Summer in Winter

So, I am finally getting to posting the photos of our California trip back in March. Only a month late! I blame my tardiness on the hustle and bustle and responsibilities of life when one is at home: some folks call it WORK! :o)

We jetted west during our spring break in March for some fun in the California sun and to visit family and friends, and of course to eat fabulous food (some comments and photos on that is coming). Boy do we need some of that sun! We have had a really cold snowy winter here in the mid west. Seems like there has been snow continuously on the ground since Christmas.

We arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) to the fabulous winter temperatures of the mid 60's and upper 70's during the day. We could feel the sheet of frost melting off of us the minute we stepped off of the plane. Our first stop was to our dear old friends Tim & Dave at their new home in Lafayette. They have traded their old view of San Francisco from the El Cerrito hills of the east bay for a new view of the beautiful California oak covered green hills in the Briones Regional Park area of the east bay. Just a beautiful landscape to live in.

Me and Timmy

 

David and a partial view of the parkland in the background.

The house sits atop a hill, so the view from the entire backyard is of the beautiful green hills. The landscaping is a very well established Mediterranean garden. Oh! how we wish we could have this type of garden in the mid west!

The front of the house with more Mediterranean  gardens

Tim loves to cook too and wasted no time in whipping up a simply delicious Caribbean grilled pork tenderloin for dinner using an outstanding marinade. YUM!!!

Oh, and lunch the next day was escargot, cheese, homemade carrot pickles and a french baguette! Heaven!

We basically laid around their fabulous yard like lizards for two days in the sun. We did take an evening trip over to SF to visit our old friend Bob at his restaurant, Memphis Minnies, in the Haight-Ashbury district. He has been serving up delicious traditional Tennessee BBQ here for many years now and we always really look forward to having a meal here. The really fun thing was that he had no idea we were in town, so we really surprised him.

You gotta love the mustache (the one on Bob! :o)

A gut buster assortment of food was delivered to our table. Mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, beans, braised greens, grilled onions, beef brisket, pulled pork, pork ribs, beef ribs, spring rolls, beer, and of course, a bottle of very fine Saki. Bob is really into good Saki (due to the years he spent in Japan), so he serves it in the Q joint. And I must say, it was REALLY good Saki!

Here is the Saki

 

After we gorged ourselves on BBQ, we rolled out onto Haight Street and waddled down to the car.
Tim and Dave then took us on a whirlwind ride around The City. We ended up on some extremely narrow streets winding through the Knob Hill neighborhood and down into the North Beach area (mmmm.. Italian food!) and around the Pier 39 waterfront (mmmmm.. seafood!) and down to the Embarcadero so we could have a look at the new art installation covering the west span of the SF Bay Bridge. The FABULOUS light show was created by artist Leo Villareal and is really something to see. It reflects the water and fish and the life around the bay. It is on every night from dusk to 2am. If you have a chance to go see it, do it. The huge scale is amazing.
Here are a couple of websites for more info on the installation:
http://thebaylights.org/   and
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/tech/innovation/bay-bridge-light-installation

Whew! The next morning we went off to spend some time with our dear friends Ian and Val in the East Bay hills. Val swooped us right off to the San Francisco Ballet for a matinee to see The Rite of Spring. The production was choreographed by Yuri Possokhov and features the music of Igor Stravinsky. There were 3 pieces in the production- Beaux (nothing more amazing and beautiful than a bunch of REALLY fit men in tights!), then Guide To Strange Places (hauntingly beautiful) and then The Rite of Spring.
Go here for a review and short videos of the pieces:
http://www.sfballet.org/tickets/production/overview/program-3-2013
Sorry, but the only photos allowed inside the Opera House are before and after the production.
Here is Val and Rowan inside.

Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Memorial_Opera_House

We then went back to the Bailey's for an evening of fun, food (of course!) and catching up on life. We were joined by our other dear friends, Tony and Elna. 

Here is a photo of me and Ian, by far one of my favorite people on the planet! Fun is his middle name! :o)

Ian took me right down to the wine cellar to look at his collection. I can't tell you how many hundreds of bottles of wine this man keeps. He has been collecting for years and is an amazing resource when it comes to what to drink at the right time and with what food. This is only a fraction of his stash.

