mama’s sewing circus

We’re spoiled. We can walk less than a mile to a street that spans a 1.5 miles and is lined on both sides with great restaurants the entire stretch. One of those restaurants, Fonda, is a common date night haunt because the service is good, the drinks are interesting and the food is excellent. [...]

I’ve stumbled across an excellent marinade for light fish or tofu – Soy Sauce and Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste. (see image below)
Basically, I rub the victim with a light coating of the curry paste – it shouldn’t too dark red as this stuff is spicey – wash my hands really well before touching [...]

We saw WALL E, today. Sylvie’s first movie in a theater. She was so excited her eyes were as large as saucers for the 20 minutes she was awake. As this was Will’s 4th movie, he is now a veteran, and approached the event with ennui. WALL E is a modern fairy tale replete with [...]

Thank God it is Friday.
Our Nanny has been ill all week and what we imagined would be the calmest and cleanest week we’ve had in 4 years was actually one of the harder, dirtier weeks. I’ve swept up a kazillion dried pastas and peppercorns from our many tea parties this week, and still I’m finding [...]

They are born womanizers. I was wearing a skirt at the grocery store the other day, and Will kept brushing his hand up against my legs and falling on the floor to look up my skirt. I told him to knock it off, eventually tossing him in the cart, where he blurts out, “You wearing [...]

Thanks to people like Michael Pollan (author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (Penguin Press, 2006) and “In Defense of Food” (Penguin Press, 2008)), CSAs have become a viable option to keep our local small organic growers in business. We belonged to Eatwell Farms for a little over a year, not renewing as we received a few [...]

Well, actually, it’s all of California.
Oh to wake to find your recently washed car covered in fine grains of ash!
Our local liberal media, SFGate, published a map of the significant fires in California, as identified by the Governator’s office (and actually, that they borrowed from the Govnr’s site). As of this morning, I counted 26 [...]

I knew we’d eventually find ways to make our grey water recycling more efficient.

my friend Cindy had a great suggestion for how to keep track of your independent child in highly populated areas – tie a balloon to the kid.
(I swear this is the last post today.)

I have to admit I am thoroughly enjoying the interest in potty training our Terrible Twos have brought to the house. Yesterday, Sylvie lit up when I asked her if she wanted to use the potty at work. The Self-flushing potty. I had never thought that thing was so exciting! But she certainly found it [...]