On Saturday, we invited some friends over for our first ever (maybe the first ever?) ravioli party. The new pasta machine was the inspiration, and the idea was simple. We’d provide the machine, the pasta dough, and more red wine than you can shake a stick at, and anyone who came would bring something they’ve dreamed about having stuffed inside ravioli.

We had no idea if people would take to the idea. We had no experience even making ravioli, having used the machine only once before. Amazingly as people showed up, they went right to the kitchen, chopping, sauteeing, preparing their respective fillings. How great, I thought, I can just sit back and sip wine all night. Ha!

Actually I had a lot of fun. Once the fillings were ready and our core group had showed up, I began the ravioli production process (with lots of assistance). We’d knead and then flatten the dough through the pasta machine into sheets about 24 inches long and 4 wide. We’d cut that into two separate foot long sheets, placing the filling on half of the sheet in little teaspoon sized balls, and then folding the sheet lengthwise to seal and cut into individual raviolis. Each foot long sheet made about 5-6 raviolis, so we’d do about 4 sheets of each filling to make sure everyone got at least 2. After a quick boil, I’d sauce them with either homemade marinara or pesto. And repeat.

By the end of the night we’d made 6 courses of ravioli, with 4 batches of dough (16 eggs!), including a final improvised dessert course. Here was the menu:

1. Duck and portobello mushroom with plum sauce
2. Shrimp, pine nuts, and mushroom with marinara
3. White asparagus, caramelized onions, and truffled goat cheese with creamy pesto
4. Zucchini, prosciutto, dry ricotta, and basil with marinara
5. Sun-dried tomato pesto and aged cheese with marinara and pesto
6. Raspberry and mascarpone with chocolate praliné sauce

What can I say? It would have been spaghetti with marinara sauce without everyone’s creative fillings. Thank you all. Here are some pictures that I (and others) managed to take in between batches:

Last weekend we went camping (for the first time with our own gear), but I didn’t have a chance to mention it since discovering on Monday that my blog had been hacked.

Around noon on Saturday our co-worker Pamela and her 2 year old son picked up me, Stephanie, and Marcia, plus all of our stuff, and we started down the peninsula towards Portola Redwoods State Park. Had fun trying to find ice anywhere along the remote Skyline Drive, but eventually did and made it to our campsite around 4.

Set up our tent for the first time (the yellow one on the left, N.B. Stephanie really likes setting up tents). Assembled Pamela’s super sweet grill. Unloaded a lot of food. Started a fire. Entertained Pamela’s son. We were camping!

The food above included teriyaki salmon, mustard chicken, parmesan sausages, asparagus, mushrooms, and salad. Marcia probably said it best when she described camping as a big cookout—where you sleep outdoors at the end. Yep that pretty much sums it up. I still haven’t quite learned how to sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag comfortably, but something tells me it probably involves eating and drinking less.

The weather was terrific, I was in shorts and short-sleeves until midnight, sitting by the dying fire. We got an up close and personal visit from a raccoon who caught the scent of the remains of our awesome meal on the grill. We finished up the night with marshmallows, chocolate, and a bottle of Port.

After a breakfast of bacon and eggs the next morning, we packed things up and went out for a hike to the tiptoe falls. Pamela was doing double duty with a sometimes sleeping son on her back.

I think we were out for a good 3 miles, with a lot of ups and downs and of course tall trees.

More photos thanks to Marcia and Pamela.

Here’s Kathleen and Abe all gussied up for their wedding.

Beforehand we met up with Christy and Patrick for a little caffeine to ensure we’d make it through the night.

This is actually the best picture of me and Stephanie from the weekend.

There were a ton of people I knew from SILS at this thing. It’s crazy how many made it out. I’m really glad I came.

Jean and Dave were there. This wedding brought back memories of theirs two years ago, on the weekend before I left Chapel Hill for California. Charles and Owen were there, just about to move to Philadelphia. I had no idea Jesse and Rebecca were going to be there. They just got married like two months ago and are living in NYC. Of course Christy and Patrick were there. Jackson and Erica were there and looking hip. The new and improved Carlie was rocking it. Meg and Josh had flown in from their new digs in Boston. Tim was there. Thank you for bringing the sounds of Hell to Carrboro. And last but not least, Todd and Niamh had flown in from Chicago.

