I've got to work my way up

The French Laundry is a big deal. I took a zillion pictures of it and it was amazing and fabulous and I wouldn't want to phone it in on this blog. I want to have time to really pull out all the stops. This is not that time.

When I was younger, Fenton's Creamery in Oakland was the place to go. After every show, my friends and I would pile into the car of anyone who could actually drive and celebrate with ice cream sundaes (because we couldn't go to bars yet). Then, sometime while I was in college, it burned down (by some disgruntled employees). It was sad. A few years later it reopened, but I haven't been there since. My friend Miranda worked there as an ice cream scooper last summer and asked if I wanted to go get ice cream, and really, who wouldn't? Ice cream is great. Here's my friend Miranda.


She's the blond one (you probably know that already). Isn't she pretty? She lives in New York now too. Here's the ice cream.


The ice cream is really good here. It's old fashioned and yummy. They have a ton of flavors and the sundaes are the best. I got a "petite" sized one, which I appreciated, because one can really only eat so much ice cream at once. You could also get small, medium or large, plus they have black and tans, banana splits, all that good stuff. It's a nice warm up to the French Laundry....

California Dreamin'

Winter is upon us here in New York, with freezing cold temperatures and spits of snow flurries. If you thought that delicious fruit and vegetables were grown here in this season, well you'd be wrong. My CSA has ended for the winter, most farmer's markets have struck their stands and the ones that haven't have some potatoes, squash, apples - nothing to sneer at, but not exactly paradise on earth either.

In California, however.....


Argh! How beautiful are those tomatoes? And in November (when those pictures were taken)! These pictures were all taken at the Lakeshore Farmer's Market in Oakland, which is a magical and special place. Foodies complain that produce is shipped from California all over the country, leaving a huge carbon footprint and losing freshness. But when you're already in California.....well, the possibilities are endless.


Look at those oranges! We never have those in New York. Oh, citrus. How I miss thee. Let me count the ways.


This is summer squash - SUMMER. In November. I rest my case.


I wish there were mountains of sugar snap peas in New York in the winter.


Eggplant. My one true love. All I want to do is make pasta alla norma every day.


Strawberries!!!!!! Why isn't there fruit in New York? I hate winter.


Another thing New York doesn't have (probably nowhere else has this. Where else would there be vegans who wanted soul food? Vegans. I turn up my nose at you. You are not invited to my house for dinner. Why would you forsake ice cream and cheese? Why????)


I want a giant bouncy shark at every farmer's market. Who doesn't love one of these? Oh, Oakland. You're a crazy wonderful place.

Accept No Substitutions

You know I love Dippin' Dots. So when my sister and I went to Brooklyn's Keystone Park (to see the Cyclones! But we didn't actually see them. We got rained out) and saw these -


- well, we figured it would be the same. I mean they look the same, right?


Alli doesn't seem to think they taste the same.


In fact, they sucked. Steer clear! We had to throw them away. However, on my trip to California, we headed over to the Oakland Coliseum (to see the A's!!! Woo!!!). Here's my dad and sister, decked out in A's gear.


My sister got us the real thing:


Banana split and mint chocolate mixed together! It sounds gross, but we've gotten used to it. For the Dippin' Dots alone, Oakland is way better than Brooklyn. Plus, you know what they have in Oakland?


That's right, fireworks! Love it.

Warning: Gratuitous Cuteness Ahead

I'm feeling a little blue today. You know what cheers me up?


Cute babies!!!!!!!! I love babies. Especially when they belong to my dear friends. This is Hana's baby. You can probably guess that though, since she's in the picture. Her name is Tatum. I like to call her Po-tatum.

I know, you're thinking, Lena, this blog is about food and theatre. I don't see any food or theatre in this post. Okay, fine. Here's some food.


We served this to Hana. It's all from the Farmer's Market in Oakland. I love the Farmer's Market. Did you know that? You probably did. The bread is gluten free pao de quejo. That's a Brazilian cheese bread. It's not from scratch. I can't make it from scratch. But Meredith can. Click here for a recipe. We got some nice blueberries too.


One last gratuitously cute picture:


I feel a little better now.

I love the Bay Area

It's so nice there. The weather is lovely, the people are great - and the food. Did I mention the food? Well, it rocks.

Elana recently moved back to the Bay, so we decided to go out and have a nice meal. We'd already been to Chez Panisse (read about it here), so I picked the Zuni Cafe. For those of you who don't know, the Zuni Cafe is one of those locally grown, simple but delicious places - like Chez Panisse, but in San Francisco.

