Anticipation

The kitchen has come a long way in the last week. Cabinets are in, pullout racks are installed, and the countertop template has been made for the granite. The soffits have been built as well. Ed will be back next week to work on the walls some more. At some point the trim work will be done so that we can paint, although we don't know what color to use. My feeling is that we should wait until the granite is in, decide on a tile design for the backsplash, and then choose paint colors. The floor will take about a week from what our contractor described to us, taking into account the time it takes for the finish applications to fully dry.

Here are the most recent pictures:




Note the pullout racks on the two tall utility cabinets. The refrigerator will go in the space between them. The range will go on the back wall. The sink will be under the window, and the dishwasher will be to the left of the sink.

The feel of the room has really changed. It is open and inviting now, and there is so much more storage space. We were discussing how wonderful it will be to make Thanksgiving dinner in our new kitchen this fall. I can hardly wait to get in there and start cooking.

Nate had a great time at Tim's house. We picked him up Friday evening. They swam, rode bikes, played in the yard, and played miniature golf. Other than his sinuses bothering him, he seems no worse for the wear. It is much hotter in Sacramento than it is here, and we were wondering how he would do in the heat. I think it bothered him at first, but he did ok in the end. Being in the pool helped a lot I think. He's glad to be home, back in his own bed. He helped Tom wash the truck today, and was amazed at the amount of work that had been done on the kitchen in the 2 days that he was gone.

Tom and I had dinner at Suppenkueche on Thursday night. Suppenkueche is a restaurant in San Francisco that serves Southern German/Bavarian food. They also have an outstanding selection of German beers. The atmosphere is noisy and cosy. People are seated family-style around large wooden tables, and so you end up eating and drinking with people you don't know, which can be lots of fun. The Sillmans are originally from the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) region of Germany, and the food served at Suppenkueche is pretty similar to many dishes I enjoyed growing up in Ohio. While waiting at the bar for a table to become available, we enjoyed large glasses of dark-brown beer. I had the Erdinger dark hefeweizen, and Tom had an Altbier, which was a little lighter in color than my beer. Once we were seated, we had potato pancakes for an appetizer. These were soft in the middle, with crispy grated potato on the outside, and were served with applesauce. Tom had the bratwurst, which came with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut (of course). I had pork cooked in beer sauce, which came with kraut and a bread dumpling (sort of like poultry stuffing). Everything was delicious--the pork was tender and succulent. I have never eaten pork that tased like that. The dumpling was soft and flavorful, and was very useful for soaking up the beer sauce. The sauerkraut was amazing as well. It was as good as the kraut my mom makes on New Years Day! That is a high complement...whenever we find a restaurant that serves German food, I have the kraut, in hopes that it will be as good as my mom's. I am usually disappointed. In most restaurants, even when the other food is good, the kraut tends to be lackluster. Maybe people don't care enough about kraut because it's "just" a side dish. Or, maybe most people don't like kraut anyway, so the chef doesn't bother trying to make it properly. But the kraut at Suppenkueche is excellent, the atmosphere and the rest of the food is authentic. We will definitely be back. We couldn't eat all of our entrees, so we got a takeaway box. We finished off what was left at dinner today. I got to eat Tom's kraut, since he doesn't like it. :-) Good stuff.