The Art of Sharing

Hi.

I guess it’s pretty obvious around here that I took a hiatus. A three-month hiatus. And I want to talk about why.

Since we last spoke, I’ve crammed in all sorts of things that I wanted to share with you.

1. I’ve flown to Colorado for a wedding of a dear friend (and drove to Denver, Fort Collins, Englewood, Larkspur and Boulder in a span of four days).

2. I’ve volunteered at the Kendall Jackson Heirloom Tomato Festival. I volunteer every year and it’s one of my most favorite weekends because an enormous bounty of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (in over 150 varieties!) are at my disposal. For free, people.

3. When a friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend, I took her for a classic bay area adventure: hiking in Edgewood Park & Natural Preserve and then getting lobster rolls for lunch. Fact: The Bay Area is equally as obsessed with lobster rolls as Boston.

4. I saw James Blake in concert. Holy crap, he is talented.

5. I flew to Japan for a family vacation. For two weeks! My sister-in-law, Hiromi, is from a remote northern village called Nagai in the Yamagata prefecture. It’s nestled at the base of the Asahi mountain range and it is C-O-L-D. It’s pretty obvious why she jumped ship (islands?) and moved to Maui where she met my brother, Chad. The purpose of the trip was to introduce my 6-month old nephew, Raidin, to his Japanese side of the family. Meanwhile, my mom and I introduced ourselves to countless bowls of ramen and onsen spas.

6. Before Maya closed, I weaseled the bartender into sharing the coveted recipe for their coconut mojitos (stay tuned). But not before I knocked back a couple of them first. In memoriam.

7. I went to the New Wave 80’s Sing-A-Long at the Roxie. If you have no idea what that might entail from the title, you are not alone. I didn’t either, but purchased a ticket immediately. It turned out to be a theater full of people dressed in 80’s gear (no doubt, fueled by American Apparel) and they played 80’s music videos with karaoke style lyrics on the screen while the crowd sang along (no doubt, fueled by free shots of whiskey being passed around). The emcee wore a banana hammock, an afro wig and boots. And nothing else. This kind of event would only happen in San Francisco.

8. I saw a documentary called Dirty Pictures, which is about a rogue chemist who discovered the psychedelic effects of MDMA (aka Ecstasy). He lives in the Bay Area, too, naturally.

9. For Halloween, we threw the largest party we have ever held in our 2-bedroom San Francisco apartment. Over 75 people attended, in full costume. And you know Jason insisted on getting a local keg of Drakes Denogginizer (turns out, most people aren't prepared to tackle a keg of beer with a 9.75% ABV, but they try anyway).

10. I saw Cirque du Soleil: TOTEM. I have been fortunate to see a couple of Cirque du Soleil shows, and the pricey tickets are worth every penny. I cannot even describe to you what these talented performers do with their bodies, but my jaw was on the floor for the entire 3-hour show.

11. I attended the 3rd annual Foodbuzz Festival, where food bloggers from around the country gathered to share their stories about why they blog, how they blog and what they blog about.

Which brings me back to the reason for the hiatus. Yes, I’ve been insanely busy (see above). But somewhere along the way, I lost my mojo.

I still cooked.
I still ate.
But I didn’t blog (despite thinking about it almost daily).

I had forgotten why I had started blogging in the first place. I was preoccupied with figuring out what to write and “finding my voice” instead of just talking openly and reaching out to connect to you. I had put the camera down in frustration over trying to teach myself the basics of photography instead of just picking up the camera and learning by trial-and-error.

At the blogger conference, we talked about identifying our goals for our blogs. Giving some serious, honest thought to that is what brought me back to why I created this space. I wanted to connect to those who are as passionate as I am. I wanted to belong to a community that gushed about seasonal produce (how nerdy!) instead of celebrity gossip (ok, maybe not instead of, but in addition to). And I wanted to share with you what I make in my kitchen because my passion lies in the sharing of food, community and love – the inherent connection that is built between people who eat together.

Photo courtesy of Jesse Friedman

I hope you will forgive me. I’ve got a lot of sharing to do.

dinner after the gym

I am not a runner. Let me repeat. Not a runner.

