zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Sara has been raving about the benefits of meditation for months now, and I think I'd like to go on a meditation retreat sometime - maybe this summer. After the month I've had, I'm so ready for a mental break - and places like Spirit Rock and Tassajara offer discounts for people under 25!


I've tried meditating before - briefly - and had a pretty rough time. My butt hurt. My back hurt. My nose itched. I couldn't concentrate on not concentrating. I kept thinking about things, like what I was going to get from the grocery store, and what my plans were for the weekend. And that was only a 30 minute session!

But from what I understand, these meditation centers offer a very Bay Area-influenced experience (i.e., the food served is very tasty, made from local, organic, sustainable, vegetarian ingredients).  And especially after reading a recent article in the Times about how meditation may change the brain:

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

Pretty compelling stuff, hmm? So, who's with me?

Reading: Cat's Cradle
Listening: Magnetic Man, Getting Nowhere

the saddest story ever told

I am not a happy camper.

As you may already know, I've had my eye on a Vince leather jacket for about a year and a half. It fits perfectly, has the butteriest leather, and feels delicious when I put it on. I went to visit it so often that the Vince salesperson at Bloomingdales even came to recognize me. But at the end of the day, I couldn't part with the thousand (!!!) dollars that the leather jacket costs.

Oh hello, lover.

But ever since Rachel got on her eBay kick, making tons of money selling everything from Forever 21 to Tory Burch, I've had my eye on eBay scoping for a good deal. And I found one.


The perfect size! The perfect color! The seller had a 98% approval rating, over the course of 170 sales. And much to my shock and awe, I won it for $400, which is over 60% off if you consider San Francisco sales tax.

I paid on PayPal moments after winning the auction, and waited with mounting anticipation for the package to arrive in the mail.

And I waited...



And I waited...



And the estimated arrival date came and went. I've contacted the seller twice with no response. Finally, last week I escalated the issue to eBay, who will give me my money back if the seller doesn't address the issue within 7 days.

I don't think there's a lesson here, but I hope you share in my gloom. I guess the deal *was* too good to be true.

So the search continues...

Reading: Cat's Cradle
Listening: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maps (Cosmonaut Gretchen Remix)

lions, tigers, feathers, oh my...

Do we think feather earrings look A) edgy or B) trashy? I'm talking about this kind:


Not the Ke$ha kind:

I hope you guys go with option A. I just bought a pair...

bad words were said

Two things have inspired me to get back in the kitchen: Top Chef All Stars, which began on December 1st, and an interest in macrobiotics I picked up from one of Tim's new hippie housemates. She lent me a book called The Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics, which I skimmed through as she went to meet with her chi healer.



I haven't been able to go on a decent grocery run in a while, so Chinese takeout and eggs and toast have been featured as recurring dinner entrees lately... not ideal. Even though it was pouring rain today, I braved the elements to head to Real Foods and stock up on staples.

First up: an interesting macrobiotic recipe I made for dinner (and will be eating for the next week), polenta with broccoli and pumpkin sauce. An odd combination of flavors, but felt very clean and healthy and comforting at the same time. Perfect for a rainy Sunday.

Then I decided to get ambitious: bacon and cashew caramel corn from Bon Appetit, which I was hoping to bring to work to woo my coworkers.


Looks pretty good, hmm? Well, while making the caramel (which was supposed to boil on high for a full 13 minutes), I noticed the sauce was turning brown after only about 5 minutes. I turned to the computer to double check the timing, and before I knew it, the smoke detector was going wild, my caramel was burning, and all was lost. I was torn between waving at the smoke detector with a pillow and saving the sauce, and didn't manage to do either successfully. Bad words were said.

It's probably for the best, though - I don't know if bacon cashew caramel corn really vibes with my new macrobiotic kick.

The Holiday Ball was this weekend, and I have only two pictures to show for it. I'll have to do a fuller post later, when I can steal from Rachel's photo collection.

Reading: nothing! Finished Liar's Poker a few days ago. Any recommendations?

snacks on snacks

New blog title, new layout, new post. The excitement never ends!

