Here we are again. I just received one of your 20% off final sale coupon codes in my inbox. For me, it’s like a shining light – full of promises and potential, compared to my other emails, which consist mostly of spam from pharmaceutical companies in Canada. You tempt me with lovely textures, gorgeous colors, and the charm and sophistication that I crave. Nevermind that you’re a company for yuppies and bourgies. They obviously have good style sense. So I noticed that you’re starting to raise your prices, which means that the sale prices are higher also. This is probably the best for the both of us. Soon I won’t be able to afford you and we will part ways. Doesn’t mean I don’t want you badly, I just…don’t think it’s right for me to go with my instincts of buying now and thinking later. Don’t you agree? I mean, that’s what screwed so many people over in this economy in the first place.

Just know that it has taken me a lot of will-power not to order this from you:

or these:

and these…

and these…

and maybe these:

Nevermind that I almost never wear heals. I’m certain that if I buy one of these magical ones from you then I’ll be just like one of your models- cute, light & breezy, and perpetually happy. Alas, I am young, and it would be irrational of me to take from the pot that will go towards a down payment, our future family, and possible emergencies. So for now, I will have to quash my urges and find satisfaction from solely drooling over your beautiful pictures. I hope you understand.

Love always,

Sophia Q.

1.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Nonfiction. This book is the one that inspired me to be a locavore and to look at food in a very different way than I did before. Kingsolver was able to weave her and her family’s story with facts, recipes, and other anecdotes throughout the book, which made it both entertaining and educational. She writes with the kind of honesty and common sense that anyone can appreciate. It gives the reader a look at the trials and joys of growing a sustainable farm, enough to feed a family of four, for an entire year. What a great experiment!

2.

Peony in Love by Lisa See. Fiction, inspired by true stories. This book really revealed to me a lot about Chinese history and cultural beliefs. I have to admit that I’m a little behind on learning about my own people and there are some traditions and rituals that continue to elude me. For example, Chinese ancestral worship is something most Chinese families still practice. There are complicated rituals attached to these duties and I never fully understood what most of them were for. A good part of it was explained in this book, along with a detailed snapshot of what life was like in 17th century China. You can tell that the author did her research and I’m looking forward to learning more from her other novels.

3.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Fiction. I’m so glad to find an author who understands (aka is obsessed) with books as much as I am. The circumstances are puzzling until the main character starts uncovering the truth piecemeal. This book read like a good mystery movie with a delicious plot twist towards the end. The characters are well-developed and original. I can’t rave enough about this one!

4.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Fiction. I really enjoyed reading this book because of the underlying topic of love but with the added twist of time travel to stir things up a bit. It was very well written and not hard to follow as the main character jumps forwards and backwards in time. I think a lot of people can relate to the characters because even in those inconvenient circumstances, we all still want the same things- love, family, good friends, a home, to be really good at something, etc. They recently made a movie based on the book and it’s coming out in August. I’m looking forward to watching it .

5.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Fiction, inspired by the real-life Sarajevo Haggadah. Yes, it’s a book about a book, but before you call an intervention on further book-reading for this bookworm, hear me out. The fact that stood out to me the most was the mention of periods of time in Europe and the Middle East where people of the three main Western religions- Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in peace. Of course, when the Spanish Inquisition swept through it all went away. I think that there has been so much religious tension in that region that no one remembers there being anything but war and destruction. This is very relevant today. Just a couple of weeks ago, Obama outlined a plan in the Middle East for this exact hope that peace can be actualized if only the worshippers of all three religions found commonality between themselves rather than differences. This book had a little of everything: world history, book conservation, Western religions, and (a first for me) an Aussie narrator.

Disney/Pixar did it again with their new movie Up. I have to admit, I used to be skeptical about Pixar’s animation especially when they were acquired by Disney. I didn’t think their creative genius would last. I mean look at Dreamworks. They used to be entertaining when they made Ants and Shrek (I &II) , then it all went downhill from there. They now seem like they are trying too hard to be like Pixar and have very little original or interesting storylines of their own. And when they do, they go over the top and try to be “cooler” than their audience (check out Sharks Tale and Shrek III and you’ll know what I mean). Maybe I’m so unhip that I can’t relate to their characters anymore, even though I can always emotionally relate to Pixar’s characters.

