Mary Janes Coffee Shop San Diego

Mary Jane's Coffee Shop

Is a MUST dine at stop for breakfast

San Diego's anti-elitist, democratic ways cater to all turn-ons. So does the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego's coffee shop. Featuring a classic American style with a contemporary twist, Maryjane's Coffee Shop showcases iconic furniture and textures alongside the latest in high-tech elements. When night falls, Maryjane's shows its modern flair, with a focus on the circular bar and outdoor patio. Signature menu items include LA sticky buns, burgers, chopped Cobb salad and chicken pot pies to enjoy while dining at the restaurant or to order from the convenient grab-n-go counter. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner weekdays and non-stop on weekends, Maryjane's features a fun style and fresh attitude.

No reservations required. But if you have questions, drop us a line at (619) 764-6950.

Hotel Solamar

Is Pet Friendly....all Kimpton Properties are...the are one of our favorite hotels to stay at. If you can find one where you are going....We highly recommend it. Sign up for the e-mail notices for good deals.

Hotel Solamar, a pet friendly San Diego hotel right in the heart of the Gaslamp District, wants to make sure you don't have to leave your favorite friend at home. Complimentary to all our four-legged guests:

• Restful accommodations in our spacious guestrooms and suites
• Welcome treats for your pet
• Food and water bowls place in your room for use throughout your stay
• Pet sitting, grooming, walking and massage services available through our concierge

There are great deals out there now....

We also went to dinner with a colleague at a great restaurant called Confidential on 4th Ave. Very trendy place, great service, small plates. We ordered lots of *small plates* to share and including drinks, (non-alcoholic), coffee, desserts...We spent 2 hours there and spent less than $18 per person.... Before 7pm EVERYTHING was 50% off. The hotel room was also on special and we received $100 in credit to spend on room service, by the pool or in their restaurants....It helps to keep your eyes open for these...!!!

Today began with ................................

WAFFLES,WAFFLES,WAFFLES

Joe found a great place in La Jolla this morning for us to have our breakfast....Can you guess what we had???? :-) It was a great coffee shop called Harry's.

What happened was this... I was woke up and ran my records over this morning first thing only to find out we were going to have to wait for our appt with the surgeon as he was a bit busy performing a liver transplant and would be tied up for awhile.....

So we re-adjusted our day and went to this great place for breakfast. This is an old fashioned coffee house that has been in La Jolla since 1960. My excitement came when I saw the Naugahyde booths and milkshake machines.... next was the fact that they served REAL WAFFLES !!! Not those belgian puffy kind....(those are NOT waffles...I don't know what they are but they are not waffles....) I like regular old fashioned waffles a little crispy so the real butter (room temp, not cold) melts perfectly in all the little crevices while you drizzle real, warm maple syrup on them...

Served with a couple of eggs over medium, a couple of pieces of yummy bacon and a big glass of cold milk......

YUMMO!!!! Not exactly on my low sodium diet, or any other diet for that matter....but it isn't often you find real waffles in a coffee shop like that by the beach.....

They were worth it!

Then we spent some time exploring La Jolla a bit and went back to the hospital and they were ready for us with an afternoon full of appointments and a surgeon who was wonderful and spent lots of time explaining things to us even if he did yawn a couple of times.....

All in all we are very impressed with everyone on the transplant team at Scripps and they will be taking my file to the transplant board for approval for listing soon...

We are back home tonight to happy puppies and a full week, although we are both pretty tired.

Our Day with Joey in Newport

For those more interested in what we do when I try and forget I am sick....Which is often.....

I am sure a lot of you who have ever had serious illness's can relate to.... How do you balance your *real* life and enjoy as much of it as possible? How do you go about the day to day business of life, family, friends, jobs, etc?

I find it actually kind of funny. When I first found out how sick I was and my Dr's so *nicely* informed me that I might not make it out of the hospital alive and wasn't sure I would make it a few months....until now... Well, it kind of changes your perspective. Especially when you are supposed to be in the middle of your life and not near what you thought would be the end of it.

I decided to go on the 2 cruises I had booked at the end of the month I got out of the hospital....I took it slow but Joe and I decided it was time we spent some quiet time together, just the two of us, along with the rest of my company whose conference it was. So what if we got some Caribbean Sun and fresh air along the way!!!! Look here for a post on that. And here for a couple of pictures. If you click on the photos, you can see how yellow *jaundiced* I was.

Anyway, it is a year later and here are some photo's of our family at a doggy friendly shopping center where we took our bulldog and then at the Golden Truffle. We went to his apartment, viewed the lone jar of mayo in the fridge and one can of cream of mushroom soup in the cupboard (????) and went to Trader Joe's for some shopping, then went out to one of our favorite restaurants *The Golden Truffle*.

