You can bet I’ll be having Becky and her family over for our maiden fried chicken effort. Thanks, Beck!

http://www.fraicheyogurt.com/

The best option is the full fat version, in my opinion. It is terrifically creamy and the flavor is unbeatable (just have less if you’re worried about the fat content). We like it best with sliced bananas, Fraiche’s homemade granola and local honey. Add in a freshly made cappuccino and it’s virtual heaven for me.

The best part about something like this is where it takes me mentally: back to Italy or Greece. We love traveling so much and try to relive our experiences through small weekend rituals (usually related to food!). It’s a relatively cheap price to pay compared to plane tickets, don’t you think?

I had a great conversation with my friend, Nina, on Saturday night. She mentioned how much she and her husband, Dan, love their daily cappuccino ritual because it reminds her of our fabulous trip to Italy this summer (he makes her one every morning – isn’t that romantic?). They didn’t start drinking them until after they got back either. One sip and they are transported to Bar Dante Alighieri in Radda. That thought just makes my day!!

It was an incredible start to an AMAZING lunch. On June 30th, we headed to Montalcino to tour Poggio Antico winery and enjoy a leisurely lunch at their award-winning restaurant (I don’t know exactly what awards they may have won but I assume a Michelin star or something like that; it really was to-die-for).

We were a group of 14: eight adults and six under 18. The Bessers, Jevons’, Lodge-Gutierrez’ and GutierrezHouseholders bonded over our mutual love of Italian brunellos, fine food and conversation. We were also celebrating Mica’s birthday (29 again… lucky girl with those youthful Gutierrez’ genes!). Unbeknownst to us, Francesca (Mica’s sister) and Bill (Mica’s husband) had arranged a surprise cake for the birthday girl. The bigger surprise came later when we discovered they had quietly taken care of the bill, which I’m sure was substantial given all we ate and drank.

Thanks, Francesca, Mathew and Bill for treating us to such an incredible lunch; it was truly unforgettable! Here’s just a peek (I was only photographing dishes at our end of the table):

Mathew’s egg appetizer. Some how it was soft or medium boiled, removed from its shell, then dipped in bread crumbs and deep fried. Those potato chip looking things are made from black truffles, I think.

Tate’s beef carpaccio appetizer; lucky for us, he shared with Mom and Dad!

Dane’s tagliatelle al ragu (his main course).

Tate’s agnolotti pasta (his main course); he traded most of it for the lamb chops Paul and I had (as did Dane).

These were cooked to perfection. Our boys each ate two.

Tate’s salad course. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a salad presented more beautifully in all our trips to Italy. The corner drops were aged balsamic vinegar. I got to eat quite a bit of this when Tate became interested in my lamb chops.

Mica’s surprise cake: a heavenly combination of berries and chocolate.

I don’t think we left a morsel of anything, except for the remainder of Mathew and Francesca’s GIANT bistecca alla Fiorentina. They finished it one night for dinner.

Comments, anyone?

I can’t remember if I mentioned undertaking this activity back in late November. Our neighbor, Robert, came over one day and asked if he could pick some of our olives (FYI, we have a lone tree from McEvoy Ranch in our side yard). Robert said it was very easy to cure them using a brine (water+salt+vinegar). Backyard farmers that we are, we were eager to join him in the endeavor.

The hardest parts were picking the olives (we got covered in dust) and then inspecting them for olive moth larvae (yuck!). It bummed me out we had to reject so many, but we didn’t want our guests to bite into an olive and find a worm! In the end, we only had enough to fill about three of the jars above. We’re thinking they’ll make a perfect amuse bouche at dinner parties. Right?

