Two Meals Out

1. Last Friday, we biked to Palo Alto and had dinner for the first time at St. Michael's Alley. It's on a side street that I don't go down very often, so I kept forgetting it existed. It was a small, cozy restaurant with interesting textile art (gathered fabric, thread, and zip ties) on the walls. Since it was a Friday night and we didn't have reservations, the only available tables were outside on the sidewalk. At first I was happy to be seated outside, but then it got dark and chilly, and it was less pleasant. But it was a good excuse to order a pot of Earl Grey with dessert.

Patrick started with a salad of baby greens, beets, walnuts, and fried goat cheese in a mustard vinaigrette. I had one of the specials--duck breast in a berry sauce with goat cheese polenta and Blue Lake green beans. Patrick had crab ravioli in a tomato cream sauce. For dessert, we shared a piece of apple tarte tatin with a scoop of vanilla bean gelato and the aforementioned hot tea. It was a very nice dinner, but nothing really stood out about it. I think I'm spoiled by all the awesome restaurants in this area. I hear their brunch is really good, so maybe we should go back on a weekend.

2. On Sunday, we went to Suppenkuche again, this time with Tree and Andrew (strangely enough, I also attended one of Shuna's classes this weekend, same as last time we visited Suppenkuche). We were seated right away, next to a couple who I overheard speculating about the relationship between the four of us (I ended up sitting next to Andrew but sharing my food with Patrick, and we were all wearing wedding rings, so I can see how it might have been confusing). Our waiter was incredibly nice and smiley. It kind of caught us off guard. Also, I got a picture of the butterflies on the ceiling (they're the white textured parts of the ceiling).

We started by splitting an order of their awesome potato pancakes with applesauce. I'd forgotten how good they were. I really wanted to try the spaetzel, so I got an order of Kaesespaetzel (with a plate of beets, red cabbage, and citrusy grated carrots). It was too much for me, so I shared with the others, and I got some of Patrick's yummy pork chop (Kassler vom Grill) in return. It was one of the best pork chops I've ever had--very moist, with crispy skin. I'm glad I trid the Kaesespaetzel, but my curiosity is satisfied; I don't need to order it again.

It was a good and filling dinner. I don't know how all the beer-lovers in our group managed to drink beer and eat all that German food! Patrick and Andrew each got 1-liter mugs (quails) of beer, while Tree stuck with a dainty 0.4-liter glass (squirrel!). Patrick shot me surly looks every time I tried to photograph him with his giant beer. I suppose that's appropriate behavior when you're drinking large amounts of German beer.

As the meal was winding down, we admired the beautiful pine table at which we were seated. The square-head (Robertson) screws were especially nice. Patrick and I agreed that we should have tables just like that someday, along with a wall-mounted bench.

Two Meals In

1. Skillet Roasted Chicken with Rosemary, Garlic, and Maple-Balsamic Glaze (from The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook), using a mixture of cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and onions under the chicken instead of potatoes; Wild Rice Medley from Whole Grains Every Day Every Way.

I've made better roast chicken, though I did like the maple-balsamic glaze, and the vegetables turned out well. The wild rice medley was a little boring by itself, but it went well with the chicken and vegetables. Not bad, not great.

2. I had some zucchini to use up, so I decided to make Deep Dish Pizza (using a similar recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook) with zucchini, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives (only on my half), tomatoes, garlic, and feta cheese. I didn't have quite enough potato, and instead of just scaling back the recipe, I temporarily took leave of my common sense and decided to supplement the cooked potato with some mashed banana (similar consistency, right?).

Because of the banana, the dough required more flour than the recipe called for, and I had a hard time shaping it in the pan. Despite all the trouble, the pizza actually turned out pretty well. The crust was sturdy, brown, and crisp (and you could only taste the banana if you knew it was there). Just imagine how good it would have been if I'd actually followed the recipe! Definitely worth trying again someday.

Two Dairy-Related Items

1. I made a second batch of yogurt (here's the recipe) recently, using the modifications I described last week. It turned out much smoother and tangier, as desired. It was still pretty firm, even without the powdered milk.

I think I'm pretty close to having a yogurt recipe that I'm happy with, but I still want it to be smoother. It has a subtle graininess that I don't like (the texture is much better than the first batch though). My next modification will be to use all 2% milk instead of 50/50 skim and 2%.

(And speaking of things I made last week, Granola #4 was much better after going back into the oven for 30 more minutes, though still too lemony)

2. As mentioned above, I went to my second eggbeater cooking class this past weekend. This class was all about ice cream and sorbet--perfect timing, what with my new birthday ice cream maker!

As with her pie dough class, Shuna's ice cream class was chock full of useful and interesting information, and I learned a lot! Plus we got to taste lots of delicious frozen confections. It was totally worth it! With this class under my belt and last night's purchase of Perfect Scoop (I stayed up too late reading it cover to cover), I'm ready to start churning out all kinds of delicious ice cream! Too bad it isn't healthy. I'll have to enjoy it in moderation.

After talking about ice cream basics and ingredients, we all went into the kitchen (at Poulet, same as last time), and Shuna showed us how to whip up a batch of coconut-cardamom ice cream with chocolate pieces using a rich creme anglaise base. She also made a big pot of real butterscotch for pouring over the ice cream. It smelled so good!

Then we moved on to the tasting portion of the class. Shuna brought in a bunch of different kinds of ice creams and toppings that she had pre-made, and we enjoyed them along with the coconut-cardamom ice cream. The coconut-cardamom ice cream and butterscotch sauce were my favorites (they were both soooo good!), but everything was delicious. Here we have Redwood Hill goat yogurt granite in the middle, ringed by pecan vanilla shortbread, roasted apriums, cherries, strawberries, butterscotch ice cream, lemon thyme ice cream, butterscotch sauce, and brown butter butter pecan ice cream. Oh, baby!

There was also amazing lemon sherbet (it tasted just like lemons!) and mango sorbet, made in ice cream balls (to show that you don't need a fancy ice cream maker).

Like I said before--Shuna's classes are great. I definitely want to take another class in the future so I can learn even more!

Homemade Yogurt (Version 2)

See this journal entry for my comments on this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 c 2% milk
• 2 c skim milk
• 1 T honey
• 1/2 c plain whole milk Stonyfield yogurt

Directions:

1. Whisk 2% milk, skim milk, and honey in a 2 qt Pyrex measuring cup. Take yogurt starter out of fridge to come to room temp.
   
   
2. Microwave milk mixture on high until it reaches 180F, ~12 minutes, whisking every 2-3 minutes.
   
   
3. Place measuring cup on a wire rack in a cool spot and let cool to 115F (takes ~30 minutes with frequent stirring). Meanwhile, sterilize yogurt jars by pouring boiling water into them and letting them sit for 5 minutes, then pouring out water. Place jars upside down on a clean dishtowel.
   
   
4. When milk mixture is 115F, mix 1/2 c of the milk mixture with the yogurt starter, then mix that into the remaining milk mixture. Be sure to mix thoroughly to prevent graininess. Now your milk is innoculated with lots of friendly bacteria!
   
   
5. Pour innoculated milk into sterilized yogurt jars, then place jars in the yogurt maker (without lids). Let warm overnight, ~12 hours.
   
   
6. Put lids on jars and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before eating yogurt. Yogurt will last in the fridge for about 2 weeks.
   
   

(makes 1 quart of yogurt)

I have been working on being a better hippie by trying to find the perfect granola and yogurt recipes. I still have some work ahead of me.

Yogurt

I made my first batch of homemade yogurt in our new Euro Cuisine YM80 yogurt maker on Sunday. My recipe and approach are described here.

I love the little 6 oz jars that came with the yogurt maker! The yogurt turned out firm and mild, but it was also grainy, which is not a desirable attribute. It's pretty good with a big spoonful of blackberry jam stirred in. After doing some online reading, it seems like graininess can be mitigated by better incorporating the yogurt starter and by increasing the amount of fat in the milk. Also, Patrick would prefer a tangier, more liquid yogurt, so I am going to make a few changes when I make my next batch:

• Omit the powdered milk (to give a less firm yogurt)
• Stir the yogurt starter slurry into the milk mixture more thoroughly (to prevent graininess)
• Incubate the yogurt longer (to make it tangier). If I start the yogurt when I get home from work and then let it incubate in the evening and overnight, I can probably get up to ~12 hours incubation time

If the extra stirring doesn't prevent graininess, I'll switch to all 2% milk instead of a 50/50 blend of skim and 2% (I used a blend instead of all 1% because I wanted to use glass bottles of Straus milk, and our store only sells skim, 2%, and whole Straus milk). If you're looking for information on making your own yogurt, I especially liked this guide and the Good Milk Gone Bad episode of Good Eats.

It's like an edible biology experiment! If I had a more quantitative way of evaluating the finished product, I'd really be able to optimize my process.

Granola

As is typical of me, I made too many modifications to my base recipe (Tracy Granola!), and the finished product wasn't so great. I dub this Granola #4, and I proclaim that it is not worth making again! (But I do love the assortment of mini latte bowls I bought at Anthropologie recently! The Tiffany blue bowl is featured below)

This granola was sabotaged by two things: (1) the lemon oil, (2) too high a ratio of liquid to dry ingredients. It has a strong lemony flavor, and it's kind of soggy. Maybe if I'd baked it a little longer, it would've been better. I liked the addition of pumpkin seeds, but I missed the sunflower seeds. I also liked the addition of crispy brown rice cereal (I used Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal, available in my grocer's gluten-free section). The Bob's Red Mill 5-grain rolled cereal with flax was a fine substitute for rolled oats, but I wanted whole flax seeds too (even though your body can't process them very well). Now we just have work our way through the remainder of the Granola #4 batch so I can try out my next granola recipe!

