Category: Blog Post

Abby turns 55!

 

My sister Abby reached the  auspicious “double-nickel” age of 55 this year. Family and friends celebrated the occasion with a three-cheese and eggplant lasagne, panzanella and artichoke hearts – a menu designed to satisfy vegetarians and kids. The lasagne recipe from Better Homes & Gardens emerged from an old file I had been saving  of interesting-looking recipes and the panzanella (now a house favorite) is one of Giada’s from her Everyday Italian cookbook. The lemon custard birthday cake, decorated with Abby’s favorite butterfly designs, was purchased from Sweet Things Bakery. Blueberries accompanied the cake as a great complement to the color as well as an effort to serve something healthy along with the decadent confection.
Everyone took home the two nickels on their plates as party favors!

Christmas on the 5th Day of Chanukah

 

The inspiration for our main dish on this covalence of holidays was Mark Bittman’s potato latkes (pancakes), presented on NBC’s Today Show December 22. You can see the painstaking process of their creation by clicking on the YouTube video below! My husband was the catalyst and co-chef in the peeling and cooking, as well as the producer of the iMovie. The latkes were served with the traditional applesauce and sour cream, purchased at Safeway. Wild Cohoe Smoked Salmon from Trader Joe’s  and deep purple radicchio from the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market topped with lovely green artichoke hearts from Costco completed the meal. Rose’ wine from Lioco paired perfectly with this food. Our table setting was graced by a beautiful poinsettia (a gift from our friend Janey), a Christmas card from PeeWee Herman and the same menorah I have been using since childhood. Happy Holidays indeed!

[https://youtu.be/oYRQsdkC9Q0]

Cold Weather Comfort Food

Panzanella, an age-old Italian recipe for using stale bread, is still very much in the 21st century as it appears in my new “Everyday Italian” cookbook by Giada de Laurentiis. This delicious recipe was the perfect solution for some of the Mediterranean pita bread left over from the recent Rex Foundation 25th Anniversary Benefit (what a wonderful evening of great music!). Organic tomatoes ( purchased from both the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market and Safeway) olives, capers, garlic, basil, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil are also key ingredients in this recipe. In addition, I used some sun-dried tomatoes (since I didn’t have the peppers called for) which gave the dish some extra flavor. Fragrant cream of cauliflower soup with saffron paired wonderfully with this salad. Baby cauliflower from the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market was transformed by this recipe from Epicurious. I use an immersion blender when I make soup. I love this but learned to put the pot with the soup and blender into the sink so it doesn’t splatter all over the kitchen! Our wine this evening was a gift from a visiting daughter of a college roommate –  a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon from the R Collection. We were truly warmed and comforted by this meal!

Birthday Celebrations

On my birthday, November 5, the San Francisco Chronicle had a full page photo of our new President with the headline: “OBAMA, Change Has Come to America”. I could not have received a happier birthday present than this! My lucky day continued as my BFF Joan took me to Cavallo Point for lunch where we enjoyed a decadent tasting menu with a bottle of Rose’ from a Napa Valley vintner.  Dinner, artistically prepared by my husband Freddy, was the grand finale of the day. Food Network star Giada de Laurentiis provided the inspiration for my birthday gift, her new cookbook “Everyday Italian”, and our menu. I was sous chef and table setter as Freddy prepared a delicious grilled eggplant salad with pine nuts and goat cheese and sweet potato fries with basil salt and a garlic mayonnaise dip. This was served with with chicken-apple Aidell’s sausage. Our accompanying wine was a Pinot Grigio from Italy, a delightful surprise. Creamy vanilla gelato, topped with chocolate chips and hazelnuts, was the crowning dessert – birthday candle and all! Wishes of hope for everyone!!!

Jump Start on Crab Season

The intent of my 8AM dash to Safeway for some household staples yielded a lovely surprise for dinner – Dungeness Crab, from Canada! As I cruised by the fish counter, these beautiful red crabs stopped me in my tracks. Fishmonger Jim asked me if I wanted to taste some. I did – delicious! This led to the purchase of one of our favorite Chardonnays, Rodney Strong Chalk Hill. With one artichoke left from our recent visit to Pezzini’s in Castroville (wonderful market) and the best radishes I have ever tasted plucked that morning from the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, we were set for our Saturday Night Live dinner. Happily, I had some brown rice left over from a recent visit to a Chinese restaurant which worked as the perfect accompaniment to this meal. Luscious red grapes from Tory Farms (also purchased at the Farmer’s Market that morning) were served with Carr’s Whole Wheat Crackers topped with Aged Gouda and toasted walnuts drizzled with honey for a simple, sweet dessert.

