High Tea at Peninsula Beverly Hills

So a couple of weeks ago my friends and I took our friend Ashlee to the Peninsula Hotel for High Tea. Ashlee just got married and we wanted to do something nice for her.
And hands down the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills has the best High Tea in California.
Here are the ladies who lunch, all happy to be together, and enjoying ourselves to a civilized afternoon. Champagne doesn't hurt either. Don't we look like a Benetton ad?

My only complaint for the afternoon is we didn't get to sit in the "Living Room" which is a lovely room, with big comfy shabby chic sofa's and harp playing. We did have our tea outside on the patio which was very pleasant and did allow us to talk a little louder than we would usually.

We started off with strawberries and the creamiest clotted cream, it was thick and buttery, perfect for topping off strawberries.


The sandwichs and desserts were yummy, they even let us have a few extra salmon ones and let us choose what we wanted more of the tier for the vegetarians among us.

The next picture of scones leads me to tell a story of a high tea my friend Miche and I went to at the Four Seasons in Carlsbad California many moons ago. This Four Seasons is a beautiful location and we had a whole weekend to indulge. My friend Miche and I had been to many high teas before so we knew what to expect. However, her mother had never been to a tea.
And so we sat down and ordered our tea and prepared ourselves for tasty treats. This was also great conversation day. When the tier of goodies arrived the hostess described what was in each dessert and sandwhich and ended with the scones. Here's how that went:

She said, "I would start with the scones."

Miche and I said, "oh great." As we reach for a scone with our hands....

She says, "Oooohh we're touching, we're touching" and proceeds to pull out silver tongs and gently clutch a scone and place it ever so delicately on a piece of English China.

Miche's mom is mortified. Miche and I nearly fell off the couch dieing laughing. Really who does this. Snobbery can be so hilarious sometimes.

Back to our tea. Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills is a must visit tea if your into that kind of thing. It's nice to get dressed up and take a break from the monotony. On our way out of the hotel lobby we saw a line of really nice cars, including a couple of Ferrari's. We got a kick out of a guy unsuccessfully trying to start his engine, embarrassing to say the least, but he and his trophy lady finally got it right just about the same time my keyed Ford Explorer pulled up. Even us "beer" girls can have "champagne" taste.

Peninsula Beverly Hills
9882 S. Little Santa Monica Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

Studying for 2 weeks

I'm in a school studying for 2 weeks. I have images from the Peninsula Hotel and a rowdy night at the Home Depot Center. Yes I can be sophisticated and sporty. Hey I'm two of the spice girls "Posh" and "Sporty" spice. Which brings me to David Beckham, yes he got booed Sunday night and no I will never buy a General Admission ticket ever again. I know you can't wait to hear it all. Hopefully I can get something up over the weekend when I have a little break.

Fourteen Years and Osteria Mozza

So it's another Anniversary celebration. Only this time my wedding anniversary. Yes it's been 14 years, yes we were pups when we got married. This past year has been particularly tough for us. The times we live in, the economic issues, just life in general have made it hard. But we are best friends and we make it work with lots of hard WORK and some serious praying.

So here's how our week started off. Apparently I was a little bit grouchy the other day about SB's non-enthusiasm regarding dinner at Osteria Mozza. Seriously, he's a foody, you'd think he'd love this. But he's also practical and not the romantic, planning type. But FOURTEEN years deserves a nice dinner at the very least. So when I got home Wednesday afternoon, the above flowers were waiting for me. With this note:
I asked him "why the Tinman sign off?"
He said: "I wanted you to know that I have a heart."

And he does, the best man ever. He makes me laugh just about everyday, cooks just about every night and cleans (does the dish's, our laundry and scrubs the shower) all while working hard in several jobs with multiple responsibilites. (And yes I do work a 40 hour work week and put in 70 hours of monthly volunteer time, not a lazy wife, we're just a busy couple). He is my best friend and I appreciate him more than words can say. Now enough of the mush...let's get to the eating part.

