eggplant love bento

This post is a thank you to hubby Jamison for making a DELISH stuffed eggplant entree for our dinner this evening, featuring these wonderful round farmer's market eggplants:

To make the wonderful dish you see above, Jamison combined ground organic beef, garlic, orange-infused olive oil, Parmesan cheese, oregano and the eggplants with creativity and love. The small bit of eggplant that I remembered not to devour tonight has hopped into this yellow bento box (a San Francisco find) with some purple pepper, a yummy cucumber onion salad (also made by J.), edible nasturtium leaves and flowers and some cherries.

Happy Friday, friends!



a visit to point reyes and marketing with sonoma bento!

Hi bento pals...still sharing the bounty of Northern California trip pictures. Our visit to coastal Point Reyes National Seashore was so beautiful, a place of magic and serenity. We started the day with a stop at the Pine Cone Diner in Pt. Reyes Station. Pine Cone Diner had a sweetly vintage feel and offered briny local oysters in a tasty sandwich....

Fried oysters with crisp slaw...yum

Pt. Reyes Station is a great foodie destination. Tomales Bay Foods, roughly across the street from the Pine Cone Diner, houses an engaging variety of locally produced organic foods along with conservation farming organizations and ecological information about this special region.

The wonderful cheeses of Cowgirl Creamery are available for sale here along with a friendly education about their relationship to the landscape (and wonderful cows) of Pt. Reyes...

Wildflower and ocean views

We sat on this driftwood log for a long time, talking and starting out at the rolling waves...

This bento while not the prettiest tasted so good after a few hours of walking in the clean ocean air. It contained eggs and potatoes with mushrooms, ripe blueberries and almonds.

Another highlight of this trip was meeting up with Sonoma Bento to explore the Wednesday morning Santa Rosa Farmer's Market. Michelle was an awesome guide to the beautiful local produce of Sonoma County, even introducing me to her farmer pals. The market had a very Provencal feel with its bright colors and great quality...

Thanks so much, Michelle! What a treat to experience first hand the Sonoma source of your lovely and seasonal bentos...

Just-picked arugula...

Our adventures continue in upcoming posts!

 

sunlit san francisco

Hi bento friends! Please join me for a stroll along the San Francisco waterfront from our first visit to this wonderful place...

 Fisherman's Wharf is famously touristy yet we loved walking it in the bracing wind, taking in the piquant vintage restaurant signs and of course gorgeous shellfish bounty...

Soaking in the bright sky and sun, we walked briskly to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market

 

Explosive colors of flowers and fruit echoed the intense blue sky...

Inside the Ferry Building, more local bounty of beautiful quality...

 Rum dark chocolate truffles...very good indeed

 Lunch at waterfront Pier 23 was a delight!

 Jamison's shot of our table with a very fresh crab and shrimp salad sandwich on toasted sourdough, sweet potato fries...

 The coleslaw was excellent with just enough paprika...

 Our view from inside, protected from the wind...

 Mellow afternoon companions...loved these guys!

 We ended our exploration of the waterfront with a visit to the magical Musee Mechanique at Pier 45, an enormous collection of arcade games from the early 20th century onwards.

What a strange and poignant catalog of dreams in these little theatres of fortune and skill, colorfully etched with themes of fate, luck, love, speed. Wandering the huge hall, we were left smiling and amazed by the time-travelling jumble of games--some remembered by us from arcades of the 70's and 80's, side by side with portals to eras and childhoods before our own...

The report from this mystical typewriter informed me that I was warm-hearted but a bit naive...

Rich layers of the past glinting through this seaside landscape, its cornucopia of visual and edible pleasures...and the sense of so much more to be seen and encountered in this windy, mysterious city has us eagerly anticipating our return!