blogging again!
Wow, weird. I’m blogging again. I’m in SF, and enjoying a very quiet evening of just me. Miss my baby, but also enjoying an entire evening ahead of me to enjoy contemplatively.
I got a CSA box from Greenleaf, and it’s delicious! I made stir-fried fava beans, asparagus, sauteed with green garlic and white onions. I also had a delicious salad — mini lettuce heads went well with an Asian dressing from TJ’s.
So, that’s it for now. I’m going to read The New Yorker, do some work, then wake up for an 8 am run across the bridge.
the new yorker college tour
I *love* The New Yorker. They’re doing a College Tour at Berkeley from 11/13 11/15; looks great: http://www.newyorkercollegetour.com.
bye bye, vox!
I just tried out Vox, a new blogging tool. However, they put Google ads on my blog, and I don’t want anyone but me to do that. I feel weird that they’re making money off of my blogging. It’s a cute interface with nice templates, and I like the ability to recommend books, music, etc. WordPress, after less than 24 hours, I’m back.
San Francisco Chronicle: Bargain Bites
Nice little guide. In San Francisco, I love So, and would like to try Pagolac and Turtle Tower (two Vietnamese joints in the Tenderloin). In East Bay, Lao-Thai Kitchen sounds good. As for Peninsula/South Bay, I wholeheartedly agree on Santa Ramen, although I wonder why Happy Cafe on 2nd Street in San Mateo didn’t make the list. Their xiao long bao is excellent, although the rest of the food is rather forgettable. I guess that might explain it…
cocoabella: build your own custom box
CocoaBella Chocolates’ new website has launched, and the most interesting feature is the ability to put together your own custom box of chocolate. There’s a great drag and drop interface where you can choose from the store’s collection of individual confections and put together your box exactly the way you want it. Confections from Charles Chocolates include: milk peanut butterfly, bittersweet peanut butterfly and the chocolate caramel.
my hood: alamo square/nopa
Craig’s List has just recently added a new neighborhood: alamo square/nopa. That’s my ‘hood! Perhaps the term NOPA (north of the panhandle) has been popularized by the restaurant (yum!).
volunteering
I’ve never been a huge fan of volunteering, because I haven’t found that many causes that i have a fiery passion for. But now I think I’ve found two: Litquake and CUESA. I love books, words, reading, and I think Litquake is a lot of fun. CUESA stands for Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, and promotes understanding of sustainable agriculture.
I’ve never been a fan of just being a body when volunteering, although oftentimes that’s the best way to help an organization. However, I want to volunteer somewhere where I don’t just spend a few hours ushering and then get to see a free performance; I want to volunteer with an organization where I can meet a lot of cool people, and where I can use my skills and knowledge to make a difference. More soon…
trail runs
Last weekend, while hiking near Santa Cruz, I was feeling energetic, and started running along the hiking trail. It made me think about trail running: it would be a pretty cool thing to start doing. This one looks cool: http://redwoodtrails.com/final/maps/sf.gif. In fact, the group Redwood Trails looks pretty neat. They do a lot of outdoors activities.
nibs are all the rage
Recently, I’ve been seeing a huge # of recipes with Cacao nibs. Perhaps if I’m looking for a green VW bug, I’ll start seeing them all over the place. Well, here’s one for Nibby Scones from the Bittersweet Blog:
Nibby Scones
Once upon a time, long (not so) long ago, Bittersweet had a little chocolate nib scone that had quite a few fans. We’re not making the Nibby Scone at the moment, but for all you who miss it, here’s a way to try it at home! Have fun…
608 g flour
100 g sugar
2 t baking powder
.5 t baking soda
.25 t salt
227 g butter
230 g nibs
500 g heavy cream
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cube the butter to 1″ squares.
Pour dry ingredients into a bowl and add butter, the flatten the butter into disks using your fingers.
Toss in nibs.
If the ingredients are warm, refrigerate until cool.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the heavy cream, then mix well until moistened.
Pour the crumbly dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Shape using a bench scraper into a rectangle and then roll. Laminate this mixture 4 times. you will start with a crumbly dough and end with a smooth striated dough. If the dough is soft after shaping, then refrigerate.
Roll the dough to 11″ X 7″ and trim the edges.
Cut the dough into six equal squares, about 3″ X 3.5″, then bisect the squares into triangles.
Brush the trops with egg wash and sprinkle with rough sugar.
Distribute evenly on a cookie sheet, place in the preheated oven and immediately reduce heat to 300 degrees. Bake from 18-22 minutes.
fruits of labor: grilled eggplant, red pepper & onion flatbread
My travel companion is a lover of pizza and all its variants, so I decided to try a flatbread recipe from Williams-Sonoma. This might make for a nice pre-drive snack/lunch. While I could make a sandwich, somehow I always feel weird eating meat in front of a vegetarian. Besides, I’ve never liked meat that much anyway — something about the super greasy nature of most meat really repels me. Sometimes the recipes at Williams-Sonoma are hit and miss, but I found this one to be rather good:
The dough was easy to make, the veggies just took a little patience to roast, and it makes for nice, hearty, veggie fare. It’s the perfect tableau for fresh, organic, local veggies, including heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, red onion, and eggplant.
My variation included the basil, and I used sea salt instead of regular salt to season the veggies.
While trying to make an omelette (red onion and gorgonzola — which I had in my fridge) go marvelously together, I realized that the spinach, eggplant, tomato, red onions, and basil I had would make a delicious pasta sauce. So, that’s what I opted for instead. Quick and easy. I also made some scrambled eggs, as I had an egg white left because there was an egg yolk used for the flatbread dough.
While I was aiming to make yellow curry eggplant, I realized that my curry paste was expired (yes, it’s been a while) and my pesto plan was foiled by a lack of garlic. Next time!
Next, I’m going to try the cornmeal pizza crust featured on Cook 1.0.
There’s been a little bit of produce wastage, but I think with cooking everything off, and freezing it, things should be okay. In fact, if I just eat produce from the biweekly vegboxes, I should be just fine.
