I know, I know- I’ve been really bad with updating this blog, especially after I said that I’d start posting stuff again after the New Year of this year. A lot of reasons why I haven’t been coming here– for starters, I don’t feel right about writing about indulgences of $25 eye shadows and fancy dinners when so many people are struggling right now in this dark economy we’re facing.  Hearing stories about people losing their jobs and homes just makes me feel bad.  So my enthusiasm for writing about “must-have” luxury indulgences has been dwindling.  And my life isn’t all about spas, make-up and fine dining.  I have a lot of other things going on and many of my interests and developing interests are actually not related at all to the topics I write about here.  And I’ve been wondering if I should have a new focus to my blog altogether.  Life has been keeping me very busy, so for the time being, I’ve decided to put Indulge Thyself on hiatus for now. I have another blog, a personal blog separate from this one, where I explain in further detail about what I’ve been up to. So if you want the URL to that, you can shoot me a private email via the contact form.

It’s possible that when you come back in a few months or so, all this would be gone.  Or the site would have gone through some minor remodeling or a 180 remodeling.  Or the domain would still exist, but it would have been purchased by someone else and the content would be completely out of my hands. I’ve been fortunate to meet some cool people who have been supportive of this site, and I want to thank you again for your kind notes.  But at this time,I have some other things I need to take care of.

Take care, and be well, everyone!

Until the next time you hear from me (if there’s a next time),         Cynthia

I’m writing to let y’all know that I’m taking a short break from posting here this month. No, I’m not going anywhere (I wish!). This month, I’d still be clocking in at my day job and when I’m home, I’d be working on my blog at my laptop. It’s just that I’m going to look at making some small changes to this blog, and that would occupy a fair amount of time. So no new posts for this month. I just wanted to thank everyone for visiting Indulge Thyself this year, and I hope you will stop by again in January 2009 after the New Year. In the meanwhile….Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa!….And remember the holidays are really about being able to spend quality time with loved ones.

On our way home, we stopped in Santa Rosa and checked out the Kendall-Jackson Winery. More wine tastings I couldn’t participate in, sigh. But my mates would occasionally hand me their glasses so I could at least get a whiff of the stuff. My favorite whiff was of Kendall-Jackson’s Late Harvest Chardonnay 2006- this dessert wine smelled like honey and peaches. People from my group picked up a bunch of this chardonnay from the store.

There was a garden tour that occurred a few times a day. To prep us for the tour, each of us were given a glass of wine to take with us. Yay-more wine I couldn’t indulge in. But without the wine, I still enjoyed the garden tour. The “garden” was a miniature farm, certainly not some alley-way back yard. There were walnuts all over the garden- they’d fallen from the walnut trees. Wency collected a bunch of walnuts and put them into a Ziploc bag. We also saw okra, beets, leeks, strawberries, eggplants, olives, gooseberries, and of course lots and lots of grapes. We spotted herbs such as thyme and even echinacea. After seeing all this garden produce, we thought that the winery must have some sort of café or restaurant tucked away somewhere where they rinsed off the dirt and cooked the food. So we asked and the response was NO, they have no such thing. Although occasionally I saw someone wearing a chef hat walking around with a plate of food, it appeared that those edibles were only for people who signed up for the more special wine tastings. But not us.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Y’ALL!

The group of us had dinner at the El Dorado Kitchen, a charming date restaurant in downtown Sonoma- it’s located really close to The Cheese Factory. Before our table was ready, we sat outside and had drinks. Because of my meds (ick), I had to order a virgin Strawberry Basil ($11), so I didn’t get any tea cane rum in my drink. Otherwise, the sweetness of the mashed strawberries and fresh orange juice went well with the herby mint and basil fixings. And the hint of lime added a subtle sour tingle to my tongue. Refreshing, expertly made, and certainly not your lame eighth grade Hi-C cocktail. Would order again.

