Camera in hand and looking for something to do after work one evening this week, it surprised me how much bounty the yard had at her dispposal to offer in the way of tasty treasures. On hands and knees, I peeked under the leaves of the potted strawberry I'd been moving around from house to house for over 8 years. Tendrils had escaped, taking root in the dirt around the terra cotta pot. Red dots beneath the green shade, the snails hadn't yet found these luscious beauties, small but packed with a flavor I've never discovered in grocer's fare. There is an infinite amount of pleasure to be had in the juicy swell of sweetness released on the tongue with each bite. All poppies and rosy cheeks and suntans.

This lovely bit of chefly beauty arrived in my mailbox. Hattori 10.5" blade. I don't think I'll ever be able to actually use it. It's just too pretty.

I went to Piatti on the Square in Sonoma last night. My friend Andrea and her sister dropped by the house yesterday afternoon and invited me, along with a group of folks, to dinner. I haven't gone out for some good vittles in a while, and I really enjoy Piatti's fairly simple menu. Nothing is too snazzy; the combinations are "rusticated" Italian, but with the snobbified flair that so appeals to foodies. The tastes are not overly complex, which is fine by me. I prefer my pseudo-Italian food to not mix mango paste into my bistecca, thank you very much. A squeeze of limone, perhaps, and some fresh ground black pepper, and leave the taste of the steak pure. I had the Baby Spinach Salad with marinated chicken breast, roasted peppers, crispy onions, balsamic vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was rich, the spinach greens were crisp (not slimy, thank goodness, which can happen if they sit dressed just a tad too long before they're served), and the roasted red bell pepper was delizioso! The chicken breast was moist and the whole schmiel was topped with grated Grana. My main dish was a risotto with oyster mushrooms, baby zucchini, and shaved corn. Creamy and rich, I could probably have eaten the whole pot if they'd stuck it in front of me. Risotto is so flippin' tasty! I ended with their creme brulee, which I found to be a little on the eggy side. I prefer the custard with a rich cream finish that is complimented so nicely by the fired sugar top, but it wasn't bad.

All I had to eat all day was some lowfat microwave popcorn and a ton of water so I could indulge at dinner. I flippin' love food, especially good food, but let's face it - indulgence of that sort can widen the waistline faster than an airpump to the Goodyear Tire man. These infrequent sojourns to Foodie Land are so worth it, though.

I bought these blueberries this morning on my way to work. I couldn't believe how stupendous they were, so I had to get them. And they tasted delish as well, what a treat!

Sixteen years old and life, 'til then, revolved around my ability to drive my parents as crazy as possible. Misunderstood and petulent, the life of a foreign exchange student seemed like the answer to my prayers for adventure and adulthood. With the complete conviction that comes only upon entering teenagehood, I signed up, was chosen, and was promptly sent off to Norway to live for a year, about 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I lived in a tiny town called Straumen but went to school in Fauske called Fauske Videregående Skole, otherwise known as the Husmor Skole, or house wife school. The nickname came from the lines of studies available at the school, most of which were "practical." It was a technical school. I found out later it was the kind of school you went to when you didn't really have any prospects from a bookish perspective. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time, because I was enough of a snothead to have thought it "beneath me." I was, after all, an A student in all honors classes and Class Spirit Coordinator to boot. I mean, I was somebody.


So I wore a white uniform complete with bonnet and white clogs. I kept my hair back and made sure I went to cooking class 3 days a week where I made jam and baked cakes and cooked whale and roe and sawed a pig in half (dead, of course) and stirred pots that contained snouty looking food that I couldn't name. I, in turn, showed intoduced my school to peanut butter cookies and lemon merangue pie and Thanksgiving dinner. I realize now how royally that school treated me, the lengths to which they went, my teacher Leikny Simonsen and all my mates, to welcome me and learn about me and teach me and know me.

We picked blueberries one day in the school garden and made jam and the taste of the berries I ate today have brought this memories flooding back to me nearly 20 years later.

I haven't yet been able to go to the Sonoma Saveurs restaurant that opened right before Christmas 2003 amidst outrage & outcry, after battling activists and vandalism. The reviews, thus far, have been decent. My writing teacher claims it's stunning. So, hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able to go with my foodie pal, Nicola, to try the goods.