I worked for the Golden Truffle and Alan Greeley, Chef-Owner way back in the day when I was fresh out of Culinary School. (Didn't know THAT did you? lol) Before Joey was born. I will save my chef tales for another day.... But here is the story of The Golden Truffle and a couple of pics of dinner.

We had a beautiful 5 course meal that was specially prepared for us and were greeting and treated as VIP's as Alan had left instructions with his staff before he left that evening for a catering event. The tall thing is their *soup and sandwich* appetizer of a lovely vichyssoise with a zesty seafood, crunchy bite on top... I didn't take photos of the beautiful lobster appetizer, grilled scallop (which was HUGE) or the lovely little desert tray.... I should have...when will I learn?

Chef Owned, The Golden Truffle began as a caterer. The restaurant seems in appearance and atmosphere to be Bistro-esque, but those who have experienced the food realize that the Chef has taken a road-less traveled.

The Chef’s myriad influences, with France, Spain, the Caribbean and Asia leading the way, conspire to produce dishes that manage to combine simplicity and comfort with dazzling, complex flavors and colorful presentation.

The Golden Truffle achieves that perennial ambition of most restaurants and satisfies customers of all tastes, serving up adventures cuisine alongside nostalgic homage’s to home cooking.

The Golden Truffle is a favorite of restaurateurs, wine-makers and chefs. The abundant and interesting wine list offers many intriguing and unusual fairly priced wines.

The kitchen’s attention to texture allows each bite its own magical quality. The racy chef-proprietor has a bold approach to food so remarkable that all our senses simply merge with the spirit of the moment; a kind of stream of consciousness cooking that is like opening a storybook with the imagination of a child.

Here is a link to their menu and web-site. The Golden Truffle We had a very nice day together. It is so good to have our son so happy and moving on into adulthood. I hope I am around to see what his future holds.

All in all, a great day. Today is Tuesday and I am headed down to my LLU support group which I missed last week due to our appt's at Scripps so I am anxious to hear all the latest from my friends there. I have to get ready so I will leave you now. Tomorrow I am headed back to San Diego and Scripps for a mandatory transplant class which I am also looking forward to.

Enjoying our Summer and our projects

Well, hello again..... Here it is the end of August and I thought I would catch you up with how we have been filling the past few weeks outside of our day to day stuff we all do.

We certainly have been enjoying the pool this year, especially with Joe's new schedule. His working so close to home has been wonderful for us both. He can spend more time in the morning before work, come home for lunch and a jump in the pool, back to the office for afternoon appointments and home for the evening..

We had a couple of medical appt's and all went well including Joe's rotorooter exam. HEY, it's only fair he gets poked and prodded too! Ewwwwwwww, I know, I know. I couldn't help it.

My mom, Mary, came to visit for a week. It was great having her here for several days and she enjoyed the new guest room. I have a few more decorating things left to do but will post photo's for you soon.

While she was here we went to a wonderful restaurant we have found a couple of miles from the hospital in Redlands. Called Farm Artisan Foods . It's a great little place in an old downtown environment. It is a chef owned restaurant with innovative/california/gourmet cuisine. Most of their foods come from local organic farms and dairy's. They even buy their meat from a local butcher that purchases 4-H animals that have been certified as organically raised. We can't remember we when we had a better pork loin than here.

They offer a prix fix *lunch* that is served from 11:30-4:30 that consists of a choice of appetizer, entree and desert for $19.50. It is a real deal. The same meal at dinner could easily be $45.00.

Even their coffee is roasted locally just for them. Served in individual french presses with your desert of caramel creme and handmade chocolate truffles.... hmmmmmmmmmmm... If you are local. Go there!

We have also been working on the garden and fountain projects. Some of our garden is doing well some not so good. The aphids really got a hold of my squash....and there were lots of ants...Did you know that the ants and aphids have a relationship going on? Apparently the ants like the sticky substance left by the aphids so they will carry the eggs to the leaves of the plants so they can multiply and make the stuff for them much to the demise of my plant and ME! Joe also adds that the ants will actually HERD them and MILK them.... who knew... (Joe!)

The fountain is coming along. The mosaic is taking a while mostly because I don't get started to early as most of you know and it is so hot lately then I am tired in the evening when it cools down.....trying to get in an hour or two when it isn't blazing out here is tough. We are making progress though. I am ALMOST finished with the tile. Next step is plumbing the fountain, grout, sealant, then WATER! I can't wait to see it finished.