We started off with oysters from Point Reyes. I love oysters. They're like eating the ocean.


We then moved on to Serrano Ham with Roasted Figs stuffed with Goat Cheese and Almonds.


Whoops! We started eating it before I could take a picture. That's how good it was. Here's Elana's half eaten plate.


We continued with Turkish meatballs. They were so yummy. There was tomato sauce and pine nuts and yogurt all mixed in....plus, look at the cool bowl they come in.


Did I mention that the light in this restaurant was the best light ever to take pictures in? We were right next to the window and there was so much natural light, it was crazy. It was so beautiful there, I could take a great picture like this one:


That's fettuccine with corn, cream, and mascarpone cheese. It was amazing, like a non-heavy Alfredo sauce with little bursts of fresh summer corn. The cheese was so good, we decided to have more cheese instead of dessert.


That's fromage blanc with fresh raspberries. It was nice and light and creamy. We got these figs and grapes to go with it.


It was so good. I'd definitely go there again. You should go there too!

Back to the keypad....

Apologies, dear readers. California is just so much fun, I don't have time to blog. It also doesn't help that I'm trying to stay on New York time by going to bed at 10pm every night. What can I say? I'm an old lady.

Last time I was in California, somehow it came up that my mom had never been to high tea. She said it wistfully - I could see her imagining herself in a pretty dress, in an elegant hotel ballroom, sipping tea with her daughters. So I took it upon myself to make some reservations for tea while I was here in CA. She seemed pretty excited about it. I'm such a good daughter.

Dressed in our summer-y finest, we headed out to San Francisco to have tea at the Fairmont Hotel. It was very old time-y and classic San Francisco.


They started us out with some pear-basil sorbet in a peanut brittle cup. It was quite refreshing (high tea makes you say things like "quite").


We each picked a tea, Darjeeling for my mom and the Fairmont Blend for me (I reasoned I should get something I couldn't get anywhere else). They served it in individual pots with those fancy little strainers.


Then they brought out a three tiered tray of sandwiches, scones and pastries. Who doesn't love that?


I couldn't quite fit the sandwiches in the picture - here they are again.


They were very flavorful for tea sandwiches - no bland cucumbers here. There was coconut chicken curry, rare slices of beef with watercress, crab salad on a corn muffin (really really good), smoked salmon pinwheels and goat cheese with sundried tomato tapenade (I love goat cheese).

The scones were excellent as well. You really can't have tea without scones. The best part about scones? You get to eat devonshire cream with them.


Yum! They also had lemon curd that my mom loved. I'm all about the cream though. We ate our little pastries (my mom liked the eclairs best, I preferred the madelines), took the rest home and called it a day (actually, we called it a massive traffic jam, thanks to a fire on Yerba Buena Island). But even being stuck in the car for two hours could not ruin our lovely day.

Where did all the sunshine go?

I miss California already. One of the many things I miss is the amazing Farmer's Market. Yes, we have Farmer's Markets in New York (you can even read about it on Meredith's blog), but they're just not the same. Here in New York, we have produce and it's good. However, it's a little limited. Our seasons are more severe, so we can't grow strawberries and heirloom tomatoes and other amazing fruits what seems like year round. For example, have you seen strawberries like this in New York lately?


I thought not. What about grapefruits like this?


Not those either? Bummer. A huge amount of this country's produce is grown in California, so it stands to reason that the local produce in California is going to be AMAZING. I've always loved the Lakeshore Farmer's Market (you can read a bit about my affinity for it here). It's just a rocking good time. In New York, it seems to me that a lot of people who go to the Farmer's Market's are a little bit hippie/hipster. You don't see a lot of people like this:


This guy just walked in front of the picture I was taking, but I thought it captured the spirit of the Oakland Market very well. Here's the picture I was trying to take:


From left to right, that's our friend Roy, my Uncle Donny and my Uncle Steve (they were all in CA for the big Champion of Justice dinner, or as it's now known around my house, "Borgen Fest 2008"). Ah, good times. I'll leave you with one last picture that Zack insisted that I put on my blog - him eating an organic raspberry honey stick and enjoying the heck out of it.

Better than Ice Cream

Since this is the "Champion of Justice" weekend, I thought it was only fitting to include a post that is dedicated to my dad. This post is about one of the things that my dad loves most in this world: gelato.

