Lunch with friends 02-02-13

Yesterday my friends Carol Bednar and Teresa Malinowski went with me to San Diego to see the "Brainstorms" exhibit at Visions Art Museum.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day - sunny and in the low 70s.  And it was an easy drive down - nice to be able to use the carpool lane since there were three of us in the car. 

I gave my docent tour, which Carol and Teresa seemed to enjoy.  I'm always surprised that no matter how many times I looked at the quilts I discover something I haven't noticed before.  There are some wonderful pieces and three of them have been sold.  The exhibit closes on Sunday, Feb 17th.  If you haven't seen it yet I hope you can squeeze in a visit. 

Then we went to lunch at Solare, which is in the same block as VAM.  It has changed owners and I am still  not sure it is my favorite restaurant, but it comes close.  I have a problem with the very heavy cologne worn by some of the waiters - interesting that the waitresses don't douse themselves.


Carol had beet soup that we expected to be cold, but it was hot.  I, of course, had to have a taste on the tip of my knife, and thought it was delicious - so did Carol and Teresa.
 

Carol followed this with a salad of different colored beets with with greens and shaved Parmesan.
 

Teresa ordered a pear/Gorgonzola salad which looked marvelous.
 

I couldn't resist the salmon with caper sauce and veggies - perfectly cooked, delicious.
 

Teresa and I both have a "sweet tooth" so we decided to share two desserts.  This is the out-of-sight chocolate torte with semifreddo (basically it is wonderfully rich ice cream).  The chocolate was like fudge - m-m-m-m-m-m.
 

This sphere is also semifreddo with a filling of raspberry and a light coating of cookie crumbs.   I can't remember what it was called on the menu - not a word I have ever seen.

  I checked with Solare and found that their name for this spherical desert is "Sfera".  I believe they have named it after this sculpture:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfera_con_Sfera

 

 

Cutting it open reveals the raspberry heart.  The semifreddo was different in this, more like frozen mousse than ice cream.  I think this is one of the best desserts I have had in quite a long time. 

 

We headed north on I-5 and stopped at Oceanside Museum of Art to visit the Quilt National quilts on display there.   This exhibit ends on Feb. 10th.   There are some extraordinary quilts in this section of QNational.  I especially enjoyed Elizabeth Brimelow's "Rook Road", so original and so beautiful.  Heide Stoll-Weber's " King Lake 3: Ghost Trees" is also awesome.  And ....  well, I like a lot of the quilts that are currently hanging at QMA.   I hope you get a chance to see them. 

 

Carol, Teresa and I are in the Book Group, so we spend some of the drive time talking books which makes the drive go much faster.  It is about two hours each way.  We were home about 6:30pm.