We did make it to Osteria Mozza. And it was well worth the wait. As it was a last minute reservation it was either 5:30 or 9:30 on a Wednesday night. We choose the old folks hour of 5:30 which was perfect, except the L.A. traffic, which is never ideal.

It took us a long time to figure out what we wanted to order, the menu is daunting. I asked what are Osteria's specialities. We pretty much ordered them all.

The staff recommended the Grilled Octopus with potatoes, celery & lemon. I'm not a big tentacle person, but SB wanted this. And it was perfectly grilled with a lemony flavor. Unexpectedly delightful to the my untrained palate.

Burrata with grilled asparagus, brown butter, guanciale & Sicilian almonds. Who doesn't like bacon and brown butter. YUmmmmm.

I ordered Orecchiette with sausage & swiss chard. This was rich and the bread crumbs added a perfect crunchy texture. I took my time eating this and drinking the red wine which I order by the glass and you get a 1/2 carafe which really amounts to a glass and 1/2.

SB orderd Pan Roasted Halibut con pepe verde, which tasted like it was basted with wine and lots of capers.

The finale was the Bombolini which was fresh made donuts rolled in sugar served with mountain huckleberry compote and vanilla gelato. The little candle was for our anniverary. Props to "Open Table" for actually sending the note to the Maitre'd that we were celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary.

Osteria Mozza
6602 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
1.323.297.0100

Chocolate Kiss Cookies

For our outing at the Hollywood Bowl I knew I had to bake something. So of course I pick one of the hottest days of the summer to bake in a downstairs apartment with no air condition. Smart, right, not so much. Worth it, definitely.

I pulled a recipe from a much coveted down home cookbook given by a long-time friend who I haven't seen in over a decade. It's the much used Dow City - Arion Quasquicentennial Cookbook 1869-1994. Yes that's correct I said "Quasquicentennial" which means the 125th anniversary of this small town in Iowa. All the towns people contributed recipe's for this book. My friend walked me through whose to follow and whose to avoid. I watched her make many of the recipe's myself so I knew this one was a winner.

Chocolate Star Cookies (I use Chocolate Kisses)
1 c. Butter
1 c. Peanut Butter (for this recipe I used creamy Skippy's)
1 c. Sugar
1 c. Brown Sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs, beaten
4 T. milk
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 c. flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Additional granulated sugar
1 pkg of chocolate star or kisses)

Cream butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar; add eggs, milk and vniall. Sift together dry ingredients, except additional sugar and candies; add to butter mixture. Shape into balls; roll in sugar and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and press and chocolate star or kiss on each cookie until the cookie cracks around the edge. Return to oven for 5 minutes. (Recipe contributed by Annie and Jana Sitzmann)
I did have a special request to bake cookies with chocolate and oatmeal. So I pulled out the big ole Quaker Oats round canister and looked around for a recipe. There it is right under the lid only its for oatmeal raisin cookies. I substituted the raisins for for semi-sweet chocolate and voila, these were a hit. Deb traded her peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies for oatmeal chocolate chip. Jessica wouldn't trade. I still have some girls, I'll bring them by.

