As the title of this post suggests, I was quite happy with my recent inaugural trip to La Note with my wonderful friend Miraya, who has accompanied me on many of my adventures, culinary and otherwise, including the one that inspired this blog. Knowing how popular this place is and being an avid Yelp consultee, I was prepared for a long wait to get into this place, especially in the mid-morning on a Sunday. After putting our name on the list we got in relatively fast (30 minutes or so), but waiting even longer for the food to arrive was not something I had anticipated. By the time we got our food, it had been about an hour, which to my hungry stomach seemed like forever, and I was getting a little delirious.
Note my self-restraint as I pose for a picture whilst deliriously hungry.
Photo Credit: Miraya Berke.
In spite of this lengthy delay, the food was absolutely delectable. I ordered deux Lemon Gingerbread Pancakes which came with refreshingly-moist poached pears and blueberries. And to satisfy my hypoglycemic need for savory flavors (and because I saw it came in a cute little egg holder and precious little spoon), I ordered a soft boiled egg as a side, which was garnished with what tasted like oregano. For me, no Sunday brunch would be complete without a glass of orange juice, so I couldn't resist getting that as well.
PANQUEQUES.
(Pancakes are more fun to say in Spanish)
Note the beautiful poached pear.
HUEVOS.
(Because I've already started speaking Spanish)
Note the cute little doily and tiny spoon. I felt dainty.
All of this was quite delicious. I started on the egg first, which was a delight to eat and I felt super adorable eating with my tiny spoon. The pancakes had a good amount of gingerbread spice to them, though––being a lover of sour tastes––I could have done with a little more lemon flavor. (Come to think of it, by the time I was finishing my second pancake, my palate was on sweet overload and I found myself wishing I had saved some of the egg just to balance the flavors out a bit). Their butter was somehow noticeably yummy too. The poached pears, however, were my favorite part of the meal. I literally could have an entire bowl of them just by themselves. Overall, it was just nice to be out having a tasty meal and shooting the breeze with a good friend.
Close-up of my take on Zucchini Boats, made with garlic, grape tomatoes, mozzarella, parmesan and basil (for garnish).
So, things you've missed since I last posted: I'm cooking a lot more, and enjoying cooking a lot more; I'm on a weird veggie kick, since I'm trying to minimize meat in my diet; and I got a Pinterest, which has given me a lot of creative recipe ideas. Put these trends together and what do you get? ZUCCHINI BOATS!
Here's the original recipe from Proud Italian Cook and above is a pretty picture from that page. I excluded bread crumbs, because I was lacking, but they probably would have added a nice little crunch to the texture. Also, make sure to make deep grooves in the zucchini beforehand, or else the tomatoes will sit on top, like mine did. Besides these little things, this was such an easy dish to make and the copious amount of garlic I used made the entire apartment continue to smell yummy for days afterwards. The grape tomatoes were packed with flavor and tasted so good after being roasted. And the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses lent the whole thing a bit of richness and texture, and provided the much needed unhealthy segment of the dish.
That same night Ben also made mashed sweet potatoes. I've been obsessing over sweet potatoes lately. Not only are they immensely delicious, but their high concentrations in several nutrients (dietary fiber, maganese, potassium, and Vitamins A, B6 and C) prompts some to call this a superfood. Anyways, Ben is a master at making this and it's so simple: boil the potatoes until soft, mash' em up, then mix in butter, milk, tiny bit of brown sugar, salt/pepper. ("And a lot of love," Ben is telling me, half–tongue-in-cheek, as usual). Anyways, it makes for a delicious, simple and filling dish –– highly recommended!
Lovely Sweet Potatoes, boiling away.
To end this post, I want to share a video that takes a bit of explanation. My latest obsession with sweet potatoes just happened to coincide with my recent discovery of this hilarious youtube comedian/absurdist/dj/German-immigrant/early-morning-investigator-of-American-idioms/ridiculous-guy, Flula Borg. (Here's my fangirl blog post about Flula on Briana + Her Fascinations). It just so happens that Flula helped bring my two obsessions together: I give you Flula's "Sweet Potato Casserole". Warning: this song is very catchy and may involuntary enter your brain at inopportune times.