Brine curing olives takes a lot of time and but little attention. Olives contain a bitter element called oleuropein that needs to be leached out in order to make them edible. Robert had some great notes we followed. Basically, you crack or slice each olive in order to allow the oleuropein to be drawn out by the brine. The directions called for 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups of water plus 1/2 cup vinegar (white, white wine or cider – we used plain white). We filled up the jar and made sure the olives stayed submerged – a ziploc bag of rice worked great. We covered it lightly as directed and put it in a cool dark place. We checked it every week for the first month or so. We also changed the brine every month but did not rinse the residue off the olives. Hint: it acts as a starter, much like yeast.

Then, we waited…

After several months, the olives were ready for flavoring. The directions called for 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups of water. Then we added 1/2 cup white wine vinegar and herbs for flavoring. We choose black peppercorns, fresh rosemary and strips of our homemade preserved lemons. The resultant olives are salty and lemony, with a slight rosemary bouquet. They are fairly small since the tree isn’t that old but Robert assured us they will get bigger over time.

I’m really excited to do it again this fall. If you want to join the harvest and make some of your own, send me an email!

Enjoy the ride while you can, parents!

On our trip last week, we made dinner at Chuy’s our first priority. We headed over after Paul’s final meeting of the day and caught the tail end of happy hour (lucky bastards, we are).

Tate, being Texas-born, immediately took to queso. One of the bar waiters sweetly brought over another complimentary bowl for him since the vat at the salsa bar was on its last dregs. Since he loved it so much – and I am anti-Velveeta again now that we’re back in the land of fruits and vegetables – I decided to look for a healthier version I can make at home.

By the way, the top photo is not mine. I found it on numerous websites and can’t find the original artist – to that unnamed person, I apologize. I don’t like using other peoples’ photos without proper credit (though I admit to not publishing photographers’ names when I purchased stock photos in the early days of my blog – I’m better about it now, FYI).

That said, here looks like a really terrific, reasonably healthy version:

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-natural-chile-con-queso.html

We’re moving our annual sangria party to later in the summer in case some of you were wondering why you hadn’t received an invitation in the mail by now. When we get through this especially busy time, you’ll find me whipping this up for friends. It just might become a summer staple around here!

Notice that you’re near the end of this post and I have not yet mentioned BBQ. Frankly speaking, it’s a religion in Texas and I am just not a convert. We did go to Ironworks on Friday afternoon. Paul was in heaven (and Tate to a certain degree) but Dane and I were a bit lost. Maybe it was all the cigarette butts we picked up around Lake Austin that morning – more on that tomorrow – but I could not muster all that much enthusiasm for smoked meat.

If you’re planning a trip to Austin, you should definitely try BBQ. There are LOTS of options: Ironworks or Kreutz’ for Kansas City-style bbq or The Salt Lick for whatever the antithesis of Kansas City-style sauce is (I think the meat is essentially prepared in the same manner however).

As you can see from Tate’s smile, the entire dinner was a hit; he’s already asking about when we can go back (and for the record, he thinks the potato pizza is a tie with Serious Pie!).

I highly recommend flour+water but want to caution parents that service is very leisurely. We were there for 1 hour and 40 minutes which was a bit long for a school night dinner. Reservations are a must as the poor folks waiting in the rain can attest.

http://www.flourandwater.com/

5:30 to 11pm Sunday through Wednesday
5:30 to midnight Thursday-Saturday

2401 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94113
415.826.7000

Voila! Basil plants are back at Trader Joe’s! We did a major family grocery run on Sunday and found this beautiful plant at TJ’s Los Altos. The first thing Tate said upon seeing it was, “Can we have Dad’s garden pasta now?”

You may recall the last minute pasta my husband threw together in September following our neighborhood’s Harvest Walkabout. It was late, we were hungry and we only had some sausage in the refrigerator. Paul went out to the garden, grabbed a few tomatoes and some basil, then cooked up the sausage with some Maui onion. He tossed uncooked, cut tomatoes and a handful of fresh chopped basil. It was heavenly and is now one of our all-time favorites. It’s best with fresh, ripe tomatoes but you can also use chopped canned ones (or hothouse, which we found at Foothill Produce). The true key element is fresh basil – it pulls this dish together in the most magical way. In case you want to try it yourself, here’s the link to the directions:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/garden-inspired-pasta-pb

We found some terrific early avocados at Foothill Produce, too, which prompted Dane’s request for his favorite summer salad:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/tomato-avocado-onion-salad

Dinners like this get us excited about our trip to Italy this summer… Italian-grown Genovese basil here we come!

