2012

Happy New Year everyone!! 2012 has easily been on of the best in my life. So many amazing experiences, travel opportunities and new friends. I am a blessed girl. Looking forward to 2013 and all the new adventures! Stay safe everyone!

Christmas in Paris

I've been in Paris for almost 2 weeks now- I can't believe how time flies! Today is Christmas Eve and I am nursing myself back to health by sitting on the couch reading while Erik goes out to buy all the food for Christmas dinner. I've been a little sick the past few days but (un)surprisingly I feel much better today, after a late night out. We didn't get home until 4am last night! I swear this is the latest we've stayed out since our unfortunate Barcelona incident...at any rate- it was fun! We met up with some girls from home and had dinner and then some drinks. It's amazing the things some people go through that you would never know...
Anyway, Paris has been beautiful. Obviously. It's been raining a lot but Paris is one of those cities that is breathtaking no matter the weather.

Erik and I have been to one really good dinner so far, and then another nice dinner. We've had Kangaroo, which was like beef but tougher and escargot. Escargot...is usually cooked in lots of butter with herbs, parsley in our case. So it really tasted like butter and parsley! I've been telling everyone that escargot is a sea snail but it's NOT! It is a land snail. I don't understand why people think it's gross. Factory farmed animals are gross (and tragic) not a snail!

We were supposed to go to Alan Ducasse's seafood restaurant but I was too sick. I feel really bad because I know Erik really likes him!! But oh well. Dinner for New Years at his Eiffel Tower restaurant is €800! Which makes it...$1,058 USD. Ha! Must be nice eh?

What else to say about Paris? What can you even say? It's just as stereotypically beautiful as you might imagine. The Louvre is incredible. There was an ancient Islam section that I really enjoyed. The Mona Lisa was as anticlimactic as usual. Maybe I am just terribly uncultured? But I just don't get it.

What else...we rode in the big Ferris Wheel that overlooks the Louvre etc. it was super pretty. We drank hot wine (delicious) and ate chocolate crepes while walking through the Tuileries Garden, which is a lovely little park in front of the Louvre. A sort of "front garden" if you will. They an area set up with a bunch of mini trampolines for children. European kids have it so good. I swear.
That's about it little friends. I hope you are all having amazing holidays!

Barcelona

Arrived in Barcelona on Monday. It's really a spectacularly beautiful city. Checked out La Sagrada Familia Monday afternoon. It's really difficult to explain. It's been in the works for over one hundred years. It's a Cathedral but unlike anything I've ever seen! I really can't even explain it.

At any rate- Barcelona is fabulous. It's young, fast, artsy and seaside. What more could you ask for?

Spent most of our time here wandering around the city on foot. One day we walked to top of one of the mountain peaks surrounding the city. Truly phenomenal views. I would add a picture but that is not possible via my phone. Speaking of which, I know these updates could be much more in depth; but on an iPhone, who has the time? Typing on these little screens. Furthermore, a written description won't REALLY do much justice to a city like Barcelona. Much of its architecture was done by Gaudi- check him out.
That is all for now little friends- hope you are enjoying yourselves!

Lisboa

It's Monday morning and after 4 wonderful days we are leaving Madrid. We flew out of Portugal Thursday afternoon, we'd spent the last few days with a really wonderful couple, Hugo and Manuela, who live in Lisbon. Hugo is a chef and a photographer and Manuela is a fashion editor/stylist for a magazine in Lisbon. Hugo owns a cooking school which is attached to their beautiful home, right at the start of barrio alto in Lisbon. We spent 3 days with them and it was so nice. They are both big into food, so Erik and I learned A LOT. They are also well traveled and gave us all sorts of tips about our trip! One night Erik went to one of Hugo's classes (this one was featuring a well known chef from Alentejo) and I went with
Manuela to a fashion-y exhibition. It was for a new tailoring company based out of Porto. Their thing is high quality custom hand made suits. Everything they make they make for that client, there is no basic suit that gets altered. Pretty interesting stuff. They had little booklets of fabric laid out on the table to show examples of what type of suit you could make. Lots of cashmere and animal pelt (which was sad). Interesting though. There was champagne and a dj but it was still pretty mellow.

