Week of December 18: Rick and Karen (Andrea's Parents) In CA For Christmas

This year Andrea and I were unable to make it down to Minnesota for the holidays mostly because I have no vacation time accrued at work. Damn the Man! However, we were very fortunate that Rick and Karen had decided to make the trip out here and spend a week with us. With the rest of the family (Andrea's brother Scott, sister in-law Brenda and niece Kaia) in Iowa (Brenda's mom) and with the wonderful Minnesota winter, it didn't take a whole lot of arm twisting to get Rick and Karen here. Rick and Karen left the cold snowy, frozen lakes of Bemidji, Minnesota only to be greeted by the wet cold rain of the Bay Area, California. However, the rainy storms didn't put a damper on our holiday spirit.

Andrea and I managed to put Rick and Karen to work priming and painting our downstairs bedroom, while Andrea and I played Tiger Woods Golf on our XBox (just kidding!). They do good work... I highly recommend them! After they completed their chores (nothing's free at the Kims), we managed to have some fun...

A beautiful day at John Muir National Monument. The trees behind are over 300 Ft tall! Even Paul Bunyan would have had trouble with these.


We stopped for lunch at the Cliff House in San Francisco, which was built in 1863. Is that an oyster Karen is eating??!! Of course not... she's stealing Rick's French Toast!


My uncle (aka The Bottomless Pit), seen here devouring the hors d'oeuvres while my sister, Stephanie is feverishly replenishing the baguette, hosted the Christmas dinner.


All business at the "adult's table". We had 3 kinds of desserts, including Scandinavian favorites, Lefse and Krumkaka. Brian is giving the desserts a quick once-over to see which slice is the biggest and the crispiest while Andrea is getting ready to protect her slice.

This is our family!!!

Week of December 11: Kodi's Rough Life

This week has been a busy week. Mostly we worked on home projects. The master bedroom wall paper removal and painting is now complete and we've moved onto painting the downstairs bedroom. The bathroom contractors are hard at work and we're really starting to see it resemble an actual bathroom.

On Saturday, my parents came over for dinner. We headed out to Citron Restaurant in Oakland. Great Osso Buco... very yummy! After dinner, my mom and Andrea headed to San Francisco for the 7 PM showing of the Nutcracker presented by the San Francisco Ballet, while my dad and I headed home to kick back and enjoy the digestion of our fine dinner. Strange how we both elected not to go to the ballet... hmmm. Both my mom and Andrea enjoyed the Nutcracker very much.

Through all the excitement of the holidays and the chaos of our daily life, Kodi has managed to stay calm and not get stressed out. He's continuing to do what he does best... nap. We've enrolled Kodi in an obedience class which starts in January. Kodi is a fantastic dog but we (more than Kodi) need some work in recall and leash-walking manners. Kodi is looking forward to making more friends and learning new tricks!

Kodi just can't seem to get enough of playing with his favorite toy, the Green Frog.

Kodi is actually practicing pulling the sled... I think this exercise is called High Performance Visualization Training.

This is how Kodi enthusiastically greets us when we come home from work. Can't you tell how much he's excited? Down boy!

One thing about the holidays... Kodi has lots of visitors. Rusalka (left) and Blackberry (right) are his bestest friends.

Week of December 4: No Time To Smell The Roses

With the holiday season fast approaching, our schedule has shifted from high gear to overdrive. As if our work, bathroom remodel, mater bedroom wall paper removal & repainting, downstairs bedroom painting, and backyard landscaping wasn't enough, we decided to live it up a little this week and managed to fit in a White Elephant Gift Exchange party on Friday and a Date Night dinner on Saturday. Andrea and I finally decided that our ultimate holiday gift would be to have two clones of ourselves each. Has anyone seen the movie, Multiplicity?

Friday Night: White Elephant Gift Exchange

Our friends Leslie and Jenny hosted the party at their home in San Francisco. It was obvious that both Leslie and Jenny really worked hard "working from home" to cook and decorate for the party.

Jenny's thinking 'Who put more vodka in my drink'? Andrea or Vin... you decide.

Leslie had her eye set on the cute flower beanie hat... unfortunately Rob did as well.

While free food, free drinks and catching up with friends are always nice, we were all there for mostly one thing... ending up with the best gift at the expense of your friends or at least ensuring that the special someone ends up with the crappiest gift.

