discovery.

I went to Beretta. And it was good. Their cocktails were inspired and excellently blended (I had the Dolores Park Swizzle). The bruschette with cannellini beans and pancetta pepata is creamy, salty goodness. Their polenta with gorgonzola in tomato sauce is a good balance of soft and firm, salty and sweet. Their tomato sauce (on their pizza) is so sweet and fresh- hands down the best tomato sauce I've had in the last year. The margherita pizza (with burrata instead of mozzarella) was fantastic. Simple, but with high quality ingredients, cooked to perfection.

I highly recommend it!

apologies.



I'm sorry dear, gentle reader(s) (all three of you). I've been neglecting you like the cobweb in the far, upper corner of my bathroom. I've been busy, and watching far too much tv lately. Stupid, stupid tv. Not that there's anything wrong with media and entertainment, but there are only so many hours in the day, and there are so many wonderful things to do. And there are necessary things to do. I've been neglecting those a bit, as well. Unfortunately. Anyhoo, I apologize. Truly, Madly, Deeply. So here's what I've been up to!



*I started volunteering for the Humane Society for a very worthy cause. The HSUS is trying to put an initiative on the ballot in 2008 to give farmed animals (for meat) enough room in their cages to turn around and spread their wings or stretch their limbs. Specifically, the legislation covers hens, breeding sows and calves. See? It's a good cause. Legislation like this (banning breeding sow crates) has already passed in 3 other states (Arizona, Florida and Oregon) and the European Union, and Arizona has also banned veal crates. If you like animals, or believe in treating any creature humanely, or care about your food, you should support this measure. It is for the good of our health, animals, small farmers and the environment. Unless you are absolutely against the initiative/ballot process, there is no reason why you should not find your nearest Humane California volunteer immediately and sign their petition! We need 650,000 signatures by the middle of February 2008. (This does only apply to registered voters in the state of California, though). For more information (and some horrific pictures and the truth, click here).



Next, I have to say HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! A truly American holiday, and one that my family loves to celebrate. Well, we love to celebrate anything that allows us to get together to eat, drink and be merry. Who doesn't? I'll share a recipe that I made for this recent holiday soon. In any case, it was a great weekend. Two paid days off- who wouldn't like that?? I spent some time with my brother and sister-in-law who I love dearly. They don't live that far away (southern California), but (selfishly) it's not close enough for me. Although I sometimes get annoyed at (read: jealous of) their relationship, I would love it if they lived in the bay area and I could see them every week.



I also went to a baby shower for perhaps the cutest pregnant couple I have ever seen. I can't wait to see the baby when it arrives in this world. Mark my words, it is going to be one cute baby! And speaking of "babes" (it's a poor segueway) I saw not one, but two exes this weekend. One was unplanned and didn't go so well. It's a recent split and it wasn't a particularly nice one. There is still attraction there and I am still torn between calling him (the weak thing to do, since I said I wouldn't do it any more) and being strong, and calling him the asshole that he is. Luckily I was strong this time. Asshole. Grrr.



The other ex was planned and went very well. The relationship was a long time ago, after all, and there's nothing in the way of our being friends. So we met for drinks, talked, hung out. I was nervous about it, but (thankfully) I didn't drink too much and start babbling like an idiot. I tend to do that. It's an issue.



Moving on, I have two very exciting things to share. First: I'm curing olives! Weee! I saw them at the SF Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market at the Knoll farm stall and had to get them. It's a challenge and an adventure and we'll see how it goes. I googled recipes and decided on the one from Hedonia since I didn't want to use lye. Right now I'm about to switch from water to brine. I'm very excited to see how it turns out!



Second: I bought a plane ticket to Europe! That's right, I'm leavin' on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again. Only, I do know when I'll be coming back. A month after I leave. A whole month of traveling in Europe! Weee! My dear parents decided they wanted to rent a house in the Provence region of France, and they invited their offspring to join them for a week. Since I had an excuse, I decided to splurge a little. I'll talk about this later, but suffice to say, I am definitely looking forward to next June. I can't wait!!



*sigh* That's it. So what have you been up to? : D

breakfast of champions.




a.k.a. a sunny-side up egg and baguette toast. Since there have been a few cold days in the last two weeks, I've been wanting something warm, filling and comforting for breakfast. Plus, eggs keep me full until lunch, instead of leaving me with a growling stomach at 10:30.


Everybody needs a little comfort sometimes.

summer bounty.





Isn't it pretty?

summary.