Ray LaMontagne, Jenny Lewis, Blizten Trapper @ Hollywood Bowl

Summer time in L.A. is always fantastic everyone must take advantage of the extra sunlight and great things to do during these long days. On Sunday night we went to the Hollywood Bowl.
I've been coming here since I was a little girl and this is the first time I was able to sit in a box seat with the generosity of a dear person. Valet parking is the way to go to the bowl, I'm so used to hiking up the hill I nearly wore my sneakers (trainers for my one British reader). This was the easiest Hollywood Bowl trip. We got in a fit of giggles the entire night that didn't end even on the drive home. We even had time to do a little nail polish touch up, really who does this....apparently we do. My friend brought her Holga camera and went testing away at all the blue, red and yellow flash settings. Check out her shots here. We had an amazing time, candlelit dinner, pear cider and sangria, good food and hip music. This hot KCRW summer night was memorable. Blizten Trappen started the evening off at a tough time while we're still eating, but the had a folksy blues to their sound. Jenny Lewis followed them up with her contagious energy and uber talent on multiple instruments. Her back-up rocked it out as well. I love this shot of her hair flying around while she jumped on to her second instrument of the night. This L.A. girl had that glow in her eyes that said, "look at me I'm playing the Hollywood Bowl." Her last song "Sing a song for them" was gorgeous.Ray LaMontagne was the headliner. He is a true introvert with an amazing haunting voice. He played the acoustic guitar with the Hollywood Bowl orchestra. His lyrics and soulful voice had all the women in the bowl howling.

On our way out we ended up being parked right behind the bowl. They had the doors open pulling all the instruments off the stage. We ran took a picture and jump into our nice ride. Now everyone thinks we're somebody and well we are, just not the flashy, no choney, bliztd celebs of the day. In fact it was four women have a good evening together laughing all the way home.

Make the bowl a destination this summer if you can, even the bus ride is a blast if you go that route. But can't deny the luxury of a box seat and a little valet parking.

Some images courtesy of Deborah Justine, camera stealer and Holga photographer.

Happy 2nd Anniversary

It's been 2 years since I started this blog. I love posting and wish it was my full-time job. It gives me a chance to talk about the places I go for entertainment, food and life in general. It has also given me a creative outlet to post some of the many pictures I take. I know there are only a few loyal readers and I appreciate all your comments and posts. Keep em coming.
So this anniversary I took the opportunity to do something in L.A. that I've wanted to do for a very long time. I went to see a movie at the Hollywood Cemetery. I know, sounds odd, it is, but it was honestly the best thing I've ever done in L.A. This past Saturday they played the movie "East of Eden," with James Dean. Really the movie is just bonus. I had so much fun up till the movie I would have been happy even if they hadn't shown it.
Here's how it works. You line up in front of the gates before they open up at 7:30. This isn't your usual line. It's on the grass area in front of the cemetery. Only things is you plop down on the grass and break out your lawn chair or blanket, uncork (or unscrew) your bottle of wine and get to sippin. If only you could do this waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. You Pay $10 to see the movie, walk on through the cemetary, not on the graves, on a road. Then plop yourself either in the middle, blankets only, or on the sides, blankets and low lawn chairs. We had chairs so we took to the right side. This is where the low tables, candles and the eating get started. These guys came prepare, at night the table was lit with candlelites. We took a quick run to my favorite Italian deli, Bay Cities in Santa Monica. My Turkey sandwhich with all the fixings was delish, as usual.

A DJ spins music till it get's nice a dark.
This evening we had a great DJ spinning groovy tunes. As it get's darker they start projecting old movie posters on the mausoleum wall. At about 8:50PM it was tribute to Farrah Fawcett, old classic movies. At 8:55PM the DJ spun a tribute to the King of Pop. Everyone got up and started dancing in the dark. Favorite quote of the evening, "Danieeellll, for god sakes get up it's the King of Pop." (That's Daniel below, never met, but thought it was funny)Movie starts at 9PM, James Dean's first movie and you see him ooze with talent. Your under the stars, those that you can see, we counted about 2 and the moon was glowed behind us. It gets damp on the grass at night so make sure you bring lots of layers. Oh and just so you know you aren't sitting on anyone's grave, your purely on grass and dirt. Bathrooms are porta potties...go early, if you know what I mean. Movie is over at 11PM and you pack up and walk out. My tip is park on the street, the poor folks who paid $5 to park in the cemetery had a long wait to get out as all us pedestrians wound our way through the walkways.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery
6000 Santa Monice Blvd at Gower

Intelligentsia - Venice Coffee Bar

Finally I got to visit this place. The other SoCal location is in Silver Lake, but I never get that way, so I was super happy it opened on Abbot Kinney in Venice.

