The Good Life

Best of Modesto – Barkin Dog Grill

September 1, 2010

Whenever we move to a new place, our first order of business is to scope out the best places to eat. Six years ago when we first moved to Modesto, I somehow ended up with a brochure featuring local restaurants. We picked one from the list that looked promising, but when we went to find it, it had gone out of business. Instead, we found Barkin Dog Grill down the street and decided to give it a try. Total serendipity.

The food here is so excellent that I’ve been here three times since embarking on my Best of Modesto project, and I’ve forgotten to take pictures every time. This place is our family’s favorite restaurant because they feature the best hamburgers we’ve ever had (and that is not an exaggeration, Bear keeps a list), but they also feature creative sandwiches with fancy dressings that satisfy my cravings for frilly food. And their tomato soup is creamy and spicy and totally heavenly. And the onion rings! And the sweet potato fries! I could really just post the menu and put exclamation points by everything.

But as great as the food is, and that really can’t be underestimated, what really makes this place special is the service. This is the kind of place where Hanibal, the owner, greets you by name with a handshake or a hug, and kisses your baby while the server has a table set up with a high chair waiting for you and brings you “your usual.”

This is the kind of place that changes where you’re living into a hometown.

Barkin Dog Grill
940 11th St.
Modesto, CA 95354
209-572-2341

Filed Under: The Good Life

2010 Year of Pleasures #35

August 31, 2010

Orange soda isn’t something I make a habit of keeping around the house, but with our work at church we’ve been hosting some teenage kid parties at the house. We had leftover ice cream and leftover soda, so Bear came up with this brilliant bit of synchronicity.

An orange soda float. It’s like drinking a delicious melted orange creamsicle. It brought back all kinds of memories of chasing through the neighborhood on our bikes searching for the ice cream man, the sun so hot our jellie shoes would start to melt.

Filed Under: Stuff I Cook, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

Walking in the sunshine

August 26, 2010

I’ve had a lot of post going out over the last couple of weeks, so I’ve found myself needing to go to the post office twice a week. Normally this is a chore I leave up to Bear. After a couple horrifyingly memorable experiences trying to steer a stroller through those lines of velvet ropes weaving back and forth, or trying to juggle a baby, packages, keys and other paraphernalia, I decided that going to the post office was a job for Bear.

But now that we moved we live within walking distance to the post office, so when Bear had a super busy day and I had some mail that had to had to had to get out, I put on my big girl pants and womaned up.

I rarely take Atticus on walks, mainly because I am usually unshowered, in my pajamas, and not looking for one more thing to fit into a day. Our version of outside time is to lay on a blanket in the backyard and hope that the neighbors won’t judge me if they noticed I haven’t changed my clothes in a few days.

But I had something that had to get done, so I tossed him in the stroller and beat feet.

It was totally charming. I couldn’t help but notice what a relief it was to take a stroll in the sunshine with my favorite little guy, him shouting “Whee!” every time we went over a curb. We talked about trees and birds and cars and I found my shoulders straightening and the corners of my mouth lifting with every step.

It was so much fun it might actually entice me out of my pajamas on a regular basis.

Filed Under: Atticus, mama musings, The Good Life

A special cake for our special friends

August 20, 2010

The last time we were living here in Modesto, our friends Jeff and Sherry Vail practically adopted us. We’re friends with their daughters, we come to the family birthday parties, we’ve met the grandparents. We’re tight. So when Jeff asked us to make something special for Sherry’s 50th birthday party, we jumped at the chance.

The timing was a little less than ideal. The last week of June saw me feverishly preparing all the papers I delivered at my big conference, canning pounds and pounds of green tomatoes, and crafting Sherry’s entire family out of sugar. I was a big fat stressball. But I couldn’t turn anything down, I wanted to do it all too much.

Jeff and Sherry are super into backpacking, so we thought we’d make them a mountain with the family hiking behind her. The last few times I’ve tried to make fondant figurines were total disasters, so I was a little nervous, but this time I discovered the secret – edible glue.

There are magic powders you can buy all over the internet, but the stuff I used is made by Wilton (which means you may be able to find it at Michaels occasionally) and is called Gum-Tex. I mixed 1/2 a tsp into a cup of water, shook it up and then let it dissolve to create a clear glue. You can also mix this into sugar or gum paste if you need to soften it.

Bear baked the cake and filled it with a strawberry whipped cream, then iced it with buttercream and covered it with fondant.

The nice part of making a mountain cake is that sloppy fondant work only looks more like rock, so we got to just plop the fondant on top and not worry about making anything smooth anywhere. We used sanding sugar to make a trail, piped a little grass here and there, and rolled up fondant to look like rocks.

We’re getting better at this cake decorating thing every time we do it, but we still have so very much to learn. I managed, through loads of edible glue and toothpicks pinning everything together, to succeed in making some figurines, but there has got to be a better way of doing it. With all the attention on these fancy cake shops, I wish someone would write a book about how to do some of these things.

Filed Under: Stuff I Cook, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

2010 Year of Pleasures #33

August 17, 2010

One of the great things about trips to Utah is getting to go to thrift and used book stores and pick up some amazing books for nothing, and not have to pay big shipping costs.