The rest of the time Erik and I walked around Lisbon and checked out the sights. Lots of castles and old architecture. Lisbon I really like. I wasn't too thrilled about Portugal at first, but I would like to check it out again-in the summer.

¡Madrid!

Again! My entire post just got deleted!!! Oh this is so sad. I have to write these on my phone and it takes so long! Oh well. I am on a train ride from Madrid to Barcelona right now so it's not like I have something better to be doing!

Well lets see, Erik and I arrived in Madrid on Thursday afternoon. Spent a ridiculous amount of money on the taxi to our hostal. For to the hostal and realized it was more cheap motel than "funky boutique hotel". Erik freaked out a little- very amusing. We left and tried to walk around to find some food- haha good joke! No food between like 3&7 thanks to the country wide siesta. So we walked around in the freezing cold unsure of where we were (although in reality we were right in the heart of the city, between Plaza Mayor and Plaza Sol). I tried to ask someone a question and couldn't understand them and proceeded to feel bad for myself and my horrible Spanish until we finally found a pub and got some drinks.
That night we got home and realized the room next door had one baby, who liked to scream, and also a toddler. That was pleasant.

On Saturday we walked over to el parque buen retiro, which is a huge beautiful park in the middle of the city. Erik said its similar to Central Park but more manicured. We walked through some beautiful gardens and little forests. There was a big lake with little boats that you can peddle around in, you know? Lots of big statues and buildings. Also two palaces, pretty little things, nothing spectacular.

After our jaunt through the woods we went to my favorite museum in the whole world, El Prado. It has my favorite painting , which Las Meninas by Velasquez. If I wasn't on my phone, I would post a picture of it. Go look it up! We got to see that, and a lot more Velasquez paintings which was cool. There was an exhibit about young Antoine Van Dyck. He studied under Reuben, who also had a lot of paintings in El Prado. I enjoyed Reuben too. Also "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by El Bosco. This was my other favorite painting. It's really a trip, you should look at that too! I bet you will like it more than Las Meninas. El Bosco does a lot of interesting stuff. I don't even know how to explain it.

After El Prado, we went to the Ritz for some hot chocolate and churros. Caliente chocolate y churros. SUCH a thing. It was so nice! The Ritz was pretty, old money, very fancy. Our hot chocolate was phenomenal, it's traditionally really thick and not overly sweet. It's like melted chocolate with a little bit of milk. It was especially good because Madrid is freezing. Like 40 degrees freezing. After the Ritz we went to see The Life of Pi.
Overindulged in popcorn as per usually I never read The Life of Pi and I really didn't like the ending. It was depressing.

Our hostal didn't have a kitchen so we had to eat out most meals out. Because our popcorn binge didn't curb our appetites, we went to a little Bodega and got some jamón y queso viejo, also a bottle of Ribera. Good stuff. Saturday we spent the first half of the day running around getting our Eurail passes.

We also went to the Museu Del Jamón which is like a chain butcher shop focusing on pork, with a little pork museum on top. At any rate, they make these little sandwiches called bocadillos which are ham (proscuitto) and cheese on baguettes. So delicious. SO delicious. And they are like 2€ which is even better since Europe is SO expensive. Seriously eating them is like the highlight of my day. Anyway, Saturday night we went to The Palace Hotel for a fancy dinner date. To start we shared a bottle of Cava and a meat plate. For dinner I had shrimp in curry sauce with tempura prawns and basmati rice. Erik had slow roasted suckling pig with a tasty cranberry gravy and some sort of mashed potato situation.
Dessert was grand marnier foam with triple chocolate cake and hazelnut ice cream. They also brought us little chocolate truffles. So tasty.

