Happy Halloween

I had a Halloween/fall dinner party with the family and friends yesterday. As I type this, it is Halloween, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful time! Don't eat too much candy :) I made these devils food chocolate cupcakes with Swiss butter cream frosting for dessert. Of course I'm showing you dessert first! I used Martha's new cupcake book, and had lots of fun making the Swiss butter cream frosting. It is so buttery, but not too sweet. The recipe for the cupcakes was very good as well. With 4 eggs, and three sticks of butter, along with sour cream, it should! I used Valrohna cocoa too. That is a recipe that I will go back to again.

Dinner table set and ready for guests! If you click on the photo, you can see the lanterns and little candy boxes that I made out of October issue of MSL. They were very fun to make and turned out real cute. Now I have to figure out how to store them, as they took a while to make and I want to save them.
Our good friends Tim and Christine, along with their three adorable children came for dinner. Pictured from left to right; Christine, holding baby Eva, Daniel, Nicole.
Daniel finally got his cupcake after waiting patiently for the grown ups to finish the cheese course.
Pierre is hiding behind the cupcakes, then Cyrous, Caitlin, and Sophia, the oldest of Christine and Tim's children.
Here is a better picture of miss Sophia.

In all the rush, I didn't photograph the actual food! I made a braised chicken dish with prunes, olives, capers. The recipe comes from one of my favorite restaurant in Sonoma called, "The Girl and The Fig." I really wished I had taken a photo of it because it was so good. It was marinated all night then braised....I served mashed potatoes with it, and a simple mixed green salad.

It was a lot of fun having everyone over and a way for us to have little ones around during the Halloween holiday.

Happy Halloween!!

R.I.P. "Gourmet"

Where to begin, with the sadness of "Gourmet" shuttering its doors for good. My history with Gourmet goes back to 1982, I should say "our" history, since my husband and I loved to buy the magazine when we were in college, and wanted to cook dinners for our friends. All the pages seemed so inviting and some of them seemed out of our league. Yet, every time we used any of the recipes, they quickly became our favorites. Through out the years we saved most issues, and they survived many moves. Finally, I had way too many of them and started buying the compendium books of the year( as you see in the last photo). When I found out that Gourmet folded, I quickly went out and bought the last issue, which was the November one. When the checker scanned the skew, it came up as "Teen Vogue!" They already sold the ISBN#! This made me so sad.
The above book is their latest cook book, that Ruth Reichl was out promoting very recently in the Bay Area. She had no idea that she would be out of a job in a weeks time. I went to Costco to pick up a copy, and on the cover, as you can see if you click on the picture, there is a label that reads: Free one year subscription when purchasing this book. I guess that won't be happening :(
This is my collection of compendium books, I also have a few others that they put out, but these are my go to for many yummy recipes.
Like I said above, we subscribed to Gourmet since about 1982 up until 2000. I stopped my subscription the minute the magazine became inundated with perfume ads. A month or so later, I actually got a call from their subscription headquarters, asking me why. They were very nice, and listened to what I had to say about the perfume ads, and way to many adds in general. I told them that if they change it, I will come back. They kind of did, but I ended up just buying an issue here and there, and the books instead.
I'm glad that I have a treasure trove of their wonderful publications. I now look to "Fine Cooking" as my new favorite.
Any one else out there sad about this?

I've been cooking and baking.....

The soup pictured above is my favorite recipe for " Italian Wedding" soup. I got the recipe from an e-mail sent from Whole Foods. I really wanted to share it because it so good! Written on the recipe is this little note about what Italian wedding soup is. It reads: While the name indicates that the soup might be served at an Italian wedding, it is actually a mistranslation of minestra maritata, which refers to the "marriage" of greens and meat in the soup. I did know this, but it might be new info for someone else.

