Off to Japan

Cliff and Cathy are going on a trip to Japan.
You can follow our adventure at Japan Textile Trip

Fall Dinner

Wine: Box Car Syrah 2004

We went to Schreiner's Sausage in Montrose and purchased some Smoked Ham Hocks. They were to be the basis for a classic Bistro dish, Petite Sale. It is made from lentils and smoked ham hocks. The lentils are cooked first with carrots, onion, and herbs. When cooked they are drained and placed back in the pot with the pork.

We had a first course of a great salad from the Zuni Cookbook: radicchio with croutons, hardboiled eggs and anchovy vinaigrette.

A new bakery had opened in Los Angeles: Bread Bar. We purchased several loaves and with this meal we had the cheese bread. It was exceptional! Very light and great taste.

From Bread Bar we had also purchased desert. By the time we got to the end of the meal we decided to put off the desert. We were just to full!

John Visits for Dinner

Wines: 1989 Ermitage Recolte Le Pavillon M. Chapoutier
2004 Cuilleron Viognier

We went to Campanile for Dinner on Saturday and they offered on the menu veal shank for two. We hadn't had it for a long time (it hadn't been on the menu). We ordered it we found out they were out! We decided to cook it at home.

John was coming to LA for a wine selling trip, so we informed him we would cook. John brought the wines! We purchased the meat from Harvey Gusman's meat store.

We started with the same Persimmon salad we had last week. We made polenta and added real corn to it that we had purchased at the Hollywood Farmer's market.

The meat was enormous! 2 Shanks weighing a total of 9.5 lbs. They were great and fun to present and carve!

For desert we had ice cream and cookies we had purchased at the Cheese Store of Silverlake.

Last Tomatoes of the Season

It was the last dinner of the heirloom tomatoes and the first one for perssimmons and pomegranates.
We started with a salad of persimmons, pomegranates, arugula, prosciutto, and saba. As you can see in the picture Polenta stole some proscutto and liked it!

We had caramelized the tomatoes and then used them in the sauce. It was one of our favorite pastas: Lentil Pasta from the restaurant Loconda Veneta.
For desert we had German Chocolate Cake from Whole Foods.

San Francisco Day 3 (Sunday)

We awakened on Sunday morning and packed. We had Coffee and Juice at John ‘s the all 6 of us tried to decided where to go for lunch! We went back and forth but finally settled on our Favorite: Zuni Café. Cliff, Cathy, Brenda and Joy went first to see if we could score a table. John and Wade followed later. We were able to get an outside seat on Market Street and John and Wade arrived.

Bloody Mary’s were ordered as a starter for four of us. We also ordered a bottle of Prieler Pinot Blanc. We shared two Caesar Salad’s (although Joy’s arrived late). Also French Fries that they do so excellently. We then had Scrambled Eggs, Pork Sandwich, Pizza and Polenta with Marscarpone. For desert we had cake, Granita that is always great and Biscotti and coffee.

We then split up, Joy and Brenda driving home to Napa, Cliff and Cathy being driven by John and Wade to the Oakland Airport for our 4pm flight home. It arrived just in time for us to get home, clean and go out to dinner at Lucques. What a weekend!

San Francisco Day 2 (Saturday)

We awakened and John had already made coffee. We had the pastries that we bought and especially liked the cinnamon toast. Cliff got his laptop to work and print on John’s Apple Network.

We finally got out of the house and headed for the Ferry Building. The Ferry Building is loaded with gourmet shops and surrounded by a farmers market. It is quite wonderful.

We did many laps inside the building. Highlights included cheeses from Cow Girl Creamery, more bread from Acme Bakery, some cooking clay pots that Cliff and Cathy bought and had shipped home. In addition, we purchased jams, chocolates, Cathy bought a straw hat.

We had decided to eat lunch at Taylor’s Refresher. It is in the Ferry Building and is a branch of the restaurant in Saint Helena. Cliff had a Burger, Cathy a Toasted Cheese Joy and Brenda split a BLT. We also had French Fries and Onion Rings. A taste of the 50’s. We ate outside overlooking the ferries and Bay Bridge.