Outside of the “Mormon belt” of Utah, Arizona and Idaho, it can be really tough to find great books on Mormon topics. Especially older ones. So my first day in town I made sure to stock up and I got some fabulous things for a total steal.

New books, and a bargain. This should count as two yearly pleasures.

Filed Under: Matters of Faith, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

2010 Year of Pleasures #32

August 14, 2010

When I bought the picture frames for my new koala prints, I was also buying a whole bunch of mailing envelopes (and sparkly nail polish, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the story).

The bagger carefully handled my picture frames, using the padded envelopes as packing material to keep them all safe. I was so surprised by his conscientiousness and creativity that I blurted out, “Wow! Great idea! Good job!” like I was his kindergarten teacher or something.

But it really was a great job. And it made me happy.

Filed Under: The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

Living the Single Life

August 12, 2010

If some all powerful person were to come to me and say, OK Tresa, you have 4 days that are all your own. How would you like to spend them? I don’t know that I would have much to add to how my trip actually panned out. My week in Utah was rejuvenating on every level. I stayed, all by myself as it turned out, in the most gorgeous condo I’ve ever seen. A condo with incredible interior design and a view of the city to die for. I got in late Tuesday night, and the first thing I did was take a long bath with a good book.

The conference didn’t start until Wednesday night, so I had a whole day in the city to myself. I slept in as late as I could, took my time getting ready, then took a walk downtown to meet my sister for lunch at a fantastic bakery where I got a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich with caramelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes, and took an enormous box of pastries back to the condo. Then it started raining. There is very little better than the smell of rain hitting dry concrete. Smells like home to me.

We made our way to a nearby used bookstore, where they happened to be selling a bible owned by Joseph Smith (for a measly 1.5 million.) Typically the bible is kept under glass, but we walked in right when news crews arrived so we got to watch as the owner of the store turned through the pages to show us a better view.

We ran back to my sister’s house to pick up the kids and get a quick visit with them. They are so my sister’s children. Free spirits, funny, unabashed love bombs.

Then the luxurious vacation part of my trip ended, and it was time to get to work. I spent the next three days engaged in intense conversation with some of the greatest minds and biggest hearts I have ever even heard of. It is so rewarding to come to a place full of such incredible people and be so thoroughly appreciated. I am so grateful to discover this online community of people wrestling with the faith we share with their whole might mind and strength. It is inspiring, and challenges me to keep doing more. Striving to be more honest in my head and in my heart, and more accepting of all the different roads we all walk.

I am so happy to be home and craving every chance I can get to nestle together in the arms of my family. Going away is wonderful, but it always reminds me how happy I am with what I have.

Filed Under: Matters of Faith, Mushy Love Stuff, The Good Life

2010 Year of Pleasures #31

August 11, 2010

For as thoroughly team oriented as Bear and I are, he doesn’t show up on the blog much. And that is by conscious choice. I am greedy with him. I have very few personal boundaries, I’ve posted about everything from my near-death experience to my bowel functions, but him? He’s just for me.

He is such a good father, so engaged with his son. Such a supportive partner to me.

When I was in Utah, my sister gave me some old pictures, and this one was from our first year together.

Mr. Preppy Zach Morris married Ms. 90’s Grunge rock. We’re still pretty opposite, but instead of making us fight, somehow those differences just fit together. I think we’re better parents, better people, better partners because we make it work. And when one of us melts down and yells at everyone in the room because the computer breaks, the other is around to pick up the pieces until it’s their turn to melt down.

Happy 11 year anniversary Bear. I love you.

Filed Under: Mushy Love Stuff, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

2010 Year of Pleasures #30

July 27, 2010

Every time I open up my bathroom cupboard I think, “I have got to take a picture of my stash of body wash.” And then I go about my day and meanwhile the stash dwindles and dwindles and dwindles. Now that I’ve gone through half of it, I can’t put it off any longer.

I have to put together more than my share of gift baskets. Nursing homes are really big on celebrating all those office holidays – Nursing Week, Secretary Day, that kind of thing – so I usually get drafted in to put something together that has strict budget constraints and has to satisfy a whole bunch of different people. So I head to Bath and Body Works.

On one of those gift bag trips I came across a whole table in the back with these Foam Burst body washes on super super discount. Like, $2 each discount, because they were being discontinued. I literally grabbed a bag and swiped the whole table in.

When you squirt a bit in your hand, it foams up just like shaving gel. It’s fantastic to shave with, but it’s also just wonderful as soap with that creamy lather. I can’t get enough of this stuff. I’m hoping and hoping that it was just temporarily discontinued to make room for something new and it will come back. Hopefully just before my stash runs out.

Filed Under: The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

2010 Year of Pleasures #29

July 20, 2010

A new Thai place opened up not far from our house, and I have had Bear stop in for Mango Sticky Rice a couple nights a week ever since I first tried it. I’m obsessed.

I tell myself it’s healthy. It’s healthy, right? Fruit, coconut milk, rice, healthy. Yeah?

No wait, don’t tell me.

Filed Under: The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

Best of Modesto – Barkin Dog Grill

2010 Year of Pleasures #35

Walking in the sunshine

A special cake for our special friends

2010 Year of Pleasures #33

2010 Year of Pleasures #32

Living the Single Life

2010 Year of Pleasures #31

2010 Year of Pleasures #30

2010 Year of Pleasures #29

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