Pixar just has an elegant way of telling a story and their jokes are always tasteful. Anyways, I was still skeptical of their latest movie Up because the trailer made it seem like the characters were very one-dimensional. So what if an old geezer tied a bunch of balloons to his house and told everyone else to piss off? Why should I care about him or that chubby cub scout?

Well, my inner pessimist sure got silenced within the first twenty minutes of that movie. With the exception of Grave of the Fireflies (which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who doesn’t want to feel deep and utter despair), I don’t think I’ve ever teared up during an animated movie before. Don’t get the wrong idea though, Up was not nearly as depressing as GOTF. I had to really hold it together because we were sitting amongst Rob’s co-workers and apparently Rob was feeling the same way at the time. The old man’s backstory helped us relate to him at a deeper level. I won’t give it away because it was a surprise to me and I think it’s better as a surprise. Every time Rob and I come out of a Pixar movie we’d reevaluate our favorites, and Up has definitely made it to both of our top 5 Pixar movies list. Here’s my current list (so far):

• -Ratatouille
• -Up
• -Toy Story 2
• -Finding Nemo
• -Wall-E

I’m really looking forward to the release of Toy Story 3 that’s scheduled to come out next year!

We scheduled a tasting at Nestldown while another wedding was going on, which I guess is standard for them. Sorry no pictures of that tasting, but it’s pretty much the same as the one for Cafe Primavera, except PSRT didn’t let us try the vegetarian dish. The food was delicious, but what totally blew us away was their homemade ginger ale. It was the best ginger ale we’ve ever had, with fresh bits of ginger floating in it. We seriously drank a whole bottle of it by the end of the tasting. So we were pretty set: good food, good ginger ale, and we really enjoyed working with Erika. I kept attempting to get a hold of Continental Caterers because they initially responded to my queries but they seemed too busy to get back to me when I was trying to schedule a meeting.

So we sat on making a catering decision because we knew it would be wiser to try out at least one other place before signing a contract. About a month went by and then Erika emailed us to tell us she was leaving PSRT and will be working at Cafe Primavera. Our file will be transferred to someone else within the company and they will be taking care of us from then on. I was both surprised and curious. I asked her more about the company she will be working for. She was reluctant to tell me about them because she didn’t want it to seem like she’s trying to steal clients (which she wasn’t, it was all my own doing). In the end, I convinced her to let us try the food at Cafe Primavera to quench my own curiosity.

Review of Cafe Primavera after the jump

We met Erika and the owner, Joanna, at the Cafe in the Tech Museum for our meeting/tasting. It actually meant a lot to us that Joanna took the time to meet with us too. It’s not like owners of catering companies have tons of time on their hands. It made the meeting far more personable and showed us that she cared about her company and her potential clients. We chatted about wedding stuff and then we got to try these:

Petit filet with mushrooms, potato & butternut gratin, and asparagus spears.

Wild salmon with garlic mashed potatoes and baby heirloom tomatoes.

Tomato, portobello, and eggplant napoleon with port balsamic reduction.

I wish I took a picture of the ors d’oeuvres, but we gobbled them up before I could :p. Erika picked a wide variety of them to show us the cultural range of cooking they do, included were tuna tartare, Thai peanut chicken skewers, mushroom ragout on toast, mini chicken tacos, and crabcakes with spicy aoli.Yummers!  They were absolutely phenomenal! Out of all the entrees, my favorite happened to be the vegetarian option. Caterers usually do a half-assed job on vegetarian meals but not Cafe Primavera. It’s also a plus that they actually let us even try it! To say the least, we walked out of that meeting feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

A few days later, Erika sent us a quote and it was pretty much the same stuff but was much less costly than at PSRT. Thanks to our DOC contacting them for us, Continental Caterers finally got back to me around this time and wanted to schedule a tasting. I figured we should give them a chance but I had doubts because it seemed like we had to work around their schedule which means there were only a couple openings each month to meet with them. Then they dropped the bomb that we had to pay a tasting fee of $20 each! And we had to share our tasting dishes with other couples so we can try all their different dishes.We never had to pay a tasting fee or shared tastings with complete strangers so maybe we were spoiled, but it certainly didn’t give me any inclination to give them a chance any longer.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. After changing a few details around with Erika, we signed the contract with Cafe Primavera and we didn’t regret it one bit. Erika was very nice in helping us pick out linens and was very accommodating when I changed my mind about things. The staff at our wedding was very professional. I especially liked the server that was serving Rob and I, she complimented me on my music choices, hehe.

