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It's Halloween weekend! Woo hoo! I love Halloween. I totally get into dressing up and getting into character. This year I'm a go-go girl. Although, several people have asked me if these are regular clothes from my closet.  Hmmmmm. People think I have some sort of alter-fun existence outside of work. I'm cool with that. Not true. But a girl can always dream. So here I am. Go-Go "Party" girl - lookin' good. Check out the boots! And here is my scaaaaaaaary sister who posted this picture on her facebook page. Hopefully she won't KILL me for putting it here. But it's pretty hilarious. Gene Simmons, you better watch out! Don't have any pics of Elli yet. They brought their costumes to school. Have a good weekend everyone!

Not mine. Although mine has been looking a little sorry lately. I was supposed to get it cut in July. And it's October. So that means I'm 3 mos overdue. It's to the point now where I've decided to just let it grow. I'll get it cut again someday. Today it's all about Elli's hair. Last week was Spirit Week at school. It's one of Elli's favorite weeks. There is a different theme each day, ie. Pajama Day, Backwards day, Crazy Hair day. You get the idea. Here's what we did for Elli's hair on crazy hair day. Yeah. It's crazy. Not sure the shade of pink we chose is her best color. All I know is she had this grin on her face from the minute I dropped her off in the morning until the minute I picked her up.  It's great to be eight! Gotta love her energy!

Yeah right. Make chocolate croissants at home. It's true! You can do it. No baking skills required. All you need is a cookie sheet and an oven. A little back story......I've always thought about making croissants. Until last year when I went with Elli's class on a field trip to the Noe Valley Bakery. The owner showed us how they make croissant dough. It's incredibly time consuming. You add layer upon layer of butter to the dough which you roll and roll and roll and add butter to, and roll some more, add more more butter, more rolling until you have a million layers of dough and butter which give you that flakey, butter crust. It's definitely one of those baking projects that is better left up to the professionals - as in go to a bakery and buy one. UNTIL NOW!!! You're not going to believe this, but you can buy frozen croissant dough at Trader Joe's that tastes exactly like the real thing. I ain't kidding. You can make this anytime. You won...

You know how just a few little things can make or break your day? Like coffee. If you're out of coffee in the morning, or it tastes bad, or say the coffee machine goes wacho and overflows all over the counter. Stuff like that just gets your day off to a very bad start. You can wake up all happy and ready to have an awesome day. And this kills it. Really kills it. So what brought this on you're asking? I had a good day yesterday. Start to finish. Well, first, it's about coffee. We like to drink coffee made from good, quality beans. But we've had to downgrade because of the cost of coffee. (no more Blue Bottle Coffee for a while. Boo hoo.) But I'm happy to report we found some beans we like that are great - even when you're drinking it black like me. And I bought it from Smart and Final. (Not a chain known for its gourmet ingredients.) Although I must say I shop there more than I ever thought I would. I picked up their Peerless Coffee beans, Hawaiian Islan...

I did it again. I made the most disgusting chili. Honestly, I didn't think it was possible to make the most miserable chili on the planet two times. (The last time I used a Bobby Flay Recipe. This time I tried a recipe in Food and Wine Magazine.) I have successfully ruined chili twice. As in unedible chili. I should create some sort of trophy for myself. It was so bad we ate the pepperoni pizza I got for the girls to eat. And it tasted like grade school cafeteria pizza. I wasn't even able to buy a frozen pizza that tasted decent. Then to top it off, I dropped the apple pie I made upside down on the oven door as I was pulling it out of the oven. It slipped right off the cookie sheet. SPLAT! onto the oven door. I seriously had bad kitchen mojo. The apples and juice were everywhere. The fruit fell between the door and the floor and spilled in the drawer where all the pots and pans are. I had to pull out the drawer and wash everything inside. Including the drawer. I cl...

I've never really thought about making home-made tortillas. But I love eating them. My favorite is the Mexican restaurants that have someone sitting at one of those tortilla making machines rolling dough and placing little dough balls in the machine which then magically spits out one delicious tortilla after another. I could seriously go to one of these restaurants and eat warm tortillas with butter, salt or guacamole and salsa for dinner - and not eat anything else. Of course I would have a margarita or two, too. But we're not talking about that today. So this summer when Elli came home from Steve and Kate's camp talking about making yummy tortillas I thought I would look into it. Of course I forgot. Until recently, when I found a recipe in my new client's in-store magazine called Something Extra . It was a sign. It was time to make tortillas. So on Saturday morning I made homemade tortillas for breakfast. We topped them with salsa, a fried egg and a little ...

