This blog is hitting the road...again!

We're off on an end-of-year road trip to New Mexico, Ritesh, the blog and I , so hopefully there'll be some interesting food adventures ahead. Yay!

We won't be back until early January, so just in case I don't get mobile blogging figured out, here's a classic German New Year's tradition for you to partake in: Dinner For One

This little sketch has been on German TV every New Year's Eve (and only ever on New Year's Eve) for many decades, and it's probably safe to say that there's no German who hasn't seen it at least once. Last year on Dec 31, it aired 19 times, on different stations, and I'm assuming it's about the same number this year. So sit back and enjoy - it gets funnier the more often you watch it, particularly if you drink along with poor James... :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Fri, Dec 26 - Thai Spicy BBQ

11.26am - chestnut oatmeal w/ candied pecans, at home2.37pm - mushroom-prosciutto omelette, at home

7.59pm - I've been thinking about what my favorite meals were this year, and this was definitely one of them: the spicy Thai pork patties w/ fried basil and mint at Spicy BBQ restaurant, way over yonder near Thai town. We'd been wanting to go back there for months, but they were closed for renovation as a car had plowed into their storefront.
This is one of their signature dishes that we got to know thanks to Jonathan Gold's recommendation, hence my fierce devotion to the man at the time. Without him, we'd never have had this experience, so thanks very much Mr. Gold!

8.08pm - This is easily the spiciest thing we've had all year, and we eat spicy! A Thai-spiced serrano chili dip that you eat with sticky rice. It is insane, and we couldn't stop eating it until our stomachs were on fire and ...

8.10pm - ... we had to order Thai Iced Tea for some of that soothing dairy action.

8.20pm - a veggie curry w/ glass noodles that was really nothing to write home about. Really, the thing to get here is the pork patties and the chili dip, everything else is just so-so

11pm - some Moroccan orange-date salad w/ mint, toasted almonds and orange-blossom water, at home, still trying to soothe our burning stomachs. This is the same salad we made for our Moroccan Christmas dinner and that I forgot to take a picture of at the time...

Thurs, Dec 25 - Meanwhile, in Germany...

...my parents , my brother and his girlfriend are celebrating with the fabulous French wine Laurence and Jacob brought over this summer, plus the festive German potato salad that for some reason seems to be a Christmas custom over there. From what I understand, there's a certain level of reticence towards going overboard with the festivities, what with Jesus being born poor and in a manger and all. And here's my Dad's traditional smoked trout that we're missing out on!

Finally, after a year of cajoling, some guestblogging from the old world! Thanks for sending the pictures, Kay!

Thurs, Dec 25 - Pho Cafe

11.26am - some new ginseng tea, after FINALLY getting to sleep in!

2.29pm - can you see the rainbow in front of the buildings? On the drive to Silver Lake, past downtown LA.

2.53pm - after all the feasting this week, all we wanted was a good bowl of pho. So we trekked over to the Pho Cafe in Silver Lake, which is supposed to have the best pho in LA. And they were actually open on Christmas Day!2.53pm - Vietnamese crepe, made from rice flour and stuffed w/ shrimp, lemongrass steak and mung beans. You eat pieces of it wrapped in a thin rice paper sheet, along with some of the veggies in the front, and dipped in the peanut sauce in front. Shared with Ritesh - very yummy.

3.10pm - and my fabulous bowl of veggie pho - they weren't kidding when they said this was the best broth in the city! Fabulous! Ritesh had the chicken pho, which was also great.

8.28pm - flax seed spaghetti w/ a harissa based pasta sauce and some garlic naan, at home, with Ritesh

9.25pm - coconut-curry Phinney chocolate, at home, with Ritesh, while watching Man On Wire, a fabulous documentary about Philippe Petit, the French high wire walker who walked on a wire strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center, when they were still standing. Check out the trailer - it'll blow you away. My favorite documentary of the year, hands down.12.12am - chai tea Phinney chocolate, at home, with Ritesh, while watching the first five (!) episodes of Damages

Wed, Dec 24 - Osteria Mozza

Well, I guess Christmas is here! It kind of snuck up on me this year, buried as I have been in work until a few hours ago. I'm still having a hard time unwinding, and Ritesh just rolls his eyes at me whenever I veer off on a work-related tangent. But I guess this is it - Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you're having a lovely time wherever you are!

We already had our family celebration a few days ago, so tonight, for Christmas Eve, we headed over to Mario Batali's Osteria Mozza for a dinner courtesy of my parents (Thanks, Mom & Dad!).

7.38pm - an aptly named Aperol (w/ champagne) as aperitif while waiting for our table

7.49pm - and here we are!