Last Thanksgiving, I managed to document the end-to-end creation of a pumpkin pie, complete with pumpkin roasting. This year, I didn't quite have the time to roast a pumpkin, so Libby's was called in as a substitute. I made two pies, called (in Gap-isms) the "LY Pie" (last year pie, aka Heidi Swanson's Spice-Kissed Pumpkin Pie made with coconut milk) and the "TY Pie" (this year pie, aka Bobby Flay's Throwdown pie with a graham cracker crust). I also didn't manage to take ANY pictures, so these "inspiration photos" will have to do until I can steal some from Rachel's blog.


They were both pretty good, but not my best work ever. LY Pie's crust wasn't baked thoroughly, and I don't think there was enough sugar in the pie to offset the coconutiness. Too coconutty. And TY Pie's crust wasn't baked enough either, though it definitely had the better filling. The addition of heavy cream helps in that regard.


But I blame these shortcomings entirely on my oven. While making the TY Pie, butter in the crust melted and dripped through the edges of the tart pan and onto the bottom of the oven, where it started smoking like crazy. I had a smoke-filled apartment within seconds. Did my smoke detector go off? Yes, about two hours later, after I had already aired out the whole apartment but was working on baking the second pie at a higher oven temperature. I wonder if it's more sensitive to heat than smoke? Either way, it's a little disconcerting.

This year's Friendsgiving was a runaway success. We had 90% of the crew from last year, minus Julie (who is now visiting a boy in London) plus some new friendly faces. I'd also say that the food overall was somehow impossibly BETTER than last year. The turkey was perfect (thanks Tenley!), and all the sides truly hit the spot. And after watching both Home Alone and Love, Actually, I now feel totally in the holiday spirit.


And how could I not, especially after participating in Black Friday?? Total insanity! Gap was running a 50% Off The Whole Store event until 10AM (when I arrived), and it looked like a tornado had swept through the flagship store. There were clothes everywhere, people trying things on in the aisles, and an hour-long line that wrapped around the entire first floor. Insanity. The best part, though, was that at this flagship store, by 11AM, we had already generated as much retail volume as the store did last year for the whole day! Go get 'em, Gap!


In other news...
I felt the need to document some of the successful recipes I've created in the past few weeks, at the very least so I can refer back to them later.

Homemade Oreos, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, which my boyfriend deemed "the best cookies I've ever made"


Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil, and Goat Cheese Salad (courtesy of Bon Appetit) - a lovely vegetarian complete meal, quite tasty. I substituted butternut squash for pumpkin, and used balsamic vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. Would anyone like to get me some cayenne pepper for Christmas?


Turkey Pesto Meatballs (c/o Bon Appetit) - brought these to a potluck last week... well, hang on. I met up with Tim and some friends before heading to the potluck, but the meatballs got devoured before we actually made it there. They're that good. I used a 50/50 turkey/beef ratio, and Newman's Own Tomato Pesto Sauce. The best part? From grocery store to table, this meal was complete in an hour.


Happy cooking!

Reading: Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis
Listening: Glee's cover of Teenage Dream

artsy fartsy

The thing I love about graffiti - and of course, I mean good graffiti (a qualifier with specific intellectual and visual characteristics I don't feel like getting into now) - is the way it makes you feel when you find it: like you're suddenly "in" on an inside joke, connected to the city. Graffiti makes the urban space less anonymous and impersonal; it has the power to pull you into its conversation, to make you take a stand. It can also be very beautiful.

Found on Valencia Street - the graffiti is all wallpapered, so it's not even permanent. Isn't that neat?

Let's see. What have we been up to? Eating, as usual.

Alison turned the big 2-4 last week, so to celebrate, we had brunch at Foreign Cinema on one of the most gorgeous San Francisco days I've seen in months. Sunny but not too hot, it was the perfect opportunity to sit on the back patio and enjoy some amazing food. The chef at FC is well-known for his eggs - he has a cookbook called City Egg, Country Egg that is going on my Christmas list - and 4/6 of us ordered the exact same dish: poached eggs drizzled with a balsamic reduction, served with prosciutto, sauteed greens, and garlic potatoes.


