it’s always more fun served on a polka dot plate and checkered charger!
This recipe is from the was-band’s grandma. We always got so excited in college when a package came from Bubbie. It almost always included these mouth-watering treats….and if the room mates caught wind of a care package it was gone in a day. They’re one of my kid’s favorites and they always get rave reviews at parties! Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Bars
1 cup white Karo syrup
1 cup white sugar
1-1/2 cups peanut butter (I just use creamy JIF seems to work great, but I’ve never tried the natural kind ’cause it might be too oily)
3 to 3-1/2 cups Rice Krispy cereal
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 Tbs. butter
combine Karo syrup and sugar and bring to a boil…take off heat immediately
add peanut butter and stir until dissolved
add rice krispy cereal and mix well
Pat into 9×13 pan (it’s a bit hot, but it really helps if your palms are a little wet)
In a double boiler melt the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and butter. Spread over mixture in the pan and refrigerate until cool….maybe a couple of hours?
Cut into squares and you’re ready to go!
Perfect dessert for that Labor Day potluck! Have a FABULOUS weekend!
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
As promised, here’s the recipe I found online that resembles the Burma Superstar Rainbow Salad. You’ll need a bit of time to make it because it’s 20+ ingredients and many of the spices/ingredients are toasted individually to bring out their flavor…but it’s worth it in the end if you have an afternoon to spare! (…and to be honest I didn’t include EVERY ingredient & tweaked the recipe a bit…adding raw tuna & shredded chicken and omitting the raw potato. You can find the yellow bean powder at Whole Foods, which was my biggest challenge ingredient)
looked so boring here, but OH SO AMAZING when mixed together with the dressing
BURMA SUPERSTAR’S RAINBOW SALAD
Serves 2-4 People
INGREDIENTS For the salad
½ green papaya, julienned
1 cup cabbage, julienned
¼ cup Cilantro, chopped
¼ Carrot, julienned
½ Tomato, diced
3 tsp dried shrimp, ground
1 medium size Onion, julienned (½ keep raw, ½ to be fried)
1 cup blanched vermicelli
½ small potato, cooked and diced
3 lightly blanched string beans (soaked in cold water for crisp), diced
2 cup canola oil
2 tsp yellow bean powder*
¼ pkg firm tofu
2 tsp crushed red chili flakes
4 cloves garlic, sliced
For the dressing
4 Tbs garlic & onion oil
2 tsp tamarind paste
1/3 cup hot water
3 tsp fish sauce
1/3 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
DIRECTIONS
-Heat skillet. Roast yellow bean powder until golden. Remove.
-Wipe skillet with paper towel. Add 2 tsp canola oil and heat. Pan fry firm tofu until golden. Remove tofu and dice.
-Wipe skillet with paper towel. Add 2 tsp canola oil and heat. Add crushed red chili flakes and cook until aromatic.
-Wipe skillet with paper towel. Heat remaining oil for frying. Fry garlic slowly until golden (can take around 20 minutes so it’s not bitter) Remove. Using same oil fry onion until golden…again slowly. Remove onion and RESERVE OIL for dressing.
-Combine tamarind paste and hot water in a bowl. Add garlic & onion oil, fish sauce, salt, and sugar to make dressing. Mix well.
-Drizzle dressing over salad ingredients as needed and toss.
NOTE FROM CHEFS: Don’t be shy to mix the salad with your hands! In fact this salad is called “Hand Tossed Salad” in Burmese. Using your hands to mix the salad will bring out the flavors of each ingredient even more.
*Can be purchased at many Asian groceries.
Have a FABULOUS weekend…and if you have time make this salad!
