Wednesday, 6/29/16

Pizza and watermelon with my parents.

Tuesday, 6/28/16

The boys went to Ultimate, and I had a meeting, so leftovers.

Monday, 6/27/16

Carter's choice: hamburgers and potato chips. Also a large salad for Jason and me. I am pleased to report that that dinner was (unsurprisingly) a success.

Sunday, 6/26/16

Ersatz chicken parmesan, from the NYT. I marinated and grilled boneless chicken thighs, topped them with fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce. These were tasty enough; no substitute for our beloved (fried) eggplant parm.  To go with it I made a sort of salad with Israeli couscous, broccoli, scallions, cherry tomatoes and some other random things. Looking forward to eating that for lunch this week.

(also, there was sauteed chard).

Saturday, 6/25/16

A large lunch (Priya, yay!) meant that I abandoned our original dinner plans and just made modest salads for Jason and myself (Carter had sandwiches with leftover pulled pork). I also baked a batch of blueberry mufins (SK) which they tell me are good. Still dreaming of Indian food.

Friday, 6/24/16

We went up to Brattleboro to meet with Jeff and Sue (et al) for dinner. Ended up at a pizza place near their hotel, which was very very loud (the whole softball team was there) but pretty good. We brought some caramel matzoh crunch and sat around snacking while the children rough-housed in the pool.

Thursday, 6/23/16

Dinner in Whately: ribs, sweet potatoes, corn and pickles. Very Southern and very tasty. I wish I had taken a picture of the pile of bones in front of Jason. we brought chocolate pudding and whipped cream, which is from SK and reliably good.

Wednesday, 6/22/16

An afternoon trip to the big mall and BJ's made for a late dinner, but we persevered. Roasted tofu, broccoli, and noodles. I made a sauce reminiscent of black pepper tofu, but more streamlined and less butter. Thanks to BJ's we now have a LOT of broccoli.

Tuesday, 6/21/16

First night of Ultimate, so everyone just grabbed leftovers.

Monday, 6/20/16

Scrambled eggs, a loaf of Jason's bread, and sauteed swiss chard. I scrambled the eggs with onions, scallions, sambal oelek and cheese; Carter raved over them. I guess I need to step up the morning scrambled egg routine. Quick, tasty dinner.

Sunday, 6/19/16

Pulled pork sandwiches, beet greens and watermelon. I made the pork in the slow cooker, with onions and garlic and a spice rub with cumin, chili powder and brown sugar. The spice rub didn't add a lot of flavor, but it was still good; I mixed in a little liquid smoke and hot pepper vinegar at the end, and served the sandwiches with Carolina gold barbeque sauce. Felt very virtuous using up the beet greens.

Saturday, 6/18/16

Beef burritos and guacamole, one of Carter's favorites. Sadly, he has a head cold and could hardly taste anything so he was disappointed.

Friday, 6/17/16

We went to an end of the year birthday for Carter's class, and brought brownies and rice krispie treats. Not much more can be said about that.

Thursday, 6/16/16

Sheet pan chicken tikka, from SK. Marinated cut up chicken, roasted with potatoes and cauliflower. This was pretty good, but I think I would just use the marinade for boneless breasts or thighs and then grill them, and roast the vegetables separately, as I always find that potatoes roasted with chicken take forever. it was a pretty easy weeknight dish (if you do the prep in the morning), but it took quite a while. Served with limes, jalapenos and some mango chutney.

Wednesday, 6/15/16

Just leftovers and a trip to Carter's ice cream social. We didn't eat any ice cream, but we were social.

Tuesday, 6/14/16

Dinner at Jennie and David's: we brought bread and molasses cookies. I didn't save the cookie recipe because I thought they were too flat, but the flavor and chewiness were pretty good so maybe I should assume it was my error and look it up again....I think it was from Cook's Illustrated?

Monday, 6/13/16

Potato-onion-spinach knishes, from SK. We made them on Sunday and they re-heated beautifully. Also have some roasted zucchini (only OK) and grilled kielbasa. Carter only liked the kielbasa, but  I thought the knishes were excellent, especially with some sweet-hot mustard.

Sunday, 6/12/16

Jason and I made a nice batch of cheese blintzes. Served them with some fresh strawberries and roasted asparagus. Tasty early summer meal!

Bonus? Carter loved them.

