Carolyn Tillie

Okay, I'm lazy... I want to buy a Charles Becker still life (at around $20k to $35k, a bit stiff). But am currently sufficing with a few images like the Contratto Champagne and Cafe Martin posters...

Paula Wolfert wrote an article for Food & Wine on creating your own vinegar a few months ago. Here is a link... BTW, I followed her recipe and have a great vat of vinegar now!

Using it in a bean soup would be amazing!

Djyee100, good call on Clement Street -- I've been frequenting a few of the establishments in the area that have pool tables and in between, have been exploring the restaurants and stores (great used bookstore and a Chinese butcher with great meat. The Ferry Plaza is a must but the entire Union Square experience is quite unique during Christmas; street-side performers, lots of great window shopping, great lights, etc. Chocoholic, you are walking distance to Biscuit & Blues for some great late-night jazz and the whole stretch around Geary from 49 Geary onward has several dozen modern art galleries. Food-wise, I have not yet been to Ame but can whole-heartedly recommend Coi as very different, enticing multi-course experience. You didn't say where you were coming from so it is harder to recommend various cuisines that might be completely different to you. i.e., I wouldn't necessarily recommend Italian to someone who lives in Boston...

Thanks - I checked Bo's book but didn't see anything other than "it holds up well." I'll make 'em this evening.

"K" and I are having a debate... I think I can make my mousse parfaits today and have them hold up fine until tomorrow. He thinks they will deflate. I am going to make lemon and Angostura mousses which will be layered with berries... thoughts?

I guess this may sound stupid, but why not buy half-&-half and heavy cream and just mix it yourself? But, you might also want to call Bristol Farms -- I seem to recall they carried two grades of cream...

Samuel Johnson said it more archly: "None but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." ← So where do we all think our blogging fits in with the not-writing-except-for-money theory? ← It was a great reason why I stopped blogging entirely (why should I generate information for others without compensation AND occasionally be plagiarized?) -- yet there are those who blog a lot and are published a lot so I guess it depends if you have already found your voice and your niche. There are those who began blogging to establish a voice and develop a following. Some have succeeded while others have failed miserably. I will tell you that it HAS made me jaded against those writers who blog to promote their published word...

Wow, this *is* one of those "blast from the past" threads. I'm glad to read of your successes, Andrea. Congrats, and wishes for more to come! ← Wow - this really blew me away (to read what I wrote just over a year ago). So much has changed for me.

For the potpie, I don't think brining is necessary -- there is enough other moisture to assure the meat won't be dry. I've never bothered to bring my pheasant for this recipe...

Had an amazing time at Coi which is in its own separate thread... In short - go there!

I purchased a number of pheasant in the recent D'Artagnan freezer sale for the sole purpose of making Saveur's Pheasant & Morel Potpie. Heavenly... consider yourself lucky!

