a half years. I’ve just wrapped up a month of stressful projects, and what got me through was the knowledge that there was a beach vacation at the end of it. And, although I didn’t realize it until the day before we left, it turned out to be the beach vacation of my dreams.

    Our friends D and A invited us to join them; for the past 10 or 12 years, D’s parents have rented the same beach house in Newport Beach. It’s a split-level with two floors. The bedrooms are a half flight up and face the street. The kitchen and living room are another half flight up and open onto an enormous balcony overlooking the beach. On the ground floor, exit the front door (actually on the side), turn right, and walk 10 feet. Presto. You’re on the beach. No elevators, no streets. Just the beach.

    It doesn't get better than this

    We spent two days with their family, reading on the balcony, oohing and aahing as D’s father flew an elaborate kite, lounging under beach umbrellas, watching surfers, swimming, and splashing in the shallows. In the evenings we ate delicious food and watched the Olympics. It was relaxing and healing and everything I needed.

    Let's go fly a kite!
    Let's go fly a kite!
    Surfin' USA
    Surfin' USA

    The truth is that it was better than the vacation I imagined, because we got to share it with dear friends. I miss it–and them–already.

  • Shanghai Red’s

    For the life of me, I can’t figure out the name of this place. There is absolutely nothing Chinese about the food at Shanghai Red’s. A friend suggested that we meet there for brunch, and since I’d heard good things about the restaurant but had never been there, I agreed. Then I looked up the menu online and thought, “This had better be good. Because I normally save meals that cost this much for splurgy nights out with J.”

    You enter the restaurant through a tropical, quasi-Asian walkway dripping with ferns. The tables are spread through several rooms, some indoor and some out. The setting is terrific–in the heart of Marina del Rey, with views of the water and boats. And who doesn’t like looking at boats?

    There are at least three lavish brunch stations: a long room filled with hot dishes ranging from tamales to eggs Benedict to crab legs; an omelet and waffle station; and a room filled with desserts. Everything was excellent, down to the crisp-but-not-burned bacon (and I do love bacon).

    On top of that, I got to spend time with a good friend I haven’t seen in months. And really, you can’t put a price on that. Especially when it comes with delicious food. And boats.

  • Happy Birthday to Me

    It’s not my birthday. In fact, it’s nowhere near my birthday, which was in February. However, two of my friends gave me a gift card to Lawry’s. If you’re not familiar with Lawry’s, since the 1930s they’ve served prime rib with mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and the restaurant’s Famous Original Spinning Bowl Salad. My family loves Lawry’s so much that a homemade version has become our annual Christmas tradition, although we’ve never tried to make the salad.

    The salad is made by spinning a bowl in a larger bowl of ice, and the dressing is poured on in a continuous stream. The recipe includes canned beets, which I thought sounded horrible, but actually turned out to be a nice addition to the mix.

    The prime rib is carved tableside, in a large steel cart that is wheeled around the restaurant. And unlike the beef I’m generally able to buy for our traditional Christmas dinner, the prime rib is actually prime–more tender and flavorful than most steaks you’re likely to encounter. We also ordered sides of asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and creamed corn. Christmas dinner features creamed spinach in place of those, but based on tonight, I may want to introduce creamed corn to the tradition.

    One of the things I like about Lawry’s is that many traditional restaurants have male servers, as though somehow men are inherently classier than women. At Lawry’s, the servers are women–although the carvers, at least the ones we saw, were men. The service, by the way, was excellent. At the end of the meal, our server brought me a complimentary serving of the restaurant’s trifle (what’s a traditional English dinner without trifle, after all?).

    So in the end, what does it matter when my birthday really is? This would be a welcome gift at any time.

  • Memories

    I’m still very far behind on my scrapbooking. Last night I finished the Caribbean cruise I took with my parents (I finished the actual cruise in 2002, which should illustrate what I mean by “very far behind”), and tonight I was going to sort the photos from the trip I took to London that summer.

    But where are they? They’ve vanished, although I saw them in the process of sorting the Caribbean photos, and now they’re gone.

    Perhaps it’s a sign that I should go back to the box of photos from 1990. And if you think that’s a lot of back photos, keep in mind that just a couple of years ago, I was scrapbooking 1978, and I still have several years of the ’80s waiting in storage. What a trip down memory lane that will be–the hair, the clothes, the eye shadow . . .

  • Networking

    I have friend who I refer to as “my hyper-connected friend from New York.” To avoid confusion of initials, I’ll call her H (for Hyper-connected, I guess). H knows everyone, as was demonstrated today. She was in Manhattan Beach, trying to get to UCLA. As she was sitting at the bus stop, a car pulled up and the driver said, “H, is that you?”

    Three thousand miles from home, and she runs into someone she knows, who was driving in the same direction and gave her a ride to her destination. Now that’s networking.

  • Organizing Principles

    We have too much stuff. Actually, J says that we have a normal amount of stuff for where we are in life–but we have it in an apartment that is just too small. I think he may have a point.

    Regardless of how much stuff we have overall, we do have a lot of bookcases–and they are full of books. The tallest one has been double-stacked, with the books in front blocking the view of the books in back.

    There are also sundry items on the shelves: candlesticks and holders, a tape dispenser and stapler, and–for some reason–a pair of 1983 Campagnolo Super Record brake calipers. For more information on those, you’d have to check with J.

    But the assorted items weren’t really the problem, because you can see through or around them. Sure, there’s more on the bookcase than I might normally like, but it’s manageable. The front row of books, though, were a problem.

    So I finally went through the books and made two stacks (because one would tip over) that will go to the local library. There are quite a few that I won’t read again, or won’t read. I mean, if they’ve been sitting there unread for all of these years, how likely is it that I’ll read them in the near future? And if I do want to read them, well, I can go to the library. It’s a beautiful system, really.

    But the best part is how much better I feel when I look across the room at that bookcase. I can see what’s there, and it’s surprisingly calming.

    You know, I really should try this on my desk at work. Now there’s an idea.

  • Be Prepared

    We’re watching Escape from New York, and J is going through our earthquake kit to make sure that everything is up to date. Actually, that should be earthquake kits. We have a lot of gear.

    When I was little, my family lived in Sherman Oaks. I started elementary school, and after a year we moved to Maryland. After a while, I started to wonder: how would all of my classmates in Maryland survive an earthquake, since we never had an earthquake drill? Would I be the only one who knew to get under my desk?

    After I got home and confided my concerns, my mother explained that Maryland was not likely to experience any earthquakes. I was skeptical, but as things turned out, she was right. And, of course, I know now that getting under my desk would have been fairly useless as a protective measure.

    I don’t know how useful the earthquake kits would be, either. For starters, we’d have to be at home to use them. But better safe than sorry. It may be a cliche, but it’s a pretty harmless one.

    And on the plus side, it’s very unlikely that we’ll need to prepare for entering and escaping a prison city.