Hello world! I am bringing Alimentary My Dear out of the dusty recesses of the blogosphere and into the light of readership once more. Now, I know it's been a while since I've posted and that I've neglected my bloggerly duties. Forgive me, dear readers, things have been busy as always, but that's no excuse. Look out for a couple of new posts soon. (Just some reasons to come back: I've got an ice-cream maker and a pizza making kit for Christmas. Also, I'm trying to cook at home more and eat less meat, so expect more 'In the Kitchen' posts and more veggies).
In the meantime, to make things up to you, I want to supply you with a good amount of food porn. The following are some of the foodie photos I've taken in the past few months. Many I took with the intention of writing a post, but I never got around to it. In the future, I will try to write shorter posts and include more photos so I don't fall behind again. (If you're for some reason dying to read my writing, I actually started another blog, dedicated to all the things that fascinate me, called, unsurprisingly: Briana + Her Fascinations. I just wrote a post on Food Waste and Composting too! Talk about good timing.)
Now, without further ado, the backlogged photos (betcha can't guess which I took with my phone and which I took with my DSLR :P):
In the Kitchen: Homemade crockpot chili, made with Ben.
This tasted way better than it looks, sorry guys.
A ridiculous amount of Thanksgiving Pies.
(over 10 at least, not all pictured.).
Three beers and my wimpy cider with friends at my favorite pub, Jupiter.
The most amazing cheesy bread with roasted garlic ever, from Jupiter.
In the Kitchen: A wee little salad I made one day with arugula and asian pears.
In the Kitchen: Shrimp Stir-fry, with red peppers, garlic and basil.
Added this some thai noodles. The ratio was off, but still a decent meal.
Garlic/Rosemary Sweet Potato Fries and Asparagus
Ok, I have to say something about our Christmas feast photos below. I'm seriously so lucky, I get the best homecooked Persian food on the planet for Christmas every year. My grandma is the most amazing entertainer/cook I've ever met. She makes everything look so beautiful and it all tastes so good!
Most beautiful and delicious appetizers ever.
I always regret filling up on these before the meal has started.
I wanna say this is Baghali Polo, but I think it's something else entirely.
(I'm sorry, I don't speak farsi and I forget food names easily)
Rice with saffron and candied orange peels.
Fesenjoon.
I still love it, even though I'm not an eggplant fan.
Apologies for the blurriness, but here's dessert.
My grandma's specialty assorted fruits beautifully arranged on pound cake.
And that's all I got in terms of photos. Here are some of my more memorable eating experiences in the last few months that I haven't photographed. I'll have to revisit some of these:
Apologies again for the late posting! It's been a hectic week, and it promises to be a pretty hectic month as well, and sadly, I don't have as much time as I would like to dedicate to this blog!
For now, however, I want to share one of my favorite places to eat when I need a quick meal that is sure to be delicious: The Pasta Shop! Both their Rockridge Market Hall and 4th Street locations have a wonderful deli with delicious prepared foods, perfect for when you are having a busy day, are hungry and need something tasty fast!
The Pasta Shop's Prepared Food. A Lifesaver. Photo Credit: http://rockridgemarkethall.com/pasta-shop
Sure enough, a few days ago, that very situation arose. I had been shooting my friend Estherina (with a camera––don't worry, I'm not going to jail and she is fine!) for her blog, Estherina's World and for her lookbook. I had just finished a long day of classes and was pretty hungry, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spend a few hours with Estherina before she jetted off to London. So after a fun couple of hours of fashion and photogeeking together, I was delirious with hunger and had my heart set on the Pasta Shop!
I drove us, god knows how, to Market Hall (my favorite place in the world), and we entered the Pasta Shop. This store is a veritable foodie's dream, it has all sorts of cheeses and fancy olive oil bottles and lots of treats to satisfy even the sweetest sweet tooth. But one of the best things about them is their prepared foods and deli section. Whenever I've been so tired and hungry that I can't even think, this is the place that saves me. And this is the place that saved me that very night.
