Goat Cheese & Red Plum Chutney Crostini

I had some girlfriends over for a late brunch this weekend.  It was so fun!  We had mimosas and I cooked my usual breakfast pastries, eggs, and potatoes.  I also did some little girly apps.  This couldn't be easier but so yummy.

At the end of summer, I had some red plums that were going soft so I made some chutney that was savory, sweet, and tart.  Toasted thin slices of baguette, spread goat cheese, topped it with this chutney, and chopped chives.  It was good...

Gateau Basque

Sitka and Spruce still impresses me very much!  I've been back there like 4 times now.  I've not seen the my chef crush Matt Dillon this time but had this amazing Gateau Basque with Huckleberries. 

Gateau Basque is an exquisite tart filled with a drier like cake. Sometimes it's filled with fruit but Sitka and Spruce kept it traditional and I believe filled it with pastry cream and baked.

They just know how to make and present food.  This is the kind of food I love to eat!

So lovely, have to show it twice!

Farm To Table

I love, love farmer's market.  Today, I met my friend Kittie for brunch then we walk the market in Ballard.  Wow...amazing choices! September is such a great period for produce...the tomatoes (from my own garden too), corn, stone fruits like plums, huckleberries, peppers, and on an on. It's winding down for summer but there are so many amazing fruits and veggies.  

Friday night, I went to one of Tom Douglas' newer place Cuoco which an Italian place in his building of new restaurants in south Lake Union.  I had this amazing dish grilled corn salad that had such sweet corn and cherry tomatoes.  It was just a simple dish of grilled corn, tomatoes, salt and I think olive oil.  

When I saw the fresh corn at the market today, I wanted to recreate this dish.  I can't think of anything that is so good but so simple.  It totally relies on the freshness and flavors of the ingredients.   I was hosting a dinner for some friends so this is one of the side dishes I decided to make.  Here is my final dish.

Below are the amazing sweet corn.  I just grilled it and cut them off the cob.  

I also picked up this lovely spinach that you see in the colander above.  Oh boy...I forgot the name of.  It was such a lovely kind and how can I forget.  I'll have to go back next week to find out again.  It tasted a little bit bitter and bite than the regular green kind but it was lovely...especially with the sweet red plums I paired it with a for salad.

Back to the corn salad.  I grew cherry tomatoes this season.  OMG...so easy and so much more flavorful than the store bought kind.  It taste like a honey dew melon tomato.  Seriously! Really reminds you of what real veggies and fruit should taste like.  This is why I am trying to eat more organic and going to farmer's market more.  So...I mixed the grilled corn with cherry tomatoes sliced, grassy olive oil, some kosher salt, and peppers.  This was so good!

Farmer's markets are such a great way to spend your morning or afternoon on weekend.  It just gives me such joy and memorable time to spend.  I ended up buying a flat of raspberries that were picked the day before, huckleberries, red plums, mint, the corn, the spinach, kale that I'm going to juice, organic raised pork chops, and autumn color bouquet of flowers.  I also picked up some cinnamon soap.  This is another post later but it's one of my favorite things in the world.  

Cheers!  

My Mom's Kimchee

I'm not even kidding!  It's not that she is my mom...her kimchee is the best ever!

Seattle is changing their laws, and permits will be available to produce and sell some pickled and baked goods from home kitchens.  

Watch out!

The above her is traditional summer kimchee and below is the cucumber kimchee.

My amazing mom...

The New Sitka & Spruce

Hello Friends!
It's been a long time...my excuse is my day job has taken a lot of my day time and beyond.  
  
There also just has been a lot of activities, traveling, spending time with my good friends, family, and helping my dear friend Hamed and Pascale with their upcoming restaurant.

I've done a lot of food...but just haven't spared the time to connect here.  It's a wonderful reminder when your friends ask about it and then you realize that more folks are paying attention than you thought.  Even a co worker friend from Paris said he followed...that's amazing!

