Cooking Advice from Celebrity Chefs via Yumsugar

Oh, I love it. Thank you, Yumsugar!

Welcome to my weekend: Garlic and Onions {cooking}

What do you like to do on the weekends? Me? I like preparing for the week ahead by roasting garlic and caramelizing onions. These tasks take time but are ultimately time-savers. Call me weird. It's just one of the ways I like to unwind.

Rouxbe Online Cooking School & Video Recipes

Bust out the Bubbly with Italian Sparkling Wine {food & drink}

Now that the Halloween is behind us, it's time to start planning for that holiday party with Italian bubbly! It's a great alternative to champagne year-round for that engagement party or wedding reception too. Here's a clip from Popsugarlivingtv featuring Jeff Porter, the sommelier of one of my favorite LA restaurants, Pizzeria Mozza

It's not a party at my house without some Hawaiian infusion so here's a video from "View from the Bay" featuring Jacqueline Patterson, another Hawaii girl living in the Bay Area. She's the bartender at Charles Phan's Heaven's Dog in San Francisco.

On a side note, sadly, "View from the Bay" ran its last episode in September 2010. I loved that show. I'm sure you would have too so I'll be sharing videos with you from time to time.

San Francisco and Napa - Eat like a food blogger

I'm spoiled. Yup, I said it. And so are you. Well, that's if you live in or ever visit the Bay Area. I'm talking about food! With fresh organic farms and world-renowned wineries nearby, culinary delights choices here are plenty. But how do you decide where to go? How do you know which cuisine reigns supreme (sorry watched too much Iron Chef)?

Being "new" to the Bay Area, I rely on food blogs and twitter heavily (no pun intended) to find the latest and greatest hole-in-the-wall to Michelin-starred restaurant. A little help from a local magazine here and there doesn't hurt either.

LISTS AND LINKS:
101 cookbooks -  San Francisco Favorites
Epicurean Zealot - Best Dishes in San Francisco Part 1
Epicurean Zealot - Best Dishes in San Francisco Part 2
7x7  - 2010 Eat Drink Readers Choice Awards
7x7 - Big Eat SF 100 things to try before you die 

FOOD BLOGS

101 Cookbooks

A Marin Foodie's Diary - WineAndFoodWorld.com

Chez Pim

Cooking with Amy: A Food Blog

Cooking With The Single Guy

Everyday Food | Simply Recipes
Food Gal 
Heather in SF 

Inuyaki

Ono Kine Grindz (see his September/October trip to SF 2010 for places to eat on that special occasion)

Alexis' Napa

The Cork Board

The Epicurean Zealot

STILL ON MY TO-DO LIST
SF Food Tours with Lisa


How do you find where the "best" places are to eat in your city? 

Ten points for naming where I took these photos and one for naming the SF neighborhood featured in the first picture... Bon appetit!

How to be a {California} locavore with your iPhone

I'm not talking about Yelp. I'm talking about the California Farmers' Market Finder.  It's how I found these babies:

Eat local. Read the five easy steps at eatlocalchallenge.com.

Carol Hannah's Wedding Collection Reminds Me of Martha's Seven-Minute Frosting

Carol Hannah's Wedding Collection left me speechless. It did. Then I stumbled upon the perfect words on page 150 and 191 of Martha Stewart Living's September issue under "Seven-Minute Frosting,"

Incredibly light... delicate... excellent... for the girl wants to be the... center of attention.

For wedding dresses, Carol Hannah simply takes the cake if you want to dress to frill...


(yes a little cheesy but I couldn't help it. I love cheese :)

My trip to Paris...

from my living room.

What? A girl can dream right?

I never really thought of Paris until I moved to the Bay Area. Then, one day, I realized I fell in love with the city without ever getting on a plane. Maybe it was because I ate too many croissants from my local bakery  or watched one too many episodes of  Ina making her herb-baked eggs.  In any case, I live in an area full of Francophiles and I became one of them. *sigh* My dream honeymoon will have to wait until the recession is over and my honey gets a job. Until then, I get a smidgen of Paris from  David Lebovitz and Design*Sponge... oh, and my brother (who took the picture above). 







One more treat is this music video featuring China-born, Paris-raised singer Beilei singing the official theme song of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo's French Pavilion.  I didn't understand a single word but I enjoyed taking a tour of the city.



via We Heart Weddings

Ideas for Signature Drinks

Guess what? It's Cocktail Week on the kitchn! To join in the festivities and pick up the dreary Monday mood (and no, I do not endorse getting drunk to help your workday go by), I'm giving you a roundup of ideas for signature drinks. 

Let's start off with the signature drink I had at my wedding, X-rated Fusion Liqueur and Sprite (see recipe below under Fusion Fizz). The liqueur contains French vodka, blood orange, mango, and passion fruit. It's like someone combined my favorite Hawaiian Sun flavors and added alcohol (if you haven't tried POG yet, ask for it the next time you travel on Hawaiian Airlines or you can order it from Amazon). The Sprite balances the sweetness with some tartness and fizz. Yum! Another great thing about this recipe is that it's simple. When choosing signature cocktails for your wedding, I would advise against having more than 4 ingredients unless you are having a small reception. Trust me, your bartender will thank you. What was the price tag for this signature drink? I bought a dozen bottles of X-rated for about $22 a bottle. The corkage fee was $12/bottle and 12 bottles was more than enough for my 260 guest wedding. It works out to $1.57 a drink if each guest got 1 drink . I say that's a deal if you can't afford an open bar. 

