The Other City

One of the first things Sarah said to me when she met me at the airport in San Francisco was that in the Bay area, SF is "the city."  I think she knows me and my NYC-centric nature a little too well!  I got over being a New Yorker and actually did manage to refer to SF as "the city" once or twice.  (Don't worry, New York, you're still THE city in my eyes! <3)

But I had the most wonderful time in SF this weekend and absolutely cannot wait to come back.  Sarah was trying oh-so-hard to recruit me to move there, and I can't say that I'm not thinking about it.  I LOVED SF and think it's actually a great match for me.  We'll see... ;)

I know I'm skipping over a bunch of things I said I'd write about... like the cruise and a fabulous dinner party, but I'm still excited about San Francisco, so I want to get to it!

Starting with... Brenda's Soul Food!  It was recommended by two separate people, so I figured it had to be tried.  Alex and I braved the notoriously sketchy Tenderloin district for our first SF meal.  (Fine, our 2nd SF meal... we went to Whole Foods for dinner and snacks when we arrived on Thursday night, of course!)  It.was.AMAZING.  Everything was like buttah!  Would totally make Paula Deen proud.

Alex and I had gone for a nice hilly run in the morning (complete with a double Ghirardelli tasting), so I had worked up a pretty serious appetite.  It felt so good to run!  The weather was mild, and the marina was so pretty.  We did about 4 miles plus some hill-walking, and no knee aches!  Some shin splints from the hills, but nothing too bad.  Yay!

I ordered the goat cheese and shrimp omelet with grits and a biscuit.

And then I spent the rest of the day weekend talking about it.  The omelettey outside is hiding the good stuff, but there were shrimp, caramelized onions, and a ton of goat cheese inside, and it was covered with this bacon tomato relish amazingness.  The grits were SO creamy and rich, and the biscuit was, according to Alex, a southern girl at heart, the best biscuit she'd ever had.  The way it flaked!  Oh, SF was off to a good foodie start.

At every table there was a different type of homemade jam.  Ours was apricot or peach.  Not sure.  But it was incredible.  Juicy and fresh and chunks of real fruit.

I was told I had to get the chocolate beignets, but there was no way I could eat another bite.  So I got them to go!  I nuked one later that night for dessert.  Chocolate heaven.  Didn't get a pic because they were not as attractive a few hours later, but still so so tasty.  This place is a must-go.

After our amazing brunch/lunch, we headed over to the National rental car station and picked up a car for our adventure up to Sonoma County to meet the one and only Jenna!  The smell of beignets filled the car, which was both amazing and such a tease, but we made it up to Healdsburg with the help of Ursula, our bossy little GPS.  We met Jenna for some awesome fro yo in the adorable little town of Healdsburg.  I was taken back to my dreams of being a Murphy Goode employee... sigh.

Anyway, we had so much fun chatting with Jenna about boys, food, blogs, and life in Cali.  Thanks so much for meeting us, Jenna!

I thought I could use a little caffeine for the drive back, so we stopped in at the Flying Goat afterward for a lowfat latte.  SO strong, and SO good!  And so much prettier before I delved in.

It had been like a little fern or something.  Did the trick and kept me awake for the drive!  Phew.

After returning Ursula and the car, we headed over to another Jenna-rec: La Mediterranee.

Alex and I were so ready for some veggies.  We split a salmon kebab with amazing rice and a truly unique chicken lemon soup, and the Salad Mediterranee, which I am modeling for you.

Does it look like a giant mess of veggie salads and legumes?  Good, because it was.  And it was awesome.  We passed on dessert and then went home (Sarah's apt) for some tea and microwaved beignets.  Mmmmm...

In the interest of not having killer long posts, I'm going to split up the weekend into a few posts.  Check in soon!

Loving San Fran!

Alex and I are having so much fun in San Francisco and pretending we live at my friend Sarah's apartment!  We may or may not be eating our way through the city, but, hey, what else do you expect from me?  I won't be able to get pics up until later this weekend, but I did want to share our bit of fame care of Jenna...  It's only a matter of time before people start recognizing us on the streets, right?  I'm headed to Napa tomorrow with Sarah and her friends, so I'm looking forward to some beautiful scenery and awesome wine.  Can't wait!  Have a great weekend!

Ketchup Parte Tres

Every once in a while I get a hankering for Spanish food.  I'm a teensy bit obsessed with Spain and Spanish culture after having studied abroad there in the spring of my junior year, and there are times when I just wish I could be back in my host mom Mayte's kitchen. I was actually sort of appalled with Spanish food when I first got there, and it took me a while to get into it.  There's a ton of oil, enough bread to knock out an army of Atkins dieters, and NO BIG SALADS!  I got past this pretty quickly because, well, it's all incredibly delicious, and guess what?  I didn't gain a pound while I was there.  So, viva la comida espanola!


Here is Mayte, her husband Fernando, my roommate Kate, and me, before we left.