I ordered their Phat Thai, which I had had before and knew was delicious, as well as a Summer Fruit Galette for dessert, something I had been wanting to try all summer and now, I finally allowed myself t. Estherina, like me, has a strong sweet-tooth and, after ordering herself a slice of Pesto Lasagna for dinner, also got herself a slice of Chocolate Cream Pie and a packet of homemade Italian Butterhorns. After eating a bites of my Phat Thai in the car to ensure that I had the energy I needed to drive us home safely, we made our way back to my place to enjoy our meals together.
Phat Thai in the Car. Keeping it Classy.
The Phat Thai was delicious, as I knew it would be. Unlike most other Phat Thai I've tried, this is refreshingly tangy and the peanut flavor is complementary rather than overpowering. For me, this is what makes this Phat Thai stand above the rest. I had a few bites of Estherina's Pesto Lasagna, which was good and filling, but probably not the best thing that I've had from Market Hall. (A word of advice: get their pasta salads, they aren't called the Pasta Shop for nothing). I also had a couple of her Italian Butterhorns, which were so sugary, cinnamony, and buttery that I knew they were bad for me, but they tasted sooooo good. I decided to save my Galette for breakfast in the morning, and at the end of our meal, Estherina headed home and, later, off to Londontown to begin her studying abroad adventures. I was glad I got to spend a few hours with her doing the things we loved to do the most: eating, taking photos, and being all around goofy.
Photo of Estherina taking a photo of lasagna. This is one of the many reasons we're friends.
The next morning, my Summer Fruit Galette awaited me, and I was so glad I had saved it. It made the perfect breakfast pastry, it was simultaneously sweet and tangy, which if you know me well, these are the flavors that drive me wild! (And the reason why I love orange juice so much.)
Summer Fruit Galette Morning Wonderfulness.
So what did I learn from this culinary adventure? First, the importance, for me at least, of eating on time. When I don't, I get delirious and dysfunctional and all around unpleasant. Second, the importance of having a backup plan when you can't eat on time. For me, the Pasta Shop provides one of the tastiest backup plans you will ever encounter.
PLT? Yes, you read that right. I have discovered my new favorite twist on the classic Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich using...prosciutto! Prosciutto is an Italian dry-cured ham, that has a strong and delicious flavor, and, though it can be a little pricey, I was able to find a cheap-o pack at Trader Joe's for about $5. Thankfully, using prosciutto as a substitute for bacon in this sandwich doesn't seem to compromise the spirit of the BLT. While it may not be any healthier than bacon, in terms of taste, you can hardly tell the difference between the two delicious meats.
There is one way in which, for me, prosciutto trumps bacon in this sandwich––and that is in terms of its convenience. On my busy days, when I only have a one hour-long break between classes, I want to use the majority of that time to unwind, relax, to not think about the next thing I have to do. It is at these times, when I am at my tiredest and hungriest, that I haven't the time to spend cooking an elaborate lunch. Okay, I admit that frying up bacon can hardly be considered elaborate; nevertheless, I need every little bit of energy and time saved that I can get. (Plus, there are those dishes, and that lingering smell of bacon in my apartment that will tease me when I return, to consider.) So, prosciutto offers me a ready-made, slap-it-on-the-sandwich, unapologetically-lazy alternative to bacon for this sandwich, one that tastes good to boot.
When I first made this sandwich, however, I wanted it to be extra special and extra delicious, so I did manage to put in just a little extra effort. I had tried Elmwood Cafe's BLT with Basil Mayonnaise, and though generally I'm not a huge fan of mayo, I thought the sauce added a tasty bit of freshness to their sandwich. Since I had mayo in the fridge and had just bought more basil than I knew what to do with, I decided to embrace my love for DIY and try to make it myself.
Cutting up basil. Someone buy me a food processor!
Finished basil mayo, with lemon juice.