As weddings go, this one was pretty cool. It made me happy to see their personalities shining through. Some details are worth noting. Catering was by the excellent Acme. Dinner was before the ceremony. Abe and Kathleen’s “first dance” was a choreographed hip hop duet to Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.” I shit you not. It was pretty much the awesomest thing ever. My chin was on the floor. The whole time. I will post a link here when it shows up on YouTube. Update: Kathleen & Abe: the wedding video. The “wedding cake” was a pyramid of cupcakes. They had gourmet popsicles from Locopops.

At some point after midnight, the core group of revelers (me and Stephanie included) made their way to the OCSC, sitting out back just chilling with a drink. Catching up. Giving Abe and Kathleen a chance to hang with friends. It just felt…right.

On Sunday I got a visit from Alice and her man Mike. I’ve known Alice since I was a sophomore at UNC. Which is actually quite a bit of time, though it doesn’t feel like it.

I’d never met Mike, and she’d never met Stephanie, and she was serious about spending the day with us to remedy that. I think we got a voicemail at 7:30am (I don’t know, I was sleeping), and another call at 9am just as I was getting out of bed. They’d spent the night in San Mateo after arriving at SFO, and had driven up the East Bay and down into the city via the Golden Gate Bridge that morning. They came over about an hour later, and we walked down to Cafe de la Presse for some breakfast and some catching up.

From there we strolled through Chinatown looking (unsuccessfully) for a backpack to coordinate with Stephanie’s scooter. I made sure we stopped at the Cable Car Museum on Washington and Mason because it is radical.

From there we walked all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. We did the crab stand thing for lunch, and then meandered over to Pier 39 to watch the sea lions. There were lots! Lots like several hundred, and many pups. Afterwards we did a 3D simulated rollercoaster ride (something I’d never done before) of a haunted mine, before splitting to let them explore and let us rest.

I met up with Alice and Mike later (Stephanie had dance class), and we caught a ferry to Alcatraz. Got some nice pics as we approached the island and circled it to reach the docs on the far side. I thought it quite photogenic for an island fortress-cum-prison.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect as far as the tour experience. Turns our we had a nice guide bring us from the docks up the hill to the top of the island. He told us “alcatraz” was spanish for pelican, but as far as he could remember, he’d never seen a pelican on the island. There were however thousands of sea birds who make Alcatraz their home.

Once inside the prison, we were processed, which meant receiving an audio unit around our necks. The audio-guided tour was excellent. In particular, the background sound quality was eerily evocative of being in the operational prison. When the prisoners were all making a racket because something was going on, I felt the urge to join in the hoot ‘n hollerin’. It was narrated by an actual Alcatraz guard who led us down the various corridors discussing the history and escape attempts that were made.

Of course it was getting late and the time zone difference was wearing on our east coasters, so we made tracks to their hotel, met back up with Stephanie, and had a lovely dinner at Panta Rei in North Beach.

Yesterday afternoon, Joy and Kyle invited some friends over for a Kentucky Derby party. Kyle’s from Kentucky…or is it Tennessee? In any case, we were there to watch some horses race around a track for 2 minutes. They provided the KFC, we brought some fruit, the girls wore hats. Street Sense won the day, though I was really pulling for Nobiz like Showbiz (or Nobizzy as we call him in the hood).

Afterwards we went outside in the warm Petaluma sun and threw some horseshoes, which only occurred to me now was entirely appropriate. I risked life and limb for these killer action shots:

Stephanie made sure to get some DDR in, Kyle has two plywood reinforced pads connected to his XBOX, and he can actually “play” across both of them—a sight to be seen for sure. Stephanie and Kyle went head-to-head several times, though it was Kyle who cleaned up.

Finally we watched a few YouTube videos through Kyle’s hacked XBOX (which was pretty radical). The whole time I was looking for a video I’d seen that morning of 2000+ stop motion photos taken from midnight til 10:30am that this guy made into a movie. The only problem—I couldn’t remember the exact number of photos he used (which is what he named it!). In any event, here ya go: 2388 photos.

As an aside: how amazing was it to be watching user-created content on a TV at a party? We didn’t want to watch actual broadcast network TV, we wanted to share 2-3 minute clips that one or more of us had seen before. Ask a Ninja. Robot Chicken. Beatboxing flautists. This is the future of interactive TV.