Both patios are open. I guess I'm not an A lister, so we ended up in the new one; next time I'll invite obscure2k to join us ;). This one has a large potted manzanita tree in the middle. It was perfectly fine and we had great and attentive service.

Here is a picture from their Facebook page:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...9f&oe=5F607E71

Yeah, if only you were an A-lister like me. Lol
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Salad looks great. We’ve have a couple variations of something similar the last few weeks. One version is virtually identical just with chicken added. Other is going more of a caprese style salad and doing grilled peaches, mozzarella, tomatoes (and chicken for me, my wife usually goes sans chicken).

Hard to beat anything that includes grilled peaches

I had salmon over spinach salad with an avocado lime dressing.

Tandoori chicken on the bbq, with a bit of macadamia smoke, rice and salad.

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Tonight it will be grilled Flatiron steak with a basil salsa, fork mashed Cornish earlies and a rocket salad.

That looks excellent, but one quibble - where's the dhal?

Steak cooked in a cast iron skillet with rosemary and garlic, a mixed salad on the side with chunky blue cheese dressing, and a couple of glasses of a very nice dolcetto d'Alba.

Tell me about macadamia smoke .....

Tonight's dinner is going to be ice cream, not because I have a bunch of ice cream in the freezer, but because a local non-profit is hosting an ice cream walk as a fundraiser.

Tonight - duck nachos and a salad. Still deciding on the cheese sauce. Usually use a brie but we have some odds and ends I want to use up. Thinking about using buttermilk and a roux with some combination of goat cheese, cream cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, blue.

Hard to screw up duck nachos - just have to be careful with the amount of blue I think.

Last night I made a beef saag from one of my Indian instapot cookbooks, and it was amazing. Definitely a keeper recipe.

I am going to have to try that salad recipe of Sharon's, it looks delicious!

I'd been at the boozer for a couple of settlers. I wasn't going all out, just using what I had in the fridge. ;)

I also try and avoid cooking anything Indian inside the house because the spices, as delicious as they are, can really linger.

It's a really mild, slightly nutty smoke. I used a big chunk of it and only got a whiff of smoke flavour which I prefer. Macadamia trees are native so the wood is pretty easy to get a hold of.

Ditto :-)

ooh super clever!!

Interesting...I have never seen macadamia wood chips or chunks. Maybe online.

Spaghetti in cherry tomato & olive oil reduction
meatballs / leftover Italian sausage in Rao’s
fusilli pasta with parm & olive oil
raw cucumbers & red bell pepper

Keeping it keto with eggs scrambled with diced onion, green pepper, spinach, and cheddar cheese with a bit of hot sauce.

Salmon fishcakes and peas, followed by poached spiced apricots with creme fraiche.

Wednesday turkey taco & carne asada night
having read the NYT article on carne asada, I realized it was similar to a taco supper! The steak was great and it only needed a tiny time for seasoning - all past time of letting it marinade for hours wasn’t super necessary!


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Cajun blackened chicken with a side of creamed spinach.

Tonight: My famous-in-my-own-mind grilled wings, tossed in buffalo sauce and served with blue cheese dressing.

It's my treat when my wife isn't here for dinner. Which also means the dog won't be getting any of it, so he'll have beef kibble and probably pout about it :).

Rubbed some smoked paprika on chicken wings then smoked them on the Weber with red gum wood. Served them with a quandong and chilli dipping sauce and an ice-cold beer while watching Thursday night football.

Detroit-style cheese pizza, half black olives
Detroit-style white pizza with cherry tomatoes

kipper-inspired side of steak (Choice Top Sirloin; 5-minute marinade in olive oil & 1mm-sized Mediterranean Sea salt)

Arugula salad with dried cranberries and goat cheese
roasted new potatoes with garlic & Rosemary
grilled salmon fillet

A dressing for the rocket?

white balsamic
olive oil
honey

very nice!! I was going to make a caesar to go with the pizza and switched to steak.

i love a Caesar. For me steak would be too much with pizza.

definitely my first time making a side of steak, plus on the stove instead of the grill due to bad air. Now I know that steak cooked on the stove is quite tasty.

I love a grilled steak. But when I want the best steak, it's seared in a smoking hot cast iron pan, and then finished in the oven. But you need a good fan above your stove top!

I can’t even open the kitchen nanawall that leads outside during this bad air period. Sigh. So yes it’s smoky and hard to avoid.
we ordered an air purifier for the kitchen / living area as it’s an open space (small sf house).

that said, I was very pleased with the simple steak - I didn’t even sauté onions and it was all great. Wow.

now at Boeing 7:37 morning, air quality is “moderate” and it’s foggy outside. I opened our bedroom outer door and omg. I can smell the smoke. Sigh.

Does that work with his cut of steak? I am not a top sirloin fan but aren't they usually too thin for that ?

so no open windows during the fires? I am sorry ...i would hate that. Are you very close or just wind blowing in your direction ?

My better half is making osso buco tonight, with polenta for the kids, and a (keto) caesar salad for me.

Great excuse to open a bottle of Barolo.

the steaks are about 1” thick but it’s hard to notice the difference between 1 and 2 inches on a steak.

The outside air smells and smelled smoky (and surely has negative particles) so we don’t open anything. There are unavoidable air pockets by the whole house fan, the mail slot, and the garage door. Air quality is now 70-ish which is yellow “moderate” so we just don’t open anything as much as possible because we did a 1 or 2-second test and noticed immediately that it smelled smoky.
It’s worse in other places and most homes built before our renovation have worse air pockets. Plus of course there are many who sleep in tents and they have even worse air quality. I’m positive that those lining up for the food banks are also suffering worse. So I’m not complaining per se while still acknowledging that we are minimizing outside air as much as possible.

Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl

Corkscrew pasta with assorted tomatoes, peas, spinach, and goat cheese
corkscrew pasta with parm & olive oil
kipper side of Choice steak
Leftover side of meatballs in reduced Rao’s marinara (strong salt!)

watermelon
sugar cone with Robbins rocky road & Robbins peanut butter chocolate
sugar cone with Robbins cherries jubilee & B&J milk & oatmeal cookie

Ground turkey burgers with garlic and french-fried onions mixed in, served on pretzel rolls and topped with a honey dijon sauce.

It's street concert night.
Pasta salad to top with shrimp
rose sangria
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Happy concert!!!

grilled cheeses (Assd sourdoughs and cheeses and grilling methods)
rose kitchen tomato & avocado salad
kettle bbq chips

Looks awesome, corky!

We have a friend who always complained he didn't know how to cook. During the pandemic he decided to remedy that. We're spending the weekend with him and he cooked meatball subs yesterday and Nashville hour chicken sandwiches today -- including homemade bread for each! Amazing. (The hosts made steak the first night, plus breakfast both days including popovers this morning. We made NYTs Middle Eastern chicken, couscous and a tomato salad last night.)

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Meatball sub with provolone, homemade garlic bread and tomato sauce
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Nashville hot chicken sandwich with coleslaw on homemade brioche buns