Daily Photo

Pretty much whenever I go anywhere, I bring a camera with me, because 1) my phone is a camera…and it’s usually with me (haha, dumb joke), and 2) because you have to take pics of everything; otherwise, it never happened, LOL!

These are just some pics from my adventures with my in-laws last weekend. We took them sightseeing around Sonoma and Marin Counties.

One of the places we went is the cute town of Fairfax in West Marin, which is nestled up against the mountains, on the other side of which is the Pacific Ocean.

It’s a quaint, tiny little town, almost like an island up in the mountains, because it’s off the beaten path from the highways, and the people are very friendly.

While we were there, I made the acquaintance of a cute pup named Coffee.

I’m super obsessed with her ears!

If you ever make it out to Fairfax, I highly recommend brunch at the Hummingbird Cafe. It’s a breakfast/lunch diner, and their menu has New Orleans-style flair.

I swear…their beignets are so good you’ll want to cry.

I ordered a Frenchman Po’ Boy, and it came STUFFED to the gills with fried shrimp and fried green tomatoes. Needless to say, this was my cheat meal for the week…

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We did so much sightseeing this past weekend while my in-laws were visiting that my feet are still sore. It was a lot of fun, though, and the weather was nice, so we hit up all the usual spots in our area — Napa and some of the little towns up there in Wine Country — and some of the towns closer to where we live in Marin County, like Sausalito, Fairfax and Corte Madera. Of course, I couldn’t let them leave town without also taking them to HomeGoods.

LOL! They don’t have one up where they live in Redding, and my mom-in-law loves tchotchkes, so it was necessary. 🙂

The moment she walked through the doors, I swear, her eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning (a feeling I know well)!

And I figured, you know, since we were already there…I’d pick up a few things too — things I “needed” (airquotes). I grabbed a set of three nested mixing bowls by Cuisinart, because the mixing bowl I’ve been using isn’t really a mixing bowl at all; it’s a huge popcorn bowl, and it’s kind of awkward and doesn’t have a spout.

I also grabbed an OXO pantry organizer…

Have you seen these? They’re clear airtight containers that come in different sizes for storing dry goods in your pantry. I got a big one a few weeks ago to store my oatmeal, and now I’m obsessed with the idea of having a completely organized cupboard stocked with them.

Lastly, this indoor gardening globe by Natura! I got it because I recently treated my office to the gift of an air plant, and I think the globe will make a nice home for it.

How about you? Did you do any shopping last weekend? Inquiring minds want to know.

I have come to accept — nay, embrace — that I am a cat lady through and through. It’s a fact. There’s no denying it.

But sometimes something happens to make me fully realize the true extent of my cat lady-ness, like this afternoon when I was walking around downtown Petaluma with my family taking pics of every cat-related thing I saw.

My in-laws are visiting this weekend, and El Hub and I took them sightseeing around Petaluma, which is a cool rural town about 15 minutes north of here in Sonoma County.

I kept running into cat-related things at different stores downtown, like that framed black and white pic of a lady with a cat on her shoulder (the pic at the top). I saw it in an antique store, and I dunno…it just moved me, maybe because Tabs does the exact same thing — drapes himself over my right shoulder.

I wonder about the lady and her cat. Who were they? They must’ve had a very special bond to arrange for someone to come out and photograph them together, because back in the day it wasn’t like all you had to do was ask your friend to snap a pic with her iPhone. It took work!

I bet this kitty was the woman’s once-in-a-lifetime special cat.

What do you think the cat’s name was? He looks like a Fritz to me for some reason. 🙂

I also found a lot of cat stuff in a thrift shop called Pick of the Litter in Petaluma dedicated to helping local feral cats. Some of these next pics are from there this afternoon.

Aaaand tonight, in our latest episode of “Karen Can’t Cook,” we discuss bulky things hidden away in cabinets, spaghetti noodles and new kitchen tools, also known as “kitchen doohickeys and thingamabobbers.”

When the Progressive Wedge & Pop Apple Slicer entered my life and subsequently rocked my world, I realized that I have a weird thing for kitchen tools. I don’t always know what to do with them and can’t always figure them out, but deep down inside I like having them around.

I got some new ones last week as part of my ongoing effort to eat less processed food and learn more about cooking.

Truth: cooking? Not my forte. Most of the time it amounts to me throwing a bunch of stuff into a pot and praying for it to be edible.

But I’m trying! 🙂

So, here are the new kitchen tool additions…

First thing: the Kuhn Rikon Julienne Peeler ($17). Basically, it’s an improv spiralizer (a tool to turn fresh veggies into faux-noodles). I’ve been wanting a spiralizer to make zucchini noodles, but seriously, the last thing I need is another bulky appliance stowed up on a high shelf in my cabinets, but I figured that with the Kuhn Rikon, because it’s smaller, I could just store it in a drawer for easy access.

How does it work? Well, you just rake the blade across the top of a vegetable to cut it into long, thin strips that look a little like spaghetti noodles.

Very cool, but it’s kind of scary to clean because those teeth are hella sharp.

