Spice Dish

How Do You Know It's Christmas in San Francisco?

You Know it's Christmas in San Francisco When:

1. You're watching men frolic in tights.

2. You're dodging drunken Santas.

3. You're trying to figure out just how many NYE house parties you can hit before you will be too drunk to go on.

4. You're listening to SomaFm's Xmas in Frisko.

by MooHaHa
5. You're asking your father to buy you a month's garage parking as your big Christmas gift. 

Happy Holidays!

EB

Here Comes Gingerbread... Here Comes Gingerbread....

Photo by DNAMichaud

This is a holiday ice cream recipe I came up with when I was invited to a friend's house for Thanksgiving. It was a good thing I brought ice cream, because it was no less than 79* that day. Ahhh California living. Now that there's snow on the ground, and a chill in the air, this recipe still screams out 'holiday'! It's creamy, laced with booze and spiced up with gingerbread. This is one of the most well-received ice creams I've ever created. Give it a shot yourself this holiday. You will not regret it.

Bourbon-Gingerbread Ice Cream

3 cups half & half

5 large egg yolks

1 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground clove

3 tbs bourbon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup broken gingerbread cake or ½ cup gingerbread cookie pieces

 

Warm 2 cups of the ½ & ½ , sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Pour the remaining ½ & ½ into a large bowl and put a mesh strainer over the bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yolks. Slowly add some of the warmed mixture into the yolks and whisk vigorously. Slowly combine the two mixtures until completely combined, then return the mixture to the saucepan. 

Constantly stir the mixture as it warms over medium heat. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan, until the mixture coats your spoon. Pour the cooked mixture through the strainer, into the remaining ½ & ½. Mix in the spices, bourbon, and vanilla. Cool over ice.

Chill the batter completely! Once it is chilled through, churn it in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. 5 minutes before it is finished add your gingerbread. Let finish freezing in the freezer.

Enjoy!

EB

Love the Pie

So here's the thing. Normally I'm all about all homemade, all the time. But it's the holidays, and I know I'm not the only one here.... we tend to over extend ourselves. We have grandiose plans for making fresh ice creams, cobblers, cakes, cookies and pies for each and every festivity we visit over the holidays. And we mean it! That's the crazy part. Because in reality... it's just not possible. No way. Un unh. No matter how good our intentions.

Your best friend here? Pre-made pie crusts. Honestly. Pillsbury has a really good one. It's true. And they celebrate the home made with their annual bake off's. To celebrate this year they are having a "Love the Pie!" promotion. And really... who doesn't love pie?

If you want a Love the Pie! t-shirt (shown above) or a recipe card with some seasonal recipe's on it shoot me an email with your address. Just be warned... the shirts I've got are on the small side.

Enjoy!

EBS

Holiday Shopping. Really?!?!

I've been obsessing about a few things lately and I thought I'd share since (GASP!) gift giving holiday season really, honestly, is right around the corner!!!

1. I saw this fantastic little set the other day and I can't stop craving it:

 

Seriously.... is it possible to have a cuter tea set?

2. Ever since I got my copy I've been cooking from it. It's not flashy, glossy or celebrity-chef-y. It's just simple and fantastic. The recipes are easy to follow, easy to understand and undeniably French.

You really can judge this book by its cover.

3. My apron obsession has recently been rekindled by a purchase I made at a local street fair. While you may not be able to get your hands on the awesome vintage tea-towel, reversible half-apron I picked up...

Etsy has some truly fabulous one of a kind aprons.

4. I have always had a soft spot for the original Alice in Wonderland drawings and these pieces by Fishes Eddy make me want to imbibe everything that has a "drink me" tag on it!

5. I know coupe's are "not great for champagne"... but really who lets it sit long enough for the bubbles to escape?

 

There are an amazing array of these on Ebay, I prefer the multi-colored myself.

Here's to the holidays!

EB

Most Memorable Moments

I'm back from my whirlwind trip and thought I'd share a few of my most memorable food moments with you all:

Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road. Delicious cupcakes. Delicious.

Napoleon's Dining Room. Man he knew how to eat.

And then there's these. Most 'memorable' because I can still taste them. Unfortunately.

There's a million more memories. Wine cheaper than water? Vive la France! Korean BBQ in late night London? Love it. Salted caramel yogurt in Paris? A revelation.

Thanks Europe (well except for that exchange rate thing...)

EB

Summer Fling!

Okay. Yes I’m a teacher. When people find out they invariably say “ooh you’re so lucky to have summers off!” Yeah. No. I don’t get summers off. I’m a newbie on the professorial circuit and I’m still paying my crappy schedule-summer session-not getting paid dues. However, I do get a day or two off a week during the summer. Which yes, is awesome (although a paycheck would be awesomer!) I am going to take full advantage of these few precious days. I plan to not only catch up in the blogging world but to also to make the most of the summer by doing all those things I've yearned about all winter like:

Photo by pedrosimoes7
1. Go to PARIS!

2. Go to a ball game or two.

3. Catch up on This American Life at the gym.

4. Go organic in the garden.

5. Improve my Spanish.

6. Explore my city with Mundane Journeys.

7.Read. For fun. Honestly. Just one book!

