treasure island

Saturday morning Partner-in-Crime and I woke early for a treasure hunt. An actual treasure hunt as we headed to Treasure Island for the TI Flea Market. We arrived around 10am, and the island and bay were still foggy, which created a haunting view of San Francisco. The flea was a great mix of vintage house goods, knicknacks, clothes, and furniture. More of the sellers, especially for larger pieces, were on the 'carefully selected' side than the 'jumble sale' side that can be much cheaper, but prices were typically reasonable if beyond my personal budget. We didn't find the larger pieces of furniture I was hoping for, but found a few items to bring home-- a natural wood planter with succulents for the living room and vintage leather backpack for me. I'll definitely go back in the future, and will be purchasing some of the incredible African beads that were priced lower than I usually find. By the end of the morning, the fog had lifted and we celebrated with a trip to the Berkeley Farmers Market and ice cream from iscream.

street food

Street food is one of those "hot" foodie trends. The New York Times loves covering food trucks and the race for the best cheeseburger or pizza or tacos. But the Bay Area may have elevated the street food game to a new level. Here for only one week I have attended not one, but two, food truck and street food events. The first, Off the Grid, is a mobile food truck event in a different part of the city each week including North Berkeley on Wednesday evenings. The second was the La Cocina Street Food Festival. La Cocina is an incubator for food based entrepreneurs and they hosted the festival to show the talents of their startups and of restaurants from the Bay Area and beyond, along with entertainment. Here are snapshots from both.

Off the Grid:

[My sandwich: cornflake crusted fried chicken; Partner-in-Crime's: brisket]

[Salted caramel cupcake from Cupcakes]

La Cocina Street Food Festival:

plum good luck

After moving in, I discovered this tree in my backyard. A bit of luck since I arrived too late to plant anything for this season.




The plums are not especially sweet, so I'm still figuring out future recipes to try but they worked well in a plum galette, using the recipe I linked before that was written for plums but I had used for peaches. It was perfect to serve for Wine Wednesdays, a tradition started when I lived in DC and now continued with one of the original members also having just moved to the Bay as well.

What other plum recipes should I try?

[Poor kitchen lighting]

Original recipe from Honest Fare.

recipe: chicken risotto with broccoli pesto

I've shared a risotto recipe before and I make it often, but the other night I made the best risotto I have concocted to date. Much of the reason was Partner-in-Crime's suggestion to add the roasted chicken from the previous night. We didn't have a cup measure so I've used 'units' to describe the amount of rice and broth to use. Recipe below the jump.

pyrex dreams

[Click to see what I found flea shopping in Cheyenne]

stuck in cheyenne

The most memorable part of my trip west was an impromptu, forced furlough in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Well, that is not entirely accurate as the most memorable part of the trip may have been when driving I-80 in Nebraska (which takes an entire day) and our passenger mirror sheared off its base. At 70 miles an hour. This left us unable to merge or turn right without fear of crushing a car beneath us, but it was the subsequent engine trouble and inability to drive over 40 miles an hour that lead to a day in the small capitol city of Wyoming. After the stress of getting a new vehicle were over and we were guaranteed to be able to continue the next day, I was able to enjoy the town and took these photos.

Cheyenne is a small town, despite being the capitol of the state, and is proud to be the Gateway to the Frontier, which definitely comes through. The downtown area hosts a frontier museum, a local theater, some galleries, bars and a few thrift shops (those adventures here.)

update from the road: new york bbq

[fette sau bbq in brooklyn]


[ordering by the pound.]

[split with a friend, though on a good night I could eat it all.]

[whiskey at the bar and beer sold by the gallon.]

update from the road: big gay ice cream truck

[Big Gay Ice Cream Truck]

[The owner has a fascinating second life as a classically trained bassoonist and has been creating unique flavor combinations for classic soft serve ice cream since 2009.]

[I got the Bea Arthur. Dulce de leche? Yes, please!]

update from the road: the high line

[The High Line]

I love visiting places but getting to slowly explore them on my own. The High Line is a great way for tourists to come and soak in New York, stretching from Chelsea to almost Penn Station. It's also a place I would go back to if I lived in that area of Manhattan, to read, to eat ice cream or have a coffee. An especially great place for New Yorkers with kids. I followed my visit to the High Line with exploring Chelsea Market where I managed not to eat more treats or buy anything from the Anthropologie sale.

cake decorating class

My mother and sister are cake decorating masters while I'm lucky enough to have the patience to get the cake iced before I eat it. Luckily my sister taught me a few tricks and we made this cake. We used her key lime cake trick so decided to tint the icing light green.

make lemonade

My sister and I had the great idea to make these amazing chocolate cups from bakerella. They involve melting chocolate and then using balloons to form the cups. We had a minor issue.

The balloons kept popping.

I want to try again some day but instead of spending our afternoon frustrated, we decided to change direction. Want to see what we made?