We ended up getting seated near the open kitchen, where the aroma of truffle oil wafted out into the dining area and seeped into our clothing. I think that most of the truffle oil was for all the orders of truffle fries ($9) people were getting. We got our own fries- they were sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and fried in truffle oil for a fragrant and flavorful crisp. No ketchup necessary. This stuff is so much better than what you’d get at McDonald’s or even In-N-Out (I’d know because we had a snack at In-N-Out the next day, and normally, I’m a huge fan of In-N-Out fries, but after having the truffle fries the night before, the fries at In-N-Out just didn’t stack up.) I also ordered the daily seasonal soup ($8)- it was comprised of pureed apple and butternut squash. The apple added the extra zest to the soup, certainly a necessary ingredient.

Butternut squash made another appearance in my husband’s main entrée, which was aptly named the butternut squash agnolotti ($22)-a kind of ravioli with a sweet butternut squash and nutmeg filling. In a creamy sauce lay some small pieces

of pomegranate and pecans. ‘Twas a sweet-tasting dish, but as you can see from the picture above, the fine dining-sized portion wasn’t very big. I got the pan-roasted pacific steelhead ($24)—this fish is a cousin of salmon. The fish arrived as a nice bright orange rectangle sitting in a shallow pool of oil. The flesh was soft and tender, although the dish itself could’ve used an extra kick of flavor.

We looked at the dessert menu and passed. But all was well. When we went back to the Doubletree Hotel where we were staying, we stopped by the check-in desk and picked up some complimentary freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that were crispy on the outside, and soft and dripping with chocolate on the inside. That was our dessert.

While hanging out on Spain Street in downtown Sonoma, we stumbled upon a quaint gourmet supermarket and deli, also known as the Sonoma Cheese Factory. This joint is the hot spot for the cheese-and-cracker nibbling elite. But the spotlight’s really on the long open cases with a zillion kind of cheeses neatly laid out. Not to mention the endless samples of cheese you can try! You can probably skip a meal by just loitering around the store and collecting samples. Then there’s also all the different crackers, flat bread, toast, and just bread bread. Chocoholics would be excited to see that they have fresh fudge here too. Want only a sip of wine, literally? Try one of their many fun-sized wines laid out on the floor. Need a gift to bring back home? Check out the fun novelty items that may be a bit cheesy, but hey, they do call this The Cheese Factory.

Recently, I spent a weekend up in Sonoma with my husband and some of his high school friends. The catch: I can’t have any wine right now because I’m on some medication. So imagine how dandy it was to be at all those wine tastings, watching the sunny yellows and ruby reds spilling into the crystal-clear goblets, and knowing I couldn’t savor any of that. Of course, I had the option to just taste the wine and spit it back into the glass, and dump everything into the spit bucket. But I knew I need not tempt myself even more. So while tasting the wine was out, I could still smell the wine. And I felt that my sense of smell actually became more acute because I wasn’t allowed to taste the wine.

One of the places we stopped by was the Cline Cellars. A retired pilot and super-cool employee named Larry gave us the winery tour. We learned about the winery’s devotion to organic and green farming, all that good stuff. Then we sat at a picnic table under a sap-friendly cottonwood tree. Our tour guide set out some cheese and crackers and everyone minus me sampled seven wines.

A favorite among the group was Cline’s Marsanne Roussanne 2007- this is a white wine with the aroma of honey and oranges. My husband says it tastes like citrus. In the informational leaflet, it says that the wine has a bone-dry finish and that Marsanne is the most widely planted grape of Fracne’s Northern Rhone Valley. Larry said this would go great with cold shellfish or pasta with cream.

Vivian also liked Cline’s Ancient Vines Mourvedre (pronounced moor-VED-druh) 2006- this red has an earthy smell with a hint of oak. If you sniff very carefully, you might catch some chocolate mingled in with plums. Vivian thinks this would go well with steak and Larry added that it would also be compatible with lamb, duck, or venison (oh deer). Fun fact: This wine came from a 125-year old vine. Dang!

I’d love to come back here someday and actually be able to taste some of the wines this time. When it comes to wine tasting, I don’t like to live vicariously through others!