Whatever your personal feelings about foie gras (for anyone wondering, it's goose liver), the fact remains that the production of foie gras has been going on for a very long time. The Egyptians apparently were the first to figure out the delicacy of foie gras. Assumedly it was discovered as migratory wild geese were making their journey, as geese in the wild will actually gorge themselves prior to migrating to "fatten up" for the flight. Later, the Jews of central Europe were renowned, for many years, to be the only ones to know the secrets of good foie gras (an interesting fact considering goose meat was prohibited by virtue of Judaism). The Romans were said to have force-fed the geese figs during their heyday, and the Roman word for fig was ficadum, which is the root for the French foie. For centuries the delicacy was forgotten until King Louis XVI brought the tradition back, making a "pâté à la Contades", or foie gras within a crust, the "dish of the king". Blah blah blah, fast forward to today.

I had never tried foie gras prior to eating at The French Laundry where chef Thomas Keller serves a sauteed moulard duck foie gras with over roasted Brooks cherries, black peper brioche, and cherry gastrique. Holy moly. Good stuff. Foie gras is often served with a sweet, dark fruit, like cherry or plum and bread with a high quality sweet wine (some claim it should only be served with a wine from Sauternes, but I'm not the wine expert...).

The taste is delicate and rich, and I loved it immediately. I suppose it's an acquired taste, but I didn't think it required too much thought. However, my palate is also fairly adventuresome, so to each his own! Hopefully I'll be able to get on over to Sonoma Saveurs this summer.

I want one of these:

It's a Hattori 9.5" chef's knife. The bolster is nickel and the handle is black linen micarta, with a blade of Cowry X stainless steel surrounded by Damascus steel forged from stainless steels and pure nickel. I adore this finish and think it would be a lovely addition to my knife set. For a mere $1250. Chump change.



I could make do with one of these:

It's a Tokifusa Iizuka 8.25" chef's knife. The finish is swell, though I don't like that the bolster doesn't meet seemlessly with the blade; I'm always afraid food will get in there somehow. But it is made in the traditional Japanese style, the handle is magnolia wood and the bolster is water buffalo horn and it only costs $418.00.



And I more realistically could buy myself this one:

It's a Ryusen Damascus 6" slicing knife with a handle of Paaka wood. The wood grain finish on the blade is still very pretty and I could pretend it was the Hattori if I squint and don't wear my contact lenses. My pocketbook wouldn't be so light with the $115 price tag.

I got these miniature puddings in Japantown in San Francisco. Japantown is my favorite part of the City. If I can finnagle it, I always make a point of hitting Japantown. The food alone is worth the trek. The crazy rice crackers with peanuts and seaweed, lemon flavored soy sauce, inari skins, wasabi, petit puddings. The puddings came in these thumb-sized containers with a spoon smaller than the kind they give you at Baskin & robbins for tasting ice cream. A petit spoon for petit pudding. Actually I figured why in the world do I need a spoon? Just suck the buggah outta there.
~slurp~
Japanese packaging is the best. Always very tasteful and artsy. I wish I could read Japanese. Inevitably when I visit Japantown, I want to purchase at least 20 chopstick rests in every imagineable style: cat with one paw raised, bamboo, fish, geisha, keroppi, hello kitty. Not because I'm actually going to use the chopstick rests but because they look really cool. That's why. Sometimes having things that look cool make up for their lack of being serviceable.

I got home from work last night at about 7:00. I wasn't really hungry, but I wished that Dave had made dinner. Wishful thinking. So even as ungrumbly as my stomach was, I still decided to cook. There was leftover salmon, giant slabs with rosemary that had been broiled by mom. I decided to make pasta, unoriginal and easy. Sauteed onion, biased-cut sugar snap peas and flaked salmon in a cream-based sauce with rice pasta. Too sticky, that damned rice pasta, but I felt like using it up. It wasn't great, but it worked. It reminded me, just for a moment, of living in Florence. Quick. Instant. Then gone again.

I figured out how to make a cookie base out of cookies that are already made. OK, not high on the list of tres chic cuisine, but it worked in a major pinch. I was Jonesing for dessert. Wanted something sweet after this major dinner I made while we were on vacation. We stayed in this executive suite that had a full-on set-up for cooking. Only I didn't have quite all of the ingredients required to bake. So I winged it. I went to the snack dispenser at the end of the hallway. I got two packages of Famous Amos chocolate chips cookies. I also got a Snickers. I mashed the cookies up until they were crumbs, I mixed the crumbs with a 1/4 butter and 4 sugar packets from the coffee we had that morning (desperation, I tell you). I mashed the whole mess together, pressed it onto an oven-proof plate and popped it in the oven for 12 minutes at 350. The sucker actually worked. I couldn't believe it. Then I chopped the Snickers up and topped the born again cookie with it. Then I sliced up fresh strawberries and presto! Dessert. That is white trash cooking at its finest, I tell you.