An unexpected trip to the city for the Divine Ms.W was a great excuse to talk her and Mr. B into heading to Daniel Patterson's Coi Restaurant, which I had been dying to try. Stylistically, the design of the restaurant is warm and inviting, overt with warm brown tones. The entrance brings you to a lounge area - a banquet of booth seating with beautiful cocktails tables made from sliced, polished tree trunks and (regrettably) pillows that were a tad too furry for my taste. A turn around the corner found us in the main dining room. Obviously drawing on the Japanese aesthetic, the various shades of brown -- from the horizontal grass wallpaper to the leaf-laden paper ceiling -- instill a sense of calm and elegance. That calm was soon jolted as the tasting menu was shared amongst the three of us and a barrage of exciting and new flavors were beset upon us... A glass of bubbly (sadly, name not known) accompanied the first few courses. There was an amuse of fresh roasted pepper and a foam and it was at this point I realized I was going to need to take notes. The first official course was a pink grapefruit salad, but this was unlike any salad or presentation I had ever experienced. Served in an Oriental, rustic brown bowl was a deceiving mound of mousse. This was served alongside a drop of perfume and instructions were given to rub the oil on your wrists and inhale while consuming the salad. With ginger, black pepper, and three essential oils, at once multiple senses were heightened with aromas in the nose, a smooth and sumptuous mouthfeel, and exquisite layered flavors. This was also when we began to notice the service ware. There has almost become a preponderance of over-sized, Keller-esque white placesettings in haute cuisine restaurants. At Coi, the use of Japanese-inspired earthenware plates and bowls have the tendancy to bring the ethereal offerings down to earth and make them accessible to us mere mortals. Some give the appearance of an abalone shell, rough-hewn and mishapen yet with an inviting glisten in the interior glaze. Brilliant. Next arrived a three-flavor composed plate with caviar, beet gelee, and fried bone marrow. The immediate reaction was simply the depth of flavor that came about through three seemingly divergent ingredients. Almost to cleanse the palate - yet brighten it - the next course was a sea bream sashimi with white soy, yuzu, and a scattering of chives. Four bites total but elegant and refined. At this point the bubbly was finished and we opened a half-bottle of 2002 Etienne Sauzet, Puligny Montrachet - stunning, simply stunning. At the request of Mr. B, an additional course came out - a potato puree with Kapachi tartare, black truffles, and miniature haricot radish. This dish was all about the potatoes and the concentration of flavors that spoke the terroir of the potato. This was followed with a soft-poached egg yolk which lied under some parmesan foam. Hidden amongst the yolk was a bacon-onion relish. This dish provided an amazing array of components; first the parmesan foam on top, but as one dug deeper, the bacon and unctuous egg yolk again displayed stunning depth. A show-stopper arrived shortly thereafter -- Delicata sqaush soup was poured table-side over walnut brittle, cippollini onions, and cocoa mascarpone. The surprise of the walnut brittle juxtaposed with the elegant squash was neither too heavy nor too playful (it was brittle, after all). Just a tease of sweetness with the layered complexity of flavors. A very odd dish was served next - Yuba 'pappardalle' with coconut milk and curry. Yuba is skin that develops from soy milk. It has an interesting tooth that is similar to pasta but reminded me or canned glutten. It was easily the most experimental dish of the evening and while the flavors melded together enough, the sci-fi nature of the yuba made it a bit difficult to get overly excited. We were next served a seared scallop with apple jicama, mint, and a Buddha's hand emulsion. This was wildly successful and I would have happily consumed several of these. The citrus emulsion was more than the pure essence of the Buddha's hand but progressed the sweetness of scallop further. The white wine being close to finishing, I ordered a 2002 Domaine Morey Coffinet Chassagne Montrachet, a soft and supple red from Burgundy. With one more seafood course, we were presented with a sea bream atop several varieties of braised lettuce with a citrus/saffron sauce. The saffron was handled delicately (as so often it can be over-done and too heavy) and while the sauce was quite elegant, this might have been the one dish that suffered by virtue of the fact that the fish itself did not stand up to the sauce. Here was the first time we detected a lack of the profound depth we had been experiencing from the beginning. Three "entree" courses were shared amongst the three of us as yet another potato explosion occurred with a pepper-seared shortrib 'steak' with potato foam, baby dandelion greens, and a red wine vinaigrette. While the short-rib steak itself was quite tasty, almost any cut of beef would have sufficed as this dish was all about the potato. It was the full essence and soul of a potato, concentrated and unyielding. I was most enamored with Guinea hen roasted with Bhutanese red rice. Both Mr. B and I couldn't get enough of the rice but I got to finish the bulk of it. The hen was perfectly rare and moist and I regret that I didn't jot down the components of the seasonings. Another course served was squab and foie gras with melted endive on a hibiscus reduction. This dish suffered only in that there was too little foie and too much sweet hibiscus. I adored the concept, but would have preferred a more balanced approach. Finishing the main courses, a pseudo-cheese course was offered with a cheese tart that easily transcended my being. Naming the producer of the cheese, Rolf Beeler gruyere was melted on a simple rectangle of puff pastry so redolent with butter to have almost floated off the plate. Sitting aside some lightly dressed wild arugula, I discovered a new pathway to Nirvana through this simple presentation. Another show-stopper for me. The dessert came with a glass of Sauterne (forgetting to get the exact name). Three desserts were shared and chef Patterson seems to have found a pastry chef with the same sense of adventure and daring. A single spoonful amuse was presented to sweeten our palate and comprised of huckleberry tapioca pearls with Malden sea salt. The juxtaposition of the salt and sweet was a miniature explosion of complex flavors that enticed the taste buds exactly as inspired -- wanting more. An almost savory Manchego cheesecake with a hint of rosemary was served next to an apple sorbet. A baked Alaska with a gingerbread crust and creme fraiche sorbet was served with butter pears. And a brioche bread pudding was scented with lapsang souchong and served with a sorbet (unfortunately, I can't decipher my notes on the flavor of the sorbet). I enjoyed the baked Alaska tremendously, but found it a tad too sweet. I believe Mr. B prefered the cheesecake as it was decidedly the least sweet. Ms. W and I swooned over the bread pudding as the clear favorite. In lieu of a mignardise, a final touch was offered in the simplest presentation of a single peanutbutter cookie served alongside a few sips of warm malted milk. This was a stunning culmination to the meal and all were shocked how seriously good and hearty the milk was but how it was so well complimented by the peanutbutter morsel. The overall impact of the meal is that with very few exceptions, each ingredient is integral to the other ingredients. Nothing is over wrought or unnecessary. There is an intense purity of flavor and the word of the evening became depth. As opposed to a one-off, special occasion meal (as this was intended to be and many of these meals become), I look forward to returning to Coi to experience more of chef Patterson's brilliance.

