We finally made it to the Fog City Diner. The Morrison & Foerster holiday party is this evening, so we are spending the night in SF. Matthew and I – as we do every year – BART in for early check-in and some sort of fancy lunch. Today we decided on the Fog City Diner (1300 Battery Street, SF) to see what all the fuss is about. Turns out Fog City is a diner in layout but more upscale in terms of menu and price. We loved the salt and pepper squid appetizer because of the dipping sauce, which was a thin affair made mainly of lime juice, chili peppers and perhaps a little sugar; it was a blessing to get away from those thick dipping sauces. Next, Matt had a crispy snapper sammie with roasted red peppers. Size-wise it was fine and he said it was very tasty. The accompanying fries were hot and crisp, and we saved the remaining sauce from the squid to dip them into. I had an open face meatloaf sandwich with melted pepper jack cheese that was tasty – if a bit mushy. Mine came with sweet tater fries, which I always like. The sandwiches were $12.50 and $13.95, respectively, which is a bit high, I guess, but what the hell since they were pretty good. I may come back again, but may not because they do not have enough restrooms to accommodate the crowds they get.
Yearly Archives: 2007
Zucchini bread
I’ve been famous for my zucchini bread since 1977. When I lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I collected local recipes. Many of them, like this one, are popular in the recipe belt that runs from mid-PA through upstate NY. This quick bread is moist and delicious, containing both shredded zucchini and crushed pineapple – but you won’t taste either in the finished product. This is an idiot-proof recipe that makes a great gift. Why be a fool who pays through the nose for something that is easy to make at home? Try to find the little, baby, zucchini, so all you have to do it peel and won’t have to worry about scraping out seeds. I implore you to bake this. Then email me and tell me how much you love it! If you are a young person who wants to make something to bring to a meal this holiday season, this is your chance to impress.
Belvedere cookies
My mom and I perpetrated Belvedere cookies, an action representing the first baking session of the 2007 Christmas season. One of the chef-instructors I had in cooking school gave me this odd recipe, which I translated from German. The recipe is missing quite a few steps, which we filled in as best we could. This is a bar cookie, but I had no idea how thick the batter should be spread, nor what oven temperature to use. We wound up with something like small cakes with a thick layer of rum-laced glaze, and all who tried them said they were excellent. I was not able to find anything about these cookies on the Web, so if you come across this entry and have information about these Austrian goodies, please let me know. I suggest making them if you want something different. They are not too sweet, but be sure to use a good quality chocolate that’s on the bitter side. Do not store them with other cookies because then all your cookies will taste and smell like rum.
Belvedere Cookies
200 g butter
100 g powdered sugar
6 egg yolks
200 g baker’s chocolate, softened
6 egg whites
100 g granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
140 g ground walnuts
160 g strong or AP flour
Icing:
Whip 300 g powdered sugar & 1 dl rum
Soften the butter and mix with powdered sugar. Add the egg yolks and chocolate. Beat the egg whites, granulated sugar, salt and vanilla sugar until stiff. Fold egg white mixture into dough. Mix nuts and flour and carefully fold into dough. Spread dough in a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in preheated oven until done. When still hot, apply the icing. As soon as the icing begins to turn cloudy, cut into small squares.
Thanksgiving 2007
Happy Thanksgiving! We made a wonderful turkey, stuffing with chestnuts and sausage, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes with plenty o’cream and butter, and some steamed fresh green beans. We always make a large turkey so we have leftovers for turkey curry and turkey and stuffing sandwiches on Acme sourdough rolls. In the interest of frugality and a good soup, the carcass is used to make congee. Turkey congee is easy-peasy to make: in a clay pot or Dutch oven, put in one turkey carcass, one and a half cups of any white rice, 15 cups of cold water, one small knob of peeled ginger and two whole scallions. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about three hours. If you use a clay pot, use a flame tamer. Stir up from the bottom every half hour or so. All to cool enough to remove the bones, ginger and scallions. Stir in 1/4 cup soy sauce. Heat back up to serving temperature. Serve in bowls with some chopped green onion, salted peanuts and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil on top.
