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Dinner in Yuppieville

Cheesy plastic tablecloths at fine-dining establishments make me swoon.

Casanova in Carmel, Calif.

And so my birthday happened

I started to panic Tuesday night, thinking I’m running out of 20-something birthdays and I’ve been much too sober for most of ‘em, so I grabbed a date and trekked out at the stroke of midnight to my favorite bar.

I ordered “one chocolate birthday milkshake, please.” And wouldn’tchaknowit, the guys came back with candlelit ice-cream slop.

Raw! Vegan! New Year’s Day dinner

“I don’t like raw tomatoes on my salad,” he says. “How about yours? Should I cook yours a bit?”

I sighed. “She would not cook her tomatoes.”

“Kristen?”

I’m subscribed to hundreds of cooking blogs, most of which regularly feature things like beef stews or cream-cheese frosting. I don’t remember how Kristen’s blog on raw foods made it into my RSS, but it became one of my favorites in 2009. I brought her sun-dried tomato pesto dip to Thanksgiving dinner and everyone loved it.

Thanksgibbin’ dinner for two

The window looks kinda rustic, doesn’t it? like maybe it’d been snowing these last few days?

It hit the mid-70s here, actually; the beach was crowded.