Fair and Tender Ladies

These beautiful women reside in the permanent collections at the de Young. I love to visit them, and felt that they deserved their own posting.

Artful Dodger

Thursday was my volunteer day at the de Young. It went really well, mostly due to the fact that the museum supports a full-time, year-round volunteer program (of about 600 permanent volunteers), they are extremely organized, we were very well-staffed.

Our job was to take visitor surveys. By filling out the survey, a participant received a free poster. I love interacting with the public, especially the older people who had such wonderful stories to tell of the museum's former years and old San Francisco. There was a couple (ages 87 and 65) who was so giggly and cute and flirtatious , they could have been teenagers.

My working hours were only from about 12-2, and then we were free to enjoy the museum for the rest of the day. With our volunteer badges, we could go to the front of the line for special exhibits, and enjoy a 20% discount at the store and cafe. I stayed until 4, exploring the Chihuly exhibition, Jane Hammond: Paperwork, and For Tent and Trade: Masterpieces of Turkmen Weaving, and Timothy Horn: Bitter Suite.

The Chihuly was amazing, beautiful, stunning, otherworldly. The color was absolutely incredible, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, half expecting to see mythical creatures perched atop the flowers, plants, and undersea creatures. The scale and scope of it was breathtaking.

I also really liked the Jane Hammond exhibit, which made me want to get out my art supplies and do a little creating of my own.

There were a couple of really interesting pieces by Timothy Horn, made out of sugar - magical!

Highlights/Chihuly:




Highlights/Jane Hammond:




Highlights/Timothy Horn:

Carrot Cake Cookies

I would like to call them mini carrot cake balls in stead of cookies. They didn't expand in the oven. I used a mini ice cream scoop to drop the dough and didn't press them before going into the oven expecting them to expand. But they didn't. So after I sandwiched them they became cute little balls.



The balls were delicious. They were soft and delicate with a hint of spices. Oatmeal added a perfect chewy texture. They got enthusiastic nods from everybody trying them. Thanks, Martha Stewart. I didn't use her cream cheese frosting recipe, though. I thought the cookies came out super sweet. I wanted something a bit tart and creamy to balance it. So for the frosting, I just whipped 12oz. (1 1/2 packages) of cream cheese with only 1/2 cup of confectioner sugar.

Peach Tart

I'm not sure what the difference between pies and tarts is - other than the fancy pan. Well - there's more sugar in tart crust but almost everything else is the same.

Anyway - I made a tart because Hannah came over with a tart pan (actually we went shopping together and she got a tart pan) and I had peaches.

It's actually pretty easy - as easy as pies.... The only problem was that the pan is 11 inch while all the recipes we found on the internet are for 9-inch pan.

So we just winged it. But I still want to record what we did because the tart came out so delicious that I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner instead of food.



Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 stick or 1/2 cup butter - chilled


• 4 tablespoons shortening


• 6 large peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced


• 2/3 cup sugar


• 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

Directions

1. Combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar and salt in a food processor. Cut cubes of butter and shortening into the flour mixture. Run the food processor until the dough looks like coarse meal.


2. Press the dough onto an 11-inch tart pan and freeze for 20 minutes.


3. Bake the crust in 350 degrees oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the pan.


4. Toss cut peaches with 1/2 cup sugar and a few tablespoons of flour. We thought of adding lemon juice but because the peaches were already tart, we didn't. And the tart came out perfectly sweet with a hint of tartness.


5. Arrange peaches on the pre-baked crust and bake fore 20 more minutes to cook the fruit.

The Fat Lady Has Sung

And she did it right here on this stage, when the SF Opera performed at Stern Grove, for the final concert of the 71st season this past Sunday August 17th. It was a great performance, and the acoustics were absolutely perfect. The opera attracts some of my favorite patrons, from old to young, and they are a very generous, kind group of people. I never feel more engaged with an audience than this one.

I made a decision yesterday. I have been a volunteer at Stern Grove for 6 years now, and while it's been a great run, I am retiring from it. Steven Haines and his staff are doing an excellent job with the organization, and in fact I ran into him in Hayes Valley last week and had a lovely chat about Stern Grove and San Francisco in general. I have no doubt that under his direction, the festival will continue to thrive.

I wholeheartedly believe in giving back to your community, but at this point, I am ready to return to the audience and leave the behind-the-scenes work to others. I realized that it has been a very long time since I have attended a concert on my own, apart from working at one. As I was walking through the park yesterday, it was without a sense of obligation. It was very freeing. I will continue to show my support through donations, and I will always stop by the information booth to say hello to the returning volunteers that I had looked forward to seeing every summer.

