An Urban Girl

Our friends are visiting us from Vancouver. The Urban Baby Toddler is ecstatic playing hostess. Blissfully running around, laughing out loud, making up inside jokes, and holding the hands of two lovely friends while leading them on walks around her town. We met the Baranis 8 or so years ago while on a trip with mutual friends in the beautiful Okanagan Valley. Their children at the time were 3 and 6, and the best darn kids we have ever met. Year after year, the kids have only gotten sweeter, funnier, and more interesting.  The parents haven’t improved much; they have stayed just as warm and lovely as ever! So yesterday the Urbans and the Baranis got a day to play tourists in the Big City. We visited Alcatraz and took a Bay boat cruise. Swayed together in the gusty San Francisco winds, sipping on Peet’s.  Enjoyed a nice lunch at the original Boudin Bakery, a delicious dinner of Persian cuisine at the always wonderful Shalizar, and of course discussed plans for our upcoming diets,

Paola is just the type of girl you’d want to whip up a homemade spinach tart for.  She has a quiet and elegant gusto for life and a great sense of humor.  So when she comes for dinner, you just feel inspired to attempt an impressionable savory tart you once fell in love with in Florence .   A couple of years ago, Mr. Urban and I traveled to Florence .  We stayed at a hilltop Tuscan Villa , a bed and breakfast run by the lovely and hospitable Livia and Lorenzo.  If we travel a hundred more times to Florence , that is where we’ll stay again and again.  One night Mr. Urban fell sick with the flu, and Livia and Lorenzo offered to make us dinner since we had to stay at the Villa.   The three course meal started with a light Italian chicken soup, followed by a lovely salad with a lemon vinaigrette on the side of the most delicious spinach tart ever made, and then dessert.  I could not believe my mouth when I tasted the tart, and told Mr. Urban that I will have to ask for the recipe. 

As it turns out, after I made my first cake I was somehow transformed into a regular Betty Crocker. The UrbanBaby and I decided to bake Molly's Winning Hearts and Minds Cake this morning. We dedicated it to a happy Mr. Urban and some daring friends that were visiting us for dinner tonight. As it also turns out, baking a chocolate cake turns the otherwise mild tempered UrbanBaby into Stitch.  My grand plans to keep my daughter a stranger to delicious foods and keep her on a strict diet of steamed and unsalted vegetables, fruits and water went out with the poopy diapers months ago. Now she regularly swings open the fridge door looking for “Ishe Cream” and checks my purse for “Treats”. So this morning, no sooner had the ONE POUND dark chocolate bar exposed himself to us, that my daughter, first gently and then frantically started repeating “give me, give me”. I caved in with a little sliver and then things got really bad. Precious tears started rolling as she began craw

During the warmer months, Los Altos smells of white jasmines and eucalyptus. And on every Thursday from May to September, it welcomes the sweetest California farmers to a show and tell of their best locally grown fruits, vegetables, flowers and homemade organic jams.   And that is not all. There are bakers too, one with freshly baked rustic breads, one that specializes in cookies and macaroons, and another with French pastries.  There is a corn on the cob and baked potatoe truck.  And a kettle corn and crêpe stand. And then there are all the food stalls with various freshly made ethnic and American goodies….    Although many Bay Area towns host regular farmers’ markets, I must tell you that Los Altos wins the prize for having the most quaint one because of its “ Urban Village ” feel.  So Thursdays have become the official prelude to our weekends.  Our kitchen officially closes – our Chef goes sailing. We meet Mr. Urban at the Farmer’s Market after work.  We start by enjoy

Beyond a gorgeous lavender field, and inside the historic Stanford Barn , lives a little peace of heaven that makes almost all my dreams come true.  Mr. Urban found me Tootsie almost a year ago after he had overheard my repeated prayers out loud for an addition to our small collection of gourmet cafés in our vicinity.  Somewhere with really good food, really good coffee, and most of all really good ambiance, which was also “toddler friendly”.  Tootsie is an authentic Italian café.  With a teaser menu that brings you back again and again and a lovely patio which beckons you to spend much more time at a café than you really should.  On a windy day you can sit inside by the beautiful red brick wall, marvel at the amazing architecture and landscaping of the Barn as you enjoy your housemade focaccia sandwich or savor each bite of your flaky Nutella croissant, while your toddler tugs hard at your pant leg to get a bite of whatever that delicious looking thing is you are forgetting

