weekend full of food

Happy mother's day to all the mommies and mommy type people.

We celebrated with Shandiz's family yesterday by going out to breakfast with the whole fam at a non-amazing place in south Carlsbad. Shandiz maintains that my negative opinion of the restaurant is my own fault because I ordered French toast at a place called The Broken Yolk, and not an omelet or fritata.
His mom & aunt really enjoyed their matching Shun knives and flowers. I think it's funny that I buy the presents and cards, but I go against my better judgment and buy cheesy cards because that is the type he prefers. I do not buy these types of cards for my own mother. For her, I prefer lovely letterpress ones or something somewhat sentimental. Today, she told me that I always pick out the nicest cards :)

Here's a picture of Andre enjoying his breakfast. He had fun mucking about in his oatmeal and various other things on the table. He got a little crabby part way through the meal, but was appeased by Estelle's American Boy video on Ali's sidekick. The kid loves to dance.

Saturday night we went over to Victor & Janine's for a post-Cinco de Mayo potluck. I made a corn/shrip/jicama/tomato salad. Robin & Christine brought white sea bass civeche made from the 50 pound white sea bass Robin caught a few weeks ago, and Janine made delicious carnitas. Carnitas is slow roasted pork seasoned with salt, pepper, some cumin and maybe a few other secret ingredients. Janine cooked it in her crock pot for about 5 hours and then broiled it for a few minutes before serving to give it a little crispy-ness. Also, we discovered that it is not a good idea to let the pregnant lady make the margaritas, because everyone drinking them will end up on their ass. I think it was subliminally spiteful because she couldn't drink any. Just kidding. Mostly.

Here is a picture of Lisa, Shandiz, Robin, Victor & Jess having a celebratory tequila shot and chasing it with the sangrita Shandiz made.

We finished off the weekend with more white sea bass for dinner tonight. Shandiz pan fried it with a light crust of pistachios, flour, Cajun seasoning and covered it with a sauce of beer, brown sugar, salt and pan scrapings from the fish. He served it with peas and yummy potatoes made in the cast iron skillet. It looked fantastic and tasted even better. So nice to have a great experimental chef for a husband.

Good thing we went for two long walks this weekend. Yesterday we went north and then walked back on the sand. Today we went south along the coast highway. There must have been lots of tasty little fish around because there were tons of pelicans diving into the water and also a pod of dolphins off shore a bit. Whenever we end up moving, it will be away from the beach and I will greatly miss being this close to the beach. It is glorious to step out the door and see, smell and hear the ocean.