Lunch with Elle. Saturday I had a lovely lunch meeting with Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms at The Red Grape in Sonoma. She brought me a lovely treat of some home grown peppermint, tomatoes and quince! Wow. We both were in the mood for something light, although the pizza is amazingly good here. Elle is the only food blogger I've met in person so far, and it was evident from our first meeting that there was a kinship that would continue developing into a good friendship beyond blogging. I admire her many talents, she's so artistic and we may be seeing some more of that on her blog besides her great food.

I also mentioned our meeting place on Saturday a couple times in 2005, it was one of my father's favorite places to go when he was living in Sonoma. However, this is actually a review!

So both Elle and I ordered the Gargonzola salad and soup combination. I can never resist that salad! It has crisp spicy pecans, apple slices, red grapes and of course gorgonzola mixed with the tender mixed greens, and is paired with a cider vinaigrette. The clam chowder I ordered was full of tender clams and had a smooth flavor with hints of dill and some bacon bits along side the potatoes.

Elle had the same combination but tried the cream of tomato soup with basil, their signature soup. I tried a taste of this as well and it was smooth and sweet. I usually don't order tomato soups in restaurants as it can have a bite, but I wouldn't hesitate to order this one next time. Besides our favorite food topics, we discussed the state of the economy (ouch! with oil prices peaking over $90 during the week), and my niece Jessica, who I would see later in the afternoon as she is here for the Berkeley Edge Program. She has a very promising future pursuing Medical Microbiology. Elle beat me to the post, and her post about our adventure appeared on Feeding My Enthusiasms yesterday.

A meal fit for a maharajah. Dad and I splurged on a dinner for two Rani/Raja Special at India Palace the other evening. Interestingly, on the page for the Lafayette location, it makes reference to it being a family-run restaurant with other locations in Mill Valley and Berkeley, but there is no separate page for Mill Valley. In fact, I enjoyed the one in Lafayette in August and reviewed it. Frankly there were a lot more food choices at their Lafayette location and the food was better. An aside, it's getting darker earlier, winter is coming! So it's harder to get good outside and food shots of dinner.

First came the assortment of appetizers, vegetarian somosas, and califlower and potato pakoras served on top of a couple papadum. If the appetizers weren't quite so old-oily tasting they would have been good.

Dad tried a the Palace Special Salad. It was crisp and fresh with a tangy mustard dressing.

I tried the heavenly Mulligatawny Soup. I think the broth was homemade, and it was spiced just right. I'd love to come have a big bowl of this on a cold winter's day!

The Chicken Sagwala was a hit, with it's tender chunks of chicken immersed in a mildly spiced spinach sauce.

You could hear the plate of tandoori grill sizzling as it came towards us. It had tandoori chicken, boti kabob, seikh kabob, and chicken tikka kabob all lined up on the platter. It was quite good!

As if that wasn't enough, out came the mixed vegetables and rogan josh! Both were good, and the rogan josh bordered on superb.

Of course there was a generous dish of Palace Pillau. It was nicely garnished with peas, cashews and raisins.

And we can't forget the naan and onion kulcha! These were hot out of the oven, and delicious.

The Raja/Rani specials also came with dessert and drinks. We had hot chai, and Dad enjoyed the Kulfi.

While I tried the rasmali, wanting to taste a piece of the fresh paneer made here every day. The staff were charming and warm, and there was a picture of the Sikh's religious founder, Guru Nanak Dev at the entrance. It's a warm and inviting place, with standard Indian fare.

Cooking with Orchids. Well, not in the way you might think. This is more about the evolution of a thumb, from the normal pinkish color to more green. I remember my grandfather having a green house attached to his home that was actually larger than the home itself! He did things like invent new plants, the old-fashioned way. Although my parents grew up on farms, and had a large garden for a good bit of my growing up, I didn't catch the green thumb.

When I started my relationship with plant nurturing, things did not want to thrive for me, however oddly, rather exotic plants took to me, and I found success with African violets and then on to orchids. The photo above is of an orchid now blooming in my dining room. I stayed with the orchids for quite some time. But, emboldened from reading about the successes of other bloggers, I ventured on to other things.