I took a few basil leaves, cut them up as small as I could (these are the times when I wish I had a food processor). I added them to the mayo along with a bit of lemon juice to cut through my least favorite part of mayonnaise: its thick and creamy texture. And voila! I had recreated the Cafe's flavorful spread (albeit somewhat crudely), which gave my sandwich an little something special. And, of course, being the lazy cook that I am, I made enough so that I could have some leftover and save time in the future. Along with grapes and a glass of iced tea, this sandwich made the perfect quick, simple and, most importantly, tasty lunch for a busy student like me.
Dearest readers, I must apologize for my lack of blogging in recent weeks. The start of the school year has been keeping me busy (lame excuse, I know). But I'm back and hope to be posting more in the coming weeks, though my budget and my busy student life may necessitate writing posts less frequently or else broadening the scope of this blog a bit. Since I am currently taking an 'Edible Education' class, taught by Michael Pollan and Nikki Henderson, attended regularly by Alice Waters (I sat two rows behind her yesterday, awesome!), with amazing guest speakers so far, I feel that my thinking about food is shifting and that I am becoming more interested in the food movement and food justice in general. So, maybe a few of my future posts will address this theme, along with my regular restaurant reviews and in the kitchen posts.
But for now, let me bring you up to date on one my culinary adventures from a few weeks ago. I had just returned from Santa Cruz and had lots of leftover food that was too much for me to eat alone. I recruited Ben and ate Zachary's pizza more frequently than I would like to admit and had been making good progress. But there was one item that I received that I was just not interested in eating: three overly ripe, browning bananas. I found this one item to be so frustrating because I really hate throwing away food, especially when there are others out there who are hungry and I was able to get this for free. (This sentiment has only been reinforced by a recent 'Edible Education' lecture by Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food International, who said that in the U.S. alone, we throw away 22 tons of food a day. Eek!). So it felt wrong to waste these bananas, but it seemed I had no other choice, until Ben suggested that I make banana bread. Such a simple idea had never occurred to me, but as soon as he mentioned it, I was thrilled! This way, I got to use my bananas and eat something delicious, win/win.
Banana Bread: Waste Not, Want Not.
We decided to spice our banana bread up a bit with some chocolate chips, and after looking up a recipe, ran down to the store to get some. We returned to Ben's apartment and baked up a banana bread storm, which was much simpler to do than I thought it would be. It was, of course, delicious and the bananas were at the perfect overripeness for making banana bread. We did, however, make the mistake of refrigerating the leftover banana bread, which made it pretty tough when we ate some the next day. While it was still edible, it would have been much more enjoyable had we not done that. Overall, though, I felt triumphant in being able to create something pretty darn tasty out of something I was considering throwing away.
Fuzzy family at Twin Lakes State Beach, Santa Cruz, Ca.
Saying that my extended family and I ate too much over our vacation last weekend in Santa Cruz would be a gross understatement. Though we had 16 mouths to feed, it never once crossed my mind that we would run out of food (and kudos to my parents, aunts and uncles for ensuring that). After securing the copious amount of food into the fridges (yes, thankfully, there were two) of our vacation house, my family went hard to work on our first nights dinner, which consisted of many boxes of Zachary’s pizzas, which my parents picked up half-baked in Berkeley as they drove over. The pizza was, as to be expected from Zachary’s, delicious, and my aunt and I made a simple salad of mixed greens, bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers to go along with the meal. Overall, the dinner was simple, easy, and delicious, which was just what we needed on the first night while we were all still settling in. After dinner, the adults of the family had margaritas with a store-bought mix, Jose Cuervo silver tequila, fresh lime, and salt on the rim. Though I’m a notorious wussy when it comes to alcohol, I found myself drinking this like it was juice, and these margaritas became a little vacation tradition that we indulged in each night. After our drinks, we took a little night walk on the beach, which was well lit by the full moon, countless bonfires and even a few kids with sparklers. It was a beautiful way to end our first night in Santa Cruz.
One of two of our fridges, completely full.
Maragarita, sans salt.
