Rosy and I got there a little late. First, the train was super-crowded with people going to Fleet Week and Stanford freshman going to do some scavenger hunt thing, so it arrived in San Francisco sixteen minutes late. Then there were no cabs (and a long line of people waiting from them). When we finally got a cab, the traffic on the Embarcadero was ridiculous because of (again) Fleet Week.

But we did make it, albeit a half hour after it started. Thankfully, no one had run out of food yet. YET. I think the exhibitors hadn’t really planned how much the event had grown, because they were running out of food and wine much earlier than last year.

What were my favorite things?

Pickled grapes with home-cured boar salumi. (from… ?)
Roasted peaches with chevre on crostini. (from Solstice)

Both of these things were AWESOME and are totally recreatable! Eddie, are you listening? (Well, no, he’s in Italy right now, but hopefully he’ll read this when he gets back.) The pickled grape/salumi thing was… wow, just incredible. Wish I could remember where it was from!

Another good appetizer-recreation was a fig and (I think) brie on nut bread. Really tasty, but I can’t remember the specifics of the dish. ): This is why I should have taken notes at the event.

A dessert/wine combination that I very much enjoyed was a brandy winecake with a delicious orange moscato.

My favorite from last year, Wili’s Wine Bar, came back with risotto? topped with oxtail. It wasn’t actually risotto, but it was some sort of goopy rice thing. I happen to like oxtail, but one of my friends found the texture bizarre. It was a little disappointing after last year’s triumph, in my opinion.

What was the big trend this year? Gazpacho. And you know what? I didn’t think any of them were great. Last year, I remember one restaurant offering four different gazpachos, each with a different heirloom tomato as its centerpiece. Those were simple, clean, and wonderful. This year, the gazpachos offered were just… trying too hard.

The weirdest thing I tried was from the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay. It was a cylinder of Dungeness crab salad, topped with a spoonful of CELERY ICE CREAM and a potato chip fried in olive oil. It was bizarre. From there, Rosy and I went to One Market and got Dungeness crab cakes with saffron aioli. Rosy’s comment was, “This tastes more like food and less like an experiment.”

I didn’t try many wines this year. A Sauvignon-Blanc from somewhere fairly forgettable, the orange moscato, a merlot fom Irony Vineyards, and champagne from Gloria Ferrer. POM was serving “POM-tinis” which had a ton of vodka in them. I got one even though I hate the “-tini” naming convention. I did not finish it.

The cheddar from the Spring Hill Jersey Cheese Company was WONDERFUL. I also enjoyed all the very feet-y cheese from the Marin French Cheese Company. My favorite (if I recall correctly) was the Schloss, which the website describes as “replete with delicate naughtiness.”

Will I go again next year? Hell yes.

I was really hoping I’d find some fallout from the newly released Michelin ratings for the San Francisco Bay Area. People are getting pretty het up about the whole thing.

The San Francisco Chronicle says, “OMG they just don’t get us. We’re better than New York!”

“I’m disappointed by not getting two stars,” said La Folie’s Roland Passot, who has a four-star rating from The Chronicle but got just one from Michelin. “I was not expecting to get three stars, but I was hoping to get two. I don’t know how they judged.

“Some of the one-stars have no tablecloths and people waiting in line outside. I know we’re better than those restaurants,” Passot said.

The Chronicle’s restaurant reviewer says, “The French Laundry is TOO GOOD.”

Maybe we should blame it on the French Laundry. I wonder if our restaurants are being handicapped because it’s much better than any of the other restaurants here and the three stars in New York, including Per Se.

eGulleteers weigh in with mixed reactions.

I’ll bite. After living in San Francisco for a number of years, I was eagerly awaiting the announcement, and to be honest, it left me extremely apathetic to the whole thing. I don’t mean to discredit those who have earned their stars (and congrats go out to you!) but the whole Michelin Guide seems to me at least, to be a bit lost here in America.

But for the ultimate explosion, we turn to Joy at Confessions of a Restaurant Whore.

All I can say is: What the fuck?

I have been waiting for this announcement with the anticipation of a virgin on prom night. Sadly, like the aforementioned, I have ended up with nothing but the disappointing knowledge that the real thing can never live up to the fantasy.

Range, an excellent restaurant, is totally worthy of it’s one star, but why then why no Delfina? Why no Zuni? And how do you put Range and The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton in the same category? The Ritz should have two at least, in my opinion. They are making some bad ass yums over there. And Bushi-tei? Really? Because I just don’t see it, folks.

Don’t even get me started on Michael Mina’s two stars. I just about puked on my keyboard reading that shit.

Fabulously over-the-top. I love it.

ETA: I forgot to check Yelp. They’ve got a big thread about it. It basically comes down to, “Michelin sucks, and our reviews here at Yelp are much better!”

I spent this last weekend at Ani-Magic in Lancaster (warning: exceptionally ugly website). The con was pretty lame, but hanging out with my friends and being costumed dorks was plenty fun. Lancaster is… well, calling it a pit is being pretty generous. One of my roommates brought a rice cooker and made onigiri each morning. We were well-fed, which was awesome, because the only things within walking distance of the hotel were a 7-11 and a Carl’s Jr.

Next weekend is FallFest! I’m really looking forward to this- last year was a blast. Food and wine and food and food and wine and chocolate and (hopefully) that lotion I really like but is way too expensive and Gray Goose and even more food. Oh, and another Riedel wine glass. (:

Loyal readers! All… 180 of you? Holy crap, that’s more than I thought read this. I am thinking about switching journalling services. I don’t know if Blogger is so much my thing anymore.

