30th Birthday Dinner

My wonderful brother from another mother, Eric, made me and my friends the most amazing birthday dinner. It was an amazing night - everything was homemade. We began with a fish cake appetizer. Above were the dipping sauces for the fish cake. The red sauce was a sweet chili sauce (homemade from scratch!) and a cucumber relish...

These are fish cakes made of flounder with green beans, Thai basil, chili, red curry paste (with smoked whiting, shrimp, onion, garlic, glangal root, and a bunch of other stuff). They were amazing! I ate 3 of them! They were also spicy and super flavorful - there was no holding back on flavor in tonight's meal.

The table was set and ready to go with the salad course. So pretty! :)

Smoked Whiting Salad with cucumber, tomato, crushed peanut, mint, cilantro leaves, green onion, Thai chili. The dressing was made of rice vinegar, pickled ginger, sugar and cilantro roots, along with lime juice, soy sauce and a few other secret ingredients.

Here it is again on a black plate. The table had alternating black and white plates. :)

We had three entrees and two side dishes. One side dish was jasmine rice and the other was Chinese vegetables (shown above): cabbage, bell pepper, bock choy and Chinese celery in a cola and soy marinade.

All the entrees were served family style. This was chicken breast with Thai basil, green beans, bell pepper, garlic, Thai chili, and krachai. The sauce was chicken stock, oyster and fish sauce and sugar.

This gem was the pork shoulder. It was cooked with fermented bean curd, yellow bean paste, low sodium soy sauce, thick sweet soy sauce, sugar and hoisin sauce. It was my favorite.

This was the monk fish. (It had a texture like lobster - so soft and yummy!)It was cooked with cilantro root, black Chinese vinegar, pickled ginger, soy sauce, birds eye chili, garlic, ginger, and sugar. This was my second most favorite thing.

We drank a lot of champagne...it was fabulous....

And my lovely bestie Alicia made me a chocolate pound cake from scratch. She even made the icing. It was so delicious! In closing, I would just like to add that I have the most amazing friends ever and I'm so lucky. Turning 30 with them will always be etched in my mind as one of my favorite moments. :) Love you guys...

The Assignment

So my cyber-friend Rachel has an amazing blog From the Fifth Foodie and another one called just From the Fifth. A few days ago she was assigned some "homework" from a fellow blogger to answer some questions. Always one to invite other people to do something fun and interesting, Rachel assigned me and a few others to answer some questions. So here it goes! P.S. expect HW at the end!


1. What is your favorite/worst/most embarrassing (take your pick) memory from high school?
Oh dear. What am I doing? Ok, ok, ok. I'm not going to waste this blog entry talking about the worst part of high school so...what is my favorite memory from high school? Hmm... I guess my favorite part of high school would be um...hanging out with Kim Hensley making home movies (and by home movies I do mean recording dance moves to Funkytown and other disco favorites) and making mixed tapes (with Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins) and talking about stupid high school boys (And let's be honest...they are ALL stupid) and thrifting and being crafty (we made cool gifts) and lady bug cakes and sneaking into clubs. Yeah...that's what I liked about it.

2. What is your favorite thing to do when you have "me time?"
This is easy. Watch bad TV, eat cheese and drink wine. NEXT....

3. What gets you through a crazy, stressful time/day?
Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me! Ahem...watch bad TV, eat cheese and drink wine. NEXT....

4. What's your favorite indulgence?
Wow. I'm such a simple person. Can I answer with cheese and wine again? Does that count?

Ok, that was easy...now homework...

I assign this task to Robin: When Tomorrow Hits
The Icelanders: Much to do about Nothing
And Nic: Kite in a Cloudy Sky

Sorry there was no food here. I did make some banging broccoli for dinner tonight. I'll post about it soon! :)

Picholine

Curtis and I celebrated two years of marriage last week and we celebrated by having a fancy dinner at Picholine in NYC (Rated 2 Michelin Stars!) It was a fancy decor and while I was nervous as to how stuffy the place would be, I was pleasantly surprised by how non-pretentious it was. We decided to do the four course tasting menu. It came with a prelude, a pasta, a fish or beef and dessert. We were stuffed by the end of the meal -- I don't know how people can eat a 7 or a 9 course tasting menu!

We couldn't take pictures in the restaurant but I did get some photos off their website and off of Google image searches. (Obviously, I'm not the first to blog about Picholine)

We started with an amuse bouche from the chef. It was a trio of tasty things: tomato water with basil foam, a deconstructed ceasar salad and some kind of a pannacotta. For my prelude, I had the “Croque Madame”: A Soft Farm Egg, Ibérico Bellota, Gruyère, Truffle “Snow”.

Curtis had the warm maine lobster with Fried Vanilla Milk, Endive, Kumquats (pictured above)

For our pasta dishes, Curtis had the wild mushroom risotto with Local Corn and Vacca Rosa Parmesan (pictured above). I hate mushrooms and I took a bite of this and it made me a believer - simply amazing! I had the sheep’s milk ricotta agnolotti with Artichokes Barigoule, Bottarga and Parsley Pistou. It was light and heavenly.

For our main items, Curtis had the hudson valley rabbit with Date-Mustard Spread and Onion Variations. It also came with a side dish of Spätzle (a type of egg noodle of soft texture) with rabbit confit and mushrooms (above).

I had the squab with Spiced Rhubarb Cloud and Foie Gras Roulade. It was cooked perfectly! At one point I said the foie gras reminded me of scrapple and Curtis laughed at me.

For dessert, I had the liquid chocolate “tart” with Malted Meringue and Confiture de Lait Sorbet. It was super rich - and the dessert cracked open to reveal a pool of melted chocolate.