We bought them chef hats :)

Anyway, one of my favorites was tortilla sandwich, also known as carbfest.  Tortilla espanola is basically a potato omelet, and usually they leave the eggs a little runny inside.  Obviously it's totally unnecessary to put something like potato and egg on bread, but it's kind of like heaven, and it was my favorite bagged lunch.


I was actually looking up soup recipes on Smitten Kitchen when I stumbled upon Deb's Spanish food section.  And immediately soup was out of the picture.  I was reading through her recipe for tortilla, when I realized that it was from a cookbook that I own!  And, as a matter of fact, WORKED ON!  I had a publishing internship one summer, and this was a book that I read and copy-edited a little.  It is the one and only, the beautiful and stunning... The New Spanish Table, by Anya von Bremzen.  I worked on the book while applying to my study abroad program, and I was totally jazzed about the whole thing.  And then kind of forgot about it?!  But it's great, and now that I'm a little chef, I will be pulling it off the shelf more often.

My tortilla skills are still a work in progress, but overall it went well.


Potatoes and onions and just a touch (HA!) of olive oil.  More like 1/4 of a cup.

Adding the eggs...

MIRACULOUSLY post-flip...

And plated!

Does that look like a little potato heart in the middle to anyone else?  It was a little overcooked, and I think my pan was too big because it didn't come out as thick as it should be, but this was a very successful first attempt.  It will be done again and mastered!  Maybe a little less photography and a little more focus on cooking would help...

Deb's recipe is here (and I wish I had read her comments before trying it on my own), and she did a good job typing it up, so why re-invent the wheel?  I made half of the recipe (so 3 eggs and most of a potato), and I ate it as 2 meals with veggie sides.  If you actually want to make a tortilla, I will gladly offer assistance.  And a hungry tummy.

Next up: CRUISING!


OH!  And Allison's cake recipe.

Ketchup 2

Central Park snow day... sigh.  The park was beautiful the day after Latke Party.  Isn't it funny how everything is so different in the light?  Getting home the night before had been difficult, and cold, and frustrating.  Kind of fun and funny, too, but mostly frustrating.  But the next morning, the sun was out, and the park was bustling with people!  And runners!  Crazy people.  I was too afraid I'd fall.  Side note: I haven't mentioned running in a while, because I've been on a little hiatus.  After messing up my knee in the half marathon last May, it hasn't been the same since, and I've been taking a break from running regularly.  I am going to focus on strength training to reduce risk of injury, and subsequently start training (SLOWLY) for another half marathon in the spring.  If it keeps bugging me, I may have to go to a sports doctor or something. :(

Anyway, winter wonderland.  Joanna and I decided to go for a snow walk and visit the market at Columbus Circle.  We ran into Katie and had a mini snowball fight!

Joanna bought a hat at the market, and I got 2 new rings to replace the one I lost on my way to the airport one week.  Sad.  I still miss it.  We shopped, walked, stopped at Aroma cafe on the Upper West Side for some soup, and then made our way to Brooklyn for the... COOKIE TAKEDOWN!  We met up with Joanna's friend Rachelle for a light sushi dinner in Park Slope in preparation for our cookie feast.  Look at how pretty it is!  Tuna avocado roll with brown rice.

We then headed to the cookie takedown (a baking competition), where Rachelle's roommate was competing with her Aunt Helen's Ginger Snaps!

I ended up taking about 6 of these puppies home because there was so much leftover.

So, what does one do at a cookie takedown?  One tastes 23 different cookies, of course!  It was a little daunting, but most people were wise enough to only give out a bite-size sample.  I mostly just took a nibble unless I loved it.

Round 1:

My favorite from Round 1 was the one in the muffin wrapper.  It was a cakey chocolate cookie with a cream cheese filling, and it was out of this world.  It ended up winning first place in my book and also first place with the judges!  I was impressed with my obviously discerning palate.  Oh, and there was free spiked egg nog!

Round 2:

Round 2 had some more creative concepts (bacon chocolate chip, "nacho"cookies with orange creme filling, and marshmallow/pretzel/peanut nonsense), but they were (for the most part) decidedly less tasty than Round   1.

I asked Joanna to represent our general sentiment by the end of the night, which was "Oopsy, I ate too many cookies."

:)  It was actually a tolerable amount of food after eating lightly all day in preparation, and being diligent about only eating the cookies that I felt were worth the calories.  And we walked a whole lot that day!  I'm convinced walking is a secret weapon.

The cookie takedown was part of a larger takedown series, so I'm hoping we can make it to another one!  Maybe I would even... participate???  Perhaps...

Playing Ketchup Part 1

(Post title in honor of my roommate Allison, who will put ketchup on anything and everything.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BLOGGIES!!!  I have a good feeling about 2010.  I have yet to come up with resolutions, but I'm pretty sure I need to establish at least a few.  I think I'm on the verge of a major life change or two, and I could use some sort of blueprint to work with, aka new year's resolutions.  Will post them when I come up with them.

