Birthdays that is. The idea to do a COZY birthday potluck at Marissa’s house for her birthday was supposed to happen in March. If I remember correctly there were a lot of complicated travel schedules to juggle and long story short fast forward to July and voila! The party actually happened!

POTLUCK IS THE WAY TO GO!!!

Leslie brought fresh pea and mint and roasted eggplant crostini and a green salad. Elizabeth made an gooey and decadent macaroni and cheese, Marissa furnished the vino and Karen spoiled us all at the end with an amazing Key Lime tart.

It was a great reunion with huge tart slices, lots of laughs (of course!) and I’m pretty sure we won’t wait till next year to do it again.

These two snugglebugs did not always love each other. Frankie is the newly adopted Siamese-ish kitty belonging to my sister Lisa and Neil.
Infiltrating her into the household is always a big deal, especially with other adult cats. Lots of hissing and evil stares!

But as you can see, it pays to remain patient as Nero here seems to have – shall we say” embraced” Frankie both literally and figuratively! This looks like one super cozy cat nap!

Now if the others would just get with the program. What was that we were saying about patience?!!!

Blast from the Past! Thats what happened when old Rob/May friend Safia ran into old Rob/May model Lonni at Target. Girls lunch ensued and one of a million conversations was who was on facebook/Twitter etc. After Leslie touted Marc as Mr. Social Media Lonni Paul of Lonni Paul Designs requested a tutorial session so she could make sure she was up with all the latest business networking trends. Check it out!

I think Lonni learned a lot of new stuff that night and 99% of it VERY easy! Marc even prepared some take home notes – even he knows not everyone can remember all that technical “stuff”…

Well, maybe not all of it was super easy and it did take a little explaining – in fact this looks like one of Oprah’s AHA moments!

Lonni hard at work – upandcoming a blog on her new website AND…

Lonni soon to be seen on Design Star on HGTV

Now got to HGTV DESIGN STAR and VOTE FOR LONNI! Show premiers Sunday July 19th, get a season pass!

Social Media Seminars soon to be given at Chez Weldon (that’s just our house) check back for details!

Chicken that is! Courtesy of my sister Lisa who along with her husband Neil can have lunch or dinner South of France style anytime they want by having a rotisserie on their grill!

Lisa said she stuffed the cavity of this beautiful organic chicken with a big bunch of rosemary and some garlic and a couple of minutes per poun, a bottle of chilled rose….

a salad with arugula and fresh tomatoes…don’t forget the bagette and voila, you’ve got a meal worthy of the South of France!

This is simple, delicious eating and you can bet my next grill is having a rotisserie!!!
Bon Appetit!

Do you have any idea how good blueberries really are for you? I read a recent article that called them the plaque remover for the brain! Super high in antioxidents who needs more convining than that?

Not to mention all the fabulous things you can make with them…

and

This recipe comes courtesey of Cookie from the great website Tastespotting.

Watercress and Wild Italian Arugula Salad with Blueberries and Feta
For 2
—
1/2 cup blueberries, washed and destemmed
Handful of the watercress, washed and dried
Handful of baby arugula or other baby greens
2 slices of goat milk feta (No crumbles, David. Crumbles are for salad bars.)

Citrus Vinagrette
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1 lime
Zest of lemon and lime
1/3 cup olive oil
In goodly sized bowl, combine the mustard and the citrus juice. Whisk in the olive oil. Add the garlic, shallot and zest. Cover and refrigerate for 20 mins.

Toss the greens and the blueberries with 2 or 3 tablespoons of the vinagrette (well coated, but not soggy and dripping). Plate and top with the slice of feta. Serve as a first course with prosecco on the patio bedecked with wooden furniture.

Wow, Cozy re-defined! and I have to admit, probably my new favorite place!

Actually, I haven’t ever been to this bar but it sure looks cool and I mean they do open at 6am so who needs the gym before work when you can have a drink!!!!

Breakfast of champions!

This Cozy Bar comes courtesy of Miriam, a girl after my own heart, who someday will have to tell us all about it! Go Miriam!

Maybe this word is a bit ridiculous but the concept is downright Cozy! For this 4th of July Marc and I decided to take a staycation. This meant escaping the horrific firework bombardment that goes on in our neighborhood and renting a comfy hotel room 10 minutes from our house in downtown LA!

We got a deal at the Marriot on Figueroa – ok, not the most fabulous hotel on earth, but we got a great weekend deal of $99 plus parking $30 – a very fluffy king bed – sans felines – a long bathtub and blackout curtains and we were happy!

The best part was being downtown and seeing all the new places that have opened. Funny thing was that on that day there happened to be a convention of what we found out to be “Random Animae”. The streets were crawling with every creature you could imagine, words can hardly describe what we saw ranging from Star Trek-ish, to ghoulish to punk school girl etc. Finally stopped this girl in a head to toe patent jumpsuit with elevator shoes and she said she was from a punk band in Japan and told us about the Random Animae. We thought this was a riot and went around saying this new phrase all night…!

We wanted to have drink at Chaya and check out the super-groovy chandelier but they were closed. Probably just as well as we made it to our dinner reservation at Rivera just in time!. We did a lot of research on all the new restaurants downtown and this one’s reviews blew us away. We were not disappointed!

INCREDIBLY CREATIVE LATIN CUSINE! The guys sitting next to us were 2 food bloggers/ engineers and photographed their entire meal (which was about 10 courses!). A stuffed pepper appetizer…

THE MOST AMAZING $2 SOUP EVER! Not sure why they only charge $2 for this amazing double layered shot glass soup – on the top layer a rich delicious hot lobster bisque and below, a cool fennel green apple. Genius!

MY MAIN COURSE; A “simple” roasted chicken breast…!

Marc’s halibut came with artwork delivered through the use of vegetables. Delicious!

Crema Catalan and strong!!!! coffee afterwards…(nice touch of sugared almonds on top, yum!)

is this why Marc didn’t sleep very well???

Part of the building next door

Don’t forget to look up!

A cruise through the Nokia Center plaza…

On the side of a building, getting ready for Tuesday….

Breakfast the next day at Bottega Louie, more coffee please!!!

Marc’s ham and gruyure frittata

Like on the streets of Paris!

Fantastic market too!

I’ll have one of each!

And for something a little sweet

Or a box of something to go, who can resist!

A little walk around downtown and then the temp began to climb. Time to go home – wow, it would take us all of 10 minutes!
What a great little weekend away, we’ll have to do it again!