I was browsing around my favorite flower shop, Poppy Red Flowers in Alameda and came across this adorable display! Sweet potting flowers bloom from old tea cups and pots for a creative and darling decor for the table or window sill.
Tea is a religion and I am an ardent disciple, worshipping all leaves from the smoky Lapsang Souchong to the grassy Sencha. So when The Ferry Building and the Center for Urban Education and Sustainable Agriculture hosted the San Francisco International Tea Festival this past weekend, I just had to attend. As a tea lover, this was a great opportunity to try out different varietals side by side and discover purveyors that I normally would not find in the local store.
There were about a dozen or so exhibitors, some with wide distribution like Republic of Tea and Ito-En and others that were less mainstream. Every attendee was given a goodie bag filled with tea samples as well as a little porcelain tea cup for sipping the various offerings. I had a great time going from table to table sampling different single leaf varietals and custom blends. There was a lot of tea to go around and my palette started getting fatigued. Thankfully, there were three teas that broke through the amber fog and shone clear and bright.
If at some point in your travels you find yourself going up an escalator in a busy Paris metro and it suddenly stops for no reason, chances are someone is going to get robbed. If you happen to be a tourist juggling luggage, chances are, that someone is you. Oh wait. That someone was me.
If you are in New York City sometime between now and January 9th and find yourself with a couple of hours to spare, head over to the United Nations to see a great exhibit on how simple solutions can make a tremendous impact. While the Cooper Hewitt Museum itself is closed for renovations, the UN is hosting its exhibit, Design the Other 90%: Cities. That is where I found myself on a rainy Wednesday in October after skipping the long lines at MOMA in exchange for a less crowded (and free of charge) venue.
We call it Trial Thanksgiving. In name only, it’s a dress rehearsal for the actual day. In practice, it’s an excuse to get together with friends who are for all intents and purposes a family as well as to try out new recipes.
In the past few years, we’ve settled on a division of labor. Tsunami de-bones the turkey with surgical precision and the Dr. makes sticky rice stuffing and bakes the turkey. Cupcake and Ice Cream Guy provide dessert (obviously). I make traditional stuffing and gravy because for me, that is an essential part of Thanksgiving. All the guests bring their own signature dishes to complete the table.
This year’s turkey was dubbed the “Turpiggen” because it was stuffed with sticky rice and…
My latest lunch obsession is a little hole in the wall on Ritch street called Darwin Cafe. No bigger than a shoebox and more crowded than the 30 Stockton during the lunch rush, this place churns out plate after plate of simple yet incredibly tasty food. Two dishes I love from their menu are the Kale and Radicchio salad and the Persimmon and Pomegranate side salad they serve with their sandwiches. Since all of the star ingredients are in season right now, I had to take a turn at making the salads in my kitchen.
When I hopped on a Hangzhou bound train with my dad and a friend one balmy May evening last year, I thought I would spend the next two days discovering the mist shrouded beauty of West Lake, where poets and scholars of centuries past gazed from its banks and murmured a few words of prose as they raised a cup of tea to their lips. Little did I know that the city would extend to me a welcome of the most unearthly kind.
I recently hosted an afternoon tea for a few of my girlfriends so we could while away a beautiful fall afternoon with savory treats and warm conversation. Unlike the expansive displays at tea houses like Lovejoys or Samovar, all you need are a few sandwiches and scones to create a lovely meal and everything was easy to put together.
February's Persian Love Cake with Rosewater Buttercream
The Droolworthy 2011 Calendar
My friends Joe and Madelene collaborated on a gorgeous dessert calendar for Demi Pêche last year filled with original recipes from Joe and beautiful styling and photography by Madelene. The first venture was such a success that they decided to do another calendar for 2012 with new recipes that Joe had been developing all year.
They invited me to the photo shoot and I was happy to take some behind the scenes pictures and help them figure out what to do with all those delectable desserts once the shoot was done. It was the first time I had ever watched a food photo session come together from plating to scene styling. The process was detailed and meticulous yet the outcome seemed so effortless. Every berry, every orange segment, every sprinkle of nut was carefully placed and tweaked for maximum effect and the results were drool worthy.
If you’re wondering whether the desserts tasted as good as they looked, I can definitely vouch for their deliciousness, particularly February. Be sure to grab a copy of the 2012 calendar when it comes out to try these recipes out in your own kitchen! You can subscribe to Demi Pêche’s news feed here. For more pictures from the shoot, visit my flickr page.
Ring from Paper Sparrow, Flowers from Poppy Red Flowers
My good friends Ben and The Dr. got engaged a couple of weekends ago. He had it all planned out. The proposal was to be a private event with just the two of them and afterwards, a celebratory party with friends at their favorite restaurant with food and drink aplenty.
They both have an shared “history” with raccoons so in honor of it, everything was raccoon themed. We got a cool Brat & Suzie raccoon shirt from ModCloth as a gift for her and commissioned a raccoon cake from our friend Joe of Demi-Pêche. The restaurant also fit the bill. Homeroom Racing Cafe is a Thai joint that serves up a side of whimsical kitsch to go with their kickass stir frys and curries. Walk in the door and you get hit with vivid reminders of a child’s wishlist from Christmases past. My Little Pony and Nemo hang from the ceiling and GI Joe scales down the wall over by the door. Here and there, randomly placed ceramic raccoons peer out from along the doors and windows. Perfect.