Sunday was fun. Erik and I went to a big market, El Rastro. Apparently it's the biggest flea market in Europe. I got a skeleton key! I love them and I want one from every country we go to. Although I didn't get one from Portugal.
After that we went to Mercado San Miguel which is a market inside a big old building that is open every day from 10am to 2am. There are lots of stalls with fish and vegetables. Also lots of little shops that sell tapas and wine. Erik and I walked around drinking wine and looking at all the nice snacks to buy. Afterwards, we went to another market, called San Anton. This one was also inside but it was more farmers market-y. Unfortunately we got there a little late so most stuff was closed There was a restaurant on the rooftop where we sat outside and had a glass of wine while looking over Madrid. After that we went to El Corte Ingles, which is like a Macy's. The top floor, the 9th floor, is "gourmet express". Lots of foodie stuff, as well as restaurants. We sat outside and looked at Plaza Del Sol with some Cava. For dinner we went to a burger place (ha!) and got a burger. I had the Japanese burger which was veal with wasabi and soy sauce. Erik had a Kobe beef burger. They had so many ketchups! All house made. Spicy BBQ, goat cheese, honey mustard, devil spicy, mayonesa, curry...it was phenomenal! Now we are on a train to Barcelona, where we will spend the next 5 days before heading to San Sebastián for some more culinary delights!

Portugal

I just wrote such a long post and it got deleted!!! In short, the first two weeks in Portugal were very very mellow. Yesterday we went out to a great lunch with Erik's parents' friends at a nice restaurant named Tosca do Joel. We had our own private room and there were like 30 of us. 4 courses and who knows how many bottles of wine later, we drank 95 year old Port! We stayed there all afternoon as then drove to another town called Cartaxo for dinner! More good food, lots of appetizers and then a traditional Portuguese steak with a fried egg on top! After that we went to a bar and drank more and ate Mussels. THEN to a discotec! I got very drunk it was very embarrassing.

Today we are bumming around on the couch at Joāo Paulo's house. Literally we have done nothing it has been spectacular! Joāo Paulo is Erik's family friend. He is really really kind. His wife, Ardina is a beautiful tall blonde woman from Holland. He has two daughters, Oris and Vivienne who are both very sweet girls. Also there house is incredible. It's being featured in a magazine this month, 13 pages long! We will be here for a few days and then it is off to Lisbon and Friday we will be in Madrid!! I CANNOT wait!

leaving TOMORROW

I am sorry I have not been writing little interweb friends. It has been a BUSY two weeks. Erik's best girlfriend from the East Coast came to visit and we pretty much bourgeois-ed the entire time. Erik made a DELICIOUS duck and gnocchi dish at one point. In my opinion, it is the most fabulous dish he has ever made. Really phenomenal stuff. We have also been running around like crazy people trying to figure out which visas, if any, we need for our European peregrination. We leave tomorrow at 9am! So exciting!

Obamanos!!!!!

Obama won Obama won Obama won!!!!

Spicy Curried Coconut Yam Soup

Hi interweb friends. Today is Halloween. It is also a Wednesday so for those of you who do not live in a Halloween-obsessed town, or for those of you who have a real job, it might be rather anticlimactic. Lucky for me, my town is so weird that it is a pretty rare occurrence to go downtown on any day and not see someone dressed up. My favorite staple was Robert, a gentleman who dressed up in pink women's clothes and walked up and down the main drag all day, everyday, very slowly. Unfortunately, he stopped showing up in mid 2008. 

At any rate, I've been feeling rather under the weather lately. I don't know about you, but all I want to do when I'm sick is lay around and eat soup. So that is what I did! In case you haven't noticed, I've been on a little curry kick lately. So obviously this soup was curried, and since it is fall I obviously have been using as many yams (or sweet potatoes) as possible soo...I made curried coconut yam soup! Mine ended up being preeeetty spicy, but I have adjusted the recipe down for you. This soup is so easy to make it's sort of cheating. But whatever because it's also real tasty. Also as a side note- I use Cardamom all the time because I have it, if you don't have it on hand, go without! It will still be delicious. 

Spicy Curried Coconut Yam Soup

Ingredients

• 1 yam (or sweet potato)
• 1/2 C coconut milk
• 1 C veggie stock 
• 1.5 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne 
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 cardamom

Directions

• Preaheat oven to 400F
• Poke yam all over with fork prongs
• Roast yam, about 1 hour. The yam will be down when a knife or fork can be pushed into the yam with little resistance
• Allow yam to cool, no use putting a searing hot yam in a blender and causing an explosion!
• Now that your yam is slightly cool, add all the ingredients to a blender.
• Blend
• Serve! Cilantro is an especially enticing garnish. 

