Writer's Block

I've had a lot of random thoughts and observations in my mind from my recent travels, experiences and of course, meals. But I haven't been able to put pen to paper. I'm not sure what's causing my writer's block.

Maybe stress? We're not exactly in a prosperous economic time, and there's a lot going on at work. And I'm definitely still playing catch up from being on vacation.

Maybe I'm feeling uninspired?

Maybe it's just a 'normal' lag?

Maybe I have other things that's keeping me preoccupied?

The other problem is that I'm doing a lot of other writing...but not for my blog. Maybe by the time I'm done with that writing, I don't have time and energy to post?

I'm going to try and get through this phase and hopefully will be back soon with lots of posts. Keep reading! I'll be back!

Favorite Aussie Words

I have always loved the Aussie accent. How can you hear it and not have it bring a smile to your face?

What I didn't know? Was that they had so many sayings and different words. Here are some of my favorite words, phrases and sayings from my trip Down Under:

- Bottle Shop: liquor store
- Mystery bag: a meat pie (doesn't sound too appealing does it?)
- Chrissie: Christmas!
- Prezzies: presents (what Chrissie would be complete without prezzies?)
- Sickie: taking a day off work when you're not actually sick
- Roadie: an alcoholic beverage you take on the road with you
- Brekkie: why breakfast of course! (My favorite usage of the word? "Chew your arm off and have some brekkie")

A few words we left without ever knowing the meaning of. Can anyone help? Any Aussie's reading that want to help?

- Tog
- Turps
- Budgie smugglers

Before It Can Get Better...

It has to get worse.

At least when it comes to cooking. At least for this home cook.

I have my tried and true savory dishes that I make. Dishes that I've made a hundred times, and dishes that I know are good. My roasted chicken. My beef stew, and curry chicken. My seared salmon and chicken salad. My spaghetti sauce is delish, and my spring veggies with sun dried tomato sauce penne is a favorite.

You see, I'm not a recipe gal. Never have been (as my friend Matt will attest to after the 'Christmas 2008 Biscuit Incident').

It all started when I was young and watching my mom cook. She'd eye ball everything. A pinch of this, a heaping spoon of that, and then oh, some of this. Then she'd taste. And in would go more of this or more of that. She kept on tasting, every step of the way.

I remember being old enough to ask her for a recipe once. She said she didn't really have recipes. It was all in her head. It made me so mad! How was I suppose to remember it all? So then she reluctantly pulled out this spiral notebook, with a dozen or so recipes written inside. All written in her perfect handwriting. All written in Chinese. Useless to me. I could tell, these were recipes she had gathered and written down years ago. By the time I was old enough to even ask her about her recipes, she had mastered all of these dishes and no longer even took this little notebook out. So where did that leave me?

Well now? I do the same. I know what ingredients go into the dish, and I generally know the proportions. I know just enough technique wise, and read enough cookbooks and watch enough cooking shows to THINK I know what I'm doing.

Do the dishes come out exactly the same every time? No. After enough practice, are they close? Yup. And while this method clearly wouldn't work in a restaurant, for a home cook, it's ok.

As I read more and more cookbooks (and yes, I do read them cover to cover, novel style), I continue to find more inspiration. More inspiration in using new and different ingredients. Inspiration to cook foods that are less familiar to me. Or dishes that I've always loved, and just never have made at home.

Have I ventured to tough ingredients such as octopus or offal? No, not yet. But I have started to veer away from my classics.

Some recent dishes I'm feeling confident about and close to perfecting? My butternut squash soup. Oh, and my homemade pad thai. All derived from recipes I've read, but then kind of tweaked into something of my own.

And the first few times? Not so good. What you forget is, cooking is an experiment. Sometimes, the dishes don't turn out right.

What happened when I decided to roast some vegetables with a new salt/thyme mix I had created? Too salty. I had used too much (I couldn't help myself! The green color was just so pretty!). I had a few bites, and tried to get it less salty by taking a big bite of mashed potatoes with it, but I'd didn't help much. Ultimately, the veggies had to go.

And what about this new chili garlic sauce I bought? Spicy! And I do not handle my spices well. So the first batch of a Chinese chicken salad I made with it. Left my mouth on fire. The second time I tried to use the sauce on a chicken? Still too much! Or not enough of something else to balance the flavors out. I'm still working on it.

So you see. Before my food can get better, it's gotten worse. Let's hope I make it past this little rough patch and end up being able to add some new dishes to add to my repertoire.

A New Favorite Seasonal Ice Cream

The inspiration behind my recent holiday ice cream? A holiday favorite!

Candy Canes!

Growing up, my sister and I loved the grocery store peppermint stick ice cream. You know, the vanilla ice cream with bright gooey swirls of pink and green mint? We moved on to the occasional treat of the Swensen's peppermint ice cream, which was white peppermint with the chunks of candy cane in it.

