A Rafter of...Turkeys?

My sister, Sara recently visited me for a long weekend and she brought me a very festive surprise for November - a rafter of turkeys!! You may be wondering what the heck a rafter of turkeys is, and I'm not being weird. A group of turkeys is technically a rafter, like a herd of sheep or a gaggle of geese. Here's my cute rafter:

They were so cute I almost couldn't eat them. HAHA. Like that could happen, of COURSE I ate them. My people would be proud. Our learning what a rafter was took place while we were all out to dinner and it involved some adult bev's, an i-phone and lots of laughter.

I thought this thoughtful gift was very apt with Thanksgiving fast approaching. Liang and I are planning a joint effort on a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal, which I'm sure will be posted whether on here or on our joint blog, Nerds with Aprons.
Well, with that big meal soon to occur I have been trying to scurry and get all my other little things done so I don't feel SO overwhelmed :) This included making a shopping trip to Costco to get items to make a trail mix for snacks and lunches. Yes, I know I could buy a bunch of pre-mixed stuff. And yes, I know they're just as available at Costco as the individual ingredients. However, I actually have a great time putting my own mix together and changing it up. I doubt whether it's healthier (except maybe lower in sodium depending on what I add into it) but it makes me feel good. So I do it. This time I made 4 batches of my homemade granola, which I have put in earlier posts. I did omit the nuts in the recipe since I'd be adding lots of them into the trail mix. After shopping for almost, peanuts, M&Ms (everyone needs a little chocolate in their lives), and raisins I set up my assembly line. I lined up the nuts with a 1 oz serving scoop (aka shot glass), a spoon for the granola, digital scale, and a small scoop for the candy. I grabbed my snack bags and I was ready to start the magic. With each snack bag of trail mix I created with 1 serving of each ingredient, and ended up with 4 3/4 oz trail mix bags. Since I was using a scale to be consistent I could rely on my math and was able to calculate that with the total cost of the ingredients and the 44 trail mix bags I ended up with, each only cost 76 cents! David kept commenting on how happy I looked, and I had to then explain how much FUN I find putting things like this together and figuring out the breakdown. I know, I'm odd. I'm okay with it :)

Top Restaurant Picks

Spice Island – Burmese fare, Oakland area

·         Liang and I were walking around the Oakland area a little while ago and decided that it was time to introduce me to Spice Island. I had never been there but she had told me a lot about it. I was intrigued to try some new things, but we couldn’t decide on one dish to order. So, instead we ordered lunch size dishes of multiple things. One I want to make note of is the Mango Pork – WOW that was delicious. The Mahinga soup (fish soup)  was good, and we also got some samosas and a garden salad. Everything was tasty, serving sizes were nice. This was a neat little place to eat at and I definitely recommend them.

The Porch – Bistro style place, Oakland

·         David and I came to first eat at this place a while ago when after church we had an hour to kill before the library opened and it was really cold out. Seeing this new place we thought it was a fancy coffee shop so we figured it’d be nice to go get some hot chocolate while we wait. We walked in and it was so homey and the waitstaff so friendly we just couldn’t leave once we realized it was a restaurant. Their crispy taters and curried ketchup was delicious. Normally I hate ketchup, but this was new and very different. While it’s a little pricey for brunch, the dinner prices are good for dinner sized entrees that you get. If you’re looking for a nice night out I recommend this place for sure, and if you just want to do brunch it’s still good but it’s a little more expensive.