I got the chance to use my Stacking Bento Boxes at the park a couple of weeks ago. I used it for lunch, and it's really kinda big....so I decided it would be ideal to use to take snack to the park. It was so easy to throw in nori rice crackers, dried bing cherries, freeze-dried strawberries into the 3-section layer, grapes in the next layer, and mini corn muffins and pita bread in the bottom layer. I thought I maybe brought too much as usual....but 5 hungry children proved otherwise.

Yum yum. Try these oven-baked fries from the May 2007 Bon Appétit. The key is a spice that is sprinkled on - shichimi togarashi. It is a Japanese table seasoning that has dried chiles, black sesame seeds, roasted orange peel, seaweed and ginger. I found it very easily in the Japanese food section at Berkeley Bowl. You also add some salt and sugar to the shichimi.......I repeat.......YUM. I looked for the recipe on Epicurious but it's not yet there so here you go:

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3 large baking potatoes (about 2 1/2 lbs) peeled, cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide planks, each plank cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide strips

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sea salt (actually-I would cut this in half-use 1/2 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon shichimi togarashi

1 teaspoon sugar

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Place rack in top third of oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Place potato strips on rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil; toss to coat. Roast 25 minutes. Using spatula, turn fries over. Roast until tender and golden brown around edges, about 25 minutes longer.

Mix salt, shichimi, and sugar in small bowl. Sprinkle over fries.

In Memory of Ursula Guidry

I went to the memorial service for Ursula today, whose children have gone through the same school as Ry and Si. No one should have to experience a loss like this - she was 41 years old and died as a result of breast cancer. She leaves behind 3- and 5-year-old boys, a husband, and more family and friends than you can possibly imagine. What really touched me was her unbelievable breadth of friendships. From her fellow cardiologists to her mom's group, she just seemed to enjoy people. Hug your loved ones today, and be thankful for one more day on this earth.

And now a musical interlude from 1971 for your viewing pleasure.



Happy Saturday!

Once a month or so we all head down to Rasputin in Berkeley and we each get to pick one new CD to introduce to the rest of the family. Here's our little hippie chick listening to one of her options. It's a great place to go - all you need to do is scan the bar code of any CD, and it will play excerpts of most tracks on the CD. The selection is unbelievable. Si mostly chooses from the Hawaiian or Polynesian section, while Ry is rock and roll all the way. We've brought home the Tianjin Buddhist Music Ensemble, Ravi Shankur, Ky-mani Marley, the Monkees, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pink Martini, Crazy Frog, Arab pop songs, AC DC, and so much more. We love Rasputin!

MY EGGS ARE HERE! MY EGGS ARE HERE! Like Paul Revere on his historical (though not historically acurately told) ride through the streets of Boston and onward, I believe it is my duty and honor to spread the word of my fresh eggs. See my Sept. 19 and 25 posts for some background on my quest. These are the chickens from whence the eggs came. We went to Deer Hill Ranch today and fed the chickens and got our first dozen eggs. We immediately came home and feasted on Scott's famous arugula salad topped with grilled asparagus, fried bread crumbs, goat cheese and all topped off with farm fresh poached eggs. There is a mix of different kinds of eggs from different kinds of chickens....the only name I remember is Pullet.....but they are definitely sweeter and richer tasting. I also love that they're different colors and sizes all mixed in. I'm still waiting on the milk cow share, so if you know anyone who knows anyone, let me know.

It's Little League fundraiser time again! The Sand Gnats need your help. Prepare yourselves for the phone call from slugger Ryan asking for your generous donation for the upcoming Bat-A-Thon. For your early perusal, here is a link to information in the Bat-A-Thon Letter.

I must refer you back now to my entry of February 19. There you will see the famous cupcake carrier that I coveted. Well, Pat (my mother-in-law) was nice enough to buy the carrier for me and I've been trying to create a reason to make 36 cupcakes to take somewhere. In the meantime, I decided a little repurposing was in order because I needed to take smoked trout deviled eggs to an appetizer party. The eggs are on the bottom and top levels, there are ice packs on the middle level to keep everything cool, and the apples are bumpers to keep the round egg plates from shifting. Plus Si ate one of the apples at the party so that was an added bonus.