As you may have guessed, I am back from the family cruise vacation, and while I have lots of stuff to share from the trip, I also seem to still have leftovers from December.  Since I have been very diligent about photographing but much less diligent about blogging, I have found myself with a backlog of photos that I want to post.  So I'm going to go back in time with a few food highlights from the past few weeks.  I've been mostly working from home and/or not working at all (yay bench time!), so I've had time to get back in the kitchen, and I totally overlooked the holiday season.  How grinchy of me!  Once I catch up from 2009, I will start fresh with a cruise post and then try to keep up with myself. As a matter of fact, Freya's Official Resolution #1: Blog at least 2-3 times a week, depending on availability of material.  I want to say I will blog every day (that's the real goal), but I'll stick with a more attainable goal for now and reassess later.  Midyear Resolutions?

And so, I give you: LIGHTNING ROUND 1: The Holidays!

Latkes!  My friends and I had our 2nd Annual Chanukah Latke Party a few weeks ago, and it was a huge success.  We learned from our mistakes, so this year included less latke (read: less deep-fried food), more veggies, a Secret Santa, and... a snowstorm!  I guess we didn't plan that last part, but it was a nice touch.  Thanks, mother nature.

I kind of invented my own latke, inspired by a whole slew of recipes that I read for research.  I used 1 large Yukon Gold potato, 1 carrot, 1 parsnip, and 1 baby zucchini + 1 normal zucchini.  I ended up adding 3 eggs in the end and probably about 1/4 cup matzo meal, if not more.  Breadcrumbs or flour work too, but matzo meal felt more traditional to me.

It's a pretty simple process: grate, mix, fry your little heart out, blot blot blot.  Yumzo.  And I didn't even lose any knuckles this year on the grater.

Tada!  All fried up and gorrrrgeous if I do say so myself.  You need to make the oil super hot and be generous with it.  I only eat latkes (or whatever potato pancake variety this may be) once or twice a year, so what the heck.  Live a little.  And use Canola oil.  :)

I thought they were delicious if I do say so myself.  Parsnip was a lovely addition.  My other contribution to the party was homemade applesauce, which is absurdly easy but a billion times more satisfying than the jar stuff.  All you do is peel, core, slice (I like to slice each apple in eighths and then cut each slice in half crosswise), cinnamon and sugar up those puppies, and nuke, mash, nuke, mash.

I use a lot of cinnamon because I love the stuff (1 tsp?) and probably about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for this batch of 4 apples.  Depends on how sweet your apples are to begin with.  We devoured this.  Buying more apples and getting back at it tomorrow.  I love eating this stuff warm as a snack.  I'm thinking granola would taste good on top.  Will report back on that one.

My friends are wonderful chefs too, so when we get together we eat cook a lot.  Ariel made zucchini latkes, and Amanda made traditional ones (potato).

 

Shield your eyes from the grease, por favor.

Katie made a sweet potato and apple bake from my previously mentioned bible, Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian Family Cookbook -- I can post the recipe if requested.  And then we (and by we I think I mean Alex, Katie, and I) shared this ginormous bowl of roasted brussels sprouts a la Rachel.

And then there was obviously vino.  I drank white for a change because I brought over one of my wine of the month wines!  It was a Sicilian Fiano, a new white wine varietal for me, and I really liked it.  A lot of complexity in flavor for a white, and still able to stand on its own without food.  A winner!  It won a lot of affordability and value awards.

My poorly lit plate, clockwise from bottom left: brussels sprouts, apple/sweet potato, perfect baked chicken, apple sauce, one of each latke plus a little sour cream (ok, and one more of my own ;)), and grilled onions!

Allison broke out her apron and prepared this AMAZING cake from Cooking Light.  Allison, can you give me the recipe?  PLEASE?  It was apple-y and cinnamon-y and sooo moist.  I insisted that she take home all the leftovers to her apt (aka my apt).  It was delicious the next day.  And the day after.  She also claims it's 120 calories per slice?!

After the food comas set in, we lit the candles...

... then did our first annual $10 maximum Secret Santa gift exchange!  Amanda showed off her new Snuggie.  Look how she can hold a glass AND stay warm at the same time!

And I showed off the seal Amanda gave me!!! 

We now may or may not have a collection of wind-up toys in front lined up in front of our TV. They may or may not be named Seymour, Tupac, and Xavier.

After all was said and done, we looked out the window and noticed that it was kind of, well, blizzardy.  We postponed the journey back uptown from Rachel and Ariel's place by watching Sex and the City, but eventually it was time to go.  Katie, Joanna, and I ventured to the bus stop...

...then to the subway...

"EEEEKKKK A SUBWAY RAT!"

"We're distressed and cold!"

...and then finally a snowy walk home from the subway station.

Mmmm, New York in the winter time.  Beautiful.