St Patty's Day Saturday

For some incomprehensible reason I woke up at 8.30am today. It is Saturday. I woke up earlier today than I normally do for work. I should go back to sleep but can't. I decided to wake up rather than toss and turn and inevitably waking Ming up. He's been working really hard this past week (waking up early and sleeping late) so I want him to get as much rest as possible.

I decide to wake up and start my day. Yesterday all the weathermen had forecast a beautiful day -- high of 80 in San Francisco. It is mid-march and we were going to expect summer weather? I was nearly giddy with joy thinking of all the things I could do to enjoy the lovely weather. As I walked into the living room (the curtains were open) I saw, with much dismay, overcast skies. Nooooo! Where was my beautiful sunshine that I'd been seeing all week? Gloomy clouds don't translate into warm breezes and sipping mai tais (ok, so maybe I'm stretching the mai tai thing) on the porch. Grrr... Maybe it will burn off and the skies will be sunny again. I hadn't, afterall, seen the sky at 8:30am all week so this could be considered normal.

I woke up and started to do some random things around the house killing time and waiting for my french bread batard to rise. I haven't blogged in awhile and I forgot to mention that last weekend I made french bread (for the first time) and Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef.)

Here are some photos of those cooking endeavors:






I am pretty happy with the way the french bread turned out and the shaking beef. These are definitely two items to be added to my repetoire. The shaking beef was really good and we gobbled it down immediately. I served it on a bed of lettuce instead of watercrest, no matter, it was still delicious. For more info about shaking beef, go here

Fast forward back to today ...

I made a huge batch of dough last weekend so today I am using up the rest of the french bread dough. I am going to make another batard since Ming really likes them and we bought some fixings last night to put on top of the bread (for our breakfast/brunch.)

It is now nearly 10am and I think I have come to grips with the realization it will not be beautiful and suny 80 degree weather. It will be dismal and overcast and we've got dinner in the city tonight for Pat's birthday. Damn, there had better be some green beer to make up for the lack of a sunny day