bears on barson

Despite the powerful poop explosions that have stained half my clothes and sent laundry extraordinaire Jon into the most frenzied state I have ever witnessed (lol), I absolutely love every moment with my baby. Coincidentally, my parents do too and look for every possible holiday (Father's Day?! Wedding anniversary?! Fourth of July?!) to steal him away from us. Just kidding, it is amazing that Kota can spend so much time with grandparents that love him so much.

Most of my blog posts will likely be places like this one: fast and delicious eateries that Jon and I escape to for approximately 1.5 hours while my parents lavish Kota with non stop cuddles, songs, and one time, 8 ounces of milk (PACE FEEDING, MOM!)

Zameen at the point was Jon's idea. It's located on 41st across from Penny's (the site we don't visit because they scoop less generously than the one downtown). The menu was like a Mediterranean Chipotle, offering falafel, lamb, chicken, and gyro (beef and lamb) in either a wrap, salad, or saffron rice bowl. We shared an order of feta fries and spent the evening catching up about ourselves which is so crazy because we spend way more time together than we did before.

Here is our go-to list of where we go / what we eat in about an hour when we get the chance:

• Oreo milk shake at Santa Cruz Diner.
• Mediocre boba at Tea Zone (Biggest pet peeve: crushed ice. It is the same size as boba. I get both in the straw and it kills me every time).
• Ice cream sandwich at Marianne's.
• Walk around Whole Foods in a leisurely way.
• Sit in our car in the driveway and argue that we didn't plan the time well.

JON AND I ARE ON A ROLL WITH DATE NIGHTS. Sure, we had Shin Ramen Black for dinner not that long ago, but here we are! Out. AGAIN!

Jon and I were excited to check out Cremer House in Felton, and Santa Cruz Restaurant Week gave us an excuse to finally do so. First of all, I really liked their cute little salt and pepper shakers. They were very small.

Also, the food was fantastic. Restaurant week highlights a prix fixe menu at dozens of Santa Cruz eateries, and this one was only $25! I ordered the grilled pear salad and the seared diver scallops with celery root puree and root beer gastrique. What? Jon got the burrata salad and porter beer braised short rib. OOH the DESSERTS were the best. Jon got the salted pretzel bread pudding with pomegranate cider caramel and blackberry jam.. but I GOT THE ROOT BEER FLOAT.

It was perfect.

Oh shoot haha you know what else happened recently? Craigslist adventures. Last week, I found a $10 shelf that is perfect for our pantry. Little did I know that it was located in the hills of Bonny Doon. It was hella dark, the roads were NOT paved, we almost hit TREES AND ROCKS, and I've never heard Jon so sincerely say that he loved me and was glad that we got a chance to know each other. On another night, I found a woman selling 90's Star Wars Legos and took Jon and he made me talk to this woman for like 30 minutes while he squatted over a cardboard box "making sure all the pieces were there." Then we gave her $150 and when we got home Jon was like "I think it's missing pieces." and he was sad.

Speaking of sad things Jon does with Legos, on Sunday I was exhausted and during my nap, Jon thought it was a great idea to sort all his Legos. He just kept pouring them out, mixing them around, dropping them on other piles of Legos. Why, Jon.

Well that about describes our life right now.

A few details (about Cremer House. Not Jon's Legos)

• Cremer House is located on 6256 Highway 9 in Felton, CA. (next to the New Leaf!)
• The building has been around since 1874! It's such a beautiful piece of downtown Felton history.
• They serve tons of craft beers, ciders, wines, house made sodas, AND THAT ROOT BEER IS BOMB.

This quarter is a bit intense for both of us- Jon has class until 9PM two days a week (don't feel bad for him, he's taking a sailing class and recently joined the pottery collective. He's fine.) and I'm balancing a busy work season with two seminary classes. This means that our date nights are even more precious! And normally, an Akutagawa date night is eating left overs and falling asleep on the couch catching up on SNL. BUT THIS WEEK WE WENT OUT. FOR AN HOUR.

We tracked down a Thai pop-up restaurant and found out they were at the Santa Cruz Food Lounge + Night Market. Which, apparently, is a thing here, and we had never ever heard of it! It was great! Yesterday night, they had mini arepas, mole, meat pies, and Italian pastries with live music and drinks. Even though we were the only POC besides the Thai pop-up woman, it was nice to be together in a new place. Even though we finished our Chicken Tikka Masala meat pie and sour orange curry with a Thai fried egg in like 15 minutes and then went home to watch Cal crush WSU 37-3, it was exactly what we needed.

A few details:

• The Food Lounge hosts the night market on second Fridays from 4-9PM!
• Their outdoor patio is beautiful and dog friendly!
• The Food Lounge is a community center and commercial incubator kitchen, which means they'll likely be hosting lots of delicious new flavors in the future. 
• Cal's defense was on fire, but my favorite moment was Bower's crazy touchdown:

ICYMI: Cal upset No. 8 Washington State and did it in style. pic.twitter.com/4gtRoXY8TL

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 14, 2017

A few weekends ago, we went to check out the new Abbott Square! It's an open community space by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History with food and garden space and live performances! Currently, they have six mini restaurants:  popsicles, oysters, pizza, Cat & Cloud cafe with Companion Bakery (OUR TWO FAVORITES IN ONE. HOW!) poke, and some vegetable thing... and then two bars!

The best part is that many weekends, the ground floor of the MAH is free for the public to explore and that is how we found the DAHLIA COMPETITION. At first I laughed at them because some of them are like little balls on a stick and it's funny, but then I walked through like six whole rooms. Anyway, Dahlias are crazy and Jon and I came home and looked at the ones in our yard and were like these are gross. no one would vote for ours.

ABBOTT SQUARE THOUGH IS GREAT and I know that if it popped up in San Francisco, I would roll my eyes at the cliché use of negative space and reclaimed wood, but honestly.. I'm just so happy I can walk to good Neapolitan style pizza.

• Downtown: 913 Cedar St.
• Pleasure Point: 820 41st Ave.
• Downtown Kiosk: 1520 K2 Pacific Ave.

• Dark Chocolate Sorbet
• Black Tea Peach
• Cardamom Pistachio
• Quince Sorbet
• Straight up Strawberry
• Candied Buddha Hand

I have two stories to tell you about the Nick:

First, Jon and I tried to watch Moonlight here for their half off Tuesday night showings. Sadly, it was sold out and everyone who was walking past us into the theater with tickets were old white people. Good on them!

Second, we watched Your Name here and it was magical.

That is the kind of place this movie theater is!

I don't know a lot of people who take burgers as seriously as Jon. In almost every city we visit, Jon is on the hunt for the ultimate burger. He once waited for the elusive burger at Holeman and Finch in Atlanta, only to find out the man before him bought the last one. He was so sad he called me to tell me. Another sad story is that Jon has never lived this far away from an In-N-Out Burger.

But here we are in "seven days of burger love"... Santa Cruz Burger Week! A ton of restaurants participated with $7 and $10 burger specials but because he is a grad student we literally bought 1 burger this week and split it.

We went to Hoffman's Downtown because their $10 burgers came with french fries and again, #gradstudent. Of the three items on the Burger Week menu, we chose the Gilroy Burger which is normally $14 at dinner. It's considered a house favorite and has roasted garlic, crispy onions, sautéed mushrooms, and jack cheese.

Jon's review:

• the meat was well cooked
• i don't think i like whole roasted garlic... i'd rather it be smashed
• the bun was good... that's pretty much it