Denny’s in Vestal, NY
Today is the first anniversary of my father’s death, thus, the theme of this entry is coffee. I’ll take this opportunity to write something about the Denny’s in Vestal, New York, he went to for coffee every morning for years and years, as well as The Lost Dog in Binghamton, New York, the cafe/restaurant he frequented nightly for coffee until he felt like he looked so bad he shouldn’t go anymore, which, of course, was ridiculous, but such is the burden of vanity. I can’t fathom the amount of coffee he drank in a day during the time he went to both places and also brewed pots at home, but his blood must have been 100% French roast. Denny’s (4024 Vestal Parkway East, Vestal) is across the street from Binghamton University and usually crammed with people, but the staff always made a fuss over my dad, since he had forged relationships with these people via daily contact over time. Whenever I was in town the fuss was extended to me, which was great. This meant lots of good conversation, great buffalo chicken strips and about 5 times the Denny’s-approved amount of hot fudge on the sundae I would sometimes have as my meal. Many of the servers were studying this or that or were artists needing to make some actual money. Several were part-timers caring for families. Pretty quickly I knew all their stories and they knew mine, though they had a head’s up since my dad filled them in over the years. Toward the end the old man was not looking or sounding too good, having trouble simply sitting up for periods of time or going into coughing jags, but there was never a problem. This group of employees was the tops, managers included, and I’ll always have a place in my heart for Denny’s, though the one here in El Cerrito, CA cannot hold a candle to the Vestal location in terms of, well, anything. I include here a photo of my dad’s regular counter spot, which now has a laminated tribute to him taped to the counter, and one of two fabulous people who work there. Next, The Dog. He went to The Lost Dog (222 Water Street, Binghamton), which is hip and young, because he, himself, was hip, a former musician, and attracted to innovation – particularly in technology. While he enjoyed his workaday coffees during the day, he moonlighted with baristas. He liked especially to argue politics and social issues, and it seems the staff of The Lost Dog was happy to engage in this, though it occasionally turned ugly. He would often say things just to rile a person up, often taking the opposite position just to see what came of it. I knew this so I wouldn’t take the bait, but not everyone did. When the people working at “The Dog,” as my dad called it, found out he was ill, they all sprang into action and took a Saturday to physically move him from his old apartment to his new one, the chef getting her truck in gear and the cooks and others, including one of the owners and the catering manager, hauling stuff down three flights of stairs, across town, and into his new elevated studio. All this while being subjected to various instructions and comments from my father, who made even the simplest task next to impossible by virtue of his personality and apparent desire to be the biggest pain in the ass in town. I suppose he had earned enough credit with these folks – and they must have seen who he really was underneath all that drama. And that damned printer! Before and during the move he fixated on his older Epson inkjet printer for fear someone would tilt and damage it. He had some sort of system going where he filled up the cartridges himself, and if the thing wasn’t held level something would come undone in there. I had to hear this every time I even went near it. I offered to buy a new printer, but he wanted THAT printer, since he enjoyed the whole upkeep routine. OK, whatever. I started going to The Dog when I arrived in town to care for him, and was shown great sympathy and concern by all. They told me my dad would spend hours in there writing in his journal – and always left a $2.00 tip when all he had was coffee. He liked interesting young women, this much I knew, and The Dog has plenty of them. And fun. I could see why he whiled away time at his regular counter spot. It is a fact that I would not be able to enumerate the things The Lost Dog’s Marie and Nicole did during the last few months of my father’s life – essentially acting as surrogate daughters and putting up with the full force of that big personality, which did not wane as his body weakened. And as his body weakened there was no weakening in his desire for coffee. Coffee was a key theme in his life from beginning to end, and is often the first thing that comes to mind when I remember him.