This year two clear winners (or losers depending on your perspective) emerged from the exchange. Both Simon and Lauren were left with exquisite surprises as no one dared to take these marvelous treasures away from them. Some of the gift items that were preferred over Simon and Lauren's gifts were as follows:

• Jumper Cables
• Foot Spa
• Paint By Numbers
• Stress Balls
• Lip Gloss

So what did they end up with? To no one's surprise, the winning gifts were adult related products. Simon won the top draw with a couple of doses of Viagra and a pack of Handz Off Gum, while Lauren was close behind with a jar of Vaseline and a couple of Girls Gone Wild DVDs. They both acted disgusted and mortified but we all knew better... both Simon (with his wife Sharon) and Lauren (with her boyfriend Jason) would enjoy their early Christmas gifts. Ho-Ho-Ho... Merry Christmas!

Both Simon and his wife Sharon seemed a little too happy with the White Elephant gift. In fact with those little blue pills, Simon's on his way to becoming the White Elephant himself!!!

"I think I already have this one!" Really... who doesn't?

Oh and as for Andrea and I? Andrea ended up with the Paint By Numbers book (which she misplaced at the party) and I ended up with two stress balls and a mini flashlight. The mini flashlight will come in very handy when I pull speaker wires through my living room walls!!!

Saturday Night: We Clean Up Pretty Good

Andrea and I spent most of Saturday hot and sweaty in our master bedroom. Get your mind out of the gutter! We were busy stripping the last remaining globs of wall paper and finally removing all the glue off the plaster walls. If you are one of the fortunate few that has never heard any bleeping words coming out of Andrea or my mouth, you would have thought that we were a couple of sailors on shore leave. Wall paper is bad. Wall paper on top of wall paper is double bad. Wall paper on top of wall paper with layers of paint on top is @#*$-ing bad!

After a full day of peeling, scraping and sponging we headed to San Francisco to reward ourselves for a hard day's work. A few weeks ago, Andrea and I had a Date Night at Milano, an Italian restaurant not too far from our house. Andrea ordered the Tanglerini pomodore con Gamberetti and I ordered the Risotto Tatto mare e Zafferano. What we got was il crappo! So this time, we decided to do it right and go somewhere we knew the food would be good.

We arrived at Jardiniere around 8:30 PM for our dinner reservation. After laboring all day, a part of me had wanted to stay at home and relax. But once we arrived at Jardiniere, we were instantly surrounded by it's pleasant and luxurious atmosphere and I was glad I had decided to go on the Date. By the time we sat at our table, my stomach was growling loud enough to have gotten notice had it not been for the 3 piece jazz band playing a mix of Christmas tunes and Bee Bops. A little red wine, a little bread (with lot of butter of course), and a few laughs later we were ready for our meal.

Stairs leading up to our table. The picture on right is the exact table we sat at.

Andrea started with the Warm Bread Salad with Baby Artichokes and Marinated Bellwether Farm Crescenza Cheese, followed by the Cream of Mushroom Soup with Port Reduction. And for her main course Andrea chose the Alaskan Sablefish with Escarole, Smoked Bacon, Gala Apples, Fingerling Potatoes and Beurre Noisette... very delicious and very healthy I'm sure. Unlike Andrea, I was hungry. So naturally I had to have the Chef's Six Course Tasting Menu. I didn't think that 6 courses of extremely rich food were quite enough so I ordered an additional appetizer consisting of four fresh Oysters on the Half Shell with Champagne Mignonette and Fresh Horseradish. After slurping down the four Oysters, I was finally ready for my 6 course meal to begin. The following were the contents of my meal:

1. Santa Barbara Prawns with Braised Matsutake Mushrooms, Baby Artichokes, Wild Arugula and Preserved Lemon Aioli,
2. Poached Salmon with Tsar Nicoulai California Estate Caviar with Traditional Garnish,
3. Roasted Butternut Squash with Wild Rice, Chanterelle Mushrooms, Swiss Chard, Braised Chestnuts and Truffle Nage,
4. Dry Aged New York Steak with Roasted Celery Root, Baby Carrots, Fingerling Potatoes, Creamed Nettles and Sauce Bordelaise,
5. Colorado Blue Cheese plate, and
6. Pecan Pie with Sweet Potato Ice Cream.

Reading the list above now, I am shocked and ashmed at myself for being able to eat all that (I also had a cup of coffee as well). How can something that felt so right be but a shameless display of pure gluttony? Especially after the Thanksgiving feast! Perhaps that's why even after that cup of coffee, I struggled to stay awake on the ride home and passed out immediately when my head hit my pillow. All I can say is that Andrea is truly lucky and blessed to have found a life long Date partner like me!