I guess I am on the opposite end of the Bristol Farms disgust (not only Coda's, but the Chronicle's as well). I used to work in the same building as their corporate offices in El Segundo and shopped frequently at their Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach stores. Consequently, this was like going home for me as there were so many things I missed that I have been unable to find at either Whole Foods or Mollie Stones. This Bay Area edition is significantly more geared towards the pre-prepared foods and I was pleasantly surprised by the bounty at what was offered. I just returned from a jaunt through the store, buying groceries but no pre-prepared foods at this time. I was surprised by a full crepe bar, a teriyaki bar, and more. Price-wise... well, I'm a splurger when it comes to food so I tend to not really look at prices. ~~~ Having already eaten during my jaunt, I was intrigued by a number of the other food-court offerings but not hungry. Instead, I went to Teaz Me and asked the girl behind the counter what her favorite was. Frosty Peach was her recommendation and $4.29 later, I had a ice-blended concoction which tasted nice and peachy but was just plain too sweet for me (I know some people can drink Starbucks ice-blendeds, but I cannot). Eight or ten sips later, it hit the trash...

Thanks, Anthony! As a self-proclaimed historian, I DO appreciate the insight (and I guess I should know better...) I'm currently working a book on the eating habits of the Victorian gentry and this only emphasizes the reality that I need to check and double-check every aspect of my book!

Okay, time to plug my neighborhood... If you draw cross-hairs through all of San Francisco, I live dead center - on the corner of Webster & Geary, across the street from Japantown. For the past year, I have been somewhat documenting my exploration of this area in this thread. Being geographically in the center of the city, we are on a major busline (the 38) which cuts through the city and leads to all the other bus lines, but also has the distinct advantage that a cab-ride to almost any point in the city is only about $10 because you don't have to go from one side to the other. Specifically to answer some of your queries, I not only have great Japanese food walking distance, but the very accessible Fillmore district for fabulous restaurants and shops. I can walk to a Safeway, four very good jazz clubs, more restaurants than I can count, and two dog parks that I know of. There are optometrists, cleaners, pet stores, spas, a movie theatre, furniture stores, wine shops, clothing stores, second-hand boutiques, and antique stores that I frequent. Restaurant-wise, the only cuisine that I feel I am missing within walking distance is good Indian and good Middle Eastern. There is both an Indian and Middle Eastern restaurant on Fillmore (actually, across the street from one another), but neither of which come with decent reviews. There are two Ethiopian, four Korean, three Thai, eight to ten Italian (everything from the simple pizza joint to amazing artisinal pasta), one Peruvian, three to four Chinese (nothing exceptional, but sufficient when there are cravings), six or eight "American", a good sports bar (with a great Kobe burger), two or three taquerias, a creperie, two Michelin-star restaurants (Quince and Bushi-Tei, as if anyone cares about that), and obviously more Japanese than I can count What can I say? I love where I live!

Great ideas and I'm definitely getting inspired! No worries on the fridge space, Abra... I've got three <gulp> refrigerators and, for Thanksgiving Day, the use of a fourth. okay, one fridge is a WINE fridge so I guess that doesn't really count, huh?

