Author: DJones BranchingOut

Pushing 50 and it's time to try a few (maybe... 365?) new things. This blog is not about reinventing oneself or one's life, but about how much fun one can have while going out on a limb and branching out. Kicking anxiety's butt one day at a time, yeah!

Food Tourism in San Diego- Big Kitchen Café

San Diego’s South Park neighborhood has unique shops, home after home of the quintessential California bungalow, and a boatload of eateries. One of the neighborhood and San Diego’s favorites restaurants includes Big Kitchen Café where you can stop in and enjoy some great grub. While you eat you can try, and fail, to take in all the memorabilia posted everywhere- from the Whoopie Goldberg signed wall (where she used to wash dishes) to the Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead photos, and hundreds of personal photos. You will never take it all in.

Busker out in front of Big Kitchen
Busker out in front of Big Kitchen
Roasted Garlic, Onion and Potato Frittata. T'was yummy.
My Frittata. T’was yummy, with lots of roasted garlic.

We had a couple of good breakfasts. The Husband had good bacon with his biscuits and gravy and I really liked my roasted garlic, onion and potato frittata. The home fries were cripsy potato chunks with a generous amount of chopped herbs. Dee-lish. And halleluia, the coffee was fab, too.

I’m really glad a friend recommended this spot when we were looking for somewhere to eat breakfast while we waited for The Boy to finish an activity. Thanks a bunch to Deb E. for the suggestion!! We even found a great gift for The Girl at a shop next door…

See? I wasn't kidding!
See? I wasn’t kidding! Click the pic for the Amazon link if your family has as goofy a sense of humor as ours.

When you see a book titled “Farts Around The World,” and it comes with a sound machine, you just DON’T pass this stuff up (I think I will let her brother buy it off of me and give it to her for her birthday- it makes the PERFECT sibling gift, n’est-ce pas?). I can post this here, she never reads this blog, lol.

(I swiped the featured photo- the one at the very top- right off of the Big Kitchen’s Facebook page, don’t know who took it, but I definitely didn’t want to take credit for someone else’s stuff…)

24 bottles of wine on the wall… Sing Along with Me!

When we won the wine raffle after purchasing a single ticket at my son’s school (pretty neat raffle offering for a school, huh?!?), our closest friends also in attendance cheered. They were just as happy knowing we’d be sharing this windfall. Twenty-four bottles of wine in the cupboard, twenty-for bottles of wine… sing along, everyone!

That was the best $25 The Husband and I spent in a long while.

Among the most interesting bottles are Fallbrook Winery 2011 Cabernet, Hilliard Bruce 2009 Moon Pinot Noir, and Gros Ventre 2011 Pinot Noir. Multiple bottles of each, hot dog!

IMG_5701There is a potpourri of other wine varieties and producers in the batch. Represented are the sweet to the dry, the well known to the new to me, at least. I discovered a great website to help me begin to identify everything. WineSearcher.com allows you to type in your wine’s information, then returns more statistics than you will know what to do with- our two dozen range from $12 to $60.

The first I popped open was from one of our local wineries, the Fallbrook cabernet. I love me some cabernet sauvignon. This is a delicious cab, the tannins are already mellowing.

We hit the jackpot! I like wine, can you tell? I already had a good 15-20 bottles, so, we will now need to contemplate which is the lesser of two evils: wastefulness versus drunkenness- some of these whites need to be drunk up right away, after all.

New Run- Makes the Old Run Look Like a Kinderwalk…

I found out how to make a two mile run super easy- replace it with another run, a little longer with REAL hills.

Ouch.

The Running Coach/Husband is now introducing me to the foam roller. I hear that I’ll hate it, and love it at the same time. Sounds kind of like running? However, I understand that this 5K that I signed up for at the end of the month for my March Project has a bunch of hills. Yeesh. Hills.

At one point this summer, this guy was faster than me.
At one point this summer, this guy was faster than me.

The new run kicks my butt bad. How bad? So bad that I feel like I’m back to walking with this guy again:

Torrey Pines State Preserve... a nice place to run. Nice and FLAT.
Torrey Pines State Preserve… a nice place to run. Nice and FLAT.

It makes the recent triumph of running those two miles, straight through, like a stroll on the beach… When I make it to the top of that hill, about a half mile long, I’m running the next day on the beach. Barefoot.

Wish me luck!

Spiderman, Vertigo, and Playlists- Viewing Suggestions, Please?

What’s the difference between a super hero and a balance disorder? With the former, he gets Spidy Senses a-tingling, with the latter one is smacked with Spin-y Senses attacking.

First time I had vertigo, it stunk. Second time was quite a violent attack. Third time was just a sensation of an odd disturbance in the force… and once again I sense something is not quite right in them ol’ vestibular canals.

I should have a TV, Netflix or movie viewing list lined up before I become fully incapacitated, miserable, and unwilling to come up with an idea. Or move, for that matter. Any suggestions? Downton Abby and Torchwood are at the top of my list so far. Any great You Tubers that I should binge watch? All I’m good for is sitting and staring. Reading, my favorite past time, is not an option due to the position of the head. Do Not get cute and suggest Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo… not funny.

If you know anyone who is bothered by BPPV, a somewhat treatable form of vertigo like mine, here is a great doctor’s recommendation of her own maintenance- click on the picture:

Vertigo treatment option from Dr. Carol Foster MD, University of Colorado Denver
Vertigo treatment option from Dr. Carol Foster MD, University of Colorado Denver

San Diego Beer Scene- At Times, Hop-less (thankfully, sheesh!)

Fish Tacos and Lightning's Elemental Pilsner
Fish Tacos and Lightning’s Elemental Pilsner
"Better Beer Through Science" Who can argue with that?
“Better Beer Through Science” Who can argue with that?

Quick Fish Tacos for dinner tonight, and what to drink with it?

I consulted the resident beer expert (he’s also my running coach, among other things) and he suggested a pilsner. So… pilsners generally don’t have a lot of hops, I’m guessing, that must be why I didn’t hate this beer.

Don’t you wish that wines and beers with amusing labels and clever sayings on the bottles tasted better than boring ones as a rule? That would make selecting one much easier. I think The Husband picked this beer because of the motto alone… patronizing fellow scientists. “Better Beer Through Science.” Clever.

I liked this! Lightning Brewery, in North County San Diego, was founded by a couple of former scientists, and I’m happy to see something other than double, triple and quadruple hopped beers coming out of this part of the country. This is getting to be ridiculous!

It may be one of the signs of The Apocalypse, but there are now TWO kinds of beers that I would drink- pilsners and stouts (it only took three wrong spellings before I gave up and used the spell checker to see how to properly spell ‘apocalypse’).