birthday dinners

While my birthday fell on a Sunday I managed to celebrate with various friends and family for over a week. My mom and I brunched at Cafe D'Alsace, a wonderful French Bistro on 88 and 2nd Ave, where I enjoyed a delicious Croque Monsiour and a cappuccino with foam in the shape of a heart. Mom had the omelet with mushrooms and comte, my usual--yum! My dad and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at the Atlantic Grill, a restaurant I have wanted to try for some time. He had the Mahi Mahi, which was amazing, and I had the Halibut which was quite good. Naturally I enjoyed a glass of Riesling (favorite wine...go figure) for the occasion. Two great friends took me to Josie's West, a fantastic organic restaurant where I had the vegetarian meatloaf which was surprisingly spicy and absolutely delicious! We finished by sharing a piece of cake at Cafe Lalo (where You've Got Mail was filmed). Finally, another wonderful friend and mentor treated me to an amazing dinner at Il Buco. This restaurant uses only local ingredients for their menu, which for this reason changes according to what's in season in this area of the country. We shared various appetizers and a soup, each very different and flavorful. I then had the black kale salad (so so good!) and she ordered the rabbit. I tried a bite of the latter and Oh wow was it unbelievable. I haven't had something with such a beautiful flavor in a while. Yes, you guessed it, I enjoyed a glass of Riesling (not too sweet or too dry) with this meal as well.
Another friend baked me a delicious vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, which wasn't too sweet, making me love it even more. I also must add that a friend introduced me to a wonderful Mexican restaurant, Agave, which has rather unique additions and spins to traditional Mexican dishes. We shared fish tacos which were light and summery and the blue corn enchiladas with chicken, which had an amazing sauce. Fabulous.
Thank you everyone for a wonderful culinary birthday experience!

split pea & barley soup

After making a delicious split pea and barley soup in my food science lab last Wednesday, I decided to recreate it at home, doubling the recipe so we could have some leftovers to reheat for a quick meal. The soup takes about 2 hours total to make, but most of the work is accomplished in the first half hour. Dicing carrots, celery, an onion, part of a red pepper and mincing garlic are time consuming. Here's a paraphrase of the recipe (you can't really go wrong, so experiment and enjoy your own version):

heat veggie oil in a large pot until shiny, add the veggies, onion and garlic at medium heat until the onions become "glassy" (about 10 min). Then add split peas and barley (ratio of 2:1), salt and about six times the amount of water as split peas (so one cup split peas means 1/2 cups barley, 6 cups water, 1.5 tsp salt). Bring this to a boil then cover and simmer for at least one hr. I recommend waiting until the split peas have essentially disintegrated. If you want a thicker soup, remove the lid and continue cooking; the water will evaporate. Add salt, pepper and other herbs to taste (I liked adding rosemary from the plant I then managed to kill--not enough water...oops!) and...Enjoy! It's perefct for the cold weather that has now arrived.

(I apologize for the lousy picture; I forgot to photograph the soup before storing the leftovers)

almond or rice milk?

A couple of weeks ago I purchased both almond and rice milk to determine which, if any, I preferred to cows milk. At first, I wasn't a huge fan of the almond milk, but after adding it to my oatmeal, decided I liked it and would happily drink it as a milk substitute. Rice milk, on the other hand, still has a very strange flavor and aftertaste; one I remember from my childhood when I drank it due to a milk allergy. This latter milk-substitute is not one I will choose to imbibe, but I will recommend it to those who cannot or do not wish to drink cows-milk and cannot drink almond milk. There are other substitutes to consider as well, such as oat-milk. Experiment, see what you prefer, and don't forget to glance at the label to ensure that you're also getting your necessary (i.e. essential) nutrients such as calcium.

