Posts from — August 2009

As many of you have figured out – I enjoy taking pictures very much.  And – so do my neighbors who are always so good about watching my house while I am out traveling.  Today I took everyone to the Atlanta zoo to take pictures of the animals.  Photographically speaking it was a perfect day because it was cloudy.  Here are some of my better efforts.  I hope you enjoy.

Contemplating Life

Just Danglin!

Hi, you reached the voicemail of "Snake" I am all tied up right now and can't get to the phone . . .

Turtle Buffet

Looks like a toy frog but it is a real frog

I went to buy a fairly expensive camera at Sears because I cashed in gift cards through AMX rewards. I was told that Sears does in fact carry this product line. I called two stores to see if they had the camera before I made the trek to purchase it. I was told yes they do have it but only on line. This sucks – they don’t want to carrry more expensive merchandise because this means they are going to have to “make the effort” to learn the equipment so they can properly sell it plus increase their inventory in this hard times. They are worrying more about the money instead of their customer. What this meant is that I have a very bad taste in my mouth for Sears because I think they are doing themselves a disservice with this approach of forcing people on line. What I did was redeposit my coupons which Sears would have gotten paid for – and went elsewhere. There are still a fair amount of people out there who do not want to be held hostage to on line especially when expensive merchandise is the focal. With this thought process Sears will continue to be on the downside because they are loosing sight of their customers.
This is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

I get to Mexico greeted by Mara where we go down to the restaurant to have Mexican buffet which was very good and sit and talk all night long.  The next day is much of the same by the pool and because we are on vacation time for naps.

For dinner that night we do what the locals do get on the bus and go into PV – the wind of the day has died down some and it hot hot hot and humid humid humid.  We go to one restaurant and although the food is good decided we don’t want to do our main course there.  We walk for several blocks and find a Thai Asian restaurant that was very good. The amuse was a delicate salmon ceviche on a perfect bbq homemade potato chip.

Salmon Ceviche on Housemade Potato Chip

Then we ate

Shrimp Ravioli in Ponzu Sauce - Delicious

The next 2 courses was fish – Mara’s was much better than mine and dessert I had to send back as the creme brulee should be called soggy brulee.

The next day – Mara and I went over to the marana for lunch. A co worker recommended we go to Fajita Banana’s for lunch.  The shrimp fajitas were excellent. What made them so good is that put diced jicama in the combination that gave those fajitas a much needed crunch and before they bought out the sizzling combo that flambed it with a Jack Daniels and Tequila mixture that you could taste just a hint.

Going into night time  – Rebecca sent a car to come get me and take me to where their 1500 acre community is outside of  PV.  The car ride ended up being 45 minutes with a pass right by the Corona factory. 

After about a 1 hour car ride – I end up meeting Rebecca at the first home she wanted me to see.  They are all situated on the water and have those lovely infinitey pools.  I can’t photograph the inside of many of these homes because of privacy but here is the outside of one home she is very familiar with.  I can totally see myself parked here for a week.

Outside one of Rebeccas Houses

Here are some more pictures from the outside.

From the yeard looking to the house

This is from the second house that we visited. It was bigger and had a full deck dedicated to “event space. This upper deck had a banquet kitchen and 3 different tiers in addition he had a privacy garden in the back that guests could enter by and cocktail.

Another home that has a full deck facing the ocean that is dedicated to events and entertaining

This is the upper deck pool that is an easy walk to the ocean.

Meditation Garden area that people rent out for yoga classes and is a good entrance and area for first statement cocktail party.

After looking at 3 different types of housing options and getting it real quick how lovely everything is and how much the residents of this community care about each other – we moved onto my favorite part of the meal – dinner.  To be honest Rebecca is struggling a bit with certain aspects of the restaurant that she wanted me to take a hard look at and was the primary reason why I was there.  The restaurant is located primarily outdoors and with bugs just as hungry as the diners it made for an uncomfortable situation at best.

Chef's starter of asparagus soup with clam that had a touch of a spicy flavor to it was very good

Next we had 3 appetizers – the calamari with black rice was by far my favorite.  Although the chef could have done with 50% less rice..  My least favorite was a salad with a duck confit which turned out really to be a duck pate it wasn’t good at all.

Calamari with Black Rice - You can see the black rice overpowers the calamari

Skirt Steak with an incredible black mole

Lamb chops with a balsamic reduction ; arugula salad and polenta cake

Dessert of Profiteroles that should be just that

Grand Manier Souffle that was delicious but chocolate sauce wasn't appropriate.

