Our christmas

It was quiet, sweet, and simple. If you did anything special that day, I hope yours was joyous as well.

On christmas eve we went to Albany Bulb for our usual dog walking adventure with Ruth and Piccolo. From there we decided to attempt a visit to the Tokyo Fish Market which we had been wanting to check out. Luckily they were open and it was great fun exploring all the packages of goodies that were total mysteries. Together we conspired and made a decision to purchase half a pound of shrimp and half a pound of halibut, some veggies - all set!

TGF had decided in advance that breakfast would be biscuits with sausage gravy, a particular favorite of hers. We had not really decided about dinner but a few days before she had mentioned "seafood" as possibility, in part because she knows I think there is entirely too much meat eating going on around here, and also because it was her tradition to have beef stroganoff on christmas day thus she wanted something that was ours. Since I was quite hungry I voted for breakfast first, then presents! As the present unveiling took awhile I was very happy with the order of events.

TGF already covered her haul a few days ago. Though I have no idea how to use one of these things I am delighted nonetheless with this adorable teeny tiny SanDisk MP3 player that she got me. It also works as a voice recorder and a jump drive - how cool is that! In a continuation of themes from last year she got me the 2007 version of Knitting - A Pattern A Day calendar.


Also I got Romantic Knitting, the cover photo drew her in because she thought I would look good in the cover outfit. Isn't she sweet? I am so not waiflike thus the dress would look, well, quite different on me! Sweetheart that she is, she included the receipt in case I think a different book would be more to my liking. It's like she read that article in the Chronicle that I giggled over the day before our present exchange.

Again, just like she read something, cruising my way is a ball winder! I am terribly excited as I could really use this, though my skill at creating center pull balls with no equipment other than my hands has grown tremendously.

TGF has proved she has excellent taste on many occasions but truly a telling of her talents is that she was able to purchase a handbag for me. Yes, of course it's black -don't be silly- but it takes more than that to please this woman! I haven't had anything close to professional (read not a backpack or hippy tote thingy) to use for interviews or work since Wyatt chewed the strap of my last great find of such an article when he was a baby. This lovely little number is large enough to hold my wallet, phone, lipstick, dayrunner, and a small knitting project (like socks perhaps?). How perfect is that? I ask you.

Oh and dinner? Sauteed shrimp with garlic butter, roasted vegetables (shiitake mushrooms, red pepper, japanese eggplant, and red onion), brown rice, and halibut poached with lemongrass from our garden with some garlic and ginger. It was all so good. I had somehow never roasted shiitake mushrooms before - OMG so good, meaty (ha!) texture and smoky flavor, wow. Breakfast today was some of the rice and veggies, two days later still really good.

Yeah, it was a good day.