Here's a quick summary, since I've been M.I.A. for a few days:



First, apparently it's not just Gemini and Cancer boys. It's also boys named Andrew. I think this is some cruel trick the universe is playing on me.



My friend Nicole called. Yay! This might not seem like such a big thing, but she lives in the eastern time zone and since I'm so bad with them (time zones), we haven't talked in months and months.



I took a half day from work 2 weeks ago, *ahem, cough* when the weather was so beautiful and went to the beach in San Francisco with a friend. I know what you're thinking: why did you go to the beach in San Francisco? It's never warm there. Ahh, but my friends, it was. It was warm and clear and the ocean was cold and salty and it was gorgeous. We stayed for sunset and then went out for Ethiopian food. Icing on the cake.



Later that week, I caught the last A's game of the season. I love going to baseball games. I love day games in the sun and night games with the lights. Out of the the NFL, NBA and MLB, I will always choose MLB. It was a nice day, and they won, which is always a plus.



Also, a quick note on food. I showed previously that I do most of my shopping at the farmer's market. I think it's about 75-80% of the food I purchase. This is easy to do in the summer, when there is a bounty of fresh produce. It is also easy to cook it. Or perhaps I should say, not cook with it. The produce of the summer doesn't need much work to create a great meal. Sure, you could turn on the oven and roast or make something complicated out of it, but you don't need to. So, many of my summer meals are salads and simple vegetable dishes, with fruit for dessert. It might sound boring, but it is not. In fact, besides being easy to cook or assemble, it is quite delicious and plenty varied. Now fall and winter might be a different story, but during the summer, this is the life.



Things to come? A book review, and two restaurant reviews (like the second half of that Rubicon one that I should have done 3 months ago). Oops.

pesto and boys.



like peas in a pod, right? right? or not. let's get the boys party out of the way: I need to stop falling for smart Geminis and Cancers. I realized a few days ago that as far as I can recall (at least to high school), I think all of the guys I have dated have been Geminis, or Cancers. And I'm a Cancer. They do not mix so well. I wasn't cultivating this at all. I never even realized it. Now I'm going to have to be all weird and ask guys what their birthday is first thing. "Hey, what's your sign? Come here often?"
(Jason and the) Arg (0nauts).





Now, on to the pesto. So many of the food bloggers have been posting about canning since it's the theme of this month's Eat Local Challenge. It sounds perfect to me- having your pantry stocked with your personal tomato sauce, pesto, etc. It may not be less expensive, but at least you would know (and be able to control) exactly what is going into your food. That means quite a bit, to me. Plus, my dear Nonna always canned, and I would like to learn how. So, I took some of her old canning jars. Alas, when I got home, I realized they were all large. Too large. I would need a bigger pot to boil them in. Also, since I'm only cooking for one person (for the most part), storing many large jars of food in my pantry doesn't make that much sense. So I thought about freezing. And then I made pesto.

mmmmmm. Homemade pesto.* I used Mario Batali's recipe. From these pictures, I'm sure you can understand why I don't post many. While I think my photography skills are not that bad, I certainly don't know how to photograph food. And, my camera is very basic.




*after 2 hours with the mortar and pestle, I had a bruised, strained hand, so I switched to a food processor.

oodles of noodles.




Last night I made Orangette's (hubby's) peanut noodle dish. It was delish. It just happened that I had all the ingredients (except I substituted rice noodles for soba) and I looove peanut sauce. I highly recommend this one. It was creamy and salty, juicy and bright, crunchy and slippery smooth.

that's how I roll.



a.k.a. that's how I feed myself.











Fridge before the farmer's market.











Fridge after the farmer's market.

stuff.







What? You've never seen a spring onion joint? Hah! I fire-roasted this on my stovetop. It worked quite well, but it looked so great, I had to take a picture.






Also, I finally posted the picture of the naan! Just a little tardy. You can see it here.

news flash.








Exciting news flash! Next weekend (September 8th and 9th from 12-5pm) is the Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival. There are chocolate tastings, a wine bar; chocolate bar, demos and whatnot. I missed out last year, and I am definitely planning on going this year.

Isa review.



