Maple Bacon Doughnut

I don't eat real bacon but this combo sounds so good! Voodoo Doughnut is a place in Portland OR that don't take itself too seriously but serious enough to make great doughnut flavors. Check out their link. I did try it with veggie bacon and it was pretty good. Next time I am in Portland, I'll be checking it out.

What a cooking day!

What a day it was....I started with June homeless cooking in the morning then worked for St. Cloud for catering a bar mitvah.

Homeless Cooking

Made a great marinade for Salmon and we grilled.  The other was a apple lemon cake.

At St. Cloud, it was back breaking work but loved every minute of it. It's been a long time since I've catered with St. Cloud almost 6 months, am so glad to be back, had a lot of fun.  I started with cutting fruit for the chocolate fountain, assembled the smoked trout on toasted brioche, then made these mini caprese sandwiches wiht heirloom tomatoes, then plated this aisan broth soup with crab and black cod.  

Forgot to take my camera so don't have any pic.  I do the same thing next week so will have more content and pics!

May Brunch

I had a small gathering for brunch in May. I love to cook brunch! It is one of my favorite things to do.

Perhaps it is has to do with my days at the cafe a few years ago. Waking up at the crack of dawn (4am) and baking all these pastries and prep work for breakfast. It was like I was there before the world woke up and got all this food ready and then the world woke up and came for breakfast.

Here was the menu:

• Sticky Bun
• Savory Scones
• Blueberry Coffee Cake
• Roasted Potatoes
• Simple Green Salad
• Fresh Fruit Salad
• Sweet Peppery Bacon
• Sausage
• Veggie Sausage
• Mimosa

I can't wait to host another brunch!

April Homeless Cooking

April's Neighborhood Cooking Foundation

Here is a pic from cookout for April. I recall it was still a bit cold and we had Easter theme. We made chicken pot pie, coconut cupcake and lot of other things.

I didn't go in May due to busy schedule. I will be there for June which starts this weekend and will get good pics and better food list.

Marisela's Taco Night

Marisela hosted a Taco Night a couple of months ago. She is Mexican and made these ancient Mexican recipes from scratch. :) No really, everything was freshly made and amazing.

She also served these Lindsay Olives which are just green olives that are canned with some water and salt. Amazing! It's salty when you first take a bite but then a nice savory buttery flavor comes out. I can eat the whole can by myself without anything else. Actually I have. :)

Back to Marisela's food... She made the taco and all the trimming. There were some homemade beans in a clay pot that was great, fresh salad with a dressing she made, oh the salsa, and fresh guacomole.

The highlight for me was the dessert because I am a dessert person. :) She made these 2 desserts pictured here. This mexican chocolate cake and flan. I'll let the pic do the talking.

Cafe Nola in Bainbridge

Cafe Nola is a cozy little restaurant on Bainbride Island. It's famous for Giada De Laurentiis visit during her weekend getway show.

We went there to celebrate my birthday last March with a small group of friends for brunch.

Food was good and place had a nice charm. Environment was like going to a friend's house for brunch. Great service. It helped the weather was beautiful. Here are some pics of food we had.

I had their famous CARAMEL PECAN FRENCH TOAST: challah bread - smoked bacon - orange bourbon butter - fresh fruit - pure maple syrup. Again, it was good but not sure great. I still favor the Fancy French Toast: vanilla custard dipped Columbia bread griddled and topped with espresso-mascarpone & sugared hazelnuts from Hi-Life in Ballard.

One of the hit items was the BAKED EGGSbaked spinach - hickory smoked bacon - grilled breads - roma tomato - potato.

Soung seemed to like their EGGS BENEDICTbreakfast potato - fresh fruit - lemon hollandaise. It comes with dungeness crab but Soung got the veggie version. I'll talk more about her quest for the perfect eggs benedict another time.

So do you make a trip out for the food, um...maybe not. Do you make a trip for a nice day trip on a ferry to enjoy the town and have brunch? Absolutely.