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
So, you need a quick little get-away and have decided that San Francisco and coastal California is the perfect destination. Let me entice you to save a Sunday to explore Alameda Island, in the San Francisco Bay. First off, you’ll want to drive and plan your trip for the first weekend of the month, because that’s when the Alameda Flea Markettakes place. My friend, Mary Kay, lives in Alameda and this past trip up North I had a little more time to explore this little gem of an area…after my obligatory wandering day in SF.
we made a stop to browse the local farmer’s market around the corner from Cafe Jolie
Alameda Island is conveniently located right next to Oakland airport (in case you did want to fly up) and it has changed so much since I first started visiting years ago. It is also just one stop on the BART to SF….so you can stay in SF, but plan on all day Sunday in Alameda.
Start your day with beignets and breakfast at Cafe Jolie…as pictured above. It’s an adorable little corner cafe with outdoor seating and it was yummy! You’ll need the sustenance for all that walking your going to do. By now it’s probably time to head over to the Flea Market and spend hours and hours scouring the wares. If you go at 9am or later it’s only $5….but if you want to be an early bird, it’s $15 at 6am or $10 at 7:30am.
You might be ready to go by 1:00 and hungry for lunch (although there is food at the fair.) One of my favorite places to go, and a must every time I visit, is the restaurant Burma Superstar. The rainbow salad and the tea leaf salad are AMAZING…among other fabulous dishes! I’ve been known to stop at Burma on the way to the airport so I can have it for dinner back home. In fact, I loved the rainbow salad so much that I searched for the recipe online and found a reasonable facsimile, which I’ll share tomorrow….stay tuned!
the ingredients are placed on the plate individually and the waiter mixes it all up tableside
Next you could explore Alameda’s rejuvenated downtown…or head over to the The Naval Air Station (NAS). The NAS took up much of the island back in the day, but closed in 1997, when many other military bases closed across the country. The Presidioin San Francisco and the Marine Corps Air Station, close to where I live, are two others that closed and all have been slow to re-purpose themselves due to the soil contamination, but it’s finally happening at all three. In Alameda you can stop and take a tour of the USS Hornet Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier, that looks really cool! (I didn’t take the tour, but maybe next time?)
So, you got up early, went for breakfast, walked for hours, indulged at Burma Superstar, walked some more around that aircraft carrier and you deserve to sit and take in a the beautiful view of the bay and San Francisco beyond, at Rockwall Wine Company. When we were there one of the people at a neighboring table said, “this is the best kept secret around!” You have the choice of wine-tasting or just get a glass…or bottle to share. Go sit out on the outdoor deck and enjoy the view! The weather the day we were there was gorgeous! You can also have a bite to eat…the fries looked pretty amazing, but we had bigger dinner plans.
By the way, the winery gets it’s name from the “rock wall” that was built around Alameda back in the military days to protect it from enemy subs and other possible under water attacks. Of course, the chardonnay was my favorite, but their reds are pretty good too. Mary Kay & Laura are members so we got free tastings and discounted bottles…not a bad way to start the evening.
Now…how to end our day in Alameda? How about an amazing Italian dinner with an accompanying cooking show and demonstration. The chef at Traboccois from Italy and he and his wife have had an interesting journey before settling in Alameda.
Okay, so it’s not really a demonstration or cooking show, but when we arrived, without a reservation, our options were sitting outside or at the chef’s counter overlooking the kitchen. If you have the opportunity, always take the latter option! We were treated to an open kitchen show that was so much fun to watch! MK & Laura are regulars so they let Giuseppe know that it was my first time here and he immediately came from around the kitchen counter and hugged me, welcoming me to his restaurant. What a great way to start your dinner experience.
once again, my photog skills aren’t the best, but this pizza was amazing!…and you get your own scissors to cut it
I had an amazing pizza…made even better because it was Monday…and Giuseppe continued to ask how we were doing and watching him interact with all the diners was so awesome. He came over to us at the end of the meal, we hugged, and I told him how special this meal had been. He said it’s like having a whole house full of friends every night….and you could see and feel that passion as he and his wife welcomed everyone into their restaurant.
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – AUGUST 13: Gold medalists United States pose for photographs after the medal ceremony for the Women’s Eight on Day 8 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Lagoa Stadium on August 13, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
(thanks to my coach for this quote)
I was up in Oakland a few weeks ago for the Southwest Masters Regional Regatta for some races with the team I’m going with to Copenhagen in September. It was a beautiful venue, with some good races…some wonky starts and overall good practice for Worlds, even if we didn’t place in the top three.
