If I were on travel, I'd take a picture of my lunch

When I first moved out here, I was meeting K for lunch at G almost every other week, fully taking advantage of his monthly guest allowances. But then the free good food novelty wore off; I went maybe a handful of times last year.

We ate at Pintxo yesterday, which sports small tapas-sized dishes. My lunch consisted of:
- Warm Frisée Salad with Duck Confit
- Mimosa Gazpacho with Orange “Mousse”
- Local Mishima Ranch Kobe Steak Tartare with Cornichon and Toast
- House Smoked Scallops with Avocado Mango Gelée
- Grilled Ostrich Pepper Steak with Crispy Potato, Sage Hash, Peppercorn Sauce
- Polenta Croquettes with a Soyrizo Tomato Coulis
- Watermelon Cake
- Fudge Brownie Trifle With Butterscotch Pudding, Walnuts, Chocolate Covered Strawberries

It was indeed yummy (and free!). I should start going more often.

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was good and yummy. I made green bean casserole and apple crisp and provided a salad. EJ borrowed my probe thermometer (didn't want to melt another thermometer like 2 years ago) and made the turkey (12 lbs) and a potato hash casserole and picked up a pumpkin pie from Marie Callender's.

The green bean casserole turned out as expected, traditional, no fancy extras. I did deviate slightly from tradition... in that I used the lower-sodium, lower-fat cream of mushroom soup and I used a homemade turkey stock instead of milk. If not for the fried onions, it would have been a run-of-the-mill healthy dish. But how can you skip the fried onions when making green bean casserole?! Maybe next year I'll get fancy and use frozen green beans instead... or maybe even fresh ones... oooh. There's always some worry in leaving tradition though (albeit only a 2-year tradition for me).

The apple crisp could have been better. I followed the Cook's Illustrated recipe word-for-word, almost. The only missing part was the exact apples. The recipe called for 1 1/2 pounds of McIntosh apples (which mush well when baked) and 1 1/2 pounds of granny smiths (which give it good tartness). The supermarket was out of McIntosh apples... so I settled on some honey crisps instead and K doesn't appreciate 'tartness' in anything, so I just stayed away from the grannies :-/
3 main problems resulted...
- the apples didn't get mushy enough (only the ones on the very bottom of the pan did)
- the apples didn't "stick together" (but there wasn't really a sticking ingredient in the recipe)
- there wasn't enough topping
I'll have to give the recipe another try with the "right" apples before I try adjustments.

All in all, good food, good times. I feel sorry for Carter who stayed by the table and just watched us eat the whole time.

We watched the 2nd Pirates of the Caribbean movie afterwards... confusing plot, but fun movie.

Oh, and... FF-XII completed today... ~140 hours. We'll probably play our last save again after the trip since we still have places we didn't explore, fights we skipped, etc. Though many hours and almost a month, it felt somewhat short. Same feeling as when I finish a long, good book.

dinner party

Wake up almost noon.

Head out with V to Indian supermarket to get some Indian spices and 'aged' basmati rice (has to be aged). Brief stop at Mountain View farmers' market on way out. Stop at Ohana on Castro to pick up lunch for everyone.

V starts getting migraine a couple hours into cooking. We help him debone some chicken thighs. He reassures me he'll be ok (really?).

I head out to Safeway to buy some last minutes. Soda. Cups. Tablecloth. 'Aged' basmati rice (the Indian market didn't have it!).

Return to a comatose V. IL, Albert, Stefanie, Aaron all arrived. C filling in for V in the kitchen. Looked hectic, but probably was less so than it looked. E, J, and K in the study playing Arkham Horror.

Check on V. Get filled in on the status of things. Start the rice ("must" be washed several times until the water runs almost clear... right.). Ah. Portioned out too much rice for my rice cooker (6 cups ran over the 10 cup water line?). (Note to self: Basmati rice like brown rice needs more water than regular white rice.)

Dinner late but progress seems ok. Hint to K that maybe they should go out and hang with the new guests. Start some major cleanup (just can't deal with a non-organized mess). V awakens.

Guests play Taboo. Cleanup and overlook the finishing dishes.

Table gets setup and plenty of good food. Chicken non-Indian-restaurant Tikka Masala, Lamb also-non-Indian-restaurant Rogan Josh, Spinach & homemade-by-V paneer cheese, courtesy-of-IL Trader Joe's Naan (which is quite yummy), rice, good company.

Cheesecake for dessert.

Karaoke and DDR. San Juan (C v E v IL v Albert, with E as winner).

Call from Stefanie with Aaron lost on the road back up to Berkeley. A little help from Google maps, but in the end, good ole fashioned [free with membership] AAA maps didn't disappoint.

Chatter. Promises to stay up the whole night.

Sleep at 6am-ish.

thanksgiving pt 2: delightfully decadent desserts

A mostly dessert Thanksgiving at EJ's...

Initially it was going to be an all-dessert evening, but that turned out to be miscommunication at work. So I decided to make a dish... green bean casserole... which then became turkey green bean casserole... afterall, how can turkey day be without turkey? The green bean casserole: meat from turkey legs roasted the night before, canned green beans, fried onions, cream of mushroom, and turkey stock concocted the previous night.

This casserole was joined by EJ's potato hash casserole and Chiu-Ki & Francois' pork chops... oh, and salad with sesame miso dressing... for a satisfying main course.

And onto dessert...

Choco pie...

the ingredients of which shall remain a mystery for now ^_~ . Some lessons learned:
... use butter (not oil) in the making of a cookie crumb crust (unless you like your crust greasy-feeling)
... a food processor can make quite a mess when making cookie crumbs, or maybe my food processor is just sub-standard. In any case, I will stick to the rolling pin and ziploc bag for future crusts.
... try coffee (in place of coffee liqueur) next time... I just didn't like the extra dimension given by the Kahlua.