Coin bin where you pay your money on a bus in Mexcio

A way of blessing everyone on this drivers bus.

Fresh guac at your table

Almost done

This is vacation and Mara had a little birthday celebrating to do so of course we are going to have a jumbo sized mango marg.

Happy Birthday Mara - a little late with many happy returns.

After lunch the strangest thing happened we were walking to the market and I passed this restaurant – I told Mara I wanted a picture of the sign because I have a good friend named Gaby in Atlanta – and don’t you think 10 minutes after I took this picture I got an email from Gaby!

A picture for my friend Gaby.

At the market Mara and I bought some silver and she really got some beautiful pieces. I bought some earrings and a pretty bracelet.  This T-shirt is for all you guys out there.

It's a guy thing

After spending a couple of hours shopping in the heat Mara and I went back to the condo and went down to the pool for a late afternoon swim.  We were enjoying the late afternoon so much we didn’t get out of the pool until 8:45 pm.  By then we just ran across to the marina for Italian dinner and home to bed.  Thur was my last day and I took this picture post card from the middle of the pool. It was such a pretty day.

Picture taken from the middle of the pool.

Pool

This pool did a wicked ceviche my last bite before starting the trek back to Atlanta.

Ceviche

The above is my travel story for now and I am sticking to it – Thank you Mara, Kim, Steve and Keith for allowing me to be with you on holiday.

Claire

If you want to be pampered feel free to stop by my clients house  The Johnsen’s the next time you are in the LA area.  It is so nice to come here and relax even if you end up working most of the day like we did.  John her husband is cooking steaks on the grill as I write this and I am making a weak attemp to cook potatoes. 

Kim lives a couple of blocks from the beach. We went for a walk today and I thought all these seagull’s hanging out looked funny.

Hermosa Beach California - Aug 2009

Then I came home and Kim has an incredible lemon tree in her back yard.  Her husband John was very nice in entertaining me by getting on a ladder so I could take some fresh lemons with me to my cousins tomorrow.  This one John is holding was the whopper of the bunch.

Johnny Johsen holding a lemon from their tree.

Here is a close up that I took of lemons on their tree – too high up to get too to pick.

Lemon's from Kim's tree

Ok, time for dinner – this is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

I am sitting here on Sunday finishing up what I call a great weekend. I spent it working for NW Georgia Oncology doing their annual protocol retreat.  What makes this weekend so special is that they pull all the doctor’s and PAs from their practice and extension arm practices to come together to review all the various types of cancer – what is happening with them and best practice remedies moving forward.  And to top it all off they get one of the most famous oncologists in the world to come to their retreat every other year to be their moderator.  Dr. Larry Einhorn.  Larry and I have become friends – not great friends as he is way to busy – but friends in the way that I hope when he sees an email in his “in” box with my name on it – that it gets a smile. Friends in the way when we see each other it warrants a big smile and a warm hug – Friends that we make 1 hour during this hectic weekend to go sit in the corner and have a little “gossip” what I call girl time and he laughs because that is exactly what it is.  Probably most important to him that I don’t want anything in particular from him except a couple of stories and to honestly know how is HE doing. Larry leads an amazing life because he has come a long way with cancer and cancer research so he as access and friends that the rest of us dream about.  He even had someone approach him about doing autobiography on his life.  Larry explained to me that he is too private for that – and that has to be appreciated but what I think would be of interest is a book about  – stories he has to tell regarding his patients through the years.

We started off the retreat on Friday night at The Marietta Wine Market – we rented out the place for the night where our guests were able to try 6 different types of wine.  The wine market wanted to do “wines of the world”. For me that is way too tired! I said no – I called my dear friends Hector and Leslie Santiago from Pura Vida Restaurant and hired Hector to come out and make a big paella.  What is exciting is that Hector is a contestant on Top Chef – Season 6 in Las Vegas that starts this week.  It was so much fun to have him cook this huge Paella for the group – the folks from the oncology group were excited to have him there everyone was taking pictures.  So allow me to share

Here is Hector with his burner that goes anywhere.

