Miracle Berry

Last night, I attended a free Yelp event where I encountered a most intriguing new product. Miracle Berry hails from West Africa originally, and is now available in pill format in the US as a red pill that dissolves on the tongue. For approximately 20 minutes afterwards, anything sour will taste sweet.

My favorite thing to eat while "flavor tripping" was lemon slices. It tasted like drinking delicious lemonade. Also on the table: balsamic vinegar and hot sauce. Funniest moment: my husband taking a shot of the hot sauce. Sure, the miracle berry made it drinkable, but the physical effects of the heat were still evident. Moments after taking the shot, my husband was coughing, hiccuping and sweating. I guess the berry could fool his tongue, but not the rest of this body!

I don’t recommend eating other sweet things while the effects of the pill last, because the flavor will be noticeably off. The mini cupcake I had towards the end of my 20-minute experience was not satisfying because of the strange stuff going on with my taste buds.

But I would love to try Miracle Berry again, especially with lemons!

Potato, Leek and Fennel Soup

Today, I want to share a very autumn-appropriate recipe for Potato, Leek and Fennel Soup. In France, it is known as vichyssoise and served cold, but it's also perfect for eating hot on a cool night. I loved the aromatics that filled my kitchen as I sauteed the leeks and fennel, and the creamy consistency of the finished product. Amazingly, there is no dairy in this soup - instead, a final trip to the blender gives the soup its smooth texture. I paired a bowl with a slice of rosemary bread from a bakery and went to "it's-almost-fall" heaven for a minute.

Potato, Leek, and Fennel Soup
from The Bon Appetit's Fast, Easy, Fresh cookbook

2 T. butter (1/4 stick)
2 c. sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only)
2 c. sliced fennel bulb, fronds chopped and reserved for garnishes
4 14-oz cans low-salt chicken broth (or substitute homemade)
2 lbs. red-skinned potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (about 4 cups)

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add leeks and fennel and saute until leeks are translucent, about 7 minutes. Add broth and potatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer soup until potatoes are very tender, about 25 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in blender. Return to pot. Rewarm soup if necessary. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls; garnish each with reserved fennel fronds if desired.

What I Eat When No One Is Watching

Deborah Madison, former chef of San Francisco vegetarian restaurant Greens, recently came out with a new book called What We Eat When We Eat Alone. More than another vastly popular cookbook (though she has put out quite a few), the book is an exploration and study of the quirky, peculiar tendencies of solo diners, complete with select unusual recipes.

When I heard about this topic, I realized that, like many of the folks examined in this book, I do not eat the same foods when I’m alone as when I eat with others. And what I eat when I’m alone now is different from a year or two ago. Back then, my favorite guilty pleasure - don’t judge!- was spinach dip with sourdough bread with a side of Spaghettios.

Ahem.

Now that I’m married, when I eat alone (as I did last month when my husband took off on a deep-sea fishing trip), I’m more likely to make things my husband won’t or can’t eat. Mushrooms. Eggs. One day while he was gone, I made both- a frittata.

But I still think the spinach dip/Spaghettio combo sounds delicious. What do you eat when you’re alone?

Pear Cake

A friend requested the pear cake recipe I mentioned in my earlier post on pears. This may well be the most simple cake recipe I have ever made. I didn't take a picture because it went pretty quick... It's essentially a slightly crunchy, golden, round, flat cake with slices of moist fruit throughout. Very simple and very good. You also experiment with the fruit, substituting apples or whatever is in season.

Pear Cake

3 or 4 ripe juicy pears
Peel, core and cut into sixths or eighths

Cream:
1 stick butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Add:
2 large eggs, one at a time

Combine:
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Add to butter mixture

Spray an 8" springform pan with Pam. Spread the batter in it. Now, in a pinwheel pattern, press the slices of pear, peeled side up, into the batter. Cream in as many as you can. The more pears, the moister the cake will be.

Bake at 350 degrees until a skewer comes our clean, 45-60 minutes. (With this cake, it's better to underbake than overbake.)

Weekend Getaway: Sensational Sebastopol

I am constantly amazed by the endless possible day trips in Northern California where I live. This weekend, we chose to explore the region surrounding one of my favorite small towns, Sebastopol, which lies between Bodega Bay and Santa Rosa.

We started our trip at the popular Wild Flour Bread bakery in Freestone, which is just outside Sebastopol, located on the aptly named Bohemian Highway. Opened in 1998, this bakery has been been given many awards and has a loyal following for their moist scones, gooey sticky buns, and quality breads.