Such as the basil. As sad as it looks now -- Muffintop confirmed it 'bolted'. And I also got a clue when my window washer, a gardener, mentioned that I need to 'harvest' the basil, and I noticed the flowering tops had been pulled off when he left the deck! A little extra service to a novice gardener I guess. It looked rather sad in the rain yesterday morning, but it still made a tasty filling with some fresh tomatoes in a frittata, and it is evidence of good success in my first non-exotic plant adventure. It's October, and I actually managed to keep it alive since July!

When the basil seemed to be continuing to live, I went on to mint! One of my favorite things is mint tea, and it is so much better with fresh leaves! You've seen this one before, but I used all the scraggly branches in the tea and gave it a good haircut about a week ago, and it's growing back incredibly quickly!

All of this made me confident enough to try something daring - arugula! I put some starts in a pot about three weeks ago, and it seems to be happy! I remembered that my mother had been able to grow copious amounts of leafy greens in a raised bed under our carport in a rather urban setting (Everett, WA). I thought since the weather is milder here, perhaps I could grow some greens too. You'll notice the wired pot stand on the right of the photo, this was from early attempts at growing rosemary. However, it gets SO windy on my decks, that things tend to blow over and every pot, even quite large, of rosemary would keep blowing over in the winter, even when not in the stand, and drying out. It's another reason I didn't think anything would grow here. But the arugula looks happy so far. I guess I could call the dishes I make with these things "extreme local"! That's the report for now.

When the Supper Club celebrated Greece, one of the readers requested the recipe for the moussaka. This is a little late, but I did get the recipe from Janis, and permission to post. For the whole Greek meal, you can check out the June post.

Moussaka

Ingredients:

4 large Eggplants, peeled and sliced
Kalamata Olive Oil – as needed – approximately 1 cup
2 large Yellow Onions chopped fine
1 pound of lean ground Lamb from Whole Foods
1 pound of lean ground Beef (90% or better)
4 cups of homemade Tomato Sauce (made with onion, garlic, basil and mint)
2 Tablespoons of Parsley
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 cup of your favorite Old Vine Zinfandel wine
½ cup Sour Dough Breadcrumbs (toasted)
1 cup of Parmesan cheese
½ cup of Feta Cheese
2 Tablespoons of Allspice
3 Tablespoons of Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of Nutmeg
1 Tablespoon Grey Sea Salt from Normandy
1 Tablespoon of a mixture of freshly ground Black, Red & Green Peppercorns

Béchamel Sauce:

12 Tablespoons of Butter
12 Tablespoons of Flour
1 large Shallot minced
1 Teaspoon of Nutmeg
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 cups of Whole Milk
3 cups of Light Cream
2 Eggs
2 cups of Parmesan Cheese
¾ cup of Feta Cheese
¾ cup of Gruyere Cheese

Directions:

1. Brush eggplants lightly with olive oil on both sides.
2. Place on cookie sheet and bake until tender – approximately 20 minutes turning once half way through cooking process.
3. Sauté chopped onions in small amount of olive oil till tender and just starting to brown. Season to taste with salt & pepper.
4. Add ground lamb and beef. Cook thoroughly.
5. Add tomato sauce, wine, 1/4 cup of the toasted breadcrumbs, parsley, and seasonings. Allow to simmer until liquid is reduced by half.
6. Taste and adjust seasonings to your taste.
7. While the meat mixture is reducing prepare the Béchamel Sauce.
8. Melt butter in large sauce pan.
9. Add shallots, nutmeg, and salt and pepper. Cook until shallots are translucent.
10. Add floor and cook flour until thoroughly cooked. (It will be a light golden brown.)
11. Add milk and cream. (I preheat them in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave to hasten the process.)
12. Mix the eggs and temper them with approximately half cup of sauce. Then add tempered eggs to sauce mixture.
13. When the sauce has cooked, thickened to the ribbon stage, add the cheese.
14. I added each cheese, one at a time. Stir constantly until all the cheese has melted.