OMG..it’s 8:00 & I’m just waking up! Thanks to my childhood best friend, Mary Kay, and her partner, Laura, for the amazing accommodations! My own private room with new bath & inviting patio on a shimmering little lake in Alameda. After a leisurely morning, coffee and a quick trip on BART to SF, I started my day of wandering….
Exiting BART at Embarcadero it’s a short stroll past some local artist booths to the Ferry building. The Ferry building is a conglomeration of upscale eateries and always a good place to start your day in SF, along the water, under the shadow of the bay bridge (hot tip..stop by Sur La Table & they’ll offer you a Nespresso…free cup of good coffee, not a sample…or you could pay $6.00 at Blue Bottle). It’s 11:00, I know the The Slanted Door is just opening, and no trip to SF is complete without their yellowtail appetizer. Four bites of complete, melt-in-your-mouth, flavor. Nice little bite of sustenance to start the day.
I had seen a little segment on the CBS Sunday Morning Show about a short story vending machine & I had to check it out. Cafe Zoetrope, A Coppola Family Restaurant in North Beach, is about a mile and a half from the Ferry Building up Market to Kearney and turn right (less than a mile if you take Washington, but I like all the activity on Market St). Sure enough, right inside the corner revolving door is the short story vending machine. You can choose a 1, 3, or 5 minute story and it just spits out and it’s free. I chose the 5 minute since this was my stop for another small bite, cafe Caesar salad. It was a cute little story and I just felt so European reading in this cafe filled with Coppolla family memorabilia.
The only other short story vending machines are in Europe. I continued wandering up Columbus, stopping in at City Lights Book Store, an eclectic, funky independent bookseller and publisher. It’s been around since 1953 and, if you’re a book lover, worth a stop in to browse the stacks.
I continued up Columbus and took a left on Grant in order to walk through the entertaining Chinatown. It’s like stepping into a small Chinese city, where almost everyone is speaking in Chinese and you have some interesting food choices and smells as you meander up the street. If it’s special healing herbs you need, they have them too. I bought my rice maker here back in the early 80’s and I still have it today….my favorite kitchen appliance!
Chinatown ends a few blocks over from Union Square, a little oasis of a park in the city. It makes sense that you have to do some window shopping as you make your way over there! I sat and read for awhile, basking in the glorious weather. It was closing in on 3:30pm and time to head back over to Alameda for the evening. but…just one quick stop at Mikkeller Bar for their 4 star-Yelp rated Belgian fries and a crazy amount of choices of beer.
The Belgian fries lived up to their rating, but warning…this is in the Tenderloin and I saw no less than 5 homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk and roaming the area…not the best location and I probably wouldn’t walk there alone at night, but good Belgian fries and enough beer choices to make you dizzy. By the time I left, the place was starting to really fill up with people (not homeless ones).
…..next…A Day in Alameda…don’t miss it!
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
I love artichokes and they’re so easy to prepare…just steam/boil them and that’s it…but I decided to take it one step further and grill them this time, like I’ve had at some favorite restaurants. YUMMY!
So, the basic way to prepare an artichoke is to cut the top off and trim the leaves with some scissors. You’d also need to cut the stem so it sits upright. For this recipe I put them in a large pot (the one I use for spaghetti) and fill with water and a splash of olive oil until the artichoke is submerged about halfway up. Then just bring to a boil and cover for about 30 minutes or so. The alternative to this and much quicker is to put it in a microwave safe dish with about the same amount of water and microwave for about 10-13 minutes. If you overdo it the leaves will curl a bit, but the taste of the part you “scrape” onto your teeth and eat will be the same. I test for doneness with a pair of tongs and just grab a leaf and try to pick up the artichoke. If the leaf comes off easily it’s done.
scoop the hairy “choke” out
For the grilled version I boiled it as instructed above and then cut them in half. I removed that fuzzy stuff that you don’t eat called the “choke” drizzled it with garlic butter and placed it face down on a hot grill.
no, its not your eyes…just bad focus on my part!
