harvest dinner – I made out like a bandit!! November 7, 2007

(photo credits: larisa and bianca)

Day of, Larisa arrives with her cart (name pending) containing the following items:

potatoes, thin green beans and maple
broccoli with sicilian sauce
squash with chestnuts and pomegranates
scary cheese ball with garlic crisps
pear beet greens with champagne vinaigrette
magical sangria ingredients
pumpkin roll cake
pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing
savory stuffed puff pastry roll
and a totally yummy dessert that is just like my mom’s prized pumpkin bread!

Usually this blog displays foodvisuals, but this night was captured in a slightly different way. Thanks to all of our friends who shared their nights and hearts. And a special thank you, Larisa, for making this a truly mesmerizing day and evening!

pear season September 18, 2007

This tiny, sweet pear is one of the last of the crop from my boss’ tree.

rustic love pie August 24, 2007

I’ve lived in San Francisco for nearly ten years. In that time, I’ve met mostly people native to other locales. Locales with seasons. I never hear anyone say, “I miss sticky summers and walking into gnat swarms”, or “Black ice takes me back”. Usually it’s, “I miss Fall”. I do, too. So I made a pie.

Well not yet this year, but a few back. It was a love pie. The love moved on, but I do have a photo memory of a tasty baked good. I can live with that. The photo reminds me that what I miss of “Fall”, and other seasons, are reminders that life is transient – strung together cycles of fried fresh corn, tomatoes from vines braced with pantyhose, Mom’s caramel cake, Christine’s potatoes and onions, 10 types of apples, pumpkin bread, and all the countless things that tie me to distinctly different years in my life. “That was the year the cake fell, but tasted good anyway”, or “We used sweet potatoes instead of russet”, and so on. My belly is my sundial.