Favorite Christmas Flicks

Loving Christmas and wanting to (amidst days of up to 60-degree weather) get into the Christmas spirit, I have been trying to track down the "best" Christmas movies of all time to get them into our Netflix queue (trying to edge out K's episodes of The Wire).

It's a Wonderful Life is my absolute favorite Christmas classic, one which I could watch annually (or even multiple times per year) and during which I never fail to tear up.


However, there are many Christmas flicks I have never even seen!

Moviefone has a "Top 25" Christmas list which includes the following (in order of ranking, I think).

1. A Christmas Story **
2. It's a Wonderful Life **
3. Miracle on 34th St
4. Scrooged
5. White Christmas
6. Elf
7. Christmas in Connecticut
8. Home Alone
9. Babes in Toyland
10. National Lampoon's 'Christmas Vacation'
11. A Christmas Carol
12. Holiday Inn
13. The Nightmare Before Christmas
14. The Bishop's Wife
15. Love Actually* (also a favorite of mine!)
16. Die Hard
17. The Shop Around the Corner
18. The Dead
19. Bad Santa
20. The Santa Clause
21. Gremlins
22. Joyeaux Noel
23. The Muppet Christmas Carol
24. We're No Angels
25. The Polar Express

What are your thoughts/favorites of the above (write-ins are welcome, too!)?
What movies should I put atop the queue?

Not in Humboldt anymore, Toto?

One really has to count one's blessings when we have had the following unexpected surprises recently:




1. NOTHING but sun for about a week!
Humboldt County's weather is much like that of the Pacific Northwest-- cool, coastal, with some summer/fall sun, but overall wet/drizzly winters. We have had some really (I guess, having lived in MN, I should say "really" [i.e down to 30!]) cold nights, with a higher electric bill, frost on our grass and car-scraping to do ("That's a nice [effective] scraper!" commented Kelvin, who used to use either water and/or a credit card in So Cal to get ice of the windshield in the rare instance it was there); however, as a result, we have had a string of about 5 bright, sunny, beautiful days! And it doesn't look like it's letting up anytime soon. It has been so wonderful to experience this little sun reprieve from "normal" winter weather :) While I wisely purchased (and used several times, already) new rainboots, I am hoping I can keep them in the closet for a while.

2.


If you recall, Humboldt County has about the most expensive gas in California (and probably is a contender for the priciest in nation) at around $4.00/gallon on average. You can actually check relative national gas prices here. In any case, in the past week, it has dropped to $3.85/gallon, which had me doing near-cartwheels on my way to fill up my tank, to bide us time until we next get to Willits (about 3 hours south of here, and our normal fill-up spot on the way to the Bay area or Sacramento).

Yay for these small, but significant winter blessings!

RIP, clogs

I generally have had a hard time getting rid of clothes and shoes that have been around for some time, even if they aren't worn that often. Part of it, I think, is that I am not a very enthusiastic shopper and am more comfortable re-wearing old sweaters, styles, etc., than getting motivated to get new and more hip stuff.

No more.

I have been scared to death by the hoarding shows, and Kelvin and I are working on thinning our closets, especially with many families in need this season. Personally, I don't want to buy anything new unless I get rid of something old. I also vow never to wear anything that is ripped or has holes (goodbye, many trusty sock pairs).

Noting this happening to my clogs (while walking around Old Town Eureka yesterday) was a wake-up call that maybe, just maybe, I hold onto things much longer than I should. Yikes! A shoe split in two. I hadn't even seen that one coming! I've probably had these shoes, which I always wore with some warm, brown corduroys (which are "so 90s," per Kelvin), since college (and they are not the only ones!), so I was slightly sad to see them break.



Despite the shoe being in pieces, we managed to finish our "First Saturday" out, which included some good sushi at the waterfront, and some good finds at the used book store (shops are open late on these arts nights, and a percentage of the sales were being donated to local shelters!), but the clogs went in the trash when we got home. Feeling bad that they will end up in a landfill, I wondered whether they were recyclable... or compostable, but I think they are neither.

In any case, I will miss you, trusty clogs. It was time.

Another year of thanks

Another Thanksgiving has passed, as has one more year in which I have been able to count many blessings. I am so thankful for...

My job
I am not only thankful to have a job, but also for one which gives me quite a lot of personal and professional satisfaction. Kelvin and I are both really happy with our clinics and I am thrilled to have the chance to continue to be so active in OB. We are especially happy to no longer be residents when days off are few and far between, and holidays are days that often go unnoticed (some people actually get Veterans' Day or Columbus Day off?!). It is rather challenging to get a chance to visit with out-of-town family or friends when you are working 80-100 hours per week and don't have time off to travel. This year, Kelvin and I both had (paid) holidays of both Thanksgiving day and the Friday after, and we were able to make the trip to Orange County to see K's family.

