Thomas Keller's chocolate cake via Instagram. Looks about as perfect as can be and I'm sure it tastes delicious. I'd consider framing this photo and hanging it up somewhere.
I guess this is Bouchon's Bakery K&M chocolate gateau. Yum!
no knead bread w/ sonora wheat
This is that no knead bread recipe from the New York Times from Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman. It's stupidly easy to make and if you have some of my bread, you're not allowed to put guacamole on it. F'ing avocado toast, gtfoh.
My only variation is 2 cups of all purpose flour with 1 cup of Sonora wheat flour – get from Eatwell Farm if they have it, otherwise Capay Mills or wherever you can find it online. The Sonora wheat makes it a little more interesting and gives it some flavor.
Acme levain bread is like $5. Pizzaiolo's country loaf – which is very good with an almost burnt crust and not quite sourdough flavor – is like $10 and some usual wait time in line. The no knead bread is maybe like $1 worth of flour: it's just flour, salt, instant active yeast, and water (and an oven that can go 500 degrees and a cast iron dutch oven).
Surprisingly easy to make bread and just as good if not better. Now part of my TFL biscuits and skillet corn bread rotation. Next up is dinner rolls and I need to figure those out.
Obama portraits
Even if you didn't know these were the Obamas, by looking at the portraits you could tell these two were important — and both are giving off a look of needing you to do something (my interpretation anyway). Glossy vs matte is always a fun argument, both of these are really cool. About as good as it gets.
2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games, links
Entertaining games so far -> links:
- Olympics Games official site Feb 9 – Feb 25
- NBC's coverage
- ESPN's coverage
- Pyeonchang County
usual dinner list
Usual dinner ideas/running list to mainly keep track of recipes we like and what we're eating:
- roasted chicken and chicken stock
- steak frites (hanger steak w/ anchovy butter, arugula, fries)
- buffalo or turkey burgers w/ fries
- pasta bolognese (fine, it's spaghetti)
- beef broccoli
- pork chops (w/ some vegetable and starch)
- tonkatsu or chicken katsu
- shrimp or fish tacos w/ mango salsa (and red salsa)
- ham and cheese quiche, spinach and mushroom quiche w/ salad
- lentil and Swiss chard soup (w/ cornbread)
chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and cake etc…
"Go to" and "to try" recipes, I'll keep adding to this list:
- chocolate chip cookies Keller recipe, my usual go to chocolate chip cookie recipe
- Katherine Hepburn's brownies
- quick chocolate cake, Leibovitz's chocolate cake
- NYT's chocolate souffle
- Williams Sonoma chocolate creme brulee
- pies: Edna Lewis' lemon chess, Milk Bar crack, Chez Panisse meyer lemon meringue, NYT's basic crust
King Cake season
We love us some King Cakes.
Haydel's Bakery is our favorite. We always get the sugar only (the sugar + frosting is pretty sweet) and we get the package with the coffee, bead pack, etc. because why not!?! The high costs of these cakes are due to FedEx shipping but good luck trying to find a legit King Cake outside of NOLA. Buy NOLA and support their economy!
Antoine's and Gambino's are pretty good too.
I have yet to try a filled King Cake which is usually cream cheese but there's lot of different options (flavored cream cheese, brownie filled, praline, German chocolate) so a bit of choice overload.
$1MM house rule
Here's the new rule. If you buy or own a house that's worth $1MM, it *must* have a toilet with a washlet (aka bidet).
$1,000,000 has to mean something. Used to be a house had a phenomenal view or had some historical or architectural significance or a truly killer location to be worth that million dollars.
Now, $1MM homes in the Bay Area are just houses — maybe 2 bedrooms and 1 bath, maybe in a generally ok neighborhood, maybe recently renovated, maybe near BART. None of those things combined or separate are enough to justify a $1MM price tag – ever. So install a toilet/washlet where you can at least say for your $1MM house, you have a toilet that washes your ass for you.
Don't even need to buy the most expensive toilet/washlet combo out there, a cheap $250 washlet will suffice. You don't even have to use it. It's the idea that matters.
See here/below for a decent toilet/washlet #lifegoals, #iwantone
wolf moon 2018
Moon phase and libration, 2018
The wolf moon, or the biggest brightest moon for 2018 what NASA is calling the New Year's Day moon. Pretty cool.
hibiscus tea
The new to me hotness -> hibiscus tea and the best is supposed to come from the Sudan.
Benefits of drinking hibiscus tea include weight loss, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, prevent types of cancer and depression, and pro-liver; not at high doses.
Every tea seller has hibiscus tea but a lot are in blend form w/ black tea or berries, e.g Imperial Red from Imperial Tea. Luckily Berkeley Bowl has some just plain old hibiscus tea.
I'm not going to link to bad Google results for Karkade recipes which is a sweet hibiscus drink (there are no links to an Egyptian or Sudanese website for a recipe? really?). It's basically dried hibiscus, sugar, and water which is also agua de jamaica.
And I had no idea that jamaica was hibiscus. I didn't know what the red and tart drink was, just thought jamaica tasted good. Who knew? Anyway, it was nice to get introduced to hibiscus tea and will probably need to drink up other teas/mix it up a bit before I go overboard and get sick of it. Hasn't happened yet though.