Date Night...in outer space!

Ken and I have been dating for so long we don't really "date" anymore.  But after almost 5 years we've finally learned that date nights are pretty important (took us long enough, I know.)  So last weekend we each chose something we'd like to do and went out on the town.


Of course I got the choice of restaurant!  First, dinner at Havana, our favorite classy Cuban restaurant in Walnut Creek (I believe there is also one in Alameda, or something.)  They have awesome mojitos in all kind of yummy flavors, although I would recommend staying away from the strawberry flavored "fresa" one because it has strawberry pucker in it, which turned out to be a bad idea.  Honestly, pucker in anything is a bad idea!  But I digress...  We ordered tapas instead of entrees, though I was VERY tempted by the black bean soup this time.  Boniato garlic fries with chimichurri aioli, crab cakes and some kind of lamb chop special (SO yum! I wish I had paid attention to the waitress more, but she had me at "lamb" so I was too busy nodding frantically at Ken and saying "YES YES! We'll have that!")


No room for dessert after that.  So a quick stop at La Scala for hot beverages and a (should have been) quick drive to Ken's choice: Chabot Space & Science Center.  I say "should have been" because we were dumb and got a little lost.  Fridays and Saturdays they bust out the big telescopes and all the astronomy clubs come out to play.  Some pros and ammeters have their telescopes out and let other people take peeks, but the best part is checking out the view in the big telescopes.  It's pretty humbling to realize you're staring at Saturn from your puny little home on teeny tiny Earth.  Even better, we checked out the Orion nebula from the Chabot's homemade telescope and learned how stars are born.


We froze our butts off up there, but not without taking a few long exposures.  Unfortunately, there was a troop of cub scouts taking a field trip or earning a badge or something, so they kept running around on the bridges I had "sturdied" my tripod on and most of my exposures of the city turned out pretty shaky.  Did snap a pretty good one of the telescopes though...thank god for concrete surfaces!

caught a plane going by...nifty!

Another successful date night...

Anything to get us from doing our typical "old people" things of walking the dogs, renting movies and reading books at the Border's cafe.  Yeah...who needs to be married when you have a married dating life?

bowls of happiness

On a rainy night it doesn't get any better than this: JAPANESE CURRY.


Hurray! It's Curray!


2-3 yellow onions, chopped chunky style

4-5 carrots, chopped in 1" segments

1 lb. thin sliced beef
-OR-
2-3 potatoes, cut in 1" cubes

1 package Japanese curry 
(the "Golden Curry" brand is found is almost all grocery stores, but the good kind is "Vermont" or "Apple" curry, which is pretty much only found in Asian food stores)

Depending on the brand of curry you buy the box will instruct you to add a certain amount of water.  Ignore it.  Add at least a cup less than what it calls for.  Add all the chopped veggies to the pot of water and bring to a boil.  When it boils turn the heat down to a simmer and let it cook until the veggies are almost fork tender.  If you're using thin sliced beef, now is the time to add it.  Let the beef cook in the hot curry, it will probably take between 5-10 minutes depending on how thin the beef is (I use shabu-shabu cut beef, it just makes it easier.)  Break up the blocks of curry and add it to the pot, let the curry dissolve and give it a stir, things should thicken up pretty quick.  Eat it with rice (Japanese-style rice!*) and if you are so daring, eat it with red pickled ginger.  Seriously!

So. Happy. :)

*Rice 101: Japanese rice is the short kind.  Not super short like Vietnamese sticky rice, not long like Chinese rice...right in between.  Educate yourself!