The recipe is as follows:

For the meatballs
1/2 pound ground beef

1/2 pound ground pork

1 egg

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

2 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

3 tablespoons flat leaf parsley

pinch ground nutmeg

pinch paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper


For the soup:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

3/4 cup chopped white onion

3/4 cup chopped carrot

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

2 cups water

1 small can whole tomatoes, drained and halved

1 cup orzo

2 cups shredded kale

Combine ground beef, pork, egg, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, garlic, oregano, nutmeg, paprika, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Use a teaspoon to measure out the meat for even meatballs. With damp hands, shape them into balls. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, carrot, salt and pepper and cook until translucent and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Stir in chicken broth, water and tomatoes. Cover and cook 10 minutes over medium heat or until soup comes to a boil.

Add meatballs and orzo to the boiling soup and stir to make sure they are fully submerged. Cover and simmer for another 15 minutes over medium heat. Stir in kale. Test meatball and a piece of orzo to ensure that they are fully cooked. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve immediately!!!
I made this Cardamom vanilla pound cake last weekend for dinner guests. This is what is left, all though, I took this picture on Monday, so now it is gone. Boy was it good.

Cardamom Vanilla pound cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 vanilla beans, halved lengthwise

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 350 with rack in the middle. Generously butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess.( used a bundt pan)

Whisk together flour cardamom, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat together butter and granulated sugar in mixer at medium speed, scraping side of bowl occasionally, until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape seeds from vanilla beans with tip of a paring knife into butter mixture, reserving pods for another use, and beat until combined well, about 1 minute. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in lemon juice until combined well. At low speed, add flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

spoon batter into pan, smoothing top. Gently rap pan on counter to eliminate air bubbles.

Bake until a wooded skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in pan 1 hour, then invert onto a rack and cool completely, about 1 hour more.

The recipe also calls for : 1 !/2 cups heavy cream
2 1/2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
1 1/2 pure vanilla extract.

Beat cream with confectioners sugar and vanilla extract using whist attachment of mixer until it just holds stiff peaks. Serve cake with whipped vanilla cream.

This pound cake got better with each passing day, as the flavors intensified. Make sure all ingredients are at room temp, like the eggs, butter and milk. This will make for a very tender cake. Enjoy

Happy Friday!

What is eating poor Gilbert Grape. A while back Caitlin and I made this little grape
man after our lunch. We decided to let him decompose for a few days.........
He actually looks worse than this picture above, but I haven't had a chance to photograph him lately. He is pretty much a raisin. He looks very Halloweenish, so I though I'd share the demise of Gilbert Grape. Just a bit of nonsense since I have no projects to show, but they are coming.

On a different note, last night was a lot of fun at the symphony. Itzhak played the Bach concerto as you might expect...beautifully.....and then he conducted the last two pieces. I haven't been to a the symphony in quite some time, so it was a wonderful night.
Hope everyone has a fun weekend. The weather out here in California is beautiful, so it should be a great weekend for those doing outdoor activities, or just being out and about.
Happy weekend to all of you!

Can't wait to hear this man play

Tonight I get to go with my husband to see Itzhak Perlman play in San Francisco. I'm so excited. The music being played tonight is : Bach Violin concerto no. 2, Elgar introduction and Allegro for string quartet and orchestra, opus 47, and Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 6.
While I love my rocking out concerts, I do love classical music as well. Itzhak is a rock star of the classical world don't you think?! I'll fill you in on how the concert went.

Meet Quincy

Last January or February, I can't remember now, my other little birdie named Lucie, died. We decided not to get another little one since we were going on a long trip in the summer, and we just wanted a little time to pass in between getting another bird. Yesterday, on a beautiful sunny fall day, we hopped in the car and went to our favorite bird store and chose this little cutie.
The very knowledgeable owner told us it was a little boy bird. That means that you can train them to talk. The female parakeets can talk, but not very much. We are all excited to teach him all kinds of words and to become a part of the family. Today he is a little shy and getting use to his surroundings, but we can tell that he is going to be a fun pet. He seems to not be bothered or frightened easily, which is good for training.
I'll keep you all posted on his progress.

