“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.” – by poet Stanley Horowitz.
An art metaphor to describe the seasons, how fitting!! Autumn has finally arrived here in the Bay Area, which means for our gardens it’s time to plant spring-flowering seeds, bulbs, and plants. I’ve written a few articles about the best bulbs and seeds to plant in the fall for amazing out of this world color in the spring. Let me share a few of those along with some photos. Continue reading “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, …→
Delicious fresh figs all plump, sweet, super soft and dripping with nectar. I picked a bunch of fresh figs from my friend Devi’s garden a few days ago. The temptation to eat these figs right off the tree was hard to resist, I ate a couple right away and brought the rest home.
Fresh figs right off the tree – when fruit is this fresh it’s hard to mess with them by adding them to salads or making a dessert of some sorts. We just ate them in their pure fresh fig form – just delicious😋. To present these figs as a dessert option that same evening I served a few with aged Parmesan cheese and walnuts. Added a small glass of sweet port and I had the makings of a deliciout fig inspired all-natural dessert. Continue reading Fresh Figs & Lemongrass→
As if we weren’t swimming in tomatoes already from the bounty we had received from our neighbor, Hitesh informs me that there is an Heirloom Tomato Harvest Festival going on in town on Sunday the 17th. How could I resist? I couldn’t. I dragged the girls with me on that Sunday and headed to downtown Los Gatos to check out the Heirloom Tomato Festival.
Point Reyes Station is a charming small western town an hour north of San Francisco off Hwy 1. It is a favored destination for bicyclists who trek up Hwy 1 and take a break here before continuing on up onto the multitude of scenic back roads in the area.
Point Reyes Station is a lovely little town no more than three to four streets with plenty of appeal. Think modern health conscious boutiques, farm-to table cafes, farmer’s markets, locally sourced food-items, and hand-made artisanal goods. Continue reading Point Reyes Station, California→
Driving around the neighborhood I always notice signs for garage sales, real estate signs, open houses, and For Rent signs. I usually overlook all these signs as I’m on a mission to get somewhere and to get things done. Some of these signs do intrigue me. Signs like Apricots for Sale, Dried Fruits for Sale, Persimmons Self Serve, Local Honey, and Artist Open Studio. I tend to drive right past these signs as well and think, “I will stop by next time.” But next time never seems to happen.
Our friends Veena and Mani have a gorgeous home right here in the South Bay. They moved into their new home a few years ago, and though their home went through a major renovation right before they moved in, the previous owners left the backyard untouched. Their landscape is huge. It has a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a very large circular driveway at the entrance.
However this landscape was lacking in character. It needed a personal touch, a gardener’s personal touch that is. And that is exactly what Veena and Mani did. Give this large expanse of a garden their own unique perspective. This massive re-landscaping of their outdoor space took more than a year to accomplish, and the end result is something spectacular.
We are so fortunate to be living so close to our favorite beach town of Santa Cruz, California; just a 20-minute drive on Hwy 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz has everything a beach town should have and more. First and foremost are what everyone goes to Santa Cruz for – the beaches.
Beautiful beaches line the Pacific Coast in Santa Cruz.
I’ve been to Filoli Gardens in Woodside, California so many times that I’ve lost count. But somehow I’ve never visited the gardens in the summer. Hard to believe, even for me. I usually stop by Filoli Gardens in the spring for their Daffodil Daydreams Extravaganza, or in early summer around May for a Mother’s Day girls afternoon out, or to attend one of their classes on watercolor painting.
I’ve never gone to Filoli Gardens in the peek of summer – i.e. July. I’ve assumed all the flowers are frying in the summer-time heat, so why bother going? But this year I had an opportunity to stop by this beautiful garden with my Uncle Chary and his niece Geetha and husband Sampath who were visiting from Mumbai, India.
We have heard so much about this talked about restaurant here in the Bay Area – Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. This restaurant is so popular that you have to plan at least a month in advance just to make a reservation, and cross your fingers and hope that you can get a reservation. On top of that, there are guidelines for when one can call to make that reservation; one has to wait for the exact day to the month when you want to go for dinner. This is what I did; I patiently waited to the exact day one month before Hitesh’s birthday to make dinner reservations for his special birthday celebration with the family. I was fortunate enough to get reservations for the day that I requested! This is how we ended up going to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.