Jeff and I are addicted to these marzipan chocolate rolls. They are the most amazing sweet treats a body could ever desire. It took a year-long stint in Norway to become proficient in an appreciation for marzipan. Now that I have that ability firmly within my reach, marzipan chocolate rolls are insanely, provocatively sumptious. And their brethren, the mocha chocolate macroons are nearly as addictive.

I always prefer homemade, but if yer gonna use boxed mix, Duncan Hines chocolate mocha cake mix rocks. Egads. 1 1/4 cups water, 1/2 cup oil, 3 eggs, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cardammom, beat til light and airy. Pour into a metal 9x13 cake pan, bake at 350 for 38 minutes. Here's where the real fun begins. While the cake bakes, beat 2 cubes of unsalted butter, 1 package cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar to sweeten. Again, beat til light and airy. That's the frosting. Scoop it into a pastry bag, use a star tip. Whn the cake is cool, take a 1.5 inch round cookie cutter and cut out rounds of cake. Split the rounds in half and splurt the butter cream cheese frosting in there. Throw 4-5 bittersweet choc chips in there, top with the upper portion of the cake round. Splurt another blob of pretty-looking frosting on top, pop one choc chip on top at a jaunty angle. ZING. There'ye have it. These little wonders are petite and delish and not too very difficult to make. Unfortunately, they all got eaten before a picture could be snapped.

Albacore tuna, minced green onion, wasabi mayonaise that I made with mayo & wasabi (duh), bleu, pepper-grinder medley. Mix. Shaved purple cabbage. Throw all together. Eat it UP. Lowfat alternative to double bacon cheeseburger from Babe's (which I actually haven't had in about 10 years but which I still fantasize about when I think about the word DELUXE). I'm not a fiend when it comes to lowfat this or that, but if I can make something taste delish and use a minimum of fattage in the mix, life is good. Soups are a forte. People think they're eating these decadent soups that really have these minimal amounts of fat. You eat a bucket of the stuff, feel like you're being so posh, lo & behold, the scale shows poundage loss. YippiY.

Microwave popcorn, lowfat (on the lowfat kick - have to be in a wedding in a month & a half). That was the snack of choice today. I don't know what I did in the time before microwave popcorn. I think I just went to the movies a lot. I like movie popcorn without that butter flavoring. I think the reason I like movie popcorn so much is because they use palm oil or some kind of artery-hardening stuff that makes the kernels taste so yum. Sad but true. Microwave popcorn. ::CRUNCH:: Good stuff.

Spicy double mushroom from Happy Garden. Yes. This is a good thing. All veg, some fat, some cornstarch, overall tasty treat over white rice. And don't forget the fortune cookie. Important.

I made this curry. Man, does it rock or what? It was excellent. I'm not one for attempting to make curry dishes from scratch. They never taste very good. Too much turmeric or somesuch. Anyway, I found this stuff at Safeway and it is so great, I can hardly stand it. I cubed an eggplant, diced some chicken breast (raw), chopped some yellow onion, and sautèed the whole thing up with olive oil. Cook until all lightly browned, add about 2 cups of water, let boil, add curry mix and voilà! Curry magic at your fingertips. I also made this rice. Mind you, I'm half Hawaiian, rice is like, oh I dunno, Wonder bread to some households. I've never not had white rice in my life. It's a state of being. Anyway, there was a blip of rice leftover from last night. I threw it in a pan with about a 1/2 c. H2O and a tsp. butter (yes, the real kind), salt and this peppercorn grinder medley that I ADORE made by McCormick. Anyhow, heat through and stir. Finely chop a handful of cilantro, and through it in the rice as you are about to serve. It was so meraviglioso. But then I love cilantro. Some people hate it. "Not I," said the blind man as a he took a hammer and saw. It was a strange mix of flavors, curry & cilantro, but that's how I get ides for cooking. I make it up, see how something tastes on its own merit and then tuck it in the back of my chef's head for future reference when I need a quickie meal. ::note:: rice dish an excellent use for that Chinese takeout box of rice that sits in the fridge for 3 days and then gets tossed because no one will eat it. Recycle. It's good for our landfills.