Happy Birthday to me!

The weather was crisp and fall like, and just perfect to celebrate my birthday. I was pleasantly surprised to see a very dear old friend from high school/college, Alice and Robert. She and her husband were in the area, and stopped by for a short visit in the morning. What a lovely gift in itself to spend some time catching up with old friends. Sipped a little tea and chatted for a bit, until they had to leave.

After a relaxing day wandering around town and shopping, we later headed into the city to have the rest of the celebration at "Boulevard." If you are ever in San Francisco, I highly recommend it. Great service and beautiful food.
This was my starter. Arugula salad with roasted squash, figs and hazelnuts. The squash is hiding under the wonderfully dressed Arugula. The dish was suppose to have cheese on it, but I had them leave it off. It was still wonderful.
All of us, but Pierre, had lobster. It sat on risotto, with Chantalle mushrooms and other yummy things. I was hopping it wasn't going to be too heavy, and it was perfect.
My dessert was a profiterole filled with homemade cinnamon swirled ice cream, caramel sauce. On the side was an apple terrine of sorts. Perfect fall dessert, and I think they did a nice job making it fancy for my birthday.
I got loads of wonderful things, that I would like to do on another post. Mainly because the gift my husband gave me, needed to be exchanged for another size, and won't be here for a week. It's pretty neat, so I'll share all of them at a later date. I was spoiled as usual, and it is always so fun to celebrate all together in a beautiful setting, such as San Francisco. Our view was of the Bay Bridge all lit up. So pretty.......

27/47

Before I tell my favorite birthday story. I want to share this lovely prize I won from Liz, over at "Love Those Cupcakes." Everything in the package was so lovely, and I can't wait to use some of the items and also eat some of the items, not pictured, but is at the bottom, is a nice bar of Green&Black organic chocolate. Thank You Liz for such a fun give away :)
The reason for the title of my post is that I would like to share my favorite birthday my husband gave me on my 27th birthday. 20 years ago already!!
First off, my husband is the best gift giver ever! Not only does he remember things you tell him, he will also surprise me with things I thought he would never get.
When I was 27, I was four months pregnant with my second daughter, and feeling a bit tired and bloated from the pregnancy. I knew he was taking me out to dinner, but I had no idea what else he was going to do. The dinner alone was a nice thing, as we were still a young couple with a 4 year old and it was always nice to get dressed up and go out. I got home from work at my usual time and when I walked into our bedroom, there lying on the bed, was this really beautiful black velvet maternity dress with a strand of faux pearls. He had picked this dress out all on his own, and it fit like it was made for me when I tried it on. I couldn't believe it, and I felt and looked so much better after I slipped it on. I no longer felt like a bloated pregnant lady.
The restaurant that we went to was amazing, and to this day remains one of the top restaurants in the Bay Area. The name if it is Masa's. It was a wonderful dinner out, and I'll never forget how he had saved up all summer for this dinner and my gifts, and the thought that went into all of it.
The picture above is the jewelery box that he gave me that evening. The box was special ordered from a store where we had gone to college. He told me that is was made of oak and redwood. The wood signified where where we both grew up and met.
There are other wonderful birthdays that he has done for me, but I have to say that this was my favorite one, where I truly felt special and loved that day.
Sunday we plan to go out to dinner with the whole family here.
If anyone would like to share their most special birthday....I would love to hear it.

Yay October!

I went to IKEA a couple of weeks ago, and found this really cool fabric. They had a table display with napkins and other things made from it, and it immediately caught my eye as Halloween looking, but not over the top. I bought a yard, and it made two 18x18 pillows. I'm actually making the second one today, if my tweaked shoulder doesn't act up! I love the birds on them and I think they will look cute for the holiday.
I really can't believe it is already October. My birthday is on Sunday, and I plan to spend it with my dear husband and kids. Tomorrow, I will be writing a post on my favorite birthday. One that my husband orchestrated, and to this day is my favorite to tell. Stay tuned.......