One of the offerings for the evening...

The amazing Val (Ian's wife) has the natural ability to whip up the most delicious, simple food to go with that wine. Here are some pasties she made as an appetizer.

Then there was the roasted chicken, split down the middle, flattened and grilled on the Bar-B.

I helped to whip up the kale salad. Garlic, kale, olive oil, lemon juice, croutons and shaved Parmesan. YUM!

One of the dessert wines.

The pot-O-cream dessert.............. :o)

We had a delightful evening and so appreciate our old friends on the left coast.
Jenni, Ian, Val, Tony, Rowan and Elna.

The view of San Francisco form Val and Ian's place. One of the best views in the world.

OK, so don't think the food stops here...........the next day, Rowan went off to Berkeley to consult science with her colleagues, I got to hang out with our dear friend Charles and go foraging for dungeness crab and oysters.

This one's MINE!!!!!!

We didn't stop with the seafood...........that evening we met up with our old friends Sandy and Pam and went out for Mexican food in Alameda at a place called La Penca Azul - http://www.lapencaazul.com/. Mexican food is by far our favorite and it's very hard to get anything worth eating in the mid west (unless we make it ourselves), so it is always on the menu when we are out in California.
Sandy, Me and Pam

Me with Charles

The absolutely delicious, fantastic, wonderful fish tacos I had for dinner.

A howdy from us!

The next day we went out to the valley to spend a few days with my family. The weather was just fantastic, in the mid to upper 70's, and this is WINTER! We definitely are not missing the 30's we left back in the mid west! This is one of the reasons why everyone wants to live in California.

We spent some time with my cousins over a fantastic meal (of course there is more food!) prepared by my cousin Muffin.  Here is a photo of Little Jack and my dad, Big Jack, or Uncle Buddy as he is known by all my cousins.

Muffin and I had a duel taking photos of each other.

We were able to catch up with brother Ben too.

My parents backyard where I spent many hours of my young life laying like a lizard by the pool.

Me and the folks.

We had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends and are already looking forward to our next trip out west - especially when we come home to THIS!...............

More home improvement news coming..........yes, there is more of that! :o)

More Adventures With Food

We must share a quick post with you about some fun food adventures from the past few weeks.

First, our eggs just keep coming. The ladies give us up to four eggs a day, so we are working hard to either eat them, or share them with our very happy neighbors. We are getting some 'WHOPPER' double-yolker's every now and then that are a meal in themselves.

Here is a photo of a normal egg between 2 double-yolker's (a quarter is there as a size reference).
All I can say is 'OUCH'! No wonder the girls make a ruckus and cluck their heads off when they lay their eggs (I will try to get a video of when that happens to share on the blog).

We really love the green/blue color of the eggs. they are like little jewels.

One double-yolker egg is all I need for breakfast. YUM!

Here are a couple if neat food wonders I came across while preparing food over the last few weeks. I cut a butternut squash in half just before Valentines Day to roast it up for dinner and this is what I found inside. A double heart. Now there is a good omen if I ever saw one! :o)

Then, I was making a kale salad and decided to add a pear. When I cored the pear, I suddenly saw these fabulous antelope faces in the part I removed. They make quite a pair, doncha think? (pun intended!)

On my birthday in February, there was a knock at the front door. When I opened it, there stood the UPS guy and he handed me a box. What could it be? When I opened it up, much to my surprise, there was a whole case of Moon Pies (yep, 48 of them!). Rowan had heard me talk about them when I saw a story about them on TV, so, she went on-line to find me some. They are such a blast from my past. My mom used to put them in my lunch when I was in grammar school back in the 1960's. I loved them! So, now I will be eating them for the next few months. Just what I need for my girlie figure :o)
Who knew they were still being made?

Some fun from our trip to the California sun coming next. Stay tuned.............

Inauguration Feast

I'm late with this post due to the food coma I have been in since the party :o)
Here it is......

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Happy Inauguration Weekend!!!!!!!