Well, as our palates have grown even more sophisticated, that same grocery store peppermint stick ice cream just wasn't going to cut it for me anymore. So this past year, I decided I would try and make my very own peppermint stick ice cream!

It wasn't too hard. I decided that I'd get the minty flavor from fresh mint. So the base of my ice cream was a fresh mint ice cream. One of my all time favorite home made ice cream flavors, I figured that given the yummy base, the ice cream should be delicious.

I bought a bunch of candy canes and smashed them up into small bits and pieces (I swear I thought my horrible downstairs neighbor was going to come up screaming at me with all the noise I was making.)

Because my candy cane chunks were a bit inconsistent, I figured I'd just stir the pieces into the ice cream, and it wouldn't matter. What I didn't think about, was the fact that even just by stirring the candy pieces into the white fresh mint ice cream, it would turn the ice cream a light pink color!

It was perfect. A nice re-do of a classic. Everyone loved the peppermint ice cream on top of our little chocolate cakes. Maybe we have new family holiday ice cream tradition??

My sister and I taking a break from eating for a photo!

Happy Birthday Michelle!!

Today is the birthday of one of the most special and important people in my life...my sister!!

Happy Birthday Michelle!!

I want to wish her a fantastic day and upcoming year. Here's wishing you many more years of health, happiness, love and laughter. I love you!

Reflections

Maybe it's that time of year. The end of one year, and the start of a new.

It's a time to reflect on the year that's past. How we've changed. Things we've learned. New places we've been. A time to think about the new friends in our lives, friends that may no longer be in our lives, and the core group of people that have helped us get through another year.

What things to we want for the new year? Are there new goals that we have? Things about our lives or ourselves that we're not happy with? New things we want to try? Whether it's a professional or personal goal, what will the new year hold for us?

Personally, there's a lot I want to do next year. From continuing to see the world to continuing to spend time with good friends and my family. I want to spend even more time cooking and baking (Yes! More time!) and continue to grow as a cook.

Something else I want to do more of? I want to take better advantage of my local surroundings! I spend a lot of time in San Francisco, and a lot of time traveling, but not necessarily a lot of time in the areas surrounding San Francisco.

One of my favorite blogs that I follow is a blog my friend Adam writes: http://www.cyclingteacherguy.blogspot.com/. His posts are thoughtful, often inspirational to me and has also made me realize how little time I spend in the surrounding mountains and trails.

While I am not a big runner nor biker, I love hiking. I love that you can choose such different types of trails (hilly, more flat, in a woodsy area, in a more open field, etc.), you can choose different difficulties, and different hike lengths. And every time I go on a hike, I enjoy every part of it, and am so glad I went.

So, why haven't I been hiking more?? I can rent a car to get out of the city easily through my ZipCar membership, and not having a car to get out of the city is not an excuse!

I was inspired to pull out my "101 Great Hikes of the Bay Area" book a few nights ago. I'm embarrassed to say how many of those hikes I've actually done from that book. I'm not even going to tell you. But it's not a lot. And as I was reading through the book, many of them caught my eye...from hikes down the Peninsula to up in Marin and of course through the East Bay as well.

So friends, help me out! When I call you to see if you want to get up bright and early and go for a hike, please say yes! Eventually, I'll venture out and go on a few hikes alone, but baby steps people! For the first few, I want some company!

I'll be sure to keep you all posted and will share all of my experiences (and photos!) with everyone.

Until then, Happy New Year! Here's to a fun filled 2009!

Meal of the Month: December

It was another busy month of eating. And I'm not even going to count the meals I had in Hong Kong at the end of December...those will have to be it's own separate post. Just like those delicious meals in early December while I was in Australia. I guess meals had in a foreign country don't count.

What that leaves is about two weeks time when I was in California in December. Throw in Christmas party after Christmas party, and two multiple Christmas dinners...and you get a lot of delicious meals.

The feast that my friend Michael prepared for a small group of us in early December was a highlight (and I'm still waiting for photos from Michael!!) But the delicious stew was roasted in a beautiful pumpkin, and I find myself still craving those bacon wrapped asparagus spears. Yum!

I had a classic home cooked meal with Christy, Rick and the boys...a yummy turkey meatball spaghetti. The beauty of this simple, but delicious meal was of course the company. Seated in between two of my favorite little boys in the whole world, the meal was extra special because I was with my Sacramento family.

There was the night I had dinner with my good friend Matt and his family right before Christmas. Seeing Matt is always a treat, and we had a great time making a Ina Garten chicken stew with biscuits. Surrounded by Matt, Mama Maureen, and 'little brother Brendan' was a special treat. I always love my time out there with them, and it's also one of those special places when I feel right at home. The wine is always flowing, and the conversation, laughter, stories, and jokes make the night fly by. The chicken stew was DELICIOUS, and the minor 'biscuit incident' was well worth it!!