Though it took a while for them to open the space is modern and cool

The barista's take there time and are very attentive to each and every guest, so it's not for someone in a hurry. As you can see in the guest book above a few people left because it was too slow. The line on Saturday was out to the door to the sidewalk. Meanwhile Abbot's Habit was very quiet, I would be really upset if that placed closed because on Intelligentsia. But it's the new spot, so we all want to check it out.

I do have to say the coffee is really good and the pour is art in itself.

If you have the time check it out.

The croissant and chocolate almond brioche were delish.

If you don't have the time to visit the artful coffeebar then run down the street to Abbot's Habit. There you can check out the art on the wall, drink a cup-o-joe, order a tofu muffin (seriously good) or some Rosemary Toast and sit outside with the local's and their canine friends.

Intellgentsia Venice Coffeebar
1331 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

La Grande Orange

I think I'm addicted to the color "Orange." I regularly read L.A.'s Daily Candy and get the weekend updates on things to do in L.A. So for literally 5 days I had been trying to go to the new Intellentgensia Coffee shop on, you guessed it, Abbot Kinney. Well they must have delays to get it opened despite the promotion on Daily Candy. So C and I took a Tuesday detour to another place I have yet to try, La Grande Orange on Main Street in Santa Monica.

This place is always packed at night but when we drive by in the morning we parked right in front and walked in the dining room which was pretty cool even though it was a bit dark for morning. They have only been open about 2 weeks at this point.

It was not what we had in mind for a cup of coffee and a small breakfast.

However, we were directed to walk down this way (see above)

Once we got to the other side we said "aaaah" ok this is better.
Pastries and coffees a galore.
We ate in the dark dining room and they brought us our coffee.

I had a Havana latte, and believe it or not I added sugar in it before tasting it. Seriously what kind of Cuban am I if I can't remember that a Havana (should be spelled Habana) latte's (or Cafe con leche) has LOADS of sugar. Seriously with the coffee and my amazing scone I was having a sugar rush.

Check out the blackberries in this scone. Mega berry.

Outdoor patio with you guessed it

,
Orange umbrellas.

C loved this place so much she back that night for dinner and said it was amazing.

La Grande Orange
2000 Main St
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 396-9152

Elect-a-Guru

You can be a guru too.

3 Square Cafe

I drive up and down Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice, California on a daily basis. I rarely get to park, as parking in L.A. is so not fun. But this past week I found a primo parking space and went from store to store to explore. I use to live in Venice over 15 years ago, back then it was a artsy sleepy beach town with an edgy interior and all the eclectic people that make this place unique.

Now for the first part of my rant: Why aren't people as friendly anymore? Venice has change so much, with all the new money moving in, people have lost their sense of small neighborhood talk. When I lived in Venice, I knew all my neighbors. Across the street were the four channels, an apartment building with four windows that faced us. On any given day someone would be hanging out the window strumming an acoustic guitar or in another "channel" changing into beachware for a quick run to the boardwalk. Next door was a lovable man, who also liked to get drunk and listen to Tina Turner "We don't need another Hero" (Thunderdome). He always watched out for us with all the crack addicts roaming the streets at night. I still giggle thinking of this man listening to that particular song.

And the second part of my rant: While visiting the 3 Square Cafe on Abbot Kinney and San Juan at 9:30a.m. on Memorial Day, we were told that the would only serve Brunch and not breakfast. Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't Brunch suppose to be breakfast and lunch so thus shouldn't it be served closer to the lunch hour, say 11a.m.? Oh and our waiter was so not friendly (which reverts to my original rant) and didn't seem even entertain our breakfast quandary. We considered leaving, but stood the course and order from the side menu. I have to say we created a lovely breakfast and the German Apple pancake my friends little girl ordered was delicious. Crispy on the outside and perfectly sweet and soft inside with delicious baked apples. Ideally it's served with creme fraiche, although we removed this for the lactose intolerant. We also order a tin of pastries and breads that was served with the best raspberry jam.The potatoes we perfectly crisping on the outside and soft and salty inside. I ordered a side poached egg this was delicious. For the past 3 days I've tried to recreate this poached egg, to no avail. I've even been told by SB that I'm starting to ruin pans with my experimentation's. I refuse to believe that I need a fancy pan to poach an egg. I will keep trying my experiments to perfect the poached egg. Any tips are welcome.

