the best part of being home for the holidays: playing the piano for hours on end, taking alarm-free naps at 2pm, 4pm and 8pm (darn jet lag), and spending time in the kitchen with my mother, whose knowledge of tried-and-true classic chinese pastry recipes is impossible to exhaust.

living with French, Indian and Taiwanese flatmates makes for tons of fun.  as none of them but me have ever carved pumpkins before, we set out on this ultimate halloween experience mission.  i was the teacher by default, being the only north american of the bunch.  although we had no special carving tools, we were armed with fruit and butter knives, and our various backgrounds as architects and landscape architects.  fun was had by one and all.

naturally, i had to make a pumpkin mate for pocket ninja.

and of course, i cleaned and toasted the pumpkin seeds the next day.  i tossed them just with olive oil and sea salt -- simple and yummy.  it takes about 30 minutes to eat a handful, so it should last us well into next year.

seems that we skipped summer this year and went straight to fall, really the eternal season in the bay area.  can't believe it's almost november already.  happy halloween one and all.

my last weekend, jumped on a BART from sunny berkeley...

to a greyish millbrae, at the end of the line, right by san francisco international airport...

...to attend an empanada class with my sister, where we embarked on making three different Argentinian empanadas: spinach and mushroom, chicken and leeks, and beef and onions

behold one of my empanadas, fresh and hot out of the oven

argentinian empanada crust is thin but not too crispy, baked to gold in the oven.  quite lovely and this went into my stomach within a few minutes.

back at my sister and brother-in-law's, visited Miles, their newest member of the family, and presented him with a new toy from me

the next morning, hopped on a train from millbrae

passing foggy san francisco

back to sunny berkeley