Well, it's a good thing I have a tag for just this kind of post...

BRAINS! Inside Neurosurgery's Rise

PSYCHE

Instead of the Raspberry gratins I said I was going to make last night, I decided to make a Citrus-Almond Poundcake, which is really similar to the almond-lemon tea cake in the Tartine cookbook.

This recipe (hello, Bittman, again) makes good use of a food processor, of which I am not a huge fan (it's harder to put eggs in the small hole in the top, while it's turned on), but it turned out really great. It's a very simple recipe (no almond paste leftover, unlike the Tartine book!), and it came out perfectly in a smaller Bundt pan and a loaf pan (but if you do it in 2 smaller pans, be sure to adjust the bake time!!). The glaze (orange juice, lemon juice, sugar) is really pungent... I couldn't tell whether I was a fan of it or not. The cake itself tasted perfectly fine and delicious on its own, something I also found with the Tartine recipe.

We froze one of the two loaves and ate half of the Bundt pan one last night... mmmm. Perfect with milk, would go great with tea and coffee.

Update 8/23 @11:42--

Since there was a request for a picture... This is all that remains of the loaf from the Bundt pan :)

The glaze has calmed down a significant amount, and is actually really yummy with the cake. The almond character of the cake also comes out more as the cake 'ages,' if you will.

A day of creation

This post is long overdue.

I did an evening of cooking... to practice my skills.

I found a recipe online (Mark Bittman, surprise surprise) on how to keep chicken breasts moist while grilling them. Because I would be doing little grilling and more baking, I wanted to try my hand at putting them in the oven.

Here we have the scallions (green onions), ready to go in a soy sauce/mirin/garlic sauce pan. By heating them in the sauce, it wilted them a bit to make them roll-able and infused them with a little sauce. And the sauce got a little greeny flavored.

Raw chicken breasts, pounded, rolled around the wilted scallions. In a baking dish, ready to go into the oven at 350 degrees...

Until this. Yummm.

My mom made these curried potatoes... always the best.

So, I admit that the star of the night was the potato dish. I have a bit more to learn and practice... comme d'habitude. But...

...not as much in this arena: chocolate cupcakes.

Oh, HELLO delicious chocolate cupcake with a chocolate ganache! I intended to let the ganache harden in the refrigerator, but I couldn't wait. These little cupcake babies just couldn't wait to get gobbled up. So, I spooned on some slightly warm ganache... yum.

For the first time in my cupcake/muffin making history, I decided to use the self-standing silicone molds. One I coated with butter, the other three I didn't (the rest of the cupcakes were done traditionally, in a metal pan with cupcake liners). As a result, one popped out cleanly and the other three didn't.

Here's a picture of the cupcake demolished. Yum.

I have to experiment with making more "traditional" cupcake shapes, if you will. Muffins are a bit easier, since they're denser I think, but I may have to try putting a bit more dough into each of the cups for cupcakes so that there is enough to rise. The resulting cupcake may not be so flat on top then. Honestly, though, they taste delicious, so I personally don't mind that they aren't the prettiest little cupcakes in town.

And for tonight? Funny you should ask.... Raspberry gratins. They're best when served warm (so Ina Garten says), so let me know if you want to come over! :)

Forever young...

Or So Young, as the case may be.

I write this with my age number +1, and I feel no different, surprise surprise.

My birthday was spent in a car, driving from Stanford to home... and here's the story behind it!

I did a housing hunt this weekend. It was pretty impromptu, spurred by my antsiness after looking at Craigslist every few hours each day. Once I started to email places and get a few responses, I needed to go and figure it out, even though I'm not to move until the beginning of September.

After living on campus for 4 years, I felt thoroughly inexperienced. Having to meet with people and see the spaces was not stressful, but it was definitely something I had no skill at doing. By my sixth and last viewing, I had a better idea of what to ask, what to look at, etc... nevertheless, I found a place, and I am super excited about it! It's really close to campus, close to eats (yum), close to fun. Come and visit! :)

My mom and I drove back home on my birthday, and we stopped by a family friend's home in Carmel for lunch. Though it was overcast and cool, the view from our table was amazing: on a bluff looking over the Pacific.