Now I am looking at new volunteer opportunities. This week and next, I am exploring two new organizations: the DeYoung Museum and the Slow Food Nation Festival. I also plan to return to 826 Valencia to see what writing/tutoring programs they are offering for their fall curriculum.

It's exciting - like getting a new job. What I am looking for is a position that is stimulating, in a different area of the arts than I have previously been involved with, and something related to what I am doing with my life right now. And just like with a job hunt, I want to make sure that we are a good fit for each other. Most importantly, it has to be manageable within my daily routine and something that I look forward to doing. My life is all about making connections right now, and I want to make sure that whatever I decide to give my time to offers the possibility of opening doors to future things, or teaches me skills that I can use for my own enhancement as a writer.

I like the notion of the volunteer/organization relationship as a two-way street. They say that that generosity is its own reward, and it is, and for that reason I will always have at least one continuous act of community service in my life, as well as the fact that I believe in giving my time to a worthwhile cause. However, there is no harm in making it something from which I receive a portion of personal gain - that, too, is free.

You Got Your Peanut Butter in My Chocolate!

I wanted to try a new chocolate cupcake recipe that would appeal to both adults and kids, and I found this one by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, online. I don't know anyone who doesn't like the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, and this one is extra special because the cupcake comes out very dark and rich, but not so bitter that kids won't like it. It is also amazingly moist. When I was at the baking supplies store, I found these great dark brown paper cups, which really added to the peanut butter cup look. The recipe suggests chopped peanuts on top, but I preferred the look and taste of a trio of bittersweet chocolate chips.

Chocolate Cupcakes

• 12 T. (1 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 2/3 C. granulated sugar
• 2/3 C. light brown sugar, packed
• 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 t. pure vanilla extract
• 1 C. buttermilk, shaken, at room temperature
• 1/2 sour cream, at room temperature
  
• 2 T. brewed coffee
• 1 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
• 1 C. good cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. kosher salt

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 2 sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Lower the speed to medium and add the eggs, 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream and coffee.
- In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
- On low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture alternately in thirds to the mixer bowl, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Mix only until blended. Fold the batter with a rubber spatula to make sure it's completely blended.
- Divide the batter among the cupcake pans (I use a cookie scoop and fill each cup about 2/3 full).
- Bake in the middle of the oven for about 20 - 25 min (watch carefully)
- Cool 10 minutes, remove from the pan, and allow too cool completely before frosting.


Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting

• 1 C. confectioners sugar
• 1 C. creamy peanut butter
• 5 T. unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 t. pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 t. kosher salt
• 1/3 C. heavy cream
• 1/2 C. bittersweet chocolate chips (or topping of your choice)
  

- Place the confectioners sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of and electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work.
- Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.
- Frost cupcakes and top with chopped peanuts, sprinkles, or chocolate chips.

Bake Sale Betties

Today was the Bernal Heights Garage Sale and our cupcake sales were GREAT! Overall, we sold just under 100 cupcakes in about 4 hours, with the bulk of the sales in the first hour. The customers were very happy, first with the presentation, then with the selection of flavors, and finally with the taste (most important, of course!)

We had Hummingbird, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Salted Caramel, and Fresh Strawberry. We sold them for $2 for regular size, $1 for minis. During the last hour, we cut the prices in half.


Cupcakes are a great way to introduce yourselves to people and to get them to stop by. They are such happy little things, a treat for anyone of any age, and an easily manageable finger food. And if someone is happily chowing down on a delicious cupcake, it will put them in a good mood and encourage them to linger, and hopefully buy something. Plus, I think it speaks volumes of your good taste - with the promise that this will carry through to your other items. Simple marketing, really.

In addition to the sales today, I also made a box of assorted cupcakes for my friend Megan to give to her boyfriend Martin on his birthday. This prompted me to go out and buy boxes and ribbon. I used the extra boxes at the sale, which really came in handy and allowed people to buy in bulk. Definitely worth the 55 cents per box. Here are the boxed cupcakes right before Megan picked them up:


Many people asked us today if we had a baking business. That was a real compliment - they were shocked when we said that we just did it for fun. It got me thinking...a custom order cupcake business? With a website? Doing events like this and passing out business cards? Hmmmm.....

Stay tuned. Something is baking.

Think Pink

Saturday is the Bernal Heights Garage Sale, a huge neighborhood-wide event where people can sell their crap to other people so that they have more money to buy more crap. Yay! This year, I am going to help out my friend Jude and we are going to sell cupcakes and her adorable little hand-stitched felted onesies, too (she's a crafty one, I tell ya). Recession - ha! We laugh in your general direction.