Curtis had the apple confit Pain Perdu with Vanilla-Hickory Ice Cream. It was also really good - tasted like a deconstructed apple pie! We also got an extra dessert of some kind of chocolate and hazelnut cake with sea salt. Super super yummy. Overall, the meal was lovely. The restaurant had printed "Happy Anniversary" on the menu and they let us keep them as souviners. The wait staff was super friendly - we will def. be back one day!

Dinner with the Burgis Family

Family was in town last weekend. We had an amazing time and one night we cooked dinner in the house. These jems above were pineapple wrapped in bacon.

Watermelon, tomato, basil skewers with a sweet balsamic reduction with olive oil.

Parmigiano Reggiano, 6 month aged Maine cheddar and triscuits.

Olives, Whole Foods Flatbreads crackers, goat cheese rolled in dried cherries and cinnamon.

Dinner was so good - we forgot to take a picture of it. Bo made a yummy wet rub and we also made roasted broccoli. So so so good.

The French make a killer sammy...

This unassuming pressed sandwich is probably one of the best I've had in awhile. It was a long piece of french bread stuffed with thinly sliced salted ham, herbs and warm gooey French cheese. Pressed to perfection. I shared it with Curtis and it was so good I wished I had my own. I could have eaten 2 of these things it was that good. The sad part is, we will probably NEVER have this again. This was purchased on a small island off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada called St. Pierre. This island is still ruled by the French and so technically when you go there, you are going to another country. (Our passports got stamped and we had to go through customs and everything!) Oh yummy sammy...I will always remember you as one of the better offerings from St. Pierre.

Candied Walnuts

I made a salad the other night for dinner with cranberries, walnuts and spinach, but I wanted to do something special to it so I decided to make candied walnuts. It was really easy to do and it kicked up the salad. Curtis said it was like a dessert salad - haha.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups raw walnut halves
• 1/8 teaspoon coarse salt

Method

1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Use middle rack in oven. Lay walnuts out on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 5 minutes. Test for doneness. If not quite toasted enough, toast for 1 or 2 more minutes. Be careful not to burn. (Like really careful!!) Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a rack.

2 Pour sugar into a medium saucepan with a thick bottom. Have walnuts nearby, ready to quickly add to the pan at the right time. Cook sugar on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon as soon as the sugar begins to melt. Keep stirring until all the sugar has melted and the color is a medium amber. As soon as sugar is melted and the color is a medium amber, add the walnuts to the pan, quickly stirring and coating each piece with the sugar mixture.

3 As soon as the walnuts are coated with the sugar mixture, spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet, lined either with a non-stick mat, or parchment paper. Use two forks to separate the walnuts from each other, working very quickly. Sprinkle the nuts with the salt. Let cool completely.

Makes 1 1/2 cups

Graffiti

So we went to Graffiti for dinner with our friend Justin tonight. It's a super cute Indian restaurant. Very tight space. We had 7:10 reservations. (Odd timing - I know). It was either that or 9:30 - so we went with the earlier slot. I wouldn't recommend just walking into this place on a weekend. I think the whole place only holds like 15 seats.

Now to the food...it's not your typical Indian cuisine. It's more traditional food with an Indian flair. All the dishes come out one at a time - perfect for sharing!! We ordered a damn feast!

My photos are inconsistent. Because the place was so tiny, there was family style seating. I felt awkward snapping away photos with other people at the table. This was: GREEN MANGO PANEER. It was a little spicy, but delicious! It was served with warm flat bread. If you've never had paneer, it's cheese with kind of texture and consistency that reminds me of mozzarella.

This is a photo I found on the web of the same thing. Notice the newsprint? That was our place mat. Cute idea!

This treat is called: ZUCCHINI HUMMUS PIZZA. It's light and very tasty. Even Curtis liked it and he hates zucchini!

Here is a picture of it I found off the web. It had crushed wasabi peas on top (which I wasn't so sure about, but it worked). Yum.

CHILI PORK DUMPLINGS, GRAPEFRUIT CONFIT: probably one of the highlights of the meal. The chili hits you first, followed by the citrus from the grapefruit.

PICKLED GINGER SCALLOPS, CANDIED RED CHILI. Scallops were sliced thin - really yummy!

Here's another photo (again off the web). I should probably just be annoying and use the flash.

CHICKPEA CRUSTED SKATE, MINT YOGURT SAUCE. This was really good too actually...crunchy crust on the fish with a mesculin salad on top. The yogurt sauce was on the side so you could decide how much (or little) you wanted.

BRAISED PORK BUNS, APRICOT CHUTNEY: This was Curtis's favorite. I loved the steam bun! The pork was juicy and spicy with strong flavors of star anise. The chutney was fresh - watch out for pits!

Here's a better photo I found...

GRAFFITI BURGER, GARLIC FINGERLING POTATOES, CHIPOTLE MAYONAISE. I opted out on this one - the boys split this. But I did taste one of the fries and they made me want to smack somebody, they were that good.

We had dessert too but forgot to take a picture of it: WARM TRUFFLE ALMOND STRAWBERRIES, PEPPER ICE CREAM. The warm truffle oil was really unique with the strawberry - but it worked with the black pepper ice cream and the almonds all together. Perhaps the couple on their first date distracted us. Imagine being drilled about why you chose to become a vegetarian and then argued with about your views on fidelity...thank god that poor girl had a good meal out of the deal - 'cause her date was a total tool. And yes, for you veg. friendly folk, they tailor their menu for Vegetarians and Gluten-free diets. Oh and Chef Mehta operates this joint...and he actually works there. I thanked him for a wonderful meal when we left. Man oh man, I love this city...