Hospital food = no fun

Last month I spent a few nights in the hospital. It was a very nice hospital, and I was there by choice. In fact, I was getting paid to be there as part of a study. I had never spent a night in a hospital before. Now I have spent three nights in one. Three very freaky, very long nights. I kept thinking of those lines from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol":
...each day is like a year / a year whose days are long.

The food was as bad as people always say it is. The frequent proximity of my cafeteria tray to assorted blood collection paraphernalia did not help my appetite, but there was nowhere else for all that stuff to go. The rooms are small.

During my stay, only one yummy offering appeared: a perfect cupcake topped with a cheery swirl of vanilla buttercream. I know not from whence it came, but it did not last long. I'm pretty sure Oscar Wilde didn't get cupcakes in prison. Or burritos. The morning that I was released, Randy drove me directly to a super taqueria and I ate an enormous chorizo and egg burrito and drank a giant glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. I think everyone in the hospital, even those there by choice, should have access to burritos and cupcakes at all times. Unless they are in the gastroenterology wing.

Such a brilliant concept deserves a wider audience

This falls into the category, "Everything That's Wrong with America ...and Everything That's Right".

In case the photo is too reflective to truly understand what's going on, allow me to describe: this is a frosted brownie with a chocolate chip cookie pasted on top. It is available at the Nestle Toll House Cookie Cafe in South Lake Tahoe. Prior to this unearthing, it was available only in my wildest fantasies.

For a veritable laundry list of real stuff that's wrong with America (or our government, at least), you should listen to Daniel Schorr's commentary last week on NPR. Almost as delicious as the brownie.

Cinnamon Buns and Burnout (Oh yeah, and French Laundry)

You know a food blogger is burned out when she doesn't even write a real post about her recent trip to the French Laundry. What to say? It was enormously expensive. Almost all of the food was quite good, except for a hunk o' beef that had too much of the sous-vide thing going on (flabby, no crust). Dessert was forgettable (I can say this because I've forgotten it), and the winter squash soup was so good that I will never look at a squash dish again without feeling short-changed. I grappled with pangs of guilt for spending that much money on food. They shoved us out of there in 2.5 hours, which stank, and did not even offer us any coffee after dinner. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? Me either. Anyway, I would still go back, if someone else was paying. I guess this indicates that my sense of self-respect defers to my sense of gluttony.

Now, on to more interesting topics--to me, anyway. Cinnamon buns. Every single time I walk past a Cinnabon anywhere in the world, I feel compelled to stop. But I never do. I suspect they taste like chemicals and contain 1000 grams of fat and frankly, the chain reminds me uncomfortably of the '80s.

You know what else reminds me of the '80s? Palm Springs. Which is where we went last weekend, and which is where I encountered a roach the size of my fist in the bathroom of our adorably hipster modernist hotel. I also encountered a cinnamon bun the size of my skull at Rick's. Here it is, with a knife stuck in it right where one might stick a knife into a skull, if one was so inclined:

Our waitress asked if we wanted it warmed and slathered with butter. You already know the answer to that one. Additionally, my breakfast came with these:

Am I bad food person if I confess that the sight of the cinnamon bun and its knife and the biscuits with Knott's Berry Farms jam and the plop of whipped butter made me at least as happy as many of the beautiful items on the menu at French Laundry?

It's been so long since I posted that I will throw in an extra bonus cinnamon bun photo for you; these are made from Molly's recipe in Bon Appetit, which was truly a gem. Give them a shot.

Truffle take-out

[The phone rings. I check who it is, then answer. When Rachael calls, we waste no time on small talk.]
“Yeah?”
“Have you been to the truffle place on Divisadero yet?”
“No. But I’ve been dying t- …”
[Interrupting.] “I’m there. What kind do you want?”
“What do they have?”
“Mint, coconut, hazelnut, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, almond, caramel, espresso, dark chocolate, Kahlua, red wine, cognac, hazelnut liqueur, raspberry liqueur, amaretto, Earl Grey …”
“Umm. Cognac. And hazelnut. And caramel.”
“I have to tell you what else this place has. They have Hostess Snack Cakes. What the hell are they doing selling Hostess Snack Cakes?”
“Wait, aren’t you at the store right now?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t they hear you making fun of them?”
”Yes.”

I guess they didn’t mind. Ten minutes later, this was deposited on my kitchen counter:

"This is nice and all, but where's the Hostess?"

Five Star Truffles and Coffee
411 Divisadero St
San Francisco, CA 94117
(415) 552-5128

An Irish bakery in the neighborhood?

Yesterday I was walking down Geary, laden with Russian groceries, when I noticed a hand-written placard placed on the sidewalk.

"Irish Bakery," it said.

[Insert sound of me, screeching to a halt.]

An IRISH bakery? In the Richmond?? I went in directly and had a look around. Turns out they had opened for the first time just a few hours before. The walls are painted light green, the counter is stained wood, and the selection is naturally limited, but holds great promise. The guys working there are convivial.

