An LA Weekend

At long last I spent an entire weekend within a 5 mile radius of my new home! It has been such a huge adjustment moving from a city that is 7 miles squared to a sprawling county that doubles as a "city" of sorts - in short, life in Los Angeles is a far cry from life in San Francisco. First off, no matter how "far" your friends live in SF and even if you do have to transfer buses to get to them, they are definitely no farther than 7ish miles. My parents are now much closer but if I want to see them I have to drive 60+ miles, my boyfriend is 50ish miles away, and my closest friend down here is 20-30 miles away depending on where she is hanging out. So I have to stare at miles of gray freeways to get to the ones I love. I think this distance will seem less torturous once I am no longer making a 25 mile (each way) commute to work every day. It's still an adjustment and I miss the stress-free feeling of just sitting on a bus, reading my book, or staring out the window at gorgeous Victorian architecture en route to any destination. This is definitely a case of "the grass is always greener" because I can't tell you how many times I cursed the fact that I was carless when the next bus wasn't coming for 20 minutes and it was 50 degrees and misty on a June evening. All in all, I'd say I am handling this transition period pretty well - certainly the best I have handled any major life change thus far and I am proud of that!

Back to my weekend - the boy came up and it was so great to just hang out in the neighborhood with him! Friday night was spent drinking wine and eating a frozen pizza from Trader Joe's. On Saturday we walked over to my neighborhood farmer's market, which was vastly smaller than the Hollywood one on Sundays but still good for convenience and I was able to pick up a few necessities at a fair price. I spent under $10 and bought a purple onion, a purple bell pepper, two yellow bell peppers, a bunch of tomatoes, two peaches, one pluot, and two avocados. Not bad!

For dinner on Saturday we collaborated on what turned out to be one awesome home-cooked meal. I had purchased a few wild Alaskan salmon fillets from TJs the night before and N finally got to show me his fish cooking skills by spicing them up and frying them in some Dijon mustard in a cast iron skillet. SO GOOD. Buttery and flaky and so unbelievably satisfying. I love how pink wild salmon is, even when cooked. It is such a beautiful color, how could it not be good for you? I was in charge of side dishes and made one old standard along with an improvised newbie: rosemary garlic potatoes and lemon garlic butter green beans, respectively.

Rosemary Garlic Potatoes:

7 small Dutch baby yellow potatoes (or any small potatoes) cut into bite sized wedges
4 cloves garlic (I LOVE garlic - if you don't, reduce!)
1 t dried rosemary, crushed with your fingers (or fresh minced)
1-2 T olive oil, enough to coat a large non-stick skillet
s&p - be generous!

Place the cut potatoes in a medium sauce pan and cover with water. Put on the stove and turn the burner up to high, bring to a boil, and cook for about 5 minutes. Test for doneness with a fork - they should easily pierce but not crumble (crumble = overdone for this application). Strain the potatoes. Heat the oil in the skillet over medium-high heat - add potatoes. You want the heat pretty high here so the potatoes will get crispy and brown on the outside but not so high that your oil is smoking. Sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt and freshly cracked pepper and leave alone for a few minutes - too much stirring will just make it take a lot longer for the potatoes to brown (this might be a "the watched pot never boils" type of effect, but trust me, leaving them alone helps!). When they start to get a good brown going (after about 15 minutes) add the garlic (either minced or pushed through a garlic press) and the rosemary and give it all a good stir. You should have some seriously tasty taters on your hands. If you want the garlic to mellow out a little, lower the heat and leave it on for a bit. I like a strong raw garlic taste, personally. I know, I'm gross.

Green Beans w/ Lemon Garlic Butter

1/2 -1 lb fresh green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 2-3 inch pieces (sorry, not sure how much green beans I had here, I used the other half of my package of organic green beans from TJs)
2 T butter or oil (I used butter)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
s&p
juice of 1/2 lemon

Put a nonstick skillet over medium heat and melt butter. Add green beans and saute for 2-3 minutes (or to desired doneness - I like mine pretty al dente). Add garlic, s & p. Saute for another minute or so. Turn heat off, squeeze lemon over everything, stir it up, and enjoy! YUM.

We both agreed that this was the best meal we had had in a very long time. It was so satisfying in a meat and potatoes kind of way (with the salmon acting the part of the meat, of course) and felt special. I think we will have to make this a weekly tradition - seafood Saturdays? I want to try imitating one of my favorite cooked Japanese dishes - miso glazed black cod - and also want to try my hand at scallops. I don't have much experience cooking fish but I want to have more experiences eating it so I'll have to see what I can work out...

The rest of the weekend was spent running local errands and doing some projects around the house. It is great having so much space to work with - there are so many things to organize, so many areas to be nested, so much to personalize! I am looking forward to potting an herb garden, putting up a roof over half of our patio, and digging up the side yard to plant our own veggies! We also were able to check out a few local area bars for a few drinks, obviously an essential part of getting to know any neighborhood. Well, that's all for now. I have some more catching up to do on recipes but will save my next post for tomorrow.