The second thing: the Dual Slice Mandoline ($20), also by Kuhn Rikon. I grabbed this the other night on a trip with El Hub to our local hardware store (we needed lightbulbs). It’s for slicing very thinly. I used it last weekend to make scalloped potatoes for Easter lunch, and it worked great. You just stick that hat-looking thing to whatever you want to slice (it has prongs that insert into the vegetable), place the soon-to-be-sliced veggie on top of the slicer, hold on to the hat-thing, and run it back and forth across the slicer. The result? Thinly sliced food.

The third and final thing: the Rada Cutlery Vegetable Peeler ($8.99). How I made it this far in life without a vegetable peeler, I have no idea. Honestly, this one isn’t very exciting, but I needed a peeler…and this one gets good reviews on Amazon. So far I’ve used it to successfully peel carrots, potatoes and beets. It feels in my hand and gets the job done.

Oh, and P.S. — did you know that peeling beets is much easier if you cook them first? Yeah, lesson learned. 🙂

You’re probably wondering why you’re looking at a half-eaten bag of cheesy puffs.

Well, once upon a time (like an hour ago) this was actually a full bag of Trader Joe’s World’s Puffiest White Cheddar Corn Puffs. “Allegedly,” I bought it last weekend so that I could take pictures of it with my good camera to make a post about them and share it with you, and I say “allegedly” because this was my fourth bag in the past four weeks.

Someone ate the other ones before I could take the pics…

Anyway, this time I did it! The bag is only half empty. 🙂

Progress, my friends. It’s called progress.

These are the fluffiest, puffiest, most melt-in-your-mouthiest cheesy puffs I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. I carefully time when I’m going to open the bag to ensure that El Hub’s not around…so that I can have them all to myself.

I’m usually all about sharing, especially when it comes to food, but with these…they’re just so tasty and fluffy and yummy and cheesy and puffy and light. Before you know it, you’ve eaten 3/4 of the bag, and suddenly you are very crabby.

Oh, and these are cheesy, but it’s not that fake Cheetos cheesy (yeah, those are still good though). It’s real cheesy. Real cheese cheesy. Plus, a two-and-a-half cup serving is just 140 calories.

A big 7-oz. bag is just $1.99 at Trader Joe’s. Go get one now.

P.S. I’m watching this right now…

I recently told my friend Marisol that I drink an obnoxious amount of water throughout the day. “No, really,” I said. “It’s almost obscene. You’d think I had some weird water obsession or something.”

This came up in conversation one day while we were at HomeGoods, where I was looking for an over-sized XXL cup to hold said water. Marisol mentioned that I should check out her fave water bottles because 1) they’re cute, 2) they come in a variety of fun colors, and 3) they hold an obnoxious amount of water (32 ounces!).

How cute is this?!

It’s a sturdy glass water bottle from bkr, a small company out of San Francisco.

Each bottle comes with a grippy silicone sleeve and a cap with a hand-holder thingamabobber, and their major selling points (besides the cuteness) are that they’re BPA- and phthalate-free. They’re also 100% made with FDA-approved materials.

I’m also told that the caps form a perfect seal.

Mine just arrived today, and it’s HUGE (32 ounces/1 liter)! I ordered the big 1-liter bottle ($42), which I plan to keep on my desk during the day.

I know that $42 is a lot for a water bottle…but I’ll drink from it all day, every day, and it’ll make my desk/office look prettier. 🙂

The shade I picked, “Sugar,” is a warm pinkish coral, and surprise! — it reminds me of flamingos.

The bottles are available in a bunch of other colors and designs on the company’s website, although I got mine from Amazon to get free shipping with Amazon Prime.

There’s also a smaller, travel-friendlier 500 ml/16-ounce bottle for $30 that would be great for throwing into a big purse to run errands.

Now those are SUPER cute!

Especially the ones with hearts.

Honestly, this is probably the most excited I’ve ever been about a water bottle, LOL! I like to just carry it around the house and hold it.

OK, so…you know those smocks that you put on before you get your hair cut at a salon? Well, at the place where I get my hair done (Fox + Stone in Corte Madera, California), they hang them in a tiny private changing room, so that when you walk in, you take off your jacket (or your shirt, if you’re feeling so inclined), and put on your smock before you sit in the chair.

They’re just the regular ol’, basic smocks. You slip into them like a jacket and tie the front.

Anyway, when I walked into the salon today to get my bangs trimmed, I went into the little room, put on my smock, and then walked back out into the sitting area and sat down.

I was playing with my phone when I got that prickly feeling… You know the one, when you feel like somebody is intensely staring at you?

I looked up and there was this dude sitting in the corner looking at me, but he wasn’t, like, checking me out or anything. He was just staring and looked really, REALLY confused.

So, of course I had to stare back at him with my confrontational “What the heck are YOU staring at, homie?!” eyes. Then he said, quite loudly, “OHHHHH!” and stood up abruptly.

Turns out he’d put on his smock backwards, like a hospital gown! He realized it when he saw mine. 🙂

We both cracked up laughing. “Oh, don’t feel bad,” I told him. “You learn something new every day.”

In other news…I ran into some interesting products while I was there at the salon today, like this hair serum and leave-in treatment by Garret Markenson REVERIE.

Have you heard of this line?

They’re a niche luxury haircare brand based out of Cali. CAKE ($72, OMG) is their anti-aging growth serum, and MILK ($42) is a moisturizing, anti-frizz treatment. If you’re ever out here in the area, they sell the line at Fox + Stone (it’s also available from beautyhabit.com).

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