Every few months or so, a group of our foodie friends get together for a meal. It used to be dinner, but 2 of them had kids, so they've become lunches. These meals usually have a theme and everyone makes something to bring. When we first started doing these events, my cooking skills were pretty basic. Boil water? Check. Operate microwave? Check. Use an oven? Check. Despite my novice cooking skills, my foodie friends were very welcoming and usually let me bring simple things like wine, beer, soda and dessert (that I'd usually buy from a bakery...heehee).
Our most recent gathering was at Rob and Linda's place in San Francisco, and the theme: Mocktails/Cocktails and Appetizers. Rob and Linda made homemade salsa and guacamole plus a summer salad from The French Laundry. Rob also made greyhounds and a special peach/mint cocktail. Sylvia and Ken made seared ahi tuna and guacamole ahi poke salad. Ken gets special 
props for beautifully plating the seared ahi tuna. Viv and Eric made skirt steak sandwiches with a chimichurri sauce and two flavors of homemade sorbet, grapefruit and apricot/muscat. And we brought...(drum roll)....pigs in a blanket with mustard. Yeah, our contribution wasn't quite on the same level as everyone elses. That's why we're hosting the next gathering. The theme is Trailer Trash, but after my marketing spin it's now Comfort Food.
If you want to see more photos click here.
This past weekend, we went camping at Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe. Greg planned the first camping trip when we first started dating. It's become an annual event that we hope will continue for a long time...even when all of us have kids.
We arrived at our campsite on Friday afternoon and promptly set up our tent, Tachi's tent, camping chairs and coolers of food/drinks. Once the campsite was set up, we enjoyed the beautiful afternoon by hangin' out with Char, Ed and Tachi. We even took a short hike to a nearby vista point before getting dinner ready. Dinner on Friday: chicken and beef fajitas. Yummy! The rest of our friends started arriving just in time to chow down. Of course, no camping trip would be complete without a camp fire and s'mores!
On Saturday, Nelson took a group of folks and doggies on a hike. We had 6 dogs at our campsite: Tachi, Buddy, Buttercup, Muffin, Spike and Maddy. Tachi went hiking with Nelson. We heard that Tachi found all the shady spots on the hike and stopped to rest at each one.
Another group went fishing. We gave them instructions to bring what they catch back to camp so we could make it for dinner. Between the three of them, the caught one fish and decided to let it go. What's up with that?! Good thing we weren't counting on them to catch dinner for us. We'd have starved to death. =P
Greg and I went mountain biking with Ed and Christi. Ed planned the mountain biking trip, and I don't think we should allow him to plan any more mountain biking trips! It was advertised as an easy to moderate trail, 
but that is totally false advertising. It was all single track and VERY technical. I had to get off my bike every 20 ft because I don't know how to ride my bike UP a 2 ft rock. It felt like I was hiking with my bike and not really riding. Christi and I sent the boys ahead and said we'd catch up with them when they turned around. =) We eventually met up with the boys and headed back to the car. This whole experience was a nice reminder of why I mountain biking is not fun and gives me anxiety because it brings back memories of that time I fell and had to get 14 stitches in my knee.
When we got back to camp, a bunch of us took the dogs down to the beach for a swim. I dragged Tachi into the water. He didn't like it very much, especially when the water got above mid-leg on him. But that didn't stop me. I took him out a little deeper and encouraged him by pointing out that Buddy, who hates water, was out further than he was. Tachi wasn't buying it. He tried to climb up onto a large rock to escape the water, but wasn't successful. Any chance he could, he'd desperately try to swim back to shore. We eventually swam back to shore and dried off in the sun.
For dinner, Greg prepared salmon with fresh dill, tri-tip and steamed veggie packets. Ed started the campfire and made baked potatoes in the fire. Everything was really tasty. I was stuffed. After dinner, we all sat around the campfire, drinking beer, making s'mores and chit-chatting. It was the perfect way to end the day!
The other day I was talking to a friend and realized that we play 5 nights of volleyball. I play on Sunday and Thursday evenings. Greg plays on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. And we play together on Monday nights. If you count playing outdoors on Saturdays with friends, that makes 6 days out of 7 days that we play. That's a lot of volleyball.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing volleyball. But maybe 5 nights is too much? It prevents us from doing anything else. When I shared my thoughts with Greg, he replied, "There's no such thing as too much volleyball. What's wrong with playing 5 nights a week?" I guess he doesn't think we play too much volleyball. =P
This past weekend, we played in Christi's annual Queen's Volleyball Tourney. It's a fun, very social volleyball tournament where guys can play as girls *if* they wear a bikini top. The first year Greg played in the tourney, he played as a girl and wore my bikini top. He even got a tan line because he didn't wear a T-shirt underneath the bikini! He hasn't been a girl ever since then. But I wonder if he missed playing as girl this year because he put a bikini top on, supposedly to show Eddie the proper way to wear one. See, here he is modeling in a bikini top:
Sexy, huh? And here is his playing in the finals:
Unfortunately, he and his partner didn't win. But we both had a lot of fun hanging out in the park, eating, socializing and playing volleyball.
props for beautifully plating the seared ahi tuna. Viv and Eric made skirt steak sandwiches with a chimichurri sauce and two flavors of homemade sorbet, grapefruit and apricot/muscat. And we brought...(drum roll)....pigs in a blanket with mustard. Yeah, our contribution wasn't quite on the same level as everyone elses. That's why we're hosting the next gathering. The theme is Trailer Trash, but after my marketing spin it's now Comfort Food.