Last night, I went to Isa with a friend for the San Pellegrino Dine Out promotion. It was my first time eating there. Some might say that I missed out on a good thing by doing the promo (which has a set menu); I say that I'm poor and that promos like this help a girl like me eat nice meals at nice restaurants. Mind you, I looked at the set menus quite a bit before I chose a restaurant. Some of the restaurants featured were phoning it in, so to speak, but I didn't feel that Isa was, and I believe I was right. Also, they feature local and sustainable products, which is always a philosophy I can get behind. : )




At first glance, or step in the door, Isa looks tiny. Teeny-tiny. Like a restaurant made out of a closet tiny. It's pretty, though- there's a spiffy bar along the right side and some swanky tables to the left. And just as you wonder where they're going to seat you, they take you to the back, to this lovely tented area with strung lights and greenery and decking. It's like traveling through a dark and damp cave and then emerging into a giant cavern with stalactites and stalagmites. It's so unexpected and very pretty. You ended up a little squished in, but that's okay. How many restaurants in San Francisco really have enough room to dine comfortably? I'm not sure if the tent rolls back to reveal the sky, but if it does, it would be lovely. I can't imagine many more wonderful places to be than that deck on a warm, sunny winter day in the city.



On to the food. My friend started with a sea bass crudo with mango, cilantro and chili. It was delicious. The sea bass was tender and flavorful and paired wonderfully with the sweet, smooth mango and the kick of chili. It was a perfect dish for a warm summer night. I, on the other hand, started with baked goat cheese with basil, pine nuts and a tomato concasse. It was warm (obviously), creamy and crunchy, with a hint of bite from the tomatoes. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life.


For the second dish, my friend chose the halibut a la plancha with artichokes, capers and olives. The halibut was very moist and tender and we lapped up the sauce with bread. Again, a nice light fish dish for a warm summer night. I, however, chose the risotto with assorted mushrooms and parmesan for my second course. Nice and heavy. Let me just say here that I love mushrooms. Real love. True blue, like Madonna. You would think I would love this dish because of that, but the mushroom flavor wasn't prevalent. It was cooked well, though- creamy and smooth with a nice texture.




Last, but not least, we had a vanilla creme brulee and flourless chocolate cake for dessert. The cake had a hint of orange and seemed so light and fluffy that it seemed like flour was involved. However, as you can see from the Adventures in Baking series, I am no baker. The vanilla ice cream accompaniment was quite tasty, too, but there were some chocolate bits under the ice cream that had frozen to the plate and were extremely difficult to remove for that bit of crunch the dish needed. As for the creme brulee, the sugar crust was a little thick, but it had an interesting floral-vanilla flavor to it that I enjoyed.



So that's Isa. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars or hearts or horsehoes or something. I would love to try more of the menu and can't wait to go back again!



p.s.- we washed down the dinner with a bottle of 2004(?) Faiveley White Burgundy. It was good. It had some oak, but mostly it was bright fruit and minerals. It was an excellent counterpoint and accompaniment to our dishes.

baking.





Another (slightly tardy) installment in the baking series. Last week I tried making naan. That's right: naan, the delicious, Indian, soft, flat bread. Actually, I think it's made in other Middle East countries, as well, like Iran, Pakistan and whatnot. Unfortunately, my lone Indian cookbook doesn't have a recipe for it. What's up with that? So I had to fall back on my good ol' standby: the JoC.




I had a few issues with making this. First, the recipe states to mix the dough by hand, or with a mixer. I don't have a mixer, so I had to do it by hand. When I added the ingredients, they wouldn't stick together. I had to add more yogurt and water. I wonder if this is a problem of mixing by hand, or a problem with the recipe.




The second problem occurred during the kneading portion of the program. It said: knead by mixer, or by hand for 8 to 10 minutes, until the dough is a smooth and elastic ball. At 8 minutes, the dough looked like a smooth, round ball to me. Mind you, I have no idea what it should look or feel like. This is the same problem that occurred in the tart crust debacle. Moving on, the dough has to rise. Only mine didn't rise much. I let it sit (in the oven with a pilot light) overnight and it still didn't rise much. I think something went wrong there.





The product? Looked like naan, but it wasn't very soft (I have a picture to post here). At least, it wasn't as soft as I'm used to. Tasted fine though, especially with some butter, roasted garlic and beer. And when the leftover dried out a bit, it made a great pizza crust! Weeee. Adventures in baking.

baking.






I've been baking quite a bit lately, because I want to learn to be a better baker. So many people say that you're either a good cook, or a good baker; you have to enjoy one more, or be better at one than the other. Following this saying, I'm a cook. I like baking, but I never felt a great desire to do it often. Until now.

All of a sudden, I really want to learn to make bread, and cookies and pie crust (hopefully some day by memory). I have no idea what spurred this on. Perhaps because I like to have people over for dinner and I've never been thrilled by my inability to make something other than 5-layer bars for dessert. Perhaps because lately I've wanted to develop my food skills more.