Dear Daddy I need you For many, many things   Like twirling me in my frilly dress,   And peeking at me in the mirror. For letting me take a closer look at the twinkle lights on the tree, And encouraging me to explore, have fun and look for treasures inside the clouds. For taking long walks together,  And showing me the importance of quietly watching the birds swim, Or laying together on the kitchen floor while we dream. Dear Daddy, For all that and so much more, I LOVE YOU. Father's Day 2010

The weekend is off to a beautiful start.  Spent the morning with girlfriends, their sweet pre-teens and my sweet pre-pre-teen (she acted like one of the gang, casually checking out their cool new iphones and ipads) at Tootsie, eating and drinking very delicious Italian stuff, and sitting in the wind and the sun over looking lavender bushes and beautiful white roses …  I’m not making Tootsie up, really…  I’ll tell you more about it another time very soon. And then before leaving Tootsie, my friend M gave me a Lovely gift out of the blue…  in a Lovely box even… and just because she had thought of me… (sniff sniff)  And now the countdown is on to once again live in the same time zone with Mr. Urban sans Skype (praise the lord!).  This being father’s day weekend will be all about him.  And you can bet from the second he walks in that door tonight he will have two girls stuck to him like barnacles until Monday morning…. Is that Lionel Richie singing in the background… “Stuck on you…

Yesterday, Mr. Urban flew to D.C. for a very short trip. An hour into his flight he decided to video skype us, half because he is a high-tech junkie and probably thought it would be cool to skype us from a plane, and half because he had missed his girls. But since the call, the UrbanBaby has been in a funk. Partly because she was trying to reconcile the idea of her dad, calling her from inside a computer and inside a plane, and partly because she understood that her dad will not be home for a couple of days… She has spent a lot of time by the window or outside looking for planes in the sky…. So in order to make ourselves busy and make this time go by faster, and inspired by Molly (she gets her own paragraph in a minute), we decided to bake a cake to share with our friends whom we were planning to see later in the afternoon. Although I love cooking, I have never attempted baking. For some unexplained and bizarre reason, I have always found baking unnerving. And since th

When my mom and dad last visited us, Mr. Urban and I became proud owners of an old desk. Well I should begin by letting you know that my mother and I are polar opposites, and yet madly in love.  For the most part, we see the world quite differently, and we each secretly pray to convert the other to our way one day soon…   But a day is not complete without at least 3 phone calls and a Skype video conference.  The magic glue that keeps us together is laughter, shopping and food.  We find each other funny.  When one of us talks of her day, the other just laughs.  We have so much to talk about every day.  After three or four phone calls in a day, most people’s arsenal of chit chat and stories would have long dried up… but not ours.  We usually end a call with “Oh, remind me to tell you of such and such tomorrow”.  When we shop together, naturally we always want the others’ opinion of our wares.  But having such different tastes, the only response to give is usually a very kind “I

This man, seemingly running away from me, has a heart bigger than my imagination could hold and a soul to match. I met him a mere ninety six months ago to date… And a day has not gone by without me feeling infinite gratitude for the lucky fate which has been bestowed upon me. I have always been very lucky, winning lotteries and such. And this too, being able to spend each day with this man, watching his graceful walk upon this earth, laying my head each night on a neighboring pillow, and hearing his soft voice in the dark. Dumb luck is all that can explain it. He is polite. When my tendency is to be weary on a street market in Shanghai – haggle and say NO to pushy vendors, he gently reminds me of our status as guests in their city, and so we happily accept their best offer. He is generous, answering my fifth call of the day with the same excitement and interest as the first. And his sincere round face and attentive eyes always make you feel heard, like your story is the mos

