Ono ono

I know...I can't even really believe it myself... just how long it's been since I've blogged. The last 3 months have been out-of-control busy for me. Which isn't such a bad thing for life but a bad thing for all those 'routine' things I like to do. By early November, I'd been out of town 10 of the prior 12 weekends but I now intend to be IN town at least all the way through Christmas. It's a nice feeling - especially since this is a beloved time of year for me. I'm going to attempt to do some catch-up here on activities referenced (since I certainly haven't been around to do any baking). One that I've referred to a lot was my trip to Hawaii over Labor Day. It was quickly shadowed by this but I've finally found some time to go back and actually sort through my photos.

A view of Waikiki and Diamond Head from Deb and Nick's lanai (aka balcony)

Just how close the beach is to their building! And they have the pool too!

The reason I've titled this post "Ono ono" is because ono means "delicious" in Hawaiian and BASICALLY all I did in Hawaii was eat (and shop). It was far less about being a tourist and far more about visiting my very best friend and learning about all of her favorite spots.

One of Deb's FAVORITE jaunts: Leonard's for malasadas

If you've read my blog for at least the last few months, you'll know who Debbie is. I drop her name all the time. She moved devastatingly "far far away" almost a year ago and while phone calls and IMing and infrequent visits there or here are good - it's just not the same. But while it will likely just take time to get used to this, it's perhaps not so difficult to find a bright side regarding the location to which they moved: Oahu, Hawaii. Just a stone's throw north of Waikiki and essentially across the street from both the beach and Ala Moana Shopping Center. If a best friend must move somewhere, I'd certainly rather it be Hawaii than.... *trying not to offend anyone, but assuming you'll understand* North Dakota?..

Reunited, and it feels so good

Deb made me breakfast complete with Portuguese sausage (a staple in Hawaii)

Deb's first day free, she took me on an "Island Tour". From Leonard's in Waikiki for fresh malasadas, down through Kahala, and a stop at Bubbie's Homemade Ice Cream. Then up the East Shore past Kailua Bay on our way to Matsumoto's in North Shore for shave ice. We returned to Honolulu after a quick stop for poke-by-the-pound, just in time for dinner (which we totally needed. Not).

Kualoa Ranch. Scenes from Jurassic Park were filmed here

Driving along the H2 highway on our way back to Honolulu

The days were lazy and filled with shopping and eating. I was on my own for a couple of weekdays while Deb was working. And I spent them entirely at the mall. Note to all of you (like myself) who are materialistic snobs: luxury items are cheaper in Hawaii than anywhere else in the world. This was told to me by a friendly yet pretentious Chanel salesman. But I also observed this with my own wallet two eyes at Gucci, Chanel and Louis Vuitton. Prices run ~10% cheaper and additionally, sales tax in Oahu is about half that of San Francisco.

Ala Moana Center (complete with lower priced luxury goods) is RIGHT across the street!!!!

The food, the food, the food... I'm not sure "Hawaiian" food is the type that would be loved by all. But Asians, especially American Asians ♥♥♥ Hawaiian food. It's Asian-tinted in a very unrefined manner. Ahi poke, spam musubi, sesame ramen, malasadas, shave ice with condensed milk, [incredibly good] tempura udon from the food court, Dole Whips, afternoon tea ON Waikiki Beach, all the high end seafood at Alan Wong's (ok maybe that's a bit refined...) I was seriously in heaven.

Malasadas from Leonard's

Char-Siu Tan Tan Ramen at Goma Tei

Matsumoto's shave ice with azuki beans, ice cream,
condensed milk and (I think) Rainbow flavored syrup. Front view and back!

Buy poke by the pound from Poke Stop -
Creamy Ahi in back (just ok), Sweet Onion Ahi in front (very good)

For my [very belated, by September] birthday, Deb took me to the Moana Surfrider Hotel for afternoon tea. It was incredible! We sat just at the edge of the water and ate our finger sandwiches while watching sunbathers, surfers and paddlers. I loved it! It was perfect!

The Banyan tree at the Moana Surfrider Hotel

We wait for our tea experience to begin!

Pick 'yer own tea! They had a lot to choose from!

Afternoon Tea by the beach? Can it GET any better??

I am ♥ing this!!

It seems Hawaii attracts a ridiculous number of friends, so Deb and Nick are certainly never all that lonely. The month of September I think they went 2 days without guests! This particular trip our friend Kevin was in town for some golfing, and though he did not stay with Deb, we got together to hang on the beach, drink some cocktails and dine at Alan Wong's.

Met up with Kev and friends at Duke's

It was a magnificent vacation. And I suppose, if Deb's gotta be anywhere other than home, paradise will do.