Blueberry cobbler became cheesecake when K told me he didn't like excessively fruity desserts... which then become cheesecake brownies when I couldn't find a 9x3 [non-springform] cake pan. Ala Joy of Cooking, these turned out ok.


I did have a bump or two along the way though... upon finishing the brownie bottom and putting it in the oven, I turned to the construction of the cheesecake top, only to encounter the dry goods for the brownie bottom still sitting on my countertop. No wonder the mixture was so thick and tough to spread! I hurriedly extracted the already hot pan from the oven. Now, the brownie mixture was already sitting on top of parchment in the pan, so it would be virtually impossible to salvage back into a mixing bowl. And so, I dumped the flour mixture into the pan and proceeded to mix with my rubber spatula... until very well-combined. And back in the oven it went. The rest of the experience was, thankfully, uneventful.

EJ made Boston cream pie and fried apple turnovers, which I regretfully do not have pictures of =( The pie was ok and the apple turnovers were decidedly yummy ^o^

Four desserts for six people... resulted in approximately a quarter of each dessert being eaten... ie, too much food once again.

thanksgiving pt 1: memories

Y1
The year at KBL was the first year I had my own kitchen. So of course, K and I hosted a Thanksgiving potluck at our apartment (for 8-10 people... being forgetful now! :-/) Thanksgiving back at my house always consisted of turkey, of course, but the rest of the foods were yummy Chinese goodies... nothing "traditional Thanksgiving". So that year, I wanted as close to traditional as I could get. Even though it was potluck, I still made more than enough to feed everyone... turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cornbread, cranberry sauce... and all from scratch. That food experience:

turkey - so-so. It was before I learned anything about roasting turkey aside from oil & season, baste, keep checking on it. Before Good Eats.

stuffing - all I remember is that it was the first time I ever tasted paprika (the stuffing recipe I got had paprika in it)... and definitely could have done better

sweet potatoes - a whole 9x13 pan was entirely eaten... marshmallows and coconut (no pecans)... the most successful dish of the bunch

mashed potatoes - K did all the 'grunge' work for these... I think they turned out quite well, though there's only so much mashed potatoes you can eat in one sitting

cornbread - following the "southern corn bread" recipe in Joy of Cooking, I had made 2... one with AP flour and one with whole wheat flour... both were kind of dry-ish and could definitely be sweeter...

cranberry sauce - very basic... cranberries, water, apple juice, sugar

gravy - made from turkey stock concocted the previous day. Initially I tried to start from a roux... but I think we just didn't start with enough flour + butter... so we ended up thickening with a cornstarch slurry

All in all, it was a good first try.

Y2
The following year was dinner with EJ, and RC.

stuffing - an adaptation of a sausage stuffing recipe from Cooking Light... much better, though I think the missing flavor element was homemade stock

mashed potatoes - nothing new that I can recall

gravy - a mostly successful roux-thickened one made from the roasted turkey pan drippings. It was sort of runny, but at least no lumps. The pan drippings were annoying in that I had no way of separating the fat out.

Y3
Dinner with K's extended family on his mom's side, but I did have to make a couple of items for a Thanksgiving potluck at work.

mashed sweet potatoes - ripped off of Rachel Ray... mashed with pecans, brown sugar, bourbon, nutmeg, some other spices... successful if people like sweet potatoes, but I think people like the more familiar-looking sweet potato casserole when given a choice between the two

cranberry sauce - cranberries, water/juice, brown & white sugars, brandy, cinnamon sticks, chopped apple... a keeper that needs just a bit more refining

Thanksgiving will probably be trial and error for quite a few years more...

welcome autumn

I stopped by the De Martini Orchard stand on my way to the library today... my first sighting of persimmons this year, which signifies that autumn is indeed here. The arrival of persimmons unfortunately also means a goodbye to one of my other favorites... white nectarines. I suppose the abundance of fresh fruit is an ok trade-off for living in an area which lacks the gorgeous visual cues of the four seasons.

Yamato Nadeshiko... which translates into Perfect Girl (?!!). Year 2000 jdrama, 11 episodes total. Yesterday was a day of 2 firsts... first jdrama finished... and first time I ever watched 8 (!) episodes of a drama in one day. Strange thing is the 8 episodes seemed to fly by rather quickly... probably due to watching it with the good company of friends. It's not something K and I could ever do by ourselves.

food at home

I mentioned to my mom that the 'luo bo gao' she made contained quite a bit of oil. She said my dad likes to have them pan-fried... of course, pan-fried, but it worried me that the pool of oil left in the dish was a lot more than if you got a plate of luo bo gao at dim sum, for example. She says, "it's vegetable oil", as if vegetable oil is supposed to be a great thing. And she said it's only occasional. Well, I've noticed that every dinner at home so far has included one dish that is fried -_-

Food and... wine. We have a plum tree in our backyard, which produced so many plums last year that my parents decided to make their own plum wine. My mom makes it sound really easy. I guess they must know what they're doing, because she gave me a taste of it and I'd say it was as good or maybe even better than the plum wine I tried at Ginza (the only other place I've ever had plum wine). My grandpa (mom's dad) used to make his own wine when I was young, so I guess he must have passed on some of his knowledge.

hungry enough to eat my dress

...chocolate fashion show at the opening of the Salon Du Chocolat exhibition in Beijing Friday, June 10, 2005. The three-day event is being promoted as China's first chocolate exhibition, featuring 20 of the world's top chocolate makers, some of whom contributed to the edible dresses on display in the fashion show.
(Dec-2009 edit: links to 2009 show in Paris since the old link died >_<)



I made chocolate muffins today from Alton's baking book. Is yogurt or buttermilk the secret to muffin success? All I can say is - yummy ^o^