A Time to Pause

After seeing the North End earlier in the week, I thought it would be fun to go back with my wife and kids.

As we walked near Quincy Market, we came across a Memorial. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't even know it existed. The Memorial looks like several glass towers with what seemed to be etchings of names. We asked each other if it was a Vietnam Memorial.

Upon closer look, we realized that the towers were symbolic of smokestacks, and the etchings were numbers.


Within each column, were quotes from survivors of the Holocaust. The one in the picture above talks about cutting women's hair before they were sent to the gas chambers.

The one in the picture below talks about a child finding a raspberry, keeping it safe all day, and then giving it to a friend.


WWII is ancient history to our kids. But, we were moved by what we saw and read. It gave us a chance to talk about what happened and the reality of the Holocaust.

North End

I was in Boston today and thought I'd walk over to the North End.

Before the Big Dig, you had to walk under an elevated, ugly highway to get over to the North End. Today, there is a quiet park instead. Here is a picture:


There were people relaxing in the park and soaking up the sunshine. It was one of those perfect late summer days in New England. Around this time of year, you occasionally get a day where the air is crisp and the humidity is gone. I suppose it is Mother Nature's way of telling us fall is finally coming.

I walked through the park and over to Hannover Street. As I walked up Hannover, I gave up counting the number of restaurants I wanted to try. In the end, having limited time, I stopped in a nice little Italian Gelateria and got a lemon Italian Ice for the road.

Needing Dinner in North Beach

I was in San Francisco this week and found myself at dusk with no idea where to eat.

I have this little handicap that is endearing to my wife (OK, to be honest, it drives her crazy). At a certain point, hunger overrides the decision making ability in my brain. I tend to wander around wondering what to eat without the capacity to make a decision that would lead to food actually entering my body.

I was in this state when I found myself driving around North Beach wondering if Italian food would be good, or maybe Chinese, or Thai, or California...you get the idea.

I called my wife, and she told me to park the car and just find anything. So, I did.

I parked the car and walked into Bocce Cafe on 478 Grant Street.


The entrance is off the street and down a quiet arbor way. I sat out on the patio and ate lasagna. It was simple, and very "homey".

I would recommend Bocce to anyone who wants to have "family style" Italian meal away from the tourists.

Got Tomatoes?

I picked up our weekly bounty from the vegetable co-op and looked at the tomatoes. With more cherry tomatoes than we could eat in a salad, I decided it was time to make salsa.

Homemade salsa is actually quite easy to make. And if you have lots of tomatoes from a garden, now is the time to try to make your perfect salsa.

Perfect Salsa

Put the following ingredients in a blender in this order:

1/4 diced sweet onion
Cherry Tomatoes cut in half (enough to fill 3/4 of the blender)
1 Jalapeno pepper diced with seeds removed
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
Juice from 1 lime
Dash of salt

Pulse the blender a few times until the ingredients are combined but not pulverized.

Get your favorite type of tortilla chips and enjoy!

Kimball Farm Ice Cream

I don't know why, but New Englanders love ice cream. People say that New England has the highest per-capita consumption of ice cream in the country. I don't know if that is true, but, if you go to Kimballs in Westford, MA, you'll be helping us keep our standing. The picture above is a "small size".

Kimballs is known locally for high quality and massive portions of ice cream. Here are some of our favorite flavors:

Moo Tracks: See picture above. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge and peanut butter cups.

Vanilla Chocolate Almond: Vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered almonds

Black Raspberry: Just like it sounds

Peppermint Stick: Vanilla ice cream with pieces of candy canes

And, for those not familiar with the local lingo, a milk shake isn't made with ice cream, a Frappe is.

Elvio's

Even though we are back from vacation, I have a couple of NH nuggets to share.

In North Conway, the streets are lined with small shops. The area has a more relaxed feel compared to the "Outlet Heaven" down the road. If you like local flavor more than elbowing frantic shoppers, try this part of town.

At the Northern end of Rt. 16 is a small Pizza place called Elvio's. We went with some friends and managed to consume a massive amount of pizza. They told us that the Sicilian Pizza was the thing to order; they were right!

Diana's Baths

We decided we needed an outing yesterday. So we jumped in the car and drove to Diana's Baths near North Conway, NH. Everyone loves the combination of climbing rocks, granite water slides, and pools of water. The water is pretty cold and yesterday was cloudy, so we only waded around instead of really getting wet.

Last year, the water was much lower and the waterfalls more mellow. We had a contest to see who could stand under the falls the longest. Our friend's oldest son was the undisputed winner.

This year, the falls would have knocked us over if we tried to stand under them.

Time to Relax

My son woke us up early in the AM to tell us about the weather forecast for the week. There are thunderstorms forecast for several days this week. He wanted to know if we would be able to swim. It seemed like a reasonable question; just not one I wanted to wake up to answer.

But, so far, there has been plenty of time to swim.


And it wouldn't be vacation without playing some games. We played Risk Monday night. I was unlucky enough to start out with several territories in Asia. You can't defend Asia at the beginning of Risk and hope to win.


My daughter, who is 14, is one of the many girls this week reading the final book in the Twilight series. The amazing thing about this is that just a few years ago, she told us that she "wasn't a reader" and "books were boring".

Thank you Stephenie Meyer for changing her mind.

Vacation!

After an uneventful flight home from Tokyo, we started to get ready for our annual family vacation. For years we spent summer vacation visiting relatives in different parts of the county. We have gone to Colorado, Washington, DC, and North Carolina and always had a great time.

But a couple of years ago, some friends of ours introduced us to Northern New Hampshire. There are lakes, the White Mountains, and cool summer days. We rent a nice house on a small lake that reminds me of my grandparent's cabin in California.

It took us around 3 hours to drive to the lake house. We settled in and had a quiet evening. The only sound outside was some rain and the occasional call of a loon.

My wife made waffles for breakfast, and I took this picture of the lake in the early morning.