It only takes a minute or so, depending on how hot your grill is, to get a nice char. Take it off, drizzle with more garlic butter and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Voila!…a new, and improved, way to make artichokes.
Enjoy the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics tonight! GO USA! (of course rowing is on at 4:30am, so I’m recording it every day….they should have it on prime time!) If you liked The Boys in the Boat, you also might want to watch this documentary about The Boys of ’36!
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
The neighborhood made the road trip out to Williams, AZ for another “Weekend in the Woods” courtesy of The Fabulous Farley’s. This was the biggest group yet…around 40….with ages ranging from 4 months to some in their 60’s and it all felt so right to be together as a group.
I can’t imagine how much work it is for the Fabulous Farley’s to organize a weekend full of food and fun for 40 people, but they did and it was another success.
The weekend always starts at O-dark-thirty, so we can get out of SoCal before the throngs of cars descend on the freeways. It was a week after the Pokeman Go craze had started…so there were warnings!
I’m not kidding, the best BLT sandwich I’ve ever had. If you’re a fan of the BLT you’ll note that many times the bread is so thick and toasted that it hurts the roof of your mouth…or that there’s too much L & T and not enough B. This one was lightly toasted so the bread was still squishy and had two different layers of bacon…it was amazing..sorry I didn’t take a pic (but I found this almost approximation of what I had).
Our Thursday arrival starts with the sign up sheet for weekend…you have choices like “food prep”…my personal favorite…”cooking”, “clean up”, “kindling collecting”, “fire prep” as well as a variety of others. There are even some for the little kids so everyone feels included. Just about everyone camps in tents, except for a select few wusses…me being one of them…that sleep in the main house. I actually like the idea of camping outside under the stars…it’s the bathroom part of it all that I’m a wuss about. My bed and accommodations were comfortable and perfect for the weekend. I might do a compromise next time and rent a little motor-home? That’s kind of camping, right?
Dave wanted to make sure I was level!
We were divided into three teams for the planned activities, which this year included, the ever popular, archery and wood chopping, as well as the new “plot improvement” and “geo-caching.” My favorite was the geo-caching…or treasure hunt…working together, running for flags, looking for the final spot where we’d find our treasure. Watching the kids run around in the forest of trees and hear the squeals of delight as we found each little flag was the highlight. It didn’t hurt that our team came in first and the next team was nine minutes behind us….just sayin’! No, I’m not competitive! I was thankful that one of the activities did not entail pulling any mulliensthis year, but we’d all do it again in a heartbeat if asked.
the winning geo-caching…and overall…team
Of course there were nights at the campfire, s’mores, the kid’s made home made ice cream, the adults had a little craft of their own and a good time was had by all. I think it’s always more fun to share the experience with pictures, so here you go….
Happy Birthday Katie…with the best cake made directly in the fire.plot improvement projectarchery…not to brag, but my son-in-law was the archery champion…BULLSEYE!geo-caching…very serious stuff, includes directions and a compasshome made ice cream…just roll it back and forth!there’s a campfire story coming!
a campfire isn’t complete without s’moresadult project…we made hummingbird feeders out of used bottles (I had a great pic of the girls making them, but it wouldn’t download…dang it!)T&D made a double decker one
One of our neighbors, Yvonne, is from Argentina and we learned all about maté..a traditional Argentinian (..& other countries) tea. I’d heard about it from my friend Mimi a few years ago and the customary ritual of drinking it together.…and the cool vessel, a calabash gourd, that you drink it out of…I want one!okay, I know it’s blurry, but that’s what happens with a night shot.how cool is this outdoor shower with the water heated from the wood burning stove to the left and captured in the containers above.…back on the road again….until next time!
You cannot direct the wind, but you can adjust the sails!