Baby Tea

Once in a while something fantastic happens to one of my very closest friends and I get it in my head that I want to do something nice for them to celebrate the occasion. This was one of those times. My very good friend Alison (yes this one) is having her first baby just about one month from now. She's been very tired and while she at first thought she'd have a housewarming/baby shower at her new house, very quickly realized she'd absolutely NOT have the energy. I couldn't let my friend have her first baby without first having a baby shower! No way in heck! But my place is small so it wouldn't be possible to invite a large crowd...therefore I went small and sweet and threw her:

A Tea Party Baby Shower

Afternoon Tea for Ali's Baby Boy

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I completely ♥ afternoon tea. After going to Lovejoy's, I decided I wanted to start buying my own "tea throwing paraphernalia" and host a tea party! I mean, gosh, think of it: sandwiches, scones, boiling water and cookies? How difficult a cooking project is THAT? As most tea-goers know, the charm of afternoon tea is less about the food and more about the "cutesy". You want good service and you want good food (and enough food) but after that it's all charm.

It's not very often I'm NOT full from afternoon tea!

Well, I didn't exactly own enough "charm". ie: I don't own china. or fancy tea cups. or silver. Poor me. Yet, my Auntie Betty does. And not only does she own china and fancy antique tea cups and silver, she has multiple sets of all the above. She could probably host a tea party for 25! and would! So a trip to the coast was in order, and 2-boxes-loaded-into-my car later... I was ready for my tea party!

I pulled out my tripod later :)

As always happens when I plan any event for someone I care about, I got a little ambitious. Not only did create and assemble the invitations at home, I hand-knit all of Ali's baby gifts (more on those in a future post), designed and printed the onesies I hung to decorate, made and decorated pillow boxes for favors, made up my own baby games (I hate most games) and as usual, cooked and baked as many things from scratch as I could. {PROUD}

Selena won the baby animals game ~~~ Liz won the celebrity baby names game!

The makings for a wonderful baby shower...

Our menu for the afternoon:

Tea: Vanilla Bean Black Tea & Black Current Herbal Tea
Fruit: Fruit salad with pineapple cream dressing
Sandwiches: Chicken & apple salad, smoked salmon with herb butter, tomato with basil & mozzarella, onion & egg salad, and roast beef with horseradish cream cheese and baby arugula
Scones: Fresh baked cranberry scones with homemade lemon curd and Devonshire cream
Dessert: Pecan snowball cookies, green tea French macarons with green tea buttercream and blue raspberry French macarons with dark chocolate ganache.

Homemade macarons are always a show stopper ;)

I guess most of the girls hadn't been around too many pregnant women?!

I was incredibly proud of the end result. As much as I'd like to be humble and say that all the praise I got from the guests wasn't a big deal - it was. I love that my hard work goes noticed. I love that I can do the things I do and create the things I create, and make something special and nice for someone else. I truly believe that all the good I can do in this world will come back to me. But if not, it's nice to be complimented when it happens!!!

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Small and sweet, and perfect

A tea party at home can only really be pulled off with a smaller group of people since you have to be able to sit around a table, and you have to have enough nice dishes to go around. But we kept the list small since my house is. And six was certainly not difficult to fit around a table! Lucky for me Ali was craving sandwiches this week. I suppose I would have been in luck were it the week she was craving cookies as well.

Ali will be a wonderful mommy...

It was such a nice, relaxing and wonderful shower. I'm allowed to say that even as the hostess, right? Ahh, I ♥ tea. And Ali.

Carol

I know... I've been missing for a little while. I wish I could say it's cuz I've been out doing fantastic things and having the time of my life, and I suppose that's about half true. But the other half, well... it's the worst kind of thing to have to go through, and I don't wish it on anyone.

Not quite Hawaii...
(Left Hand Reservoir, Boulder County, CO)

A couple weeks ago I went to Hawaii to visit my best friend, Debbie. It was a fantastic trip and while it was of course, wonderful to be in Hawaii, it was even more wonderful to spend time with my best friend. I'd like to devote a post to my Hawaii trip soon, but before I can do that I feel the need to bring up the dark cloud that appeared over my Hawaii trip and followed me around for the remainder of the trip into the following weekend; and is, well, still hovering around.

Remember this picture? A fave of my parents includes a
couple of their oldest and closest friends.

On the 2nd day of my trip, as Deb was giving me an "island tour" I got a message from my mom with some tragic news; one of my parents' closest and oldest friends had been killed in a hiking accident the day before. Carol. She went out for the afternoon and never came home. She left her beloved husband of ~37 years and many, many, many close friends.

Yellowstone Park in 1988

A great majority of us friends gathered at Nick and Carol's Boulder mountain home last weekend (I was home for 2 days between Hawaii and Colorado) to celebrate Carol's life. We stood up in front of each other to share stories and thoughts and memories. We celebrated the way Carol lived and the way she loved and the way she made everyone feel like they were her best friend. We celebrated her generosity and her talents in the kitchen and those budding on the canvas. We celebrated her enthusiasm and how she lived each day to its fullest - more than your average person does. We celebrated her love of the outdoors and her love for her dogs and more than anything else, her love for Nick. In a way we could be comforted knowing that she lived a vibrant and full life with her soul-mate by her side.

