chefmd

Rosh Hashanah dinner with friends (they hosted with a combo of cooked from scratch, bought, cooked from box dishes). Brisket was home made and delicious. Balducci was involved. Manischewitz was definitely involved. The company was great.

I am a girl. Ok, a woman of certain age :). I wore those short shirts in case of grape juice splashes. Those are not boxers. Not boxers. Definitely not boxers. I am generally very proper and boring. Next time I will wear full length pants :).

Reviving this topic. Beautiful weather in Northern Virginia this weekend. We went to Barrel Oak Winery. They had a tub where one could crush grapes. It was fun! Sipping a glass of cold wine overlooking Shenandoah valley was very relaxing. http://www.barreloak.com/

Realizing that it is OK to obsess over food. That other people do it too. That it is ok to spend more money on kitchen gadgets than on shoes.

@JoNorvelleWalker quash is raw, cut with vegetable peeler, marinated briefly in lemon juice.

Shaved squash, avocado, feta cheese, pumpkin seeds.

Sesame crusted tuna with roasted eggplant.

Tuna tartar over avocado.

I. Got. The. Second. Unit. For the beach house. Because @JoNorvelleWalker has two. Because I want two. Because it’s a bargain. So I got the second unit.

I have this book on hold from the library. Looking forward to cooking from it

Eggs with mayo and coriander. Figs from friend’s garden. I ate lunch solo and did not have to follow any rules.

Beans and bits and pieces of chicken left over from roasting the whole bird. Beans were soaked overnight and cooked in Instant Pot for 10 minutes on high pressure.

Barbecue chicken (left over) and egg sandwich. Healthy apple slices not shown;)

Last night of our trip to San Sebastián. Michelin fatigue is real! Only had energy for a bag of chips (hamon flavored, naturally) and Rioja from hotel coffee mug.

Rockfish, eggplant stew, jalapeño mayo sauce. So happy to be back home and cooking in my own kitchen.

Cooking in rental apartment kitchen in San Sebastián. I of course brought chef knife and paring knife. Pasta with Porcini mushrooms, garlic, reduced cream. Porcini were 35 Euro a kilo, a steal if you ask me. Less than 8 Euro for these beauties.

Two breakfasts while traveling in San Sebastián. jamon Serrano and Iberico, goat cheese Foie Gras and sausage

Morning coffee and evening glass of Rioja on the balcony of our booking.com apartment. 3.50 Euro wine is lovely. Gotta save money for fancy meals ;). But seriously, the wine is just fine.

A simple dinner of Talo, typical Basque food made from scratch in the city square. One with bacon and cheese and one with txistorra and cheese. The menu was in Spanish and Euskara/Basque only but there were clearly posted signs “gluten free” in English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talo_(food)

And the last course, seven different chocolates, was served outside. Wow! I was completely mesmerized by the whole experience. Not sure why Michelin downgraded Mugaritz from three to two stars. I live in Washington DC area and Inn at Little Washington got three stars while not being anywhere near Mugaritz level. Oh well, politics in food.

This is when we were invited to visit the kitchen. Then a small kinda sweet dish of red beans And after that we were escorted to a rum cask. Rum was paired with vanilla bean that was magically stuffed with butter and vanilla seeds while appearing intact.

Reviving this thread. DH and I are in San Sebastián for a few days with quick side trips to nearby cute towns. We landed in Bilbao late on Saturday and only had time for a quick bite and fell into deep sleep. On Sunday we started our culinary adventure at Mugaritz. We had one higher end wine pairing and it was more than enough for two people one of which is driving. Wine pairing was very generous. They really went all out. At some point there were 9 glasses on our table from three back to back pairings: 3-4-2. You will see. The aforementioned 9 glasses The first five courses arrived together and were vegetarian driven. The dark cake was avocado mousse like preparation covered with blue cheese mold and it had pepper infusion on top. Squid “silk” with seasonal flowers. Baby octopus “Olives” that were grapes witc cocoa nibs and vin santo Barely cooked lobster with shrimp sauce. Different preparations of leek Warm oyster with champagne granita Grouper Nori cooked in pork fat, pork tail terrine, pork loin cooked with gari octopus crumb eaten out out of hand paired with Rioja. This is when we started to take wine pictures. Pigeon fried in sour dough. Skate paired with four Pinot Roasted pepper paired with three cabs Beef tendon and piece of beef paired with Chardonnay

I am a somewhat nervous flyer. Working with someone who needs my help makes me forget about imaginary dangers of a slight turbulence

I try to engage with servers as much as I can. That helps to understand about the restaurant, the food, the best dishes. I usually get extra “taste this” and ‘sip that”. @liuzhou it seems that this young woman had issues with her mother more than with her job. And Peking Gourmet is a great restaurant. It is high volume and high pressure for sure. Not the best place for your first server job.

Flying Washington DC to Munich I was about to fall asleep after the first movie (Green book, excellent movie). The next thing I know, there is a call for a Doctor on board. It’s not my first time, there seems to be a lot of people getting sick when they are flying. Praying for a drunk youngster, I went to the back of the plane. It was an older sick gentleman. A quick assessment led to the need to make him horizontal. An Internal Medicine Doc joined me (a semi useless Neurologist) in a few minutes. We enlisted a strong fellow flyer to bring a sick passenger to a little space by the business class bathroom. There was a dreaded “Should we land the plane?” question. Fortunately, we did not need to land. But the guy could not seat up. So I volunteered my business class seat (#upgrades) for him to land in semi reclining state. For that, DH and I got an access to First class lounge. Oh my! It was empty and endless. It had cigar lounge and beer garden. The whole ham! Pretzels on deer antlers. Many teas to choose from. Showers. Rooms with real beds to sleep in. People constantly asking if I want anything else. DH got Nrnberger sausages and Cola weizen. I of course ate as much hamon as I could.