Christening at St Johns

Here are some pix of the girls Christening

Diwali Festival

Here is a slideshow from November's Divali festival.

Halloween Pictures

The girls got all dressed up for Halloween -- Ilsa as a monkey and Meribel as a penguin. If you click on the picture, you can see what fun they had all day.

A new play mat

J. went to the twin mothers swap meet yesterday and came back with a multi colored play mat for the girls, which is imperverious to their drool. Here's a short clip of them playing on it, although I missed them smacking the weeble wobble penguin. The poor penguin makes a happy sound when they do that, so Meribel particularly loves hitting him.

It's been a warm October out here -- we have not even turned off the A/C yet -- and some of the fall rituals we used to do in Vermont are no longer necessary here.

A trip to the pumpkin patch

The girls went with their grandma to the pumpkin patch yesterday.

They picked out a nice big pumpkin, went for a hay ride, walked through a maze, and also brought home a bag of fall vegetables.

The twins had a great time, and came home tired and ready for a long nap.

If you click on the picture above, you can see the slide show.

Be Gentle

This weekend the girls went to their nonny's, where they played with
Pablo, the dauchshund. At first, we had to tell the dog, 'Be Gentle'.
So he was polite and only licked their feet. But then the girls
started grabbing at him, especially his long ears, and by the end of
playtime, the girls were the ones being warned to 'Be Gentle'.

I guess that's progress.

The picture with the girls should come with sound, so you'll just have
to imagine the monkey shrieking that accompanied it. They have
healthy lungs indeed. Tonight they had their first vegetables --
roasted pureed butternut squash. They liked it, especially the change
in color from their usual goop.

The paella was from the same recipe that has been in J's family since
the Nixon era. I cheated and took a few short cuts, but it was still
quite good, and J's parents enjoyed it. It's also a good excuse to
pull out the ridiculously large pan we make it in, as well as the
pricey saffron spice jar. And the last bottle of a favorite Rioja.

Felonious Feline

So last night the girls grandparents arrived, and I made lavender stew in the pressure cooker, along with mashed potatoes and sauteed patty pan squash. The lavender stew is in fact made with a tablespoon of lavender and has that unique and delicate flavor infused in it.

This morning we had bagels and sockeye salmon lox. While we were munching on this in the living room, Zamfir had been greedily observing the slab of salmon, and hopped up on the dining room table (and channeling Lena) and started chowing away. I was annoyed since it was a $20 piece of fish and I had assumed we'd have it for both weekend days, but there wasn't much we could do other than consign the rest to the cats. It's a little salty, which he craves, so I hope it doesn't make him sick.

Thing 1 & 2

Here's Thing 1 & 2, who are getting hungry for their supper.

Here's Thing 3, who wants to lick the other things toes.

We left all the things at my mothers, and took J's visiting friend out for some sushi, an example of which is above. We have found a hole in the wall place up in Citrus Heights that is pretty much as good as anything I've had in NYC. It's called Yui Marlu, and the two times we've been there, we've been the only table that didn't have someone Japanese at it. The presentation in particular is superb.

Girls just want to have fun

With J's new birthday gift, a Flip camcorder.

Press the arrow button in the middle to watch them.

Come back - this time it will be different

Even good natured pets don't like their ears being grabbed.

Reading on a Sunday afternoon

 

I want that!

Yesterday's was J's birthday, so the girls made her breakfast in bed: spiced tea, cloudberry stuffed french toast, and grand marnier tossed strawberries. Later that night we went to La Boheme, which was reputed to be the best French restaurant in the city. It was excellent - I had escargot, rabbit, and then we split the cherries jubilee, prepared table side. So it was a lot of fun, and much better than the last special occasion place we went to here.

While we were there, the girls stayed at my mom's where they played with my sister and the dog (who they now outweigh).

If you click on the picture above you can see some more pictures too.

What have we been cooking recently?

Now that we are back home, we've been able to go back to using all our cookbooks and kitchen kaboodle.

