Wow, really? I haven't posted anything for four years?

Well I'm just so peeved now I have to write it out to the world! I am now back in the SF Bay area, and I am super happy about it. I really am. Now, when I lived here back in 2002, for over seven years, it was very expensive. Back then, we had a very small one bedroom flat in upper Haight for $1850/month. Now, we're in the South Bay, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. Down the street is Apple and LinkedIn. A little to the north is Google. Dinosaurs like Yahoo! and HP are right down the road. We even have Stanford and Facebook only a short distance away. When we moved back to the area in mid-2011, we knew the prices would be steep. We found a pretty crappy (but large) two bedroom apartment for $2100. Still affordable for our Bay Area salaries. Now, only two years later, I can't believe my eyes. I am always on the lookout on Craigslist for a good rental and I have seen prices rise every month. This ad on Craigslist is but one of many examples - $4355 / 3br - 1406ft² - Beautiful Townhome at the best location!

Now, it really is a good location. We have great schools here and it's right next to a Trader Joe's, Chipotle and Starbuck's. I mean, you can walk from your apartment door and be there in about two minutes or less. I have personally looked at this complex in person two years ago and thought a 2BR/2BA at $2700 was over the top, but really liked this place.

But, $4300 for a "townhouse?" Quotation marks are there because they call this a townhouse because it is a two level apartment. yes, APARTMENT! For $4300. A look at their website shows a 2BR/2BA is about $3500. Yes, $3500!!!

Not only is $3500 too high for a 3 bedroom apartment, but they have added $1000 for a bedroom and a bathroom!!

Not to mention, the price has gone up $1000 in two years.

Just who are the people living in this place? Like I said, our combined salary is pretty darn good, and we can afford about $3000/month without hurting at all. So, what's up here?

I'm just mad! It's unconscionable! So unconscionable that it forced me to blog!

I think I'll be back to post again soon about this. Have to marinate on this a bit...

Summer Jobs Make a Comeback, Thanks to the Stimulus

Summer Jobs Make a Comeback, Thanks to the Stimulus

my new crush

Bobby Flay. can you say Throwdown?!? oh, i am so infantile. i'd like to see him challenge Ramsay to a throwdown. my new crush challenging my old crush? good viewing fun! he just has to stay away from Jamie Oliver, though.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares....American style

do i like it? do i like the souped up, sauced up american version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares?

um, like, this is Gordon Ramsay we're talking about here. add a dash of Gordon and i'm happy. hell, i'll even capitalize his name to go with the god-sized crush i have on him.

let me be clear. i have not always loved this man. this is a love that has grown over time. at first, he was the kind of man i love to hate. his shows were the shows that made me groan in discomfort or in embarrassment for the little folk at which he was cursing and spewing his venom. i had a sophomoric fascination with the amount of cursing he actually did in his shows that aired across the pond and which i was now watching on my beloved BBC America (ok, it's not so beloved. for a start, can they do something about their scheduling? why on earth do they get me addicted to a show with about four episodes and then completely change the time and days the show airs? or worse, take it away completely? but i digress...).

i did, in fact, get acquainted with Gordon through the original, british version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. i love food. i used to serve food. i am interested in owning my own place someday. and i do love the drama of watching someone (mainly Gordon here) getting sick from eating a rancid scallop. oh, i love even more seeing him go through the fridge in a restaurant kitchen with the chef and/or owner and throw away with shouts and curses the rotten food sitting inside. the food that has been coexisting with the rest of the food that has been served to the restaurant's customers.

that's my hard, evil side. my softer, gentler side does quite enjoy watching the restaurant turn itself around, clean itself off (sometimes by getting rid of the heavy baggage of useless staff it's been carrying around) and become shiny, successful and happy.

along with this soft side of mine, i melted as soon as i saw Gordon become sweet and helpful to the restaurant owners. chiding jovially with the staff to help pick the drowning souls out of the gutter and up into the steady buzz that a successful restaurant should be.

so i was a little excited when Hell's Kitchen came to our side of the atlantic.

after two seasons of watching Hell's Kitchen simultaneously with british Kitchen Nightmares, my crush started to grow. i noticed how he is much sweeter in the brit show than he is on Hell's Kitchen. i thought how we yanks were not getting the full Gordon effect and how it was a shame that my american friends could not appreciate just how kind he really is. alas, none of my american brothers and sisters believed me.