Ingredients!

Spices

Soup!

Mushrooms!

Hi all, it's Sunday afternoon and I am in San Francisco. Earlier today I went to the ferry building to their market place. I saw all of these fabulous mushrooms and I just wanted to share them with you real quick because they are just so...bizarre but also pulchritudinous! Later we walked down to Fishermans wharf and watched the Sea Lions flop all over one another. They are huge and loud and slightly terrifying. At any rate, it was a lovely day and here are the mushrooms!

Chantrelles, Pioppinis, Sea beans, Lion's Mane

Grow your own mushrooms!

Blueberry Pumpkin Muffins

It's "freezing" by my standards this morning. Especially up in the mountains, with a broken heater! Because of this, and also because I have a meeting later at Planned Parenthood (I'm an intern), I decided to make some delicious pumpkin blueberry muffins! These things are truly marvelous. My dear mother used to make them for me growing up. In the past I have always used canned pumpkin, but since everything tastes better when it is a) fresh and b) not processed by companies like Monsanto with innumerable corn products, I decided to make my own! Making pumpkin puree is embarrassingly simple. All you need to do is find yourself a pumpkin; any kind will do but the sugar pumpkin is readily available this time of year and has the best flesh, as well as being naturally sweet.

 I decided to make two batches this morning, one of mini muffins for my meeting and one of regular sized muffins for around the house. In my infinite wisdom, I put the mini muffins in the oven at 400 degrees F and put a timer on for 30 minutes. Why, you ask, did I do something so silly? Because it's the morning, and I'm tired, and I enjoy the sound of 3 fire alarms all going off at the same time in a small apartment! Lucky for you guys I now have proper cooking time for mini and regular sized muffins. Also, as you may have picked up, I like to use fresh, local, organic as often as possible. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and I can't spend $10 on a basket of fresh blueberries so I used frozen in this recipe. If you use frozen, be sure to thaw them before baking!

Blueberry Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ingredients

1 medium size sugar pumpkin OR 1 C pumpkin puree

1.5 C flour (AP or whole wheat)

1tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1/2tsp salt

1tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cardamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 C evaporated milk

1/3 oil

1 C packed dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375f, cut your pumpkin in half lengthwise. Remove seeds etc. Place pumpkin face down on a baking tray and bake until the pumpkin is very tender. Remove from oven, scoop out the flesh and place it all in a food processor (or blender, if you have a VitaMix). Pulse in 1 second increments until your pumpkin flesh is smooth. Voila! A homemade pumpkin puree. When you take your pumpkin out of the oven, reset the heat to 400F
2. Grease muffin tins
3. As your pumpkin bakes, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and all the spices.
4. In a separate bowl, mix 1C of pumpkin puree with 1/4C evaporated milk
5. In yet another, large bowl mix together the oil and brown sugar. Mix these two until they are fully combined and nearly fluffy
6. Add egg to sugar and oil mixture
7. Add your pumpkin puree and flour mixture into the sugar bowl, do so in small amounts and alternate between the two. 
8. Gently stir in your blueberries
9. Add your batter to the muffin tins, about 3/4 full. 
10. Place them in the oven and bake! Check on mini muffins after 10 minutes, and the larger muffins after 30 minutes. The larger muffins may take closer to 40 minutes. The small muffins bake quick so keep a close eye on them after the 10 minute mark!

YAM CURRY!

Hello little friends! Yesterday I made a very simple and also very delicious curry dish that I want to share with you! Since it is getting closer and closer to winter, I'm finding more and more yams available! I love yams. I use them interchangeably with sweet potatoes, but they really are two different vegetables. Sweet potatoes are popular in Southern United States cuisine, while yams are more often used in Caribbean or Latin American cooking. Yams have more natural sugar than sweet potatoes, and also a higher moisture content. At any rate, I love yams slightly more so this recipe is with yams but you can of course use a sweet potato!