Not to mention of course the AMAZING dinner Christmas Eve I had with my family and our good family friends...as well as our Christmas dinner that my dad prepared. Both of those feasts would have won out in any normal month. Hands down.

So why aren't I talking about those meals? Because as soon as I had finished the winning Meal of the Month, I knew it was going to have to be my December Meal of the Month. The winning meal was my dinner at Quince Restaurant in San Francisco.

My friend Wendy was celebrating a birthday (a good friend never tells how old!!) and like me, she's a food person. We decided to go to Quince for dinner to celebrate. She's been many times, and I've been wanting to go for a long time. A friend of mine is the executive chef there, and he's been telling me I needed to go in. And then what really did it? Was when I was talking to Chef Neil Perry in AUSTRALIA, and he mentioned that Quince was one of his favorite restaurants in the world. Done. I had to go there for dinner, and I had to go soon.

Quince is the most adorable restaurant, located in lower Pacific Heights. The restaurant is small--maybe 50 seats? 60 max I'd guess? We waited a few minutes for our table, and the maitre 'd gave us a beautiful sparkling rose to help pass the time while we waited. It was perfect, and gave me the chance to really look around the restaurant and take it all in.

We sat down and quickly decided that we weren't going to order a la carte, nor were we going to order the tasting menu. We were going to let Chef Evan cook for us. We started with an amuse that had three little bites on the plate, a crab salad, smoked salmon and porchini arancini ball. Each were perfect!

Throughout the meal, we couldn't resist eating the delicious bread and bread sticks that were put in front of us. Those bread sticks are incredible, light and hollow inside.

From there, we ate an olive oil poached octopus that was served with escarole and a persimmon puree. I love octopus. But it's not easy to prepare. And I've had some bad octopus in my day too--from being overcooked and rubbery, to being burned. So it took everything in me not to clean my plate (and I had to explain to our server that I was just pacing myself, not that I didn't love the dishes!) But I knew we still had a lot of food ahead of us.

Next up was scallops. Served with a pomegranate puree and a little sliver of a Mandarin orange. SO SO GOOD. I did finish this plate. I had to. Both of those courses were paired with a dry Riesling from north east Italy. Perfectly paired.

We moved onto our pasta courses. Now Quince is well known for their house made, fresh pastas. We started off with a sea urchin spaghetti. It was PERFECTLY paired with a viognier blend. I am a big sea urchin fan, and loved this unique preparation. (Up until then, I've only had fresh raw sea urchin and a warm sea urchin served in the shell at Anchor & Hope in San Francisco.)

We moved onto a black pepper pappardelle served with a local goose and pumpkin puree. Also perfect, and so seasonal.

The next pasta course (yes, that's three pasta courses!) was probably my absolute favorite in the night. It was actually TWO pastas on one dish (ok, so I guess you can technically say we had four pasta courses...). On the right hand side there were small round ravioli like pastas filled with a mixture of veal and guinea hen. SO GOOD. On the right hand side, we had a salsify puree and black truffle stuffed ravioli, larger than the ones on the right hand side. This was my single favorite item of the night. Paired perfectly with a sangiovese, I could eat this every day.

By this time, I had not only not finished everything on my plate, I was only taking small bites (except for the salsify/truffle pasta, I ate it all.) With a slightly guilty face, we had to tell the server, that we were getting full. He told us to hang on...one more course to go.

The last course was a huge treat. Unlike all of the other courses, we each had a different dish! We tried a guinea hen with a turnip puree, a duck with parsnip and squash, and a lamb. All were amazing. And I honestly loved each and every one of those dishes.

We gave our server a very quick "NO" answer when he asked if we wanted a cheese course. Instead we ended with a few shared light sorbet desserts for the table. SO GOOD.

Now dear reader. I tried my best to remember every single dish and preparation. BUT. I usually rely on my photos to jog my memory for each dish. Well, not only is my friend Chef Evan not a big fan of people taking photos in the restaurant, his restaurant is TOO DARK for photos. I didn't want to use the flash (that didn't seem appropriate), but without it, the photos were really not coming out. I tried to jot down notes when each course was presented. But after awhile, with the wine kicking in...and my food coma coming...it was just getting harder and harder. Deepest apologies to Evan and Quince if I've gotten my details a little mixed up. It really was one of the most amazing meals I've ever had. Maybe I'll just need to go back and eat again!

My Last Meal

The Last Meal game. It’s one games chefs like to play the most. And a question I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. There was a book published last year ("My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals", it's on my Christmas wish list!) where chefs were asked this very question. I was thinking about it again recently when I saw this post on Slashfood.

