For Ken’s birthday this year, we decided to host a brunch in our apartment. We recently purchased some home items (including a dining table and dining room chairs) and thought it was time to finally have people over to the apartment. Ken and I thought about the menu and weren’t sure what to make so we went back and forth a little over the week and finally decided on the menu late in the week.
On Saturday, we headed to the farmers market to buy eggs, milk, maple syrup, challah bread, and flowers. Then a trip to Whole Foods to pick up some White Moustache yogurt, Early Birds granola, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, papaya, honeydew, hashbrowns, and mangoes! We went home and started assembling the ingredients that could be prepared beforehand and on Sunday morning finished setting up. We also set up our dining table early in the afternoon so it was one less thing to take care of on Sunday morning.
Here’s our table:
My fruit plate included honeydew, pineapple, raspberries, blackberries, mangoes, blueberries and papaya:
Ken, pouring some fresh French press coffee for our guests:
Ken’s vanilla bean French toast with berries and powdered sugar:
Ken took the recipe from Ina Garten (because Ina Garten can do no wrong when it comes to food!) I added some vanilla beans to make it look prettier and we used clementine zest instead of orange zest. I also made the milk/egg mixture the evening before so we could just do the dipping on Sunday morning. The recipe:
Ingredients
6 extra-large eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half or milk (we used whole milk and a touch of whipping cream!)
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (we used clementines because we only had a blood orange or a bag of clementines)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon good honey
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large loaf challah or brioche bread (the challah bread at the farmers market was a little harder than the egg challah that Whole Foods sells – we did a practice run before brunch and found the challah bread from the farmer’s market absorbed the egg mixture much better and still maintained its texture)
Unsalted butter
Vegetable oil
To start, preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, orange zest, vanilla, honey, and salt. Slice the challah in 3/4-inch thick slices. Soak as many slices in the egg mixture as possible for 5 minutes, turning once.
Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil in a very large saute pan over medium heat. Add the soaked bread and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until nicely browned. Place the cooked French toast on a sheet pan and keep it warm in the oven. Fry the remaining soaked bread slices, adding butter and oil as needed, until it’s all cooked. Serve hot with maple syrup, raspberry preserves, and/or confectioners’ sugar.
Happy birthday, Ken!
By
grace.g.yang
· October 16, 2015
Under:
California,
Sonoma,
Wine After our fun grape stomp at Larson Family Winery, we went to the grocery store to stock up for the weekend. We rented a house in Sonoma and it ended up being awesome – very centrally located, nicely sized rooms, and a great for hosting the wedding afterparty. We did a big group dinner on Friday night after the grape stomp (pizza, quesadillas, salads and popcorn) and then got ready for our big day of tastings on Saturday.
We started the morning at Gundlach Bundschu, the oldest family winery in California. We did five different tastings (ending with their Cabernet that was just unveiled recently). Here’s me, Ken, Kristen and Drew taking a photo post tasting with the selfie-stick John and Erin gave everyone for the weekend:
And me and Ken during the tasting:
They already started the harvest for this year, which is two weeks ahead of schedule:
After tasting five wines, we headed to Lagunitas for lunch and a beer tasting – it was a lot of alcohol to consume on a Saturday morning but a really fun day!
After lunch, we did some light shopping and then met up with Kristen and Drew to drive to Sonoma for John and Erin’s wedding weekend. The drive was traffic heavy but we managed to get to Larson Family Winery right in time for the grape stomp. John and Erin planned a fun weekend for all of their wedding guests (grape stomp on Friday, wineries on Saturday, and the wedding on Sunday!) The winery had corn hole, bocce ball, picnic tables, and a grape stomp competition area:
Grape stomp competitions are usually six minutes long and there are two people on a team – one person is stomping the grapes and the other is cleaning out a screen to get the juice. We decided to only do one minute per person (and have teams of six) so everyone would get a chance to stomp. Here are the grapes we stomped:
The referee said you have to do a ceremonial foot wash for the first person to get into the grape stomping bucket (why would you only clean the first person’s feet?!) – luckily, the groom, John, was the first guy to do the stomp and got his feet cleaned by one of the wedding guests:
The grape stomp started and was more difficult than I thought it would be! The grapes break down almost immediately so you’re stomping around in an ankle-deep container of grape juice, grape skin, and grape seeds and you’re trying to help your teammate get juice into the jug! Here’s Drew and Pat working together:
I lucked out and didn’t have to work the screen (it was really messy and people had grape juice all over their clothes) – we ended up getting second place (the bride’s team won!). I posted the video on instagram, which you can see here. What a great way to start the wedding festivities!
