Vegging in San Francisco

So last weekend I headed out to see Mom in San Francisco. My parents have a great house on the canal in Foster City, Ca. I got to sit and read and sun my toes all weekend.

My mother has a great love of food also. So when left to our devices, we shop and eat. Pure decadence. My mother and I always agree on food. So we made reservations at our 2 favorite places. Greens and Millenium. One vegetarian and one vegan. Both are some of the best restaurants in the US.

Neither one of us are strict vegetarians but we love THINKING that we are eating healthy even if its just an illusion.

Saturday night was Greens. I made a reservation using Open Table. If you haven't joined, give it a try. I rack up tons of points by choosing the 1000 pt reservation times. The restaurants are never crowded and I get a keen gift certificate in no time. We arrived at 6:45, a perfect time to catch the sunset over the Golden Gate from a table by the window.

Saturday nights are prix fix at Greens. I ordered a sparkling Rose and mom had Might Leaf chamomile tea. (another fav!) We started with pickled vegetables and a cheesy rice cake with creme fraiche. Both were delicious. I am sorry I didn't take pictures but I didn't want to be distracted from eating.

For dinner, mom had a vegetable curry and I have the filo pockets stuffed with fresh vegetables, tomato sauce and cheese. Both were incredibly flavorful and not what you expect from a vegetarian offering. Too many vegetarians plates are bland and lifeless. The key to vegetarian cooking is spice and not overcooking the vegetables.

Dessert was a fromage blanco cheesecake for me and a Meyer Lemon layer cake for mom. Both were so rich we couldn't finish.

The next night was a trip to Eric Tucker's Millineum.

I started the evening with a Strawberry Mojito. Incredibly delicious and I love the strawberries in CA.

Here was our menu.

• Zaatar & Garlic Spiced Hand-Cut Frittes with whole grain mustard aioli - AMAZING I could just eat these.
  
• Grilled Asparagus Salad with little gem lettuce, creamy pink peppercorn "ranch", sun dried tomato relish, crisp spring garlic chip
  
• Strawberry Salad with pecans and red wine vinegarette
  
• Seared Emerald Rice CakeIndonesian red coconut curry with winter root vegetables, lemongrass tofu, bok choy & shiitake mushrooms, pineapple sambal, toasted peanuts


• Sesame Brown Rice for mom


• Chocolate Almond Midnight with almond cashew crust, mocha chocolate filling, raspberry sauce, white chocolate mousse


• Sweet Ending - assorted truffles & house-made cookies

Too much great food....good to see mom and good to relax.

Sharpening Our Skills at the Chopping Block

As a Christmas present I gave N a knife skills class for the both of us at the Chopping Block. They have great classes at the Merchandise Mart in the Loop. The basic class would give us an overview of the different brands and kinds of knives.

I am partial to my Global knife given to me by mom last Valentine's Day. A beautiful Santoku. Light, ergonomic and just oh so cool. Our chef Eric, was very funny and extremely talented with the HUGE German knives. These were just too intimidating and heavy for me. But we learned the proper way to slice, dice and julienne.

I finally learned how to slice an onion evenly and without fear of amputation.

N and I had a blast. Nothing like good company and sharp pointy objects.