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?