Financial Crisis Dinner

As our economy spins out of control, we gratefully could partake of the incredible Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park – free, thanks to Warren Hellman. This post-show dinner reflects both the lack of time available for preparation as well as a “on the brink of a recession” mindset. Baked potatoes with Berkeley Farms sour cream (the best sour cream I have ever tasted) and Campbell’s Healthy Request Sirloin Burger soup were served along with a celery salad. Note: the sour cream and soup were bought at Walgreen’s. The deliciously fresh salad recipe came from high end Saveur Magazine – it was simple to prepare and cheap. A surprisingly good Kirkland  (Costco house) brand Chardonnay accompanied our meal. For dessert, we enjoyed Peanut Butter (with chocolate chip) cookies, a wonderful recipe from 

Food & Wine Magazine. Good music, good food and a wonderful husband are a great comfort in these unsettling times. 

Marcus

Now that I have stopped crying for the moment after the burial of our beloved cat Marcus (brother of Neiman), here is a look at the “sitting shiva” dinner we had that evening. This included delicious smoked salmon from Bryan’s Market (some of the best in the City) garnished with wonderfully fragrant dill and onion, deviled eggs and sweet potato chips. The potato was simply sliced crosswise, brushed with oil, salted and then baked. Instead of using bagels, I served Miltons multi-grain crackers since we have a huge box that we had purchased at Costco. We were too full and too exhausted to eat the dessert I had purchased – rugelach from Sweet Things Bakery located within CalMart – so we had them for breakfast the next morning. FYI Marcus now rests below a Meyer Lemon tree we recently purchased at Flora Grubb Gardens. We await the beautiful blossoms.

Bon Voyage Dinner

In celebration of my husband’s upcoming trip to Burning Man (see his Mind Shaft Society web site for images of Uncle Sam’ Elvis Island Immigration Station) and my whirlwind trip to Louisville, Kentucky to visit my room mate from college, I prepared this casual dinner. It consisted of shrimp antipasto and lemon with mint and parmesan pasta. Martha Stewart Living was the source for both recipes, however, the shrimp antipasto was a recipe card I had saved from years ago and the pasta was from the current issue. It called for fettuccine but I used a sprouted whole wheat pappardelle instead and added sweet cherry tomatoes since I had them on hand. A Russian River chardonnay accompanied our dinner. The easy dessert was Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. We ate straight from the quart container I bought at Trader Joe’s which cost little more than the pints sold in other stores!

No Ordinary Soup & Sandwich

This casual Saturday night repast included Jamaican Carrot Soup, one of my favorite recipes received years ago from a Project Open Hand newsletter. It tastes different every time I make it! I used a bit more ginger this time than I usually do so it really had a kick to it. The accompanying Tuscan Tuna-and-Bean sandwich is a great recipe from Gourmet Magazine using cannellini beans. I used whole wheat hamburger buns (extras defrosted from our July 4 barbecue) instead of bread to make this even healthier. The wine I selected was a 2006 Dry Reisling from Pacific Rim Winemakers. As a member of the San Francisco Professional Food Society, I first tasted this wine at a food and wine pairing event and really enjoyed it. When I buy white wine, it is usually Chardonnay but I learned at the event how this wine worked so well with seafood or spicy food. Happily, I found this on sale at BevMo for $8.99! Our wine glass was a souvenir from the grand opening of the beautiful Cavallo Point eco-resort in Sausalito. Check it out!

Mexican Sunday Supper

The perfect conclusion to a day of ice-skating at Zeum, shopping and seeing the spectacular Dale Chihuly exhibit at the deYoung Museum for my visiting family was a casual, colorful Mexican Sunday Supper. Roasted butternut squash with peppers and white cheddar with pumpkin Primavera Tamales were the featured entree. (NB You can buy these at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market for $8.00, but at Cal-Mart or Bryan’s they are $9.99, as I sadly found out.) The tamales were accompanied by artichokes purchased from Pezzini’s in Castroville, black beans and a lentil rice pilaf that my sister provided. tortilla chips (the end of a 5lb. bag from Costco so they were more like tortilla crumbs) with salsa completed the main course. Dessert took advantage of this wonderful stone fruit season with a grilled nectarine and ice cream sundae topped with a Pecan-Oatmeal Crumble, served in the crystal goblets shown. The dessert inspiration and crumble recipe came from the new issue of Martha Stewart Living. Ice creams served were Haagen-Daz Dulce de Leche (Yum!) and a non-dairy vanilla bean frozen yogurt for my vegan niece. (I made the crumble using oil instead of butter so that she could eat it.) This was ultimately named the No-Peach Grilled Nectarine Sundae as a result of my husband’s end of a long weekend RAM capacity, filled with way too much fun! You had to be there . . .