Somewhere near the two mile mark I feel like I might die. Really. I'm the jerk you don't want to have as a partner when you have to do "Indian Runs" at boot camp because I hold up the whole group puffing and panting. Sorry, Elizabeth!

So I was pretty shocked when one year ago a podiatrist told me that my really high arches were causing plantar faciitis. Common for runners. Pfffftwaaaaah??


Doesn't this foot look like it was born to be in heels? Instead, I got myself some orthotics and simultaneously signed up for grandma-in-training courses. It helps. A friend of mine who just finished massage school offered to study up on some foot massage techniques. Couldn't hurt. And I found that changing up the types of workouts helps a lot.

Here's what my past week of workouts looked like:

Saturday: 2.5 miles on elliptical + 25 mins swimming laps
Sunday: 25 mins swimming (while daydreaming about what I can make for lunch)
Monday: 60 mins strength training using free weights at 24Lift class
Tuesday: [rest]
Wednesday: [rest]
Thursday: Urban Bootcamp. Yeah, I did hold up the team. But I also did lunges, squats and push ups.
Friday: [rest]
Saturday: Whitewater rafting! (Seriously, that company is the BEST)
Sunday: Whitewater rafting!

When I come home from the gym and I am starving, I pull out all the veggies I have in the fridge and make a BIG chopped salad.

Spinach, corn, black beans, tomatoes, carrots and mozzarella!

Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette: Small spoonful of yogurt or vegenaise + balsamic vinegar + salt & pepper.


Served with Anderson's pea soup (my favorite canned soup) + grilled flatbread made from my sourdough starter!

I usually try to make soups I can store in the freezer. But, in a pinch, you can't beat this pea soup. It has a simple list of ingredients, the smoothest texture that makes it seem oh so creamy and naturally fat free. Zing!

It's really hard to cook when you are starving and tired. So I buy pea soup by the case because I come home hungry and tired a lot.

Sourdough Bread

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Arie, came over to teach us how to make beer bread. I'm not talking about a quick bread made with beer. I'm talking about chewy, yeasted bread that uses wort in place of water! Wort is the amazing liquid created during the process of brewing beer. The boiling of grains and sugars create a sweet, malty aroma. Imagine a big giant bath of honey, grains, maple syrup, oatmeal, and brown sugar. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? The wort lends all of these flavors to create some of most flavorful bread I have ever tasted.

One of my favorite qualities about Arie is that he truly loves teaching and sharing his knowledge. I'd love to share that knowledge with you, but there were spreadsheets involved!

Like, Excel spreadsheets.

He busted out the metric scale and started talking about mathematical equations, baker's percentages and hydration ratios and I packed up my bags to leave my own house. No, I didn't. I got my hands dirty in the floury mess. But don't worry, Arie has detailed his process to share with you too!

The process starts with boiling malt grains to make wort that is typically used for brewing beer. I can't wait to show you what else you can do with these boiled grains!

If you get the chance to pop into a local homebrewing shop, go sample the various types of grains! The grains range from light beige to pale gold to caramel to amber to deep, rich chocolate. Crunchy tasty.

You gotta have a starter--a simple mixture of flour and water that sits out and collects the naturally occurring yeast in the air. Then, you add the wort and some bread flour to your sourdough starter and let it hang out. It sits out at room temp and bubbles up to make a "sponge".


This is where the spreadsheets come in--you weigh how much starter and water you used to determine how much bread flour and salt to add to create a dough.



The dough is heavy and dense and you can tell right away that it will pack a nice yeasted malty flavor.


After kneading and letting the dough rest, you can shape it into rounds or baguettes and let it triple in volume. Then, like a kid putting sprinkles on the cupcake, you can decorate with seeds, salts, and spices as you wish. Using a sharp knife, you can cut some slashes in the dough if you want to get really fancy.


I have always loved "everything" bagels, so I put on a coating of sesame seeds, dehydrated garlic, poppy seeds, oregano, fennel seeds and salt.