I remember exactly when my dad first decided he loved gelato. It was about six or seven years ago. We'd just seen a play at the Gelateria Naia on Shattuck avenue and we saw rows and rows of gelato like this:


Our taste buds skipped a beat as we tried various flavors such as Nutella, Guinness and Don Giovanni. It was delicious, creamy and the start of a lifelong obsession. Since then, I've sampled flavors such as Rose, Violet, Mojito, Champagne, Cantaloupe, Pomegranate and countless variations of chocolate. My favorite combination is pictured below (along with Zack's selection - Nutella and Cholocat Mortal):


Stracciatella (an Italian vanilla and chocolate flakes) and Peanut Butter Chip! What I like about them is that the chocolate flakes are the same consistency. It's so good.

But back to my dad. He decided he liked gelato so much, every time I'd come home from college, he'd drive us out to Berkeley for no reason other than to eat it. We ran into some friends of his once at the gelato place. "Oh, hi," they said. "Do you live in the neighborhood?" My dad and I looked at each other. "Nope." "Oh," they said. "Well, were you in the area for something?" "Just to eat gelato!" My dad exclaimed. "Oh......" they said. "Ok."

My dad has since spread his loyalty to other gelato places in the area. There's a new place near the Grand Lake Theatre that he's proclaimed his new favorite, but I am a Mondo Gelato purist (or Gelataria Naia, I suppose). It's my favorite! (until I go to Italy some day and then I'll reevaluate)

Chez Panisse!

Yesterday my mom, Uncle Steven, Zack and I all went to lunch at Chez Panisse. For those of you who don't know, Chez Panisse is a world renowned restaurant in Berkeley, CA, started by Alice Waters, a champion of local foods and all around amazing lady. It is very "California" with strong French influences. It is one of those foodie destinations, and as some one who grew up 20 minutes away from it and has only visited once (on my 21st birthday), it seemed like time to revisit.

We went to the cafe upstairs for lunch (they have a set menu downstairs for dinner and a cafe upstairs that's all "a la carte." One of the things I love about Chez Panisse, is that when you walk in, it really just feels like a home in Berkeley. Sure, it's a restaurant, but it's also like the places that my friends grew up in (plus gourmet food). We sat down and picked a variety of things (all local and seasonal and delicious). I started with the avocado and grapefruit salad with citrus vinaigrette.


It was really nice and light - very California flavors, with the citrus and the avocado (my photo is a little overexposed, but what can you do). I was a little embarrassed taking pictures there, but I sucked it up and did it anyways for all of you. The waiter noticed and my mom told him that I had a food blog, and I think he tried a little harder because of it (not that he wasn't good before, but you know).

Zack had this awesome pizza starter: Pizzetta with sorrel, brandade and egg.


Sorrel is a plant (and what my parents originally wanted to name me. Seriously), brandade is a kind of salted fish thing that tasted almost exactly like crab, and you know what eggs are. You cut a slice of pizza and dipped it in the egg yolk. Amazing! (I'm skipping my mom and Uncle Steven's starters - they were really good, but you can see them anywhere - fresh oysters and baked goat cheese salad)

For mains, I got the Soul Food Farm chicken leg al mattone with grilled asparagus, roasted potatoes and salsa rustica. I know, normally one does not order chicken in a restaurant, but I didn't feel like seafood and the other mains were already spoken for and I wanted as much variety as possible. Plus, Chez Panisse is amazing and they wouldn't serve it if it wasn't good, right? Of course, right.


So, here it is. It was really great! The salsa rustica was made of chopped hard boiled egg and parsley (it took me forever to figure out what the egg was and finally, I had to ask. It tasted like egg, but I also thought maybe it was cheese curd? I liked it).

Zack got Spaghetti with wild mushroom ragu and peas. It was probably my favorite main course. It had some sharp cheese grated on top and as Zack said "the mushrooms taste like beef!"


My mom had Cauliflower soup with orange zest and marjoram (not technically a main dish, but whatever). It was a nice puree with some milk (not cream) and chicken stock.


Uncle Steven had this sirloin sandwich with artichokes and shoestring potatoes.


I really like the fried potatoes. Normally, shoestrings aren't so wide, and I thought that was really neat.

For dessert, we all split coffee-espresso brittle ice cream (which meant there were bits of espresso beans and crystallized coffee - kind of like coffee rock candy - in the ice cream) and rhubarb tart with ginger ice cream. Here they are:


The ginger ice cream was really good - not too strong at first, but it kind of kicked you in the aftertaste.

All in all, it was a great visit to Chez Panisse! Some day, I'll have to go back and get the "fixed" menu - but that'll be another post.