Because now it's my game, I get to set the rules. And my rules are? There are no rules. I get to pick whatever I want to eat (can be multiple dishes for the meal), made by whomever I choose to make it for me, and I get to eat this meal with anyone that I want to eat this meal with. The chefs and dinner company? Can be dead or alive.

What would your last meal be? Who would you eat it with?

For my last meal, a lot of thoughts come to my mind.

One of my first thoughts? I'd crave the simpler days of my childhood. Every Saturday, without fail, my parents and sister and I would climb into the car and drive the 45 min or so up the Peninsula to San Francisco to visit my grandparents. We’d spend the day grocery shopping in Chinatown, the afternoons playing in my grandparent's house with my cousins, and then at the end of the day, we’d all sit down around their long kitchen table and sit and have a meal together.
My grandfather and grandmother would have spent the last few days preparing this meal, doing the grocery shopping and prep work. Spending hours chopping and cutting, preparing stocks for soups. We’d feast of my grandfather’s delicious fish cakes, which weren’t flat and your typical fish cake. They were actually more cylindrical spheres, kind of puffy. He wouldn’t buy fish paste, he’d make his own. And actually spend the time chopping up the fish by hand until it was a paste. And they had finely minced dried shrimp and small pieces of Chinese sausage in them. They were delicious. And one of my most absolute favorite things to eat in the whole world. I can still see him standing there with his ratty old green apron.

Another thing on the table? We would have tons of veggies. Sometimes some roasted pork. And if we were lucky, my grandmother’s perfectly steamed eggs. Such a simple dish, and yet something that is so hard to make. I can still picture the dishes she had, white with simple purple flowers on the side.

Those family dinners rank pretty high up there for me…and if I could recreate one of those nights for my Last Meal, I’d be pretty happy.

The other contender? My family’s Christmas dinner. We typically had Christmas dinner just the four of us, and my mom would prepare a delicious roast beef. The entire house would smell so good, and my sister and I would walk by the stove and have to resist opening the oven door. Instead, we’d turn on the little light in the oven, and look in to see what progress the beef had made.

We'd have white rice and baked potatoes (which I would eat with my mom’s delicious gravy drizzled on all over.) There would always be vegetables, usually Chinese broccoli. Sometimes there might be a baked yam that we'd drizzle honey all over.

A simple meal, but that would leave us all satisfied and stuffed. When we were young, we’d get to drink sparkling apple cider in these special wine glasses that my dad had. And as we got older, the real wine came out, but we still used those special glasses.

The best part? The leftovers. After dinner, my mom would take the pieces of leftover roast beef and spend time dicing them all up into smaller pieces. The next day, we’d always have the leftover roast beef over a rice noodle soup. The steamy bowl filled with the simple rice noodles and roast beef that had spent the night soaking up the gravy was as equally delicious as our first meal.

That Christmas meal would be another Last Meal contender. I’d want it to be in our old house, with my whole family sitting around the table together in our 'usual spots', just like we use to.

It’s funny. They say that people’s Last Meal requests tend to either be extravagant or reminiscent of their childhood, or families. More of a comfort meal.

I’ve been lucky to have many extremely decadent and extravagant meals that anyone would be lucky to have as a last meal. To name a few, meals at: Chef Barbara Lynch’s No 9 Park (followed by cigars in Boston Common afterwards!), Chef Laurent Manrique’s debut menu at Fifth Floor (followed by a second meal at SPQR!), amazing meals at the Hong Kong University Club (where I ate the biggest shrimp I've ever seen in my life!), Chef Evan Rich’s delicious food at Quince, Chef Ravi Kapur’s special tasting menu at Boulevard, all of my meals at Postrio, dinner at The Dinning Room at the Ritz Carlton San Francisco, the Head to Tail Dinner Chef Chris Cosetino prepared at Incanto…

I know that no matter how amazing each of those meals and experiences have been, what would ultimately satisfy me would be something more homely and familiar. And at the end of the day, it almost wouldn’t even so much be about the food, as the people that I’d want to surround myself with.

Heading to Hong Kong!!

I leave tonight for Hong Kong! Yay! I know. I'm a lucky gal. My second big international trip in two months. This time? I'm traveling with my family! I'm so excited to be in one of my favorite cities in the world, and with the people I love the most in the world.

A photo my sister took during our last trip there in August 2007

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that three of my good friends might also be able to 'pop down' and hang out with me in Hong Kong. Wendy and Mark will be spending the holidays in Vietnam, and Matt will be working in Shanghai. SO, only a few hours away! Hey, how often do a group of Californians all end up in the same region of the world? Hopefully they can make it! It would be great to spend time with good friends in a different city than we're use to.

I'm looking forward to great shopping, delicious food, and ringing in the New Year in Hong Kong!

In the meantime, I've got a few new posts ready to go for you while I'm gone...lots of photos and recaps from Hong Kong coming at you when I return!

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite photos, Law Family, Christmas 2005