beets and their leaves

On my way home I decided to purchase a bunch of beets from the union square farmer's market. I love their sweet taste. Once I had them cooking away in boiling water (skins on to prevent excess nutrient and pigment loss) I realized that I had never used the leaves of beets. Not wanting to dispose of these somewhat bitter-tasting green leaves with purple stems and roots, I searched the internet for beet-leaf recipes. I came across one that reminded me of a simple recipe we used for kale, spinach and other leafy greens in my Food Science Lab (ie cooking class): olive oil and garlic. This online recipe recommended, among others, some red chili flakes and onions, which I decided to incorporate. I sauteed the little onion pieces I had, added chili flakes, and because I was out of garlic cloves, added onion and garlic powder. I then added some water, the bite-sized beet leaves (no stems) and a lid. After a few minutes of steaming they were finished. The sweet beets and the spicy, garlicky beet leaves were quite a contrast and delicious!

grocery shopping, products and prices

After a conversation with a vegan friend about almond milk, I decided to peruse three various health food stores in my neighborhood for (cow) milk alternatives with the exception of soy (I'm allergic). An interesting observation I made, not for the first time, was the difference in price of identical products in various supermarkets and health food stores. Something to note before I continue: most supermarkets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan are ridiculously expensive. A box of Tazo Tea which can be purchased for about $5 at Starbucks (yes, Starbucks) goes for about $8 at the Gristedes up here. It's ridiculous! Health food stores generally have a reputation for being very expensive, and many of their products are quite pricey, but certain items are actually much less costly. Quinoa, for example, was at least half the cost and sunflower seeds were about one third. I was happy to notice that one health food store carried four brands of rice milk, three brands of almond milk and one each of oat milk and hazelnut milk. And, guess what, the prices were either equivalent to or cheaper than the (cow's) milk at the supermarket.

Something to remember: if you have time, explore various grocery and healthfood stores and compare prices; you'll be surprised at how much you can save by purchasing certain items at different places!

let's go back in time - part II

Tartine

Tartine, a popular bakery in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco (also where the Bi-Rite Creamery is located), has been written up in numerous magazines - even a German one! The bread pudding was recommended to me so I decided to try a cup of it accompanied with a cappuccino.

Tartine seeks to use all organic products and receives their dairy and meat from a nearby farm. The bread pudding is made with whatever fruit is currently in-season, which while I visited was banana. The sweet taste of banana was offset by that of egg, and the texture and taste of the sweet syrup-soaked bread set a nice base to the dish. While I like the taste of eggs - huge omelet fan - I realized that I don't like to experience it in a sweet dish such as this. I'm not sure, but I think I'm just not a bread pudding fan. Maybe if I was, I would have found the dish delicious. And you're wondering how the cappuccino was...eh it was just o.k. Some places might be more of a trend, some, like Bi-Rite, live up to the hype, some don't. I must say though, the more savory options such as quiche or croque monsieur looked tasty, so if you do find yourself in the Mission area of San Fran, stop by Tartine for a savory lunch and then finish it off with some unique-flavored ice cream from the Bi-Rite Creamery.

let's go back in time - part I

I'd been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and with the encouragement of two wonderful friends on separate occasions I finally decided to start. Naturally when I made the decision I was across the country visiting Marta in San Francisco and didn't have a computer. Thankfully good old pen and paper did the trick and I wrote my "first" blogs so to say, in various cafes throughout beautiful San Fran. Here they are, posted one at a time:


Bi-Rite Creamery & Bakeshop

The line was out the door and around the corner. Marta and I waited in line for the popular ice cream because how often am I in San Fran after all? Time in line passed quickly as we had plenty of catching up to do and delicious recipes to exchange. When I saw the list of flavors (see picture), I was a bit overwhelmed but finally decided on ricanela (canela is cinnamon in Spanish), which is essentially cinnamon ice cream with snickerdoodle cookie dough, and brown sugar with ginger-caramel swirl. Yum! The white chocolate with raspberry and the salty caramel also sounded delicious. The brown sugar with ginger-caramel swirl was one of the most delicious ice cream flavors I had ever tried (and I am a huge ice cream fan). So, if you're ever in San Francisco, be sure to visit the Bi-Rite Creamery.