8. Drink beer and go for the brass ring.

9. Cook from my sorely neglected, ever growing collection of vintage cookbooks.

10. Go to the park. Manshelf?

What will you be doing with your summer?

EB

 

Glad to be Home

Ok so I don't want to offend anybody but I really have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. On the pro side? The Getty, the weather, the ocean, the farmers market and Bennett's. I mean it's hard not to love the old-school market full of people who are happy to be surrounded by food goodness.

Unfortunately there are many more reasons why LA and I just don't get along. The traffic, the fact that I'm a San Franciscan (it's a rivalry thing), the soul sucking nature of the 'city', and well...

I rest my case.

Sorry LA... I'm just really glad to be home.

EB

Dime Store Pulp

The James Beard Cookbook how do I love thee? Let me count the ways….  Seriously I could wax poetic about this little paper-bound piece of fabulousness for pages. First off, it is a 95c paperback edition that has a whiff of cheap, dime-store, trashy, pulp novel about it. It has green painted page edges, which nobody does anymore. My edition is from 1966 and features a plump, latter day Beard on the cover stirring up a sauce to place, delicately I’m sure, on the rotund oysters laid out before him.

There are no glossy ‘food-porn’ shots, just skillfully drawn, 60’s-mod sketches of “Cold Dunk Sauces,” appetizers on sticks, and assorted vegetables along with illustrations of sour faced pigs partitioned off into “Fat Back,” “Picnic Ham,” and “Head Cheese” portions and a diagram of lettuces to be used in “Vegetable Salads.”

The book starts off with a list of “Practical Don’ts” which really are practical and still relevant today. Beard starts off this list with “Buy good food, and buy often” noting that you shouldn’t “buy food you don’t need just because it’s cheap.” Here Here!

 

This 518 page jem has recipes for everything from “Anchovy Butter” to “Wine Merchant’s Sauce” and “Aspic” to “Yorkshire Pudding” but have I made a single recipe? Not a chance. And why not? Because this fantastic piece of culinaria has taken up residence in my purse. If I’ve got a few minutes before class or a long line at the bank, a few minutes with a mug of coffee or a tardy friend, out pops Mr. Beard and I’m off in my head whipping up “Braised Beef, Bordeaux Fashion” or reading up on the origin of the hors d’ouvre.

Thank you Mr. Beard.

EB

Loyal "Natives"

I have the distinct feeling that like me, many of you received cookbooks as gifts for the holiday season. My project for the next few weeks is going to be sharing with you the tomes I ripped open with glee. 

 

The first installment was a gift from my aunt Dana. She knows how much I love ‘vintage’ cookbooks so she dug through the family archives and gifted me with the “Loyalty CookBook of the Native Daughters of the Golden West” Huh? What the?

 I had no idea either. A quick Google and apparently The Native Daughters of the Golden West, was and still is, a “fraternal organization dedicated to preserving California's history, improving its present, and ensuring a brighter future for all its residents.” 

 

This smallish, brown leather bound “Loyalty” cookbook looks like it could have been used for fundraising. My aunt didn’t know too much about it except that one of my relatives (a great aunt I think) had a recipe in it. On pg 108 you can find Mary E. Wright’s (of the Bahia Vista Parlor) recipe for Scrambled Eggs with Cheese. Creative? Original? Not necessarily. But with a ½ pound of cheese and cream… I’m sure they are pretty darn tasty.

Scrambled Eggs with Cheese

½ lb American cheese, rub through grater

½ cup cream

8 eggs

1 tbs minced parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Beat eggs slightly and add ingredients given. Pour into a well-buttered skillet, cook slowly, stirring constantly so the cheese will melt by the time the eggs are cooked. Serve on toast.

 

I love this little book. There are recipes like “Ethel’s Candy Suggestion” and “Goop.” This being a California cookbook there are also Chinese, Portuguese and Mexican recipes. (Hardly authentic, but at least they gave it a shot eh?) And there is an entire chapter devoted to Tamale Pie. An entire chapter. Apparently in 1948 Tamale Pie was where it was at!

Did you get any fascinating reads for the holidays?

EB

Still Hung Over?

                                                    Photo by Gaetan Lee

I love champagne sorbet. It was a special occasion treat for me growing up. Every time there was a special occasion birthdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. my dad liked to go to a very small little French restaurant run by a Turkish chef. He always made champagne sorbet for us when we came in. It was the perfect palate cleanser. But beyond that it was perfectly pink, perfectly sweet and made my teenage self feel very grown up and sophisticated.

This is where you can use not leftover champagne, because lets face it… who has leftover champagne… but maybe you have that bottle that you passed out before you opened. This recipe is very easy. You can either make it in an ice cream maker or make it ‘granita’ style.

Champagne Sorbet

2 cups champagne (pink preferably) chilled
1/4 cup sparkling mineral water
3 tbsp grapefruit juice
1 1/4 cup fine granulated sugar

Heat the water, grapefruit juice and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and chill completely. Once completely cold add the champagne and stir until well blended.

Either place in ice cream maker and freeze according to directions or pour mixture into shallow baking dish. Place in freezer and freeze mixture for 2 hours. With a fork, scrape and break up the mixture. Freeze another hour and then scrape again. Repeat until you achieve a frozen texture you like. I like to serve with a mint sprig.



Enjoy!

EB