As a space-saving measure for Thanksgiving, I purchased a 24-count case of Pilsnerglasses to use as water glasses. I liked the size of the glass as well as the fact that it won't take up a lot of space on an otherwise-crowded table (two wine glasses, etc...) Well Kevin had the brilliant idea that we could concoct some fancy styled parfait in them as well (since I bought way more than I need) and have duly gone about buying extended parfait/ice tea spoon on eBay. Now its time to develop the recipe... I fondly recall my mom making parfaits in the 70s and the possibilities are endless! I've got people coming who insist on pumpkin pie, but how about a deconstructed pumpkin pie with a pumpkin mousse, a layer of crumbled molasses cookies, a layer of whipped cream, and perhaps a layer of macerated cranberries? I'm also thinking of chocolate mousse with cranberries or pears with an almond meringue crumble. Come summertime, I'm sure I'll have fun with fresh berries and shortbread, but I'm in winter mode now. What are some other ideas for a Thanksgiving parfait?

I'm a huge pickle fan and am fortunate to live near Japantown in San Francisco where I can get a bounty of really interesting Japanese pickles. However one thing I've made for years and adore is shredded pickled beets -- simply grated and put into a left-over pasta sauce jar with a combination of good red wine and balsamic vinegars. Something about them being grated versus sliced and diced makes them taste better. And I can pull out a tablespoon or two as a quick garnish.

I've been a bit remiss in cataloguing some of my latest SF finds -- too many to catch up with but I thought I would offer a few highlights... A late evening after returning a U-Haul truck found me in a questionable neighborhood which, delightfully, had me stumble into a neighborhood where Big Nate's Barbeque is situated [1665 Folsom St., San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 861-4242]. I had read Marlena Spieler's ditty on Big Nate's and was, of course, intrigued. Good BBQ is hard to find and while I had a few complaints, it will do in a pinch. Their pork ribs are quite tasty, but I found the Memphis Pork just okay (who wants hunks of pork when pulled, stringy pork is preferred?). The potato salad and cole slaw is equally forgettable as are their cold corn biscuits. On the upside, the collard greens are perfectly tangy. I actually prefer and miss Coyote Sam's in Fairfield. A meeting with a programmer was held at Dosa [995 Valencia (@ 21st Street), San Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 642 3672]. The programmer, friends of the owner, never let me see the menu and ordered freely so I can only guess what I beheld as we scarfed down amazing goodies... The dosa are amazingly thin and fresh and all I recall was a bounty of fresh vegetables, some chickpeas, and some very spicy lamb. Silly me - I was more in business mode than eating mode so I will definitely have to go back. A craving for Italian sent me up Fillmore to Vivande, [2125 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115, (415) 346-4430]. This is my backyard (literally) and I am ashamed it took me this long to eat here. K had the Fettuccine con Salsiccia with their house-made fennel-scented Sicilian sausage and I ordered the Fettuccine alla Carbonara. I have never had fettuccine this light and ethereal, rolled paper thin. We shared some Vin Santo and biscotti and took home an apple tart and a Torta Zabaglione made with almond meringue, zabaglione cream, chocolate, and toasted almonds (both enjoyed for breakfast). I'll be hard-pressed to bother with North Beach for Italian now. Within Japantown, I've had sushi at Fuku [1581 Webster St., San Francisco, CA 94115, (415) 346-3030] which was excellent, if not a tad expensive (just a few nigiri before a movie one evening). Also, Maruya, take-out sushi [1904 Fillmore Street, San Francisco , CA 94115, (415) 921-2929] is one I won't bother with again (note: isn't very clean...)

I just had a flashback to a gift I made in the past and had completely forgotten about.... Stud oranges with cloves and decoratively wrap with gorgeous velvet and satin ribbon for hanging. I remember sitting with a toothpick in hand for hours, studding those oranges and then going crazy with the hot-glue gun and miniature pinecones and whatnot for decorating the tops of the oranges. Quite Victorian-looking and always appreciated as a hostess gift (unusual, too!)

The article was by James Villas and yes, I believe a good fruitcake can be aged.

"Civilians" do indeed attend, but it is slightly cost-prohibitive and sells out early every year (several months in advance).

Bobbo, that is a really loaded statement that -- I think -- begs expansion. What do you think, exactly, is a New Yorker approach to dining that we don't have? Are you just wishing for a 2- or 3-star restaurant in an area of California that wouldn't be able to sustain it or is it a deeper desire? As we Californians don't live atop each other in a very small, concentrated land-mass, we have glamorous locales that, as Juanito aptly stated, does not have a deep-enough labor pool.

I've been to Panama a number of times in the past few months -- whole fried Corvino tends to run about $4.00 and six large prawns about $6.00. Tons of great street food (breakfast typically costs me around $1.50) and some high-end restaurants that don't cost more than $20.