well, then BBC America started showing The f Word. then i really saw his softer side. though i didn't much care for this show, it really did cement my crush and kind of ballooned it. i mean, my celebrity crushes used to be people like Jude Law, Jake Gyllenhaal (well, i do still like Jake), Heath Ledger...you get the drift. now it's all Gordon. sigh...

anyway, should i even try to relay my complete state of bliss when this last year went something like this - i was watching versions of brit Kitchen Nightmares I'd never seen before simultaneously with the third season of Hell's Kitchen. then i see advertisements for the upcoming "new" Kitchen Nightmares to be aired on Fox in the fall. ahem, this was turning into the year of Gordon. i was so excited (inner shrieking going on now!).

this was my state of mind when i tucked into the first episode of Kitchen Nightmares...american style.

i've just told you how much i love Gordon, but do i want to see a five minute intro of him yelling at everyone in every future episode while music is blaring? i do not, it so happens. luckily i have DVR and can forward through that bit. i noticed tonight that the long intro has disappeared, thank god.

then there is the overly dramatic background music. and the narration of who i think is the same guy who narrates Hell's Kitchen. whose voice i love, by the way.

but i do so miss the quiet desperation of Gordon's narration from brit Nightmares. as well as just the, well...quiet. i can't believe i'm calling anything Ramsay quiet but compared to the american version of Nightmares, it was quite quiet. that music is just distracting.

that being said, i guess i am a true fan and will watch as the drama unfolds in each episode and hope the restaurant turns into a successful, booming business. i won't mind when Gordon changes into his chef smock (is it called a smock? a shirt?), i can tell you that. it's my weekly bit of titillation. how sad am i?

on a side note, Ian, my husband (yes, i am married so Gordon's happy marriage is safe), who is english, has come up with our own campaign modeled after Ramsay's campaign for real gravy from one of his brit nightmare episode. our campaign will be for real tea in america. we shall educate the american public on what a real cup of tea should taste like.

all for now from a tired soul...

going local

there is a pretty big movement here in madison to buy local products. it is inspiring and it has actually nudged me to plan meals and search for recipes where i can use fresh, local, and hopefully organic, products.

i haven't made it to the farmer's market in two weeks, and so have been forced to buy things from the grocery store - big gasp! the only places to get an abundance of local and fresh products is the farmer's markets (of which there are a few in madison and the outlying towns), or one of the co-ops (of which there are a few scattered throughout the town but hardly convenient to me).

i go to the grocery and see almost two aisles worth of apples...apples of all sorts and sizes and variety. even some that are organic. but very rarely do i find apples that are locally grown. or even any grown in wisconsin. or the midest for that matter. i actually see a lot coming out of canada here (which is totally foreign to me [pardon the pun] since coming from the west i normally see apples from california or washington.

when i'm at the farmer's market i see apples from a variety of local farms coming from all over the state so why am i not seeing any in the mainstream grocery stores? it is bothersome to me.

in any case, i love buying local and seasonal and there is so much of it here. i just can't believe that i am actually enjoying cooking!

my thoughts on madison so far

so, we've been in madison a month now, and i have made some initial observations about this quirky town:

1. the people are fiercely loyal wisconsinites
2. everyone is very industrious
   
3. is this a sports town or what?
   
4. it's a small town that thinks it's a big city
   
5. it's REALLY hard to get a job
   
6. the food is a big disappointment
   
7. absolutely gorgeous
8. outdoorsy
9. environmentally conscious
   

1. loyal wisonsinites...this means that people here are very proud to be from wisconsin. you can feel it in the air. from the t.v. ads to the word on the street, people like being a part of this great state. they like the dairy, the brats and the beer. they like it a lot. people wear their license plates on their cars with true pride.
i must get my car registered...