The photo didn't do it justice. Needless to say, 4/6 of us ordered correctly.

The birthday brunch idea was really perfect: not too crazy, not too expensive, and considering that Alison was burned out from her weekend prior in Vegas, not too alcoholic.

Happy Birthday Alfie!!!

Tim's parents were in town, so we went out for dinner at Beretta and brunch (again!) the next day at B Star*, which is a Burmese-inspired restaurant that serves delicious and unique food. They're the sister-restaurant to Burma Superstar, which is famous for its fermented tea leaf salad... tastier than it sounds.

Lauren and Angela at Beretta:

And Tim at B Star*:

Last week, I also started taking a 7-week intro to acrylic painting class, which I'm very excited about. The class is offered through the City College of San Francisco, and of the twelve or so people taking the class, I'd say 8 are chic girls under 30. Quelle surprise! I'm hoping to end the course with something I can hang on my barren walls... Our first class was dedicated to black and white, learning about the properties of the medium and how to blend and shade. We watched a demo, then got to try our hand at a still life of our own. Mine didn't turn out too badly!


At the very least, it feels good to relieve stress and make something pretty. Maybe I'll go into graffiti next :)

... or maybe not.


Reading: Jonathan Franzen, Freedom (IT'S AMAZING!!)
Listening: www.hypem.com/kcp

the Month of the Potluck

Lately, my friends have embraced the idea of potluck dinners with such zeal, I can't remember a weekend in the past month that I haven't been to one. And let me tell you - I love potlucks now more than ever! They're perfect for the "emerging adulthood" phase of our lives: we want to have dinner with a big group of our friends, but don't want to deal with the hassle and expense of eating out as a big group (and god forbid getting a reservation for 10 in this city without a month's notice!). Potlucks allow people who like to cook to bring along something yummy, and for people who don't like to cook to bring along wine. Everyone spends about $10-15 dollars, eats well, drinks well, and leaves happy. It's a win-win.

The recipes have been mostly hit, with one miss. Let's start with the miss.

To celebrate Melissa Bishop's 23rd birthday, she threw a potluck. This is ironic, considering she doesn't know how to cook at all (someday I'll recount her spaghetti pie disaster), but she does know how to provide alcohol for everyone else. Anyway, I was craving chocolate, and figured a chocolate birthday-ish cake would probably work out well. I turned to Smitten Kitchen's Everyday Chocolate Cake, and put Becca and Bria to work while they were visiting me in the city to help me make it.

It was supposed to come out looking like this:


But really, it was a crumbly mess. Like this:


And this is how I felt about it:


People told me it was delicious, and I agree - the taste was totally there, but the texture! What a mess. I think there was a problem with the kind of cocoa powder I used.

Moving along, though, there were definitely some wins. I brought along the New York Time's recipe for Butterscotch Peaches to Kate Kosco's Clambake party, which were a hugely delicious success when served with ice cream. Kate never ceases to amaze me - she rented tables and chairs to seat 12 people in her apartment, fed us all an amazing seafood dinner, and brought together a great group of girls that I really enjoyed hanging out with! Thanks Kate!!

Our dinner:


And Becca and Maggie helping set up the spread:



Last weekend, Bria hosted a dinner party at her parents' house in Portola Valley, which has the most beautiful view of the foothills you could ever imagine. Her parents were out of town, and she slaved all day over a hot grill making chicken kebabs, tabbouleh, and other yummies. Becca brought homemade pita and hummus, Alison brought cheese and crackers, and I made a brown butter raspberry tart from Bon Appetit that got rave reviews. If nothing else, this crust is to die for!




And finally, last night, Tim and I went back to Smitten Kitchen for something to bring to our friend Beto and Tish's for a dinner at their awesome apartment in the Mission. With a go-big-or-go-home mentality, we decided to swing for the fences and make a cherry pie with almond streusel topping. Dare I say, it was one of the best desserts I've ever made.


We couldn't eat a bite.

Reading: Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
Listening: www.hypem.com/kcp