The ironic thing about this two part rant is I know I'll keep going to Venice and eating at these places, despite the unfriendliness and the early brunches. There is still an artsy side to it despite the gentrification of the place. Here's to hoping people start saying "hello" more often and being a bit more neighbourly.

Orange You Glad It's Friday

Many years ago I painted my kitchen nook orange. Immediately the conversation place in the house was the tiny kitchen nook. I loved it when I painted it with Sanre and still do. Here's to one of my favorite colors....

Blue Monday

Last week I felt blue, so that's what the pictures are

Cuba a Bittersweet Tale - Part VI

Everyday as we sat in Abuelo's home I had the opportunity to view many acts of kindness. One day a neighbor came by and kissed all the family on the cheek and then proceeded to give Abuelo and Berty a hair cut. No money was exchanged, just a cut and conversation. Then she left. Luis who took Dad and I everywhere came by and gave Berty a shave on the patio.

And then there is Rosa who has spent many years taking care of Abuelo and Berty, cooking, cleaning and just being a care giver to our family, extraordinarly kind.

Abuelo who struggled to get up from the pain he was enduring and settle in his chair.

Dad sitting down to converse with Abuelo, read a letter together, attempting to explain the last 40 years of his life. How do you do that in 2 weeks. Craziness.

These are the portraits from those days that I just sat and watched these interchanges.

The innocence of children when there are no video games, TV, cell phones, text messaging is truly amazing. These kids would play baseball in the pouring rain, and I mean a torrential downpour, then they'd get a donkey pulled cart and ride around the block.

And then the innocense changes, as soon as I snapped this photograph I walked back into my grandfather's house. Out of no where one of these little boys came flying in the house and grabbed my camera, it was so lightening fast I didn't have time to react, however everyone else did, and I never let my camera down again, no matter where I was.

One thing I learned about myself, and any future photography career I wanted to have is that I am not cut out for photo journalism. On one of these observation days I was standing on the porch, this kid walked by a neighbor's house on is way home. Apparently he owed them some money for something, but didn't pay up. This was two teenagers arguing at a door. But then this older man with a huge belly and no shirt comes out and starts yelling at this kid, who knows what, the dialog was too fast. Then this kid walks away and grabs a brick. He takes the brick and runs up to this older mand and slams the guy in the head. Blood starts coming out profusely, down his face and large tanned belly. Everyone now jumps in to stop this situation, kids and adults a like. All this happened right in front of me and was incredibly violent, I went to snap a picture and then froze, I got scared as everyone was extremely edgy. Dad pulled me in the house and a never got a photo of the incident, but it's seared into my mind and that solidfied my non-existent photo journalism career, left to a life as a part-time blogger.

Potato Leek Soup

So today I had one of those Julie and Julia moments, though not as well written. I was out in Venice and stopped at one of the many local farmers markets. I decided to pick what was fresh, in season and just looked good. I choose a long white to pale green leek and a bag of fingerling potatoes. Then a quick phone call to SB to ask him to look at Ina Garten's potato leek soup recipe so I could get the missing ingredients. Cream and creme fraiche, arugula, I forgot the arugula, although I thought I had some at home. Yeah no. So I did without the "color" and got home to chop up the potatoes and leeks and seasoned them with salt, pepper and olive oil.

