Bike-powered microphones for this band that was playing at the Alemany Farmers Market. Only in SF!

I couldn’t resist sharing these neat and somewhat bizarre foodstuffs (and food-related) stuff I found in Japan…

• single serving glass of wine with sardine-can top from the Muji flagship store

• my favorite- milk in a tube. huh? (ok so it’s condensed milk… but still.)
  

• wasabi-beef flavor chips. yuk.

• a kit to make sushi look like soccer balls, to entice your kid to eat it. you’d have to be a REALLY nice mom or dad to go through all that trouble.

• I have never seen curry like this in Vermont, myself.

• Kobe and Matsuzaka beef for sale at Takashimaya- about $200/lb, raw (they were really mad that I took a picture, but I’m not sure why.)

I bought this rice called Tiny Rice, because it’s tiny and adorable, and also because I like saying “Tiny Rice” all together like it’s one word. Tinyrice. Tinyrice. Tinyrice!

So what is Tiny Rice and why is it so tiny? It’s a small (some might say tiny) grain basmati rice imported from Bangladesh. It’s also called Kalijira rice (which incidentally is ALSO fun to say) or sometimes baby basmati. It says on the package it’s the Prince of Rice. (And here I was, not even realizing that rice could be royalty.) It’s cute, it’s delicious, and it’s way more fun than those big awkward rice grains you’re used to, as you can see in the photo below.

Tiny rice only takes about 10 minutes to cook, so that’s pretty cool. It has a great texture because it’s so small- sort of between a rice grain and a couscous grain. When you serve it to people they say things like “what kind of rice is this? I’ve never SEEN such tiny grains of rice!”

I bought it at BiRite Market, but if you need an online source I found it for sale online at at the Lotus Foods website. They Lotus link also has recipes using Kalijira, including a couple of rice pudding recipes which look super tasty. They sell tiny brown rice too, but I’ll be honest, the tiny brown rice grains look a little bigger than tiny. I haven’t tried it yet but that’s next on the list.

Tinyrice tinyrice tinyrice!

I’m not talking about dates like going out to the movies here, I’m talking about DATES! Like, the fruit.

This is a really simple way to make a tasty treat. It’s not really ice cream (ergo the quotes), it just sort of tastes like ice cream with almost no work. I like to use Barhi (sometimes spelled Barhee) dates because they are oh-so-creamy and lend themselves perfectly to this technique. I get them from the date vendor at the Alemany Farmers’ Market in San Francisco. He has a bunch of different kinds of dates that are fantastic and cheap and he will let you taste them all! If you’re not in the Bay Area, you can order Barhi dates online from Oasis Date Gardens pretty cheaply.

To make “ice cream” dates, all you have to do is lay the dates out on a sheet of foil or parchment, not touching one another. Freeze until solid-ish (they may not get totally frozen solid because of the high sugar content.) Once frozen, remove to a ziploc bag and store in the freezer. Whenever you need a burst sweet creamy goodness, grab one out of the freezer!

You could also use these in smoothies or shakes… in that case, pit them before freezing. Happy dating!

I go to Mexico quite often, and visit some interesting food and drink towns, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite food photos and experiences in brief. It’s a fair amount to consume, so to speak, so I’ll be breaking them down by city and sharing them one by one!

First up: the gorgeous colorful kaleidoscope that is the colonial town of Guanajuato. Guanajuato is one of my favorite places in Mexico, and as it’s centrally located, it’s easily reachable from many points.

This lovely burg in Central Mexico’s state of Leon was founded in the 1500s, and funded lavishly for hundreds of years by a massively prolific silver mine just outside of town. The town is built up two sides of a ravine, and the residents favor bright colors for their boxy houses, which are packed together on teeny-tiny streets. In fact, legend has it 2 young lovers who lived across from one another used to live on a street so narrow that they could kiss each other from their facing balconies.  For that reason, the street is famously known as Callejon del Beso- Kiss Alley. Auto traffic flows mainly through an incredible system of medieval-looking underground tunnels that were constructed in the early 1900s. The result is that traversing town, whether in a car or by foot, is a transporting experience.

