Life’s Little Luxuries, part 1

Have you ever tasted Greek yogurt?  If not, you really, really must. 

I of course first fell in love with Greek yogurt in Greece, imagine that!  It just seemed like the right thing to do each morning -start with a bowl of that thick, creamy plain yogurt, adding that day’s assortment of honey, oats and fruit.  It sure beats an English breakfast of hunk-a-mushy tomato with beans any day!  Of course, my initial enjoyment of Greek yogurt was no doubt heightened by the smell of the ancient ruins in the air or the sight of the Mediterranean from the roof top.

But now my friends, you too can enjoy one of life’s little luxuries by simply heading over to your local Trader Joe’s.  No, they do not carry the odor of the ancients in a bottle or anything like that.  They have Greek yogurt!  They even have options: the expensive stuff or the cheaper stuff, the full-fat stuff or the non-fat stuff, the pre-flavored stuff and the plain stuff.  As much as I like the yogurt, I would never dream of telling you which of these many options you would like best-but I like the plain non-fat (trying to do the South Beach diet demands that I stick to the non-heart stopping non-fat stuff.)

I do dream of telling you that you don’t really appreciate yogurt unless you eat Greek yogurt though…just a thought.

For even more luxury, be sure to whip up some tzatziki:

fold together some Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, minced garlic, s&p and a bit of lemon juice. 

No measurements needed-just put in a good pile of cucumber and enough garlic to give it a kick.  Perfect with so many Greek things, or just regular veggies, bread, pita, or right out of the bowl.

Postrio and our Girls’ Weekend

Sara, Giselle and I had a wonderful weekend away to San Francisco recently with a great room in Union Square, lots and lots of shopping, and a fantastic dinner at the Postrio restaurant.

We got up there on Saturday night, and in true form, had no set plans for dinner…I had some ideas but was doubtful of our ability to get a table.  After about 5 or 6 calls to some of my top choices, we were looking at the 24 hour diner down the street or dinner at 9:30.  Keep in mind that one of our group was pregnant and all of our group just loves to eat, 9:30 was not an option.

 We could call the concierge. 

How about we just sit there watching TV for another 30 minutes and hope we think of something else?

Why did we hesitate to call the concierge?  Umm, no good reason, but no one wanted to do it.  So finally I buckled and made the call…how embarrassing to admit to a cool city person that you are a tourist and have no plans for dinner and you have some standards for eating and you don’t want to eat at midnight…

He was very kind and withheld all verbal judgement and laughs at our country bumpkin ways.  He punched away at his computer and saved us!  There was a table at Postrio at 7:00.  A table at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.  We had been saved from eating at the Westfield mall that night.  He did kindly warn us, “You all are in for a treat.  It isn’t a casual dining restaurant though, so is that OK?  Dressing up a bit for the evening?” 

“Oh, of course that’s fine.” as I quickly ran through the 3 clothing items I brought with me, but kept a cool, refined and citified tone to my voice… “Thanks so much for your help!”

Then I had the good news for the gals-a great dinner ladies!  And the dress is elegant casual  (concierge’s words.)  No problem, right? 

Well, as we headed to dinner that night, we had completely convinced ourselves that jeans were elegant enough…that we all possessed an inner elegance that more than equaled the finer duds that others might have.  We were going to pull off sophisticated in our jeans.

We were admittedly a tad under-dressed, the hostess was a bit snobby, but the waiter was gracious and the food was amazing, absolutely, totally worth every bite, wish you had more, but you’re really are full, amazing.

We shared the pomegranate and pear salad and the roasted beet salad. 

Then for dinner I had:GRILLED PAINE RANCH SQUAB
squab mince, wild rice, shaved fennel, Black Mission figs, Bing cherry-veal sauce

It was amazing.

Sara had: CRISPY WOLFE RANCH QUAIL
candied pistachio, heirloom melons, chili glaze

Amazing.

Giselle had: ALASKAN HALIBUT
sweet gulf shrimp, snow peas, baby carrots, tapioca, coconut curry

Amazing. 

We highly recommend each of these dishes.  And mid-way through the dinner, we had lost all pretense of citified behavior.  I was pumping the waiter for any and all details on the food, we were laughing way, way too much, staring at other tables, talking about people…and laughing way, way too much.

The People You Meet on an Airplane…

Flying and its necessary close contact with strangers is always a mixed bag…Sometimes I look forward to meeting someone new and other times I pull out all the classic “don’t talk to me” flying moves-wearing earplugs, reading a book, never really looking at anyone…

I was in an “open” mood on this trip.  (Maybe I was too open since I got strep…)  But, on this last trip I was able to have some fun interactions with fellow travelers.

The gal sitting next to me coming home is getting married in 6 weeks and she has done nothing for the wedding.  They don’t have any rings.  She doesn’t have a dress.  And they expect at least 1,500 people at the wedding.

