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 . . .

Passover Brunch

Our celebration of Passover was not the traditional Seder, but a last day of Passover brunch!
Since this was a Sunday, we kicked off with Mimosas (made with either orange juice or home-made Meyer lemonade and Vueve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne) and almonds. Martha Stewart Living provided a delicious recipe for Skillet Matzo Brei so this was our main course accompanied by creme fraiche and Greek haroset, made with dates and green apples. NB: Yehuda matzot were used in the matzo brei since they won the recently published tasting contest by the San Francisco Chronicle. We also served steam-baked potatoes (a recipe from HomeChef), a fruit salad with tangerines and blueberries and smoked salmon.

Exotically flavored macaroons – think lavender, hazelnut and chocolate – from Boulange finished our meal!

Broccoli Soup

An enticing broccoli soup with cheddar crisps recipe from Food & Wine magazine was the catalyst for this dinner. After a trip to the Farmers’ Market at the Ferry Plaza, I was armed with a gloriously green head of broccoli and some glistening greens. However, not paying attention closely enough to the recipe, I missed seeing the need for celery! This sent me running to my Google dashboard and did a search for broccoli soup recipes that did not require celery. I found a wonderfully simple recipe requiring only broccoli, water and salt. This one also introduced the idea of placing walnuts and goat cheese at the center of the of the bowl and then surrounding these with the soup. Since I had already made the cheddar crisps (delicious!), I used those this time but will use goat cheese another time. To accompany the soup, I prepared baked tilapia and served it over the greens with a Meyer lemon shallot vinaigrette, garnished with pine nuts. Thanks to our neighbor Kevin who gave us a bucket of beautiful Meyer lemons from their tree!

New Year’s Eve

In the midst of holiday parties, my husband and I decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with a movie and dinner for just the two of us. We walked down to the Balboa, our neighborhood theater, to see “Charlie Wilson’s War” which we really enjoyed. (FYI – the next day we went back to the Balboa to see “Juno” – great movie). Before we left for the movie, I prepared our starter course – mushroom caps filled with blue cheese – which then required only simple reheating. This course was served with a bottle of Champagne Taittinger. The main course was the most delicious crab we ever had, purchased the prior day in Pillar Point near Half Moon Bay. We dipped this into unsalted butter being warmed by gracefully shaped porcelain warmers. This was accompanied by a caesar salad, a recipe I found in Epicurious. Our wine for this course was our favorite “house Chardonnay” – Rodney Strong Chalk Hill. We waited to have dessert with our dear friends and neighbors, Nanci and Andrew. Check out Andrew’s Blue Turtle Spa!