Unrelated to my hippie pursuits, but worth a mention, is the dinner we had last night: Seared Halibut on Lemon Tabbouleh accompanied by Balsamic-Dressed Roasted Beets on a bed of baby spinach. The halibut tasted fine, but it was expensive! I forgot to check the price at the butcher counter, and then when I got home and looked at the receipt, I had buyer's remorse. When will I learn? Anyway, the tabbouleh was tasty and complimented the fish well. I would make the recipe again with cheaper fish. The beets were once again yummy.

I've managed to bike to work four times this month, including today (Bike to Work Day!). My company is home to some dedicated cyclists, and they always organize a fun party and awards ceremony for the people who participate in Bike to Work Day. There's a raffle and awards for all the participants. It was a fun time, and I won a pair of bike socks!

Of course, nothing can top my raffle prize from last year--streamers! I still have them on my bike, and they still make me happy every time I ride it! I got many compliments on them today, two from total strangers who biked past me. I guess Bike to Work day makes people more friendly, since normally people I pass (or, more accurately, who pass me) on my bike commute don't say anything to me. I'm always afraid somebody will say something mean about my streamers, but everybody is very positive about them.

I'm glad it's getting toward summer. I like riding my bike!

Granola #4

See this journal entry for my comments on this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 c (1 lb) Bob's five-grain rolled cereal w/ flax seeds
• 1/2 c crisp rice cereal (I found this in the gluten-free section at my grocery store)
• 2 T oat bran
• 2 T whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 c brown (unhulled) sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped
• 1/4 cup almonds, chopped
• 1 T ground cinnamon
• 1 t ground cardamom
• 1 t ground ginger
• 1 t sea salt
• 1/4 c apple butter
• 1/2 c apple sauce
• 1/2 c brown rice syrup
• 2 T molasses
• 2 T sunflower oil
• 1/2 t lemon oil
• 1 c raisins
• 1 c dried sweetened cranberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
   
   
2. Mix all ingredients except dried fruit in a big bowl. Spread mixture in pan.
   
   
3. Bake 30-45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. When granola is golden brown and quietly sizzling, it is done. Remove from oven and let cool.
   
   
4. Stir in raisins and cranberries. Store in airtight container.
   
   

(makes 10 cups of mediocre granola)

I took last Friday off to get some errands done, and I had lunch at Shiok in Menlo Park. I'd known about it for a while, but we'd never gotten around to going there. I sat down by the window, read my magazine, and enjoyed a lunch of Pork Char Siew with brown rice, iceberg salad with peanut dressing, and marinated cucumbers. It wasn't amazing, but it was sufficiently good that I'd go there again. I enjoyed my meal.

Nak's is just a few doors down from Shiok, so I stopped in and bought a little ocean (seaweed) salad to round out my meal. I love seaweed salad, and this stuff was good. Yay for Nak's!

I went to Ikea twice this past weekend. It wasn't the most relaxing thing to do, but it was productive. I wanted to get bookshelves for our kitchen and guest room closets, as our kitchen appliance collection was getting a little disorganized with our new (exciting!) additions. Ikea didn't have the bookcase end pieces (Ivar) we needed, so we bought taller pieces and Patrick sawed them down. He's awesome!

We managed to get the bookcases assembled and the kitchen closet (and kitchen cabinets) organized over the weekend, but the guest room still needs some love. I forgot to take a before picture of our kitchen closet, but it was basically a bunch of empty appliance boxes all piled up. They're all going to be recycled, finally. Here's the finished kitchen closet. I'm happy with it.

We made kind of an impulse buy on Saturday. We've looked around Harvest in downtown Menlo Park a few times, and I had admired one of their stools previously. I noticed it again on Friday when I went to lunch, and I brought Patrick in on Saturday to check it out. After much sitting and discussing and uncertainty, we decided to buy it. I like it very much. It is just the right height, and it even has little grooves worn out of the bottom rung where your feet naturally go. It's bright red, while the rest of our living room is more cool blues and greens. I guess we'll be going for an eclectic decorating style now.

After organizing the apartment all day on Saturday, we biked over to the The Counter on California Ave. in Palo Alto and ate there for the first time. It was so nice biking to and from dinner, and it gave us an excuse to get a big basket of fried food to start--half sweet potato fries and half fried onion strips. They came with three dipping sauces--BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, and some sort of buttermilk-chipotle sauce. I could've made a meal out of the sweet potato fries and BBQ sauce. Yum!

The gimmick at the Counter is that you're given an order form on a clipboard, and you build your own burger--meat, topping, sauce, bun. I'm afraid I chose my burger poorly. I got a turkey burger on a honey-wheat bun with Gruyere, avocado, sprouts, grilled onions, dried cranberries, and a ginger-soy glaze. The turkey burger, though moist, wasn't very flavorful, and the Gruyere tasted a little funny with the other toppings I'd chosen. The ginger-soy glaze was okay, but I liked my burger better with the leftover BBQ sauce slathered on the top bun.

Patrick got a more traditional burger, topped with a fried egg (hey, we rode our bikes--it's okay!). His was pretty good. I would skip the turkey burger if we go there again. I wasn't thrilled about the service or the ambience (it was kind of like an upscale sports bar). We were packed in pretty closely with the tables on either side of us. But I do enjoy variety and checklists on clipboards, so I think I'd go back and try a non-turkey burger. And more sweet potato fries!

Recent dinners:

1. Chicken Thighs with Roasted Apples and Garlic, Farro with Portobellos and Thyme from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. The farro dish reminded me of Moosewood's Mushroom Wheatberry Pilaf. I don't think I'm a fan of the combination of mushrooms, red wine, and whole grains. I wouldn't make the farro dish again. We didn't have much luck with the chicken either--it was undercooked despite our using a meat thermometer. That's never fun. The following night, I cut up the chicken leftovers and sauteed them with the apples to make sure everything was well and truly cooked, and it was pretty tasty. I like the chicken-apple combo. I might try the chicken recipe again, despite our difficulties this time.

2. Green Onion and Sesame Parchment-Baked Sole, Braised Lentils, Sauteed Escarole with Pine Nuts and Raisins, and whole wheat couscous. The first night we ate it without couscous, and everything was too saucy. It definitely needed couscous or rice to sop everything up. I like baking fish in parchment because it's healthy, easy, and fun to cut out paper hearts, but I wasn't a big fan of the strong sesame oil flavor in this recipe. I'll have to find a different fish en papillote recipe to try. The lentils were easy to make but boring. I wouldn't make them again. I enjoyed the escarole quite a bit. The slight bitterness of the greens goes well with the sweet raisins and rich nuts. That recipe is a keeper, I'd say. I think this may have been my first time cooking with escarole.

On a whim, I picked up a four-pack of Japanese pastries (Manju from Benkyodo) when I was at Nak's earlier in the day, so we had those for dessert. I'm not very familiar with Japanese desserts. I preferred the red bean filling to the lima bean filling (put that way, who wouldn't?). The Inaka was my favorite, though the Ohagi and Pink Habutai were tasty too. The Chofu was our least favorite. Too much rice dough, not enough bean paste. We're lucky to have a market like Nak's where we can get new and exciting foods.

3. Pork and Asparagus Rice Bowl. I modified this one somewhat, using ground turkey instead of pork, brown rice instead of white, and halving the amount of rice. It's certainly not fancy, but it's tasty, healthy, and easy to prepare. I would make it again.

We had dessert before dinner in this case. I made Lemon Ginger Frozen Yogurt in our new ice cream maker, and it was ready around 3pm, so we ate it then. The ice cream maker did a great job. I quartered the recipe so it would make 2 servings, and it worked just fine. We topped the finished product with fresh farmers' market blueberries (yum!).

I liked the idea of straining the yogurt (Straus yogurt, not homemade) to make it thicker, but the finished product was too tangy, what with the yogurt, lemon, and ginger. To its credit, the frozen yogurt was fat free and had a nice creamy texture, but I think it needed some fat to mellow the tanginess. It certainly wasn't bad, just a little too refreshing for me.

I had a good birthday weekend. We headed to the East Bay on Saturday, stopping by Romolo's Spumoni and Cannoli Factory to pick up some cannoli for our picnic with Tree and Andrew. I read about Romolo's in the April Sunset. Apparently, in the old days (when everybody ate seasonally), cannoli were a traditional springtime food because sheep have their babies in the spring, and ricotta (for the filling) is made from sheep's milk. I liked the idea of eating cannoli at the seasonally appropriate time. Plus, yum--cannoli!

Romolo's is located in a boring part of San Mateo, near the mall. It's a small shop, decorated with Italian paraphernalia (and pictures of a couple who had a cannoli tower at their wedding!). Like any self-respecting ice cream shop, there were freezer cases sporting tubs of yummy-looking ice cream (and ice cream cannoli! We'll have to try those sometime). It's run by a nice Italian couple. The proprietress prepared a cannoli-to-go box at our request. She had good hands; hands that have made a lot of cannoli. She gave us the chocolate-lined shells, a tub of filling, a baggie of powdered sugar, and eight pieces of red and green candied fruit for decorating the ends, all tucked into a pink bakery box. Beautiful!

Equipped with our picnic treat, we headed over to Tree and Andrew's place in the East Bay. They gave me a surprise birthday present--a Hoopoe print from Pushmepullyou design. It's great! Here it is in its place of honor in our living room (we may end up rearranging that corner; it's starting to feel a little cluttery).

After picking up box lunches from Gregoire and drinks from Piedmont Grocery, we headed up to Tilden Nature Area. It was up windy streets lined with beautiful big houses. When we pulled in at Tilden, we passed a sign that said that the pony ride area was closed until further notice (apparently they're looking to hire a pony ride manager in the near future, if anybody's looking for work). No pony rides? Man!

We parked near the Little Farm and set up our picnic blanket on the (kind of wet) grass. I was really happy with our Gregoire box lunches. No wonder Tree and Andrew like them so much! Patrick and I went halvsies on (1) smoked duck breast with cabbage and shiitake slaw on pantofolina and (2) Montana roasted beef with crispy fried onions in a baguette. Both were great. I loved the duck, while he preferred the roast beef. Each sandwich came with a little container of cous cous salad, and we all shared an order of crispy potato puffs, which are like mashed potato fritters. Yum!

