Valentines

Patrick is trying to sabatoge me! I have been so fabulous about working and not eating junk (I have to get sexy for Jambo's wedding pictures.) and he brings home this giant box of fancy chocolates. And it gets worse. Never in my life have I eaten an entire box of candy myself...........until now. I have no explanation for this lapse in self-control. For days, I meant to bring these gourmet goodies to work to share, but somehow forgot until the whole thing was gone. Curses! I will be eating nothing but plain salad for the next month.

On Saturday, we went out to dinner at Meritage or Martini Oyster Bar and Grill (yes, it has two names and I have no idea why). When we walked in, the front host ignored us and continued to work on her seating charts for ten minutes as if we weren't standing there. HEllllO, customers waiting, so rude! We had moderately tasty salad, but my entree was bland, tasteless fish with overcooked sides of soggy veggies and dry potato wedges. I was gearing up for a repeat of Josefs, but this time the waiter notice my distaste and offer to get me something else as well as take the offensive item off our bill. So decided to give them another chance and ordered a cheese plate to accompany my apple tart. Shock and awe is how we felt when the next course came out and we tasted it. I don't know who the pastry chef is, but he needs to take over the entire old school kitchen and teach the chef and thing or two. Patrick claimed that his creme brulee (in a cookie shell, not the boring old ramekin) was the best he had ever tasted. Even the dessert dishes were more interesting than the dinner plates. Perhaps the Meritage part of the name belongs to the desserts. 2.5 stars

Afterwards, we attended a Billy Holiday tribute show. The woman told about the singer's life in between performing songs. In turns out that she was really scandalous. She was a prostitute at age 13, she couldn't read or write music and she was a civil rights activist. Now, I like her even more than I did before.

Hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day as well.