Bake. Bake. Bake.


And wish for a more evenly heated oven.


Thank you, Arie, for sharing your bread knowledge with me. With us.

Potato cake

I was digging through my kitchen pans and re-discovered some long lost items! The design of my apartment kitchen is less than desirable. There are small cabinet doors that open to deep large spaces with little to no shelving. In order to find a pan, I have to twist my head to the side and reach my hand into the darkness and hope I can pull out whatever it is I'm looking for out of the pile of pots, pans, dishes, and lids. It's terrible!

I did this blind digging hunt recently and found my mini cast iron pans. LOVE these!

The thing about these little skillets is that you sometimes need to adjust recipes that use a normal deep dish cast iron skillet and you definitely need to alter the cooking times! I've made things in the little skillet that definitely overflowed, overcooked and underwhelmed. So, I checked around the internets to see what you guys are making in these little skillets.

I like to use these mini cast irons for making fancy potato cakes. You use a mandoline to slice a russet potato into paper-thin slices, arrange them in an overlapping circle with a sprinkle of parmesan to glue the layers together. It creates fantastic texture--crispy, ruffly edges with a soft creamy chew to it. They look like something you'd see at a steak house, no?


You could put your favorite cookie dough recipe into the skillet and make a homemade pizookie.

You could make mini cornbread cakes.

You could make mini pear tarte tatin's with brandy.

You could make Heather's gorgeous rustic apple tart.

Got any good ideas? I want to put these little babies to work!

Summer Living

Um. Hi.

Yeah, it's been awhile. Two weeks of working 12-hour days makes your head spin so fast you barely remember how to get home so you can shower and get back to the office.

But I've been learning how to still fit in some reminders of summer.

1. If you buy those "living butter lettuce" things with the roots still attached, you can make yourself some tasty Tofu and Mushroom Lettuce Cups and put those roots back into some soil with plenty of water for another round of lettuce goodness! I wasn't sure this was going to work and none of my internet searches provided any confident answers. But, on the 4th of July, I was enjoying some sunshine and playing washoes out on the deck and I decided I'd test it out.

And now nearly 3 weeks later, check out this little guy.


2. If you don't have time to grocery shop or get to the farmer's market and you've been eating take-out (or order-in) meals at your desk for the fourth day in a row, you can still get a CSA box of produce delivered to your door. And sometimes you get surprised by unfamiliar items, like these Spanish black radishes.


Thank you Groupon, for letting me try out Farm Fresh to You for only $15!

Unfortunately, not everything was ripe upon arrival (see those sad looking green heirloom tomatoes?!), but most things improved within a couple of days. I can't say I'm gonna stick with the service though, because I love the ritual of walking around the farmer's markets oogling at all the fresh bounty and meeting the farmers who have put so much care into their work. Yup, I'm a produce nerd.

3. I managed to round up the troops for our annual August whitewater river rafting out at Cache Creek. People get busy quick and it's so easy to overbook the weekends or say that it's too much work to herd cats for a summer outing. But I am always glad to put this trip together and I look forward to it every summer because it's the perfect time for such a trip. I'm particularly excited for this trip because my friend, Aja, and her husband, Chris, are driving up from Los Angeles to join us! And, just this morning, we finally found an affordable tent at Sports basement. Bring on the camping adventures!

4. If you wake up at 7am and its already sunny out on the deck, taking just 20 minutes to sit in a reclining chair before going to work can make you feel like you've been lounging around on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes it's those little stolen moments that will get you through the week until Saturday rolls around and you can lounge around all afternoon...

5. Check out this Beach Buddy!


Oh. my. Raidin. cutieface.

I love being an aunt! I need to get back to Maui. Don't we all.

Summer, you are delicious.

June SF Underground Market

In May, I went home to Maui to meet my new nephew, Raidin. I call him Raidin Button, as in Benjamin Button because he sometimes wrinkles his face up like a wise old man in a baby's body.