Yam and Spinach Curry

3 Yams, peeled and cubed
2T coconut oil

1T curry powder

1tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp cardamom 

1/4tsp nutmeg

1 yellow onion, diced

2tsp grated fresh ginger

5 cloves garlic, minced

10 oz spinach, washed
1T red curry paste
1tsp salt
16oz coconut milk

1.   Preheat oven to 400
2.   Put yams in a bowl and toss to coat with coconut oil
3.   Mix together curry powder, cayenne pepper, cardamon and nutmeg. 
4.   Place yams on a baking tray, sprinkle spice mixture over yams (you should have some left over)
5.   Bake yams until they are cooked through, and tender
6.   While the yams are baking, heat your pan of choice over a medium flame with 1T of coconut oil
7.   When the oil is hot, add your onion, ginger and garlic, saute for about 3 minutes.
8.   Stir in the red curry paste. The paste will want to stay together in a lump; make sure you break it up
      your spatula
9.   Add your spinach, "fry" the spinach for about 1 minute
10. Add coconut milk and salt, stir to coat spinach
11. Add in your yams, reduce heat to medium low, cover and allow to simmer 

And thats it! Wait until your spinach is fully wilted and serve! This recipe would also be delicious with chickpeas, which you could add at the same time you add your coconut milk. And of course mixed in with quinoa or rice! Below are two of my renditions of this dish. I added some photos of mine below, so you will have a general idea of what you are getting into.  

Yam curry

Curry and rice

October musings

Good morning little internet friends! I'm leaving for Europe in LESS than 3 weeks. My love and I bought one way tickets to Portugal, with the intention of doing a "small" (6 month) all-things-culinary-tour of Western Europe! Or at least parts of it. The plan, as of now, is to hit Portgual, Spain, France and Italy. Most of our time, I'm assuming, will be spent in Italy. My oh so dear chef chef boyfriend was brought up in an Italian household, with a remarkably talented-in-the-kitchen mother, and he just can't wait to get back to his roots. This works just fine for me! Italy is so beautiful I can't wait to explore more!
We have been REAL bad about planning, and we have absolutely no concrete plans. Honestly, though, I think this is the best way to travel. Because let's be real, some of the best and most amazing experiences happen simply because you are in the right place at the right time. Having said that, since we do plan on WWOOFing in France and Italy, we should probably get on that. For those of you who don't know what WWOOFing is, it's really a phenomenal organization that helps link small organic farmers with like minded travelers. In exchange for 6 or 7 hours of work 5 days a week, the travelers are given room, board and a whole new perspective on their town of choice.

Besides not planning this incredible voyage, I have really been enjoying myself over the last several months. Most notable, I quit my job and spent two weeks on the East Coast. I went to New York to visit my man's hometown, and it was SUPERB! Don't get me wrong, the West Coast is of course the best coast, but New York City is amazing and the Hamptonites are a pretty radical bunch of people. Here are a few photos of the past few months. I hope you like them! ;)

Secret waterfall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh local organic beans!

VOTE YES ON 37 CALIFORNIA! Label GMOs Check THIS link to educate yourselves!

Sunset on top of a mountain in a vineyard

Early morning run/surf sesh

 

View from my wine bar of choice ;)

 Sonoma, drinking only bubbles

My favorite beach

View of Jersey from NYC

Braised ground sparerib with black truffles and foie gras, complemented by confit-ed tomatoes. A TRULY exceptional burger

Fantastic Veggie Burger

I've been on sort of a 'meat free' kick lately. By which I mean I watched (another) PETA video and have been re-horrified about the realities of factory farming. At any rate, the other night we were BBQing, and while the bison burgers were awfully tempting, I refrained and ended up making the best veggie burger...EVER.
 

