Five Stars

I had yet another fabulous time staying with Kelly, John, and Anna this past week. The decision to visit them was a bit spur-of-the-moment, but I'm learning that that is a good way to do things at times. Otherwise, some other thing will get in the way while trying to plan an event.

I left Tuesday after my last piano lesson and rolled into San Diego around 10:00 pm. The drive was long of course, but with hardly any traffic, there wasn't a whole lot of time for road rage. (I can't say the same about the trip back to Visalia, though.) Excited to see each other, Kelly and I stayed up way past our bedtime to hang out and chat, then off to sleep I went.

In true Kelly/Candace fashion, much of our time was centered on cooking and trying new recipes. We tried ATK's pumpkin pie and Alton Brown's Perfect Potstickers. As a last minute switcharoo, we also decided to make Alton's Enchilada Lasagna, a new favorite for the dG's (and now a favorite of mine, as well) instead of laboring over a much more intense ATK empinada recipe. What can we say? Sometimes we aren't in the mood to begin dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Alton's recipes were amazing, and I encourage everyone to try them. His potstickers were just as the name says: perfect. The best part? It's a pretty easy and cheap recipe. Check out the links above to make them. The pumpkin pie was good but didn't make the cut for the world's best pie, which was actually a good thing because that pie was hard to make! The crust, however, was divine and is now my go-to pie crust. It is (shock) another Alton winner, so check out the recipe here.

Sadly, the picture below is the only one I have of either Kelly or me, whether alone or together. Drat! It'll be easier once Anna is a teenager and can snap a picture of us :)


On Wednesday morning, we took Anna and headed over to Balboa Park. This is a pretty neat place. Because we were short on time, we basically just did a walk-through, but I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful architecture and fantastic San Diego weather. Plus, Anna proved to be a great little model for me as I snatched a few photo ops. I am sure she has a future with Baby Gap.

We also had time to do a little shopping and went to Nordstrom's Rack one evening, where I splurged and bought these adorable red flats, which I may just never take off. They are so comfy! Gotta love Borns, right?

My shoes were the only purchase I had to make, and yet I came home showered with gifts. Jewelry, a scarf, salt water taffy, muffin cups, and my most excited treasure, the latest Best of America's Test Kitchen magazine for 2011.

It was a bit sad leaving my favorite San Diego home, but we sure did make the most of my time there. Thanks deGrassie's for a fabulous stay!

Comments

  1. You are quite welcome friend. Your room has continuous availability and our service staff aims to please.

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