The next morning I was greeted by the smell of bacon when I entered the kitchen, which happens to be one of my favorite ways to wake up, especially on a Sunday morning. But besides the bacon, our breakfast also included: eggs, cantaloupe, watermelon, smoked salmon, bagels, two types of cream cheese, grapefruits, plums, croissants, sausages, jam, toast, vanilla honey Greek yogurt, grapefruit juice and orange juice. Breakfast happens to be one of my favorite meals, and this one was a delicious and plentiful feast from which I thought I would never recover.
Cantaloupe and Watermelon from our delicious feast.
Smoked Salmon and Bagels mmmm!
But, miraculously, I found myself wanting to eat again a few hours later when lounging on the beach with my family. It was a specific craving, one that always seems to plague me when I’m near the sea: Salt and Vinegar potato chips. If I were a poet, I would write an ode to eating salt and vinegar chips by the seaside; so salty and tangy, these chips are the most delicious companions to the sea breeze. They are also highly addictive. I knew that I was sharing these chips with my entire family and that I should go easy, but I couldn’t stop and soon, they were gone. I was full and, amazingly, still hankering for more, but I focused on the beauty of the ocean and enjoyed my time in the sunshine instead.
I love you, salt and vinegar chips.
After hanging out at the beach, my mom wanted to put together a little lunch for everyone, but we were just not that hungry. But since we had brought so much lunch meat, she decided to make a lovely spread for all of us to enjoy, including a choice of salami, turkey, and mortadella for meat; pepper jack, havarti and cheddar for cheese; tomatoes; lettuce; mayo, peppercinis and pickles; ciabatta bread to put it all on; and lots of fruits and veggies to snack on. It would have been wonderful if I had been hungrier, but I still made myself half of a sandwich out of respect to my mom and all the work she had done.
After a few hours of foosballing, relaxing and talking with family, we were back at the dinner table again; this time for barbeque. We had two different types of tri-tip, corn on the cob, roasted asparagus, barbequed tomatoes and bell peppers, and one of my favorites: my mom’s pasta salad with orzo, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, feta, olives and balsamic vinegar. Like everything else we had that weekend, it was so tasty that we overcame the laws of digestion and our full bellies and ate copious amounts anyway. We continued to eat later that night when we celebrated three August birthdays with a very rich and chocolatey cake. We continued our nightly tradition of margaritas and had a quick walk on the beach before turning in for the night.
Tri-tip steak, orzo pasta salad, and lots of veggies.
Happy Birthday!
The next morning, we had another breakfast feast, which was very similar to the last one, but also included sunny-side up eggs, straw and blueberries, sliced tomatoes, Persian bread and cheese, and quiche. We went back to the beach again after eating, and, to my delight, there was another bag of salt and vinegar chips, which I hit hard. After having eaten so much, I decided to be a little bit more active on the beach and went for a walk to try to burn off some of the extra calories I had ingested this weekend.
Breakfast Feast #2
When we got home, I became even more active as I got far too competitive with games of foosball against family members. I had hoped to win against my dad, who had single-handedly creamed my brother, my cousin and I earlier that weekend. I had been playing my aunt a lot and felt confident enough in my newfound foosball skills to call for a rematch. Though I scored the first 5 goals, I must have gotten a little overconfident, as my dad came back with a score of 8. I almost caught up to him, and the score was 8 to 9 when my dad scored the final goal. Normally, I don’t tend to put too much stock in these little fun games, but for some reason, after this loss, I was devastated; I blame the corrupting influence of competitiveness. I ate away my pain later that night, when we basically had a leftover banquet and tried to eat as much of our food as we could, as we were leaving the next day and couldn’t take it all with us. It was a challenge to be sure, but we got through a fair amount of it.
Too much foosball competition!
A margarita and a full nights sleep was all that separated us from the end of our trip. The next morning, we ate a simple milk-and-cereal and eclectic leftover breakfast before packing up and leaving, and before we knew it, our lovely long eat-a-thon weekend was over. If there’s one thing I can say about my family, besides the fact that it was loads of fun to hang out with them on this trip, it’s that they know how to eat and they make the roots of my love for food apparent.