Here we have Gregoire's aesthetically pleasing take-out boxes and a little bit of my skirt (with pockets!, purchased on sale at Anthropologie):

Mid-picnic, with potato puff in hand:

Next it was cannoli time! I should have brought our pastry bag for filling the shells. Instead I used a plastic spoon. It worked pretty well, though the filling didn't get quite to the middle of the shells. We just had to stop and refill once we got halfway through eating the cannoli.

Man, those cannoli were good. Granted, I didn't have much to compare them to. I think we had some once in the North End when I was at MIT. Anyway, Romolo and wife know how to make cannoli. The filling was smooth, rich, and sweet; studded with pieces of chocolate and candied rind. The shells were crispy and light. I almost wished we'd gotten two apiece!

It's too bad Romolo's is only open 11-5 Tues-Sat and that they go on long vacations in the summers. It's a pretty narrow window for cannoli acquisition. But that just makes it all the more special. Next time we visit, maybe we'll get some spumoni! It all looked so good.

After lunch, we walked over to the Little Farm to see some baby animals! Except it's not exactly baby animal season anymore, so we mostly saw some normal-aged animals and some cute baby chicks. Awww! The farm was indeed little, but it had a good selection--cows, geese, ducks, turkeys, chickens, bunnies, rare black Welsh mountain sheep, and some pretty goats. Sadly, we had no celery or lettuce to feed the animals.

Big ugly turkey, all puffed up and making angry noises:

Crotchety old black ram, also making angry noises:

Black Welsh mountain ewes. Much more congenial than the rams. They had cute little ladders to help them navigate the hay bales in their enclosure, but they refused to use them:

The goats were so pretty and placid compared with the other animals.

Tree and I looking at the goats:

Tree and Andrew were nice enough to let us laze around their apartment until it was time for our dinner reservation at Chez Panisse. Tree showed me her exciting new filing system. I should improve my filing system!

I was very excited to have my birthday dinner at Chez Panisse. I'd been to the cafe for my surprise bridal shower but never to the restaurant. I called and made our reservation a month to the day before my birthday to be sure that we'd be able to get in.

We arrived a little early and sat outside under the arbor until our table was ready. I was really impressed with the service and ambience of the restaurant. It felt like a fancy dinner but also cozy and welcoming. Not snooty at all. As you may know, Chez Panisse has a seasonally appropriate prix fixe menu, which changes daily. You don't have to choose what you'll be eating; everybody gets the same thing. I like that!

We started with an aperitif of prosecco, which wasn't half bad, considering that I haven't learned to enjoy wine. It was accompanied by a small dish of green olives, buttery and mild. Patrick is not an olive fan, so I got them all to myself! A waitress also stopped by with a tray of puff pastry twists with sheep's milk cheese and coriander, and we were given a bread basket filled with a dark sourdough loaf and a light French bread, both delicious.

I might as well just say right here that everything was delicious. It was a perfect spring meal. I don't have a big enough repertoire of positive food descriptors to address each part of the meal individually. So I'll just list what we had. We started with fava bean crostini with ricotta and prosciutto, accompanied by a salad of dressed microgreens (including cute little white flowers!). Next we had hand-cut pasta ribbons with shrimp, morel mushrooms, peas, and parsley pesto. The entree was tender Watson Farms lamb (three cuts) with asparagus gratin and mustard greens with turnips.

For dessert we had tangerine and candied kumquat ice cream profiteroles. They were very good, but ice cream/pastry combos aren't my favorite. But I really can't complain. I ordered a mint and lemongrass tisane to drink with dessert. It came in a beautiful clear glass teapot. The tisane was warm and relaxing, and we sat for a while, revelling in the satisfaction of a delicious meal.

I love it when the check is accompanied by a treat, and we received two--a dark chocolate button topped with a candied mint leaf and some sort of almond-gingerbread confection. It was a wonderful birthday meal. I'm glad we went. I need to come up with another special occasion so we can go again!

On Sunday, we went out for a second birthday dinner, this time to Naomi Sushi with Patrick's family. Unfortunately, our experience wasn't as good as last time. The food was good (I had the Omakase A option again), but the service was really slow, and the food took a long time. Plus they seated us in the back room with all the kids, and it was really noisy. I wouldn't have minded any of that, but I felt bad subjecting Patrick's family to it. I think we'll go there again, but not for a special occasion.

After sushi, we came back to our apartment and had birthday cake--my favorite gingerbread cake from Miette. Patrick took the long Caltrain trip up to the city earlier that day to pick it up for me. What a guy! He also picked up some macarons for us to share: chocolate-lavender, strawberry, and hazelnut. Just like last year! It's a good birthday tradition.

The cavalcade of birthday meals continued with a birthday lunch on Tuesday with my coworkers. At my request, we went to Junnoon in Palo Alto. I'd been wanting to go there for a while, but they were always booked up when we tried to make dinner reservations. We had no problem getting in for lunch. In fact, they were able to seat us outside on the plaza, which was very nice (the traffic noise wasn't great, but I was still glad to be able to enjoy the nice day outside).

Everything was crisp, clean, and pretty, and our waiters were nice and attentive. Instead of bread, they gave us complimentary pappadam with a yummy dip reminiscent of hummus. We all ended up ordering tiffins, which are basically prix fixe lunch selections with one entree, naan, raita, and chutney included in the price. It didn't look like much food when they arrived, but I think all but the largest men in our group were satisfied by the end of the meal.

My tiffin included tandoori halibut, Punjabi chickpeas, rosemary naan, avocado raita, and mint chutney. It was all delicious. I can see why Junnoon is so popular. I was particularly enamored with the avocado raita. It was a beautiful pale green and was smooth and avocado-y. I ate the leftovers with a spoon after I'd exhausted my halibut and naan. Good stuff, all of it.

It was a very good birthday. It's good to have a reason to celebrate. I hope this year is even more wonderful than the last.

P.S. I was lucky enough to receive many exciting birthday presents, including an ice cream maker! Well, that one was technically a joint present for Patrick and me, but I think I'll be the one using it the most. I decided to use my birthday money to register for Shuna's upcoming ice cream and sorbet class (she of the outstanding pie dough class). So there may be pictures of homemade ice cream showing up here shortly. Of course, I really don't want to get in the habit of having ice cream around the apartment. I need to find someone to pawn it off on so I can make it but not eat it all. Coworkers, perhaps? They are a very hungry group...

I also recently purchased a yogurt maker after trying to decide whether I should use a cobbled-together method (another here) or take the easy way out and buy a single-use tool. Alton Brown would be ashamed of me. Despite that, I'm looking forward to making our own yogurt to go with our granola. Plus now that we have an ice cream maker, we can make our own frozen yogurt almost from scratch (if we had a cow, we'd be all set!).

I'm looking forward to embarking upon some delicious new dairy adventures in the near future! Stay tuned...

Although my recent granola attempt turned out well, I wanted to try something less sweet, so I made a batch of Tracy Granola. I didn't have enough Quaker oats, so I supplemented with McCann's Quick-Cooking Irish Oats. It turned out well--deliciously spiced, slightly sweet, and chock full of nuts. Yum! Here it is in our handy new Tupperware cereal storer. It's just the right size to hold a batch of granola.

Tracy's granola is great with yogurt but not quite right as cereal (too many nuts, not enough oats). I'd like a granola that can perform well in both situations. I'm not quite sure what to try next. Although Andy's Fairfield Granola is delicious, it's a little overly sweet for daily consumption, and it seems more prone to overbaking. I think I'll stick with Tracy's general baking approach and sweetness level and just play with the ingredients incrementally until I find something that works for me.

There are a few more things I'd like to try in future batches (not all at once): Bob's 5-Grain Rolled Hot Cereal, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, coconut or lemon oil, cocoa, and crispy rice. Now to plan my next batch.

Not deserving of its own entry: we had Stir-fry with Curry Sauce (chicken, baked tofu, broccoli, zucchini, snap peas, crimini mushrooms, romaine lettuce) on oven-baked brown rice and barley with baked mashed sweet potato on the side. The vegetables were all from our box, and I was excited to use them all in one dish. The volume of vegetables turned out to be much higher than the recipe called for, and the stir-fry was pretty boring (not bad, just not the kind of dinner you'd look forward to eating). I won't write off this recipe yet though; I need to try it again with the appropriate vegetable-to-sauce ratio. It's definitely healthy and easy to make.

I had a good birthday weekend, but I don't have time to write about it tonight. I have to go to bed early so I can bike to work tomorrow (I didn't end up biking on Friday because it was rainy. Not an auspicious start to my 2007 biking season).

As I said in my last entry, we returned to Mudd last weekend for our 5-year college reunion. Prior to the reunion, I kept exclaiming how it didn't feel like it had been 5 years, but I think after the reunion, it does feel like it has been that long. Things have changed on campus and in our lives. I think it was good to go there and realize that we have grown up and changed. It's good to mark milestones like that. It did make me feel kind of old though...

Friday, April 27

Patrick and I flew into Ontario airport on Friday morning. We were on Southwest in the C boarding group, but luckily we were able to find seats together. We arrived around 10am. When we were landing, I was reminded of how brown and dirty the Inland Empire is compared to the Bay Area. It was still nice to come back to Ontario airport. It's familiar, as were a lot of things we encountered during our visit. Southern California was home for four years--longer than I've lived here!

We picked up our rental car, which had all sorts of mysterious buttons that didn't do anything. I begged Patrick to drive down Foothill Blvd. instead of taking the freeway, since that's how I always drove to and from the airport in college (since I hate freeway driving). Not much had changed in five years, except that $1 Chinese Food and Donuts has been replaced by another Chinese fast food establishment. That was kind of sad. I used to love going there, mostly for the novelty of cheap Chinese food and donuts in the same place.