Mushroom & Bulgur Wheat Vegetarian Burgers

 

1/2 cup bulgur
2 eggs, whisked OR equivalent egg replacer*
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
2 tbsp olive oil
 2 shallots, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups mushrooms (I use crimini and button, generally)
1/4 cup dry white wine (think: Sauvignon Blanc, Albariño or Chardonnay)
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp Cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp nutmeg
 

 

1. Measure out your bulgur, and put it in a mixing bowl; cover with boiling hot water, about 1C but add more if all the water is absorbed and your bulgur still has that crunchy-ish raw feel
2. Mix together your eggs (or egg replacer), Panko and cilantro.
3. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat, saute garlic until fragrant. Add shallots and cook until tender.
4. Now, add in your chopped mushrooms, wine, and seasonings. Cook this until all liquid has evaporated
5. Mix your mushroom mixture with the bulgur wheat and shape into patties that are about 3/4 of an inch thick. (At this point you can saran wrap your patties and freeze them for later use. They will last up to a month!)
6. Grill up! These bad boys cook best over a medium flame. They will be heated through in 15 minutes-ish. You can saute them too, just make sure you have a little oil in the pan so they don't stick.

*My go to egg replacer is 1T of ground flax seed mixed with 3T water and chilled for several hours in the fridge. It works great! In this case, however, the equivilant of 2 eggs is not enough, so I would go with 4T of flax. Enjoy!

S N I C K E R D O O D L E S

Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie. Hands down. I hardly have a sweet tooth but I could legitimately eat an entire plate of these. My mom always baked them when I was growing up (because they are EASY) and now they are my go to for any sort of cookie party. I tried to investigate the history of the snickerdoodle (because I want all of us to expand our minds) but to little avail. They are possibly German in origin, with the original name being Schneckennudeln. It's also popular they were invented in New Enland during the early 1900s and were named 'snickerdoodles' only because it was a thing to make up cookies and give them chimerical names. Anyway, I made some last night. But instead of sticking to the tired and true cinnamon sugar coating, I rolled them in a "chai spice" mixture. They were unbelievable. We ate the whole plate. SERIOUSLY.

 

Snickerdoodles

 



·         ½ C butter

·         ¾ C granulated sugar

·         1 egg  OR 2T plain yogurt

·         1 ¼ C flour

·         ¼ tsp salt

·         ½ tsp baking soda

·         1 tsp cream of tartar

CinnamonSugar coating

·         1T granulated sugar

·         1T cinnamon

ChaiSpice coating

·         2T granulated sugar

·         ¹/₈ tsp ground ginger

·         ½ tsp ground cardamom

·         ¹/₈  tsp cinnamon

·         Pinch of cloves

Directions

1.       In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar

2.       Add egg, beat all ingredients together.

3.       Sift flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar into a bowl

4.       Add half of the flour mixture to the butter, sugar and egg. Stir with a wooden spoon, slowly.

5.    When the mixture is well combinded, add in the rest. Your result will be a sticky yellow dough

6.       Preheat oven to 400°F

7.       Cover your mixing bowl and let the dough chill for an hour.

8.       Roll walnut sized dough balls

9.       Roll dough balls in chai spice or cinnamon sugar

10.      Place all the dough balls on a cookie sheet, with lots of room to expand

11.   Bake for 10 minutes, and check them. If they are golden brown around the edges, they'e done!

 

 The cookies will be very soft when you take them out of the oven. Don’t worry! They will harden up while they cool.



 

 



Padrón peppers

I love spicy. Pepper season is...maybe one of my favorite times of year. I get a weekly CSA from Live Earth Farm and they have been bringing us baskets of Padrón peppers lately! These bad boys are a single heirloom, non hybrid pepper, and part of the Capsicum family. Also members of the Capsicum family are ghost and habanero, some of the spiciest! These Padróns are relatively mild, although the larger ones can definitely pack a small punch. My favorite way to cook them is a simple roast.
 

Roasted Padrón Peppers

 

One pint basket of Padrón peppers

Salt

Lemon

 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
2. Clean Padrón peppers, put into a bowl, toss with olive oil
3. Spread onto baking sheet
4. Salt liberally
5. Drizzle with juice of half lemon
6. Cook for 15 minutes-ish. You want a nice char...

I like to use the other half of the lemon once they are done, and sometimes a little more salt, but this is because I am a salt fiend. Enjoy!

Life has been really exceptional lately

It's all perspective but you might as well try and find the humor in a situation right?

Like when they hyperactive 4 year old at the summer camp I volunteer for covers her face in her snack (peanut butter) and runs around the yard screaming for 15 minutes because no one can catch her.