A word of advice I remember receiving from my mother in the late eighties was to avoid singing up for Columbia Records’ CD Club, where they would send you 10 CDs for 1 cent (and then scam you into buying many many more).  I recall hearing a lot about this business practice called Negative Option Billing in the late eighties.  I recall hearing about many a customers feeling harassed, deceived, and intimidated, when they found themselves trapped in a membership they didn’t even know they had entered into.  A few months ago, curiously and late at night, I placed an order for the “3 Step System Kit” of Proactiv (you know, the acne infomercial that runs late at night on MTV).  I am not sure if it was the way my skin felt after using it, the fact that I don’t even have acne, or just the “plain” look of the packaging, but after a few uses I forgot about the “Kit”.  Until I opened our mailbox this morning and stuffed into it I found a lovely package from my friends at Proactiv with a Bri

  La Coeur de la Ville If nothing else, Mr. Urban is a wiz at research (well that, and he is handsome and sweet).   He is a believer that there is an answer to everything, and it’s just a matter of time to find the answer no matter how complicated the question.  I on the other hand do not subscribe to that philosophy, and therefore don’t waste much time researching life’s hard problems.  However, I am a believer in him, and thus defer all the mind twisters to him.  He rarely disappoints.  Exhausted from a disappointing home search , Mr. Urban and I each crawled into our respective comfort zones. I, painting the walls of our rented apartment red, and he, sporting his signature content look, on the computer each night searching for a home for us.    One morning he mentioned that the night before he had found our dream home.  A French inspired Villa, no less.  Newly Built.  Located in the lovely village of Los Altos .  A home that we can probably afford, because it has yet to go

For years I had resisted a visit to Tim Hortons in Canada .  I guess for the same reason I resist Denny’s.  To me, visiting cafés is about searching for ambiance, character, something delicious, or simply a cozy place to sit, read, and watch interesting people go by.  When in Vancouver, I want to visit Caffé Artigiano for its awesome lattes and baked goods, Café Calabria, an old fashioned Italian coffee shop on Commercial Drive , or one of the hundreds of boutique style coffee houses and bakeries spread along Greater Vancouver.  So, the need to enter a Tim Hortons – an otherwise bland donut shop, had never, ever, crossed my mind.  For years my dad has been on a campaign to convert Mr. Urban and me, to no avail.  Each time we planned to meet for coffee or lunch he would suggest meeting at Tim Hortons, trying to sell us on their delicious Apple Fritters or “Fresh Whole Wheat” sandwiches and soups.  Of course, I would always talk him out of it, citing how little time we have in Van

The lucky girl that I am, I got to board a plane yesterday and have a completely proud-mama-to-a-perfect-travelling-toddler kinda flight.  And better yet, hours later I arrived somewhere nestled in the mountains, to a cozy home, on a beautiful golf course, surrounded by old, tall pine trees.  Somewhere we like to affectionately call Mama's Lodge (which is not a lodge at all). We'll be spending a special long weekend in Vancouver. Naturally, Mr Urban, will be banging out emails and chain conference calling in the lodge's den, most of the short 144 hours we will be spending here.   For the UrbanBaby the time will be spent getting squished and passed around from Grandma to Grandpa, from Auntie to Uncle and back.  And the special company of one cute bunny has already made the world a much better place for her.   She has been smiles and giggles since she arrived. Rocky Point's Pier (Port Moody, BC) And as for me...  I already had a lovely time with the Prin

Six or seven years ago, I happened to know of many great cities with affordable real estate in lovely neighborhoods.  Not the case for Silicon Valley .  In 2003, I found (to my great shock) that in the neighborhoods of our choice, we were confined to the following two options in our price range: a)       next door or directly across from cemeteries; or b)       across the street from railroad tracks.   I should not forget to mention however, that one can always find "Deals" or  "Miracles", even in situations like these.  Which we did.  We found a house at the last farthest possible border of the area we had in mind, the roof and floor infested with termite and the heating system in violation of city codes, next door to another lovely shack with what used to be white bed sheets hung as curtains.  We hungrily and aggressively put a bid of full asking price on such a palace.  But a thousand thanks to the generous soul that out bid us, we were left homeless in t