I am going to make my Hummingbird cupcakes, and she is going to make my Salted Caramel Chocolate cupcakes. I wanted to make some kind of mini for the kids, and also something summery, so I found this recipe on line from the book "Screen Doors and Sweet Tea" by Martha Hall Foose. I adapted it slightly and it turned out great. Above is my trial batch.

Strawberry Cupcakes

• 2 1/2 C. cake flour
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/3 C. buttermilk
• 1/4 C. canola oil
• 1/2 t. almond extract
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 C. mashed fresh strawberries
• 1 t. grated orange zest

- Preheat oven to 350. Line mini muffin pan with baking cups (makes about 50-60)
- In a med bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt
- In another med bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, almond and vanilla extracts - set aside
- In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and granulated sugar until light & fluffy. Add the eggs one at time, beating well after each addition.
- Gradually add the buttermilk mixture. Beat 1 min on med speed.
- Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture. Mix until just combined
- Stir in the strawberries and orange zest.
- Spoon into prepared muffin tins - fill to 2/3 full (DO NOT overfilll, trust me on this)
- Bake for about 20 min

• 1/2 C. chopped fresh strawberries
• 2 T. strawberry jam
• 1 t. fresh lemon juice
• 1 8oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softenend
• 2 C. (1 box) confectioner's sugar, sifted

- In a small saucepan over med heat, combine strawberries, jam and lemon juice. Cook and stir for 5 min, or until the jam is melted and the strawberries are soft. Press any big pieces with the back of a spoon to mash.
- In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mis the cream cheese and butter at med speed until creamy. At low speed, slowly add the confectioners sugar and mix until combined.
- Add the strawberries and mix at low speed until blended.

I leave you with this fabulous sticker that my friend Jill just sent me from Cupcake Royale in Seattle (notice that they are featuring Strawberry cupcakes this month). You gotta fight for your right to FROST!

Peanut Butter Nutella Sandwich Cookies

Is it possible to have too many good things in a cookie? In this case, it's not possible. Sandwich delicious peanut butter oatmeal cookies together with Nutella, and we get out-of-this-worldly tasty crunchy satisfyingly delicious peanut butter Nutella cookies.



I started with a double batch of this oatmeal peanut butter cookies.



Was too lazy to whip up peanut butter frosting, I open a jar of Nutella and spread generously onto the cookies to form sandwich cookies.



I brought half the cookies to a beach weekend outing and had to rapidly give the rest away so that I wouldn't eat them all. Evil cookies. Dangerous.

Architects of the Urban Landscape

Mint Plaza, Saturday afternoon, 3:30pm


Artisinal Cheese Plate, Chez Papa Resto


The famous $20,000 coffee siphon at Blue Bottle Coffee

Lord of the Rings

This Olympic season, we actually have family bragging rights. Charles's 1st cousin, Scott Gault, is on the rowing team for the US (quadruple skulls). We are able to communicate with him and follow his adventures on his blog, as well see him live on t.v. Exciting stuff! And, not only is he in our family, he is a Bay Area native, born and raised in Piedmont.

We're very proud of you, Scott!

Let the Games Begin

Oh my god, I just had to post the picture from today's Cake Wrecks blog. Parentheses! Quotation marks! And nothing else on the cake to distract you from the beautiful artwork that someone paid for. I am just imagining the decorator standing back, admiring his or her work, and thinking, yep, that's perfect. 10!

God bless America.

These Are a Few of my Favorite Things...

Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens...and a SMEG refrigerator!

I love their retro look, fabulous color range, and endless custom options.

Another favorite thing? A blog that was just shared with me today, called Alkemie. In my first day of reading, I browsed through Karen Olivia's amazing photos of Night Hotel (where I stayed a couple of years ago), SMEGs in their natural habitat (aka adorable, happy kitchens), and a picture of Blythe! It's too good! Chock full of photographs, it's like a design-lover's wet dream.


(OK, please notice that I found these 2 pictures randomly on the internet, and they coordinate perfectly. And why? Because my world of favorite things is PERFECT.)

The only thing that I might change is the name of the refrigerator company, and only because I don't want to hear 13-year old boys snicker every time I say it.

Margarita Shortbread Cookies

What happens when you forget to salt your cookie dough? I sprinkled salt on top of my cookies and got delicious salty cookies. The first time this happened I was baking Lemon-Lime cookies with Hannah. The cookies turned out so good that I had to repeat. This time I only used limes and call them margarita cookies.



