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This is how the babies ladies lunch!
Ruby had her first lunch date today at Tender Greens in Culver City with her fabulous friend Olive. Olive was kind enough to share an order of organic sweet potatoes with apple and Ruby treated Olive to a veggie flavored Mum Mum. They were a real hit and attracted lots of attention – two women even walked past our table and thought they were twins!
Mommies are foodies, and the babes are obviously foodies … so the real question is, where to next?
On Sunday, we headed out to Tanaka Farms in Irvine with Ruby’s future BFF’s Berlin & Violet to take a Strawberry Tour! It was so much fun and we even got to pick our own strawberries.
First things first – you get to go for a ride around the farm in a tractor! Very exciting, especially for the kiddos. As you roll along, they stop to show you the different types of crops – and you even get to sample the produce!
Ruby was very into her carrot!
Violet sampling some celery …
Berlin double-fisting wax beans and celery!
Once we got to the strawberry fields, we all got off the tractor and got to pick our own berries. Each person got to fill their own clamshell. Ruby was into the picking – those pretty red berries definitely caught her eye!
Tanaka Farms rules! We’ve already talked about making plans to go back in August for the Watermelon Tour … and I want to go again in October to check out the pumpkin patch.
Our friend (and very awesome wedding photographer) Suzi Q stopped by to visit and meet Miss Ruby. She took some pretty cool photos, too! Aren’t we lucky?
Big yawn in the crib
She made that pink front door of ours look pretty good, huh?
Cherry bottom!
Click here to see more cool photos. Thank you, Suzi!
Ed & I were lucky enough to be thrown TWO showers before Ruby’s arrival. The first shower was thrown by my very creative & talented sister-in-law, Shirley and hosted by my parents at their house. Shirley made the shower my favorite red and white polka dot theme! One of the big highlights was that my Aunt Pam was able to make it out to CA for the event, and she hasn’t been here in 12 years! Here are a few photos of the lovely day:
Aunt Pam, myself and my mom with the cake my dad made and Ruby’s 1st teddy bear that my dad designed at Build-A-Bear:
Ruby’s 1st pair of Converse!
Ruby is gonna be a mod little baby in these onesies:
After all of the diaper cakes I’ve made, somebody made me my very own for Little Miss Ruby! :) This was made by my sis-in-law’s sister, Debbie.
My dad wrote a much more detailed entry of the day on his blog – check out more pics and details there!
My 2nd shower was graciously thrown by my best friend Carrie and her sister, Annie. They put together a beautiful shower in Carrie’s backyard. It was a great day with all of my friends – and so many handmade gifts! Here are a few highlights:
Ruby’s gorgeous handmade quilt by Crystal:
The incredible quilt made in reds, aquas and polka dots by the talented Liz Davidson!
A handmade dress made by Kristen!
Me with Joni & Carrie! Longtime friends, one a bridesmaid, the other my matron of honor, even!
The whole day was just wonderful and I wish I had more words to describe all the love I felt at both events and all of the excitement everyone has to meet our daughter! I feel tremendously lucky and thank everyone for their love & generosity!
Okay, so this is sooo belated, but if we don’t stop posting around here with nothing but Baby updates, people are going to revoke our thosecoolkims license. So, here are a few highlights from the epic FOODCATION we took with Brittany & Wade to celebrate Wade’s 40th Birthday! 2 days in Wine Country, 2 days in San Francisco, and many, many Michelin-star restaurants!
While every single meal we had was simply fantastic – both Ed & I probably agree that our meal at Ad Hoc was the most special somehow. Being that it was one of Thomas Keller’s restaurants makes it very special on its own, but the concept of the place was so warm and inviting. As described on the Ad Hoc website:
The building at 6476 Washington Street was originally intended to be a very different type of restaurant. While we were designing it we thought we’d experiment by opening a temporary restaurant and calling it Ad Hoc, which literally means, “for this purpose.” The idea for Ad Hoc was simple – 5 days a week we’d offer a 4 course family style menu that changed each day, accompanied by a small, accessible wine list in a casual setting reminiscent of home.
Casual and reminiscent of home is exactly what it was. We felt right at home as the servers brought out plates and plates of family-style food. As there is no menu, you literally just get whatever is being served that evening. We really lucked out! Our night was Surf-n-Turf night! Check out all of this meat and lobster!
Also what made things very special is that Thomas Keller has his garden directly across the street from his three restaurants on the street. We literally saw chefs outdoors, picking ingredients from the ground, and going right back into the kitchen to serve them. Our first course at Ad Hoc was a salad served with all produce from the garden! It was amazing to eat something so fresh & natural – it was definitely much more special than a usual salad! We walked the grounds after our meal reveling at each thing we saw growing that we had eaten just hours before!
Yes, we ate plenty of these Fava Beans!
Look, there’s a chef out picking from the garden!
Another very special meal was at Redd. Redd is the very best in “California Cuisine”. A sleek modern setting, a very fun and varied menu and the perfect afternoon to dine al fresco made this a wonderful lunch! Brittany is modeling her gorgeous plate of Pot Roast and I am thrilled with my mini Chinese-style Pork Buns!
Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to wine country without a wine tasting! Here is Ed looking dapper at Terra Valentine vineyards!
We finished off our time in Napa at Thomas Keller’s other restaurant, Bouchon.
It was very french – I ordered the Poulet Roti …
… and we all indulged in this gluttonous seafood platter!
Leaving Napa was difficult to do, but fortunately we had a lunch at The Slanted Door to look forward to! The Slanted Door has the very best in Asian Fusion cuisine! It was the best I think we’ve ever had!
It was a legendary meal, we just kept ordering food, and they kept bringing out other things they thought we’d enjoy. We felt like rockstars throughout the meal. We can’t wait to return!!!
Beautiful sashimi for everyone but the pregnant girl :(
More oysters for Wade & Ed
Later that evening, we celebrated Ed’s birthday the way he wanted to celebrate it – at an East German restaurant! Everyone knows Ed’s obsession with all things German, but Walzwerk was special because it contained all of the old-school East German communist kitsch that Ed can’t get enough of! The posters, the dishes … everything about the place made you feel like you were in Berlin, circa sometime in the late 60s-early 70s. Anything for the birthday boy!
Ed and his giant plate of Jaegerschnitzel!
My giant plate of traditional schnitzel!
Old posters
The whole gang!
Another foodie stop in SF is none other than the Bi-Rite Creamery.
It just so happened we weren’t far from there after dinner at Walzwerk, so we headed over to try out some of their famous flavors! At Bi-Rite, they’re known for unusual ice cream such as Salted Caramel, Honey Lavender, Balsamic Strawberry and Earl Grey! There was a line wrapped around the corner when we arrived! Being the ice cream enthusiast I am, I wish I could’ve tried them all, but I went with the Salted Caramel and the Malted Vanilla with Peanut Brittle. YUM!
The finale was the big dinner at Hubert Keller‘s restaurant, Fleur de Lys for Wade’s actual 40th birthday. We are all big fans of Chef Keller – he’s been seen a lot as a guest judge on Top Chef, and he also was a finalist in Top Chef Masters.
This was a pretty fancy place, and needless to say, it was a little too fancy for me to bust out my camera at the table! So, there’s not any pics. We had a 4-course menu, and everything from the presentation, to the service, to the food was spectacular. Unfortunately, it doesn’t bode well for blogging purposes – but it was an experience that just can’t be explained! We are grateful to have gone and will remember it as a very special evening always!
I think this wraps up our highlights! We didn’t eat for about a week afterwards, but it was absolutely worth every bite!