To say that we are delighted about the second inauguration for Barack Obama would be an understatement. We are ECSTATIC!!!! So much in fact, that we have decided to lay on the exact inauguration luncheon that will be served to over 200 people at the January 21st event. We are doing our luncheon today as it is a Sunday and I have time to cook like a mad woman :o) plus, I will want to be watching the inauguration tomorrow instead of standing at the stove.

So, we have invited a few of our friends over to join us who are also all chipping in on finding the exact ingredients, including the wines, as well as making some of the dishes offered. There are 3 courses to the official luncheon. We are offering only 2 - the first course and dessert course (doing the buffalo course is just too much for our luncheon so we will have that on it's own at a later date).

Here is the official menu:
(I have also included the official photos of what the dishes are supposed to look like. We will see how we do with our attempts at reproducing this).

President Obama's 2013 Inaugural Luncheon Menu

First 

Steamed Lobster

with New England Clam Chowder Sauce

Served on Sauteed Spinach 

with Sweet Potato Hay

Wine:  Tierce 2009 Finger Lakes Dry Riesling (NY)

Main 

Hickory Grilled Bison

with Wild Huckleberry Reduction

Strawberry Preserve and Red Cabbage
 

Red Potato Horseradish Cake

Baby Golden Beets and Green Beans

Butternut Squash Purée 

Wine: Bedell Cellars 2009 Merlot (Long Island, NY)

Dessert

Hudson Valley Apple Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream

with Maple Caramel Sauce

Aged Cheeses and Honeycomb

Toma Celena and Jersey Girl Colby,  
Cooperstown Cheese Company (Milford, NY)

Wine:  Korbel Natural, Special Inaugural Cuvée Champagne (California)

 Go here for the recipes: http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/luncheon/menus

The table was set with our finest antique white lace tablecloth and all sorts of political party favors like inauguration buttons, Obama million dollar bills and the Obama bobble head figure (no pun intended :o) we picked up at his last inauguration in 2009.

Preparing the first course: The clam chowder has a variety of vegetables, so the first task was to chop, chop, chop and then chop some more.

Getting the clam boil ready with shallot, white wine, garlic and fish stock

That yummy bowl of clam meat ready to go into the chowder.

OK, so this dish is not for the fainthearted.....literally! There is lots of heavy cream (none of that low fat stuff), the clam liquid, sauteed vegetables, etc. this is all reduced down before you add the clams and fresh tarragon.

 

The yummy end result is just TO DIE FOR!!! A huge pot of comfort and love :o)

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door...........the guest of honor, including his glowing personality, had arrived! :o)

The rest of the guests were also at the door. We couldn't wait to have our photo taken with the Prez.

The next order of business for getting the first course ready was cooking the lobster tails.

The lobster tails go into a large stock pot........

Next, the cooking stock is prepared using 1 gallon of water, kosher salt, white wine, star anise, diced carrot, celery, onion & leek. All this comes to a boil and is then poured over the lobster tails in the other pot and allowed to steam for 6-10 minutes.

The hot liquid is then poured off and the tails are thrown into an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Releasing the tails from their shells.

YUM!!!!

Preparing the sauteed spinach with shallot, olive oil and salt & pepper.

Plating the first course: Spinach first, then lobster tail cut into 5-6 pieces. Ladle chowder over spinach & lobster........

..........top off with sweet potato hay and a sprinkle of fresh tarragon. I didn't take photos of making the sweet potato hay, but all it is is about 4 cups of canola oil in a heavy pan heated to deep frying temperature, then shredding some sweet potato on a thin grater and throwing it into the hot fat. It produces a delicious  crunchy sweet potato hay. This is so delicious it will knock your socks off!

We all had a champagne (and beer) toast to Barry before we went to the table for our first course.

It all looked so beautiful on the table. Just like we were in DC at the luncheon.

Barry was the first to the table :o)

Nowana and Sally with The Prez.

Our next course was dessert. Nowana made the DELICIOUS Hudson Valley Apple Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream and the maple caramel sauce all from scratch too. It was unbelievably rich and delicious. We even had the cheese and honeycomb with it.

Another toast to this great day, great food, 4 more years and our president.

One last photo of me with #44 - President Barack Obama! We are so glad he could make it to our party. We know how busy he is :o)

Now, it is definitely time to get to the gym!