Foothill Blvd. isn't the most glamorous stretch of road. It's lined with chain stores and quite a few adult bookstores. But, as with the airport, it was familiar, which counts for a lot. We drove through Ontario, Upland and Montclair before arriving in Claremont.

We had a few hours to kill before check-in time at the HoJo's, Claremont finest hotel establishment. We parked in the Village (Claremont's nice downtown area) and walked around. The weather was beautiful the whole weekend, which was nice. I wished I'd brought more dresses and skirts to take advantage of the Southern CA weather.

We walked around for a while and visited Rhino Records, and then we went to Harvard Square Cafe for an early lunch. Harvard Square was one of our favorite fancy restaurants when we were in college. Now that our food horizons have expanded, it doesn't seem quite as fancy, but it's definitely a nice restaurant. We sat on the patio and had some tasty sandwiches for lunch, and Patrick had a good Arnold Palmer (it's his go-to drink when it's warm out).

A little after lunch, we went to Bert and Rocky's for ice cream (man, if I'd seen that Chowhound page before the trip, I would've gotten the peppermint ice cream!). I had a scoop of Cookies and Cream frozen yogurt in a sugar cone, which was quite good. Patrick had the Dutch sweet cream ice cream, which was good as well. It was a perfect day to sit on a bench in Claremont and eat ice cream. How nice not to have to go to class!

Next, we drove over to Mudd and got our registration packets in front of Kingston. They have added two new buildings since we were there (Hoch-Shanahan dining hall and Sontag residence hall), but the buildings blend very well with the older buildings (which is to say they are boxy and covered with warts, as things at Mudd should be). Both new buildings are landscaped with drought-tolerant plants, which is a nice change from the flowers that need lots of watering and have to be replanted frequently because they can't handle the desert climate.

After getting our packets and sitting around for a little bit, we drove down to the HoJo's (right next to the freeway; not the nicest place we've ever stayed, but it worked fine for us) and checked in. I had originally wanted to drive to L.A. while were there, but we were both pretty tired, so we just sat in our room and watched TV for a few hours.

Tree, Andrew, and Jacob spent the day driving down from the Bay Area, and they apparently hit some nasty traffic near Pasadena. Ah, Southern California. They arrived in Claremont around dinnertime, so we met up and headed to the Village for dinner.

They were excited to go to Heroes for dinner, which sounded good to me. Heroes is exciting (to me at least) because they give you bags of peanuts, and you get to throw the shells on the floor! I'm easily amused. Oh, and they have a big selection of beer, and they serve it in big mugs, but since I don't like beer that's not really a selling point for me.

We waited ~40 minutes, and once we had gotten a table, the service wasn't great. But it was still a good meal. The portions are big there! Tree and Andrew were initially disappointed because the loaded potato skins were no longer on the menu, but the kitchen still made them for us at Tree's request. These weren't any dinky potato skins--they were huge!

Following the appetizer, we received our entrees, which were also huge! I had a yummy Ahi tuna burger with (giant) chunks of fruit on the side, Andrew had fish and chips, and everybody else had burgers, I think. Tree's burger was almost as big as her head! She didn't make much of a dent in it, I'm sorry to say.

As our meal was winding down, a group of people approached our table, and one asked us if we were Mudders. When we said we were, she place a small white paper ball on the table. We were momentarily baffled, but then she said that it was a napkin ball (a Mudd tradition--students aren't allowed to throw food in Mudd dining halls, so instead they make balls out of napkins and throw those). We had totally forgotten about napkin balls! It was a well made napkin ball. These people were clearly experts. Tree, showing much foresight, put it in her purse in case we needed it later.

We headed over to campus and caught the end of the annual Media Studio show (Media Studio is a class where students make their own short films. Patrick and Andrew both took it when they were at Mudd). There were far fewer people in the audience this time than there were 5 years ago. I know this sounds cliched, but it wasn't nearly as good as when we were students. Maybe we just missed all the good stuff at the start of the show. We weren't the only ones who were underwhelmed. Some alum's kid said, "This is boooring" in the middle of the show. Harsh, but true.

After Media Studio, we walked around the academic buildings, revisiting familiar classrooms and hallways. We were particularly excited to come upon the classroom where we had Chemistry 21A first semester freshman year. It's the class where Patrick and I met (though we also had friends in common and saw each other in other classes and outside of class, so I'm not sure if it's technically where we met). Awww...Here we are, where it all began. I took the one left-handed desk in the room, as I always did back then. As it turns out, Tree is left-handed too, and she had to use a right-handed desk when we were in Chem 21A together, but she did not begrudge me the special desk. She's so nice!

We stopped at the Muddhole in Platt, which got a facelift and is now called Jay's Place. Platt is all different now that it's not the cafeteria and is just a student center. The mailboxes are where the kitchen used to be. It's just strange.

Eventually, we wandered down to the residential end of campus. A few dorms were having parties, but we felt a little strange trying to get in, since everybody we knew at Mudd had already graduated (sigh). We visited the Linde Activities Center, where there was supposedly an alumni hospitality suite, but apparently they'd packed everything up for the night, because all that was left were a couple of tea bags (not even any hot water!).

Discouraged by the lack of exciting activities and food, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Saturday, April 28

We had breakfast at the BC Cafe, which is in the same parking lot as the hotel. It's a popular breakfast place among Claremont residents, but the food was too unhealthy for a delicate Bay Area flower such as myself. Even the "Lite" breakfast options were a bit much. I guess I can't fault them for serving big portions laden with fat and sugar; it's what people want.

I had a bowl of granola with vanilla yogurt, honey, berries, and bananas. It was yummy (very sweet). Jacob had some sort of an egg sandwich, and it came with a bowl of tapioca pudding and mints on the side. I thought that was pretty exciting. How often do you get tapioca with breakfast?

After breakfast, we headed over to Mudd so that Tree, Andrew, and Jacob could register. The schedule said that there would be Foster's Donuts at registration. We were hoping they would have strawberry donuts (donuts split in half and stuffed with sugared strawberries--yum!), but there were no donuts (strawberry or otherwise) to be had by the time we arrived. We planned on making a donut run later in our trip, but we never got around to it. Sad!

We walked around campus and ran into quite a few people from the class of 2002. I had been worried about making small talk with people I hadn't seen in a while (and hadn't known that well in college), but it was easy to find things to talk about. Phew!

We went to the new president's address before lunch. She seems nice, and it seems like she really enjoys being at Mudd. She did manage to fit in a request for money, but I guess that's part of her job.

After the talk, we had lunch (Platt burgers and picnic food; not worth $20) in the hot, hot sunshine in Hixon Court with Prof. Kuenning (from the CS department). Patrick had his second Arnold Palmer of the trip, and I tried desparately not to get sunburnt. I succeeded!

After lunch, we followed Prof. Keller around for a tour of the CS department. I wasn't very interested in the actual department tour, but we did get to see Prof. Dodds along the way. He was my favorite CS professor (not that I knew many CS professors, since I was a Chemistry major). I'm glad we got to talk to him.

After hanging out briefly in the new CS digs on the second floor of Sprague library (and almost getting stuck in the library stairwell because we didn't have key cards for the doors), Tree and I ran into Dr. Daub from the Chemistry department. He took us around the department, and we talked for a while. Not much seems to have changed in Chemistry, at least in terms of the building. It's too bad there weren't any other Chemistry professors around, but I'm glad we got to talk to Dr. Daub. He's nice.

We tooled around campus for a few hours after that. This time the hospitality suite in the LAC was better stocked, and I enjoyed a cookie and some lemonade. We checked out the new dining hall and sat in one of the private dining rooms, watching people walk by outside. College can be kind of boring when you don't go there anymore and don't have a dorm to go back to!

Ooh, at the new dining hall, they not only have horchata (which they had at Platt back in the day, but everybody was afraid to drink it because they didn't know how delicious it was), they also have agua de jamaica and pina colada drink! Sadly, when Patrick tried to sample the horchata, the liquid that came out of the dispenser was not horchata at all! What a disappointment. Good thing we have horchata up here in the Bay Area too. Man, I wish we could be at Platt for the Cinco de Mayo lunch tomorrow. They always put on a good show, with a mariachi band and food (including churros!) out on the lawn.

We visited Huntley bookstore, and upon returning to Mudd we happened upon a game of beer ball out behind Linde, which was in direct defiance of a memo included in our registration folders. Beer ball is a popular alumni weekend activity, but the administration does not like it at all, unsurprisingly. I didn't want to get in trouble for breaking the rules, so I didn't stick around to watch the festivities. It's just like in college. I'm still lame!

We headed back to Galileo Hall and sat on the cushy leather couches that our class had given to the school (the couch gift was made less special by the fact that Platt was later outfitted with more of the exact same couches and chairs a few years after we left). The chairs are unfortunately situated directly outside of the men's room in the Galileo foyer, but I still like them.

Soon enough it was time for the cocktail hour and class reunion photos in Hixon Court. The hors d' oeuvres were tasty, especially the baked brie and cocktail meatballs. We got to catch up with some more people from our class, including Charlie and Chrissy, who both live in the area and luckily decided it was worth their whiles to stop by.

It's crazy how quickly we reverted back to our old college personalities. It's not like we've changed hugely in five years, but we've definitely grown up. That all melted away once the boys of OG Suite were reunited, let me tell you!

We assembled for the class picture (I wonder if we'll get a copy). Patrick and I stood (or, in this case, kneeled) next to each other, just as we did for all of our other class pictures at Mudd. I remember when we took our freshman year class picture, I was all excited and nervous to be standing next to Patrick in the picture. It was like we were a legitimate couple! Who knew that seven years later we'd be getting married?

After our class picture, the top secret location of our class reunion dinner was revealed--the tent on the grass next to Platt! We were sharing the tent with the class of 1997. We had purchased tickets for the dinner, but they ended up not checking the tickets, and I think a few Westies from the years below us snuck in and got a free dinner. Oh well, their company was welcome.

