October 20, 2009

Mreow. Actually, pffff!. Am officially cranky from these annoying allergies I've had the past few weeks. I thought they were gone, but no, achoo, they're back. As one friend posited, maybe I'm allergic to mildew. Grrrrreat, I sure picked the right city to be in for the winter.



Now that my little rant is out of the way, let's talk about more interesting things. Like the mightily impressive dinner I had at COI last week (pictured here, an ethereal course of oysters, roasted beets, and glacier lettuce). And just as delicate and refined as that meal was, its exact opposite was the chaotic and brash banquet/spectacle by OPENrestaurant on Saturday at the SFMOMA—more on this in fresh meat (literally).

And somewhere in the middle of meat mayhem and fine dining was the Mini Cupcake Clash at Stable Cafe on Sunday, part of the ongoing SF Food Wars series. I ended up totally falling for some of the savory-sweet combos (my favorite was the pear cupcake frosted with whipped Brie cream by Sweetiecups). My faboo intern Daisy took this photo album of the event, and VidSF posted this chirpy video (with a somewhat sugar-high host). Coming up in December: Holiday Fixins.

This week I have some more culinary shenanigans planned, but we'll see how my last week of book edits goes—I'm not exactly in charge of my calendar at the moment.

Since we're on the topic of shenanigans, here's a link to a recent linecook podcast when I was a guest, along with HotFoodPorn's Eddie Lau, and Corey Nead, a nopa kitchen compatriot to our host, Richie Nakano. We feasted on cheese and Delfina pizza, we drank bubbly and Manhattans, we hung out, we chatted about all kinds of stuff, from cookbooks (how on earth did I forget Marcella Hazan?) to bars to female chefs. Have a listen.

Speaking of next week, I'll be announcing an upcoming tablehopper tasting event! Mark your calendar for Tuesday November 10th. A little teaser: it's going to feature a very special guest in town from... si, España!

Ciao for now,
~ Marcia