I really didn’t have a chance to post from California, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

My luggage eventually did arrive, but not before it took a detour to San Diego and then LAX. Unfortunately, somewhere in that detour, the TSA opened it up and rearranged the contents in such a way that the delicate piece of woodwork I brought out to show folks at Stanford was right next to a hard plastic thing and got scratched. Not so fun.

Laura and I cooked a bunch while I was out there, including several recipes from The Herbfarm Cookbook. Especially good were the roast chicken (we used lemon thyme with it), herb-marinated leg of lamb, and toasted coriander mashed potatoes. I ended up shopping several times at Berkeley’s two fantastic produce markets, the Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market.

We went out on Saturday night with a group of friends to Oliveto in Oakland and enjoyed some great food. Highly recommended are the scallops, bucatini alla carbonara, and especially the pear crostata. Overall, I ate very well this trip.

My visit to Stanford was good, too – I got a chance to meet with some of the faculty, I chatted with lots of students, I sat in on a few classes (including one with the inventor of the laptop), and saw what they had to offer. Overall, I was really impressed with the Joint Program in Design.