I had also made a batch of cinnamon rolls to bring to my mother's for brunch. I used a recipe from Food52 that had the advantage of being half made the day before. They were pretty good, but I felt they could have used more cinnamon filling. Jason disagrees.

Saturday, 6/11/16

Dinner with Jen and John: Jason made some huge and delicious pizzas (goat cheese+onion with cherry tomatoes; hamburger, mushroom and jalapeno, pepperoni). Then I made some brownies---the Kate Hepburn recipe from the NYT. They were only fine (I may have been a little tipsy during the measuring process) but we ate the whole batch.

Friday, 6/10/16

I was very grateful to Jason for making hamburgers and french fries for dinner. Then I collapsed into a 10 hour sleep.

Thursday, 6/9/16

Last day! Walked over to Jane for breakfast. Corrina and I shared a cinnamon roll with the best frosting ever. What was in it?? Toast for J & C. Then we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf for a little shopping and ended up at Presidio Pizza (not in the Presidio) for lunch. I liked my grandma slice and Jessica and I shared a chopped salad. In my opinion, it was TOO chopped: the cheese and salami were slivers.Then we headed to B. Patisserie for another round of kouign amman. This was the best version yet.
Then we had only a few minutes to watch TV before taking Corrina to the train. Jessica and I toyed with the idea of a snack at the Liholiho Yacht Club but we weren't hungry enough. I regretted that when I was at the airport eating a very lackluster sandwich!

Goodbye San Francisco!

Wednesday, 6/8/16

Took a long bus out to Potrero Hill for a fabulous breakfast at Plow. Everything was pretty good, but the biscuits with honey butter and the lemon-ricotta pancakes were stellar. How did they get those pancakes so lemony? Then we walked around Dogpatch and caught a bus all the way out to the beach!

Jessica and Corrina contemplating the beauty. Or maybe just shivering?

Stopped at Park Chow for lunch, but everyone secretly wanted to go back to Nopalito so it was a tiny bit disappointing (spaghetti and meatballs for me, fish taco for Jessica, tuna melt for Corrina). Also, I spilled tomato sauce on my shirt. Luckily there were pastries at home to console us.

Dinner was Atelier Crenn and honestly I don't have the heart to remember all 20 courses. I will say that I was annoyed with this place before we even started: expensive, draconian reservation policy, the menu is just a nonsensical poem....I was tempted to cancel. But we went! It was a mixed bag: sat there in the freezing cold dining room for 30 minutes with no menus or anything. The dishes were all pretty good, and a few were excellent: a salmon dish, some abalone, pickled mussels....The desserts were super pretty and whimsical but not my flavors.The service was not precisely gracious.  Let's just say it was no Alinea.

Tuesday, 6/7/16

  I am pretty sure we went back to Mr. Holmes for more pastry. Chocolate croissant, more sticky buns, another danish?
  Lunch was Delfina: salad with canneloni beans, lemon, tuna and watercress (Jessica said it wasn't as good as she remembered), a salad with avocado, pistachios and green goddess dressing (would have been better with a bit more of the delicious dressing). Margherita pizza was excellent, but the pizza with prosciutto and arugula was problematic: when you leave the slices of prosciutto whole, and the leaves of arugula large and stemmy, you make for a difficult to eat pizza. We should have stopped with the margherita. They were out of the two desserts we really wanted, and the panna cotta was merely serviceable. Such fussy customers!
  Dinner was Cheese School. Really beautiful setting and a fun evening. We talked about pairing cured meats and cheeses, plus there were beer pairings. I think Jessica's favorite part was the side dish of picked golden beets and red onions.

