Category: food commentary

Oh, holidays are so fun. I had an excellent time with my family and Barbara May’s family. We all got together for Christmas Eve to eat tons of hors d’oeuvres, decorate the tree, sing carols, and talk. I made my bean dip and some little croque monsieurs. Dad cut up vegetables and made potstickers. Mom made marinated artichoke hearts, devilled eggs, pigs in blankets, mulled cider and dip for vegetables/potato chips. Barbara May ‘s parents brought over some very tasty eggnog. Barbara May brought her wonderful fruitcake, hurray!

If you’re ever in the market for panetonne, Maina is really good. It won the Chronicle’s taste-test. I was going to buy their second place winner, the Trader Joe’s brand, but they were sold out, so I went down the street to Draeger’s and found the Maina. We had it alongside our bagels with lox for Christmas breakfast.

Last Thursday, I went to Sundance the Steakhouse with Jer. That was a most enjoyable meal. We had a lovely table by the window where we could watch people running from the pelting rain. Jer got the prime rib, I got the New York Strip, and we split an order of crabcakes to start. The food was uniformly excellent. I had read some reviews that said they overcooked their steaks, but ours were damn perfect. When I first bit into my steak, it was tasty, but as I chewed, it got better. I love stuff like that.

Yesterday, I headed into Sonoma to meet up with Erin and Ys, two of my friends from college. Such fun! The weather had cleared up, and we spent a very enjoyable afternoon walking around, shopping, talking, and eating. We went to The Girl and the Fig for a late lunch. I got their soup of the day, which was a pureed garnet yam soup with cream and blue cheese and walnuts. That was a bit of a mistake on my part, since I had just had the apple-rutabaga soup the day before, and the two soups were a bit similar in taste except the apple-rutabaga soup was far superior. The garnet yam soup tasted like the time I made the apple-rutabaga soup and forgot to put in the cream, maple syrup, cayenne, and apple (aka all the stuff that makes it over-the-top yummy, very dumb of me). Also, it needed salt. For my main course, I got cassoulet. I’d never had it before, but I recalled Eddie saying something about it. It was very, very good. The flageolet beans were a little undercooked, but the meats were so tasty. Duck, lamb, bacon, sausage… yum! So big, though- I couldn’t finish it. For dessert we all split a creme brulee that was flavored with lavender and honey. Now, usually I just like my creme brulee basic with no adulterations. This, however, was really good. The sugar top could have been crispier (Ys tried to crack it and her spoon just kind of sunk in), and there were some bizarre temperature changes in the custard underneath (I’m guessing it had just been flamed and was not cooled again afterwards), but I would totally order it again.

Dude, I totally scored at Christmas.

I received a beautiful and lovely French oven from Le Creuset, which means that I don’t have to use the pot that is probably giving me cancer anymore. (I have a very old, original Teflon-coated pot from the 70s.) (Also, thank you to the guy at the Le Creuset outlet who gave us a great deal on the pot even thought I was being completely obtuse and didn’t understand what he was getting at.)

I also got a Thermapen! These things are incredible. I mean, I have a digital themometer from Polder, but it takes like thirty seconds to read a temperature. This thing takes less than five seconds. It’s SO COOL.

When Barbara May was visiting Barbara Jo over Thanksgiving, they stopped at Penzey’s and got a load of spices. I got REAL cinnamon, plus some very high-quality cassia, Mexican vanilla (the best!), and white pepper. Now I can avoid the ghost of Julia Child yelling at me when I get dark specks in my eggs or light-colored soups or white sauces. J got cinnamon and a bunch of exciting chile powders. I am very much looking forward to the next time he makes chili.

Let’s see… I also got some fun kitchen utensils (silicon basting brush, mini whisk [excellent for making hot chocolate and vinegrettes], and one of those shot glasses with tablespoon measurements on it so I can measure vanilla properly), an extra bowl for my stand mixer (no more stopping the flow of cooking to wash and dry the bowl so I can beat egg whites in it, huzzah!), and a BAGUETTE PAN. I am so damn excited about this. Sometime this week (since I’m not working), I need to try this thing out.

From John and Rose I got some lovely anise pizzelle cookies (so good!) and a tub of the world’s best dried cherries. I think it might be time to make scones again!

Cookbooks all around! Dad got the Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook. J got Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. Barbara May got Cakes from Scratch in Half the Time. Mom got Michael Chiarello’s Casual Cooking, The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Vegetables, and Molto Italiano by Mario Batali (the clue for this had something to do with the fact that he has orange hair and he wears those bright orange clogs all the time). I got Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking and The Cook’s Encylopedia of Soup (I love that series).

Happy holidays, y’all.

I’m at the parents’ house, preparing for the festivities. Jon and Barbara May and her family (John, Rose, and Barbara Jo) are all coming over tonight for Christmas Eve fun-ness.

I went out to Best Buy and the mall this morning to pick up some last-minute gifts. I thought someone already had something that I was getting the rest of as a present, but it turns out they didn’t, so I needed to go get it. Also, I decided to upgrade one of my mom’s presents from something amusing to something amusing that she would connect to more. Yeah, along those lines. The crowds weren’t terrible (of course, I did go at 8:30am) and the freeways were empty.

I made a pasta dish last night that was pretty okay. Penne with bacon and arugula. It ended up being super-vinegary, though, by no fault of my own. Or my mom’s, really. She was making marinated artichoke hearts, and even though she washed and dried the pot she used, some vinegar somehow remained in there. It was ultra-tart. The arugula was mega-tasty, as was the bacon (Nieman Ranch applewood smoked).

I still have presents to wrap and clue! Argh!