We left and drove along Highway 1, which is beautiful, windy, and sleep-inducing. I fell asleep for a part of it, but was awake for the parts of it where cars moved along at 30 miles an hour (speed limit was 55 mph) and the highway was one lane (slowed traffic significantly). We finally made it home, and I was exhausted, sleeping after a bowl of pappardelle noodles with homemade tomato sauce.

In other news, I love kal gooksu. (Kal guksu? Kal gooksoo?) It literally means 'knife noodle' and handmade noodles go in a delicious simple broth, whether chicken, clam, anchovy... I had the chicken one not too long ago, and it's almost creamy: so delicious and satisfying and comforting.

Sigh, I love getting in touch with my Korean side.

To make one day? Perhaps...

Can't escape Stanford...

Oh hey, Dutch Goose in NY Times...

On a related note, I'm in the Bay Area! Hooray for housing search...

Wish me luck!

Mine.

Ah, yes. Soon to be my bible.

Chow-dah

Today, I cooked. Souped, in fact! I found an easy and simple recipe from the NY Times, and we had a pack of corn from Costco... what better way to put 6 ears of corn to good use?

Instruction for this step: with a sharp knife, cut the kernels from the cobs and dice the onions. Here, you see the kernels quite separated from their cobs. Onions, you're next.

Simmer the cobs with an onion in a pot of water, and literally steep the cobs to get a delicious, sweet corn stock.

Sauté the onions and the kernels, and add some stock to the kernels, bringing back to a boil. I couldn't get the kernels to be soft, but they tasted delicious while crunchy. As long as they were cooked, I moved on to adding the whole cream (it could work with half-and-half, I think), and letting it warm. I had a great tool at my disposal: a magic stick! It's basically a blender on a stick, so that worked wonders to get a consistency that I wanted.

Here's the final product!

It was thick, but not too rich, which is nice for a soup in the summer. I added some thyme from our garden for garnish... not too bad when I mixed some leaves in :)

You win some, you lose some

Let's start with the not-so-good news.

I love clafoutis. It's a lovely pancakey-custardy dessert... I've written about it in the past and have made it, as well (check out the posts here). I've always used a very reliable recipe that my mom has used for years, and it always comes out perfectly. So, I decided to branch out and use a new recipe.

Here's the mixture with fresh unpitted cherries... yum! Apparently, leaving the pits in the fruit gives the clafouti a more almondy flavor. I'm always up for that.

Here's the end product, with powdered sugar on top to hide the sins.

Bad news bears #1) the baking rack was too low. I knew something didn't look that right when I put the raw product in the oven, but meh, we'll see what happens. NOPE. The bottom of the clafoutis ended up being a little too cooked.

Bad news bears #2) Caramelized sugar on top. My friends... this is a clafoutis, not a creme brulée.

Bad news bears #3) it was a little too eggy (flan-like) for my taste. Again, this is a clafoutis; it's supposed to be like a heavenly pancake... slightly floury, slightly eggy, but balanced.

Ah well, mistakes happen. Now I know. I also don't necessarily like having to work through my dessert, having to spit out pits every so often.

OK, moving on to the best news of life... RASPBERRIES!

Raspberries take the prize for being my favorite berry, and perhaps my favorite fruit. They're so much fun, since you can't really put any other fruit on each of your fingertips and eat them that way. They're beautiful (look at that color!), have a cool texture, and (when ripe) are well balanced between sour and sweet. Another good indication that raspberries are the best (in my opinion), is that any imitation of its flavor usually fails hardcore.

So, when I was at Costco and the prospect of waffles popped up, I grabbed a crate containing 6 cartons of raspberries.

Yum. Deliciousness ensued:

Buttermilk waffles (thanks, Trader Joe's for the delicious and easy mix) with pecans, raspberries, and maple syrup.

I had this for breakfast two days in a row (yesterday and today).

