As our home renovation projects began to gain momentum, we set out to explore various showrooms for cabinets, countertops, tiles, and fixtures. Last Saturday, after breakfast at Brookfields, we visited the Ferguson showroom, Arizona Tile, Bedrosians, Premier Bath & Kitchen, Medimer, Ashley Furniture, and Tubz. As we considered the many options – quartz or granite counters, ceramic or stone tiles, MDF or plywood cabinets, pull-down or pull-out faucets – the exhaustive day left us in shock. We had little time to begin delving into the details as we each took off for conferences this weekend. After Friday clinic, we dined at a new place in Little Saigon before my wife dropped me off for my red-eye back to Durham for the Duke AVS meeting. Although I was only able to catch the last bits of the meeting, I was glad to catch up with my mentors and colleagues at the fellows dinner that night. I hung out with my co-fellows and residents over beignets and briyani on Sunday, before setting out bright and early for High Point, considered by many to be the furniture capital of the world. The city had just recovered from their week-long market event, and many samples were on sale. The new Visitor’s Bureau helped distinguish the manufacturer showrooms from the furniture stores that are actually open to the public. Among the many places I visited, I found the best selection at Furnitureland South. Considered the world’s largest furniture store and home to the 85-foot tall highboy, the massive complex housed various designer showrooms such as Baker and Bernhardt, a massive market store, and an expansive outlet of samples and clearance items. I left with a camera filled with furniture photos, measurements, and price tags, grabbed my last bite of fried chicken and sweet tea at Smithfield’s, then caught my flight home. As we further immerse ourselves in the process of both remodeling and furnishing our home, we are beginning to realize what is meant by the tyranny of choice.

With my last few clinic charts closed, I rushed home with Melody to pack, change, and prepare for our dinner reservations at the Restaurant at Meadowood. It was Melody’s birthday weekend, and what better way to celebrate than at a 3 Michelin starred restaurant. We drove through scenic Napa Valley and St. Helena to arrive at the restaurant, tucked inside a luxury resort. After gifting a new pendant from our friends in the diamond business over non-alcoholic cocktails, we started our 10-course odyssey. Our menu began with a crisped kale chip that reminded us of papadum, tiny pickled garden veggies, and a borage oyster leaf mignonette served in a ceramic oyster shell. This was followed by a salad of miner’s lettuce, caviar, asparagus, and smoked butter; a mackerel verjus escabeche with celery; a mesmerizing grilled abalone with beans and wild onion appetizer; and an incredibly round kohlrabi cooked in its own juice with rye porridge and mustard seeds. The fish was a trout with a realistic buckwheat skin and fermented turnip, which was followed by a “duck tea” with chrysanthemum dill. The recent California ban lift allowed us to indulge in the coal-seared foie gras with raw rhubarb, which led to grilled duck with “duck fudge,” yam, and sorrels. The cheese course was a goat cheese with apple porridge bread. After cleansing our palate with a sheeps milk yogurt with hibiscus rose and wild plum, we enjoyed a chocolate burnt milk walnut spicebush dessert and a frosty chocolate chestnut. The birthday girl got a tiny chocolate cake on the house, presented in a wooden box that splayed open when the lid was lifted. By the time we returned to the Candlelight Inn, it was past midnight and too late to enjoy our pricey hot tub room. We awoke to a nice breakfast and took our time planning the day – until we realized we had only booked a single night, not two. We hastily packed up and headed into town to sample olive oils, browse art galleries, comb antique shops, and bypass the multitude of wineries. For lunch, we pre-ordered fried chicken and ribs at Thomas Keller’s Addendum, which let us skip the line and enjoy extra time dining in the lush vegetable and herb garden. After recovering from our postprandial coma in the car, we strolled through Yountville – skipping the lines at Bouchon Bakery, surveying the French Laundry‘s culinary garden, chicken coop, and bee hive, and looking at the art in V Marketplace. We spent the evening at Ox Bow Public Market, dining on oysters and seafood stew at Hog Island Oyster Bar, strawberry and cardamom ice cream from Three Twins, and cream puffs from Ca’ Momi. Despite the short trip, we are left with fond, foodie feelings for this one-of-a-kind birthday celebration.

For an East coast transplant like me, the long weekend for Cesar Chavez day was an unexpected surprise and a chance to catch up with home improvements. After a series of strategic coupon purchases, we dropped a few hundred bucks at the local Home Depot and Lowes to deck out the backyard. While Melody plucked weeds and planted a small herb garden, I was replacing old defunct path lights with new LED ones. After the sun went down, we hoped to relax to the new Game of Thrones video game by Telltale, which also produced the Wolf Among Us. But like the TV series, the game’s harsh decision trees and unavoidable calamities made the whole exercise seem rather futile and us feeling constantly defeated. I felt a similar feeling after spending 2 hours with an electrician unsuccessfully trying to locate a voltage drop in the landscape lighting. On Tuesday, we attended a special showing of the movie After Tiller, which did not lighten the mood, but gave me a better sense of how important and special my wife’s work truly is. We concluded the show with a Q&A session, followed by tapas at Aioli Bodega (and not at Plan B, as I had predicted). With our upcoming weekend trip to Napa, we can’t wait for the week to be over.