little skillet

Binko and I had lunch at the coolest place in SOMA, Little Skillet.

I have been DYING for a real southern place to open up in SF for YEARS! Although Little Skillet's owners have the southern style BlueJay Cafe and Farmer Brown's. I think LS is much better.

The fried chicken was perfect and a great price, $7.99 for a box o chix, biscuits and a side of your choice.

I love the al fresco dining experience too!

two french styled macaroons

Kinako and Chocolate rum macaroons were on the menu yesterday. Macaroons are sorta easy but a bit of a pain to make. You gotta make sure your discs are evenly matched and thoroughly dry before putting them in the oven.

My chocolate rums were Parisian style and my kinakos were Nancy style.

When it was all done, they were a bit too crunchy, but I left them for a day to moisten and now they are perfect!

ici on a cold day

I really want to like this ice cream shop. It's cute and I LOVE their hand rolled, chocolate ladled, flaky, organic cones. I have tried about a dozen of their flavors, from weird to plain and the only one that was ever great was the caramel. It was seriously better than the salted caramel at Bi-Rite. But its rarely served. I got the crunchy peanut butter and the chocolate, the flavors were bland. I also tried the vanilla bean shortbread cookie. The flavor was great, but it was undercooked!

kaia's first walk

Kaia debut her first walk at Thanksgiving. I caught the second act, as I was surprised she was walking around in the first place!

gobble gobble

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Godfathers'. I made turtle brownies and truffled butter turkey.

I ordered the Heritage Turkey from Marin Suns Farm. I gotta tell you, it was super moist and I didn't even baste it.

Jimmy and Greg made tons of great sides and a turkey as well.

We all had a great time. We love you Jimmy and Greg!

monday night chicken

I am loving this new chicken from Soul Food Farms. It's moist and full of lovely chicken flavor. I made it with butternut squash and leeks.

I tried a great brownie recipe from La Maison du Chocolat's cookbook. I love the texture of these brownies, because it's made from mostly almond meal than flour. I substituted the AP flour with whole wheat and they turned out yummers.

arkansas hootenanny

Kaia and I recently came back from a mother/daughter trip to Arkansas for my brother's wedding. I hadn't been back in four years and I was very excited to see my family.
I got Kaia ready for bed. She needed her rest for her big country trip.


When we got to my dad's, my stepmom brought out the new kitties. Kaia and her cousin, Drue were so excited to see mini cats!


Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries, so I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the wedding. Congrats Andy and Kelli on the nuptials and new house. Thanks Gray family for hanging out with your left coast girls.

tarte aux pommes

I love this technique for French Apple Tart. It doesn't require any blind baking of the tart shell. We used Granny Smith apples for it's nice tart/sour flavor and crisp texture. That holds up pretty well in baking.
First we dry caramelized sugar with vanilla beans.

Then added the chopped apples.

I normally make the tart dough by hand, but today we used the food processor.

Rolled it out in the pan.

Added the caramelized apples.

I made a cute design with the sliced apples, adding a rosette in the middle. I sprinkled generously with sugar and dabs of butter. I didn't add any cinnamon, because it's a French apple tart, but on an American Apple pie, I would!

Viola!

hayes to emb

Kaia and I did a Hayes Valley to EMB walk today. Jersey went into the city to guitar fight with RockerDave, so we caught a ride in.

Kaia met up with Sophie at DogCrapPark.

On our way to the Ferry Building, we came across a Minamoto Kitchoan on Market Street! I love this Japanese dessert importer. I used to shop at their NYC store.

I got several yummy treats.

We picked up a sausage sandwich for the Jersey pick up at Boccalone. Kaia loved looking at their salty pig parts.

teacake by the earl of gray

Typically on Thursdays I hang out with Jung and Divo. For some reason I thought we were going to hang out and I decided to take Binko's tea cake class to bring cake over. It's more like an apology cake, cause last week I was dismal and not fun to hang out with. But, Jung was super busy today so we made plans to see each other tomorrow. At class, the tea sponge and mousse aux The' with Early Grey. The ganache for the middle layer was kept true to form. I had hoped to add a little bit a rum, but we decided to keep it PG.


We then made caramelized almond crumble.

During our tasting break, Binko complimented the cake with Icewine tea.

I hope the ladies will enjoy this tomorrow. What's the Korean drama going to be?

boo! oh, she means, moo!

Kaia picked this costume out by herself last month at the baby store. I had planned to make her a Maggie Simpson outfit, but Jersey insisted on the cow. This morning she was ready to go to the Ferry Building, but I found her trying to play Xbox.

It was very cool at the EMB waterfront. Instead of getting our grub on, we watched bands play. First were a trio of ladies and a snazzy Xylophone player, called HoneyComb. I can't located their website right now, but the main singer's voice (the one with the ukulele) reminded me of Katherine Whalen from the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Next up was the Jugtown Pirates. Kaia was up and dancing, it was quite a sight. People were snapping shots of the little cow that could!

We visited Dana at Boulettes. Congrats on your engagement Dana!

Then we walked to Rose and Radish. They have a new spot on the EMB, very cute!

There was a really cool organic cafe next door too, The Plant. I had an amazing protein shake where they use homemade almond milk.

We ended up back in the East Bay, due to the broken bridge and no way of hauling our stuffs without a car. Ether, Tim, and Ripley came over to celebrate Kaia's first Halloween. Kaia misses hanging out with Ripley!

Happy Halloweenie everyone!

ironic

Don't you think?

austin bound again

My dear friend, Marc, moved back to Austin. Kaia and I went down to his house to hang out with him and his mom before he left. I am super happy for Marc.

Gloria was Kaia's first babysitter. She hadn't seen her since she was a month old! Doesn't that lady look familiar Kaia?

We headed out for our last Bay Area brunch. We decided that we would have a band named the Meat Sheets, inspired by Marc's meal.

Our Place, too will be the name of the album.
Kaia and Ella, until Christmas.

Marc and I have some big plans in the near future! I am not going to miss him this time, because I know we'll be seeing him a lot.

garage sale ice cream

I was just dreaming of Hawaii literally 20 minutes ago, when Jersey woke me up, "Trish! I got a surprise for you!" Huh, what? Do I have to drive to work now? "No, it's Saturday, come check it out." I go to the kitchen and he's got a container with four perfectly made ice cream sandwiches. I asked him where he got it, he said this woman having a garage sale. She's moving to LA to open an ice cream shop. I got my clothes on and ran down the street to investigate. Shiho, the talented pastry chef, used to work at Tartine and Slanted Door. She is now doing her own thang, and thank buddha, cause her ice cream is OISHIIII! She'll be opening her new shop in LA at the Brentwood Country Mart. LA friends, please support her! Shiho, the peanut butter ice cream sandwich was out of this world! Thanks Jersey for the great find.