As I was reminded by my dad, I have yet to make the banana cupcakes. I'll get there.

Anyway, enough food talk... I've been occupying my time lately by scouring Craigslist for housing listings. I'm excited when I find pictures attached or an actual description of the people that I would share a home with (imagine a combination of the two!!! I have yet to come across that, however). Fingers crossed! I'm going on a search of the area next weekend.

Other than that, applications are keeping me busy, as are sleepy kitties, knitting, tea, and the occasional naptime.

I'm very tempted by the prospect of the last mentioned item on the list. Perhaps mix with the first, and I'll have a very enjoyable time :)

Contemplation on ginger ale

I wanted to do an ode, but then I realized the challenge set before me if I wanted to write some sort of epic poem or song. So, I'll merely contemplate.

Ginger ale: subtly spicy, sweet, and bubbly. The cheap man's champagne? The color is beautiful, a golden wheat.

Q: Why is it so associated with airplane rides? One can buy ginger ale anywhere, yet I almost only have it on airplanes. I tasted this glass of ginger ale yesterday, and I wanted to go. I almost craved that stale, recycled air, so that I could be... anywhere.

A: Ginger ale is refreshing. It's crisp, biting, and invigorating, making you forget the fact that you're in a metal tube hurtling through the clouds, reminding you that you are still conscious despite the constant din in your ears and the nose-bleedingly dry air streaming through nostrils and mouth.

On a nice summer day, sitting in a chair by an open window, with a cool August breeze* flowing by, it's a perfect pairing.

*"cool" and "August"-- oxymoron?

Let's go Dodgers

Ah, the great American pastime... baseball. Or, for me, hot dogs and garlic fries (and beer)! The hot dogs are salty, the fries soggy... and yet, I keep wanting to go back for more. My mouth still tastes like garlic, some 3 hours after I ate them.

Sports are a funny thing. My uncle is a Padres fan, the team the Dodgers was playing against. The fans of the away team would high-five each other if they passed by one another; fun camaraderie. Home team fans were shouting "Padres suck, Padres suck," but let's look at the scoreboard. 5-0. And no, the Dodger's weren't winning. So clearly, if we actually think about the situation here, the Padres do NOT suck. They were definitely the superior team, and I'm willing to concede that, despite the fact that I enjoyed the Dodgers and their hospitality (consisting of food and drink, albeit expensive).

Thanks, Andy!

A site recommended to me by Andy...

Ming Makes Cupcakes

I plan on making Cupcake #6 first: Banana Cupcakes with Maple Brown Butter Frosting. We seem to have an excess of aging bananas in our house.

Yum! Process to be posted here.

THANKS Andy!

Nothing like a good sammich...

As the title of this post suggests, there's nothing quite like a good sandwich. Or a good salad for that matter. Or even good cheese to make a good salad great.

I've found a great sandwich place near my house: a big life-changer. It's called Artisan Cheese Gallery, and it's a cute little place to sit, grab some overpriced but undoubtedly yummy drink, and a delicious, heart-warming, soul-satisfying sandwich. (or sammich, in my case)

Here is "The Mr. Fred," a ham and comté panini, with tomatoes. It's on a fantastically pillowy bread that manages to give some spring despite the fact that it's been ... panini-ed. It arrived warm, with the slight bite of dijon mustard. The tomatoes didn't make the sandwich too watery, which is always appreciated in a warm sandwich.

Artisan Cheese Gallery offers a great array of sandwiches, from a duck confit sandwich to an elaborate steak-cheddar sandwich... but it's no ordinary cheddar. "Barely Buzzed" is rubbed with coffee beans and lavender. I can't wait to go back and try more...

They also offer salads; here we have an aged gouda salad. It had Marcona almonds, apple slices, delicious delicious gouda on baby greens with a honey balsamic vinaigrette. (Sorry for the blurriness) The almonds were an unexpectedly yummy addition to the salad, something I'm going to have to remember for the future for my own creations.

I have to go bake some cookies: oatmeal chocolate chip walnut.

What a life.