When they first came out of the oven, I thought they were way too salty and not sweet enough. Then I remembered that Hannah rolled the cookies with confectioner sugar while I rolled mine with flour... So I dusted my cookies with loads of confectioner sugar to make them sweeter. And I got a perfect sweet salty sour and buttery deliciousness.



Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter - room temperature


• 1/2 cup sugar


• Zest from 2 limes plus juice from 1 lime


• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 1/4 teaspoon salt plus more for sprinkle


• 1/4 cup confectioner sugar for dusting

Directions

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter with 1/2 cup of sugar until light and fuffy - about 3 minutes.


2. Add lime zest and juice. Beat until well combined.


3. Reduce the mixer speed and stir in 2 and 1/2 cups of flour. Form the dough in to ball and refrigerate for 2 hours or freeze for 30 minutes.


4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.


5. Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface to about 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out with cookie cutter. Lightly sprinkle sea salt on the cut out cookies. Bake on prepared cookie sheets for 15 minutes.


6. Transfer the cookies onto cooling racks and dust them with confectioner sugar while they are still warm. Let cool completely. Make 50 yo 70 cookies.

Looking Down the Barrell

One of the things that people usually don't know about me is that I love surf movies. "The Endless Summer", "Step into Liquid", "Riding with Giants"...I love them all. While I live near the ocean, I have never surfed or attempted to surf - something that I plan to remedy in my adult life.

What is it then, that always mesmerizes me when I watch a surf movie? Well, the beautiful footage, certainly. Those impossibly big walls of water rushing forward and a guy on a board using all of his mental and physical skills just to stay with it. And the surfers themselves - graceful, strong, athletic, and something more...there is something in their faces that goes beyond simply being in "the Zone". They are at once fully engaged (you have to be to survive) but also...peaceful? Is that the right word? It's something transcendent, that is for sure. And it what draws them back to the ocean every single time, and me to them.

"The Endless Summer" is definitely my favorite surf movie of all time. I like it because it was made when surfing wasn't cool, and when so many of the beaches they visited were pristine and untouched. It is the ultimate adventure, and the men in it like lone gunmen staking their claim in the Wild West - but at the same time like little boys, playing all day in the sun and surf.

For all of their renegade attitude and bravado, I find surfers as a whole to be very simple, nice people. It's certainly true of the ones that I have known in my life - they are a little bit like Buddhists, with a different respect for nature than your average athlete. Maybe it is because their sport is entirely dependent on nature, and nature is constantly challenging them and threatening to beat them against the rocks, but at the same time allowing them to participate in its majesty in a way that not many people experience. So they are both humbled and enlightened every day. That has to have an effect on your soul.

Last Wednesday, I took my brother to see "Bustin Down the Door", a new documentary by Jeremy Gosch, about the summer of 1975 in Oahu, Hawaii. It was at the Bridge Theater, an old, single-screen, wonderful cinema in the Richmond. I had read a great review in San Francisco Magazine and then I learned that Shaun Tompson, one of the main surfers in the film (and featured in the photo above) and also the executive producer, was scheduled to be there, so I booked tickets for us online as soon as I could.


The theater, surprisingly, was only about 2/3 full. Still, you could feel the level of energy in the room when Shaun Tompson took the stage and did his introduction, looking amazingly young and fit for his 60 years. We watched the movie less like an audience, and more like a community - connected in some way by surfing, the lure of the ocean, and the human spirit that despite all odds, wants to go out there and be the best. The movie, narrated by Edward Norton, who was chosen out of respect for his work and also because he is a surfer himself, focuses on a group of Australians and South Africans, including Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholemew, Mark Richards, Ian Cairns, and Peter Townend, as well as Shaun and his cousin Michael Tomson. They are the young men responsible for making surfing into a pro sport, and did so at a time when it was thought to be just another past-time for hippies and stoners. The movie has a lot of original footage, which is beautiful to watch - and each surfer has a unique style that is still considered innovative by today's standards. The rest of the movie is done in present-day interviews, and the men are very forthcoming about what they were going through in their lives at the time, and how the events have affected them now. It's very touching and you feel like you get to know them. And you feel for them as they experience the rush of success and the real danger of overstepping their bounds.