Yes, 1,500 wedding guests!!!  Her wedding is in India and her parents are taking care of all of the arrangements for her.  She just has to get herself there.  And apparently, she needs to get there sooner than later since according to practice, her parents can’t distribute the invitations until she arrives and participates in a special “pre-wedding” ceremony.  Her parents will then hand-deliver all of the invitations.  I think I understand why they are frustrated that she is taking her time to arrive in India!

Her actual ceremony will take at least 2-3 hours and then the bride and groom personally greet all of the guests that choose to talk to them…She is hoping to stay awake the whole time.

Our other row mate is a Chuck Norris fan.  Not too many of those around, huh?!?  He was reading Norris’ autobiography and was just hoping that we wanted to hear about the gripping life of this very inspirational fan.  I made the mistake of admitting that I had seen “Walker, Texas Ranger”…

When I was able to move him on to the topic of his family, this man lit up, and it was clear that he lived for his 5 kids and many grandkids.  He had just spent a couple of weeks with some of them in Florida and was now off to camp with more of them in the High Sierras. 

Flying out of NC, I also had the chance to meet a bunch of new Army recruits-lots of nice, young kids.  We were all enjoying the rocking chairs in the Charlotte Airport (and we were united by the common need for an electrical outlet.)  It was tough to think about them all fighting in Iraq, but they know that is what they signed up to do and they will do it.  They all appreciate the order and discipline that the Army has brought to their lives and for at least several of them, they really see this as the opportunity to get out of a cycle of trouble.

Good to be Home

Last week, I experienced the unusual pleasure of being sick with strep throat while on the other side of the country, in a hotel room.  It wasn’t really the week I had planned, but I am very glad that we have mega-antibiotics to kill these nasty germs almost immediately.  I was able to relive most of Top Chef, season one-I still think Harold is wonderfully talented with his calm control, and Dave is supremely entertaining with his nervousness.

(Side note-That last sentence was my attempt to practice one of the topics I did get to discuss at the meetings-antithesis.  I know this attempt is a far cry from the masters’ work, but then my subject matter here isn’t too earth-shattering…

On this trip I was able to experience a few more “southern” things-a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A (they come with pickles), some great North Carolina pork bar-b-que, and some wonderful southern hospitality from one of the hotel staffers who kindly made sure I was doing ok.

A Far Cry from Fine French Dining

What are three girls in Paris, lodging out in the sticks near the Gare du Nord, to do for dinner when they realize they are starving at 8pm on a Sunday night? 

When we found ourselves in this position we had several big issues to work out-

• we were poor and didn’t want to spend too much money
• we were exhausted and too tired to walk to the subway and then walk to some great cafe again
• we were starving and really wanted to eat right away (due in part to our cost cutting measures of not eating much to save $$$)
• we were in an area of town that had no real food options, especially on a Sunday night (well it really had nothing much to offer…)
• we had an established rule that we would eat no fast food while overseas

How did we solve this big quandary?  We went to the French McDonald’s right down the street.  The very same McD’s that we had walked past morning and night for the last 6 days, frequently commenting on the poor souls that are in France and eat at McD’s…Yes, we broke our rule and ate at a fast food joint.

And guess what?! 

It was better than the American McDonald’s.  That is what we told ourselves as we devoured the salad with quartered eggs instead of egg crumbles, and ate the panini .  (And in case you didn’t know, since panini is Italian it is much classier than the plain old bread of the USA.)

A Culinary Dream

Having gone to cooking school, I know well that French cuisine is oh, so extraordinary and oh, so walking the line of food that I can actually stomach. 

 I have read La Techinque and La Methode by Pepin.  I have read Grastonomiqueand Escoffier.  I know that the French have done wonderful things with food, and I know that they do things with food that I could never handle.

Even though I know this, I figured that when I was in Lyon, the gastronomical capital of the world, I needed to eat something decidedly Lyonnaise.  I was tougher than anything the French would put in front of me, I could eat it, I had this one chance to do it.

So here is the Lyonnaise sausage-

Looks harmless enough, right?! 

Much to the dismay of our very French waiter, I could not get this down.  There was no earthly way that I could eat all that was encased in this gastronomical capital of the world sausage.  In the end, I was more thankful for french fries than I have ever been.

Just in case you are wondering, Lyonnaise sausage is full of mystery meats.  Very large chunks of mystery meat.  Mystery meat that on inspection was far too pale and varied in texture to be the cuts of meat that my stomach can handle. 

 I made a valiant effort, but could not eat more than half.  And eating that half was tough, full of moments of really, really thinking that I was finally in France and I was going to totally embarrass myself by losing my dinner.  And I make it a point to never embarrass myself.  Our waiter knew I was struggling to eat the sausage of his town.  I could feel his glares every time he walked by…

We decided to really make him happy by asking him to take our picture.  Nothing screams dorky tourists like asking the waiter to take your picture…with multiple cameras.