Family
We are thankful to have been able to see so many members of both our immediate and extended families this summer at our wedding. While it is difficult to have my parents on the east coast and I miss them a lot, especially around the holidays, it is nice to have a California family. And even if we weren't able to travel, our "family" now includes at least two of us, and I would have been thankful to spend the holiday weekend with my husband alone (which is what Christmas is looking like). Although Kenn was in Hawaii, Kelvin's youngest sister Theresa was home from college to join Kat and his parents, and we had a great relaxing weekend with them.

Good food
One of K's favorite parts of coming "home" is the culinary delights. We definitely never leave SoCal hungry! We enjoyed lots of good food (which included quails, which I tried for the first time), as well as homemade Shabu Shabu (Japanese hot pot). Katherine got a chocolate bomb cake (always a hit), and Theresa made delicious cake pops (at right) for our Thanksgiving day feast.



On Saturday, we made a trip to Wurstküche, a new trendy LA (Little Tokyo) hotdog place where we tasted exotic rabbit and rattlesnake sausages.

(K, Theresa, Mom, Eddie, Kat, and me awaiting our food)


The food arrives!


More food (and good friends)
In addition to eating with family, we spent time at Chamreun's house on Friday, where we had another whole Thanksgiving feast. I love pretty much all thanksgiving food, particularly turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Worried I wouldn't get turkey this weekend (Asians don't usually do turkeys), I cooked a mini Thanksgiving dinner for us on Tuesday, including a tiny 5-lb turkey which turned out okay!







However, we lucked out with round 2 of turkey on Friday, along with a fun night of fellowship and games (we are sore from Wii tennis).

Chamreun's delicious turkey




Tina + K on Saturday at Wurstküche


We also got to catch up with Kimie and Vin briefly on Wednesday night, when we overnighted in Sacramento prior to leaving on an early flight to So Cal. We miss our residency friends!

LOVE
Sandra, one of Kelvin's friends from junior high, got married to her college sweetheart David this weekend and we were thankful to be able to attend their wedding.
The weather was GORGEOUS-- i.e. 70 degrees and sunny (I still envy nice wedding weather!), and the ceremony and reception very lovely.

The áo dài shots (K's grandma brought this one for me from Vietnam in the spring!)





The procession starts (these flower girls were adorable!)


The bride appears, escorted by her parents


I loved the Christmas decor at the altar


Husband and wife!


What else did we do this weekend?
We watched some football.
We took a lot of naps. I am thankful for naps.
We braved some Black Friday madness (at reasonable hours) and found a few deals, but didn't get sprayed by pepper. For that I am thankful, too :)

And what else am I thankful for? The season of Christmas!

(our tree was up well before Thanksgiving :))

The next ten

I have now passed the decade of my 20s (sniff, sniff). Actually, with med school, residency and being single, the 20s were quite hard and I actually really look forward to this next decade! While it was a big birthday (#) for me, but I am not very into celebrating (much), so we did things quietly.

I had to work all day and actually had to stay in clinic a bit late due to a busy afternoon, but was pleasantly surprised at work with a yummy pumpkin latte (thanks, Mandy!) and mint hot chocolate (I had plenty of sugar!), a lovely card signed by all my staff, and beautiful (and very fragrant) tuber roses from Cyn.

My parents also had a vase of flowers delivered to me at my desk! I have never been very observant of flowers and can't usually manage to remember to water them to keep them alive, but I have changed my tune, as they really liven up a room (/house) and I have managed to keep alive some indoor succulents (I know, not too hard) and bromeliads.



Here is me pictured with my gorgeous tuber roses, and a seatbelt bag from Kelvin-- a very durable, recycled bag which I will now use for work (love it!). My parents sent me a package with lovely decorations for the house.



Kelvin chose the location for a lovely dinner out -- at a restaurant called the Looking Glass House in Eureka, which was themed in the style of Alice and Wonderland. It had lovely decor, looked out over the bay (except it was dark last night!), and had cute menu items including drinks like the "Cheshire Cat," "Mad Tea Party," and "Queen of Hearts." We enjoyed two-for-one appetizers including diablo prawns and gruyere fondue (well, I enjoyed the cheese!), french onion soup, and fish tacos.



It was definitely a hit! After my one champagne julep, I took an extended 2.5 hour nap on our couch when we got home, but really enjoyed the meal and my birthday :) Thanks for all the calls, texts, emails, and FB messages!

Kitchen victories

After my Halloween-time pumpkin curry disaster, I really needed to redeem myself in the cooking department. We have had success this week and so I wanted to share a couple of tasty recipes!

Kelvin and I are big fans of seafood-- I usually make at least one seafood dish per week, whether it's something with shrimp, scallops (my favorite), tuna, white fish, or crab. I haven't attempted whole lobster at home yet, but we were tempted to buy some lobster tails the last time we were at Costco. We picked up clams last time instead, and this recipe turned out really well!

