A Few Bests

I finally downloaded photos from our trip, and there are SO MANY! Clearly you'd be bored to death if I posted all 90 or so of them, so I'll just make you look at a few. There may be a quiz. No, not really.

I'll start with a couple non-vacation photos though.

I finished the Honey Bunny pillow from Don't Look Now's tutorial. Mine looks a little different for a couple reasons: (1) I used wool for the bunny applique, (2) I did hand applique instead of fusible, so I changed the flowers to make it a little easier on myself, and (3) I enlarged the pattern a bit using a decidedly untechnical method for enlarging (just drawing echo-type lines outside the printed ones when I traced it). I DO like the original better, though.

Helen emailed me the other day to say she had pulled her UFO out and finished it--she kindly sent me a photo and allowed me to post it to share with you. Hers looks a LOT like the original--I think you'll agree Helen did a superb job!

Okay, now for a few vacation trip favorites--all in the food line. I wanted to tell you where I had my favorite meals in case you're ever in the area, looking for a place to eat.

On the way down, we stopped in downtown Gilroy, home of the infamous annual Garlic Festival. It was rainy and the power was out in half of the old downtown section of town, but we found this little place, The Garlic City Cafe. It seemed like the kind of place that would show up on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Man was that food GOOD!

It's funny because I can't remember for certain what I had! I think it was some kind of a chicken club sandwich with a garlic aoli. I can tell you we all enjoyed our lunches enormously. We were completely surprised at how tasty and high quality the food was.

We spent our second day in Carmel shopping and asked one of the locals where the best place for lunch was. We were told Grasings was good, so we headed there--just a block or two off of Ocean. My clam chowder soup was easily one of the best clam chowders I've ever had. I wish I'd ordered a bowl instead of a cup!

Besides the soup, though, I wanted to try their grilled cheese sandwich--a sophisticated adult version of the childhood classic. Ooey, gooey cheese--emmenthal, if I remember correctly--with thick slices of tomato. Served with it, to be added to the sandwich, was a tart cherry and ginger compote. And on the side? Crispy homemade potato chips. Yum!

On our last day, for breakfast we decided to try a little restaurant/bakery across the street from our hotel--Pastries and Petals.

We had the best ever quiche; Lisa also had a side order of fresh berries that she said were really good. Are you wondering where the photo of the food is? I DID take one but by the time I remembered, I'd eaten half my quiche and the photo just doesn't do it justice. You'll have to go there and get your own. And I'm quite sure you'll want to when you see how cute it is inside and what yummy treats await you.

Hungry? I am! And isn't that cute what they did with the Peeps in the first photo of the inside of Pastries and Petals? I picked up a couple packs at the grocery store yesterday, and they're on my "to do" list for Easter.