savoring my last few bites. goodbye, foie!

182:365 goodbye, foie!

July 1st marks the ban of foie gras in California. this past month restaurants have been throwing foie gras themed meals and people have been racing to get their fill in before it's gone "forever." i quotation mark that because, as most people feel, this probably won't actually be the end of foie in California. much like the Prohibition Era, the law is sure to be overturned eventually. anyhow, i am no different. over the past couple of days i've been scrambling to get my last bites of foie gras in before the nearest morsels can only be found in Nevada. i say "go big or go home" and i didn't just go big, i went GIANT!

tonight i went to Chaya for their Au Revoir Foie Gras menu. 

seared foie gras nigiri. effing rich and splendid as all hell. i turned this $20 single piece of foie into approximately four bites to savor it's fattiness.

seared foie gras over wagyu beef ($58). hell f*cking yeah, you heard! over wagyu! fat upon marbled fat. i couldn't have asked for a more rich dish than this. it was served with eggplant and bok choy. bok choy always makes me feel like i'm going to choke to my death so i avoided it. 

this morning i went back to Craftsman & Wolves to try and get their chocolate muffin with toffee ganache and foie gras. i picked up an extra few for my foodie friends because i figured they would appreciate it.

"Devil Inside." look at all that chocolate sexiness. the foie gras sort of just added a richness and a salty element. with or without the foie, this is a great treat. 

yesterday i went to Humphry Slocombe for foie gras ice cream sandwiched between two gingersnap cookies. but if you read my project 365 day 181 post, you'd know that i don't like gingersnaps so i only ate the ice cream. my mouth was all savory and umami-ish after this. love!

okay, i've had more foie gras in the past couple days than i've had ever before in my life combined i think. so i think i'm set. or i guess it doesn't really matter because i can't have it unless i exit California anyway. i can feel my arteries narrowing as i sit here digesting all of that goodness. happy sigh....

181:365 foie gras ice cream sandwich

181:365 foie gras ice cream sandwich

the ban on foie gras in California starts tomorrow. it seems everybody has been racing to get their last taste of foie before July 1st and i'm no different. yesterday i went to Humphry Slocombe to get the foie gras ice cream sandwich with gingersnap cookies. i'm not a fan of gingersnaps so i got rid of those and ate just the ice cream. verdict: fantastic!! my mouth tasted all sorts of rich and umami-like. aaaahhh foie, i'll be missing you!

180:365 Craftsman & Wolves

180:365 Craftsman & Wolves

Craftsman & Wolves is my new favorite bakery! they just opened less than two weeks ago. i don't know how to describe what it's like when you walk through the doors except that it feels sort of lofty and modern, yet still inviting. the pastries all look amazing and it's hard to pinpoint just one single item you might want to try. i ended up with the chocolate croisssant stack, which was quite pleasing. to pair with the chocolate, i got sipping salted caramel which was magnificent! i love LOVE this place!

179:365 walking along a mural

179:365 walking along a mural

i love murals. they are so telling of the person who painted it. i love it when you walk along one and are met with what seems to be never ending colors. then you step back, the colors start to make sense and a story unfolds.

catching up on project 365

these images might be out of order because i have no idea what days i took what photos. but here they are!

170:365 the dainty gentleman

"the dainty gentleman" at Bi-rite is honey lavender ice cream with blood orange olive oil, hot fudge and sea salt. pretty good and inventive, but i'll stick to a banana split next time. or maybe i'll get that chocolaty goodness that's in the back. thaaaat was good!

171:365 f*ck i left my work shoes!

damnit i left my work shoes at home so i had to wear these red Toms. i had to roll up my scrub pants in order to avoid stepping all over them every moment of the night. i nearly transformed into a kung fu kicker that night.

172:365 Lindsay's birthday!

Lindsay got a super rich, extra delicious cake from Natasha (my future roomie) which was shared with our coworkers. happy first 29th birthday, Lindsay!

173:365 crashing the Gilead picnic

crashed Dex's work picnic because...well...why not? free food, drinks and entertainment? sign me up! remind me to never allow myself to let my hair turn white. hair dye for life, yo! but that perm is pretty much inevitable for chinese women once they hit the age of 63 so i may not be able to avoid that one. lol. just kidding, i'm definitely avoiding that fro.

haha! we asked the guy if we could make funny faces and he said "yeah if you wanna hold still for that long." needless to say, it was really awkward, but i love it!