Monday, 6/6/16

Picked up pastries (from Mr. Holmes, a few blocks away) for breakfast. Sticky buns with the darkest caramel were a highlight. Plus bleu cheese-pear danish, feta-artichoke heart danish and some white chocolate cream puffs. And a bostock (kind of a syrup soaked brioche, with blackberries in this case). And maybe another kouign amman?
Lunch was, I think, sushi. Good, although I wished I had ordered udon instead of tempura.
Dinner was Gary Danko, and it was very lavish and fun. I'm afraid I don't remember what the amuse-bouche were. Maybe tiny little tomato soups? I started with a tuna, avocado and enoki mushroom dish that I remembered from about 10 years ago when we ate there. Still wonderful (but probably something you could make at home with good enough ingredients). Then I had sea bass with favas, green garlic and cous cous, then a filet with gnocchi and stilton butter (fine). Corrina had risotto with shrimp and Dungeness crab, and lamb with " Farroto, Medjool Dates, Rainbow Carrots and Green Chermoula" (it was my favorite of the entrees and she seemed to like it). Jessica started with "Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Zucchini Pearls and Lettuce Cream", followed by "Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers and Mustard Sauce" and the beef. We shared a cheese course (amazing! I wish I remembered what the cheeses were...). Souffles for Corrina and me (she had grand marnier, I had chocolate), and Jessica had "Lemon Soufflé Cake with Crème Fraîche Panna Cotta and Raspberry Sorbet". Then there were little tiny pastries to finish. Although there were a couple of little missteps (the bread was only so-so, they got my order wrong and I sat there with no food in front of me for quite a while), it was a really lovely evening.

Sunday, 6/5/16

After a very enjoyable but COLD tour in the back of a Mini convertible we had lunch at Nopalito. Chips and salsa with cotija cheese, and sweet potato taquito thingies. Corrina had carnitas tacos, I had chicken mole and Jessica had fish tacos, I think? I can't even remember what we did for dessert. Candy?
Dinner at State Bird. So much fun: we had a million things so I may miss a couple:

cucumbers with rosemary vinaigrette
egg custard with kim chee and uni ( I was scared of uni but it was OK)
smoked trout dip with avocados and housemade potato chips
oysters on the shell
(tiny) toast with goat cheese and summer squash
avocado with lime-pickled kale
green beans with aioili and lime pickle (sleeper hit)
fried rice with morels, porcini and ramps (more like a risotto)
hearts of palm salad with cucumbers, avocado and crispy quinoa
nectarines with whipped crescenza cheese and basil oil (so good we ordered a second)
pork belly with stone fruits
burrata with garlic bread (totally superfluous)
steak tartare "poke"
cherry granita with tapioca and smoked tea gelee (granita was bland, gelee was TERRIBLE. Like licking a charcoal grill)
Tres leches with orange blossom, whipped cream cheese and blackberry compote
Strawberry ice cream sandwiches with pecorino, black pepper and pecorino (the real standout. We could have skipped the other two desserts and had three of these).
What a great meal!

Saturday, 6/4/16

Corrina arrived in the morning and we went to the Ferry Building/ Farmer's Market for breakfast: open-faced smoked fish sandwiches (mine had albacore, golden beets and pickled red onions). Plus Corrina and I split a kougn amman and Jessica had a pineapple cake that Corrina and I turned up our noses at.
I think this was the day we had Burma Superstar for lunch: tea salad, broccoli and this flatbread stuff with a chicken curry dip. Jessica and I agree that Mandalay is better. Dinner was Cotogna with Betty and Stephanie: I can't remember all the appetizers, but there was terrific foccacia, a strawberry and ricotta salata salad, fava beans with pecorino, sardines (not my favorite) and homemade ricotta with honey (it came broiling in a little pot. So good!). Entrees included a giant ricotta ravioli (that sadly had a raw egg yolk inside), gnocchi with zucchini and cherry tomatoes, lamb ravioli (the winner), and pasta with morels and asparagus, maybe? Three of us had brown sugar gelato (fine) and Jessica had a vanilla panna cotta with blueberries that was amazing.

Friday, 6/3/16

First night in San Francisco! we went to dinner at a place called 1760--small plates. Tried steak tartare, broccoli rabe with yubu (delicious, but Jessica found it insufficiently bitter), fingerling potatoes with charred avocado and roasted peanuts (the peanuts and avocado were the best part), cavatelli with rock shrimp (a little too shrimp-y), and poppy seed bread with lavender butter. There may have been more that I don't remember. We had fun sitting at the communal table. Dessert was at a gelato place nearby that was underwhelming. Great start to the trip!

Thursday, 6/2/16

Pizza by Jason. Cheese for Carter, pepperoni-provolone-mushroom-cherry pepper for the grownups. Particularly good tonight.

Wednesday, 6/1/16

We all had different leftovers at different times (except Carter, who got a grilled cheese).

Tuesday, 5/31/16

Grilled chicken with a lime/fish sauce marinade, basmati rice, roasted cauliflower. That marinade (from the Times) makes a particularly flavorful and un-dry chicken.