Hello all! Coming to you from recently employed land! I’ve been so stressed lately that rather than take advantage of my free time, I became even less productive than usual- as a result posting has taken the back burner. Below is a stock pile of awesome photos and tales of the last 2 weeks in my kitchen in Oakland.

Billy and I both celebrated our birthdays this month (1st and 9th, respectively) and so much delicious food came out of the two weeks of birthday celebration. For his b-day I made the standard Beer Fondue! On my birthday I was supposed to be cooked a delectable eggplant parm, but silly billy didn’t realise that eggplants are hard to come by this time of year. 3 grocery stores later, he admitted defeat and had to re-think his plans. Below is the delicious result!

Spinach, Feta and Pine Nut Sausage with Smoked Oyster Potato Cakes & Beans

Check out this little friend we found living in one of our greenbeans!

and the happy kitty who ate him

The part the was truely amazing about this years birthday festivities was that I got 3 nights of man-cooking. 1 night of delicious salad, 1 night of bangers & mash billy style, and 1 night of eggplant parm, which came about thanks to Trader Joes ability to have out-of-season produce when even Safeway does not.

Here is proof of the rare sighting of man-in-kitchen-and not getting beer- or orange juice….

A special thanks goes to my sister for getting me some much needed new pans for my birthday!