Visiting With My Niece

Thursday night I drove out to Temecula to pick up my niece, Catherine, to come spend the weekend with me.  Her mom, Amy, had made a lemon pie and offered up a taste (okay, she really wanted me to blog about it….).  You know those Marie Callender Lemon Pies, the ones that have a layer of cream cheese and lemon on the bottom, and the lemon custard on top of that?  That’s what she made, with a graham cracker crust.  It really was delicious.  I’ve made something similar where I mix cream cheese into the lemon custard for the whole pie.  It’s very creamy and tangy and rich!

Since I got there real late in the evening, I stayed the night so we could head out in the morning.  Amy made us Belgian waffles with homemade blueberry syrup.  The syrup was a nice touch!
We headed out of Temecula mid morning and headed into L.A.  We stopped in Pasadena to visit the Norton Simon Museum (www.nortonsimon.org).   I hadn’t been there in years, and Catherine was up for some art.  It was a nice experience for me to see what kind of art she liked and what she thought was silly.  Norton Simon has 4 wings and a lower level – each dedicated to a different era.  She spent a lot of time on the 14th-16th century wing, looking at all the religious paintings and iconography.  They are fascinating to look at, especially since so many of them are so vivid still, with rich colors.  The level of detail and richness of the colors amazes me, especially for paintings that are often over 500 years old!

The art the seemed to fascinate Catherine the most was the Cubist art – she really liked several of the paintings of Kandinsky.  That kind of surprised me, but now I know what she is drawn to.  I was happy to get my fill of Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso.  They had a painting of Van Gogh’s sunflowers that I hadn’t seen which I really enjoyed staring at.

It was getting to be later in the afternoon, so we headed down the street in to Old Town Pasadena to get some lunch.  I thought we would try The Melting Pot for some fondue, but they aren’t open for lunchtime – bummer.  But a few doors down was the Japanese restaurant Kabuki (www.kabukirestaurants.com).  Catherine had never eaten at a Japanese restaurant (though she has had and liked sushi), so we decided to give it a try.

We started out with some Edamame – the brought a small bowl of the plain edamame, which I didn’t realize that some comes with a lunch combo because I had also ordered the Garlic Edamame, so we wound up with two servings!  But the Garlic version was grilled and even more tasty than the plain.  I showed Catherine how to eat it, since the first time I tried it, I ate the whole pod (that’s a lot of fiber!).  I also tried to teach her how to use the chopsticks, which she hasn’t quite mastered, but she had improved by the end of the meal.

The second appetizer I ordered was the Broiled King Crab.  They brought us eight pieces of some of the most flavorful, rich crab I’ve had in a while.  It was very well seasoned.  I sprinkled some lemon juice in top to give it a little more kick and we devoured them fairly quickly.

Round three was Miso Soup – my favorite.  Catherine discovered she really liked it too.  We already had a fair amount of food, but we still had entrees to go.  She wanted some sushi, and ordered the Lobster Roll.  I had the Chicken and Steak Teriyaki lunch combo, which came with a small salad, rice and the chicken and steak in a teriyaki sauce.  I was surprised to find I could eat the salad easily with my chopsticks!  The meats had been grilled perfectly and the teriyaki sauce was the right amount of sweet and tangy.

Catherine enjoyed her Lobster Roll, though she had trouble using the chopsticks.  For her first attempt, I thought she did pretty well.  I told her it takes practice.
After lunch we checked out the shops and walked around.  It was a nice afternoon weather-wise.  We stopped in at Trader Joe’s to pick up some supplies and snacks and then headed home to hang out for a bit.

Eventually we needed to grab some dinner – we walked down to the NoHo food truck roundup.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have a lot of vegetarian options.  They did have a crepe truck through, Crepuscule (I think they’re relatively new on the scene), so there were options for Catherine.  She ordered a one that had smoked salmon, egg and cheese.  I got to have a taste and it was quite yummy.

I got a burger from Rounds Premium Burgers (www.roundsburgers.com).   I ordered the Hawaiian (grilled pineapple and jack cheese and teriyaki sauce), and a side of fries with buttermilk ranch dipping sauce.  The burger was juicy and flavorful.  They had grilled it perfectly, and the pineapple and teriyaki were a nice compliment.  The fries were very crispy – they way I like them!  If the fries are done right, that generally indicates that the rest of the food is quality.

We grabbed a couple of cupcakes from Sweet Arleen’s (www.sweetarleens.com) – a Cupcake Wars winner on Food Network!  I had the Red Velvet, and Catherine had the Peanut Butter & Fudge – she really liked that.

Today we head down to Long Beach for a Segway tour….shhhhhh, Catherine doesn’t know what we’re doing yet. ;)