Author: Ali Carras

For my ma’s XXth birthday my sister and I decided to plan something interactive to celebrate. Since we are all lovers of food we thought why not learn how to make it? Actually, I should say, my sister planned this so I can’t take any credit.

We prepared…

We played with knives…

We got really hungry…

Untitled from Ali Beckord on Vimeo.

We ate…

We were very happy…

As my dad would say “there was a lot of love in the room”

Happy XXth birthday, ma. We think you are swell…

I know, it has been nearly two months since I have blogged. I have thought about blogging every day but my list of things that are more important get in the way. I have lots to record so I don’t forget what has happened in my little life 70 years from now…but in the meantime I have to share a proud friend moment:

I am sooooooooooooo thrilled with how much Rachel/Pat have done with The Bruery. I can’t even begin to comprehend all that is involved in starting a brewery, let alone making beer, let alone owning a business, let alone having it take off. But they have and it makes the hairs on my arm stand on end (I kind of have hairy arms and friends in elementary school made fun of me). The Bruery is all over the place and has beers ranked among the ten best in the world according to the highly selective Beer Advocate. I opened a favorite SF foodie newsletter today and what do I see? A feature on The Bruery. Then, I see that chow.com (also a favorite) has featured them as well. Look at this video, you’ll see how special they are:

The Bruery – Black Tuesday from benjamin weiss on Vimeo.

The beers are good, the people are awesome and I am super super SUPER proud. Three cheers to Pat and Rachel.

My mom would not be proud.

For breakfast: pop tarts

For lunch: Ramen

Dinner: Thai food (this is ok).

But, mom…you will be proud:

Pop tarts were organic, we added edamame to the Ramen, and we were using what we had in our kitchen rather than buying/wasting.

Thanksgiving 2009. Simple and easy. Cooper and I agreed that while our turkeyday was delectable, relaxing and nice…next year we vow to be with family. This year, rather than family we surrounded ourselves with dogs which sometimes can be just as much fun and easier to deal with.

We played…Cooper cooked (Ali tried but ended up only making a podunk fruit salad)…

Cooper carved…


Oslo watched from his perch…

We ate…

And the dogs got to do their part (i.e. lick bowls and let the food coma take over)…

Been bit busy lately. No real excuse why I couldn’t blog, but I really have been busy lately (just look a the grays in my hair and you’ll see).

A highlight of the busy time: a classy bachelorette weekend. My experience with bachelorette parties is a bit limited. I’ve only planned one in my life…at the time I was 18, I “borrowed” some wine from my parent’s collection, had a friend show up at my parent’s home wearing nothing but his tux pants and a bow tie and he whisked away my sister and her two friends to an undisclosed location where a car waited for them and a massive scavenger hunt around Boulder began. I would have to say, I did an ok job for an 18 year old.

Now I am 29 and I am to plan my second bachelorette party (I’ve only been to one in my life as a guest). My knowledge was pretty limited as far as how these things are “supposed” to happen but all I knew was that I didn’t want to give in to a lot of the cheese that is out there. So, I created a massive spreadsheet with options throughout the CA/Tahoe areas of homes we could rent for 5-10 gals. I found one in Guerneville (yes, Guerneville!) that seemed to fit the bill (i.e. it looked nice online, had a hot tub and had a fire pit…the fire pit was a bonus feature). I invited 7 gals, planned a few little things and let the rest of the weekend unfold. Here is what happened:

I made homemade marshmallows and graham crackers to complement perfectly named bars of chocolate (aka s’mores):

Fernando was ready:

The gals all made it to the super secluded, super hard to find, super windy roads, super woodsy, super no cell phone connection “compound” (the house had a main house, a second house with a bedroom and living room, a cabin, a yoga cabin…aka a compound):

We sat around a lot and ate, and drank wine, and giggled:

We played with buckets on our heads:

We tried to go for a hike but couldn’t find a good path:

So we sat in a clearing in between oceans of vineyards and had lunch:

We walked through Healdsburg and then went back up to the compound where a private chef was waiting for us. Chef Chris made us a delectable meal:

Fernando joined us…

Then we got a little crazy:







Overall, I think we had a good time…

My little niece tries to sit her little bum on a little chair.

This past weekend marked the start to the last year of the first three decades of my life. Did that come out right? My sweet familia came to E’ville (Emeryville) to help celebrate. As with many events on my blog, the visual representation of the activities from the weekend will highlight my niece. Consider her my poster child. Here are the highlights:

* Cheeseboard for breakfast at a park on a beautiful fall day complete with a cement slide that scared me half to death but I loved every moment of it. Cement slides that could easily break open your skull are fun.

* A trip to the Jelly Belly Factory. I love factories. I would work in one if it made my dad proud (not sure it would).

* Breakfast at a hole in the wall, complete with loads of grease and butter that tastes good but probably isn’t really butter.

* Dog park/beach time. Little girls played in the sand (I hope it was clean sand) and made me a sand castle cake.

* The crew came over to a birthday party that a put on for myself. I don’t intend to sound conceited, I just wanted family over and wanted to eat mass quantities (including bacon cups). Cooper and I put on a fiesta complete with a pin the tail on the donkey game. We also had a pinata stuffed and ready to whack open but there was so much to eat and do that we didn’t get to it. One of the highlights..the box of booger/ear wax flavored jelly beans. If you eat a green jelly bean you don’t know if you will get a pear or booger flavored treat.

* An Ikea run with little girls who had never been exposed to the world of Ikea. They liked it. Come back again chicas and we’ll eat Swedish meatballs.

* A final dinner out with the girls (and Cooper). I love my girls (and Cooper).

The full flickr set.

Yes, this our new buddy, Oslo. You’ll see how swanky his massive ears look. When we first saw him I think each ear weighed 5 lbs…they were so full of hair and all matted. Thanks, shelter, for taking care of the dumbo ears. On the ride home from the shelter Cooper drove and Oslo inched his way towards the front so he could put his head on Cooper’s arm. Yeah, he knows how to win us over. He is a little stinky and we can’t bathe him for 10 days until his surgical endeavor heals, but we’ve given him a couple of sponge baths in the meantime. I smell. The first night he was great although my motherly instincts wouldn’t let me fully sleep…I was constantly wondering what he was doing and what sort of mess I might wake up to (even though he was right next to my bed all night). I think I only slept a total of two hours that night. He appears to be fairly housebroken already but we have to train ourselves to remember to go out every two hours and not three (i.e. our plants in our home have found a new watering friend). We need to teach him to enjoy his toys and chase after balls…so far the only thing he wants from us is lots of love. I think I can do that!