I thought I start with a special treat I had this morning.  An unplanned brunch out to Sitka and Spruce.  What a treat! I went there for dinner last month because my sis has been raving about it and how true it was.  The Melrose building is gorgeous and they have built a great place of food there.  The building houses a flower/gift shop, cheese shop, butcher shop, wine bar, and more lovely places of food related goodies.  Next door to the Melrose building is a fish store ( 1 door down ).  It reminds me of neighborhoods in NYC or old days where you had to go to the multiple specialized places to get all your groceries.  

The heart of building is of course Sitka & Spruce.  I loved the place when it was in Eastlake neighborhood, but clearly it's blossomed to it's full personality at this new location.  The first time I went for dinner (where I was too embarrassed to take picture because we were at the communal table where the chef/owner (my crush the last 3 years) was at the head and I was too nervous.  

This time for brunch, I had no shame and here are the food. All plates were served to share.

Sweet Buttermilk Scones with Housemade Butter and Jam

Pacific Farmstead Cheese with Cherries and Honey

Housemade Yogurt with Warm Dates, Strawberries, Pomegranate Molasses, and Flowers




Salmon lox with Slivered Turnip, Orange Peel, and Honey

Ful Medames with a Six Minute Egg

Emmer Crepes with Rhubarb, Nonna Capra, Hazelnut

The only complaint I have was that there was no potato item on the menu.  It's not breakfast without spuds.  When I asked about it, they had a point...it's not in season right now.  They may get purple potato in a few weeks.  How can you get upset about that? It makes sense.  Most of their ingredients are from Washington...total localvore.

A La Bonne Franquett Coming Soon...

My good chef friend and his wife are opening a new neighborhood restaurant in Seattle!   It will be a French bistro featuring classic French techniques, using local NW ingredients.  I can't wait!  I've had the previldge of having dinner and attending his parties many times!  I will be helping out the sweets department!  Yay!  I'll keep you all posted as the restaurant opens in May. 

There is a Facebook page!  Go there and book mark it! 

The website is...

	http://alabonnefranquetteseattle.com/

Serious Pie with Not so Serious Friends

Serious Pie by Tom Douglas is the local Seattle pizza place.  This is not your traditional pizza, nor is it the true Neapolitan pizza.  It's in a world of it's own.  First off, it's oval and signal serving pie.  It also has great mix of toppings and unique flavors.  My favorite is the crust.  It's soooo good!  Chewy but buttery, smokey and crispy...so good.  I've been told by a local Italian restaurant owner that their pie has butter in the dough and that it's not traditional.  Well, it's good to me and I guess it is serious pie business.

I recently went there with my global friends from work and also with some close friends for my bday.    

They not only have great pizzas, but everything from drinks, to the salads, to the heavenly desserts are divine.

They serve Mexican Coke.  The main difference is that real sugar was used vs. corn syrup to sweeten.

The starters are simple and rustic.  

tuscan kale, pine nuts, calabria peppers, parmesan

ham hock, last summer's corn, parsley

baby lettuces, radish, moscatel vinaigrette  

The Pizzas

No matter how many fancy toppings, my favorite pizza is still the Margareta.  The tang of tomatoes, creaminess of the buffalo cheese, and fresh basil, and the olive oil that drizzles is still the best.

buffalo mozzarella, san marzano tomato

yellowfoot chanterelles, truffle cheese 

 sweet fennel sausage, roasted peppers, provolone

special of the night...blue cheese, apple, thyme, and some kind of cheese

The Sweets

My favorite is the below.  I had it the first time and then again on my bday.  It even inspired me to make my own.  The nice touch is the sea salt and alittle drizzle of very grassy olive oil. 

chocolate budino, sea salt

earl grey panna cotta, blood orange syrup

cannoli, sour cherry, dark chocolate 

Since it was my bday, I go my own budino and as you can see, none was wasted.....I was sooooo happy! Good food and great friends, nothing can be better....cheers!

Baby Shower Sweets

Some new friends asked me to make some sweets for their baby shower.  They tasted my Red Velvet Cupcakes at Hamed's New Year's eve party and really liked them.  Nothing makes me feel so happy then when someone asks you to make something for their special occasion.  It's an honor.  Hope they liked them.  Let me know if you want any recipes.