To assemble dish:

1. Lightly oil a very large casserole dish.
2. Spread the remaining quarter cup of breadcrumbs along bottom of baking dish.
3. Place one layer of the eggplant, slightly overlapping to cover bottom of dish.
4. Layer half of the meat mixture.
5. Sprinkle the meat mixture with ½ cup of Parmesan & ¼ cup of Feta cheeses.
6. Place the remaining eggplant in a layer on top of the meat mixture.
7. Layer the remaining half of the meat mixture.
8. Sprinkle the meat mixture with remaining ½ cup of Parmesan & ¼ cup of Feta cheeses.
9. Cover the meat & cheese layer with the Béchamel sauce. The Béchamel layer will be approximately one inch thick.
10. Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes until top is golden brown.
11. Allow to sit for approximately 5 minutes before serving.

I've been hesitant to attempt this one. Chinese restaurants in Marin - I think it is common knowledge is that there are more Chinese restaurants anywhere on the globe than other kinds of non-local ones. The delicious photo above is from a lunch at Tommy's Wok in Sausalito. I found that this is an cuisine that could use a thorough review in Marin since so many of the places I located have neither a website or review to reference here. If I waited to review all of them, it would be a long time before I could make this post, so here it is, and look forward to updates on this.

Please let me know what I've missed!

Chinese restaurants I've tried

Greenbrae
Hunan First

Larkspur
CJ Chinese Cuisine

Mill Valley
Fishman Village
Harmony
Lily Kai
May Lee's
Peking Wok

Novato
China Palace
Jenny Low's
Panda's Cafe

San Anselmo
May Lee's Asian Bistro
Ming Garden

San Rafael
China Dynasty Restaurant
Chrysanthemum
Eric's Tsing Tao
Peking Wok
Pier 6
Szechwan 7 Chinese Restaurant
Three Dragons Restaurant
Yu Shang

Sausalito
Feng Nian
Panda Express
Tommy's Wok

Chinese restaurants yet to try

Fairfax
China Village
Szechuan Chef

Kentfield
Kin Wah Restaurant

Larkspur
The Canton Restaurant

Mill Valley
Chinese Deli

Novato
Bamboo Chopsticks
China Express
China House
China Village
Fuzhou Super Buffet
Happy Garden
Royal Mandarin
Shanghai Garden Restaurant

San Anselmo
Hot Wok

San Rafael

China Villa
Chopsticks Chinese Cuisine
Combo King Restaurant
House of Lee
La China Restaurant
Little Mandarin
Ming's
Ping's Mandarin Restaurant
Yet Wah

Tiburon
Dynasty

Clean, bright and inviting. Anchorage 5 is just what you'd like a quick and casual lunch spot to be. I was greeted promptly and a friendly waitress took my order. The water had a slice of lemon, and everything looked so clean and bright inside. The menu consists of breakfast items, American lunch choices, and a page of Mexican favorites.

I tried Ciji's Steak Tostada. It was like a chopped salad tostada with a nice mix of bits of tender steak and fresh crisp lettuce on a corn tostada base topped with creamy beans. The sour cream and guacamole added smoothness and creamy flavor. I liked it! Anchorage 5 serves breakfast from 7 a.m. until close at 3 p.m. , on weekends, it opens at 8 a.m. I'll have to try their breakfast another time!

Variation on an old favorite. Once you start on a cooking tear, one thing leads to another. I'm remembering the benefits of cooking more things from scratch, not the least of which is adding more healthy fruits and vegetables into the diet. Also the more you cook the more confident you get in doing variations and making things with what's at hand without the precise measuring, and it usually turns out fine. In this case, I remembered an old favorite, but not which recipe book it was in, nor the precise ingredients. Nonetheless, I made something close, and I think just as good by memory and incorporating things in my house already.

But the first thing I did was find a right-sized organic kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) at the local market. If you make this yourself, just think about the number of people you want to serve, and choose the size of kabocha for that many, then proportion the ingredients that will fill it, to match approximately the cavity size and a bit for the outside. I washed it and took out the seeds, being careful to also take away the stringy part. The recipe as I remembered called for baking the kabocha, but the times can vary, so I went with a more foolproof method - steaming.

