Bye Bye Bay Area!

TODAY IS MOVING DAY! Our bags are packed and the movers should be here shortly and then all that's left between us and Los Angeles is 5 hours on the 5 freeway.  I'll admit that I'm pretty excited - we'll be closer to family AND Neel is starting school AND I am starting a new job and all of those things make me look forward to this next adventure for us.  Of course, leaving doesn't come without a bit of sadness and there are a few things that I am very sad to leave behind.

First off, I'm sad to being saying farewell to our fantastic friends.  We've met some really great people while we've been up here that have made the Bay Area feel like home.  We've enjoyed numerous dinner parties, farmers market meet ups, and San Francisco adventures with great people!  

 Breakfast with Colin and Nadia at Tartine!

Dave, Selin, Neel and I enjoying some Powell's ice cream after our day in Sonoma!

Beach day in Carmel with Erin!

The boys enjoying the sunset and a brewsky in Pebble Beach!

Secondly, yesterday I had my last day in my current job at Intuit.  I have had a really great time working with the same team for the last 2 years and will miss the day-to-day fun that we always had.  They set a very high bar for what to expect from teams to come.

Gary, Marvin, Eric and I at the South Carolina Get Online Event! 

Out at happy hour with the team in India!  

Pedicures with the girl gang on a Friday afternoon!

The whole Product Management and Marketing team at our going away lunch!

Lastly, I've found that I'm super sentimental about leaving this place because this is the first place that Neel and I called home as a married couple.  It is the first apartment that we lived in together and it sure did treat us well.  I'll miss our apartment and area that we called home, including the really great Safeway across the street because all of the checkers learned how to pronounce our last name :) This place will always hold a special spot in my heart.

Thanks to everyone who came into our life and made the last 4ish years in the Bay Area really fantastic! We will miss you all and hope we will keep in touch.  Come visit us in La La Land :) 

Sunday = Baking Day

So here in the Bhattacharyya household we LOVE baked goods. You see, I love baking and Neel loves eating what I bake (and I typically indulge as well).

Today was a particularly wonderful baking day because the baking started at breakfast and lasted all the way to dinner! I baked 2 items today:

1) Chocolate chips muffins - I haven't made muffins in a LONG time and boy was it a good idea. I must credit Neel for the inspiration to make muffins since he just straight up asked for them on Friday. They were SOOOO wonderfully delicious. No secret to the recipe - just took a muffin mix and added some chocolate chips instead of the can of blueberries. What was even better than the delicious taste was the amazing aroma that permeated our apartment all day.

The muffins were definitely a treat compared to our normal cereal and FiberOne bar for breakfast and I encourage you to fill your house with this glorious baked good one of these days. Here's a pic of how they turned out:

Yummy! (and yes I instagram'd the crap out of this picture!)

2) Lemon Sour Cream Poundcake - I have a recipe for this poundcake courtesy of the "Newlywed Kitchen" cookbook and have made this baked good a few times over the past 2 years. It's fun because I make it rarely enough that I can't just make it from memory so it feels like I am baking something that I haven't yet made, however I know that it is going to taste good because I have made it before. I also enjoy this recipe because it makes two loaves so we get to share with our co-workers.

Here's how our poundcake turned out:

Displayed on the adorable plate that my Mom gave me for Christmas!

(and this one was instagram'd as well)

That's it for our Sunday baking day - until next weekend when we probably bake again!