I got a wonderful Christmas present at work. As you might have heard via my relentless bitchings about it, I have a crappy computer at work. It was as old (possibly older) as the computer I got when I went to college. 1998. That is a long friggin’ lifespan for a computer. It HATED me. “You want me to run Eudora, Firefox, IE, Filemaker, Excel, AIM, Acrobat, and Word all in one session? Bitch, please.” Slower than molasses, this computer was. But thanks to my wonderful boss, I got a new computer yesterday! I was just hoping for a less-old one, but this thing is brand new. It’s nice. And QUIET. It’s kind of freaky.

I need to clean my house. It’s a mess. Presents and wrapping paper and crap everywhere. I need to get everything in order so that I can mess it up with new stuff next week.

I love this quote from the San Francisco Chronicle (full article here):

Indeed, there are those who also say that all Jewish holidays, with the exception being the solemn days of fasting, consist of the following basic narration: “A cruel ruler came into power, he tried to destroy and annihilate us, our people held their faith and overcame the foes, triumphing in the face of destruction! Now let’s eat!”

I have been eating with my family a lot recently, and they have been feeding me well. Last Thursday I had dinner with my parents- meat loaf, tater tots, and brussel sprouts. I love brussel sprouts. They’re so good! On Saturday, I ate with J and Barbara May. J had just made a huge vat of sauce. Tonight I went back over to the parents’ house, and we had steak and twice-baked potatoes. Yum! I adore twice-baked potatoes. Also, in a search of my website, I don’t think I’ve actually written down the recipe for them. Mini baked potatoes, yes. But not the full-sized ones (not that it’s all that different). Huzzah! I’ll have a recipe this week even if I don’t make anything new!

I bought some Yamamotoyama tea today. I remember Lydia brewing me up some and it being very good. I hope this is the same stuff. Genmai-cha brown rice tea.

I’ve been talking with my parents about Christmas Eve happenings. Although Hannukah doesn’t officially start until the 26th (ETA: I’m wrong, the first night is Christmas night), we’re going to combine it with our Christmas Eve traditions. In our household, we make hors d’oeuvres- lots of them. Dad is bringing the Hannukah spirit into things by planning to make fried foods- carciofi alla judea and calamari fritti. Oil = Hannukah. Maybe we’ll make latkes, too. I saw a recipe for honey-drizzled chocolate cheese fritters that I’m interested in. The accompanying article said they’d be good for Hannukah (because of the oil) or Rosh Hashanah (because of the honey).

My parents went to Boulevard in San Francisco with some friends a week and a half ago. Read my mom’s review here. Boulevard also has a new cookbook out; it sounded pretty intriguing at least from an aesthetic standpoint.

Also, while you’re over at her blog, check out the personal attacks and wanking done by a few of her commenters (Devereaux and the mouse). Fun stuff. Jeez. Glad I don’t get crap like that. Of course, is anyone going to disagree that vehemently with me about cookware or foodstuffs? Probably not. I did try with my post on foie gras a while ago, but no one took that bait.

I need to make something new! I was thinking about making a zabaglione with strawberries for dessert tonight, but then Mom said I didn’t have to bring anything. And then I remembered that I had already basically written that recipe in the tiramisu recipe. I still brought cookies, though.

Also, I have started playing the oboe a little bit again. I didn’t suck all that badly, which was amazing (only lasted half an hour before my lip gave out, though). But what was really amazing was that my reeds still worked. I mean, damn. Those things are three years old.

I am currently taking a very long time to write up the lasagna recipe. I’m at the layering stage, and it’s frustrating trying to make, “Cover the noodles with some ricotta. Then cover the ricotta with sauce. Then cover the sauce with mozzarella. Then put three more pieces of pasta on top of the cheese. Then repeat all that until you run out of noodles,” sound at all interesting.

Played D&D last night. We pretty much decided to screw our mission and go find a town where we can sell our loot to buy shiny new equipment. The hostage who we’re supposed to rescue can just wait for two weeks. I’m sure her captors are very patient.

My week in food has been pretty unexciting. I bought some hot dogs yesterday and combined them with my extra tube of crescent rolls. I was chowing down on pigs in a blanket for dinner. That was some trashy/wonderful noshing.

This weekend, I’m going to be making lasagna, which I see I have not written about yet. But since what I do is bascially follow the directions on the back of the Ronzoni no-cook noodles box, it’s not terribly exciting. I will be making my own sauce instead of using a jar, though. I actually don’t think I’ve ever done that before for a lasagna.

Oh, and some kind of dessert (we’re having a dinner for my mom’s birthday on Sunday). I was going to make tiramisu again, but for some reason, I cannot find ladyfingers in the grocery stores. It’s quite annoying.

I need to do laundry tonight. I’m going through socks a lot faster now that I wear two pairs during the day and one at night. My feet get cold.

Woohoo, par-teeeee tomorrow night. It’s time once again for Bud and Eddie’s Holiday Hoo-hah, which is one of my favorite events of the year. Great food, strong drinks, and interesting people. Yay!

Wahhh! My sauce broke!

My mom was trying to make her sweet potato-chipotle-maple-cream gratin thing less soupy. She thought the solution might be to make a bechamel sauce instead of just pouring the cream over the sliced sweet potatoes. I tried this out this weekend. I made the sauce (omg so tasty!), assembled the dish, and slid it into a 350 oven for an hour. When I took it out… well, it was very pretty, except for the fact that there was a centimeter of oil sitting on top of the whole thing. I spooned the oilslick off the top and cut into it. More oil beneath. ARGH! It was still quite yummy, I thought. But still, DAMN!

I must have done something wrong with the sauce. People (not me, clearly) use bechamel in lasagna all the time and it doesn’t break in the oven!

I’m so sad.