P.S. Update!! I forgot to announce the winner of the copy of Selma – Becky Davis! Congratulations, Beck!

The Bessers are officially weekend espresso maniacs, enjoying hosting our friends on Saturday mornings for coffee and conversation. Sometimes, too, a coffee AM becomes a coffee PM (one lasted till almost 5pm… really!).

In a lot of respects, they are the new dinner parties for us because it can be difficult to coordinate schedules when you want to get together with more than one family. Maybe it’s just the Bay Area but everyone has A LOT going on and available Friday/Saturday nights seem to be at a premium.

So, we think we’ve found a great solution in our monthly coffees. They give us quality time with friends and the pace is a little slower than an evening event (especially for me as I am not that skilled on our Italian Vibiemme machine). I highly recommend them as a way to connect with friends and neighbors. If you host one soon, would you please leave me a comment about how it went?

Our next Coffee AM is tomorrow morning – if you are a FRL (that is, a friend in “real” life) please stop by and join us. We usually start around 8am!

P.S. Dane made strawberry pancakes today… my boy is on fire in the kitchen these days!

I was talking with my girlfriend, Kathi, the other day about family time. At our house, dinner tends to be the main meal since my husband, Paul, has SO many early conference calls. But at Kathi’s, breakfast is their main family mealtime since her husband often works late. They have a lovely daily ritual of a home-cooked breakfast (Kathi is the wunderfind behind KatieLou Desserts in Los Angeles), lots of “check in” time about what the day will bring followed by her husband walking their son to school.

I love how Kathi’s family emphasizes, “What does your day hold?” versus “How was your day?” It’s a subtle shift in outlook, but really powerful, in my opinion.

What’s ahead is always filled with the promise of good things whereas what’s behind can be a mixed bag of both good and bad. Not that there is anything wrong with reviewing your day, of course! I believe we learn as much from things that go wrong as we do from things that turn out all right. But how lovely to start out each day with such a positive outlook!

So, our weekday family breakfasts will have a slightly different character from here on out: what does YOUR day hold?

P.S. The delicious blueberry pancakes above were made by my teenage son, Dane. One of the joys of your children getting older is that they will start making breakfast for you on occasion. Dane had the best time tweaking the Krusteaz buttermilk mix. Not only did he add fresh blueberries, he embellished the recipe with both orange AND lemon zest. The semi-subtle hints of citrus were amazing to say the least!

This dish easily had WAY MORE tuna than the fried rice version (which I’d spied at the next table). The above image does not do it justice (indoor restaurant lighting and I didn’t have my Speedlite flash handy); The tuna was perfectly seared and Gregg plated it over a sweet-spicy sauce which I think contained soy sauce, brown sugar, jalapenos, and ginger. It was amazing! We all repeated dishes from the previous night’s dinner, too. Dane: shrimp; Tate: taco, me: BLT salad. We skipped the sides in order to have room for dessert.

We decided on the caramelized banana tart with coconut ice cream and rum/pineapple sauce. It was so incredibly over-the-top fabulous, I’m still thinking about it.

And the best (for me) was yet to come. Not only did they comp dessert, they charged the tuna tataki at the same price as the sashimi over fried rice appetizer.

Tate summed it up best that night: “It is so fun to be us right now!”

That night, the chef also visited our table and prepared us a special appetizer… but that’s a story for tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned!

P.S. In case you are interested, you may learn more at the resort’s website: http://www.cliffsresort.com/dining/