Meat and cheese display

Dr. Andrews, Dr. Einhorn and Dr. Gould

Here is something that erks the hell out of me.  This year I have been contracted by a couple of clients to negotiate menus at very high end restaurants.  I find a couple of restaurants and I am talking about very nice restaurants and here is where it gets weird.  Because the economy isn’t pretty these restaurants are feeling their lumps.  So here I come along negotiate a decent deal and we are all happy about it.  I TELL these restaurant managers up front that I am going to tweek the menu because these events are going on a couple of days and I can’t have double of the same food so are they cool with that – they say yes…UNTIL the rubber meets the road or the menu comes to fruition and all the sudden they come back and say they can’t make the changes. And I am talking about changing out a starch or vegetable with something that is very doable. They don’t want to do it why because THEIR EGO IS involved. Not that they can’t do it; not that they aren’t capable of doing it but because their EGO doesn’t want to do it. So what happens to the concern for the customer.  It is nowhere to be seen. This is my point – I wish these chef’s would listen to why the customer is wanting to make some of these minor changes because after all – THEY ARE BUYING OUT THEIR RESTAURANT in these hard economic times. I wish the chef would be appreciative of the business they are getting and have a desire to satisfy the customer…I wish the chef would want to step out of the comfort zone box and not be lazy with doing the same menu day in and day out.

That is my wish for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

I negotiated a great deal for a client to buy out a restaurant of a well known chef in Orlando.  They worked with me on pricing which is certainly appreciated in today’s economy but what they didn’t work with me on was the menu.  Why? Because their ego is involved. This is the second time this year that I have run up against this road block.  A full restaurant buyout and I just want to make some easy switches on the food that I know my clients the PEOPLE WHO ARE BUYING THEIR SALARY for the evening would enjoy a bit better.  What am I to do with that  – unforunatley in both cases I had to suck it up. Here is my advice to these restaurant people  – I am not tampering with your food that much – I am not compromising the integrity of what you are trying to do with your culinary so check your ego’s at the door and work with me in giving me what I know our customers would like better in the way of a culinary experience.  Don’t think it has me walking away shaking me head in frustration and it is making me want to shy away from doing a buyout with them.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

Had a long day today – got up early to prepare my talk for the SE Association of meeting planners – chapter.  On the way home from Birmingham – I stopped inbetween at a Honda Dealership to see their used cars. Turned out they had one that was what I was somewhat looking for – the color wasn’t my first choice but the mileage and everything else was doable.  The people who worked there were very nice country folks – so I bought it – they even had a worker guy drive the new car to Atlanta so I didn’ thave to go back to pay for it and finish up the paperwork.  Drum roll please it is a 2007 Honda Accord with 18,600 miles on it.  I drove it a bit tonight and I think that I am going to like it just fine.  Gas mileage could always be better but it is what it is.

Tonight Christiane and I went out for dinner – actually to 2 restaurants that she needed to try. They were both on the same block so the logistics worked out fine.  As we are sitting here watching the Friday night of midtown Atlanta SWING into action we noticed everyone is wearing “band aide” dresses.  Basically what it amounts too is that these girls are tugging on their dresses all night long.  And how attractive is that constantly watching someone fall out of their dress. Here is the bottom line  – if you are going to wear strapless get it tailored aka FITTED at the local seamstress so it look appropriate on you and that you are walking around pulling at your clothes and if you prefer not to do that then don’t wear that style of dress. I wish these girls could have seen how silly they looked.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

I was in PA for about 6 days visiting with my friends and spending time with my father.  He took me back to the airport today which is no easy task since we live about 1.5 hours away.  Driving through Pittsburgh is never easy.  For once he let me take the wheel and do the driving so he could relax on the way down and just have a good final visit.  Uge and I were talking about things in life that no matter how long ago it happens that when you think about it  – it always makes you giggle. 

When I was in Jr. High he had this friend who lived in the neighborhood that was Jewish and I think from New York who owned a business. Dennis was a bit on the slick side – probably not the best business man, my father said he was wicked smart and what Dennis did have was a good sense of humor.  Dennis married a gal from the area and I think that is why they lived there for about 10 year until they moved to Orlando, Florida.  Dennis had a business that sold siding and roofing.  Dennis didnt’ have any employees so he would contract everything out through firms in Pittsburgh when he sold a job.  Now remember that I come from a small farming community and dad told me through fits of laughter that Dennis sold a new roof to a guy years ago in a farming community. He called his sub contract firm in Pittsburgh to come up and put on the roof.  The sub contract company comes up goes to this cracker box house knocks on the door and said we are here to put a new roof on your house. The farmer looks at them and says OK and  off to work they go. Dennis being Dennis doesn’t go out to check the job until it is almost done – ONLY TO DISCOVER they  put the roof on the WRONG HOUSE! by now my dad is rolling in the seat laughing so hard with tears coming down his eyes.  This happened about 20 years ago but it still makes him laugh till hurts.

That is my story for this evening and I am sticking to it.

Claire