In front of the home where we celebrated Carol, but back in 1991

Carol's current babies (as opposed to those in the
picture above who were of the previous doggie era)

As the cold Boulder rain came down we cozied up together under tents and umbrellas. And I couldn't help but wonder, as thunder accented particularly notable memories, was there a reason the sky opened up only during the hours of Carol's celebration? Was our huddling together part of a grander plan? Perhaps it's nice to think...yes. It was as Carol would have wanted it.

Bed & Breakfast-ing in Carmel, 1997

The most spectacular sunset I've ever seen - setting over the Rocky Mountains

As clichéd as this is, I can say now more than ever how important it is to not live life for the future. Live life for today. For as close as we were when I was young, I hadn't seen Carol (or Nick) in 6 years. Their get-togethers were with my parents and it often wasn't very convenient for me to see them at the same time. I was living the years with this nagging at the back of my head: "gosh, I really haven't seen them in so long... I can't wait to catch up with them... I can't wait for them to come to my wedding someday..." Well it turns out - I really shouldn't have waited.

Oh how she'd have loved to be with us all last weekend;
but really, I suppose she was

This post is for Carol.

Tea and crumpets

I have become something of an afternoon tea fanatic. Perhaps the most spectacular was on our recent visit to The Mount Nelson Hotel in Capetown, South Africa. All you can eat finger sandwiches and petit fours for the equivalent of about $18. Hmm, but the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco was, well, ritzy and the food was quite fantastic in addition. Not to mention the SERVICE. Oh but then there was afternoon tea with the doggies at the Cypress Inn in Carmel. Vanilla bean black tea, egg salad and caprese sandwiches, with tea cookies and cakes all while our DOGGIES chomped on bones and bully-sticks at our sides! And now, I think Lovejoy's will be right up there at the top of my favorite afternoon tea locales as well. Perhaps it was the company. Perhaps it was the food. Hmm perhaps I'll have to go again to figure it out...

Tea


Crumpets

I hear two terms for "tea" used interchangeably here in the US, but there's actually a difference: High Tea and Afternoon Tea.

Afternoon Tea is here, what it is in the United Kingdom - tea with some snacks and light fare. Typically served in *shock surprise* the afternoon, before dinner. And commonly made up of a pot of loose leaf tea, those adorable crustless sandwiches, scones with butter, clotted cream and jam and little cakes and pastries for dessert.

Mothers and Daughters

Egg salad, chicken apple walnut, smoked salmon, roast beef & horseradish,
chicken & asparagus, hummus and bay shrimp & mayo finger sandwiches

High Tea seems to me, to have the same definition in the US as Afternoon Tea. However, in the UK, High Tea is a more substantial meal than what I described in the previous paragraph. High Tea in the United Kingdom, takes the place of both afternoon tea and dinner. It would include the obligatory pot of tea, cold meats, eggs or fish, sandwiches and cakes.

Seems that most of their teas are for sale - I had the vanilla rooibos

From wikipedia: In recent years, high tea has become a term for elaborate afternoon tea, though this is American usage and mainly unrecognised in Britain. Such usage is disfavored by etiquette advisors, such as Miss Manners. Well okay then, I'll be sure not to ruffle anyone's feathers on my next visit to London, by calling my tea, scones and finger-sammies "high tea".

I'm sure you're excruciatingly thrilled at my clearing all that up for you.

Perhaps I've mentioned that one of my favorite things to gift to a good friend is a meal out. Usually of the up-and-up variety. It ends up being a treat for me as well AND we get to spend quality time together. For Mom's birthday this year I gave her a gift of afternoon tea in the city. You'll recall I did this last year as well.

Couldn't you so easily sit here sipping tea for a while?

Since Tracey's mom and my mom have been friends for as long as we have *ahem20someyears* I asked Tracey if they'd like to join us and soon we found ourselves carpooling to San Francisco on a beautifully cool August Sunday. I'd heard glowing reviews of Lovejoy's from many friends and if the demand for reservations was any indication (booked up a week in advance) it seemed a lot of others agreed.

Little truffles and marzipan covered cakes

We all picked our sweet at the end - but we were STUFFED

Lovejoy's used to be an antique store that offered up a GREAT cup of tea to their patrons. They soon became known for their tea more than their antiques so... Lovejoy's tea room was born. And it seems they held on to many of the antiques for decor.

Streets of San Francisco

There's a little tea accessories store across the street

We had a truly fantastic time amidst the constantly in and out streaming parties of bridal and baby showers. It's a small tea room but they manage to squeeze everyone in cozily. The food was plentiful and the moms were tickled. I loved it! Before we'd even left my mom was telling me we could come back again. Oh we can, huh Mom?