Hello my wine loving friends. What have you been drinking? I'm dieing to know! The BevMo 5¢ sale is on. Have you gone? I haven't been myself, but Don meanered over and picked up some goodies. One wine he picked up is one of my favorites, the 2009 Zolo Gaucho Select Malbec , it's on sale for  $15.99 + .05¢ for the second bottle. Look who's hiding. On Sunday night I brought a bottle of 2009 The Honorable Pinot Gris to book club. Cuz that's what book club is all about. Us mom's drinking wine, gabbing, and eventually talking about the book OUR DAUGHTERS READ for THEIR book club. Yeah, that's pretty much how we roll around here. It's fuuuuun. The book was good and scary too "Tales of Desperaux." Anyway, it was really tasty. I'm glad we have a second bottle, I really like it. It's perfect on a hot summer night in the middle of October! I would definitely buy this again. And drumroll please......it's only $14.99 + .05¢ for t...

I have no idea why. All I know is that 14 hours ago she was here. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw her blog there "The Pioneer Woman - Ree Drummand." gaaaaaaaaasp! I literally screamed in the middle of the Giants game. Don thought I was screaming at the game. But apparently I screamed at the wrong time, or maybe it was just loud, cuz he looked at me kind of funny. "Whaaaat?" I say, with just a titch of attitude. "It's the Pioneer Woman!" Holy Crap! So then I try to explain it to him. "I can't believe it. The Pioneer Woman was on my site. She's like the grand poo bah of bloggers. She's uber famous. The queen mother. She's been on the Today Show. She wrote a book. She lives in Oklahoma on a ranch and home schools her kids. Remember I saw her at BlogHer last year? Aaaaaaah. Oh my gosh!" I said all this without taking a breath and I could literally feel my eyes start to bug out. I realized I must sound and look r...

It's apple season. Yeah! There are so many yummy recipes to make. I was totally craving an Apple Crumble pie like Don and I used to get at Silverman's Farm in Easton, Connecticut. But I didn't want to make a pie. So I found an apple crumble recipe instead from my favorite baking cookbook, Pastries from the LaBrea Bakery. Now, I'll have to confess. It wasn't perfect. The crumble topping got really dark in the oven, but the flavor was super yummy. The apples could have been juicier. So look for really fresh, juicy apples when you shop.  The recipe was easy. Some of Nancy's recipes get complicated. Ok, most of them. But this one was actually very easy. I will definitely make it again. But I think I'll adjust the cooking time slightly - won't bake it as long next time. Unfortunately I don't have a finished picture - we had company, things got crazy, and I never got the last shot. All I can say is there were 9 of us and there was one small spoonf...

It's been a really hectic week. I haven't had a chance to write anything. I thought about it a few days ago for about a nano second, but that was before all H E Double Hockey sticks broke loose at work. I'll be back next week with so much witty commentary that you won't even remember that you had multiple 80's flashbacks this week reading the Groove post over, and over again. Here's what's happening here this weekend. The Blue Angels are in town. The show in the sky is very cool. They fly right over my office. It will be VERY loud today. We might do a little of this..... Muir Beach And this...... Maybe a drive up to Napa to see this. And most definitely this..... Have a good weekend!

"Dude, you're on my blog." I say to my brother-in-law in an imaginary conversation.   "What? I thought you wrote about cooking?" he responds (in my imaginary conversation.) "Yeah, but I write about other stuff too. That's the "life" part of the title. So yep, you're on the blog. You and your band! Isn't that cool?" I happily respond. And then he watches the attached video and is not happy with me, due to the poor quality of the recording and shoddy film work. I shrug my shoulders and just give him my best. "Dude, you're a rock star!" I say. The end. Last weekend we hosted my sister and her family. They were in town so my brother in-law could have a reunion with his college band mates, for a 20-yr "gig" reunion at a local hole-in-the-wall pub in the South Bay. Mike's band was quite popular back in the day at UCSB. The Groove was "the band" at many, many functions from bars to soro...

I made this last Friday night. It is sooooooo good. It's easy to make. Tastes great. And it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. PLUS you probably have most of the ingredients on hand. Those are my favorite recipes.  It's a home run. Which is what SF Giants will hopefully do tonight. Geez Louise. They're making Don nuts. They better win!!!!! But back to this winner of a chicken dinner. Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Crunchy chicken. Sweet, flavorful tomato sauce. It doesn't get much better than this. I know the picture is not doing it justice. I was in a hurry. No time for getting fancy. I had hungry people to feed. I made a few of the chicken breasts without the breadcrumbs for Elli and her friend. One, I wasn't sure they would like the mustard, and two, her friend has Celiac disease. So I just sauteed the chicken for them. No crispy panko breadcrumbs for her. Don and I immediately knew this was something we would make again. For one, my hubby with his sou...