I'm the chaperone teacher from hell.

[sarea]

grrm has been selling lesser-known books of his off his overstuffed bookshelves, and since I CANNOT RESIST such things I've been buying them to put into my own overflowing bookshelves. However, he signs each book and I enjoy reading his little inscriptions. :D Plus it doesn't appear that I will ever get to meet him in person to get my silver first of A Game of Thrones signed. Sigh.

I'm still not much in a reading mood, but I finally finished Lisa See's Peony in Love. That one took me months and months. Right now I've started the first Dresden Files book, Fevre Dream by GRRM (one of the books from see above), and The Grand Tour, sequel to Sorcery & Cecelia.

My mom is staying with me right now, which is wonderful because she's made such an amazing recovery. But on the other hand, she is DRIVING ME UP THE WALL. I thought that given everything that's happened, I'd somehow turn into a saint and have endless amounts of patience for her. I don't. Somehow, my mom is able to push my buttons like no one else, and she still does it. This has always been our dynamic and I guess it always will be.

Restaurant Week is over at last. This is the most I have ever participated in a single RW -- I believe I went to 12 places -- and it was too much, especially because half the dinners weren't all that great. Next time I'm going to restrict it to only 2-3 dinners, with no restriction on lunch, because RW lunch is always worthwhile.

Mistral Kitchen - Like Crush, this place always has great food, but also a snooty atmosphere. Sigh. Why do they have to go hand in hand?! There was a bunch of us, so I got to try just about everything again.

Starters:
- Maine sea scallop in vanilla sauce (me)
- Mixed greens in a citrus vinaigrette

Entrees:
- Mad Hatcher Farms Half Chicken, ricotta cheese, mole (me)
- Halibut (can't remember what came with it)
- Margherita Pizza, fresh mozzarella, basil

Desserts:
- Coffee cake with lemon curd and coconut sorbet (me)
- Flourless chocolate cake (can't remember what came with it)
- Can't remember this dessert, except it came with the most amaaaaaazing apple sorbet

Capital Grille - A typical steakhouse, but the food is SO good (if you like steak), the service is great (and much friendlier/less snooty than you'd think), and it's such a good deal.

Starters:
- Mixed greens (Mom)
- Porcini bisque (me): This was good, but I'd have preferred the greens. Maybe next time I'll try the clam chowder.

Entrees:
- Filet mignon tournedos (Mom)
- 14oz Kona-crusted aged sirloin (me): This is so unbelievably yummy, if you like steak. So well seasoned and almost as tender as the filet mignon (my mom preferred mine). And such a great deal as well -- it's regularly priced at $45!! Both entrees also came with Sam's Mashed Potatoes, which are incredibly creamy and delicious. Even my mom raved about them, and she normally doesn't even like potatoes. During non-RW, sides like that have to be ordered separately.

Desserts:
- Flourless chocolate cake (Mom)
- Strawberry sorbet (me): Desserts is the only area where Capital Grille falls down a bit. The sorbet was terrible the last time I went, and it was terrible this time as well (I was hoping the last time was an anomaly). Next time I'll have to try something else for sure.

Monsoon East - Yes, I went again. My mom wanted to go, and I love that place, so why not? Here's the thing about Monsoon East though. The service is TERRIBLE when they're busy. They can't handle it. Dishes are served incredibly slowly, and if you want anything you have to flag down a waiter.

Starters:
- Green papaya salad (Mom)
- Crispy imperial roll (me): I love the green papaya salad, but I had it when I went with adelagia, so I decided to try this instead. Here's where the bad/slow service comes in. The green papaya salad arrived first, and we ate the whole thing before my starter even arrived. The manager guy came to take our plates, and I said, "But we haven't even gotten our other appetizer yet." So he asked me what it was, and after awhile, the imperial rolls arrived. Except I think he tried to make up for it being late (or maybe they'd forgotten it entirely) by giving me the regular-sized portion instead of the RW portion, because it came with THREE rolls when it should've only come with one. I'm guessing as to the motive because he didn't actually say anything when he put it down. Anyway, they were really good -- you wrap each half roll in some romaine lettuce, then dip into nuoc cham. Except after eating that many, and waiting so long for our food, I was pretty much full!