Mind you, I can follow a recipe. It's just that baking is so intimidating. It's often a precise science to produce something edible, let alone tasty, whereas cooking can be more of an "anything goes" endeavor. Of course, the best chefs value precision and perfection, but you don't have to, to produce something good. And also, when I do things, I like to do them well, or not do them at all. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. So, I knew if I began baking, I'd really have to continue baking with mixed results for a long time, until I was satisfied. So you see? Daunting.




Man, can I ramble on. So about the baking....




I made chocolate chip cookies about a month ago. I've made them many times before (usually the ubiquitous Nestle recipe), but I'm trying to develop/find a really good recipe. This time I got directions from Joy of Cooking. I chopped chocolate bars instead of using chocolate chips, which I like because it spreads the chocolate flavor throughout the cookie (though sparely). I am a fan of the cookie dough flavor, but I'm a bigger fan of chocolate. Other than that, they were too crispy for me. I want more butter. Mmmmmm, butter.






Then, for my dad's birthday, I made a Clafouti aux Pruneaux A l'Armegnac. At least, I think that's how you say it. Clafouti with Prunes in Armegnac because he had bought some in France many years ago and wanted to use them, and I wanted to make a clafouti. Again, I got my recipe from Joy of Cooking. And why not? It's basic. It's thorough. It's reliable, right? Unfortunately, not so much with this recipe. It said to start out the clafouti at a high temperature for 10 min or so, and then turn down the heat to finish the baking. I looked at other recipes and they all said to bake it uniformly at a high heat. Interesting. So I tried the JoC way, and it didn't bake. Or, more correctly, the edges puffed and browned, but the middle was still raw. WtF?? I had to cook it for an extra 20 min at a higher temp. And by that time the edges were not as pleasant as they could have been. *sigh* So I guess now I know for the future... Oh, but it still tasted good. Really good.





Moving on, I made a strawberry tart. Now, I've never made pie or tart dough before, but I was hoping that I had some latent ability that I had gained by osmosis by watching my grandmother do it many times over. I maybe helped... once or twice... when I was 5 or 6. I had a hard time finding a recipe for this one, interestingly enough. Finally found one on Epicurious. Also, I don't have a strainer decent enough for the pastry cream, or a rolling pin, and a few other things that might have made the making easier or the outcome better. So the outcome? The flavors were good, helped by leaps and bounds by the amazing farmer's market strawberries I picked up. The pastry cream was a little flour-y, though. And the dough was hard. I don't know where I went wrong there, but I definitely did at some point.





So that's it for the sweet stuff, so far. There will be more coming. It'll be like a mini-series: Failures of Baking. It'll be great, really. I've got my eye on that no-knead bread recipe...

a quick recap.







I went to Cambria a few weeks ago. It's near Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo- some prime wine territory. As the picture shows, the California coast is beautiful. It can be so worth driving down the coast instead of the interior roads. Of course, it was beautiful; but, I also tasted some good wine. There wasn't enough time for as much tasting as I'd like, but I did get to taste a great Chardonnay from Four Vines. There was a light hint of butter and oak, but those flavors were very well balanced with fruit and acid. I highly recommend it.



This past weekend I went to LA. LA is always a good time since I have good friends and family in the area. There was good food and ice cream. There was some beach time to cure my summertime blues. There was a cat. It all adds up to a pretty good weekend for me. The good food belonged to Mexico City, a decent Mexican restaurant in the Silverlake area. It's a very hipster scene. I had a good chicken mole and a good margarita.



The ice cream was from Scoops. Better than decent. Fantastic, actually. Some very original flavors: bacon caramel, olive oil olive, brown bread, Guinness tiramisu. They also have a good selection of vegan ice cream. I have had bacon ice cream and olive oil ice cream in the past, and those two trumped these. However, the bacon and olive oil ice creams were from restaurants at the top of their game in the Bay Area. That's tough to beat. In any case, the other ice creams were fantastic. My personal choice was the Guinness tiramisu, and vanilla nutmeg almond. It was creamy, and well-flavored, and definitely a good bang for the buck.



Then, there was more food from Square One. This is a small establishment in Hollywood, with a philosophy of using the freshest local ingredients, which is a philosophy I can support. The bacon in my club sandwich was amazing, and on the whole the sandwich was very tasty. I enjoyed the thyme and roasted garlic potatoes, but they didn't have much flavor of thyme or roasted garlic, in my opinion. It's a casual place, and the service was casual, as well, but it was a good meal, nonetheless.