Last week we made:

Lamb and chicken biryani
Ham and 13 bean soup
Roast sole over rosemary potatoes
Chicken tetrazinni
A mixed grill of lamb chops, fennel, and zucchini

I used a Jamie Oliver cookbook for the italiczed ones of those, and although it's a visually appealing book (lots of great pictures etc) I don't find the recipes to be anything special, or worth making again. They are vexingly imprecise too. The bean soup recipe was from our battered Sheila Lukins (of Silver Palate fame) book, and it was outstanding, although it took 8 hours to make.

The baby on the left is Shelly's new son, named in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm, the last emperor of Germany.

Pretty soon ski magazines will start to hit the mailbox

Which is always the true sign of end of summer.

 

This showed up in my inbox today, and it looks good.

Central Park Zoo Visit

The girls visited the Central Park Zoo today, and loved seeing

seals and penguins being feed
polar bears snoozing
snow leopards scratching
monkeys grooming
goats begging for food
pigs sniffing
toucans cracking

and more...

Click on the picture above for the full slide show.

First taste of cereal

Ilsa says "I'm a big girl, and can sit on the couch."

They did not like their first taste of cereal and started yelling after tasting it.

They wanted their bottle, and insisted on helping themselves.

I met some friends in my old wine tasting group last night, where we revisited the 1995 red Bordeaux, at age 15. They are now smooth, supple wines, much better than the raspy tannic wines they were at release. Friends posted their tasting notes here and here. We ate at Apiary, a downtown venue started by some of the same chefs/partners at the famous Veritas. It was good...but the sommelier was a bit sleazy.

Christening

The girls got christened this morning at Holy Trinity. Their godmothers Lauren (above) and Monica (below) wrangled them into their fancy gowns.

Ilsa was more cooperative this morning. Meribel started howling with outrage once she got anointed with the water

After the church service, due to heavy downpours in the city the planned for picnic in Central Park was moved back to our apartment. It was the girls first time seeing rain, as Sacramento has been dry since before they were born. So they sat on the couch and held court, like a pair of princesses.

All the girls extended cousins from Westchester and LI showed up, along with their great aunt and uncle. So there was a lot of excited children in the apartment. The girl in the middle, Karenna is the only girl on both sides of her family, so it must be vexing for her dealing with a whole cub scout troop of loud boys all the time.

A wedding on the ocean

Our friends David and Whitney got married on the seaside in Islip, New York. It's a quaint sea side town near Fire Island and the glitzy Hamptons beach scene. We got there early to get the girls ready so we walked through the village for few minutes.

Our family friends the Masons came too, and brought their older girls, who are holding the twins in this picture.

Here's the happy couple, David and Whitney. Whitney is a twin too, and her sister gave a moving speech as the matron of honor. Key advice to her new brother in law: don't borrow her clothes without asking. Hopefully our little ones listened to that too.

The girls conked out during most of the reception, completely ignoring the musical trends over time from the BeeGees to Madonna to Lady Gaga, and only woke up near the end when they wanted to look around for a little, especially for food. It took a long time to drive back into the city -- it seems like everyone is on the LIE on Saturdays.

Whole Foods in Time Warner Center

Meribel wearing her silly sailor hat, last weekend.

We ate lunch at Whole Foods in the basement of Time Warner Center in New York. Their semi prepared selection is vast, and is a good place to meet a group for lunch since everyone can choose what they like, arrive at different times, and still find a table spot.

On Thursday we went out for dinner at Sorella, a Piedmontese restaurant far downtown. It was superb. We had veal sweatbreads, a garden salad, a salumi platter with some rare -- and FDA unapproved -- 'lardo', and an odd pate covered muffin -- all paired up with a solid Clerico dolcetto. The whole lower East Side area has become more pleasant in the last decade -- it used to be a rough skid row.