Our first batting casualty of the season......brothers and sisters should probably not practice batting with aluminum bats so close to one another. You can make your own inference as to where the responsibility lies, but upon questioning we simply refer to it as "the accident."

Ry and Si performed with their school last night at a Peace Concert in Oakland. They sang four beautiful songs - one African, one Latin, one Hebrew, and one English. Afterwards, we went to Kirala for sushi (not without first convincing them that this did not, in fact, count as a recital, after which we would be forced to go to Fenton’s), and it was unbelievably good as usual. As we were leaving at about 10:10 (and Kirala was beginning their closing process) we marvelled at the fact that in Barcelona, restaurants would just be starting to serve dinner. How did we do that? I suppose when in Barcelona........

You'll notice to the right that I've added the ability to subscribe. It's not an RSS feed per se - it's Blogger's version - the Atom....same idea. Apparently you subscribe and your computer will search for my updates and put them into your Favorites folder based on the time period you specify - every day, every 4 hours, every 15 minutes, etc. I truly have no idea how this really works, but people have asked about it enough times I thought I'd give it a go. If I've done it wrong I'm sure I'll figure it out in the next few days, but let's keep our fingers crossed. So now those of you who keep forgetting to check up on me will have no excuse to not know all about what fabulous things are going on in Oaktown.

Baseball/Softball season is here.......yea!! Here are the cuties in their uniforms. The team names are a crackup. Si is on the Golden Girls in her girl's softball league, and Ry is in Little League on the.....are you ready?.......Sand Gnats. Apparently that is truly the name of some minor league team, and truth be told, it's started to grow on us. However, whenever Scott yells "go Sand Gnats!" I still have to turn and say....huh? Sand Dabs? Sand Crabs? Oh yeah, Sand Gnats!

I love this new Moisture Stick I bought at Whole Foods last week. I always find it messy and inconvenient to carry regular lotion in my purse and this solves that problem. It kind of looks like chapstick when you open it, but doesn't have that waxy feel. I really like using it on my face which tends to get dried out throughout the day. But it can also easily be used on any part of your body....rough elbows, heels, backs of hands (personally I don't like lotion on the fronts of my hands....I just have to wipe it off anyway, so why waste the lotion?), etc. Of course, I also like the fact that it is 100% natural and organic, formulated without the use of harmful chemical preservatives (parabens), synthetic fragrances, artificial colors, harsh surfactants (sodium lauryl sulfate), or petroleum derivatives (petrolatum, mineral oil and silicones). (Okay - yeah, so I directly lifted that last part from their website.....you got a problem with that?)

So some network execs have been reading my blog and found a way to make the money that I apparently left on the table. If you go back to my September 28, 2006 post, and then again to my October 3 post, you'll see that I'm enamored with the idea of freshening up BINGO because it is, after all, a very fun game of chance. It looks like ABC agrees and National Bingo Night will hit the airwaves Friday nights beginning in May. You can send my intellectual property residual checks to my home address.

Speaking of games of chance, I was introduced recently to the wild, wild world of Bunco (or Bunko). Let me just say, if you're longing for the glorious old days of college drinking games, this is the grown-up, seemingly acceptable version. It is not actually touted as such, but believe me, after going to a Bunco game, you'll understand my allusion. Check the Wiki description.....it blew my mind that the biggest following right now is with affluent suburban women. Believe me, that is not the crowd I played with. And no disrespect to my bridge-playing friends, but this ain't no bridge game either. Again, the game of chance thing? Key. Drinking during a game of chance? Key. Changing tables and switching partners for every round? Key. Trying to count and keep score after several rounds (and yes, I do intend the double-entendre)? Key. And a pot of money to divide up amongst several category winners at the end? Well, there's nothing more to be said.

There was a lovely little 4.2 earthquake here last week. I tried to go on and blog about it right away, but blogger wouldn't let me in, so maybe they had some damage! Anyway, one of my favorite websites is the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program site, where you can go immediately to see what the richter scale measured the quake at, and, nerd that I am, register whether you felt it and fill out a little form about your experience. I've been doing this every time I've felt a quake for about a year, so I know my zip code is well-represented in tracking quakes. It'll show you a quake intensity map by zip code, as well as how many people responded by zip code, so you can keep track of how many of us nerds are busy.