So far they're offering soda bread, scones, shortbread, baps, pasties, and a few types of bread (I noticed white and bran). The only thing I can vouch for are the scones--they are superb. If you don't believe me, take a look:

And a close-up:

I was in and out of there so fast, I didn't really catch the name or location. Maybe it's called John Barnes Irish Bakery? Maybe it's at 24th and Geary? Stay tuned for more reliable info.

UPDATE! It's called John Campbell's, and it's at 20th and Geary.

Shades of White: Sugar High Friday #31

Sugar High Friday #31 is on the horizon. The theme? All white stuff! And what, pray tell, did we make so presciently just a few days ago?

Why, David Lebovitz's French-style Vanilla Ice Cream, from his fabulous new book The Perfect Scoop, of course!

"Vanilla ice cream?" you ask. "That's it?"

Yes, but it is David Lebovitz's vanilla ice cream. It requires six eggs, copious quantities of cream and slightly less milk. It is, in short, superb.

Normally I would not waste valuable taste buds on an ice cream flavor so ...well, vanilla. I tend more towards the triple-chocolate-caramel-fudge-nut-brownie-ice-cream-topped-with-marshmallow-and-raspberry-sauce approach.

But we had just made an apple pie. Nothing goes better with an apple pie than vanilla ice cream. NOTHING. (Pipe down, all you sharp cheddar fans out there.) When we tasted a bit of the final product straight from our beloved Il Gelataio Junior, Randy's face became suffused with a beatific, rapturous glow.

"It's perfect," he said.

It also provided us with an excuse to use up some of our huge stash of vanilla beans. Our kitchen is awash in them. Two large clumps resembling bundles of miniature firewood rest in plastic on our shelf, next to trashier foodstuffs such as a stale bag of El Ranchero tortilla chips and Safeway brand microwave popcorn. Because of their abundance, they are accorded little respect in the hierarchy of ingredients in our kitchen. We give them away and invent uses for the rest. We haven't bought vanilla extract in a year (vanilla bean + vodka = extract).

How can we afford to live so high on the hog? Who do we think we are, smothering ourselves in vanilla beans when they cost $7 a pod at the local spice shop?

We are cheap. And we like the internet. And now it is time to let you in on the secret. We're going public with our source.

Just promise you won't tell.

Strawberry Days

One recent Sunday, we headed to Dixon, CA for Strawberry Days, an annual event hosted by Eatwell Farm, the folks who provide us with our CSA box. It made me feel warm and fuzzy to see where our veggies come from, but it also afforded me the opportunity to cram ample quantities of perfectly ripe, sun-warmed ruby red organic strawberries directly into my mouth. (See also: last summer's trip to Andy's Orchard.) We picked four pounds in about twenty minutes and then spent the rest of the time lazing reverently next to the strawberry patch and soaking up the sun.

We snarfed down all our strawberries in two days.

The fruit was so perfect, it needed nothing ...but one night I felt like gilding the lily. Strawberries with Sour Cream and Brown Sugar hardly qualifies as a recipe; perhaps it deserves the lesser moniker of "preparation". My parents made this for me throughout my childhood and continue to make it for me in my non-child-but-hardly-adult-hood. Although it inspires a lot of scrunchy faces and dubious eye-narrowing from the uninitiated, I encourage you to try it. Just think of sour cream of another form of creme fraiche or whipped cream, and you can get past the hurdle. Sour cream: it's not just for potatoes and tacos anymore.

Strawberries with Sour Cream and Brown Sugar

Strawberries, as many as you like
Brown sugar, as much as you like
Sour cream, as much as you like

Trim tops and halve strawberries. Place in bowl. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Lightly dollop sour cream on top. Eat. Enjoy summer.

***

We must have eaten so many strawberries that we started seeing red. The next weekend, we became the proud owners of this:

Not as sweet, but just as much fun.

Bluth bananas in LA

We went to Los Angeles a few weeks ago. We did many things, and most of them involved eating. In between mouthfuls of food, we occasionally managed to converse with our friends Jake and Lexi. Here we are at the Farmer's Market, eating perhaps the most well-documented chocolate-covered frozen bananas EVER:*

There's no way to eat a frozen banana suavely. You just have to go for it, assuming a position not unlike the Al's-Italian-Beef-Eating Stance: hunched forward, raining detritus all over yourself and on the floor, gnawing away.

Bananas and I have a complicated relationship: I never ever eat them, except in airports. (There's quite a bit of neurosis lurking behind that statement, but I'll save the explanation for another date.) I don't care for that pasty texture. But, like raisins, I enjoy bananas when they've been gently coddled in a nice warm bath of butter and sugar, and even better, lots of booze. In LA, I learned that I really like them frozen, too. The pastiness becomes rich and creamy, and dark chocolate tempers all that fruity sweetness.