One thing that would’ve made it perfect was a small incident with one of the beer choices. I was given pretty much free choice for beers so I picked Amstel Light, Fat Tire, and Chimay Blue. I checked with Erika about the Chimay because it’s normally high-end and harder to find. She told me their beverage manager had no problems with it so it should be okay. Of course I told all my beer-drinking friends because it’s one of the best beers out there and I wanted them to enjoy it at our wedding. When it came time to serve it…they only had two bottles. I was given the decision of who to distribute it to, which is not really something I wanted to deal with at the time. I made sure my brother got some and my bridesman, but was disappointed that not everyone who wanted some got to have it. I wish I was informed ahead of time that it would be a problem so I can switch to another beer so our guests could have more variety to choose from.

Rabbit's Foot Meadery

So after I kidnapped the hubs from work, we headed straight to Rabbit’s Foot Meadery in Sunnyvale. The owner, Maria was sweet enough to let us have a tasting even though it was late in the day. We tried 3 different meads, a chocolate raspberry port, three cysers, and three ales. I liked everything we tried and we made out with bottles of both a sweet and a dry mead.

We then set off to a tea shop and got educated on all the various teas. The shop specialized in Taiwan oolong and aged Pu-erh tea. We got a set of teas to try with the cast-iron teapot we found in Chinatown awhile ago. Since we had a late reservation at Chez TJ, we walked around for a bit and wandered into a fish store. They had some of the coolest fish and other animals to look at including this itty bitty shark:

Shark Purse w/ cute baby shark inside!

Chez TJ Review after the jump

I’ve heard great things about Chez TJ from friends who have dined there. We also know that it has a Michelin star and is well rated on Zagat and Yelp. But admittedly those weren’t the only reasons why we picked this place for Rob’s birthday dinner. It also helped a lot that Rob gets a discount through his work.

I should’ve taken pictures of the front of the restaurant, which really a Victorian house on a nondescript street, but apparently I was more impressed with the inside of their bathroom…

Hello, I'm Sophia. I take pictures of the inside of restaurant bathrooms. Especially ones with Alphonse Mucha prints!

The interior design was a little mismatched. They seem to like green and purple a lot. I totally dug that Italian art glass lamp on our table though.

Amuse bouche

I think the chef was trying to be adventurous with these and the palate cleanser at the end. I wasn’t really a fan.

Toro-Hamachi Sashimi, Eggplant Compote, Pickled Mini Carrot

This was seriously the best thing I ate that night! My taste buds were singing. It was a sandwich of toro and hamachi (the two best sushi fishes ever!) with a yuzu sorbet on top. I dare you to check out the beautiful marbling on that toro.

Slow Poached Organic Egg, Wild Mushrooms, Paddlefish Caviar

This was Rob’s pick. He absolutely loved it. Nether of us could detect the wild mushrooms that were supposed to be in it though. Don’t know if they forgot it or if it’s that foam stuff on top.

Seared Day Boat Scallop, Artichoke Barigoule, Thyme Aioli

Fun interpretation of bacon and scallops. The scallops were delicious, soft, and sweet.

Branzini Halibut Farçi, Bouillabaisse Jus, Fennel Trio

This was supposed to be a bass but I think they ran out so they switched to a halibut. It was cooked very well, the flesh was soft but firm and the bouillabaisse jus was all sopped up with bread by the end of the course.

Mishima Ranch Beef Filet, Cippolini Onion Tarte, Fava Bean, Summer Truffle

This filet was cooked perfectly! It was super tender without being fatty. However, it would’ve been better if it had more seasoning or if there was more of the sauce that came with it. The onion tart was really tastey- carmelized, flakey, and flavorful.

Mignardises

I didn’t know if these were given out to every table or if they were Rob’s birthday dessert. If it was the latter, they didn’t acknowledge or write Happy Birthday on it so I’m inclined to believe it’s the former. In that case I’m a little disappointed that he didn’t receive something special for his birthday even though I informed them when making our reservation.

Overall, we had a favorable experience at Chez TJ. There were a few blips: lack of wines by the glass list, we felt rushed- finished our meal in 35 minutes(!), no birthday acknowledgement, and embarrassing confusion with our check at the end. But these are kinda nit-picky things. The food was excellent, presentation was gorgeous, and the service was nice and polite. The bonus was that the chef came out and greeted us which was a first. He was cool and seemed genuinely pleased that we loved our meal.