Ok so here's where I'm crazy. We have an event tomorrow, my hair must be dyed, yeah I hate when I start showing any greys. So I do this while I'm roasting veggies for 40 minutes. Then I wait the needed 20 minutes, for the hair dye, and watch a Champion League soccer match. Buzzer rings, for my hair, not my veggies. I sure take my time getting in the shower thinking I'm being so efficient. Not so much, seriously as soon as I turn the shower on SB comes in "hey there is a timer going off, what's that for?" Aaacccckkk. Dye in the hair, shaving and washing to be done, so I say, with frustration at my poor time management, "take them out, oh no, please flip the p&l's and I'll hurry up and finish my meal." Now I'm rushing, I quickly finish a not so relaxing shower and grab my clothes and bee-line it for the kitchen.

I take the sheet pan out and light up two burners, I add wine and chicken stock to the pan, but there aren't really any good bits that she described to scrape up. I grab my food processor and in batches I puree the veggies while adding chicken stock, and then into a stock pot. I had to add more chicken stock then I thought as it was way to thick for soup. I bit of heavy cream, creme fraiche and parmesan cheese (I used pecorino, seriously, that's all I had) and simmer till the soup is warm and everything is incorporated. I have to say it was quite tasty. I needed to add a pinch more of salt. However, next time I'll try to remember the arugula as I think a bit more color and another flavor might be good. I ate this with a glass of wine and a couple of slices of rosemary La Brea bakery toasted bread, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

Thankfully nothing burned during my multi-tasking moment. I do have to say at the very moment I sat down to eat this soup we had a nice little 4.4 earthquake that had my heart going. And, as all seasoned Californians, we keep on sipping our wine and go one with the task at hand.

Oh and the hair, it'll do. That is until the budget allows for a real hair salon visit and a proper hair style. This is not Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or styling by Rachel Zoe, but Ina's a good place to start if your wanting to cook great easy meal.

Cuba a Bittersweet Tale - Part V

And the story continues…, it's been a while since I've posted about this trip. I intend on finishing this story and then, and only then, tell my Dad I've told the blogosphere about this journey. I've been trying to covertly get a few items from him that I wanted to share, but so far have been unsuccessful. Here's the next part of this journey.

I know I mentioned that my lack of Spanish, I understand more than I speak, though both not very well. So every morning I would take out my Spanish lesson book and try to add a few more phrases and words to my vocabulary. Each morning Dad and I would have breakfast at the B&B. My Dad knew the son of the woman who owned the place we stayed at. It's actually a huge house in the Vedado neighborhood of Habana where there are these beautiful old homes. This area is on the boarder of the Miramar section of Habana, with gorgeous mansions everywhere, many today have been turned into Consulates. The mansion we stayed in is half lived in and the other half rented to visitors.

Nobody speaks English here, so breakfast talk was a challenge for me. But thankfully it's basic Spanish. About the food, since I am obsessed with it now…well breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, sliced ham, swiss cheese slices and Cuban coffee. Cuban coffee is really strong and sweet at the same time. The best part of breakfast was the cornucopia of delicious tropical fruits, banana's, mango, papaya and guava. My dad was so excited, as New Mexico is hardly a place for tropical fruits.

As we would leave our room we would lock this big black door with a huge skeleton key. One morning we shut the door to our room and there were 3 other black doors that all were shut too and some of the british colonial type, "very old", doorknobs did not work. Being that these doors were black it was completely dark now, I started to panic for a moment and then so did Dad. We grabbed at every door and jiggled locks and keys and we finally figured out in the dark how to open the door to let us into the hot brilliant sunlight. Then once we took in a big gulp or air and sunlight we bent over and laughed out loud, how silly or panic was but hilarious at the same time.

Usually after breakfast, Abuelo's neighbor, Luis, would pick us up and we'd spend the day with Abuelo and Berty. Dad would assess the house repairs and go through photographs and papers. As early pictures show the bathroom was in need of some serious attention. We found a plumber and hired him to come and repair the pipes. Let me tell you plumbers in Cuba are no different from the ones we have in the U.S., yes we got a view that no woman should ever see…sorry D.