Week of November 27: Poke & Shiso... Main Ingredients For My Can Of Whoop Ass

Every year, our good friends, the Whitemans (picture on left: Brandon, Max, Shannon) host a holiday competition party. In the past, it had been an ongoing gingerbread house making contest between boys versus girls. The history of the gingerbread house contest is riddled with foul play and unfair judging. Last year, we finally took the judging to the streets of downtown Burlingame and had strangers cast their votes. Needless to say, it was a landslide victory for the boys. The people had spoken!

Last years Gingerbread House contest victory

This year, the Whitemans decided to mix things up a bit and announced a new challenge… an individual cook/bake off. The rules were simple. Everyone would bring either an appetizer or a dessert to share with everyone. And at the end, everyone would vote for 1 winner (you couldn’t vote for yourself… I found this out later after I voted for myself). Andrea and I welcomed this challenge and eagerly awaited our opportunity to display our cooking/baking prowess. It was pretty clear from early on that Andrea would enter her dessert while I took on an appetizer. And after much debate and soul searching, we both came up with our entry recipes. Andrea chose to make her famous Galaktoboureko and I elected to make an Ahi Poke. Galaktoboureko is also known as Greek Milk Pie but let me tell you, it should be called Butter Pie instead. Ahi Poke is a simple Hawaiian dish Andrea and I fell in love with at Sensei Sushi Restaurant in Maui. It’s raw marinated Ahi tuna salad or as Andrea likes to call it “Pure Goodness”.

Early Saturday morning, we finished our shopping for the ingredients that would be paramount for a Kim victory. We were supremely confident of a win. The only question was whether Andrea or I will be #1. Living in Oakland, we are very fortunate to have the diversity to find any cooking ingredient imaginable. We started off at Piedmont Grocery and got most of the items. We had to make a couple of extra stops for the specialty secret-weapon items. We got our fresh sushi grade Ahi from Hapuku Fish Shop and some Korean Shiso leaves (kkae nnip in Korean) from Koreana Plaza. With all our grocery bags filled, we came home and began the creation of our respective master pieces. With Andrea’s Galaktoboureko (try saying that 3 times real fast, or even saying it once real slow), the coolest part of making it was when Andrea pulled the pie out of the oven and poured the sugar syrup into the pie. The syrup boiled and sizzled as it seeped its way through the buttered layers of filo (you gain weight just thinking about it). Not to be outdone, I battered the Shiso leaves and deep fried them nice and crispy to make edible serving plates for my Ahi Poke.

My beautiful Ahi Poke with deep fried Shiso leaves

With our tasty creations in hand, we arrived at the Whitemans. The competition was fierce. From Laura’s Baked Artichoke Dip, to Sharron’s Crackers with Wasabi Cream and Shrimp, to Abby’s Tennessee Pumpkin Square, to name a few, everyone had brought their A-game or at least they tried. In life, we consider ourselves to be very blessed when we find ourselves in that rare moment where we shine brightly above all the others. And we celebrate those moments as great human achievements… The Catch, Sir Edmund Hillary’s Ascent of Mt. Everest and The Breaking of the Sound Barrier to name a few. Some people search their whole lives for that one moment. Friends, you all know me as the down-to-earth, humble, modest good person. So I say this with sincere humility…

I’M NUMBER ONE!!!

Please, it wasn’t even close. By an almost unanimous vote, I crushed the Tennessee Pumpkin Square, stomped on the Artichoke Dip, splattered the Galaktoboureko and chewed up Mike’s Chicken Wings. I’ve got one thing to say for the losers in the competition… YOU GOT SERVED!!! (except to my sweet wife I say, you got robbed… that crappy fish wasn’t even cooked!)

Brandon anouncing the winner... ME!

For being crowned the Champion, I was presented with the magnificent Silver Spoon Trophy. I’m toying with several ideas for displaying the Silver Spoon. I could go with the more traditional approach by bronzing and mounting the Spoon with the engraving “Master Chef Extraordinaire” or I could go with a non-traditional approach and attach the Spoon to a fat necklace as the center piece so I could wear it around for all to jealously admire. Any suggestions? One final thought, you heard it here; I plan on a 3-pete, then retiring from the competition and going into the Hall of Fame on top!

My Competition (aka Losers)

Natalie, Andrea, Blair, The Johnsons (Nellie, Ella & Mike)

Abby, Laura, Jessica, Harriet and Sarah