So I put it into my spaghetti pot, and filled the bottom with alkaline filtered water (preserves the color and is a healthier water) - you can use regular water of course, then set the hallow kabocha in it, putting the lid back on so that it kept its shape.

I steamed it for about 25 minutes, while assembling and creating the filling. I used about 8 oz of fresh shitake mushrooms, a couple handfuls of walnuts, and two garlic cloves. I cleaned, sliced and chopped. I also had 1/2 lb. of freshly ground turkey breast. (For my vegtarian friends, substituting firm tofu would work well with this recipe.) I sauteed the turkey breast and chopped garlic first, when the meat was no longer pink, I added the mushrooms, sauteed some more and finally added the walnuts halves, which I quartered.

I then took a shitake mushroom organic gravy mix I had in the pantry, and mixed it with a cup of water, and added it to the meat and vegetables in the sautee pan, cooking it down to a thick consistency. When it was the right consistency, and about the time the kabocha was done steaming, I took it off the heat, let it rest a minute and then added a small (5.2 oz) carton of Fage Greek 0% fat yogurt.

I then spooned the hot mixture into the kabocha and capped it for a photo session before Dad and I devoured a good portion of it for dinner. We topped the meal off with some fresh nashi and plumcots. Our blood antioxidant levels must have been off the scale afterwards.

This is also my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Susan at The Well-Seasoned Cook. I'm highlighting the kabocha for this post as it is so completely healthy, and easy to use since the skin cooks up tender and you don't have to peel it to enjoy. Just eat peel and all!

If you like the texture and flavor of butternut squash, then you'll love the kabocha. It is chock full of beta carotene, with iron, vitamin C, and potassium. It has smaller amounts of calcium and folic acid as well. Grown in the U.S. as well as Japan, it is interesting that most of the California, Colorado and New Zealand kabocha crop is exported to Japan.

Hawaiian spirit at the Hukilau. My friend Sachiko knows all the interesting places. Last night we tried dinner at da Hukilau.

Cheerfully we were told that they were out of ahi, so instead of the Poke Salad would we be interested in the delicious tofu salad with avocado. We agreed this sounded good as well! And with its Maui Onion dressing on the side, it was fabulous and fresh.

We shared the salad and entree family style as it was a lot of food, just as we thought. We had the Sunday Laulau special. The Laulau is the ti-leaf wrapped packet on the right of the plate, filled with kalua pork and butterfish - it melted in our mouths! And the inner part had tender taro leaves which were edible with the fillings. The dish that looks like salsa, is actually Lomilomi, a kind of Hawaiin ceviche. Tomatoes, onions, and sea salted salmon, it was delightful. In the middle was Kalua Pig, a kind of tender pulled pork. You can see the rice, and requisite macaroni salad. The desert was Haupia, the white solid coconut pudding. It was cool, smooth and delicious. All-in-all a fun escape into the island breezes of flavor!

Simple and good. Just made a simple Black Forest Ham & cheese croissant sandwich, with very fresh croissants from Molly Stone's bakery. Put some sauteed mushrooms on top of the Black Forest Ham, top with cheese and put under the broiler briefly -- then out of the oven and top it! Saturday was a catch up with housework and accounting kind of day... relaxing and busy at the same time. I'm getting ready to take a business trip to Chicago and side trip to visit relatives in Louisville towards the end of the month. I may take a blogging break, depending on access and time. But for now, I'm here!

Ambiance and deliciousness over come rain. It was quite the rainy day yesterday, and a couple weeks before the bay area usually experiences rain. Those who are worried about a drought were certainly cheering thinking this may be a good sign of enough rain this winter. And the flower boxes loved it. I took the photo of Rooney's Cafe & Grill from the side since these were so vibrant here.

Dad and I went out to beat the rainy day gloom by having a nice dinner, and a movie next door at the Tiburon Playhouse. We had belly laughs at Death at a Funeral after a lovely dinner. I'm afraid the dim light didn't allow me to take photos that show the food to its fullest advantage, but I can assure you it was presented beautifully, and more importantly it tasted great. Dad enjoyed every last bite of his Poached Scottish Salmon over fingerling potatoes, fresh green beans and English cucumbers.