8.16pm - some restaurants may serve olive oil with their bread - Mario Batali serves balsamico

8.23pm - a little appetizer on the house: crackers with a blissfully creamy ricotta and some roasted basil, very nice. Plus the wine Ritesh picked out - all I know is it's from Tuscany

8.27pm - Ritesh's radicchio, fennel and parmeggiano salad, with an anchovie-date vinaigrette. Too much parmeggiano and too little anchovie, he thought, but still very tasty.

8.27pm - my grapefruit, avocado and watercress salad w/ toasted walnuts that I was perfectly happy with.

8.42pm - a specialty from the Mozzarella bar: burrata w/ bacon, caramelized escarole and some more incredibly caramelized onions on top. From what I understand, a burrata is mozzarella mixed w/ricotta and then injected w/ some oil for added flavor. The creaminess is incredible - I really enjoyed this. Just wished the menu was a little clearer on what things were.

9.05pm - my pasta: a heavenly gnocchi w/ oxtail ragout. Fabulous! Really, really loved them. Ritesh is no friend of gnocchi as he thinks they're too soft. Which is precisely why I love them! These were just perfect, melt-in-your mouth little cushions of bliss.

9.06pm - Ritesh's bucatoni all'Amatriciana, nicely spicy and very al dente, with just a touch too much pancetta, he thought. He's hard to please sometimes....

9.33pm - a whole cabbage-wrapped grilled orata w/ some grilled lemon

9.34pm - an orata, I might add, which reveals itself as being stuffed w/ a lemony-salty spinach and parsley mix once you take the top half off!
And the best part is, they'd completely de-boned this fish! This was actually a filet! Very nice and simple and light.

9.58pm - this dessert, to me, was a revelation: this is olive oil gelato! With a sugary rosemary decoration and some little olive oil rosemary cakes. Now, the cakes were nice, very moist and soft and pleasantly flavored. The gelato though was incredible. It's hard to describe the flavor - it really is olive oil gelato, meaning, it tastes of olive oil, but it's milky and creamy and sweet - just out of this world. Loved it.

10.03pm - some basil eau de vie to end the night. Very nice and clean flavor - and made in California, by a German! :)

Wed, Dec 24 - Padre Pio's Hemin Bread

9.44am - half a blueberry scone, of wholesome flaxseed scone, half of a cinnamon bun and half of a chocolate-walnut-brownie-cookie - all goodies from the Head of Finance, who's assuming that we made our numbers this quarter (won't really now until the last monies have rolled in on Dec 31) and that the company's survival has been ascertained. Until next quarter, that is, when we'll start over again with another seemingly impossible target.

But enough about work. The more interesting thing is this bread dough that I got from Laura about 10 days ago, the day my new godson was born. It's some yeasty dough that you can either turn into bread right there and then by adding some oil, egg and sugar, or you can follow the instructions that come with it and nurture it for 10 days until it has quadrupled in size, at which you point you divide it into four and pass along three parts to three other people and turn the fourth part into a loaf of bread for yourself. Apparently, it's a Catholic thing - the instructions include some story about a certain Padre Pio from Italy who started this in 1971, and there's a prayer included that you can say in order to obtain Padre Pio's blessing and have a wish fulfilled, as the legend goes.

Now, I'm not religious, and somewhat distrustful of things coming from the Vatican, to put it mildly. However, any kind of bread dough is intriguing enough for me to look beyond my prejudice and give it a try. I have a hard time relating to the Catholic form of prayer as suggested by the instructions, but I did come up with my own version of good thoughts that I worked into the dough every time I attended to it. I didn't make a wish as such, but I did focus on an intention that I wanted to pass on to my selected three people. And I actually enjoyed it! It was an interesting experience, handling the dough every day, watching it change and grow - over ten days, it went from a tiny amount of limp white dough to a very substantial brown dough. Shame I didn't take a picture when I got it - but this is what it looked like on day 10, just before I divided it up:

And this is my quarter today, with eggs and oil added, ready to go into the oven

and here's my finished loaf! Ta da!

And it's totally different from what we expected! I thought it would be kind of sourdoughy, but with all the sugar added, it's much sweeter, more like a crumbly coffeecake, or some cornbread. Very tasty, though...

Wonder how it'll turn out for the three people I gave it to - can't wait to hear updates!

Tues, Dec 23

8.33pm - Moroccan leftovers - perfect breakfast food: The sugary and buttery cinnamon-almond flavor of the bisteya, along with its fake chicken protein, plus the nice spice of the veggies - kind of like a plate of French toast and breakfast links w/ hot sauce. Loved it.10.20am - some Lebkuchen, at work. Am still very pathetically tied to my desk, slaving away like crazy to tie up this year.

