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.

After watching Black Panther on opening night with literally every POC Jon and I know in the 831, we ended up at Los Pericos for dinner. Insider tip: it was not hard to get seats for Black Panther in Capitola.

lol.

Anyway, this post is about Los Pericos because everyone already knows about Black Panther. What people do not know is that this Mexican place was so sympathetic to my second trimester urges, that they made carne asada fries for me for $6. And then I took home a whole plastic bag filled with their fresh tortilla chips and ate everything as a pre-dinner snack.

Los Pericos is located at 139 Water St. at the edge of downtown. For the most part, Jon and I order their tacos (carne asada, al pastor, and lengua) or their super burritos (carne asada, al pastor, or fish). Though in the above picture, Jon's friend ordered the Molcajete, which was featured on an 8.5" x 11" color printed picture scotch taped to the soda dispenser. Strategic!

Other highlights include a free salsa bar, a mini parking lot in a sea of metered parking, and huge portions. It is one of the only places we go when we eat out and on this particular night, it was a fun little reminder that colonizers can't take away created places of belonging. Yes, I believe I belong with the lengua.

Jon and I are counting down the weekends we have before the baby comes, so today we went to Monterey for a quick day trip. I'm a very big girl right now, so we were hella efficient and spent most of the day at the public library #lit. (literally.)

Our first stop was Compagno's Market and Deli, a local sandwich shop with excessive military decor?  It was delicious and seriously the whole sandwich is such a good deal- $12.50 for a sandwich the size of a large take out tray. No really look at the picture of Jon eating the sandwich. It required two hands to hold HALF of the sandwich. He is eating the other half for dinner as I type this.

Second, we went to Revival Ice Cream because that is what I have wanted to do for almost two years. We got Rose Tea (with cream cheese and white chocolate) and the Bee's Knees (burnt honey, bee pollen, beeswax, and honeycomb candy) in a waffle cone and it was perfect. Other flavors included: Apple Miso, Eucalyptus Mint, and some coconut milk flavor with lots of herbs.

After that, we just hung out at the Monterey public library (the first public library in California! Did you know!?) It was a great library- the clientele was mostly very old and the one guy at the table next to us typed with so much strength, I couldn't stop laughing.

Anyway, we dropped by a few places to pick up groceries- the Wharf Marketplace and one of those "10 artichokes for a dollar!" stands on the side of Highway 1, spending the rest of the drive home brainstorming names for our baby boy.

I am going to miss days like this one when we become a family of three!!

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.

I have a sweet memory of one morning when Jon and I were on our honeymoon in Portugal. He woke up early and told me he'd pick up breakfast nearby. Waking up to him clutching pastries in a paper bag was one of the first moments post-wedding that I realized my new normal included a breakfast partner to eat with everyday.

AND THEN HE NEVER GOT ME BREAKFAST AGAIN. Just kidding. He did.

One of the other sweet memories that I have was the first morning we woke up in Santa Cruz. We hadn't unpacked anything except for our bed, and boxes lined the edge of every room. I was exhausted from the move and Jon decided to pick up some breakfast for us at The Buttery. He came home with a fresh baguette, pastries, and some cheese and fruit from Shopper's Corner. We unpacked two plates and a butter knife and sitting on a carpet that smelled like dog, we ate our first meal as a family in our new city.

• There are two lines: the one is for the bakery where you are served by taking a ticket number, the other is for the cafe and restaurant.
• Their Francese is our favorite baguette because it has a delicious crisp that lasts a few days. Their French bread is super chewy, so we usually get it to go with soups or stews.
• The outdoor seating is way nicer than inside because the lines just get so crazy in there!

• 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 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