Spinassi

I finally made my way to Spinassi. Wow! I can see why one of the Seattle magazines named it best new restaurant for 2008. I've been there 2 times and it lived up to the hype. First time I had the Ravioli di tapinambur al al burro e salvia con pignoli ( I didn't remember this, I copied from their menu.). It's basically a simple ravioli. It was good but what I really wanted to eat was the Tajarin al burro e salvia which is simple fresh ribbon of pasta with butter, sage, and cheese. Really simple but amazing. Soung had ordered this and I took a bunch of bites. So the second time I went, I ordered this. I also had miner's lettuce for the first time. Boy it was so fresh and what eating organic is meant to be. They are really delicate with their dressing, sauces, and flavors. (I also tasted miner's lettuce salad at Lark and it was not the same.) For dessert (because you should know by now, I alwasy get dessert, sometime two. :)), we had this chocolate terrine. Again amazing though it would have tasted better with some fresh berries. They also have this 2 dollar hazelnut mereingue cookie which is really tasty. I also ordered the dessert wine with my meal. I'm really into sweet white wines. This one was a muscat and bubbly. It was so freshing! The first time I went, we didn't have reservations so sat at the bar next to this older gentleman who found out is a regular. He goes there once a week without his wife (when we were there) and order the same thing each time. He has the simple pasta with butter and sage, the hazelnut cookie, and the same dessert wine. He was a hoot! Made fun conversation with us. The owner came out and greeted him like an old friend. I wish that was us. I'm so in awe of people who are so great in their craft.

Baguette Box

Photo from Baguette Box website.

Yummy!!!!

I love this place. I had lunch there today and had the tofu sandwich which is very much like a Vietnamese sandwich. It's a warm and savory sandwich with braised tofu, fresh green slices of avocado, red onions, pickled diakon, cilantro, some yellow sauce like favored mayo.

I also had their fries. Oh my god! So crispy and salty. One order is good for 2 people. I could only eat half. I'm PMSing too so would think I could eat the whole thing.

Highly recommend this place! For meat eater, there is so much more. Carolyn had the drunken chicken sandwich.

They were featured a few years ago in Bon Appetite magazine as one of top 20 sandwich places in America or something like that.

It doesn't hurt the guy who works there has really pretty eyes with really long eye lashes.

They also want you to bring pic of your dog to post.

Lark

It was my friend Debbie's birthday and we went to Lark to celebrate.

I can't say it was all that it was hyped to be. I know the place has been around for 5 years and everyone always rave about it but it wasn't all that for me.

It was good and more fun because we had an occassion to celebrate but I was expecting more. We had the following:

Starters

• 3 Cheeses of Buenalba Drunken Goat, Bleu D’Auvergne, I forgot the third.
• Marcona almonds, marinated olives, and preserved quince

Sides

• Pommes de terre "Robuchon"
• Warm asparagus bagna caudawith poached egg and miner’s lettuce
• Sautéed half wild mushroomswith garlic, olive oil and sea salt
• Bluebird Grain Farms farrowith nettles and roasted oyster mushrooms

Main

• Black seabass with green almonds,ramps, honshimeiji mushroom and lemon
• Manila clams with chorizo,garlic, baby kale and Olsen’s potatoes

Dessert

• Apricot tarte tatinwith rum caramel and vanilla bean ice cream
• Chocolate madeleineswith Theo organic dark chocolate sauce

Nothing was bad but it just wasn't great. All the food are served family style or tapas style but there wasn't that much to share. I think you get more from Poppy's thali for one person. Their service and attention to detail was great. I love the simple syrup they served in petite jar for my iced tea. The olive oil that dreched the olives and almond had amazing flavor. Would I go back...not sure.

Will catch up this weekend!

It has been crazy busy! Has 2 months already passed! Wow... Well...did homeless cooking last month so have great pics of great food we made. Will go this month one this coming Sat. Went to Carmalita last night and oh my! Most beautiful food. I have pics I will post once Soung sends them to me. Went to Spinassi too a few weeks ago. Great simple food! I've Miner's lettuce or something like that. There's more and I'll just lump into one. I also made some homemade salty caramel sauce for someone's bday and it was so lovely. Got a great note about it from her. Dear friends, when it's your bday, this is what I'm giving you.... More to come later with pics!