2. the people here are very industrious. this must come out of necessity. after city living for seven years, five years in the desert, and apartment living before that, i had no idea lawn maintenance took so much time and care. everywhere you look people are out mowing, weeding, cleaning their yards while ours is almost to the point of disarray in comparison. i hang my head in shame until we finally get out to mow the grass. sometimes you can see people have taken great pride in mowing patterns in their grass. it may be a diagonal grid pattern, straight and very uniform lines, horizontal or vertical, but none will look like my mish-mash horizontal here vertical there lawn.
i think people here have to work hard. i saw a man applying tar to his driveway the other day and i thought "now this takes the cake, here!" but i was told that we have to do this here or the drive will crack and ruin in the snowfall. and speaking of snowfall, drives must be shoveled and walkways have to be cleared. it's necessity. as is mowing or your yard or it will be overcome by grass and weeds.
so, it is out of necessity that the people here have to work so hard. now i know what northerners and midwesterners meant when they would tell me they moved to california or nevada because they were tired of shoveling snow. i'm tired of mowing the lawn!

3. go packers! and badgers! do you believe that the house across the street will fly a packers flag on packers game days and a badgers flag on badgers game days? and every other day it is of course an american flag. the sports following is true patriotism here.

4. to me, at about 250,000 people, madison is a small town. the area is small, the population is small, everything is small here. yet, people here seem to think it's big city living. i think this may be because many people here come from small wisconsin towns or villages. i'm stunned into silence when a madisonian makes the comment that this is a big city as in, "traffic is just a fact in a big city..." i just smile silently and must look like i've been caught in the headlights. traffic? big city? have these people never been to san francisco? even las vegas, which i used to think of in these same terms after living in san francisco and before moving here, has higher traffic volume and way more people. even if it is only a fake city (don't get me started on this topic. for another blog entirely). i shake my head in wonder, i tell you.

5. i would love to know the per capita ration of graduate degrees in the town. i mean, come on! what does it take to be an admin assistant in this town? a Ph.D. and ten years of experience? I have applied to so many jobs that i am very qualified for, but will get rejection letters back telling me that there were 100 candidates that were all "highly qualified" and with advanced degrees. this is for jobs that pay about $30k a year. or less. i must have applied to about 100 jobs now and i have had two interviews. i am not counting the two interviews i have had for serving positions in restaurants. one of which i am definitely going to take (well, ALMOST definitely) and will be sure to write about those experiences when they happen. this must be the only city in the country where a teacher has a hard time finding a job because it is so competitive. i'll have to research this a bit more.

6. ok, we have been out to eat many times here, and yes, the local food is good if you're into steak, burgers, brats, potatoes and the like, but any nouveau cuisine you're looking for misses its mark most of the time. i'm used to california food (even in vegas) which consists of fresh, light fish dishes, salads, even pizza is gourmet there. locals will rave about a restaurant, or i will read local reviews of restaurants, and get there to find very limited menu items which consist of steak or some other beef dish, of which i rarely eat; pork - again, hardly ever eat; chicken, which i almost abhor; or freshwater fish which, for some reason, makes me nauseous to think of. i should try it, though. and when they do have the one ocean fish dish that sounds fresh and lovely with a nice sauce, it's disgusting and almost inedible. the best places i have found so far to eat are 1. marigolds breakfast - oh yummy! 2. cafe du soleil breakfast or treat - heaven! 3. great dane's (in fitchburg) sunday brunch buffet - hard to beat even by vegas buffet standards. 4. the continental - very lovely pasta and wines. 5. dardanelle's - light, healthy, local, awesome!
i do have a lot more places to try, but honestly, please don't rave about a place when it really is only mediocre.

i have to say though, a lot of restaurants here, and i am including the ones that meat lovers swarm to (and this includes my husband, by the way. this food is very reminiscent of the grub he grew up with in england), take pride in serving local and fresh ingredients. very commendable.

7. i have to be honest, i didn't expect the beauty here. no wonder everyone is so proud. green as green can be. rolling hills and corn fields. tree after lovely tree. clean streets and walking and bike paths abound. we can't wait to explore the entire state for it's natural resources. it really is a lovely town.

8. which must be why people are so outdoorsy. biking, walking, running, canoeing - people here are outside and doing it. will this all change in the winter. watch this space to find out.

9. maybe it's only because i just left vegas - not the most eco-conscious place in the world - or maybe because the people are so proud of the state and the land, but i think this town is on par with california when it comes to being environmentally aware. the people here truly care about recycling and keeping it clean. i love it!

it has so far been quite an experience moving to and living in madison. and so it is whenever one moves to a different city that is completely foreign to anything one has ever known. i have been in this situation before and i love learning new places and new people. the town is gorgeous and extremely unique, the people are friendly and genuine, they're hard workers and warm people. i think we'll stay a while!