Last week was my birthday – and this year I decided to celebrate it thrice. I had a “Murder Mystery Birthday party” the Saturday before, a pizza & cake party the evening of, and a tea party the Saturday following it. Plus my friend Regina took me out for brunch the day after the first party. Cool birthday week 🙂
The murder mystery we played for the first party was Free Form Game’s Curse of the Pharaoh, a role playing game situated in Egypt in the late 19th century. I didn’t really want to serve an Egyptian menu – I lived for a year in Egypt and I wasn’t terribly fond of the food – but I still wanted to keep with the Middle Eastern theme – while keeping things as easy as possible. So I served an array of spreads: flavored hummus and Tahina sauce from Trader Joe’s, leftover bulgarian red-pepper and eggplant spreads, homemade cucumber-yogurt salad (salt diced cucumber and let it drain, mix with plain yogurt, crumbled dried or fresh mint, chopped garlic, season with salt & pepper) and pita bread. I also added some stuffed olives, also from TJ’s. For dinner I made my famous Chicken Tagine with honey and apricots. This is a relatively simple dish to make and it’s absolutely delicious. It also escales well (I doubled the recipe to serve 13, and we probably had enough food left over for 4), it’s exotic yet accessible and works great for company. People loved it. I served it with buttered couscous.
For dessert there was birthday cake – a little chocolate & almond cake from Just Desserts I got at Costco. It was $15 – the same price as their larger chocolate cakes (which I was going to get before I saw these ones) – and much, much better. The cake was quite moist and very rich, and it fed 13 of us with several leftover slices. I served it with vanilla ice cream.
In all, the food was excellent, the game a lot of fun, and the company couldn’t have been better.
Thank you Mike for organizing it, and Regina, Lola, Iggy, Vienna, Frank, Victoria, Geoffrey, Penelope, Ramiro, Desiree and Grant for coming and making it possible!
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The day of my birthday I had a small party to which a few friends who couldn’t make it to the mystery party came. I got stuffed pizzas from Zacchary’s, which are, of course, my favorite. This time I ordered a Mediterranean pizza for the vegetarians among us and it was quite good – it has feta cheese, artichoke hearts, olives and peppers. Of course, I got a cheese one for the kids and a chorizo one for the meat lovers among us. We were all in cheese heaven.
I also made my mixed greens salad and I actually ate quite a bit of it 🙂
For dessert I got a Safeway three-mousse cake. I’ve gotten this cake several times before and it’s always a crowd pleaser. Nobody can believe it actually comes from Safeway. It’s also about $15 and it feeds 12 quite easily (it’s also rich so you don’t need to serve huge slices).
In all I had a great time, and I was quite happy to be able to share this time with friends.
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Finally, last Saturday I went to tea with my usual gang of friends, though this time Boris also joined us. We went to the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel and, of course, I had a great time. I already wrote a review which is waiting Mike’s editing but in summary the place was beautiful, the food was amazing, the teas were high quality, but the service was rushed and we felt unwelcomed to linger. That’s too bad as otherwise it could have been a superb experience.
Afterwards we went to the Ferry building and tried some olive oils. I was too full to try anything else, though Charlotte actually managed to eat a whole hotdog! It was a nice afternoon.
Now my birthday is over, but Sunday is mother’s day so I still have something to look forward to 🙂
Author: marga (Page 84 of 112)
A week or so ago I found (organic) green garlic at the farmer’s market. I’d had heard of it for the first time only recently, when it was featured in one of the dishes we ate at Chez Panisse. But I figured it was worth trying to cook with it.
You basically use it like green onions or leeks, slice/chop the bulb plus the white and light green parts of the stem. It has a much milder taste than regular garlic. I tried mine both chopped and mixed in with mashed potatoes and mixed with cheese as a stuffing for hamburgers. In both situations we really liked it, though I think it’s particularly flavorful when it’s been browned.
Green garlic has a short season in the spring so get it now and give it a try.
A couple of weeks ago I bought organic celery at the Farmer’s Market – it came in a bag. I left it out on the table that afternoon, in moderate heat. By the evening it had completely wilted. Or had it? Had it been like this all along? I must confess that I’ve never seen such flacid celery in my life – not that I’m a celery connoisseur or anything. Weird.
