Holiday Wrap Up

We enjoyed a relaxing holiday with friends in the city this year. I had to work a little more than I had hoped, but I still got to enjoy a few long weekends with the way the holidays fell.

We kicked off the celebration mid-December with my office party at the Olympic Club. I'm very lucky to work with people that I actually like to hang out with during my time off.



Tyler and I celebrated our 11th anniversary a few days before Christmas. We had a lovely night starting with dinner at South Park Cafe and ending with the Smuin Ballet's Christmas Ballet.
The first half of the program is classic Christmas with dances set to Bach and Handel. The second half lightens up considerably with the likes of Santa Babay and Christmas Island (both pictured.)


The weekend before Christmas we discovered a new breakfast joint. I had read in San Francisco Magazine about the amazing apple and raspberry turnovers at Mission Beach Cafe. We decided to head over and try them for ourselves. We only intended to get pastries, but the plates of pancakes and eggs benedict rushing by us tempted us to stay for breakast. Tyler ordered the breakfast sandwich with a homemade English muffin, sausage and bacon. I had eggs benedict with proscuitto and Midnight Moon gouda drizzled with porchini hollandaise sauce. We had our turnovers too! The styling of the small space made for a perfectly relaxing morning. The interior is modern and warm with ivory upholstered chairs and lacqured wood tables. For a finishing touch everything is served on earthy brown Heath ceramic plates. They even serve Navarro grapejuice.

Next came our outing to the Mission to get all the ingredients for our Christmas Eve celebration. Read more about this in my La Palma post.

Christmas Eve brought our traditional afternoon outing to the beach followed by dinner and celebrating with friends over homemade chili and fresh tortillas.




Christmas day brought gifts and the most delicious French toast I've ever eaten. Adam made Brazilian French toast, which is basically sliced baguette dipped in sweetened condensed milk and deep fried. It's like doughnut French toast! He didn't stop there either. We also indulged in eggs benedict, bacon, sausage, pumpkin bread, and gingerbread cake.


Marlo made her first trip to the museum on Boxing day. We spent the afternoon browsing the Marie-Antoinette and the Petit Trianon at Versailles exhibit at the Legion of Honor instead of the sales racks.



To ring in the New Year, we invited a few friends over for a casual evening. Our new apartment has a view of the Bay Bridge and the waterfront near the Embarcadero, so we were able to watch the midnight fireworks from our livingroom.



We wrapped up the holidays with walk along the Embarcadero and a delicious brunch on the BBQ New Year's morning. We made gingerbread pancakes with lemon curd and blueberries. The pancakes were good, but they tasted more like brown sugar molasses pancakes than gingerbread. I'm still on the hunt for a recipe that tastes like Zazie's.

Happy New Year!!

La Palma

Mexican food is quickly becoming somewhat of a Christmas Eve tradition for us. Last year we had Naomi's delicious enchiladas with all the fixings from La Palma. This year we had chili con carne made with ancho chilis and sirloin steak - no chili powder and ground beef here! Tyler and I headed to the Mission to do our grocery shopping at La Palma and Casa Lucas Market right next door. Tyler enjoyed browsing the store for the all the exotic candy and sodas.

From La Palma, we picked up fresh made tortilla chips, salsa fresca, and masa for tortillas. You can buy the prepared masa for a little more than $1 per pound and make your own fresh tortillas. You'll never want to eat store bought tortillas again.

For the tortillas, you need a tortilla press, a clean plastic garbage bag, and a griddle. I bought my tortilla press next door at Casa Lucas Market for about $10. Cut a wide strip of garbage bag or similar material to sandwich the masa in between the disks of the press. Roll a piece of masa into a ball about the size of a ping-pong ball, place the masa in between the two sides of the plastic bag, and press. Next open the press and peel the tortilla from the plastic. Don't press too hard, it doesn't take much and the thinner the tortilla, the more difficult it will be to peel it off the plastic. Put the pressed dough onto a hot griddle and cook on each side until slightly golden.

Fresh tortillas might be one of the most heavenly foods ever invented and are definitely worthy of becoming a Christmas Eve tradition.

Summer Non-Cooking

This was last night's dinner. We subsist on this meal pretty much all summer - heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil with a sprinkle of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Petits Fours

I've had my eye on this cute petits fours plaque from William-Sonoma for a while now.

Vacation Cooking Classes

One of my favorite memories from our holiday in France was my day of cooking school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I have vowed that I will add this activity to my future travel itineraries whenever possible, especially for places that are major food destinations such as France or Italy. The class I took at Le Cordon Bleu was part of the "Gourmet Sessions" program.

The first part of the day was spent in watching the chef demonstrate all the required techniques. After a delicious lunch which included the previously demonstrated dishes, we broke up into teams for hands on training. The picture above was taken of me enjoying the fruits of my labor after my souffle class.

The Cook's Thesaurus

Have you ever wondered what that strange looking piece of fruit at the supermarket is or how you are suppose to eat it? The Cook's Thesaurus is a great website to bookmark. It is an encyclopedia of every food item you've ever heard of and those you never have! It provides useful substitutions and equivalents, information on cuts of meat, pronunciations, suggestions on how to eat exoctic items, etc.

Donna Hay

Donna Hay is the Martha Stewart / Barefoot Contessa of Australia. I've seen her magazine before, but never wanted to pay the $10/ per issue. I sat down at the book store recently to browse some magazines and I think I might change my mind. Her food is so clean and simple, yet elegant. I caved and bought the magazine, so now I will have to try some of the recipes and see if they are as good as they seem. I'll keep you posted. She has a few cookbooks out too.