And we're back.

Back to Los Angeles. Back to work. Back to Mount Valentine...

We came back to LA and to amazing weather. 85 degrees. Sunny, light breeze. Just perfect. To say we were already ready for the weekend by about 10 am on Thursday would be a serious understatement. Imagine - a whole weekend with NOTHING TO DO! No plans, other than laundry. Oh and the wedding registry. Oh... and designing the invites. Oh... and dishes. Oh... and grocery shopping. Oh... and getting kitty food and flea treatment (for kitties and maybe for me too... grrr). Oh... and most important - weed out the garden!

But beyond that - nothing to do! And to be honest not much got done yesterday. Just the laundry. Well it got washed and dried. Putting it away will be today's task. Along withe above mentioned list of stuff...

So what did get done yesterday? A lovely long roundabout walk to Silver Lake Blvd for breakfast at the uber-swanky LAMILL Coffee shop. It's really not fair to call this place with it's mirrored walls and green snake-skin-like chairs and it's super fancy coffee a coffee shop. It's a coffee experience. The food was amazing too. I had baked eggs with a little bit of bacon and mushrooms - perfect size, absolutely tasty! And a virgin mojito, for which I am a sucker. This one had a mild iced tea, mint, club soda and sugar. Lots of the latter - it could have been less and still been yummy. Ben's coffee was strong, flavorful and not bitter.

A faster walk back along Sunset meant I could leave another message (this time in person!) for the manager at the Comfort Inn... this makes 5 in 5 weeks. Annoying, especially considering I am looking to give them a fair amount of business...

Back at Mount Valentine laundry was begun. Kittens were played with and cuddled. They are so happy we're home. Buster can't seem to disengage himself from my neck if I'm in bed. Boy is he going to be confused when I have a kid who's pretty much in that same region on a regular basis! Ella just rolls around in ecstasy every time we go near her and lets us rub her little heart-center, purring the whole time.

Around 2:00 I checked the Gluten-Free Girl's website and found an intriguing post on arepas. Little cornmeal pancakes. It called for pre-cooked white cornmeal, found mostly at Latino markets. Well, hello! We are surrounded by Latino markets! What a great excuse for another walk... So Ben and I went down to the better of the three within a 5 minute walk, stopping at the antique shops along the way.

Also stopped at Simple, which is a very cute little party store.. emphasis on little. But they sell lemon drops and gumballs in paint cans! PAINT CANS! And have not one, not two, but FOUR cupcake recipe books. We now need to throw a party. Who's birthday is next? (Ahem, Brian...)

At the market, I found a dizzying array of flours - rice, corn, wheat... not your average Von's this place... we ended up also coming with with the tostaditas, lime, avocado and real Mexican cokes. Mexican sodas don't have any corn or high fructose syrup. Just plain old regular sugar. You can taste the difference. And they come in much smaller bottles, just 12 oz as opposed to those crazy 48 oz things you get at 7-11.

As we walked home, I could already taste lunch: left-over roast chicken, tossed with fresh lime juice and sprinkled with salt, laying on fresh avocado all on a crispy tostada. With lime juice drizzled cucumbers on the side. And that ice cold coke. mmmmmmm.... It was just as delicious as I thought it was going to be! I could eat that every day for a week! (In fact I will probably have it for lunch today!) We ate our lunch on the veranda (we're now calling the porch the veranda... much more fitting for Mount Valentine) and stayed out there reading until we were too hot and had to come in. I think we lasted about 2 hours.

Then a luscious nap before getting up and attempting the arepas. Mixing them was easy - pour lukewarm water into the cornmeal and mush up with your hand. It felt neat - like gritty clay. The directions on the bag said to let it sit for five minutes so I did. Next time I make them I will try Shauna's recipe, which has a different ratio of cornmeal to water and also has oil. And no waiting - you just pop them right on the skillet. And then you wait. They have to cook for a long time on both sides and then in the oven too.

When they were done (or rather, when I couldn't wait any more because it was 9 pm and I was hungry) I cut one up and the inside was mushy and it tasted like cream of wheat, but with a corny flavor. I thought it was weird. I put some butter on it. Better. Duh.

Ben actually really like them, and ended up using two for buns for his buffalo burger and was really happy about it. So that's good. I will attempt them again later today... I think mine need to be thicker and a little bigger.

So yeah - after the registry, the invites, after the dishes, after the GARDEN, I will make more arepas. Mostly because I just really really like saying arepas!