Movie Snacks

My new favorite movie snack is Sahale Valdosta pecans which are mixed with black pepper, sweet dried cranberries and orange zest. You can get them at the Embarcadero Theaters, speciality grocers like Whole Food and Molly Stones or on-line. They have other blends that I would like to try like the Daphine walnuts with blueberries, bananas, coconut flakes, lavender and white pepper. Note: The Sing Buri blend with Cashews wasn't may favorite.

Instant Party

One of the easiest ways to entertain by far is with a good cheese plate. I was recently in charge of refreshments at a church function for 250 expected guest. One hour of shopping and one hour of set-up later, et voile, 250 happy guests.

The party was part of a anniversary celebrating local history so I used some of my favorite local cheeses - Cowgirl Creamery's Mt. Tam, Cypress Grove's Humboldt Fog, and Point Reyes Original Blue. I placed the cheese on large square platters and piled high mounds of grapes and crackers. All of the cheese was gone by the end of the night, so not only was there no cooking involved, but there was also very little clean-up.

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.

Fruit Tea

Kim turned me onto Harney & Sons tea. This is what they serve at the St. Regis. I only drink fruit and herbal teas and they have some really good options. You need a bit more equipment for these - a teapot for steeping the teas and a tea strainer, but you'll never go back to the little packet of dried herbs.

Sugar Rush

Miette, the yummy organic bakery in the Ferry Building, opened a candy store on Octavia a couple months ago. I finally checked it out this morning and it is adorable! It's one of the prettiest candy store I've been in. I tried the peach taffy and Fleur de sel caramels. The caramels were particularly good. This is the type of shop that you can't help but be happy the second you walk through the door.

Salt of the Earth

I'm very intrigued by these Bella Cucina salts. These would make great hostess gifts. They have currently have four combinations of sea salts: Wild Oregano & Sage, Tuscan Rose & Pink Peppercorn, Citrus & Fennel,and Rosemary & Lavender. I have a recipe for butter cookies with Fleur de Sel that might be good with some of these salts. Or you could use them as a topping for focaccia.

You Say Tomato

On the walk home from Avenue Montaigne, I came across a small British food store on Nob Hill called You Say Tomato. They were closing so I didn't have a lot of time to explore, but it looked like they have a pretty good selection of food, candy, tea, cheese, and other British imports at pretty good prices. The owner was really nice too. I'll definitley be returning to learn more. I bought some cranberry, raspberry & elderflower tea.

Philly Foodie

I visited Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia with Katie and Carter. It's a huge food market with stalls of fresh produce, large counters of fish and seafood, bakeries, butchers, etc. It's a lot like the Ferry Building in SF, but not pretentious or expensive. (For the record, I love the Ferry Building and visit it often to buy my $15 sliver of Neil's Yard cheese imported from England and $5 organic mini banana cream tart.) I ate my first cheese steak (with the cheese whiz for authenticity) at Rick's and had the most delicious butter almond ice cream at Bassett's. It's rumored that the best soft pretzels are made here, but the stand was closed by the time we got there. Fabulous place!!

I love hanging out with Katie. We always laugh and eat lots of ice cream!

Tea Implements

I still need a couple of items to set up my tea service. I found these pretty silver-plated tea strainers at Dean & Deluca. They are even on sale right now. Now I'm on the look out for a good deal on silver 3-tier service trays and small tea pots for brewing.

Chocloate

Dolfin's Hot Masala is currently my favorite chocolate bar. It's a milk chocolate with cinnamon, cloves, and other warm flavors. You can purchase it at Fog City News and Bittersweet in SF or here online.

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.

Hold the Alcohol

I don't drink alcohol, but I love food and fine dining. I'm always on the look out for interesting non-alcoholic options and I'm very appreciative of restaurants who recognize that not everyone drinks and provides options accordingly.

Navarro Vineyards in the the Anderson River Valley near Sacramento makes two really good options. They produce two grape juices, Pinot Noir (red) and Gewerztraminer (white). They are grape juices made out of the same grapes that fine wines are made from. These are not wines that have been de-natured and they are nothing like the grape juice concentrate we all grew up on.

You can order a case or half-case directly from Navarro Vineyards to keep on hand for special occasions throughout the year. Some restaurants, although not many, offer them. Bacara and French Laundry both do.

RJ's Licorice

This is the best licorice I've ever tasted, mostly because the texture is perfect. It's not at all waxy. It's made in New Zealand. I found it at Bristol Farms in the candy section of the check-out maze. You can get it here too. If you love or even like black licorice at all you should try this.

H2O

I think the design of this water bottle is so cool and the water is bottled in Wales which seems kind of random and makes me like it even more.