I was drawn to African Chicken. And I was delighted with how well it fit with phase two of the South Beach diet, a modest amount of brown rice, sweet potatoes, avocado, egg and of course chicken breast in a smooth peanut sauce. I have to admit that the chicken itself resembled nothing I'd ever tasted in Africa, meaning that it was boneless and tender, whilst in Africa it was always on the bone, and truly tough. But you were grateful it wasn't roasted goat! I love the continual inventiveness of this kitchen and it was fun to have tastes reminiscent of Africa, with high quality ingredients. I reviewed Rooney's last for lunch in December 2006, I can't believe so many months have passed since my last visit!

Choices, choices. A buffet fit for a Maharajah with plentiful choices in a clean and decorative setting and a reasonable price, it's hard not to come to the Bombay Garden frequently for lunch. I've mentioned the Bombay Garden before in August 2005, and I thought another time but can't locate the post. The furniture is ornate, yet tasteful and the mustard colored walls are quite cheerful. And if that wasn't enough, there are wide screen HiDef TV screens mounted on the wall with cheerful and beautiful Bollywood singing and dancing, and a quick fresh and hot basket of naan delivered to your table.

With all the fresh and delicious food, it's hard not to go overboard, but it's easy to find healthy choices as well. This food is all made fresh on site, even the cheese in the saag paneer, and the mango ice cream. I always keep my eye out for the 'yellow stickies', which indicate a special dish that day. I've often found some new delight that way as these are some of the more obscure or regional dishes.

Grilling in the waning light. I picked up something simple the other night, some boneless pork chops and knew I had some fresh greens and ripe avocado for a salad. I also hadn't made one of my favorite sauces for pork in awhile, a roasted red pepper sauce.

As I grilled the light slowly dimmed, and my flash went off as I snapped this and sat and watched the pot of basil bloom. Slow life in the fast lane. The basil has been an amazing bargain, not only has it provided continually fresh basil since July, it has had quite the entertainment value!

Ah, dinner comes closer for tasting at last. The roasted red pepper sauce is very simple. Just take a jar of roasted red peppers, drain most of the oil off, throw it in the blender, add as much dried red chili pepper as you like, blend and put in your sauce boat to serve table side.

Thai with Japanese sensibilities. I was in San Francisco the other day, and when deciding on where to go for dinner, thought that although I love Japanese food, I had better broaden my horizons that night. Knowing Clement Street to be full of culinary delights, I headed that direction, and frankly, the deciding factor was finding a non-Japanese restaurant in the vicinity of the first parking place I could find.

With a name like "be my guest", I shoulda guessed. But seeing a bright and happy looking "Thai Bistro" near my parking space, I thought I'd give it a try. Be my guest's website consists of its menu. As soon as I sat, freshly made shrimp chips appeared.

I ordered a Fresh Ginger Lemonade to sip while looking over the menu. It was fresh and zippy! And did I have a start when reading down the menu -- okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake), edamame? Japanese curry? Kiiro (yellow in Japanese) curry??? Whaaaat? I had inadvertently stumbled upon a Thai restaurant whose owner is half Japanese and half Thai. So much for avoiding Japanese that night!

I tried the enticing Fresh Spring Rolls to start. These spring rolls were stuffed with tofu, shrimp, crabmeat, egg, cucumber, bean sprouts, mint wrapped with romaine and rice wrapper served with tamarind sauce. Notice the beautiful food design, so very Japanese influenced.

The waiter recommended a special - a Steamed Fish Curry Cupcake (Haw Mok). This was something that a foodie DREAMS of happening upon! So beautifully presented, and described on the menu as "saba filet fish seasoned with red curry paste, coconut milk, thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves, topped on sliced cabbage, served up in banana leaf cup and coconut infused rice." This was a taste sensation, and highly recommendable! The verdict: I'd certainly like to be a guest here again!