You must be wondering...is that the name of an Israeli spy I met during my travels? No, my friends, surprise: it's the name of a crazy (and crazy popular) restaurant in Tel-Aviv that serves shakshuka.
Shakshuka is an Israeli dish of eggs stewed in a rich tomato sauce. The sauce's deep red color is further enhanced by the liberal addition of sweet paprika. Enhanced with garlic and onion, the eggs are stewed just until the whites harden a bit but the yolks remain tender. You soak up all this goodness with chunks of soft bread.
Dr. Shakshuka, the restaurant, had a rather eccentric decor, mostly comprised of used butane tanks.
But who was paying any attention to the decor? I was trying to figure out a way to smuggle the chef into the U.S. Or more innocuously, how I could convince the chef to part with his precious recipe for this amazing dish...alas, I was unsuccessful on both fronts.
And I swear - it tasted a lot better than it looks in this picture. I should've taken the shot before I dug into the dish, but...I couldn't help myself! It was either take the picture after a few bites or ruin the entire dish with my drool.
After a long stroll through the trendy Shenkin Street in Tel-Aviv, I had worked up a fierce appetite. So I wandered into a little cafe and ordered up a fresh, cold lemonade (with mint sprigs - what a novel idea!) and a healthy salad. After a week of decadent eating, I figured I should veer a little on the lighter side.
Whoa, nelly! If this isn't a big boy's salad, I don't know what is! 
But hey - any salad topped with fried cheese (halumi) gets two thumbs up in my book. If you can't tell by this picture, the salad plate took up half my table. This salad had everything but the kitchen sink, and it was dressed in a really delightful dijon mustard vinaigrette.
But let's get back to the halumi. Halumi is a semi-soft cheese, but it's sturdy enough (and has a higher melting point than most cheeses) to be fried. The texture turns a little chewy, but the crispy exterior makes up for that. It's 'meaty,' so the addition to this salad gave it a hearty twist. So much for a light meal! Sigh...
My good friend R. is a sweetheart and always let me choose where we're going to eat whenever I'm back in NYC. During Christmas, I decided I really wanted some dim sum. Granted, there is fine dim sum to be had in San Francisco, I'm sure, but I haven't really had the energy to seek out the authentic joints. And Lord knows, you never really want to eat dim sum in SF's Chinatown, because only tourists (or 'tourons' = tourist + moron, as my friend M. so aptly put it) eat there. Note to self: go explore the Inner Sunset district, or maybe even Richmond, as there are plenty of delicious Chinese restaurants in those areas.
Yet NYC's Chinatown is different. There are plenty of amazingly delicious, authentic, and cheap eats. R. took me to [name to be inserted as soon as R. reminds me of the restaurant name]. I love dim sum because much like tapas, you can choose small bites of whatever you fancy - this is my favorite eating style, as I tend to get bored of just one dish or taste, halfway through my meal.
To be honest, I don't remember everything that we had. But, I can safely surmise that it involved various types of dumplings and shu mai. R. also introduced to me a special kind of dim sum dish that is a favorite of the Hong Kong-ese: it's a large, flat rice noodle that's wrapped in a spring roll wrapper, and fried. It's then doused with a sweet soy sauce, which for me was the dish's only redeeming quality. It was...an interesting mix of textures, and by 'interesting' I really mean 'not so tasty.' It was like a schizophrenic noodle - it didn't know whether it wanted to be tender or crispy. But otherwise, all the dishes that we ordered were phenomenal and this restaurant was one of the better dim sum places out of the many I've been to in NYC.
After R. and I gorged on delectable dim sum, he insisted on taking me to a 'cake place' for dessert. I was so full...but pass up dessert? Fat chance.
When I was living in NYC, I was a West Side girl, through and through. The East Side just...wasn't (and still isn't) my cup of tea. But in pursuit of an amazing dessert, I was willing to overlook the joint's location and trek over to the East Side.
I thought I was walking into an uber-chic (and since it's on the East Side, uber-pretentious) clothing boutique. No, no - Lady M Cake Boutique (41 E 78th Street) is a cake boutique - not a bakery, not a cake store, but a cake boutique. Get it right. 'This better be damn good, R.,' I thought to myself, because I can barely fit in this store, I feel like I shouldn't touch anything, and the cakes look like art, but...not in a scrumptious way, but more like a 'you break, you buy' sort of way. Anyway, R. insisted I had to try the crepe cake. The crepe cake? Come again?
Yes. Behold the Mille Crepe Cake: a multi-layered cake comprised of crepes and whipped cream. Light, fluffy, and just the right amount of sweetness, this novel concept was a treat. For a small slice, we paid $7. So essentially, each layer cost us a dollar. Was it worth trekking to the East Side, putting up with the black-clad too-cool-for-school cake slicers (are they cake artists by day, models and actors by night?), and the usual Muffy and Buffy East Side crowd? Check, please.
My friend L.'s parents are the sweetest, cutest couple - and both of them are phenomenal cooks. They graciously invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner - lucky me! And what a dinner it was. Everything was made from scratch, and therefore made with plenty of love, and every morsel was truly scrumptious.
Lauren's dad was the turkey master that day, and he sure did it right. I've never had a whole turkey cooked on the grill, but the subtle smokiness of the end product was divine. He stuffed the bird with crisp green apples, with plenty of tart. He then rubbed the skin with a simple mixture of olive oil, salt, and pepper. The meat was wonderfully moist, despite being on the grill for several hours. The skin - the skin was the best part! It developed a succulent crispiness that is truly unparalleled by any bird cooked in the oven.
How cute is this sugar cookie? When I was back in Seattle visiting my friends, A. and E., we decided to take a day off and explore Bainbridge Island. We came across a really quaint bakery, and our eyes were immediately drawn to this squirrel cookie. It was almost too cute to eat! I said almost.
Last summer, I visited a friend in Vermont. Which town? Hm...I think it was called 'In-the-middle-of-absolutely-nowhere-is-that-really-a-cow?!' Yup, I'm pretty sure that was the town's name. Alright, if you want to get technical, the town's name was Middlebury.
Well, there's a lot to be said for country life, and even a die-hard city mouse like me can appreciate some of its beauties.
Look at these precious morsels. We picked these blueberries by an adorable bed-n-breakfast. You can pick as many as you want, as long as you split your bounty 50-50 with the b-n-b owners. I'd say that's fair.
We took them home, and I made a scrumptious blueberry coffee cake, which we enjoyed for the next few days...for breakfast, dessert, and afternoon snack. I was blueberried out for the next few weeks!
You must be wondering...is that the name of an Israeli spy I met during my travels? No, my friends, surprise: it's the name of a crazy (and crazy popular) restaurant in Tel-Aviv that serves shakshuka.
But who was paying any attention to the decor? I was trying to figure out a way to smuggle the chef into the U.S. Or more innocuously, how I could convince the chef to part with his precious recipe for this amazing dish...alas, I was unsuccessful on both fronts.
