*1271 - food flags

I think this is awesome!

*1270 - labor

I finally birthed my 90-slide report of pure insightful data today.  It's been a month in labor for this report on top of everything else I'm working on, and while I am that dork who finds joy in producing excellent work yada yada, BOY WAS THAT TIRING.

*1269 - it's official

Big news for me.  It's now official.

Just accepted a position within my company to travel for two to three weeks for every one week in SF to the boonies of Arkansas for the next six months, which sounds pretty scary/awful but it's a great career opportunity.  I'll be consulting with clients and will be the face of the program I've been managing for a couple of years ... my baby project.  Exciting stuff.

Hanging out with S yesterday, whom I've been fortunate enough to have as my early days career mentor and now my life mentor now that we no longer work in the same company, and realized over spiced Mexican chocolate ice cream that precisely yesterday was my three year anniversary at MaPS.  Three years!  Some of my peers aren't even out of school yet.  But three years!  That's it?  It's not an exaggeration to say that most people in this field take double that time to get to where I am.  Yes, we work very hard to get there, but we do it because we love what we do.

All my life, I've been living expedited towards the idealized "excellence", and I don't know when I would slow down and take a breather for myself.  It's not a rat race because there's nobody I'm racing against besides myself.  Maybe that's okay, for now.

*1268 - nuggets

Some days, even the likes of Alexander's Steakhouse and Jardiniere fail to tickle our fancy and what we really want is ...

A good ole plate of chicken McNuggets.  Delicious when tamed with (homemade) smashed sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli and served on a porcelain plate.  I'm sure kids (and probably D) beg to differ but a full meal consisting of deep-fried ground chicken gizzards / bones / beaks / fat / feathers / poop / toenails / slight bit of real meat + french fries + soda??  Ohh, nasty, not happening.

*1267 - ducky

Jardiniere: one of SF's celebrity chef-owned restaurants (Traci des Jardins) and our pick for celebratory dinner #2 of 2.  I fell in love watching her on Top Chef and we had to go try out her food.  Some time in the future they should have multi-sensory TV programs where you can smell or taste food prepared on cooking shows to see what it is people on TV are gushing over ... I always suspect that people hosting cooking shows are lying through their teeth when they are in raptures over what that prepared.  I look at the ingredients and I'm like ... meh ... how can it possibly be that great.

I digress, because Jardiniere was quite magical.  We may have been half the age of the next youngest person in the restaurant; everyone was having their pre-theatre meal before heading off to the opera next door.  Yup, made us feel real fancy.

Chacuterie that came along with a basket of many different types of breads and crackers; sadly, I enjoyed the rabbit the most.  Ack.

Scallops; sadly, we both agree I tend to make scallops that better suit our tastes.  My preference is for scallops to be as undercooked as possible. This was not a fav.

Garden peas and mushrooms with a thoughtful sprinkle of crispy rice thingies that added a nice texture.


This was really interesting.  Pasta with strawberries and duck tongue.  The strawberries were meant to look like the traditional tomatoes you find in pasta but with an interesting new taste.  Very interesting indeed.  It might also have been my first time eating duck tongue, of which at least 20 ducks' worth in this dish.  That's a lot of ducks.


And then more duck, but a very different sort.  Breast and confit and some delightful fruit on the side that went really well with the dish.  Evidently, we both really enjoy duck.


Pleased as punch.


Also pleased as punch.

*1266 - "rustic" carrot cake

I know I have mentioned it so many times before but I'm always amazed at my carrot cake recipe which has never failed to please a crowd.  Even baking it for the first time in years in SF, with a whole different set of ingredients (make up of flour, salt, etc. all change and affect the final product when you're using different brands) yielded perfect results.  It is a very forgiving recipe.  One of my go to's when asked to bring dessert, along with my spiked banana cake.

Am quite pleased that you can even see the little spots of vanilla bean in the cream cheese frosting!  I don't actually know how to frost cakes--I'm terrific at cupcakes, with a piping bag, but big cakes?  No time for using a teensy piping bag, no icing spatula in kitchen repertoire, no knowledge nor desire to produce professional-looking cakes ... hence my "rustic" cakes.  "Rustic" is one of those euphemisms you should look out for in real estate descriptions (along with "cozy", "potential", "compact", "unique" ...), which we are very well-educated on at this point, but really I do think it makes for a cute little cake.  Sprinkle a handful of walnuts on the top to take the mind away from the imperfections, and voila!  Rustic.  And delicious.

*1265 - salty

Yes, this was some weeks back.  Celebration #1 of 2 (job-related) at Alexander's Steakhouse.

The sound of a "steakhouse" doesn't usually inspire culinary excitement in me but this was really interesting stuff.  A lot of molecular gastronomy and very thoughtful dishes.  Among my favorites, the renown hamachi shots!  Avocado, little garlic balls, ponzu sauce, lime ... perfect little mouthfuls.  Mmm.

 

We splurged on wagyu and were greeted with a delightful platter of 12 different salts.  There was a very interesting smelly pick sulfuric one that was a little nasty if you took a plain lick of it, but when combined with the beef: eggs and steak!

 

A lovely treat and really impressive food experience--and I am not easily impressed.  There was just so much care put into every little dish.

Across us was a table with a handful of little girls and their parents ... I'm excited for the day I have enough money to regard a $50 meal for my handful of little kids who wouldn't care less if they were eating wagyu vs. a frozen beef patty as no biggie.  Privileged kiddos.