I also really need to decide on a tree for the area. We want to plant it this fall so I better get going on that...

Joey is doing well in his job and apartment. He likes both and is happy to be living close to the beach. He and his friends have been spending as much time as they can there. Bonfires and everything... I plan on having a Mom and Son beach day with him next week. He is getting ready for school to start on soon. I am so very proud of him. He is really growing up and getting down to business while having some fun in the process.

Eating Healthier.......................

I was going to make eggs benedict for us this morning. I do make a
mean hollandaise! My restaurant days did teach me a thing or too......But
instead we skipped the sauce and had whole wheat english muffins, poached eggs
and fresh fruit.

But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. Joe and I have always
walked this line between eating decadant lovely food spurred on by my
professional chef days and love of cooking and our love of travel and fine
restaurants, cruise ships, etc. AND the flip side of eating extremely
healthy and well balanced foods which hit it's peak during my extreme fitness
and body building days...

FRESH FOODS have always been at the heart of both and our taste buds still
do dictate a lot of what we actually eat... Now of course we both have
some specific health issues that we need to pay attention to and in striving to
keep us both in the best health we can we have specific things to
watch....

I am on a low sodium diet re: my Dr's...and I decided that it wasn't a very
good idea to put any chemicals in there to process since my organs are all
trying to compensate for all the jobs my liver is supposed to do...The biggie
which of course is ridding your body of nasty stuff. So organic produce at
home for me.

Joe is on a diabetic diet....which is good for me also... anyway, we
juggle a lot of different nutritional stuff.

I have managed to eliminate the grocery store from my shopping
regimen. We do have a SUPER Target up here now with full, very nice
grocery's at great prices so I do go there. We go to the farmers market
for whole grain breads I can pre-order and they have it waiting for me.
They have an amazing whole grain, seeded sourdough bread............(and I can
pick up some fresh flowers for the week) Trader Joe's of course.
There isn't one here but there is one by the hospital. So I can go there
once a week. And we joined a local organic produce co-op that is
absolutely fabulous. We get a basket every 2 weeks of produce in season
and all organic. Extremely delicious stuff!

So, except for the occasional pizza..... (did I say that?) We do
pretty good.

I don't know why I felt like sharing that but I did......
:-)

What I am making....

A couple of these: Lemon Curd, Fresh Berrie Trifle

Everyone loves these and they are my favorite.

I am also making a black bean and corn type salad to go with the taco's....

Want the recipe? Here it is. You can make the lemon curd ahead and I use orange juice concentrate instead of the Grand Marnier of course. But I used to make it that way and if there are no kids or it isn't an issue.... use it!

Make sure to use a great glass bowl if you don't have a trifle bowl and layer CAREFULLY, using all the colors. I also use a lemon and regular pound cake and you can double the recipe. Joe bought a trifle bowl for me at Crate and Barrel a few years ago and it's worth it if you like layered anything.

Lemon Curd Trifle with Fresh Berries

6 large egg yolks 1 cup sugar 4 lemons, zested and juiced 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut in chunks 1 pint fresh strawberries, stemmed and halved lengthwise 1 pint fresh blueberries 1 pint fresh blackberries 2 cups sweetened whipped cream 1 prepared lemon pound cake, sliced 1/4 cup Lemoncello or Grand Marnier liqueur (optional) Fresh mint leaves, for garnish

To make the lemon curd: Bring a pot of water to a simmer over medium-low heat. Combine the egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice, and zest in a metal or glass heat-resistant bowl and whisk until smooth. Set the bowl over the simmering water, without letting the bottom touch, and continue to whisk. Keep working-out that arm and whisk it vigorously for a good 10 minutes, until the curd has doubled in volume and is very thick and yellow. Don't let it boil. Remove the bowl from heat and whisk in the butter, a couple of chunks at a time, until melted. Refrigerate until the custard is cold and firm.

To build the trifle: put the berries in a mixing bowl and toss them together so they are evenly distributed. Fold the whipped cream into the chilled lemon curd to lighten it up into a mousse. Line a glass trifle bowl with pieces of pound cake to fit. Drizzle or brush the cake with the Lemoncello, spoon a layer of the lemon curd over the cake, and then a layer of mixed berries. Repeat the layers until the ingredients are used up, the last layer looks best if it's the berries. Chill before serving. Garnish with fresh mint.

Recipe Summary Difficulty: Medium Prep Time: 30 minutes Inactive Prep Time: 1 hours Cook Time: 10 minutes Yield: 10 servings.

This is the perfect time of year to make it with the berries in season.