1. Clams in wine sauce

Ingredients (serves 4, or 2-3 if you eat as many clams as K and I did)
3 lbs of littleneck clams in shells
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 c chopped onion
1 tsp olive oil
1.5 c white wine
1/2 c chicken broth
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp each of oregano/rosemary/thyme/parsley (if available)-- I just used dried rosemary


1. Combine white wine, chicken broth, tomatoes, and pepper in a microwave-safe bowl, microwave on high for 1 minute
2. In a dutch oven, add oil, herbs, and onion, sautee x 2 minutes
3. Add wine mixture to pan, bring to a boil
4. Stir in clams, cook 5 minutes or until clams open; discard any unopened shells

The clams go great with either rice (Kelvin's pick) or fresh baguette or other toasted bread for dipping/mopping.

The extra broth-sauce can also be reused-- I made a pretty decent chicken marsala the following night using the leftover liquid and adding mushrooms. MMM!

2. Beef stroganoff (in the crockpot)



We have a basically brand-new crockpot that Kelvin's Mom gave us a while ago. I love the idea of cooking in a slow-cooker-- throwing ingredients in, and letting them simmer away while we are at work, coming home to a cooked meal. However, out of laziness/inertia/not knowing where or with what to start, I hadn't yet cooked anything in it, until this weekend.

I was looking for a way to use up some extra thin-sliced beef (from pho earlier in the week) and mushrooms in our fridge, and this "salvage the leftovers" recipe turned out really well! I mixed- and matched from a few recipes I saw for this one:

Ingredients

1 lb. beef (I used thin strips of flank steak)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup of broth (I had leftover beef broth), water, or white wine
1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used more like 2 cups because that's what we had left and we love
mushrooms*) - can substitute canned mushrooms if desired
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
8 oz. sour cream
12-16 oz. egg noodles

Directions: Combine all ingredients except noodles and sour cream in crockpot, cook on low for 6 (-8) hours. Stir in sour cream until well blended. Serve over cooked egg noodles (my choice) or rice.

The meat was soooo tender, and we both loved it. I heard that ribs are great in the crockpot.
Do you have any favorite crockpot recipes to try?

* We briefly checked out the Redwoods' Annual Mushroom Fair in Eureka today and saw hundreds of species of locally-harvested toxic and edible mushrooms!

Shabu and the Redwoods

Serena, Brad and Shabu came up to visit us this past weekend! Serena & Brad were the first of our residency friends to see our new pad and experience Arcata, and we loved having them here! We (especially I) loved that they also brought their furry child, the shih-tzu Shabu, who enjoyed frolicking in the park and trails around our neighborhood and (I think) seeing the redwood trees :)

On Friday night, we went out to eat at the Plaza Grill in downtown Arcata. All of the food, from the tomato basil soup, to the macaroni and cheese, to the scallops I tried, was great! They mistakenly brought me the scallops entree instead of the appetizer and, while I was really nervous to have to "send the food back," they took care of it and didn't charge me for either dish, which was a big blessing. We enjoyed walking around the shops and galleries, open late on Friday for Arts Arcata.

On Saturday, we headed to the Avenue of the Giants to explore some of the roadside attractions.

Here is Shabu, getting ready for our road trip:


We walked through the trail at the Founders' Grove.



Little dog with a BIG tree cross-section!


We went to the Shrine Drive-Through tree and park:


I'd been to this tree park before (on my first trip to the Avenue about 4 years ago!) but somehow missed these cute treehouses.







We then stopped at Confusion Hill, which we have been meaning to check out for a while. Right off Hwy 101, it entices travelers with its mysterious signs... but we didn't know what excitement it would actually hold.

We luckily enjoyed our interesting turkey-sausage-cucumber-tomato-basil- cheese baguette sandwiches (Kelvin's creation) before we visited the attractions, as it was definitely weird and left our stomachs feeling a bit unsettled.



They have a few "stations" which show off optical illusions of height and balance. The "Gravity House," a slanted house built into the hillside, made us feel really dizzy, but was kind of fun for its trick pictures which obviously show us defying gravity.






(Serena looks a little ill in this picture)


We concluded our day with some shopping at the anniversary sale at Holly Yashi (one of Serena's favorite jewelers... they have really pretty stuff!), fresh oysters, dinner at our house, wine, and the zombie show "Walking Dead" (Kelvin's choice).

We had to see our friends off this morning, as they had to make the 6-hour (or so) trip back to Sac, but in between watching football, we checked out the sand dunes on the Samoa Peninsula, where you can explore the natural scenery and ride ATVs on the many trails, if you are so inclined.





(I look a bit "fluffy" here in my multiple layers)


It was a fun weekend with good weather and good friends! We are already missing having a cute little doggie around... I may have to do some research about area dog breeders or pet options...