What's a good source for drink recipes? Two words. Drinks Mixer. I wish I found this website before. It's one huge database of drink recipes. Recipes come along with videos, nutritional information, and even suggestions on what type of glass to serve your drink in. Try Drink Mixer's widget below to find some drink recipes.

Other go-to drink guides:

Food & Wine's Cocktail Guide

Yumsugar's Happy Hour

Don't forget to check out the kitchn this week! 

Not in the mood to make your own drink? If you're in the Bay, you can stop by the new restaurant owned by that guy making the Champagne Cocktail in the video up above. I hear master mixologists have taken up residence there and serve kick-a$$ cocktails. I haven't had the chance to go there yet but judging from this local blogger's review, I can't wait. 

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Addendum:
Just found the BEST resource so far: the Cocktail Guru. Check out the link. You can have an accomplished Mixologist to design your signature drink. How divine!

Food Truck Friday

Who says you can't eat well on a budget? If you're lucky enough to live in the Fog City, your tummy and your wallet will thank you if you go to tonight's Off the Grid at the Fort Mason Center. It's where the mobile food carts serve up gourmet delights by chefs like William Pilz of HapaSF. 

Hapa SF 
Photography by Jun Belen

Hapa SF 
Photography by Jun Belen

Hubba hubba. 
I mean the food! What are you looking at? :P

Two food trucks in my neck of the woods are Jon's Street Eats and Seoul on Wheels. Jon serves up restaurant quality food and I love love love his food. It's too bad we haven't seen him recently but that might be because he's busy setting up his new project. To meet my street food craving, I finally had my first taste of Seoul on Wheels by Julie Yoon earlier this week. I would definitely go back for her bulgogi which was incredibly tasty and tender. Don't live in the Bay Area? Oh, you poor thing. I kid! You can recreate her famous bulgogi by following her recipe on Food & Wine.


Here's my roundup of links on our favorite traveling eateries:

"Off the Grid" by Amy Sherman of Cooking with Amy

Yumsugar's Food Truck Love Slideshow

"Cool Trucks" by Hayan Café (via Design Sponge)

"The New Airstream Cuisine" by Food & Wine

The Food Network's Food Truck Race

TLC's Best Food Ever Fab Food Carts TLC's website doesn't have any more scheduled listings but some of the carts they loved were The Treats Truck in New York, Maximus Minimus in Seattle, and Bay Area's very own Seoul On Wheels. The show though snubbed LA's roaring food truck scene. How can TLC ignore this Best New Chef?

Cafe: Cannellini bean, leek, and spinach soup

Eating a good amount of fried food over the weekend made me feel sluggish and made my face feel greasy. Oh well, I was yearning for comfort food and paid the price for it. To make up for those diet missteps, here's a recipe for Cannellini bean soup.  This is a recipe from my husband. The original source is - yikes, he doesn't know.  I'm not a big fan of soups but this one's satisfying and my tummy is full now.  The following recipe is perfect for two people, maybe three. Mmm, next time, I'm going to try adding salmon collar into the soup.  Maybe I'll have a fancy camera by then and be featured in my favorite food p0hrn [sic] website, tastespotting.

Cannelini bean, leek, and spinach soup

1 tsp olive oil

2 leeks

4 gloves garlic (we love garlic)

1.5 cups chicken broth (I'm sure vegetable broth would be a fine substitute)

1 bay leaf

1 cup of fresh spinach

1  fifteen oz can of cannellini beans

salt  and peper

Heat oil in large stockpot over medium heat. Add leeks and garlic; saute for a few minutes until the leeks become translucent (about 3-5 minutes). Add cumin, then broth, then beans and bay leaf. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes.  Stir in spinach leaves. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Remove bay leaf before serving.

I miss you lechon

"You're Filipino and from Hawaii? You must really love pork," someone once told me. I laughed. I didn't know my people's love for pork was so (in)famous. This was even before the whole Pork Renaissance phenomenon including Anthony Bourdain's show of the Philippines. Well, it's true. Some favorite dishes of Hawaiians and Filipinos alike include lechon, kalua pig, pork adobo, laulau, chicharrones... oh no, this list is getting too long. Now where do I go (in the Bay) to get some?

Cake toppers

One of the treasures from my wedding are our cake toppers that I ordered from Nicole W Clark. Working with her was so easy. I asked to her to make miniatures of me and the Mister in our wedding gear with special accessories (and now you might know what I do for a living).  She even recreated my wedding hairstyle based on my hair & makeup trial. She's so crazy talented.

Photo by Nicole that she sent for my stamp of approval

If you're wondering about my my mini-me's cracked neck...yes she did in fact sustain a neck injury. Fortunately, my wedding planner had glue handy. Speaking of wedding planners, here's a post by the fab Evonne of Events by Evonne featuring another Canadian cake topper designer.