Tuna Face, Trail, 60th Surprise

Posted by Lauren

Dang. What a weekend!!! I hope all of you had a fun one :)

On Friday night I attended a culinary competition in San Francisco hosted by Chef Elizabeth Falkner with celebrity chef coaches Amanda Freitag, Iron Chef Cat Cora, and Lee Ann Wong.

It was an innnnncredible event and I plan on writing a blog post all about it. Promise.

Afterwards, I met my cousin Aaron in the Financial District and we had a nice, oddly warm, walk to the Marina where we ate dinner at Zushi Puzzle (1910 Lombard Street).

The cooking show made me ragingly hungry, so I was 150% game to split three sushi rolls with Aaron. We ordered the following:

• Billy Boy: spicy tuna and avocado inside, topped with tuna and wasabi sauce
• Wasabi Tom: butterfish inside, topped with tuna, avocado, and mild spicy sauces
• Romeo & Juliet: salmon and avocado, topped with scallop, spicy sauces, tobiko

Turns out Aaron’s taste buds do NOT agree with tuna. We did some guess and check experiments to pinpoint the culprit… when he ate just the tuna, this happened:

No worries, more sushi for me! After dinner in SF, Aaron dropped me off at the train and I choo-chooed down to Palo Alto. Celebrity chefs and quality cousin time – such a great night!

Saturday morning I did a few loads of laundry, completed a quick online training, washed my car, and then went for a run outside. Since I’ll be running a trail half marathon next weekend, I challenged myself to actually take on some diverse terrain. It felt great to get out into the sunshine at Quicksilver!

I quickly freshened up and drove to Morgan Hill to help prep for Sylvia’s 60th birthday party (she’s the mom of my high school bff Sarah). It was a SURPRISE party with a 1950s theme! Poodle skirts, pink ladies, leather jackets….

After assembling the remaining party favors and prepping some food with Melissa (the master planner and Sylvia’s daughter), I put on some appropriate 50s clothes and attempted a pin curl.

The food was so perfect – deviled eggs, pigs in a blanket, french fries, fruit kabobs, and cheeseburger sliders. I had a little bit of everything while we waited to surprise Sylvia.

I didn’t get a full shot of the living room, but HOLY MOLY, Melissa and friends transformed the space into a cool 50s diner, with high and low tables, checkerboard tablecloths, rock and roll signs, hanging records… I could go on! They had four signature drinks, each of which was named after the birthday girl.

3… 2… 1… SURPRISE!

Unfortunately I had to cut out early to make it to San Francisco by 9:00 PM, but from what I saw on Instagram, it looks like the rest of their night was really fun :)

More on the San Francisco escapades in my next post!!

Question: Has anyone ever thrown you a surprise party?

-Lauren