On Friday, Ken and I went out for brunch near our hotel in San Francisco before meeting up with our friends to head to Sonoma. We looked around for a restaurant with good reviews and figured that Dottie’s True Blue Cafe was a safe bet. I didn’t think the lines would be very long because it was a weekday, but we ended up having to wait outside for about 40 minutes for brunch.
The neighborhood is on its way to becoming much nicer than it currently is, however, during our wait, there were some incidents where drugged out homeless people yelled at the people in line (the guy behind us was a tourist on his own and was harassed by someone who got into his face and yelled at him while eating a brownie). Even when we got into the vestibule of the restaurant, people were begging for money and loitering in the area. I have never been so happy to get to the front of the line because we were fully inside the restaurant!
While we were waiting, we reviewed the daily specials and the regular menu. The specials are listed on a chalkboard (and only on a chalkboard – our waiter suggested we go outside if we were interested in knowing what the specials were):
The popular items were also on the chalkboard by the entrance:
Ken and I decided not to order too much because we were going to Tartine Bakery afterwards (I have to go there everytime I’m in San Francisco, just like I have to go to Jimmy John’s and Portillo’s everytime I visit Chicago!). We ordered the blueberry pancakes:
And the whiskey fennel sausage scramble with jalapeno cornbread:
The pancakes were pretty good – they were moist, soft and fluffy. I still prefer Clinton St. Baking Company’s delicious blueberry pancakes, but these were pretty good. The scramble was also pretty good (and definitely tasted like something you could recreate easily at home). The jalapeno cornbread was on the drier side but they also give you some pepper jelly to pair with it (I preferred eating it with butter because the pepper jelly was way too sweet).
The brunch was pretty decent but I don’t think it was worth the wait and it was definitely not worth the trouble of standing in line and being afraid that someone was going to harass us in broad daylight. Next time, I’m going straight to Tartine!
The day after the Michelin 2016 event, Ken and I flew to San Francisco for the weekend to visit Teresa (his sister) and to attend his friend’s wedding in Sonoma. We landed, checked into our hotel in San Francisco, and then headed to Nopalito, a Mexican restaurant specializing in local, organic and sustainable ingredients. We started the meal with some fried chickpeas:
These are really delicious and sold in small bags in the to go area because they’re so popular. Teresa bought us a bag because Ken really liked them!
We ordered some guacamole for the table to start the meal:
The gaucamole was a little tasteless, which was surprising because the server said it was definitely worth ordering. Ken and I both liked the chips – they were super crunchy and delicious on their own.
For Ken’s main course, he ordered the fish tacos (two tacos of seared fish in ancho chile adobo, orange, onion, cilantro and salsa de morita y tomatillo):
Ken shared the dish with Adam, Teresa’s fiancé, but I ended up getting a bite from his taco. The flavors were all a bit muted and tasted mushy – I think it would have been much better if I had taken a bite when the dish first arrived at the table.
For my main course, I ordered the carnitas (braised pork, orange, bay leaf, milk, cinnamon, beer, cabbage salad, pickled jalapeño and salsa de tomatillo):
I was starving after getting off the plane and walking around San Francisco, so I knew it would be good to order something with a lot of meat! I had to douse the carnitas with lots of the tomatillo salsa because the pork was on the plain side, but the pork was cooked really well and it fell apart easily. The dish comes with tortilla wraps so Ken and Adam were also able to enjoy some of the pork.
Adam ordered the Huarache con Suadero y Chorizo (oval-shaped corn tortilla, pinquito beans, braised brisket, Oaxacan chorizo, queso fresco, crema, onions, cilantro and salsa arbol tomatillo):
I didn’t get to try the dish but they both enjoyed it (it looked like a dosa because the tortilla was so large!) Teresa ordered the huevos rancheros but I didn’t get a good picture of it – she enjoyed her meal, too.
For dessert, the server brings Mexican cookies to the table along with the check:
Me and Ken after lunch:
While I didn’t have the best experience at Nopalito, the place is really popular (there are two locations in SF!) and they’re the sister restaurant to Nopa, another popular restaurant that my friend’s like going to when they visit. Maybe we ordered the wrong thing (but how is guacamole at a Mexican restaurant the wrong thing to order?!) Next time we visit San Francisco, I’m heading to the mission district for a burrito!