First option, Vox. Interesting layouts. Pretty decent interface. Tags appear on the main page. My main problem with Vox is that you can’t comment anywhere without a Vox account, and since account creation is still invite-only, that’s annoying. (I have five invites, if anyone’s interested.) Also, the comments aren’t nested. There are ads, but they can be pretty easily blocked.

Then there’s Livejournal. The layouts aren’t as nice as Vox, but it’s still got tags. Comments can be anonymous if I allow it. Comments are nested. Tags exist, but are showing up sporadically. They also only show up on the entry pages, not the main page (at least in the very basic way I have it set up right now). Would be kind of a pain, personally, for me.

Maybe I should just wait and see if Vox ever opens up registration or starts allowing anonymous commenting.

Sausage and Mushroom Strata

6-8 slices decent quality white bread, crusts removed (enough to make two layers in an 8×8 baking dish)
Butter
10 oz. chicken (or pork) breakfast sausage, casings removed
3 shallots, chopped
8 oz. button or cremini mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup white wine
8 oz. monterey jack cheese, shredded
6 eggs
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 3/4 cup half-and-half
Salt and pepper, to taste

Dry the bread out by leaving it on the counter overnight or in a 200 oven for a half hour. Butter on one side.

Fry the sausage in a nonstick skillet over medium heat, breaking it apart with a spoon or spatula. Cook for about 4 minutes, or until the sausage has lost the raw color and begun to brown. Add the shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until softened and translucent, about 1 minute longer. Add mushrooms to skillet, and cook until mushrooms no longer release liquid, about 6 minutes. Scrape into a bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add wine to skillet, increase heat to medium-high, and simmer until reduced to 1/3 cup, 2 to 3 minutes; set aside.

Butter 8-inch square baking dish. Arrange half the buttered bread slices, buttered-side up, in single layer in dish. Sprinkle half of sausage mixture, then half of the cheese over the bread slices. Arrange the remaining bread slices (in the opposite direction from the first layer) over cheese; sprinkle remaining sausage mixture and cheese over the bread. Whisk eggs and parsley together, then whisk in reduced wine, half-and-half, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste. Pour egg mixture evenly over bread layers. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Remove dish from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature 20 minutes. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until both edges and center are puffed. Let rest/cool briefly and serve.

Avast, me hearties! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, if ye haven’t already been accosted by an ARRRRRRRR.

Check out this wedding cake. I imagine Lydia wants one.

Finally, here’s some news from Britain: Jamie Oliver tries to instate healthy food in school cafeterias. Mothers oppose this and bring fast-food to the schools, because they fear getting healthy food once a day will make the children “picky.” Jamie gets mad.

Kaya died.

The party got her reincarnated.

She came back as a HALF-ORC.

ARGH.

Damn, I started writing a new post yesterday, and then my laptop switched off unexpectedly. And of course, since the Blogger auto-save function is a POS, I lost the post. Crapola.

I made guacamole again last night. Zed had a bunch of avocados that were heading into overripe territory. I think I may need to edit the recipe to specify white onions. I don’t really know if there’s much of a difference between white and yellow onions, but I use yellow (because they’re cheaper), and my guac is very very onion-y. J uses white and his is less onion-tastic. Not sure if there’s a correlation there, but maybe. Who knows.

I’m going over to J and Barbara May’s tonight to visit the li’l one. Last time I saw him (not that long ago, I swear), he was just starting to crawl. Now, after a trip to Michigan, he’s pulling himself up onto things! Amazing! Must be something in the air up there. I need to sit Kiddo down and have a talk with him about how he needs to keep crawling for a while and not immediately start walking. He doesn’t want to end up like his Aunt Sarah who has no concept of left and right.

Yes, yes, neglecting the blog. Nope, haven’t made anything new (or at all, I think) since the guac two weeks ago.

R☆ moved the What’s Open Now sites over to India so he could have these awesome URLs:
http://whatsopen.in/cupertino/
http://whatsopen.in/mountain_view/
I have a bunch of hours for the business district in Palo Alto, but I haven’t typed them up yet.

Chicken feet are not for me. Or at least, not the way they prepare them at Canton Delights, the local dim sum place. I went there with R☆ last weekend. We didn’t order a ton, so it was pretty cheap. We spent $15 on five dishes. The sesame balls (really, what I wanted to go for) were tasty. The fried taro dumplings were very good. The vegetable dumplings were pretty mediocre (when I order something marked “vegetable,” I expect more than mushrooms and tofu). The pork buns were satisfying. They had very good tea. I would go back there.

Let’s see… the weekend before that, my friends TeapotGirl and Barbequed (her little sister) came to visit. We went over to Cupertino Village (aka that big Asian shopping center with the 99 Ranch) and ate at the Korean Tofu House. It was a bit pricey, but good. Kind of 50/50 on whether I’d go back- I think I could find the same quality for cheaper nearby. I hear there are some really good places in Sunnyvale. I should eat more Korean food. I don’t get it often, but every time I do, I’m happy.

Guacamole

4 large Hass avocados, mashed
Juice of 1 lime
1 large onion, chopped
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
2 jalapenos, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped (optional, since a lot of people don’t like it)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
Tabasco, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine and chill for an hour (to let the flavors mingle or something). When storing, press plastic wrap flush with the surface to reduce oxidation and browning.

I made lentil soup last night. It was super-tasty. Food disappears a lot faster when there are three other people around. It cost me $11 to make a ton of soup, but I’ll probably only get two or three meals out of it instead of six. Things to think about, I guess.