Jake was full of great suggestions for us, so during our short stay we managed to eat piles of strawberry pancakes and huevos rancheros at The Alcove (where everyone was extraordinarily good looking); heaps of yummy spaghetti and meatballs at Il Capriccio; out of control gelato at Pazzo Gelato; strange BLTs in the middle of the night at Piper's; and last but not least, an enormous box of Stan's Donuts. Their specialty? Imagine a glob of peanut butter squished into the pocket where the jelly would usually be, and you get the idea. One bite, and you too will come to believe in the power of the chocolate chip peanut butter donut.

*Except for the Bluths', of course.

Friday office donuts

Me (peering into the office donut box): "Oh! I just read an article in The Atlantic about how they can't figure out how to make cake donuts taste good without using trans fats after that ban in New York."

Co-worker: "So cake donuts are, like, loaded with trans fats?"

Me: "I guess so. I guess I shouldn't eat them anymore. But they're so much more filling than the raised kind."

Co-worker: "Donuts are nothing more than fried air and sugar anyway. They're all bad for you."

Me: "Good point." (Reaches for large, zeppelin-shaped cake donut coated with chocolate frosting.)

How the cookie crumbles

Listen to a sweet piece from NPR this morning.

Sara's grandma's simple cake

Many years ago, a good friend passed along another friend's grandmother's cake recipe to me. I was in desperate need of a dessert that would let me make use of a generous gift of Italian plums. These plums had been busily overwhelming a coworker's backyard in Seattle, and one fall day she dropped an ugly plastic bag full of them unceremoniously on my desk with visible relief in her eyes. (Zucchini-growers will empathize, I'm sure...).

I am ashamed to admit that I rarely return to a recipe--there are just so many dishes out there in the world that demand to be tried!--but something about the cake's old-fashioned simplicity appealed to me, and it managed to make the leap into my spiral-bound, greatest-hits recipe notebook for good.

I recently returned to this cake, and was once again charmed by its strong Midwestern values and freshly-scrubbed appearance. Well, you know what I mean. It's honest. And versatile. And, yes, easy.

This recipe pops up all over the place in various guises, as it should. The version I received suggests a layer of halved plums atop the batter, but I have also made it successfully with thinly sliced Bartlett pears. You could top it with strawberries, or caramelized apples, or sprinkle in some nutmeg, or candied ginger, or dried cranberries, or swirl in a spoonful of jam...in other words, I doubt you can go wrong here. And adding a nice dollop of creme fraiche or whipped cream before serving never hurt anybody.

Sara's Grandmother's Plum Cake

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup flour (I have used cake flour with great results)
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch salt
Enough plums to cover top of cake, halved and pitted (perhaps 8-12, depending on size)

Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
lemon juice

Equipment:
1 8-inch springform pan, lightly greased

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugar with butter. Add eggs and mix. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined.

Spoon batter into 8-inch springform pan.

Arrange plum halves in a single layer on top of the batter so the top is nicely covered.

Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top of everything and drizzle with lemon juice.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until done (do the toothpick maneuver).

Remove from oven and allow to cool so that it doesn't collapse when you pop the springform.

Enjoy!

In praise of ginger

Winter has officially arrived in San Fran. I was tricked into thinking it would never come, because last week it was consistently 68 degrees. I felt extremely smug about my decision to move to California and traipse around in a t-shirt in December when the rest of the country is huddled indoors.

Then it started to rain, and it pretty much hasn't stopped yet. So now I've reverted to my cozy winter recipe rotation, which includes boeuf bourguignon, various soups, roast chickens, and Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread Cake.

I'm a giant fan of anything starring ginger. In Paris I ordered ginger chicken at a Chinese restaurant (Passy Mandarin, I believe), and the plate arrived with a few chunks of chicken completely obscured by approximately half a pound of sliced ginger. What happens when humans consume that much ginger? I didn't know, but I plowed ahead and finished the whole thing. I felt freaking great afterwards, that's what happened. I fervently believe in such a thing as the ginger buzz. Seattleites can get a similar fix at Malay Satay Hut; the ginger chicken there is slightly less terrifyingly intense than Passy Mandarin's.

Ginger is a crucial member of a holy quinity of spices--cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg are the others--that make gingerbread cake so delicious. (Yes, I made up the word "quinity". It's good though, right? Better than quintet.) Gingerbread cake is never exactly wimpy, but this one is extraordinarily muscular, amped up and darkened by the addition of Guinness. I like to throw in some candied ginger as well. It's very easy to make, although this time around I had a bit of trouble encouraging it to leave the pan as it was cooling and was left with fist-sized hunks of cake that weren't particularly attractive. That's when a light dusting of powdered sugar comes in handy.

Wikipedia tells me, "Ground and fresh ginger taste quite different and ground ginger is a particularly poor substitute for fresh ginger." Ouch. Ground ginger does have a duskier, less tingly flavor than fresh, but let's not write it off just yet. I wonder what this cake would be like if I tried adding in some fresh ginger, very finely grated? It just might blow my mind.