These are all mini version.  One or two bites at the most.

Red Velvet Cupcake

Lemon Blueberry Tart

Chocolate Rum Tart

I'm a Lucky Girl

This sweet friend in Paris sent me some Laduree macarons!  How lucky am I?  Here is the lovely box filled with my favorites.  I've yet to try any local macarons that come close to Laduree.  The flavors are amazing and can't compare.  It's just so vibrant.  The texture of the cookie is also so smoothe, light yet very crispy, and full of almond flavor.  Wow!    Thanks Linley!

Came is this cute little box...

Best Onion Ring Ever!

Sear's Fine Foods.  
http://www.searsfinefood.com/index.html
Have you ever been to this place?  I heard it's the oldest restaurant in SF.  Soung and I first discovered this place back in '94.  Our first visit there.  We found it by accident, near our hotel for breakfast.  Back then, when our palate and experience were very green, we thought it was one of the best old time breakfast we've had.  It was hustle and bustle busy and no business but food business.  The original place closed it's doors in 2003, then a local restaurateur bought the place, remodeled and reopened in 2004.

When I went last month, I couldn't recall exactly the original place but it was definitely different.  It wasn't the small diner feel but trying to be.  They were known for their Swedish, dollar size pancakes, and those were still there.  

I had never been there for dinner but Sue and I had hard time getting into to some of the places on my list before 9pm, but this place got us in.  The best thing we had that night were the onion rings.  Wow!  The best I've had.  They were light, perfectly seasoned, and the herb touch was fab.  Everything else we had were good but nothing to write about, unlike these light as air onion rings.

Bouchon Bakery in Napa

Here is my second visit to Bouchon Bakery.  This time to the original one in Napa Valley.  

The store has amazing stuff.  The lines were a block long.  Everything was perfect, perfect town, perfect neighborhood bakery, almost too perfect baked goods, almost like Stepford wives town perfect.  The first time I visited Bouchon Bakery in NYC, I thought it was lovely but deep down I felt something was a bit not real.  I figured it's the NYC version, in a big upper crust mall.  When I first read about it Bouchon Bakery, I wanted the small town, neighborly spot feel.  The NYC one was a bit too commercial perfect, so when I saw the outside store front, I was super excited to be at the one in Napa.  

The Napa store did have a charming, old time bakery feel.  However, some of the baked goods were exactly the same as the one in NYC.  Especially the patisseries goods, and I'm sure they are the same ones in Las Vegas.  I realized that they prob don't make or bake the sweet pastries in the local stores but rather in some big factory.  The chocolate tarts were too perfect.  No hands can cut that perfect for all of them.  Same goes for the macrons, and eclairs. This is where my slight disappoint comes from.  I some how wanted to think, it was all made by hand and local.  Perhaps it is but somehow I doubt.  You see, I love neighborhood bakeries.  The one of a kind that bakes everything in house,  and reflects the personality of the things in the neighborhood.

They do bake stuff in house but I think it's just the breads and morning pastries which were good.  They had sandwiches to homemade chips.  Good stuff but still a bit too commercialized. It was a tourist destination and the lines reflected that.  Not the lines of local bakery but the lines to see Thomas Keller stuff.  I was one of them.  I'm good on Bouchon Bakery.  I still love Thomas Keller, now I just see the business side of it.

Here are some of the goods...

A peanut butter cup...again too perfect

The too perfect lemon tart

Fresh baked goods of scones, almond croissant, buns, and more.

Tuna sandwich.  This was nice, with the nice details of super thin red onion, kalamative onions.  They also sold homemade potato chips.  This is the local stuff I'm talking about.  Loved it.

The macrons were a bit larger than others you see, about 3 inches wide, but at $3 bucks each, I guess they had to be bigger.  I love the ones at Honore more but these were good.

Lastly, the eclairs... they were close to the ones from Le Panier.  Very good and phallic.  :)