Entrees:
- Organic crispy drunken chicken (we both got this, but I could barely touch it after the starters)

Dessert:
- Chocolate ganache with peanut butter and caramel (this is still in the fridge)
- Creme caramel with pineapple (we ate this the next day)

Lark - K wanted to go here, so I'm glad we tried it, but it was not a stand out. The best thing was my appetizer.

Starters:
- Salami with marcona almonds and tomato jam (me): This was soooooooo good.
- Apple, beet and Treviso salad with blue cheese dressing (K): Very good.
- Some sort of squash soup with white cheddar (Mom)

Entree:
- True cod with caramelized cauliflower (we all ordered this - my mom thought it was overly salty; I thought it was fine but not very interesting)

Dessert:
- Vanilla panna cotta with huckleberries (me): Aha, vanilla panna cotta! I could see whether I was done with panna cotta or if I only liked vanilla! Only problem was, this was an extremely soft panna cotta (usually it's molded), so I'm not sure if it's really an accurate comparison. I did enjoy it, though I thought it was a bit too sweet.
- Apple crisp with hazelnut topping and vanilla ice cream (K): Only OK. Guess I just don't like the way these restaurants make crisps.
- Ginger cake with Theo chocolate sorbet (Mom): The chocolate sorbet was fabulous. The cake was too gingery for me.

Then today we went to Bellevue to eat at Boiling Point, which is a Taiwanese hot pot place that specializes in stinky (fermented) tofu. If you're not Chinese or totally immersed in Chinese culture, you won't like it. In fact, it'll be completely heinous. But my mom and I love it, LOL. Then I actually made dinner tonight! I made Jamie Oliver's vegetable lasagne. I so could not do it in 30 minutes, but then I made a different version than he did so it's not really a good test. It was really, really good but my version was too soupy; we had to use bread to mop up the sauce. To go with it I made a simple salad of butter lettuce and radicchio, with olive oil and lemon juice dressing. For some bizarre reason I had it in my head to make another dressing -- a sesame vinaigrette -- that I ended up having to save in the fridge.

jade_okelani and I have started Vampire Diaries S3!

- OK, WTF at that ending! Ahhhhhhhh! VD is so good at those episode cliffhangers. Seriously though, how does Carol know about Caroline??? There's no way Caroline's mom told her, I mean, she seemed believably won over last season, and she and Carol weren't getting along.

- Damon and Elena are so an old married couple.

- Can vampires compel you to invite them in? Because that doesn't seem fair. I mean, if that's the case, why even bother having the rule that they can't go into a house they haven't been invited to. And speaking of that, what constitutes living in a house, anyway? Does Alaric 'live' at Elena and Jeremy's now?

- Stefan is much more likable when he's 'evil.' Though I'm not really sure he's 'evil' right now. I don't know what's going on with him. We thought maybe he was just playing Klaus, but that doesn't seem to be the case, and yet with that phone call to Elena it's not like he's just gone off the deep end forever. And despite not being into Stefan/Elena, I have to admit that phone call was really sweet.

- Jeremy is so the befriender of the friendless. Every time there's some odd man out (before it was Tyler, now it's Matt), he finds a reason to hang out with them. Jeremy is SO HOT, but whenever he opens his mouth he sounds like a little kid.

- I can't decide if I'm into the Caroline/Tyler. I mean, obviously, I love C/T... I was just hoping they were going to take it slow. I looooooooooved them as best friends. And yet I admit when they were all over each other I was also going, "Eeeeeeeee!" I just hope they do this ship well.

- Can't say I'm sorry to see Andie go.

- Damon needs a haircut, imho. Jade likes his hair. Sigh. She and I will never fight over a guy. Unless it's Matt Czuchry or Justin Timberlake.

- I don't blame Alaric for leaving -- I mean, he did NOT sign up to be Daddy -- and yet I love the idea of him being a cooler, more useful Jenna in Elena and Jeremy's lives. But I think in his head he's still stuck on the idea of being Mr. Vampire Hunter and/or Damon's sidekick. :))

- I miss Elijah. Klaus is nowhere near as awesome.

- Jeremy seeing dead people BETTER be leading to something really interesting and/or cool, because I'm kind of already done with it.