Watching the goings on outside this crumbling and enchanting home was the best entertainment. One woman across the street was on vacation and literally everyday she hung on her scrolled iron door watching what was happening outside but mostly watching us, weird way to spend a vacation if you ask me.

Dad would reminisce about boyhood stories, one of him throwing his ball against the patio wall and driving his dad crazy. He would go through old photos and old receipts from the 60's. Many a tear was shed during these memory sifting moments. It was nice and sad at the same time to see that my mom had sent letters and photos, chronicling every bad phase of my teenage life, to my grandparents. She sent postcards of the city we lived in so they could see where I was growing up. It really touched me that she was so diligent about it as I hardly wrote any letters. The language barrier always frustrated me. I regretted not trying harder…I had to tell myself “no regrets, look to the future” otherwise the water faucet would unleash.

The columns outside my grandfather's house were so beautiful and intricate despite the chipping paint.

One day after visiting with Abuelo Dad and I took the afternoon to visit an old friend of his in the city center of Habana. She took us to what was at one time Baptiste palace, but now ironically is a museum about the Revolution.

The architecture here is so amazing I took lots of pictures of everything.

Ceiling in a mirrored ballroom.

Beautiful chandeliers that I'm sure were in many a wealthy home other than this palace. I noticed when we drove around at night that all the chandeliers and cool light fixtures I was hoping to see had been replaced with more cost efficient hideous florescent lights. I'm sentimental what can I say and I love good lighting, for some reason this really bugged me. Florescent light is so "Joe versus the Volcano" if you catch my drift. Please light a candle, someone, anyone.

Shot down planes, missiles and revolutionary implements of war. Some even say U.S. I did not get the whole story on this but thought it was interesting commentary on foreign relations or lack there of

Where the Wild Things Are

Cheesecake

So last weekend J threw a party for some friends. I helped with the hors d'oeuvres. I had extras of puffed pastry, white wine sauted crimini mushrooms, white bean puree and cream cheese left. Plus an arsenal of lemons that have been supplied by friends and co-workers who are fortunate enough to have lemon trees. All this equated to a few scratches on the head what to do with it all before it spoils. The mushrooms ended up on flattened pan fried chicken.

For the puffed pastry I rolled it out the and chopped up some apples sauted with butter, sugar and cinnamon. Then I rolled up the apples in puffed pastry, brushed with egg wash baked in 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Delish. SB who isn't usually overwhelmed with my cooking IM'd me during the day to say YUMMY, love the apple pastry. Yeah a winner and just an afterthought. Love it when that happens.

Now what to do with the VAT of cream cheese and lemons. Hmmm...lemon cheesecake. I found a few recipes online and combined them to come up with this. Lemon cheesecake with a graham cracker and chopped toasted almonds crust. Cream cheese mixed with the juice and zest of a few meyer lemons Polished off by a sour cream, sugar, and lemon zest. If you know anything about my obsession with sour cream you will see how much this is my perfect cheesecake recipe. Refreshing and light with a special almondy crunch.

It's a Green Day

For obvious reasons I thought this week would be ideal for taking pictures with shades of green. And seeing as Friday is the first day of spring, it's primarily focused on plants. I swear I'll get back to the food.

About a month ago my coworker and his lovely wife hired me to shoot their wedding reception.

Jeni is talented and adorable. Dylan is a great art director and loves food like nobody I've ever met. They both blow out the doors of a fancy Ferrari on photography and are well known in the blogging world. It was such a compliment when they asked me to shoot their special party.

This was a fantastic wedding reception, unexpected and fun.

Take a look at their fabulous love story along with the pictorial on Oishii Eats.

Red

So I decided to pick a theme color and ran with it. Today was red. This project was inspired by Curious Bird who hosted her own color week. It made me look at the world differently. I'll try to pick a new color every week. For one it will make me shoot more and post quicker. Enjoy.