174:365 just electricity

175:365 

176:365 treats from my locker buddy!

Natasha (yes, the same one. my future roomie) left an assload of candy for me and Muri in our shared locker. she showered us with reese's peanut butter cups, heath bars, and dark chocolate kisses. this is dangerous territory. diabetes status, here we come!

177:365 borrowing Tuki

i'm dog sitting Tuki for the week. before i became the person who fed him daily, he had no qualms about attempting to chomp my fingers off if he felt attitudy. but now he loves me. or maybe he's just pretending so that he gets fed.

178:365 lunching with this guy

brought Tuki to lunch with Jay and Dex because i would feel like a complete asshole if i left him at home all day long and then went to work for the rest of the day. i made sure to take him treats/toy shopping and to the dog park so he wouldn't get too bored with me. 

"but even the sun sets in paradise..."

"but even the sun set's in paradise..."-Payphone,  Maroon 5

while this is true and i agree that many times in life what seems to be unbreakable still has the ability to shatter, it's definitely not the end of the world. so paradise=life, right? and true, the sun sets daily in paradise, but if there's anything that i would put my money on, i would say that it's pretty guaranteed that the sun will rise tomorrow. sometimes it's obscured by fog and rain, but it's still there. and even on the stormiest of days, you know the sun lingers behind the clouds. i'll bet that the days when the sun comes out in full force, you can't help but smile! we all need the sun to set so that it can rise. and when it rises, isn't it grand? note that during the peak hours when the sun sets as well as when the sun rises, they typically cast the most beautiful visions in the sky. symbolic of the beauty in the balance of life? i think so.

are they college students?

the awesome coworkers friends and i went to Jones for happy hour. see, this weekend is Lindsay's birthday so we had to send her off with a proper celebration. let's kick off this blog post with photos of the most important people, the birthday girl and myself, because happy birthday to Lindsay(!) and because well, this is my blog. photo overload.

getting it started right

taking it slow...

but not that slow, because this was taken like fifteen minutes after that last one.

girl shot! we deceptively look sober. nobody is, but it's still early so we are able to maintain tact.

her permanent face whenever Ron is around. that's not Ron though, that's Edgar. Ron's lingering somewhere too close for comfort. lol!

Ron, Ruby, Lindsay, Adrian, myself

sorry my hair is cascading down your face, Adrian. it has a tendency to cascade.

note: Adrian makes Popeye face while choking Tan.

WTF this is the scariest picture of Edgar i've ever seen in my life. he looks like he could be a creepy murderer and one of these girls is his next victim.

note: Adrian's face hasn't changed for like an hour. he just stayed looking like Popeye until he left. and guess what his reason for leaving early was. it was to walk Kingston, his beloved dog. he loves Kingston more than his own wife. (i'm just kidding Candace!)

Tan, posing like WJF in his weird Taiwan photos.

i'm not quite sure how a tongue gets that fat.

who the f*ck is that? good thing that strand of hair covering that girls face masks her identity or she might be a little embarrassed! 

take two. much more tame.

world, meet Terry aka T. he says he's going to find me a "brotha. but one that wears argyle. and one that can hang with Tracy as well." 

see, told you this is her face whenever Ron is around. sheer terror.

super crew! what!! we love each other.

so what had happened was.....we spent friggin $818 on food and libations at Jones and apparently got a little too loud for their liking. according to stories that i heard the following day, we were cut off and moved to a dive bar across the street. i had thought we just wanted to go. i didn't realize that our conversation topics and ear piercing voices were a problem. oh well, we'll move our fun elsewhere.

at some dive bar

oh, hello Matt!! what a trooper. he came to find his wife past drunk.

according to more stories i heard the following day, the bartender at this dive bar thought we were college students based on the way we were acting and the amount we had been consuming on a wednesday night. little did she know we are all quite successful, responsible hospital employees. 

poor Lorraine had to work the latest and showed up to find a bunch of people falling and wanting to go home immediately. nonetheless, i'm glad she could make it. i do not recall taking this photo. 

note: Muri is now choking Tan. why is it that everybody felt the need to choke Tan this night??