From the Ferry Building we drove by our old house on Pine St. then parked and went walking on Fillmore. Cathy bought a shawl at Mios. On with our tour of food spots we went to Tartine in the Mission. After finding a parking space (not an easy thing to do) we went in and checked the place out. It really looked and smelled good. Great grilled cheese sandwiches that were piping hot and a bread pudding that also looked great. We bought some pastries, checked out a restaurant Delphine up the street and proceeded on. Next stop was non-food oriented. We wanted to see what the new De Young San Francisco Art Museum in Golden Gate Park looked like. It is scheduled to open in a few weeks and is almost ready for prime time. Cliff thought it will be way cool, the others weren’t so sure.

Finally back to John’s. Andy his son called and said he wanted to come by and see us. It was nice to see how he has grown up and matured. He talked at length about Burning Man where he had been. Don’t think it is for us….

John came home from work, Wade appeared and we drank the bottle of wine we had purchased at Kermit Lynch. It was then off to Oliveto in Oakland for the 4 of us. John stayed home with Wade.

Cliff navigated, like only he can and we eventually reached the restaurant after touring northern Oakland. Cathy, Brenda and Joy were almost in open revolt but we got there. It made no difference that we were a little late, cause our table wasn’t ready anyway. We waited for 10 minutes or so. We had a glass of wine in the bar area and were taken upstairs to the restaurant. It was very pretty. The food was excellent. Cliff didn’t like the waiter at first, but he turned out to be very good and steered us towards some great dishes.
We started with a fabulous Panzanella Salad (Tomatoes & Croutons, Etc.). When we returned home we called the restaurant and got a detailed recipe for it have subsequently made it.
Penne with Peppers, Currants and Smoked Treccione
Spit-Roasted Leg of Lamb
Spit-Roasted Top Sirloin
Charcoal Grilled Rabbit
Spinach and Rappini
For desert we had Ice Cream and Bread Pudding
Wines:

Fiano Pietramara
Zenato Ripassa
Glass of Vin Santo

We once again staggard back to the car and drove back into the city.

San Francisco Day 1 (Friday)

A San Francisco Weekend

We decided to go to San Francisco to eat and be with friends. Our friends from Napa Joy and Brenda drove down and picked us up at the Oakland Airport. We planned to all stay with our friend John Carpenter at his Victorian house in San Francisco’s Haight Ashberrry area.

After they picked us up at the airport we went directly to eat lunch at Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley. We had a great lunch: Avocado and beet Salad, Pork Terrine, Tomato Carpaccio, Pizza with Rappini and Pancetta for desert we shared Meyer Lemon Cream Puffs with Carmel Sauce.
Wine: 2004 Grechante. The Acme bread was wonderful. We really enjoyed the beautiful restaurant and the great food.

From there we drove to Kermit Lynch Wine in Berkeley. Kermit was one of the first importers of wines from Provence in France and he has written several excellent books on wines. We bought a wine to take to John’s. Next door to the wine store is the original Acme Bakery. We purchased apple tarts, bread and cinnamon bread for breakfast.

We then drove across the Bay Bridge and headed to John’s house. On arriving we brought our things in and decided to take a walk in the Haight. It is still coming back. Don’t know if will ever be gentrified.

We met John’s friend Wade. He didn’t join us on our dinner expedition to Quince. The restaurant was highly recommended by Matt Molina and Nancy Silverton to us. It was very near to where we used to live in Lower Pacific Heights. We found the restaurant to precious for us. We had been told it has excellent pasta and made sure that we ordered several different ones. Most of the items on the menu were written in Italian without translation and were not descriptive of the item. We purchased one wine: Dirler Pinot Blanc and John provided to exceptional wines: both were 1990s. Leoville Las Cases, Gevrey Chambertin Les Cazetiers Christian Serffin. They were both fabulous to drink. The restaurant did charge us $50.00 corkage which was a lousy policy on there part, especially after we bought a bottle of wine.

We shared all of the dishes:
Sformato of corn and Chanterelle Mushrooms (sort of like pudding)

Pear Salad Pig’s foot, which was delicious and deboned very unusual.
Faro and Crab Salad
Agnolotti
Stradette
Spinach Cannelloni with Chantrelle
Garganelli with beef Ragu
Polpettone (meat balls)
Pork Loin, sausage, pork belly with red cabbage
Gianduja & Dark Chocolate mouse with armagnac cream cannoncini & Florentine

Quite a dinner! However a little to prissy for us. We like a more country feel.

We made it safely back to Johns and staggered to bed, wondering how we be able to face the rest of the weekend!