Last, but not least, let's show the cat that I now adore. How could you not??

saving sharks.



I just read an article about the awful practice of shark finning. I've eaten shark before, but not shark fin soup. I know that shark fin soup is very popular in a few Asian countries (particularly in Chinese wedding banquets), but I didn't realize how much damage it did. I realize that most people think of sharks as animals of terror, and probably do not care about their survival, but as with any animal/plant/bug/microrganism, any slight change in the ecosystem causes major changes overall.

pastry chefs.



A.k.a. Rubicon, part 1. Because of this post on this fabulous blog, I decided to share an experience I had at a restaurant recently. A little over a month ago, I ate at Rubicon (in San Francisco) with my family. It was a very wonderful meal, filled with good food, and good conversation. I would heartily recommend it to anyone, and I'll speak about it more in a future post, because this post is reserved solely for dessert talk and pastry chefs.



When I go out to a restaurant that is anything decent, I always order dessert. I love dessert, and I particularly love chocolate or a rich and creamy dessert. In fact, I can be a bit of a lush because I don't often deny myself something I want. Also, usually I am the only one to order dessert amongst my family. Not this time though! At Rubicon, 4 out of 5 of my dining party ordered dessert. Yes! This, I atrribute to their love and willingness to please me. At least, I choose to believe this.



In any case, this was not the only memorable part of dessert. While I was perusing the menu, I noticed that the pastry chef's name was listed: Nicole Krasinksi. I feel like I noticed this because it was rare. While I don't scrupulously examine menus to find the chefs’ names, I am an observant person and think that I would have noticed if it were a common practice to list the pastry chef’s name.



Last, but certainly not least, the dessert course was memorable because the desserts were fabulous. Truly. Two stood out from the bunch, but they were all around very tasty. Wanna hear what they are? Huh? Huh? Do ya? Too bad! *ahem* No, just kidding. I aim to please:



One of the desserts was a simple sorbet duo of strawberry and peach. It was very fresh and smooth and tasty. Real fruit flavor abounded like a well-tended orchard. Another of the quartet was a strawberry sorbet, but with ginger and a gingered beignet. The ginger lent that special something to the dish to make it stand out.



The two that knocked my socks off, though, were a chocolate cake and a financier and ice cream pairing. The chocolate cake was my dessert, so although I tasted the others, I really had time to appreciate that one. It was a basic square of chocolate cake, with a very deep, rich chocolate flavor, and a moist, slightly dense texture. It sat in a pool of crème fraiche, with a concentric circle of apricot preserves surrounding the moat of crème. The cake also had a topping of caramelized figs. Woah, man. Wooooooah man! It was amazing. The figs were sweet and crunchy, the cake was soft and rich, the crème fraiche smooth and tangy (almost like goat yogurt) and the apricot preserves added another layer of fruity goodness, to make it more complex. I could eat this dessert for every meal for the rest of my life.



The other knock-out dessert was a pecorino and plum financier with olive oil ice cream. It is more creative than the chocolate cake, but I think it lost a few points in the plating area. In any case, it was just as mind-blowing. The layer of pecorino cheese was salty and tangy, the layer of plum was a wonderful counterpoint and the financier in total was a fine, crumbly texture. It went so well with the olive oil ice cream. Yah- olive oil ice cream. It was divine. Rich and creamy and a little grassy and fruity. In the “odd flavors of ice cream” category, it is only bested by the bacon ice cream at Oliveto’s. Yah- bacon ice cream. Did Jeffrey Steingarten consult on that?


So that’s my tale of dessert at Rubicon. It was mighty tasty. Ms. Krasinski is doing good things.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle





So I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I read it because yes, I love food, and believe in the whole local, sustainable movement. But, I also love Barbara Kingsolver. I think she's an amazing storyteller, and this book is no diversion from that. In fact, what I liked most about the book wasn't the sidebars with facts on politics, culture and whatnot from Steven Hopp, the recipes from Camille Kingsolver, or even the facts from Ms. Kingsolver herself. What I enjoyed the most were the stories, egg-raising, canning, turkey sex and all. Hopefully that fact will encourage people to read the book, even if they aren't "foodies" or into the local, sustainable movement. The easiest way to introduce a new idea to the public, and have it accepted, is to normalize it as much as possible. It's a novel, not a sermon.




Next up? The Botany of Desire.

philosophy.



This essay/op-ed explains (more elegantly than I ever could) how I feel about food.