Food Tour of Guanajuato, Mexico

Of course I bought this- handmade chocolate sold by an ancient man outside the Mercado Juarez. He said it was made by his 3 sons. Inside the paper, I found fragrant cakes of Mexican chocolate, rich with dark cocoa, cinnamon, and big crunchy granules of sugar. It cost about 30 cents for a stack of 5.

One morning, I spotted some guys hanging out by this old truck packed with hanging cow carcasses and a trash can near Mercado Embajadoras. Nice meat hook!

I love my Best Foods, but something about that giant hot jar of mayo made me think twice about that tasty-looking corn.

The signs on these delivery scooters for a Domino’s franchise have successfully managed to make me think of both explosions and lotion, neither of which is particularly tantalizing in relation to pizza.

Looking down into the food stalls and lunch counters in Mercado Juarez from the 2nd floor.

A fabulous torta de carnitas (pork sandwich) with spicy red and green sauces, for less than a buck each from one of those very stalls.

Obligatory Mexican market photo of a ginormous pile of dried chilies.

My brother-in-law loved this squash blossom/huitlacoche/homemade cheese concoction he got from a street vendor at the Pípila, but it was a bit too overpowering for me.

This is an official street sign, the likes of which normally point you to geographical or tourist locations- but this one is pointing out the different types of local food you can get at Mercado de Gavira.

Drinking is serious business in Mexico: for my money, you’ve gotta go with a shot of Herradura Reposado (for sipping, no shooting!) with sangrita (to chase each sip) and a Modelo Especial (in between.)

This guy was selling tamales from a bucket at 1 AM (35 cents for 2.) We got one because we were intrigued by “dulce” – sweet tamales. It was a tamale with pineapple goo inside. Not bad, but I’ll stick with savory. I should have tried acelgas (chard.)

We happened upon a minor league baseball game in an amazing stadium embedded right into the middle of town, and ate lots of salty roasted pistachios and pumpkin seeds, with cheap beers of course, while enjoying the action.

The stadium itself is nestled in a pocket of houses right in town, with the back walls comprised of rough-hewn rock.

Your choice for tickets: sun or shade. Guess which one is cheaper?

To visit Guanajuato: Del Bajio airport in Silao/Leon is about a 30 minute drive from Guanajuato. Mexicana, Aeromexico, Continental, American Eagle, and Delta all fly into Del Bajio from the U.S. The town is centrally located and can also be easily reached by bus from Mexico City, Guadalajara, San Miguel de Allende, Queretaro, and many other places.

I have been several times to Fish in Sausalito and it is always fantastic food. Of course, it is also helllllla expensive. It can be pretty slow in the service department, it’s cash only, and did I mention that it’s hella expensive? As my friend Whitney tweeted just the other day: “only in the Bay Area would you order at a counter and sit at a picnic table and your entree was $22.” The funny thing is, she didn’t mention the name of the restaurant, but I could guess from that description.

The positives: The food tastes great, and the place has a nice view. All of the fish is sustainably caught and organically grown which probably explains the expensiveness to some extent. But it’s kind of an idiosyncratic little spot because the food is delicious and expensive and fancy but the place is super casual- example 1, you order at a counter and then find your own table; example 2, the drinks are served in jam jars.

The best thing I’ve had were the barbecued oysters. I’m not even an oyster lover so I was totally being a martyr by agreeing to order them the first time- or so I thought. I could have eaten about 100 of them. The cocktail sauce was warm and tangy and the oysters were fresh and salty and divine.

One thing we had that was a good value was the ceviche. It was a really big portion and had huge chunks of fish in it and tasted superb.