Dinner was buffet style and was pretty good--filet mignon, veggie puff pastry, and chocolate mousse cake. They were pretty generous with the wine, and at the end of dinner, a napkin ball war broke out between the two classes. I tried to stay out of it because water and wine glasses were being knocked over right and left. People were having a great time. It felt like we were back in college. I tried to get an action shot of napkin balls flying, but I don't think I succeeded.

We'd heard rumors that West dorm might set up the Octagon (an impromptu wrestling ring made of security fences and a big pile of mattresses) later that night, which was a big deal, since the Octagon is normally reserved for HHP (Heaven, Hell, Purgatory--an annual West party). Andrew and Jacob had a score to settle, as they'd wrestled at HHP when we were in college, and their record was tied. This would be a decisive night!

It was still kind of early (by college standards) when we got to West, and not much was going on. Some students were playing with a spray bottle of flammable liquid, sort of an impromptu flamethrower. It made me nervous, as you might have guessed. I'm such an old lady. I wasn't much better when we were actually in college. I've never been a real wild and crazy type. It's probably good that I didn't end up living in West, as I'd wanted to when I visited in high school. West is the crazy dorm. I lived in Atwood, which was much more laid back and quiet.

Beer was consumed, more people showed up, and a band started setting up on a makeshift plywood stage. The alumni were all standing at one end of the courtyard, and the students were at the other end. At one point, one brave Westie approached us and addressed us as "sketchy alums" (which is exactly how we viewed alumni who came to parties when we were students). He encouraged us to actually talk to the students instead of standing around talking to each other, but we remained segregated. That's when it really hit me that I wasn't in college anymore. Sigh...

Andrew wrestled not only Jacob, but also Charlie and Austin. It's not exactly clear who won, but I think they enjoyed themselves. I was kind of worried somebody's head would get cracked open on the cement (there were scary gaps in between the mattresses in the ring), but the worst injury was a bloody nose. I'm guessing there won't be any Octagon wrestling at our 10-year reunion, so it's a good thing they were able to get in the ring this time!

The OG boys were excited to spot a Westie who looked eerily like our friend Noah from a distance. They got him to pose for a picture (he's the one in the green shirt). He seemed a little spooked. I probably would be too if a bunch of sketchy alumni approached me and wanted to take a picture with me!

Drew stopped by with his guitar and sang us a song before heading off to serenade random Scrippsies. Ah, Drew. Tree visited East Dorm (she was proctor there senior year) and met a lot of friendly Easties. They were much more approachable than the Westies. They were updating the East Dorm Wiki when I stopped by. I'm in it, as is Tree!

We headed back to the hotel around midnight, just when the party was really getting started. We really have gotten old, haven't we?

Sunday, April 29

We didn't do much on Sunday. We got bagels at 42nd St. Bagel Cafe in the Village. Actually, I had oatmeal, which came in a styrofoam bowl but wasn't half bad. Ooh, and Patrick and I split a honey whole wheat bagel encrusted with cinnamon sugar. Good stuff.

We lazed around the hotel the rest of the morning, and then we met up with Jeff M. (another member of the class of '02) for lunch. We stopped at Wolfe's to get sandwiches. Each sandwich includes a side salad of your choice (I went with the 4-bean salad--yum!) and a choice of pickles, peppers, or marinated mushrooms. So exciting! I had a mesquite turkey sandwich on squaw bread, which was quite good.

We took our sandwiches to the park on Indian Hill Blvd. and had a picnic there. Patrick and I had quite a few picnics there back in the day. It was good to go back. After talking and enjoying the weather for a little while, Tree, Andrew, and Jacob left to drive back up to the Bay Area, and Jeff headed home to Pasadena. Our flight wasn't until 8pm (a poor choice, in retrospect), so we laid on the grass in the shade for a while, and then we swung on the swings. It was so nice and peaceful.

We had some time to kill before dinner, so we drove down to Montclair (Upland?) to see a movie. Unfortunately, nothing good was playing when we got there, so we drove one exit down to our beloved old mall, Montclair Plaza, and hung out in Borders for a while. I guess it's appropriate to go to the mall when you're in Southern CA.

We drove back to the Village and contemplated getting pearl milk tea at a cute little bakery, but they were just about to close. Instead, we decided to go to The Press for dinner. I had heard good things about it while in college, but we'd never been. I really liked it!

The decor was fun (strings of blue Christmas lights, exposed rafters, unusual art on the walls), and I was excited about the menu. It had a bunch of vegetarian/healthy options, which is just what we were looking for. Patrick had a tofu stir-fry (and his third Arnold Palmer of the trip), and I had the eggplant burger (a blend of eggplant, oats, and TVP), which was interesting. I would definitely go there again. It just felt like a comfortable, familiar restaurant with reasonably healthy and tasty food. It's too bad we never went in college.

After dinner, we headed to the airport, returned our car, and got situated at our gate. This time we were in boarding group A, but unfortunately, our flight was majorly delayed. Initially it was delayed by an hour and a half, but they kept delaying it more as the night wore on. I think we ended up taking off around 10:45pm. At least they gave us each two packets of honey-roasted peanuts (my favorite airplane food) to make up for it. It was pretty boring waiting around the airport for hours on end. Most of the restaurants were closed, and the TVs weren't showing anything interesting (America's Funniest Home Videos and Dr. Phil), so we just read magazines. I could think of better ways to spend a Sunday night.

When we finally arrived in San Jose, the shuttle to the off-site long-term parking lot was nowhere to be found, and we didn't have their phone number, so we ended up taking a cab to the lot (it turns out the shuttle was still running, but I don't think they would've come to the airport unless they'd gotten a call). Our cabbie seemed a little out of it. Maybe he was just tired. I was glad to get to the parking lot safely. We drove home without incident, went to bed, and the next morning we returned to our normal, non-college-student lives.

I'm glad we went to the reunion, even though it made me feel nostalgic and a little wistful. It was good returning to Claremont and visiting some of our favorite places. We grew up a lot in the four years we were in college. Returning to Mudd made me think about my 10-year high school reunion coming up next year. That'll be even stranger. I wonder if we'll even have a reunion. I hope so!

We've been busy recently! Last Wednesday, we went to see the Decemberists at the Warfield with My Brightest Diamond. We only recently started listening to the Decemberists, and we like them a lot. I know, we're like 5 years behind the times. It was a fun concert. Toward the end, they played Chimbley Sweep, and they all ended up crowd-surfing in the general admission area (we were up in the balcony). Two teenage guys got up on stage (perhaps invited, perhaps not) and played the drums and guitar and sang a little bit, and everybody cheered for them. It was nice.

Tree and Andrew saw the Decemberists a while back, and Tree and I agree that we totally want to learn to play the accordion like Jenny Conlee. She not only plays the accordion, but she also plays organ and tambourine (she played a sweet solo at one point during the concert), and she has cute hair!

We were out past our bedtime, but it was worth it. We should go to more concerts!

The next day was Take Your Kids to Work Day. I helped marginally with the activities at work. Kids are both cute and exhausting. I wonder if we'll ever feel really ready to have one. I'd definitely like to have kids someday, but it seems like a pretty daunting task at the moment. Good thing we have time to wait.

After work, we drove down to the South Bay and had dinner at my grandma's house with my mom, Auntie Nance, and a few of my favorite local relatives. It's always so much fun getting together with all of them. I like my family (and not just because they read this website :)

Both my sister and Patrick's are seniors in high school, so they've been making exciting choices about their futures recently. Patrick's sister is going to Stanford, and mine is going to Franklin in Switzerland! Very different choices, but both exciting. My sister has definitely beaten me at going as far away from Colorado as possible for college. And I thought California was far away! I'm excited to see what the future holds for everybody!

Speaking of college, this past weekend was our 5-year college reunion at Mudd. That gets its own entry (with a few pictures!), probably tomorrow.

The softball team at work has been doing great this season. Last season I helped manage the team, but this year I opted not to manage because I found it too stressful and I could care less about putting together a good lineup. Instead I just keep score at the games (using a situational scorecard). It makes the games go more quickly. It's nice that our team is doing so well this year. We're even having a party at work tomorrow afternoon to celebrate our undefeated status.

I'm also going to start riding my bike to work again every Friday, now that it's getting warmer. I took a long break from riding my bike over the winter, but it's time to start again with Bike to Work Day coming up on May 17. Unfortunately it looks like it might rain tomorrow, but I feel like I have to bike to work tomorrow or else I'll lose my momentum. A little rain isn't a big deal, right?

It's hard to get back into the normal rhythm of life after being gone all weekend! There doesn't seem to be enough time to do all the things I normally do in a week. Eh, it's good to shake things up every so often.

While at the market this afternoon, I spotted some fava beans. I'd never prepared them before, but they seemed like a good springtime side dish, so I picked up a pound to have with dinner.

Conveniently enough, the April Sunset had a blurb about how to prepare them. First you remove them from the pod (the interior of the fava bean pod is so cushy and velvety. If I were a bean, I'd want to be a fava bean). Then you boil them for 2 minutes (I think these beans were a little mature and would've benefited from a slightly longer boil). Then you remove each cooked bean from its skin. I tossed the finished beans in some lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper and topped with grated Parmesan.

It was quite a labor-intensive process overall, and I didn't think the finished product was worth the effort. But I'm glad for the experience. I've definitely had yummy fava beans in restaurants, so maybe it's just a matter of finding the right recipe.

I planted our summer garden today (pictures here). This summer, we'll have three new kinds of tomatoes (Supersweet 100s, Black Zebra, and Stupice), Crane melons, beets, and a bunch of herbs (basil, cilantro, thyme, sage, parsley, and orange mint--it smelled so nice at the nursery!). In addition to using our patio boxes, Patrick convinced me to plant stuff in the empty patches of dirt on either side of our patio, which don't technically belong to our apartment. Our neighbors have already commandeered the patches of dirt near their apartments, and the building manager doesn't seem to care. The dirt is pretty clay-heavy, so I don't know if the plants I put there (tomatoes and melons) will survive, but it's worth a try.

