Weekending

As I mentioned, I am a lucky girl. I spent the morning at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival with my dear friend Katherine, and my old friend Heather, whom I hadn't seen in oh, probably 10 years? Crazy. We ate chocolate sundaes for breakfast, wandered the festival, and ended up with a huge bag of chocolate to take home. Let me tell you: Ghirardelli knows what they're doing.

Just the beginning...

Learning about the chocolate-making process in a
private class with Steve Genzoli

I wish I'd had the foresight to take more photos during the festival itself, but to be honest, I was a little bit on sugar rush chocolate overload! I am a chocolaholic, always have been. But the amount of chocolate and chocolate-based products was a bit overwhelming, even for me. There was a lot of "I'll take this home for later" and "oh good lord, I cannot possibly eat a brownie right now!" Note to anyone attending tomorrow: pace yourself, and perhaps bring some water or salty treats in your purse :)

We had a lot of fun though, and I was impressed with Ghirardelli Square itself. I hadn't been there in a long while, and it's really quite lovely. The Marketplace is a dream come true for a chocolate lover, and the square itself is just a nice place to hang out. I'll have to return to redeem my coupons for free sundaes! Craving a bit of salt, the ladies and I headed over to Lucky Dogs for some hot dogs and cheese fries. Delish. PS The Marina is cuter than I give it credit for. 

And then I headed back to the East Bay. I'm getting my wedding dress shortened and dyed, and I'm on a super tight deadline (I want to wear it to a wedding at the end of the month, and I have to ship it to New Hampshire for the dyeing), so I had a rush hopefully-last-but-ended-up-needing-one-more-alteration-on-the-straps fitting. I don't know what was going on with San Francisco traffic, but what should have been a quick 30 min hop across the bay took me almost an hour and a half. I finally got there, and omg the dress is so cute, I'll show off pictures when I have them, and then it was off to the errands portion of the day.

Yes, I was so stuck I took a picture.

Will and I purchased the meat for tomorrow's Mega BBQ (5 lbs of chicken thighs, wings and drumettes and 16 lbs of ribs - we already have a 6 lb pork loin brining in the fridge) this morning, and it was my job to buy vegetables and the spices for our "Magic Dust" chicken. Only took three stores, but I found everything I needed and headed home to get these babies coated and fridged!

Nom nom nom, it's like homemade
shake n bake.

Tomorrow's party is an all-day epic affair, beginning with the aforementioned chicken, continuing on with smoked ribs, and finishing off with a grilled pork loin. I am both excited and wiped out thinking about what the day will hold. But mostly excited. Myriad Meat! :)