Chef McLane

People.... that which you see above is what I dined on this evening. Homemade, from scratch, sweet potato gnocchi in a brown butter sauce with flash fried fresh sage leaves. The salad was arugula, spinach pomegranate seeds and candied walnuts. Talk about good eatin'! Billy has been rocking out in the kitchen for the past few weeks. I have been meaning to post about it and have only just now gotten around to it. Mostly because I have been rolling around like an egg on the bed after dinner with my full stomach every night for three weeks. He has made beet and asparagus sushi, roasted vegetable tostadas, spinach and zucchini soup and a bunch of other fabulous stuff. I am getting spoiled rotten. It's heaven.

Today ended my three days in a row off work. I went for a hair cut, here are the results (don't expect to be blown away because my hair cuts are always boring).......



After the cut we all three went down to Carmel Beach. It was a really pretty, foggy afternoon. Quite a change from the past few 80 degree days. It was straight up cold. But I like days like this and Carmel dishes out a lot of them. We sat on the sand, drank coffee and watched the waves crashing while Rudy did his usual stuff like peeing on seaweed, eating seaweed, running with seaweed and digging holes.

Here is a shot of Chef McLane enjoying his java....



How funny is that? It's like an ad for coffee. He is really selling it. Coffee is delicious and makes you happy. Billy is living proof.

So, I can't believe that it is almost "holiday time." I really can't seem to get with the idea of it. Every time I see a Christmas decoration up somewhere I think... "What the Hell is that doing there?" I am still in pumpkin mode. I could pretty happily stay in pumpkin mode year round I think. Anyway... we are not traveling to be with family this year for either Thanksgiving or Christmas so it will be pretty low key here for us. I am hoping that we can do something goofy on Christmas Day like go to Big Sur and watch sea otters or climb a (small) mountain or something. We are trying to plan our T Day dinner which of course is fully vegetarian. We have been trying not to eat so much soy based stuff so I think we may bust out and make this mushroom, faro phyllo dough, strata, pie thingamabobber we found in a Gourmet magazine to replace the tofu turkey. It looks like it will be nearly impossible to make but what the hey... if you are going to spend an entire day focused on one meal as an event you may as well go for it on every level.

I have been trying to find time to get my Etsy shop updated and get new stuff listed. My efforts have produced one, yes one, new listing which is a vintage Gianni Versace dress fom the 80's. It has shoulders pads big enough to scare Paul Bunyon off the dance floor. Hmmm. I am pretty sure I am the only person to have ever typed that particular sentence. And I may also be the only person who has ever ignited the visual of Paul Bunyon on a dance floor in to anyone's mind. I am sure that Mr. Bunyon would have enjoyed this fuschia pink mini dress and would have gladly purchased it for his gal to wear on a hot date on Saturday night in the Northern woodlands where he and she resided. Yes. I will end with that.

In closing here is a shot of Rudy and I chillin' under one of the beautiful cypress trees on the beach here in Carmel. Have a great Wednesday folks.