We've had some decent chicken dinners lately. First, there was Chicken, Mushrooms, and Tomatoes with Port Wine Sauce, Sugar Snap Peas with Lemon and Toasted Almonds, and oven-baked polenta (from Lorna Sass's Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way). The chicken recipe turned out well, considering it used boneless skinless chicken breasts. I especially liked the garlic--I'd double the cloves of garlic next time. The peas were yummy! The polenta was a little dry, but it was easy to make. I'm sure it would have benefited from some butter and cheese, but I was trying to keep things healthy, so I left it plain.

Last night, we had a chicken-free meal of Otsu from Super Natural Cooking. It's a simple dish combining soba noodles, tofu, and cucumber slices in a tasty dressing. It was easy to make and enjoyable to eat. It's definitely worth repeating. Yum!

Our dessert was less successful. I made the Chocolate Rice Pudding from Feast (which I ended up buying last week, since I felt so sad when I had to return it to the library). It was super easy to make--just mix all the ingredients in custard cups and bake--but it didn't impress me. When I took it out of the oven after the designated baking time, it was still all liquidy, so I put it back in for 20 minutes, but it didn't help much. I could have gotten the same effect by pouring chocolate milk over cooked rice. It tasted okay, but it wasn't like real rice pudding. Oh well, at least I didn't spend much time on it.

For dinner tonight, I tried another Feast recipe, St. Tropez Chicken, along with Israeli couscous with toasted pine nuts, spinach and feta (based on the wheat berry salad in Super Natural Cooking). I used six chicken thighs instead of cutting up a whole chicken. It smelled good while it was cooking, but the skin came off of two of the thighs while they were cooking, and they dried out (no big surprise). The thighs that were protected by their skin turned out well though. It wasn't as amazing as I'd imagined, but it's good enough to make again on a lazy weekend.

Both of us enjoyed the couscous salad a lot. Not as healthy as Heidi's original wheat berry salad, but I'm trying to use up what we have on hand, and the Israeli couscous has been in our cupboard for a while. I would definitely make the salad again, either with wheat berries or another grain.

You can tell that I'm excited about Feast; in addition to the rice pudding and chicken, I also made a half batch of Andy's Fairfield Granola, which is one of the first recipes I earmarked after buying Feast. Patrick frequently eats yogurt with granola as a snack, so it would be great if I could find a good granola recipe to call my own (I even ordered a Tupperware cereal storer in anticipation of this becoming a regular activity; I'm sad their FIFO version has such a big footprint--it's impractical!). Also, I was excited to have a reason to buy and use brown rice syrup!

I think I overbaked it a little. I left it in for a little longer than 40 minutes because I was expecting it to crisp up toward the end of the baking time, but it was still pretty pliable when I finally gave up and took it out of the oven. I needn't have worried--it got nice and crunchy as it cooled. This granola is definitely on the sweet end of the spectrum, and because of this it's really yummy (almost like candy). The sweetness is probably due, in part, to my using apple butter (which had some added sugar) instead of apple sauce. I think next I'll try Tracy's Granola (on the less sweet end of things) to see if we like that better (it would certainly be better for us). I'm looking forward to having a favorite granola recipe! It seems like a good thing to have in one's repertoire.

First, a few recent meals:

1. Buttermilk-Brined Pork Chops, Millet with Buttermilk and Chives from Lorna Sass's Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, and steamed peas. The pork chops were good, as usual. They're one of my favorite ways to use up extra buttermilk. The millet's flavor was good (reminiscent of mashed potatoes, as promised), but the texture wasn't pleasant--kind of dry and gritty. It's possible this was because I cooked the millet the night before making the dish. I get the impression millet doesn't keep well. Maybe if we'd made it fresh that night, it would've been better.

2. Chicken-Cashew Stir-Fry with oven-baked brown rice and sauteed chard. This stir-fry, like others, was good and easy, and we would make it again. Not amazing, but certainly an acceptable dinner. I was really happy with the brown rice. Based on Sass's recommendation, I portioned out the cooked brown rice and froze it. Each night, I removed two servings of rice from the freezer, covered them with a paper towel, and microwaved on low for ~6 minutes. The rice reheated really well! It's an easy way to include whole grains in our meals without spending an hour making dinner each night.

When the chard ran out, we accompanied the stir-fry with a baby spinach salad with Pt. Reyes blue cheese (leftover from the cracker-making expedition described below), diced Pink Lady apple, candied walnuts, carrots, and Tracy's Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette. I was really happy with the dressing. It was easy to make, and all I needed to buy at the store was a shallot; we had everything else on hand. Thanks, Tracy!

3. Rogan Josh atop Curried Kalijira Rice Pilaf with Cashews and Peas (also from Sass's Whole Grains). The name of the dish reminds me of Joe Rogan, but I believe the two are unrelated. I think I should have used a smaller pot when making the Rogan Josh; most of the sauce had cooked away with half an hour still left in the cooking time, so I stopped cooking it early. It turned out okay, but we weren't wowed by the flavor. I guess I should just accept the fact that we're not big lamb fans.

We both really liked the pilaf though. I accidentally bought white Kalijira rice instead of brown, which probably made it tastier, if not healthier. It was reminiscent of fried rice, with pleasant curry flavors and occasional bursts of flavor from the fennel and cumin seeds. I'd definitely make it again (well, Patrick made it this time around, but you know what I mean).

In addition to dinners, I made a few fun extras. Tree's birthday party was this weekend, and I made two savory snacks to bring with us (I think I feel more comfortable making sweet things, so I wanted to broaden my horizons). I made Irish Blue Cheese Crackers (using non-Irish Pt. Reyes Blue) from Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess and Indian-spiced Peanuts with Cumin, using smoked paprika instead of cayenne.

The crackers were yummy, though very rich from all the butter and blue cheese. They were more like mini-biscuits than crackers. I think if I make them again (which I would, given the proper occasion), I would make them smaller--approximately 1 inch in diameter. The peanuts were good, but not amazing. I think I liked the Cook's Illustrated spiced nuts better.

Last week, I had some egg whites to use up (from the hot cross buns), so I jumped on the Internet bandwagon and made pavlovas with rhubarb compote. The rhubarb-pavlova combination was my idea, and it didn't work out very well. Both were pretty sweet. Maybe if there had been some whipped cream involved, it would have cut the sweetness sufficiently, but we didn't have any, and the combination was cloying. Instead, we ended up enjoying the compote on top of plain yogurt, and we topped the pavlovas with sliced strawberries one night and bananas the next. Much better! I really liked the rhubarb compote. I bet it would be good on top of ice cream too.

I really enjoyed the pavlova-making process. Spreading the egg white mixture with the back of a spoon was strangely therapeutic. It has such a nice texture! We were a little ambivalent about the crisp/marshmallowy texture of the baked pavlovas. I liked it okay, but I don't think Patrick was a fan. It's definitely a good way to use up leftover egg whites though. I might try making them again. Nigella's Chocolate Pavlova with Raspberries looks so good!

Patrick had a kayaking class in the city last weekend (at UCSF; he enjoyed it very much), and afterwards, we went to Mitchell's ice cream for the first time. They are a San Francisco institution and are known for their unusual tropical flavors. Since it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there was a line out front, and we had to take a number to be served. A nice man (who had apparently taken a few extra numbers when he arrived) gave us a lower number, so we got to order sooner. It kind of negates the whole concept of taking a number, but we gave our original number to somebody who had arrived after us, so it all worked out for the best. I had a sugar cone with a scoop of macapuno (sweet coconut) ice cream dipped in chocolate. It was delicious, but the chocolate shell led to unexpected difficulties. The ice cream kept dripping out of invisible fissures in the shell, and I never knew where the next drip would come from. It made the whole experience a little stressful. But it was so yummy, I didn't mind a little stress and a few drops of ice cream on my shoes. Mitchell's is definitely worth a visit if you're in the Mission on a sunny day (or a cloudy day; whatever).

A little something crafty, after a long craft hiatus:

I bought some cute scraps from Kozo back in December. I wanted to be able to enjoy them every day, so I made a little paper scrap quilt. I cut 1.75 x 2.5-inch rectangles (and a few larger pieces) and sewed them together with a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Unfortunately, some of the pieces got a little puckered, so it doesn't look totally smooth, but it's good enough. Now I can enjoy the monkeys and bunnies every time I go into our guest room!

After reading this article and this one in Sunset about Angel Island, I decided that we should go camping there this April. I reserved campsite #5 (supposedly one of the best on the island) for Easter day, and we headed out yesterday morning, along with Tree and Andrew.

We drove up to Tiburon, a charming little town, and caught the 11 o'clock ferry to the island. The ferry ride was brief, maybe 10 minutes, which, as Tree stated, was a good amount of time--not so long that it got boring. We even saw some of Andrew's family friends sitting on the deck of their bay-front house as we ferried by. Andrew called to tell them to look at the ferry, and we all waved to them.

When we landed, we went to the camping registration kiosk to check in. Official check-in time wasn't until 2pm, but they let us check in at 11:15am without any problems. The only issue was that the ranger had mistakenly directed another group of campers to our campsite instead of to the site they had actually reserved. As we hiked to the campsite (about a mile hike, mostly uphill), we worried about how we would nicely inform the campers that they were in our spot, but when we arrived, nobody was there, and they never showed up. So that was good--no unpleasant confrontations.

Campsite #5 was indeed awesome. It was right next to Battery Wallace (built in 1901 to defend San Francisco from attacks, but disarmed in 1915). Near the campsite entrance is a picnic bench and raccoon cupboard (the island used to be connected to the mainland by a strait, and raccoons still live there today). A little trail surrounded by sweet-smelling foliage leads from the eating area to a grassy clearing big enough (just barely) for two tents, with views of Tiburon, the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco skyline, and the Bay Bridge. There were other small clearings nearby where more tents could have gone if our group had been bigger. There's a pit potty and water faucet a minute or so away, at campsite 6.