Twinkies take Manhattan

The girls didn't sleep so well last night, but with all the travel and various changes that is understandable, so we all slept in a little this morning considering the time changes.  (We didn't get to bed til 2:30am).

 

We took the girls first to J's office where all her coworkers cooed over the twins.  They were on their best behaviour, as well as prettiest outfits, and impressed everyone.  After that we took them in their citystroller to La Bonne Soupe, a classic midtown French bistro, for lunch.  We both had crepes -- mine were stuffed with mushrooms and J had leeks in hers.  The girls took the opportunity to top up their tanks with Enfamil at the lunch table too. 

 

From there we went to Barnes & Noble and looked at magazines for a while.  It was a little hard to get out of the building since it wasn't so stroller friendly, but after finally finding the exit ramp, we stopped in at Pinkberrys for something cool and refreshing.  We then made a pit stop at the apartment for a diaper change and checked on the cleaners who are getting the place spic & span, since it had gotten dusty from being relatively vacant for a few months.  From there we went to the Bridge Market and picked up some tea, and then from there we made out way to Bed Bath and Beyond for batteries for the girls rented bouncy seats.  We decided to sit a while at Starbucks and read the local newspapers, while Ilsa sat on the table trying to grab things.

 

We have most of things we need for Fridays cocktail party, but needed a few white wines, so from there stopped at Garnets to order a few summer white wines for delivery tomorrow.  I ran into a market contact there and we ruminated on the changes in the fine wine market place for a little, but then Meribel blew a gasket and decided she had to go home immediately, so we piled into a taxi and came home, where the girls got changed and fed.   J is meeting her boss for a work dinner, and I am supervising the (now snoozing) girls, and plan on having some sushi in a little bit.  They are exhausted, and after a little bit time on their 'gym' have conked out on their boppies on the couch.  It has been a long 36 hours for them, so we'll let them get some rest before the big trip to the zoo to see the penguins.

Getting ready for NYC

We have packed all our bags and the girls are getting excited to fly out to NYC tomorrow morning.

The pets are less pleased, since they will stay behind, but we've arranged for a variety of food for them. According to my count, we have 14 different kinds of canned food for them, since they get fussy if anything repeats too frequently.

For ourselves, we are looking forward to revisiting our well above average neighbordhood sushi place.

Grandparents come visiting

The girls maternal grandparents came up for a weekend visit, which was punctuated by brunch at a south Indian restaurant in town called Kaveri. Above Ilsa plays with my sister in the dachshund outfit her aunt made her.

Grandma is reading a Dr. Seuss story to the girls, who are fascinated by the Cat in the Hat. Of course, one of our real (and insecure) cats, is fascinated by this too, and has hopped onto grandma's lap to hear the story too, and get his ears scratched.

After church on Sunday we went to the locally famous 'Pancake Circus' which serves disturbingly tall stacks of pancakes, and had breakfast before the grandparents hit the road. The pancakes are so large, that even I had leftovers, which if you've seen me around pancakes, you would assume either that something is wrong with the food, or that I was virulently ill.

The Pancake Circus and The Waffle Square duel with each other for best diner brunch in our neighborhood.

Visitors

Friends from South Africa, which is probably the farthest you can get from here via commercial airlines.

Dim Sum at New Canton, where we passed on the steamed chicken feet.

Grilling Niman ranch chops on the patio. Wrapped with rosemary and bacon, they were excelled as was chili rubbed eggplant.

The cats secret lair, under the rocking chair

The girls all dressed up before going to church. They handle it well, sleeping all the way through. In general they are getting through the night much better now, as their circadian rhythms start to kick in.

This is where the cats snooze, under the rocking chair, with a sheet on top of it, while the sun slices in through the blinds. The one in back resents having to share this with his brother.

Ilsa in her 'bumbo' a kind of squishy plastic chair, wearing a ribbon my sister found for her.

I made lemon pepper shrimp, sauteed spinach and rice the other night, and girls joined us for dinner, although they just sat in the bumbos, making gleeful gurgling noises.