Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese and Peppered Honey

Recipe Find!

I had some of this at my favorite French Bistro, the Cafe Divine, on Washington Square Park in San Francisco.

From Epicurious.com:

I was recommended having this appetizer along with gazpacho and some crusty bread on a hot night.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

12 fresh figs

1/4 cup soft fresh goat cheese

1. Combine honey and pepper in small pitcher; you may need to melt the honey a little to blend.

2. Starting at stem end, cut each fig into quarters, stopping 1/2 inch from bottom to leave base intact. Gently press figs open.

3. Spoon 1 teaspoon cheese into center of each. Arrange figs on platter; drizzle with peppered honey.

This magical cafe has large scale artwork and jazz music, great french pastries and an amiable atmosphere. Outside, a large park fronts a gorgeous chapel in the heart of San Francisco's North Beach Italian neighborhood. The park is a restful haven, full of running doggies and small babies playing underneath windswept pine and eucalyptus trees.

The weather today is a perfect Mediterranean, moist and breezy, warm with overcast clouds.

Halo-Halo on a cold winter's night...

(Some thoughts for C while she sips her hot chocolate in snow-covered NYC. Look, they put Corn Flakes in it too.)

This is what I ate at the Bohol Beach Club, where we jetted the last weekend before coming back to the States. Here's a recipe for the Philippine's National Dessert. For more information, see this great little article I read on the shaved ice, milk and fruit concoction.

Halo-Halo Recipe

2 tablespoons kaong or...2 tablespoons nangka (jackfruit)
2 tablespoons macapuno (a variety of coconut meat sold in bottles)
2 tablespoons sweetened kidney beans
2 tablespoons sweetened garabanzos
2 tablespoons sweetened plantains
2 tablespoons ube or yam
2 tablespoons custard or creme caramel
2 tablespoons sweetened corn kernels
crushed ice to fill glass
2/3 evaporated milk
a scoop of ice cream on top

where the eastern seas so blue

D, I was thinking of you last Sunday. I thought of you there, in a tropical paradise, perfecting that tan, practicing your sailing moves in the open water, maybe windsurfing. And here I was/am, stuck in the winter wonderland that was/is New York City (it was snowing on Sunday night). And "wonderland" being a euphamism for grey, slushy, and daydreaming of El Nido. I guess I'll have to wait until my trip home in the fall. You're going back with me, right?

But the fall is so far away! So I had my own little vacation in New York today - although I couldn't conjure the tropics, I did a little Japan-in-New York trip.

I went to the gym during lunch. I keep trying to be a gym bunny, as you know. Having kept up with a Broadway-worthy routine in step class, I deserved a tony, but was willing to settle for some pastry. And it's a lovely thing when Minamoto Kitchoan is close by for some wagashi. I always get two pieces of the Hakuun-no-Hotori, a pastry made from milk-flavored bean paste encased in a thin delicate cake.

I still had a few more minutes, so I swung by Kinokuniya and grabbed a few magazines.

Photo from a 2005 Japan-in-New York trip. Craft book and Nippon Vogue from Kinokuniya and green tea wagashi from Kitchoan.

After work, I walked all over the village in search of a gift for my goddaughter. Tired from the search and wanting to avoid the Prince St. mall, I turned south on Thompson - and that's when I discovered Makie Clothier. Created by Japanese designer Yuji Ogata for Makie Yahagi's lovely tiny shop, the clothes show an abundance of beauty, style, and whimsy. And can I tell you how meticulously sewn and well-made these pieces are?

Photos from and collection available at: Mooi Shop.

And then it was time to grocery shop. Where else was I going to get tiny plastic containers of syrup, a tin of macha, Hello Kitty candy, and a box of red bean ice cream? That would be Sunshine Mart. I go to the one above St. Mark's Books.

And so I got home, tired from work and the all the running around town. But I still couldn't shake this image from my mind:

In Praise of Ina Garten

What I love about Ina Garten, the Food Network's Barefoot Contessa, is that each recipe she shares with us is guaranteed to be delicious. My sister is convinced of my prowess as a cook and a baker, and I owe this to Ina's very precise instructions. I repeatedly make the popular Barefoot Contessa coconut cupcakes because a cupcake run to East Hampton is never a practical option for me. The cake is always moist and delicately flavored. And the icing - ohhhh that creamy icing - fluffy, cloudy, and deceptively light. As light as cream cheese and butter will allow. Perfection.

I missed Ina's October and December book signings in New York in support of her new book, Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again. D, you lucky you, there's still a chance to meet her on January 22nd at Draegers in San Mateo. Tell her I love her?