tag: summer

I’m working on cultivating a leisurely traveling style. I’m beginning to realize more and more that a rigidly scheduled trip with must-see destinations is just not for me. During this weekend in San Francisco, I only planned a couple of stops (all food-related, of course), and spent the rest of the time just wandering the city, stepping into interesting-looking thrift shops and bars, going over the Golden Gate Bridge because we had some time to kill, and generally taking in the air.

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Posted in: travel | Tags: bay area, california, city, mission, norcal, northern california, photography, pier 39, san francisco, summer, summer road trip 2013, travel, travel phtoography, vacation | 6 COMMENTS

Sometimes, life hands you lemons. Other times, though, it hands you figs.

So check it out: I go to this greasy spoon diner called Rae’s every weekend. I’m a regular. I have a “usual,” and I get slightly annoyed when someone else is sitting in my spot on the bar. (I’m short, and my favorite chair is a little bit taller than all the rest.)

But it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I realized that the big tree growing just to the left of the building is, in fact, a fig tree. A fact I learned by stepping (and almost slipping) on an overripe fig on the ground. I took a few photos, then a nice old lady came out to tell me that I could take some of the ripe ones if I wanted, since they would just go to waste anyway. So I did! Because despite figs being the sexiest fruit, beautiful just torn apart and eaten raw, I had a recipe I wanted to try up my sleeve.

I love a snacking cake. The kind of cake that you feel like you can eat for breakfast, or with a cup of tea, or as dessert. This cake is rustic and sturdy, requiring no creaming of butter or careful folding-in of ingredients. Just a quick mix of dry and wet ingredients, some pretty figs plopped on top, and half an hour in the oven. What a simple way to be happy.

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Posted in: cooking, desserts | Tags: almonds, baking, breakfast cake, cake, dessert, fig, fig cake, figs, food, joy the baker, joy the baker fig cake, photography, skillet cake, snacking cake, summer, sweets | 2 COMMENTS

As you may have surmised, I went to a lot of restaurants while I was in Paris. Something I might have failed to mention is that, on occasion, I bought the cookbooks from those restaurants.

Now that I’ve been back in LA for several weeks, I’ve gotten over the fun of eating everything that I missed while I was abroad (In-n-Out! hoppy beer!) and am now starting to miss my favorite restaurants in Paris.  So I thought, why not try to reproduce some of these dishes at home?

Let’s start with a simple one from Frenchie. A play on the traditional caprese, this salad replaces tomatoes with roughly-torn ripe summer peaches and counterpoints them with savory, smoky mozzarella.

Then? You drizzle on lots of the good stuff.

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Posted in: salads | Tags: caprese, cheese, food, frenchie, frenchie cookbook, fruit, fruit salad, greg marchand, gregory marchand, La cuisine du Frenchie at home, mozzarella, paris at home, peach, peach caprese, recipe, salad, smoked mozzarella, summer | 4 COMMENTS

Ah, is there anything that says America (or, in some cases, AMURCA!) like a county fair?

The Orange County Fair is smaller than the LA County Fair, but it happens earlier in the year and they will still deep fry, smoke, or chocolate-cover nearly anything.

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Posted in: los angeles | Tags: california, county fair, fried food, oc fair, orange county, orange county fair, photography, summer, the o.c., tourism | 4 COMMENTS