Afterwards, Tomson came out and did a Q & A with the audience. That was a real treat, and he answered each question very thoroughly and honestly, in his soft Durban accent and self-depreciating manner. He was thoroughly charming and unaffected, which is surprising when you consider that he was thought of as the Kelly Slater of his time, with his brilliant blue eyes, amazing skill, and athletic build. It matched what I have read about him: that he still gets out there and surfs every day (in Santa Barbara), and he waits in line like anyone else, for his turn to come. You'd never know you were in the presence of a World Champion (until of course, you see his skill). He got choked up at the end of the night, when he was talking about how surfing has helped him to overcome difficulties in his life. He touched briefly on the death of his son Mathew, who the movie is dedicated to. I didn't know the story, but it turns out that he died tragically 2 years ago at age 15 as a victim of a schoolboy prank in Shaun's native Durban. The final quote of the movie is an excerpt from an essay called "Becoming a Man" written by Mathew shortly before he died. I think it conveys perfectly what surfers feel, and what I am drawn to - a kind of Zen of life that is achieved by going to the edge and back, again and again.

Deep inside the barrel, completely in tune with my inner self, nothing else matters, the hard wind and spit shooting past me from behind, my hand dragging along the wall, the light shines ahead. My long hair carried by the wind. My feet are in perfect placement on the board. As I lean forward I feel myself speeding up getting faster and faster as the barrel starts to close. I crouch down until my legs burn and I then pull out to the whole lineup cheering. My body tingles with joy and happiness.

My Goodness My Guinness

What to bring to a birthday party at a bar? Why, Guinness Chocolate cupcakes, of course. I created a nice, foamy head of vanilla-maple frosting which worked well with the super-moist cake. I made about 30 for 20 people, and the leftovers were distributed to the other patrons at Noe's Bar. I'm having flashbacks to last summer in Dublin * sigh* I think I need a cupcake.

Orange Cranberry Scones

I just found out about a new realm of baking - scones and biscuits! Why haven't I ever thought of baking them earlier? There are endless possibility with these. I can go either savory or sweet. And they are super easy to make - no electric mixer - not a lot of cleaning required. I must go crazy making these with all kinds of substitutes!

Just as I was thinking which fruit to put in my first scones, my dear neighbor gave me a bag of cranberries. So I made orange cranberry scones from this base recipe from AllRecipes.com.



I added 1/4 cup of sugar into dry ingredients, and zest from an orange and 1/2 cup of dried cranberries to the batter.



The apartment smelled amazing while these were in the oven. I love the baked orange smell in the air. The scones came out light, delicate and not too sweet although not as flaky and buttery as I thought they should be. But what do I know? I shall try other recipes and compare.

10 Minute Summer Salad

I love new recipes, and don't mind spending time on them, but what really makes me happy is if I can figure out a way to throw something together that is tasty, nutritious, and aesthetically appealing in about 10 minutes.

Today's beautiful summer weather (Real Summer, not SF Summer) made me crave a salad - something satifying, interesting, citrusy, and not too fussy. I started Googling ingredients that sounded good to me - grapefruit, avocado, salad - and found this recipe on msn.com. When I went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, my butcher asked me if I wanted cooked shrimp or raw shrimp. Aha moment! I decided to use cooked shrimp and save myself a little time, and also put away some for another day.

The recipe allowed me to use a new time-saving device that I had picked up recently - a "Grapefruiter" by Chef'n, which worked OK - I didn't get very pretty 0r large sections of grapefruit, but I was done in about a minute so it was worth it. For company, I'd hand-section them. My Mexican citrus squeezer also came in handy - a must-have if you love Margaritas (doesn't that sound tasty....)

The result was delicious! Perfectly balanced ingredients, and truly lovely to look at. And now that I have made it once, I know that I can make it again without ever having to look at the recipe, because exact measurements aren't necessary. I halved the recipe to make it the correct portion for one, but it would be easy to go up or down as needed, and I mostly eyeballed everything.

Shrimp, Grapefruit and Avocado Salad

• 8 medium shrimp, cooked
• 2 t. fresh lime juice
• 1/8 C. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 t. sea salt
• 1/8 t. crushed red pepper
• 1/2 large pink grapefruit
• 1/2 t. Dijon mustard
• 1/2 head butter lettuce
• 1/4 C. arugula
• 1/2 avocado, peeled and cubed

- Toss shrimp with 1 t. lime juice, 1/2 t. olive oil, 1/8 t. salt, and red pepper. Lightly saute in a pan for about 3 min, leave to marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Segment the grapefruit, reserving the juice.
- Whisk together grapefruit juice, Dijon mustard, remaining salt, remaining lime juice. Whisk in 2 t. olive oil. (I also stirred in a little of the marinade from the shrimp).
- Place butter lettuce and arugula in a bowl.
- Arrange shrimp, grapefruit, and avocado on top of lettuce.
- Drizzle grapefruit vinaigrette on top.

Serves one as a main course, two as a side salad.



Happy Summer!