The chalkboard menu

The lady behind the counter was friendly and let us sample the breads before we bought them. We bought a Bohemian Bread (a sticky bun flavored with apricots, pecans and orange peel) and Garlic Rosemary Bread for some sandwiches the next day. Then we meandered around the garden in back, where we saw everything from rows of ripened raspberry vines to leafy green kale, apples trees, herbs, and tomatoes. They use coffee grinds from the coffee they sell, along with kitchen scraps, to make the compost that helps their garden thrive.





Sebastopol was our next stop. This is a quirky town, where you can find unique stores like Bee Kind, source of beekeeping supplies and all things bee-related, like candles, health supplements, and every kind of honey imaginable.

There are many vintage clothing shops, like this one, which made us feel like we were transported back to the 70's. (Always wondered why everything was so hideous back then. Theories, anyone?)

For lunch, we ate on the patio at the beautiful French Garden restaurant. The landscaping was immaculate-


The atmosphere was supremely relaxing, and the food would fit in at the Louvre as an example of fine art! See for yourself...

Vegetable tabbouleh with quinoa

Beet salad

Buckwheat Crepe with Nutella and caramelized fruits from their farm

Did I say "their farm"? I did! The restaurant grows most of their own produce on a 30-acre bio-intensive farm just up the street. Then- quelle chance (what luck)! Our waitress informed us that the farm was offering free tours that day! After falling in love with the food we had eaten for lunch, we couldn't resist visiting the farm itself. Here it is...


After soaking in the view of the ideally situated farm, we met Farmer Don. Here he is on his old 1940's-era tractor.

Don was in the middle of doing some old-fashioned weeding, but he took the time to explain to us that bio-intensive farming means that before planting their seedlings, they break up the bottom soil, add compost and then replace the top soil, thereby improving the quality of the soil. The food we eat, he explained, is only as good as the soil it's grown in. The farm uses no pesticides. Don seemed to genuinely enjoy his work, and we were impressed that he took time from his work to chat with us. He even generously told us that we could help ourselves to whatever vegetables we wanted! So we scouted out some produce....

And left with two kinds of sweet peppers, crisp romaine lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, shockingly bright yellow squash, perfect zucchinis, and multi-colored potatoes and carrots.

Everywhere we went, we met kind, friendly people, such as the people who run Rose and Thorn, a little shop that sells garden supplies, eggs, chickens, and has a small farm attached.

The chickens and roosters wander around the farm and the beautiful picnic area, mingling with the customers and posing for pictures, and sheep and goats graze peacefully alongside them.
At last, we had to move on, but made one last stop in Petaluma. This town is an antique hunter's dream, one of the biggest stores being Vintage Bank Antiques.
Another hidden treasure? Cucina Paradiso, where you can get delicious Italian food like rigatoni with sausage and roasted red peppers...
Or the Ravioli della Casa, filled with Swiss chard and topped with fried sage, butter and tomato sauce.
Right next door you will find Cocolat, purveyor of all things chocolate. Peruse their selection of truffles and chocolates, or try a dessert or European sipping chocolate. They even offer a chocolate fondue for two, although we went with chocolate cake and hot chocolate.


This was a wonderful day trip for us. What's your favorite one-day getaway destination?

Pears - the Most Symbolic Fruit?

A neighbor recently gave us a large paper bag full of pears that had fallen from her tree and were on the verge of going bad. Bruised and covered with not a few brown mushy spots, the pears could easily have been dismissed by the casual onlooker as rotten and tossed in the trash.

I was convinced that I could still make use of some of the pears. I was amazed by how many of the fruits yielded a creamy white, beautifully ripe interior when I sliced them open. My battered pears yielded a huge pot of warmly spiced pear/apple sauce, and a lovely simple pear tart, with firm pear slices pinwheeled through a crunchy golden crumb.

I suppose many people we meet every day are like my pears- the life-battered surface level fails to reveal the pure goodness that often lies within. These pears reminded me that you cannot always judge a fruit by its appearance, much less a person.

Water Footprint?

In a recent article by National Geographic, I learned that the average American household is fueled by 2000 gallons of water a day. The surprising part is, the obvious suspects here such as dishwashers, showers and lawns only make up 5% of this amount. The rest comes from factors we generally don't see and therefore fail to consider.

I took this fun, 10 minute Water Footprint quiz about my lifestyle that measured the water I consume. If you take the quiz, some of the questions might startle you as they did me, as you realize that the number one culprit in water consumption is our food system.

I consider myself an occasional meat eater. I put down on average a modest estimate of twice a week consumption of pork, beef, and chicken, with very little dairy. (This is far below the national average of 6-7 weekly servings of each.) My lifestyle equated to about 1130 gallons of water a day, which is far below the national average of 2000; yet even still, my diet constituted 65% of my Water Footprint.

Surely there is something we all can do to be a little better at conserving one of our most precious resources. Check out the quiz and see how well you fare in comparison, or try this list of the amount of water it takes to create popular, common commodities.