Our campsite was on a little hill above Perimeter Road, which runs around the island. Here's the view from the road below our campsite, to give you an idea of what it was like. That's the Golden Gate bridge on the right, the Bay Bridge on the left, and San Francisco in the middle.

We had a good lunch of crackers, Fuji apples, triple-cream Mt. Tam cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, and salametto from Fra'Mani. Both cheese and salami were soooo good. I love having access to such good food.

After setting up our tents and securing our food in the raccoon cupboard, we headed out to hike up to the summit of Mt. Livermore. It was a pretty steep walk, and it took a little under an hour to get up there. There were pretty wildflowers along the way, and the view at the top was awesome, as promised. We sat at the top for a while, watched what appeared to be two pirate ships sailing in the bay, enjoyed a snack (coconut macaroons, sesame snaps, and ginger thins), and then headed back down. Here we are at the summit. I got a lot of use out of my camping hat on this trip.

We headed back to our campsite, stopping to explore Battery Drew along the way. Upon returning to our campsite, we were all pretty tired (Patrick and Andrew were both suffering from colds, sadly). We had more snacks and played a game of Zaire.

For dinner, we set up Tree and Andrew's little camping stove, and we had vegetable-lentil soup out of a can and grilled cheese sandwiches (made with hearty religious bread and a mix of muenster and cheddar cheeses). The grilled cheese sandwiches weren't perfectly cooked, but they turned out pretty well. None of them were too badly burned or undercooked. For dessert, we had Cadbury creme eggs (it was Easter after all) and half a bar of Maya Gold chocolate. Tree and Andrew brought some jammy red wine, in hopes of teaching me to enjoy red wine, but I'm not quite there yet. It was a good try though!

We had beautiful weather both days we were on Angel Island. As the sun set and it got chillier, we made a batch of hot cocoa (from a packet, with marshmallows!) and went and stood on the hill near our tents and admired the view and the twinkling lights in Marin and San Francisco. It was so nice! And then we secured our food in the cupboard and hunkered down in our tents for a good night's sleep, around 8pm.

We slept pretty well. I got a new sleeping bag (in My Little Pony colors--aqua and light purple) for this trip, and it kept me toasty. I tossed and turned a little bit, worrying I could hear animals outside our tent trying to get in, but it was just the wind. Apparently it rained a little overnight, and Tree and Andrew had some water seepage into their tent, so they didn't sleep as well as we did. That's too bad!

We got up around sunrise. The grasses and bushes around our tents looked so pretty covered in dew with the sun shining on them. Sadly, when we walked up to our picnic area, we found that the raccoon cupboard had not been very effective. The latch was kind of loose, and it looked like a team of at least two raccoons had raided it, one reaching down through a gap in the top, and one reaching up between the bottom of the doors. Our breakfast (McCann's instant Irish oatmeal, milk powder, brown sugar, dried cherries, slivered almonds, and mini chocolate chips, as well as four hot cross buns) was mostly gone, with the remaining scraps trashed and inedible. I hope those raccoons enjoyed our breakfast!

Luckily, the raccoons weren't able to reach the dinner leftovers, so we each had a slice of bread and a few pieces of cheese for breakfast, as well as tea and cocoa. I also had a tin of smoked oysters that I'd forgotten to have at lunch the previous day, but nobody else wanted any (Tree bravely sampled one and declared it an acquired taste. I can see how that might be the case; the women in my family enjoy smoked oysters, as well as liverwurst).

We were thinking about renting bikes after breakfast and riding the 5-mile loop around the island, but we decided to catch the 10:20 ferry back to Tiburon and have an early lunch instead. We packed up, hiked back to the ferry landing, and waited around in the sun for a while. The ferry was late because of engine troubles, but it wasn't a big deal. We had a nice chat with the park ranger about how wiley raccoons can be. She sympathized about them eating our breakfast.

We were pretty much the only people on the return ferry. We dropped our bags off at our cars (by the way, there's a lot on Tiburon Blvd. next to WaMu a little bit before Beach St. where parking is only $4/day and overnight parking is allowed; it seemed like the best option for Angel Island campers), and then walked over to Sam's Anchor Cafe, on Main Street in Tiburon. Sam's only served lunch, and we passed a breakfast place giving off delicious breakfast smells that might have been a better choice given our situation, but Sam's was good too.

We were seated out on the patio, overlooking the dock. This turned out to be less idyllic and picturesque than we'd anticipated, as there were some very ballsy seagulls wandering around. One gull even swooped in and stole a few onion rings from a neighboring table, knocking over the rest of the onion rings in the process. We covered our food protectively after that incident. It wasn't the most relaxed meal ever. I guess that's the price you pay for nice views of the water.

Tree and Andrew had a basket of onion rings, and they were certainly tasty. Tree and I both had the rare Ahi tuna sandwiches, which were quite good. After lunch, we walked down Tiburon and got ice cream (peanut butter fudge gelato, yum!) and ate it in front of a pretty fountain/kinetic sculpture nearby. Then we parted ways and headed home.

Despite our raccoon troubles, I really enjoyed this camping trip. After Sea Otter, I was a little wary of camping, but this was much better. It was my first time camping without a car, and it went really well. I think staying just one night was good, as it let me feel like I was roughing it without actually getting too grungy or being deprived of creature comforts for too long. I definitely recommend Angel Island for hiking and camping (especially campsite #5); just make sure your food is raccoon-proof!

(Full picture set is here)

I made hot cross buns for the first time today. I had noticed a recipe for them in the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook when we first got it, and I decided to make them at Easter-time. Conveniently enough, Feast, which I borrowed from the library last week, also has a recipe for them, so I combined the two.

They tasted exactly how I'd hoped--rich, tender, sweet, and a little tangy, full of dried fruit bits. They didn't look as perfect as I'd imagined, but that's not a big deal. They made the apartment smell really good while they were baking, and they were quite nice indeed when eaten hot out of the oven (and at room temperature). I'm so glad they turned out well!

Hot Cross Buns
(Adapated from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and Nigella Lawson's Feast)

Ingredients:

Dough

• 3/4 c buttermilk
• 6 T unsalted butter
• zest from 1 orange
• 1 clove
• 2 cardamom pods, crushed
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 4.25 c all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c white sugar
• 1 envelope (2.25 t) rapid-rise yeast
• 1.25 t salt
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t ground nutmeg
• 1/4 t ground ginger
• 1/2 c currants
• 1/4 c golden raisins
• 1/4 c candied citron (I might leave this out next time; the storebought stuff tastes a little funny, and I'm not sure what to do with the rest of it)

Egg wash

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 T water

Crosses

• 3 T all-purpose flour
• 2 T water
• 1/2 T superfine sugar

Glaze

• 1 T superfine sugar
• 1 T boiling water

Directions:

1. Heat buttermilk, butter, orange zest, clove, and cardamom pods until butter melts, then turn off heat and let infuse, ~5 minutes or until body temperature. Remove clove and cardamom (this was a little fiddly because of all the little cardamom seeds).
2. Whisk the eggs into the buttermilk mixture.
3. Mix 4 cups of the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, spices, currants, raisins, and citron in a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 1 minute.
4. Increase the speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. If, after 5 minutes, more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/4 c flour, 1 T at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom. (Even after adding the remaining 1/4 c flour, my dough was still pretty sticky)
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball, about 1 minute. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in fridge overnight, then let come to room temperature in the morning (or just let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 2-2.5 hours).
6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 12 even pieces. Roll each piece into a tight ball. Arrange the balls in a greased 9x13-inch metal baking dish and cover tightly with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until the rolls have nearly doubled in size and are pressed against one another, 1-1.5 hours.
7. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350F. Using a sharp knife, cut an X through the top 1/4 inch of each bun. (Nigella has you do this before the second rise, which might be better, as cutting the X's after the second rise caused the buns to deflate somewhat. But they recovered in the oven and puffed up anyway)
8. Whisk the egg and water together and brush over the buns. For the crosses, mix together the flour, water, and sugar, and dribble over the cut X's. Bake until golden and puffed, 25-30 minutes.
9. Mix the sugar and boiling water to make the glaze. (I used leftover citrus-infused simple syrup from candying the blood orange peels for my chiffon pies; it might be nice to add lemon zest or extract to the glaze to get a similar effect) Remove the buns from the oven and brush with two coats of the glaze. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then either serve hot or let cool on a wire rack.

Yesterday was the second annual pie bake-off at my place of employment. I organized it this year, and I chose to hold it on the same date as last year's. This was a poor choice, as it turns out, since many schools had Spring Break, so lots of people were on vacation. It was also Good Friday, which is apparently a day of fasting for Catholics (I knew it was Good Friday, but I didn't know about the fasting). And it was during Passover, when Jewish people aren't supposed to make or consume anything that has been leavened (apparently pie crust falls into that category). Way to go, Caitlin! If I organize it again next year, I will definitely think more carefully when choosing the date.

Despite my poor date choice, we had a decent turnout, with 14 pies entered, and a lot of people came to eat the pies after judging was completed. Patrick left work early to come and be a judge, which I very much appreciated. It didn't seem like a huge sacrifice on his part :)

I made two kinds of pie for the contest. Both were received very well (better than my banana cream pie from last year) and got good scores, but I didn't count them when determining which pies won awards, as it would have been a little awkward for me to win things when my husband judged and I counted all the votes. Knowing that people liked my pies was award enough for me :)

Pie #1 was actually a bunch of tiny pies. Remember when I made those mini chiffon pies in grad school, over three years ago? Well, I finally got around to making more of them, this time with blood orange juice. It took me long enough! I ended up using the Blood Orange Chiffon Pie recipe from The Baker's Dozen Cookbook (which I got from the library), but I used a gingersnap crust instead of a chocolate crumb crust. The recipe was almost identical to the Citrus Chiffon Pie recipe in Williams-Sonoma Pie and Tart.

