Friday, May 29, 2009

Spring Fling

It's springtime in California. The asparagus is tender. The fennel is sweet. The cherries are fat and juicy.

Why does Safeway import all of this from Mexico when it's in our veritable backyards?

Friday, May 22, 2009

Festival Food

Went to the Sonoma Jazz+ Festival last night to see Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. We were running late, so skipped a nice dinner in a restaurant (boohoo--Juiceboy and I never go out to dinner alone), and went straight to the festival.

The sun was setting behind the stage, and folks were milling around in the warm Sonoma evening enjoying local wine, Sweetleaf tea, espressos. We were hungry and decided to get dinner out of the way--I wasn't expecting much in the way of quality. I was wrong. For festival food, this was good!

For $15 we shared an Asian Noodle Bowl with udon noodles, chunks of chicken, fresh snow peas, etc. The amount of garlic and ginger was pleasant, and while I would have liked the noodles a little less cooked, it was good. I loved that they served it in an Asian-take out box with chopsticks...silly, I know, but it played up of what it was supposed to be. We also had mesquite-grilled beef skewers with cole slaw, red-potato salad, and a little salad of fresh julienned veggies (carrots, zuchinni, squash). The cole slaw and potato salad were obviously *not* out of a can or box or whatnot. The flavors were bright and fresh and balanced.

They had honkin huge chocolate cup cakes for $5, but I was being very, very good, and just sampled the organic chocolate instead.

Who knew that you could get a decent meal from a booth at a festival? And not a bit of fried dough to be seen!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

So little time

I haven't been blogging. I've been knitting, reading, swimming, writing, bike-riding, walking, playing with my kids, watching "The Closer", and so on. I haven't been cooking much either.

I'm looking for the ultimate Greek Salad. One from my youth, that I remember having after spending a day at the Acropolis. Crisp, cold iceberg. Red, ripe tomatoes. Salty, pungent feta. Warm, soft kalamata olives. Oregano, lemon juice, olive oil. Salt. Pepper. Was it really that simple?