Aldoblog

As usual, Rochelle’s invitation to a recent party is funny and worth preserving. In addition to Rochelle’s birthday, this was the “coming out” party for our new kitchen (even though it wasn’t quite finished). We do regret that we didn’t get to the grilled cheese sandwiches on the griddle, but at least we did make quesadillas.

Regarding the budget overruns of the kitchen remodel:

“Yeah. We spent into the grocery money.”

“Worse. We spent into the booze money.”

In the time since the prior photos were taken, the kitchen sink and cabinet was installed (and the dishwasher dragged into place), the ceiling, walls, and trim have been painted, the electricians returned to install all the outlets, switches, and lights, and our contractor left to go get married on the East Coast. Thank god we’re almost finished…

A while back I took advantage of a special running at Dell, to get one of these 20.1” flat panel LCD displays. It arrived a week later, and I’ve been using it as a second monitor off my laptop since then. The quality of the display is terrific. I dunno about doing color-calibrated print work, but as just extra screen space (which I’ve found I absolutely need to do web development productively), it’s spectacular, and makes the built-in screen on my laptop seem dingy by comparison.

We’re in the home stretch on the first phase of our kitchen remodel. The photos here were taken last week; I’ll be taking some more tomorrow when I can get back in with good light.

I was just referred to the Fire & Knives cooking and food site with the “recommendation” that “Here’s a nice little food site that is snobbier than youse guys…” I decided it was a keeper when I laughed out loud at this description of wonder bread in a new shape:

Cunning bakers have responded, not with an authentic baguette but with a preservative-laden, turd-shaped travesty called — with callous humour — a French Stick. It’s exactly the same rubbish they extrude into white loaves but delivered in a staggeringly inconvenient shape. Trying to eat a sandwich made with one is like trying to fellate a torpedo.

With luck, and a signature from the city, Cafe du Soleil will open tomorrow. I could not be more excited!

I updated to WordPress 1.5.1 on Friday, after drinking a cocktail with Rochelle. Maybe not the best strategy for preparing for a software upgrade, but everything seems to be working fine. Let me know if you see something funky…

GraceAnn Walden is probably our favorite of the SF Chronicle‘s current food writers, and her weekly column keeps up on the comings and goings of San Francisco restaurants, restaurateurs, and chefs. This week’s column had news that literally brought tears to my eyes: Pascal Rigo is opening a place right around the corner from our house.

Rochelle and I have fallen in love with listening to books on our iPods. We’ve signed up for two books a month through Audible.com, and for me, that pace is actually pretty good. Rochelle goes through them faster, though, and recently started going to the SF Public Library to get more books to listen to. Importing them onto an iPod is not terribly intuitive. This post describes what I think is a fairly optimal process, using only iTunes to do the importing.