Back in Lucerne, Switzerland, we visited Stadtkeller, a Swiss folklore restaurant. I don’t think any locals would attend this lunchtime cultural show of yodeling demos and alphorn performances (those long mountain horns that I would refer to as horny horns). Still, I actually enjoyed all the entertainment, including the festive costumes and even the cowbells over our meal of swiss cheese fondue. When I got back to the States, I recaptured some of that rustic cheer by going to my local Williams & Sonoma to pick up my very own fondue pot and some burner paste with some leftover store credit I got from my post-wedding gift returns. We had some friends over for dinner recently, and for dessert, I used the pot to melt a one-pound bag of dark chocolate truffles that I picked up from a Harry & David store ($12.95) and then we dipped strawberries and pieces of banana into the dark pool of creamy, sinful richness. DEE-LISH!

Last week I had lunch with Glenda at Korea Fusion in Cupertino. It’s located inside a small plaza, very easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. Glenda told me that students from De Anza College frequent this mom-and-pop style restaurant. While the main cuisine served here is Korean food, the restaurant also makes Japanese and Chinese dishes as well. In the mood for Japanese, I ordered their Nabeyaki Udon ($8.95)- according to the menu, this noodle soup comes with fish cake, egg, chicken, and vegetables. Although when the noodle soup arrived, there didn’t seem to be too many pieces of chicken inside. I hunted through the noodle soup and found about eight small pieces of chicken, so that was rather disappointing. I also ordered a Salmon Skin Roll ($5.95)- this salmon skin and cucumber roll was fresh and adequate in taste-I liked this better than the udon. Of all their banchan, or appetizers, I liked their glass noodles the best- that’s one of my favorite Korean dishes. Glenda pointed out that they have good water here, and I took a sip of my glass of H20, and indeed, their water is not your standard from-the-tap fare. I looked on the wall and saw a sign saying that this restaurant uses Aqua Life water, which is a brand of “purified water.” I have mixed feelings about this place. Their Japanese dishes weren’t spectacular, so should I return here, I’d probably try their Korean dishes instead.

About a month ago, I had this horrible dandruff fiasco from a botched salon color job- finally, my scalp seems to be healing, and the flakes have been significantly reduced. To combat the flakes, I’ve used Paul Mitchell’s Tea Tree Special Conditioner and Wella’s Color Preserve Deep Treatment (about $12-14 for 5.1 fl. oz.). Sometimes after I’ve just colored my hair and my scalp is dry, I’m reluctant to use any old scalp treatment, for fear of washing out my new color. Because most scalp treatments are formulated for normal hair, I had to hunt for a scalp product that caters to colored hair. So fortunately, Wella’s Color Preserve Deep Treatment has been kind to my color, with what is left of it (my former hairdresser really did a poor job). In lieu of my regular conditioner, once a week, I’d massage the Deep Treatment through my scalp and hair, wait about five minutes, and then rinse if off. This stuff keeps my scalp hydrated and it leaves my hair soft and shiny.

I drink a lot of water, but my puckers still get dry and chapped. There are so many lip balms out there-most are just a couple of dollars a pop. Here are some of the lip hydrators I’ve tried and my thoughts:

Whole Foods- Peppermint Lipbalm- This is one of my favorite lip balms to wear when I’m at home, before I go to bed. It’s made with organic ingredients, it softens up my lips, and it leaves a cooling peppermint zing on my puckers. Gotta go find my hubby!

Banana Boat Aloe Vera with Vitamin E Sunscreen Lip Balm, SPF 30- I’ve had this in my purse for the last couple of months. The SPF 30 helps provide the sun coverage that my puckers need and the aloe vera helps to soothe the skin on my lips.

Softlips tinted lip condition/sunscreen in rose- This cherry-scented chapstick is suitable for ‘tweens who want a shimmery pinkish lip tint but aren’t allowed to wear makeup yet. It offers enough SPF 15 for one to go strolling through an outdoor mall in search of Limited Too.

Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm-This stuff is made with coconut oil, sunflower oil and beeswax. I like its subtle honey scent, but this stuff goes on rather sticky. While it puts a layer of wax over my skin, I don’t find that it actually soothes my chapped lips.