Other random fun facts. You can get beer by the pint or QUART. I have never seen that before! Saves you the trouble of going back in the slow-ass line. There is also a fish market there where you can buy, uh, fish. Like raw fish. Which is expensive too. Did I mention it’s expensive?

It’s not in the fancy part of Sausalito that you usually go to. It’s on a weird dock thing farther south. So basically if you’re driving on the main drag and you continue south, you turn right on Harbor Drive and then it’s on your right in a parking lot. Weird! But you can’t beat the view from these outside picnic tables, especially at sunset.

So to sum up, in the pros column we have “super delicious seafood” and “great view” and in the cons we have “really expensive for how casual it is” and “spotty service that is sometimes crazy slow.” If you’re like me and find yourself driving between the North Bay and SF a fair amount, I’d say it’s definitely worth a sunset dinner stop some Sunday night when you’re headed back into the city! After a trip to the ATM, of course.

Here’s a link to their site.

I went to the fancy Ferry Building Farmers’ Market today- usually I go for the lower key, lower priced Alemany Market so it was a welcome change of scenery. I picked up a few slightly unusual things and tasked myself with combining them in a delicious dish. You can think of these as really fancy, really flavorful hash browns. They would be a great side dish for a roast chicken, a prime rib, or steak.

I picked up some pink huckleberry potatoes, which are pink throughout and have a creamy texture. You can use any kind of potatoes for this recipe- red bliss would be a great choice. As well, I splurged and threw down 50 whole cents (!) on a fresh horseradish root, and got a couple stalks of green garlic. If you’ve never tried green garlic, try to get your hands on some. It looks like a small leek, but the taste is like a cross between sweet pungent garlic and a fresh scallions. They complement any form of potato perfectly, and are only available for a short time each Spring. The fresh horseradish is a fun little condiment to grate on steaks, potatoes, or anything that needs a little kick.

pink huckleberry potatoes and a fresh horseradish root

The trick to getting great sautéed potatoes that are cooked through, a little crispy, but not burnt, is to parboil them then sauté them in clarified butter. Butter is made up of oil and milk solids. Clarified butter is just the oil part of the butter without the milk solids. When cooking with butter, the part that burns is the milk part whereas the oil part won’t blacken. Making clarified butter is quite simple and quick, and it’s a great tool to lock away in your culinary repertoire. I add a little bit of plain yogurt at the end, which mostly cooks away. It adds a slight tang and is a nice finishing agent to get the potatoes perfect.

Sauteed Potatoes with Green Garlic and Fresh Horseradish

Ingredients:

• 4 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8 inch slices
• 4 Tblsp butter
• 2 stalks green garlic, the white parts and a bit of the green parts finely chopped
• fresh horseradish to taste, peeled and finely grated (I used about 1 tsp.)
• 2 Tblsp  plain yogurt (nonfat, 2%, whole milk- doesn’t matter)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook 8-10 minutes, until al dente. (The potatoes should be  firm but you should be able to cut through them pretty easily.)
• Meanwhile, clarify the butter. Put butter in a large sauté pan over medium low heat. When the butter bubbles, you will notice the white foamy matter rises to the top. When the bubbles settle, turn off the heat and use a spoon to skim off the white foamy bits. Discard white bits. Leave clarified butter in pan.
• When potatoes are done, drain. Turn clarified butter on high heat and add potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Saute for about 10-15 minutes, flipping every 2-3 minutes, until potatoes have crisped on the outiside.
• Turn off heat and add green garlic, horseradish, and yogurt to the pan. Flip a few times to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve immediately.

This is one of my favorite photo from the internets that I would like to share on this, the first day of Hanukkah!

A blogger saw this in Manhattan a couple years ago, and Neatorama picked it up. The most amazing thing about this is that it was at Balducci’s, in Manhattan. West Village, in fact. In MANHATTAN, people. Amazing!

In the meantime, order up a ham or even a bacon-wrapped turkey because Purim is just around the corner, folks… just kidding.