1.30pm - some of Ritesh's mom's home -cooked rajmah (Indian kidney beans) that she brought when they came over on Sunday , with some naan, at work6.38pm - sadly cheese-less French onion soup, from Bristol Farms, at home, with Ritesh. We need to make one of these soon - it's a Christmas tradition at my parents' house, and I'm really missing it these days....

7.02pm - some Death Valley Chipotle Kettle chips, at home, with Ritesh - and that's a Christmas card from his relatives from Texas that I got a kick out of....

Mon, Dec 22

7.54am - oatmeal made w/ some leftover apples that didn't fit on the ill-fated tarte tatin of yesterday, plus some of the caramelized apples plucked from the top of same, at home, with Ritesh12.14pm - Annie Cheung's Udon soup, at work

2.15pm - some leftover couscous and veggies, plus some OJ, in the lunchroom, at work3.03pm - chocolate cherry bumble bar, at work

6.54pm - more Moroccan leftovers, at home

7.03pm - some Lebkuchen, before heading over to Nady's to drop off some food and cuddle my new godson (Ritesh had to stay home and do traffic school...)

9.50pm - some Moroccan almond-rose cookies, back at home. This plate is from Morocco, too - but unlike the precious tagines that I haggled over at some market stall in Marrakech, this one is from a random corner grocery store in Casablanca and cost less than a dollar. And it's dishwasher safe!

Sunday, Dec 21 - Moroccan Christmas

9.22am - sampling the tea we're going to serve tonight after our Moroccan Christmas Dinner with the family : Mariage Freres' Casablanca, which is a mix of green and mint teas flavored w/ bergamot. Picked this up in Paris this summer and am very excited to finally have an occasion to try it!9.23am - and here's the tea, in our new Moroccan tea glasses. It's nice, but not nearly minty enough. Will have to add a LOT of fresh mint tonight to get the flavor right.

3.28pm - we've been cooking non-stop all day - this is the veggie layering for the Bisteya, a Moroccan sweet&savory pie made with phyllo dough that is normally filled w/ chicken or pigeon. We're using soy based fake meat, which works just as well. The next layer is egg scrambled and curdled w/ spices and lemon juice, topped w/ sugary and cinnamony almonds, and then baked.

5.08pm - we're celebrating Christmas early this year as Suzanne is going home to Wisconsin tomorrow for a wedding. In spite of all the wedding prep and assorted packing she had to do, she still managed to find the time to chocolate dip some pretzel sticks (see below) AND to pick out some lovely Christmas decorations for us, the seasonally challenged - see the very cute red (!) Christmas tree below - Thanks, Suzie!

The drink is a hot holiday punch made from a recipe we got in our little goodie bag at the Vintage Tea Leaf last week: it consists of their English Christmas pudding tea (which is very light and citrussy), made not with water but with equal parts of heated apple and cranberry juice, and then spiked with some red wine. Good stuff!

5.20pm - the finished Bisteya - turned out great!

5.47pm - finally getting to use my tagine dishes that I schlepped all the way through the Sahara way back when...

here's the spicy lentil pumpkin tagine

and here's the Royal Couscous (minus the Royal, as we're not actually serving merguez sausage with it). Very happy with the way it all turned out, plus we made a bunch extra for Nady and David, who've got their hands full with a little one and a newborn, so the all day cooking extravaganza was totally worth it.

5.48pm - fabulous salad that Prashant and Suzanne brought, with a great tahini dressing. Perfect complement to the other food - I wish there were some leftovers of that, too :) We did get to keep the leftover dressing, though - thanks, guys!

This is what happens when you say "Let's not do gifts this year, guys" - you get a bunch of gifts anyway! These are lots of goodies from Suzanne & Prashant, including some real Hawaiian vanilla bean that I can't wait to use. Thanks again, guys!

I was so flummoxed over all the gifts, I totally forgot about foodie pictures for the rest of the night. We had another great salad, an orange-date-mint salad that we'll have to make again, plus the Moroccan almond-rose cookies I made last night, with the long-awaited Moroccan mint tea.

I did take one more picture before going to bed, of today's attempt at the tarte tatin (French upside down caramelized apple cake) from the Bouchon cookbook. It took forever to prepare, but in the end it got burned in the oven. I'm not going to point any fingers because I most definitely should not have listened to whoever it was who told me to keep the cake in the oven because the crust wasn't brown enough. Suffice it to say I was disappointed, and ready to just toss it, but Ritesh and Prashant were very good sports and pretended to like the chewy gooey burnt-caramel flavored mess. Ahrgh.