Christmas Day

I'd meant to post this on Christmas Day but was having too much fun to remember to write anything.

Christmas Eve, my father and stepmom and brother-in-law came over and we drank and ate. I'd made my late mother's "world famous" manicotti recipe. She'd made it for years and years, and we make it at special times. It takes time to make. If you're interested, let me know and I'll post it.

I'd bought the ingredients at Lundardi's. What a GREAT place. Salvatore is my favorite checker. He teased me to no end at my bad Italian accent. It's "manicotti" not "manicatti." I said it was because my mother was from "joisey" that my accent was so bad.

I'd bought 2001 Mount Edan Vinyards Merlot, and it was perfect. It had the UMPH required for the strong flavor of the slow cooked tomato base. My brother in law brought a bottle of Sterling Cabernet & it was nice, but it would have been better with a roasted chicken. It was a calmer wine.

But why did I bring up Christmas? Oh, for memories of course. I remember how much fun I had marching in the Christmas parade when I was a Girl Scout. And once I became a teen, all the joy went out of my life :-) I had to take the SAT the same day as the parade, and I forgot, and was trying to get back home after the SAT (and you remember how DRAINED you felt???) and couldn't get back because E. Main Street was still closed. Now mind you, back then, not many Los Gatos Teens had cars (I was borrowing my Dad's '78 Buick station wagon) and no one had credit cards & few had cash. So I had maybe a few bucks. Maybe. And I can't go home, and so I went to Oak Meadow & walked around until I knew I could go back home. Boy was I pissed :-)

My favorite memory was when my brother & I would go for a walk in the afternoon. We'd go down to the 7-11, get junk food, and then toss a football around on the lawn of the library. One year, we walked all the way down to the 7-11 where Blossom Hill hits N. Santa Cruz! We could walk forever and talk about anything and everything. 7-11 was the only thing open on Christmas Day, I should mention.

My brother hasn't been home for Christmas in about 10 years. When he'd come home, we'd go to Mervyn's and I'd buy him a new wardrobe. I miss him so much. I'm glad he's happy and doing what he wants to do, and I'm so proud of him. Doesn't make me miss him any less.

Main Street Burgers

So the other month, we met my parents at Main Street Burgers in Lyndon Plaza. They'd fetched our daughter from school, and so my husband & I went "whoohoo, we get a date hour!!" We parked behind Mountain Charleys (so we obviously got there early), and walked down to C. B. Hannigans where my husband tried two single malt scotches. Good thing we were walking since he hadn't eaten anything in 5 hours and they both went to his head. It was cute & endearing since he rarely does anything like that. We promised ourselves that we'd find a date time to go there & let him try the cask strength. He read somewhere that this one guy drank cask strength and woke up 2 days later face down in the backyard. We might be able to do that today since our daughter is going over to her grandparents to make cookies.

So, Main Street Burgers got two big thumbs up. My daughter got a hot dog and ate it all up which is unusual. I got the regular burger & it was fabulous, perfectly cooked, etc. The fries and onion rings weren't greasy. Husband got the blue cheese burger & swore we're going back since he couldn't get enough of it.

It was a nice evening and we sat outside watching cars & letting our daughter run around while we finished up. My parents had been there before a few weeks prior & were hesitant...the food was good, but they hadn't had the outdoor seating, and there was no one else there, and the staff all sat there staring at them to see if they wanted or needed anything. I can't see that as happening any more since every time I walk past, I see people in there.

So give it a try!

Bridge to lunch memories

My daughter was taking tap/ballet classes through the recreation department and since it was only an hour, I'd go for a walk around. Earlier this summer, I was surprised to see that the bridge between Forbes Mill and Old Town was locked off. So when I went down to poke around, I was delighted that the bridge is open again. There were a lot of lovely paintings done by the local Girl Scout troops.

During high school, my friends & I would run to Old Town using that bridge because of B. J. Bull pasties. My favorite was the beef and mushroom. I can't remember what Sean and Brent got. But we'd grab them and run back and eat lunch in some classroom before having to get to the next class.

I was so bummed when B. J. Bull's closed down. I imagine the rent at Old Town was outrageous even then. So, when I worked at Adobe in the mid 90s, I was tickled pink to see them at the San Jose Farmer's Market, and the beef and mushroom pasty tasted just as good as I'd remembered, which doesn't happen very often!