The Day After Halloween is Not an Excuse to Buy Half Off Candy

Or so I'm trying to convince myself, having gorged on Tootsie pops and Kit Kats and mini Mr. Goodbars for the past two days.

Saturday, after a quick trip to the Alemany Farmers' Market with Doro to get some pumpkins, I spent the day at the household of my little boo, Freeman J. George.  While Freeman was napping and his daddy and I watched Game 3 of the World Series, I baked this:

quick way to get you in the Halloween spirit

And then as soon as my buddy woke up, we carved pumpkins!

well, I carved.  Freeman colored and covered his pumpkin in stickers.

Our results?

Boo Dat!

I had to combine my football spirit and Halloween spirit, cause my Saints played my bestie's Steelers Halloween night!  My amateur fleur de lis ain't bad, huh?  

I'm slightly ashamed to say that I didn't dress up this year, but it's only cause Halloween day was full of sports, and I couldn't justify the time and effort on a costume just to stay on my couch and watch the World Series and the NFL.  But keep your eye out for a Halloween babies post coming soon, where I'll share pics of my little friends in their get ups.  Goodness gracious they're cute.

And the other thing about California is that it was gorgeous here yesterday.  Anna and I walked to the farmers market where I bought some veggies and these:

before heading out on a beautiful afternoon hike.  We drove up to the Lafayette Reservoir, whose trail around the water offers a perfect combo of exercise and beauty.  It was such a nice start to the day!  Afterwards, we came home and made chili and watched sports (my teams did me proud), and then, thanks to a zillion recommendations on facebook, we watched

Have you seen it?  Ultimately, I'd give it around an 8 out of 10 on the scary scale (I was looking to be terrified).  Plus, it stars two of the hottest actors in Hollywood: Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.  Zombies and dolls and aliens don't scare me one single bit; it has to be something that could feasibly happen to me to get me really spooked.  The Strangers is about a couple who, after breaking up at a wedding reception, come home to a country house, only to be tortured by three deranged killers in horrifying masks.  And what makes it even better?  It's based on a true story.  Yikes.

Tell me about your Halloween!!

Farmers' Market Sunday

What a lovely weekend it's been! On Friday night I got to hang out with four of my favorite people, the Freitags--Cari and I talked about girly stuff and American Idol and hot actors while JJ cooked us a delicious dinner; how awesome is that? Saturday, after a loooooong and exhausting week, I literally slept most of the day, which is kind of ridiculous/incredible, but I think my body was demanding it. Later that night, eight of us congregated in North Beach for dinner & drinks to celebrate our friend Mike's birthday (happy birthday Mike Lee!). I wore my go-to little gray dress & patent leather peep toes, and it was so nice to get dressy and pretty after a lazy day in my bed.

Meagan and I took the train home, which meant that I was home at a reasonable hour (last train is at 12:15). After a delicious night of sleep, I woke up this morning and headed to my neighborhood farmers' market, which is one of my favorite places on earth. Check out my loot!

1. I almost always buy the same things, every week!

2. fava beans

3. does it make me a stalker if I snuck a pic of my Afghan food stand crush?

4. I actually feel sorry for people who don't live near Blue Bottle Coffee

5. just PART of the line for Blue Bottle . . . the coffee really is that good

6. my farmers' market breakfast: strong coffee, apple turnover, organic cherries

1. Can you believe all that business? I've never seen prettier swiss chard (which I eat a lot of), organic broccoli and carrots, fresh spring salad mix with edible flowers, fava beans, best coffee in the world, and my favorite . . . organic, fresh, homemade pasta. Seriously, the best pasta I've had in my entire life. In the past, I've had meyer lemon chili (spicy and so delish!) and meyer lemon linguini, but today I opted for the black pepper rosemary linguini. Usually, I do this:

Crazy Good Veggie Pasta

*In a wok, saute two heads of swiss chard, broccoli (or even better: broccolini), thinly sliced onions, garlic, red pepper, and carrot shavings in olive oil

*(I add the onions first, then garlic, and once the onions are semi-transparent, add everything else)

*Add chili flakes, s&p, maybe some oregano

*while this is cooking, flash cook the fresh pasta in boiling water (it literally takes 60 seconds)

*drain pasta

*add pasta to the wok, mix everything together, shave feta cheese & mix it in

OMG. Seriously.

2. One of the things JJ made us on Friday night was fava beans. I can't remember exactly how he did it, but I think it was along the lines of: toss in olive oil, s&p, maybe a little garlic and lemon??, then cook on high (450) until brown on top. SO GOOD.

3. My crush on this dude is long-standing. Isn't he a hottie? I've been seeing him at the farmer's market for over a year, but there are always pesky customers wanting samples from him, so it's hard to get a word in. I don't even know his name, but I do know that he's fiiiiiiiine! Of course, snapping a picture of him on the low is probably not the smoothest thing in the world.

4. This coffee is locally roasted and organic and really just SO good. It's expensive--a half pound runs anywhere from $7 at the cheapest up to about $40 . . . for a half pound! Although I've never made the crazy splurge, I buy the $7-$8 half pounds just about weekly, and they're worth every penny (and all the minutes waiting in that epic line!).

How was your weekend??