A year or so ago I saw some pictures of hard-boiled eggs in cool shapes on Craigslist. I decided I wanted to make some for my kids. The instrument apparently used was a sushimaker, so I got one (thanks Ebay) and then for one reason or another I didn’t do anything with it. I finally tried it some time ago and it sort of works. The key is using a small enough egg that fits, putting it when it’s stil warm and flexible, and then cooling it down. Alas, the egg usually breaks anyway and the shape doesn’t last for long out of the mold – but my girl still liked it.
I reported some time ago that Joaquin Deli, our favorite sandwich place in San Leandro was being sold. The place is in escrow until June. The new owners are planning to keep the deli open, and the current owners will train them and pass their recipes along. So hopefully nothing much will change. We do love their sandwiches.
Meanwhile, Kolbeh, the Mediterranean restaurant which opened briefly in the space that used to be occupied by Casa Maria #2, has been revamped as a taqueria aptly named Taqueria. As I reported, that had been the original intention of the owner. I haven’t been there yet – it just opened yesterday – but I have missguivings about the whole thing. There are already two good taquerias in the immediate neighborhood (Los Pericos and Pedro’s) and I don’t see a need for another one. Still, there is some hope for Taqueria. The place looks nice, and if the owners decided to go for a California approach to tacos and burritos (i.e. high quality and fresh ingredients and healthy choices) it could work. I will at least give it a try, so that I can report back. But if you try it before I do, please feel free to comment here.
A few weeks ago we had our friends Victoria and Geoffrey over for dinner and I made a Bulgarian meal. I had never cooked Bulgarian food before (thus this project) and I was pleasantly surprised. It was much better than I thought it could be. I was very surprised to find out that Bulgarian food has quite in common with Californian food, in particular its emphasis on local, fresh and seasonal ingredients. Bulgarians are particularly fond of vegetables, and its cuisine (which is a relative of both Balkan and Ottoman cuisine) features many vegetarian main dishes. As I have several semi-vegetarian friends, it’s good to know where I can find recipes they may like.
My menu and comments are available at http://www.marga.org/food/int/bulgaria/
This recipe for a “base” for ice cream contains 2 ingredients and 1 preparation step. Still, I managed to mess it up on all counts. The results, however, where very interesting. This has to be the smoothest, richest ice cream I’ve ever tasted. There isn’t even a hint of iciness, it’s all velvety softness. It reminds me of the ice creams that are served in tiny scoops accompanying other sweets at fancy restaurants. Indeed, I think it would go superbly with something crunchy – perhaps toffee crumbs -, though given how sweet it is, something non-sweet may be a good idea. The taste was quite nice, though a bit too sweet. But if you like condensed milk, you’ll like this ice cream.
The original recipe called for combining 2 cups of light cream with 1 cup sweetened condensed milk, mixing it well and putting it into the ice cream machine.
I couldn’t find light cream, so I used 2 cups of heavy cream instead (thus the richness of the ice cream), and I didn’t read the instructions well so I used 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Finally I poured each ingredient into the ice cream machine, but realized my mistake and stopped to mix them. The original recipe is supposed to turn a very light ice cream base, clearly mine didn’t.
Just earlier today I visited the Chevys’ website to find out when the San Leandro restaurant would be opening. I’m not a fan of chain restaurants in general, but I can’t resist Chevys tortilla chips and beef fajitas. Now I will have to.
I just learned that 8 workers were fired by Chevys for skipping work to attend immigration protests. That is an affront against every immigrant who proudly stands for their rights in this country. As an immigrant, I don’t want to do business with any company that shows so little respect not just for its workers, but for immigrants in general.
I hope that other immigrants, and other Hispanics will join me on boycotting Chevys.
I made this recipe for red-wine pot roast with porcini a few nights ago and I have to say I wasn’t impressed. Granted, I used portobello mushrooms instead of porcini, as they didn’t have any of the latter at the supermarket, but I think the problem was actually with the celery. Perhaps I used too much celery, perhaps the problem was that the celery had wilted (in a very strange way) after an afternoon left out of the fridge, or perhaps it was the type of celery (I’d bought organic celery at the farmer’s market). In any case, the sauce tasted too much like broth. Mike liked it, I didn’t.
Today is my birthday (yay!) and my friends Victoria and Penelope got me a great (and very appropriate) gift of yummy, exotic foodstuff. They went shopping to the Euro Mix Deli in Oakland, a place I’ll definitely have to check out. Their comprehensive gift basket included:
Gia Russa Artichoke Bruschetta Topping from Italy. Haven’t opened it yet 🙂
ZerG
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