I ate this for breakfast everyday:


And I spent the entire ten days eating my way through my favorite island eats that I had missed so much. For example, Da Kitchen takes island classics like loco moco and SPAM musubi to a whole new level of insanity - they coat their SPAM musubi in panko breadcrumbs, deep fry it and glaze it with a sweet teriyaki sauce! BAM!

Simply put, I'm in love with the food of the islands. It renewed my interest in and love of cooking dishes that are popular in Hawaii to share with the San Francisco community. I make everything from scratch, including making my own "SPAM" from a special blend of pork, duck and chicken.

For all of you who came to the March market asking where you could get more homemade "spam" and those who didn't get to try it before we sold out, I have good news! I will be selling more Maui Eats at the June SF Underground Market this Saturday, June 11 from 6pm -midnight.

Hawaiian Punch
Passion-Orange-Guava with a Hibiscus Twist

Homemade “SPAM” Musubi
Special blend of pork, duck and chicken! That's right--I made the "SPAM" myself. It might be my one and only proprietary secret (I've learned how to finally make this weird "mystery meat" in a respectable manner that takes away the mystery and puts Hormel to shame).

Soy-Glazed Tofu-Takuan Musubi
VEGAN musubi with glazed tofu, pickled daikon radish and seaweed seasoning.


Kalua Pig Tostadas
Slow-roasted pork cooked in banana leaves, cabbage slaw, smoky chipotle crema, and Maui onion* salsa.

* Note: Sweet Maui onions are a prized commodity. They are small, delicate and so sweet and mild that they are best enjoyed raw. I grew up with these bad boys, so I definitely notice when supermarket onions are bitter and sharp. I even used to help my friend, Lauren, peel and bag onions in the garage on her dad's Maui onion farm after school.

I am very excited to make Maui onion salsa with only the best onions around. What, you didn't think I would stuff fifteen pounds of raw onions in my suitcase bound for SFO?


You bet your sweet onions I did.

See you there!

French Macaron Smoothie

I used to think smoothies were a joke.

That some people high up at Jamba Juice are laughing themselves all the way to the bank because people thought they were being healthy when really they were sucking in an average of about 60 grams of sugar.

But after reading CrazySexyDiet (thanks for the recommendation, Mama Pea!), I started to come around to understanding that you can make smoothies that are filling and good for you by adding a general ratio of 3:1 vegetables to fruit. Let me be honest, adding that quantity of vegetables to a smoothie is not second nature and most times I stick to the tried-and-true combo of spinach-peanut butter-banana. Kris Carr suggested romaine leaves in her Green Guru Smoothie. Romaine leaves?! That's what I said. But it's pretty yummy, after all. I just try not to linger on the lettuce part.

This tropical green monster has been my latest favorite because you know I have soft spot for the islands.

TROPICAL GREEN MONSTER

INGREDIENTS:

* 1/2 avocado
* 1/2 banana
* 1 cup spinach
* 1 kiwi
* 1/2 cup chopped mango
* 1 Tbsp. peanut butter
* 1 cup apple juice

Combine in blender until smooth and creamy.

But I don't need to be eating lettuce and cucumbers for breakfast all the time. Especially not at 8 am on a Monday morning when I have conference calls. I sometimes consider just getting up out of my desk while people are still talking and booking it down to the bottom floor of my office building to buy a sugary snack and and some coffee from Peet's to help me get through the call. But now I don't have to do that because I have Mama Pea's Cake Batter Green Smoothie and I am perfectly happy to sit calmly while five lawyers fight for a chance to hear themselves speak.

I have also been slurping up Kath's Dough Boy Smoothies and they are fantastic!

And if Mama Pea says you can have cake batter for breakfast, then I think you can have french macarons, too.

FRENCH MACARON SMOOTHIE

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup rolled oats (do not use quick oats!)
* 1 cup almond milk
* 1 Tbsp. almond paste
* 2 Tbsp. almond flour
* 1 Tbsp. chia seeds
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Combine all of the above ingredients in your blender and place in fridge overnight.

Add in the morning before blending:

* 1 banana
* another 1/2 cup of non-dairy milk (soy, almond, etc.)

I can't wait for breakfast tomorrow. We'll call it dessert.