A meal that both humans and dog can enjoy

After the success of the last meal, it was time for something similar, yet different. At the time, we were still very much having winter weather in San Francisco, and nice meaty saucy things were what we were after. So, I decided to make the famous potato-scallion cakes again:



and chose a main of braised short ribs to go with it. The short ribs were a basic recipe with the usual French herbs and aromatics braised for a very long time in the oven with red wine, from this cookbook



(Hmm, I seem to own a lot of cookbooks from Manhattan restaurants, maybe it's a sign we should visit soon?!!! - still haven't been to Momofuku yet! although we've already eaten at Alinea, which is truly amazing)

For something green, I made some simple sugar snap peas sauteed with garlic and red pepper flakes. This is what our dinner plates looked like:



The wine was a Bordeaux blend from Gundlach Bundschu in Sonoma.

We had a nice pile of beef bones after the main was eviscerated:



Huxley was very interested in the "leftovers":




He was a pretty happy dog! - which is to say, his begging worked.

For dessert, it was another one of my trusty pear rustic galette:



I know, I know, I make it a lot, but it is truly so delicious you could never tire of it. It's about the only dessert I like and will eat. I make desserts just for Dave, how lucky is he?!!!

Dave's Pre-Birthday Dinner

Dave's birthday was on the 18th, during which we went out for a nice dinner at Commonwealth restaurant in San Francisco, but the day before the actual birthday dinner, I asked him what he wanted me to make for his pre-birthday meal, and he said, "Pork chops with cabbage" and "Chocolate cake", none of which were my favorite things, but I guess that was the point, to request things that I would never make spontaneously but that he wanted to eat.

The pork chop recipe was from a Fine Cooking magazine article, still available free on-line here. It is a marvelously simple recipe to throw together and appears more complicated than it actually is to make. We paired it with a very nice Gewurztraminer from a new winery that we discovered on our most recent trip to the Anderson Valley in February:



The smell of pork chops was too much for Huxley, who can be seen here shamelessly employing all his guiles to extort food from the humans:



He did get the cork from the wine bottle, which he heartily approved of. Here is what was left after he was done "tasting" the wine:



Dessert was the aforementioned chocolate(-and-almond) cake, from this cookbook:



We paired it with some nice Oloroso sherry:



Not too shabby a dinner, but I think Dave enjoyed it more than I did. Huxley definitely loved it. He got to chew on the cabbage core and had pork bone snacks for several days afterward. So, what's my kind of dinner (as opposed to Dave's)? The next two posts will reveal!

Huxley CK452 Superdog

Dave commissioned this painting for my birthday. I was blown away! He was very mysterious for months, hinting at something big and I never could have guessed what it turned out to be. The artist is Sirron Norris who did some murals in the Mission district that I've long admired.

Everything in the painting really happened in real life. Huxley was CVFBAE the research beagle, who tested experimental heart medication CK452 before he retired from research and got adopted by us. He's got a permanent tattoo on his ear that marks him as CVFBAE. He hates cats and water, and his favorite toy is his rainbow ball. He loves visiting Lucca Ravioli with me and plunging his head into my shopping bag and sniffing the cheese and salami in it. He loves to lick the remains of anything I've made in my trusty orange Le Creuset pot. And, we all know he is a wine cork connoisseur! We also like to imagine that the drug he was testing gave him superpowers so that he has a double life as a superhero during the day while we are out working.

Time to take Huxley out for a long walk! He's been cooped up all Christmas with relatives visiting and would really enjoy a long walk and a chance to sniff out more chicken bones left by the mysterious Chicken Bone Man all over the Mission!

I'm back again, this time after vacation

I knew I said I was back, and then disappeared for another 3 weeks. This is because we'd been spending the first two weeks of November on vacation - in Portugal!

Huxley Beagle got boarded for two weeks at a dog daycare/boarding place. Within the first 5 days, he got bitten by a German Shepherd dog that he was attempting to hump. What an ambitious beagle! - or maybe the German Shepherd was just really hot! Anyway, the folks at the daycare took care of him and he got all his stitches out the day we came back. Since then, he's been EXTRA affectionate and clingy. I think he's afraid we will leave him again! Anyway, I think he had fun despite his misadventure. Here are some pictures of him "on vacation":


Dressed up as a bunny on Halloween (what humiliation!)







I made a corduroy pea coat for the mild November weather in Lisbon and Porto, where we spent about 5 days each. (Will post about the pea coat in a bit.) We spent the last 4 days of our Portuguese vacation in Madeira, where it was very warm and pleasant. Why Portugal, and those particular places in Portugal, you ask? Well, we always like to take vacations in places where we can learn about a new cuisine or wines. Last year, we enjoyed visiting sherry bodegas in Andalusia so much and learning about the different kinds of sherries and how they were made that we decided to visit Porto to learn about Port wine and Madeira to learn about Madeira wine. And how can you visit Portugal without visiting Lisbon! Of course, we also had lots of chances everywhere to sample the dizzying array of Portuguese table wines made from all sorts of interesting grape varietals that we had never heard of. And, the best part was all the food we got to eat! One thing we learnt - Portuguese portions are HUGE! You will see this shortly from pictures we took of almost every meal. We are on a sort of exercise regimen now, to try to lose all that weight we gained. Not that it wasn't a strenuous vacation - Portugal (including Madeira) is a very hilly country and we took some steep hikes that were really good workouts.

Anyway, I will be posting about Portuguese food and wine shortly, as well as some sewing topics related to our vacation. Stay tuned!



The red balloon marks the location of Madeira.

Huxley Beagle, Wine Critic Extraordinaire

Huxley beagle has many talents, one of which is his discerning palate for fine wine. He doesn't get to drink any of the wine that the humans have with their delicious dinners, but he gets to enjoy the bouquet and taste a bit of the wine from the wine cork.

When the humans open a bottle of wine, they toss him the cork, which he gleefully runs after and sniffs delicately. Then, if he approves, he will settle down to enjoy it by chewing off the end of the cork that was in contact with the wine.









He doesn't actually eat the cork. He just chews it up to enjoy the aroma and taste. Here he is spitting out the cork bits after he's savored them.



Often, you can tell by the remains how much he liked the wine.



This cork got almost totally chewed up, so he must have liked the wine a lot. The end that is still intact is the end that was farthest from the wine in the bottle, of course!

He also prefers red wines to white wines, and he likes fortified wines best of all. He also rejects old, dried up corks (only a cork from a freshly-opened bottle will do) so we know he is really in it for the wine. Also, he will not touch a TCA-contaminated cork from a corked bottle of wine. No bad wine for Huxley Beagle, no sir!