Coaching Cooking

I’m currently sick, but I love finding out about other blogs that feature food. This blog, called See Us Eat, really lives up to its name and provides great photos of Bay Area restaurants.

So watch them eat. I know my visit to their blog inspired me to seek some things to eat of my own!

I’m thankful for my family, even if they drive me crazy. AB and I had a small Thanksgiving that we thoroughly enjoyed. The rest of my family trucked it down to Los Angeles where they spent Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family. One of the delicious highlights of this Southern California meal included finding two bags of melted plastic with giblets inside the turkeys. So I will feel forever thankful that I ate quail sans plastic.

One of the people I am most thankful for is my mom. Her culinary talents and her constant inquisitive approach to cooking have always inspired me. I owe nearly all of my interest in cooking to her. She was always there during my childhood and her care and passion for cooking found its way into my life so naturally. It is easy to forget who inspires us from a young age. My mom cooked our meals every day and yet she still found time to experiment with sushi and Italian dishes while staying true to her Chinese roots. I’m thankful that I could observe her cooking abilities. And that she has passed on many of her recipes to me.
Her talent lies in her stamina as well as her caring; all of our meals, growing up, were made by Mom. She fed our hearts and stomaches with an astonishing variety of dishes.

So, thanks to Mom and to cooks everywhere. You all nourish us in more ways than we are aware of and for that we are thankful.

AB and I headed to San Francisco yesterday for a second honeymoon and celebration of our six years together. Yes, it was nearly six years ago that we met at UC Santa Cruz. Go Slugs!

We’re shacked up at the Hotel Nikko San Francisco, where the view from the 23rd floor is spectacular. We ordered room service that included:

Petit Filet Mignon:

Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding (which I plan to recreate later using brioche and morels):

We smuggled in our own bubbly and enjoyed a night of flat screen tv and gorgeous views of Union Square. The huge tree in the Square is lit and many buildings in the area have white lights sparkling their outlines (like happy! chalk! outlines!). We stared out our window at the Bay Bridge, the new San Francisco Mall and the staid colossus that is Tiffany & Co.

We awoke to the shouts of an insistent union member. A quick peek out the window confirmed that there was a strike outside Macy’s Union Square which is quite ironic given the Square’s history. And that’s what I love about this city. Love and loss, pleasure and pain, struggle and commerce all in a few square blocks while we stare at it enfold from our 24th floor windows. Oh, and Paris Hilton was there too.

Trudy at Elementary Chef has asked for food stories and I’ve got ‘em:

This story dates back several years to a wedding I attended with AB, my husband (who was my fiancee at the time). To be honest, I don’t remember the food that well, but you will soon see why…

Let me preface this story by saying that theme weddings are prevalent and, at times, okay MANY times, they are also over the top. This wedding was no exception. Shall we?

Picture a two-story house in the Southern California suburbs. Innocently enough, it looks benign and even pleasant. We arrive with AB’s brother and AB’s best friend from high school at a medieval-style wedding to find that we are some of the few who did not dress up in the appropriate gear. So the women around me sport long, flowing dresses and those cone hats with the scarf-like attachments while the men wear “chain-mail” plus crests of some familial kind in tunic form. Swords and boots abounded and the wedding ceremony area is replete with a small, circular stage and trellis (all in white) plus a smoke machine that wafts medieval-like treachery over the pool.

And there’s Celtic versions of KISS songs playing in the background. Yes, I’m serious.

Skipping over the ceremony (typical Christian, woman obeys man, all is well, ta da), the food was spread out over several tables, buffet-style. I have to admit that this is one of the few weddings that I ever attended where I didn’t remember the food because the ambiance was so overstimulating.

I’d like to be able to report that we ate turkey legs and drank lusty mead from silver goblets. But I can’t do that. Instead, I can report that AB’s best friend from high school got really drunk and tried to “love us” into guilt by talking about how great we are as a couple (all while holding onto AB like an emotional life raft). The food at the buffet was typical. It was hearty and satisfying as buffets go, but none of the the dishes stood out and most of the salads and side dishes were served in those plastic half-shell bowls on top of lettuce beds.

**WARNING**This is the most spectacular part of the wedding and it has nothing to do with food. You may even think that I am making this part up just to grab your attention. I assure you, I am not.

After the wedding, we have a drink and promptly search for the bathroom. The one outside looks busy so we head into the house and up the stairs. The bride walks down the stairs and stopped to greet AB’s brother (who is friends with the groom). As she turns to keep walking down the stairs, she trips and catches her foot on the inside of her white, gauzy gown. I reach out quickly to grab her hand, but it is too late. Her fingers slip through my grasp and she quickly grabbed a huge painting on the wall. The painting slid off the wall sideways and smashed into a glass wall sconce which promply broke into bits and scattered everywhere. The bride went rolling down the stairs, head to foot, head to foot and hit the landing.

We all stare in stunned silence. The bride doesn’t move for a few seconds. At this point, I really thought she might be dead. Then she sits up and we all breathe a ragged sigh of relief. The bride may have felt embarrassed, but we were just glad that she survived the fall.

I don’t remember what kind of wedding cake we ate, nor do I remember if there were any great desserts or cocktails or other wedding tidbits. I remember the vision of the bride falling down the stairs like some sort of crazed gymnast at a bad fashion show.

Not even white wedding cake with raspberries can burn that image out of my mind.