I had a heck of a time finding organic blood oranges, but Whole Foods came through for me. I used Meyer lemons in addition to the blood oranges. Since I didn't have enough crust last time, I made 1.5 times the crust; this was more than enough. I had enough crust and filling to make 48 mini pies (using a mini muffin pan and mini liners) and 6 regular cupcake-sized pies.

The pies turned out well. The filling was a beautiful fairy-tale pink, light and airy. I overheard one of the judges saying that she thought it was too citrusy, but I liked the flavor. I topped each pie with a swirl of whipped cream and candied blood orange peel (the blanching removed most of the red from the peel, so it didn't turn out exactly as I'd imagined it). Good stuff. I'd say this recipe was a winner, though not my favorite pie ever. The chiffon filling alone would make a nice light dessert if you plopped it into ramekins.

Pie #2 was Mighty Fine Apple Pie (made using the Damn Fine Apple Pie recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen, but renamed so as not to offend anybody). It's not exactly apple season, and the apples I used (1 lb each Granny Smith, McIntosh, and Gala) weren't very crisp, but it didn't seem to make a big difference. I used the Baker's Dozen all butter crust recipe. This was my first time making pie crust since taking Shuna's pie dough class, and I felt much more confident making the pie dough. It all just felt right and familiar, and based on the small taste of pie I got after the pie contest, my pie crust turned out just right! It was tender and flaky, just like it's supposed to be. I'm so proud of my crust! Shuna's pie dough class was definitely a worthwhile investment. This apple pie was a winner.

Oh man, I've let things pile up, and now I have a bunch of stuff to write about. Let's see...

Recent meals:

I made a batch of Smoky Beef and Bacon Chili from Sunset a week or two ago. It was good, certainly smoky, but I like Stef's chili better. The weather has been great, so we enjoyed our chili al fresco on our patio with a variety of sides--cornbread and chard one night; popovers, gingered broccoli (from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites), and roast asparagus the next. We don't have a popover pan, so I made the popovers in a muffin tin, and they were shaped a little strangely. But they tasted good! We had the extras for dessert with some jam. The gingered broccoli was fine, but not awesome. I doubt we'll make it again.

I bought Heidi's new book, Super Natural Cooking, last week. It has lots of exciting recipes, and the food is beautifully photographed. We made two recipes from it for dinner last week--Clemenquat Salad and Big Curry Noodle Pot, both charmingly named. The salad consisted of thinly sliced celery and kumquats, walnuts, parmesan, and clementine segments. It was yummy, if a little unorthodox. The noodles were a little too spicy for my tastes but were pretty good. I would make the salad again, but probably not the noodles. I'm excited to try more recipes from the cookbook in the future!

I also bought Whole Grains, Every Day Every Way by Lorna Sass, and I got even more cookbooks from the library, including Feast (like most everyone else, I'm thoroughly charmed by Nigella Lawson). On Thursday, Patrick made Sake Steak (from Feast) accompanied by steamed spinach and Brown Rice Salad with Asian Flavors (from Whole Grains). The brown rice salad was yummy and pretty easy to put together if you cook the rice the night before. The steak turned out really well. We used rib-eye steaks (grass-fed). Nigella's cooking method leaves them pretty rare, and they were a beautiful ruby red on the inside. We wouldn't normally eat our meat so rare, but this stuff was great--tender and delicious. It was also pretty quick to make, since the steaks were marinated a few days in advance.

Baking adventure: English muffins

Last weekend, I made English muffins, inspired by the pretty pictures at Delicious Days. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own English muffins! I used this recipe, which gave me a chance to use my food scale to weigh out the ingredients. Exciting! I love doughs that rise overnight. I mixed it up in about 15 minutes last Friday night (it made a pretty sticky dough, but it turned out just fine), and then I made us English muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning. This took longer than I'd expected because I had to cook them in two batches, as I was using our cast iron skillet. Next time I'd probably try to do them all at once on our griddle.

The English muffins looked surprisingly like storebought, and when I split them with a fork, they were full of nooks and crannies, just like they were supposed to be. It's like magic! I'm not sure if they exactly fit my English muffin ideal, but I was pretty happy with the overall outcome. We topped the split and toasted muffins with poached eggs and smoked salmon and had grapefruit halves and fresh-squeezed blood orange juice on the side. The poached eggs were perfectly cooked (I love you, Cook's Illustrated!), but some of the poaching water clung stubbornly to them, so they made the muffins a little watery. I'll have to get a better slotted spoon.

We topped the leftovers with butter, cinnamon-sugar, and jam. Yum!

Apart from taking longer than I'd expected, I found the English-muffin-making experience quite enjoyable. I'd do it again. Since these worked out so well, I think next I'll tackle homemade Graham crackers!

Dinner at Oliveto:

Last Sunday, we were in the East Bay, so we went to Oliveto with Tree and Andrew, for the first time. We got to Rockridge a little early so we stopped in at Bittersweet and tried a Chocolate Thai Iced Tea. It wasn't very good--kind of gritty and strange-tasting. I guess we'll stick to their hot chocolate from now on.

I'd been wanting to visit Oliveto for awhile, as everybody who'd been there seemed to love it, and it's fun to walk around Rockridge. As it turns out, Oliveto deserves all of the good reviews--it is excellent Italian food. It's the best Italian food I've had in the Bay Area, but I haven't been to the big hitters in San Francisco yet. It's certainly worth a trip to Oakland.

When we were seated, we were given a bowl of delicious green and black olives and some yummy bread. We started by splitting the salumi platter for two (it was large enough to divide between four people). I can't remember the different kinds of cured meat we tried, but they were all really good. I don't eat enough salami!

Next, we shared two starters: shaved purple asparagus with fennel and parmesan, and cured steelhead salmon with baby beets and chervil. The salmon starter was especially good. For our entrees, we all had housemade pasta. Mine was topped with a pork rib ragu, which was awesome. So satisfying.

We split three desserts four ways: (1) bittersweet chocolate cake, (2) a rhubarb tartlette with rosewater cream, (3) chocolate, vanilla, and apricot zuppe inglese with amaretto sauce. All three were very good; I think the chocolate cake was my favorite. I love being able to sample multiple desserts in one meal!

In my opinion, Oliveto is well worth the trip. It's relatively expensive, but both dinner and dessert were outstanding. Since their menus change daily, we'll clearly have to go back frequently to see what else they come up with!

Garden news:

Our dwarf Meyer lemon tree appears to have handled the cold weather just fine, and we have a bunch of baby lemons a-growing, as well as lots of lemon flowers blooming (the smell of citrus blossoms is so wonderful!). Here's the biggest lemon on the tree, as of last weekend. I wonder when we'll have our first lemon harvest!

I bought some cute scraps from Kozo back in December. I wanted to be able to enjoy them every day, so I made a little paper quilt using small pieces of the paper. I cut 1.75 x 2.5-inch rectangles (and a few larger pieces) and sewed them together with a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Unfortunately, some of the pieces got a little puckered, so it doesn't look totally smooth, but it's good enough. Now I can enjoy the monkeys and bunnies every time I go into our guest room!

Quilt made of Kozo paper scraps

We had a slow-cooked dinner yesterday: Spring Lamb and Flageolet Beans, Beer-Rye Bread, Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Poppy Seeds and Lemon, and Baked Spelt Pudding.

The lamb and beans took about 4 hours to cook in a 300F oven after bringing to a boil (2 hours covered, 2 hours uncovered). It turned out soupier and blander than I was imagining, but a squeeze of lemon juice right before serving helped make it better. Still, I expected more from my pretty Rancho Gordo flageolet beans. I still hold out hope that someday I'll make a really excellent bean dish. I just haven't found the right recipe (well, there are these awesome baked beans, but they don't really showcase the beans).

The bread turned out pretty well. The recipe came from a recent issue of Sunset, which featured our favorite hometown brewery, New Belgium. Way to go, you guys! The bread was faintly sweet, flavored with rye and caraway. I was surprised that it had retained some of the beer flavor (I used New Belgium Springboard, a seasonal ale brewed with wormwood, goji berries, and schisandra). It would've been even better slathered with butter or cream cheese.

I wanted to like the Brussels sprouts, but they turned out a little bitter and uninteresting. I'm guessing I either cooked them too long or used Brussels sprouts that were past their prime (but they were from the farmers' market, so that's something!). Were I to try it again, I might try this version, since butter makes everything taste better.

I was excited about the pudding because I had been craving rice pudding, and it let me use more spelt as well as a whole bottle of Straus 2% milk (it's too expensive for everyday milk, so it's a treat when I get to use it in recipes). I made it in a loaf pan in our toaster oven, and it took a little under 3 hours to bake. When it was done, I spooned it into our recently acquired set of 351 1/2 Hall custard cups (from eBay, inspired by this outing) and chilled it.

The pudding turned out denser and firmer than I'd expected. Well set--like it had been thickened with gelatin (when really it was just ground up spelt and long, slow baking that thickened it). I was hoping for a creamier texture, but this stuff was hearty and a little chewy. Although it wasn't what I was expecting, I liked it. It's unique, and eating it makes me feel healthy! However, it didn't satisfy my rice pudding cravings. I've got my eye on these three recipes, and I'd better try one of them soon, since it won't be rice pudding season for much longer.

I also made another batch of Classic Brownies to use up the leftover butter and chocolate from the Tahoe trip. Most of them went to work with me today and were well received by my coworkers. I let the brownies cool for the full 2 hours this time, and they cut more cleanly, though there was still some crumbling. It seems that people prefer pecan-topped brownies to plain, since on both occasions the plain brownies lasted longer. I always thought most people didn't like brownies with nuts, but I guess that's not the case. They're yummy, either way (as the sign indicates).