2012

Photo Essay: The Great Dickens Christmas Fair, San Francisco CA

December 6, 2012
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“If I can remember one thing about Charles Dickens from my sophomore year of high school, it’s this: there is nothing ironic in his stories. The good people are good and the bad people are bad. What you see is what you get.” explained my friend Peter as the man in dressed as [...]

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Speculaas (sometimes spelled Speculoos) Cookies, otherwise known as Dutch Windmill Cookies or Biscoff Cookies

December 3, 2012
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Back in 1989, when I was still a sophomore in high school and secretly listening to Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth (though I told everyone that I was listening to New Order’s Technique) my parents dropped a bombshell on me. We were moving to The Netherlands for a year. My dad’s a science professor [...]

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Photo Essay: Charles M. Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa, CA

November 29, 2012
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“It’s totally up to you. We can go or we can go home.” AJ said to me, leaving me with the final decision. I hemmed and hawed and said “Let’s just go home…” until my FOMO kicked in when all my friends said they were going. I never had a huge desire to [...]

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Pear Bourbon Clafoutis and a trip to the Thermador Design & Experience Center

November 26, 2012
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“How do you pronounce it? Clay-foo-ti? Claw-foo-tay?” I quizzed my partner AJ and my friend Peter, both of whom speak French. I had taken the ever-so-practical Latin in high school (carpe diem!) in the long distance hopes that it would improve my SAT scored, thereby tricking an ivy league school into accepting me [...]

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Happy Thankgiving!

November 22, 2012
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I’ll be back on Monday with more stories, recipes and such. In the meanwhile, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m incredibly grateful that you all stop by to read my ramblings…

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Pumpkin White Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cheesecake Bars

November 19, 2012
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“So…do you have any holiday recipes up? Because I have the best pumpkin pie recipe!” said the volunteer at the San Francisco and Marin Food Bank that I was photographing for my most recent Photo Essay. I sighed internally. This is always the problem with having a food blog. Everyone expects you to [...]

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Photo Essay: San Francisco and Marin Food Bank

November 15, 2012
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At first glance it looks like a big box store, like Costco or Sam’s Club, filled with industrial size boxes and crates of food and produce. But the warehouse for the San Francisco and Marin Food Bank isn’t anything like those giants. The Food Bank exists to help fill the need of those in our [...]

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Chocolate Rolled Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream and Pistachios for my partner AJ’s 40th Birthday

November 12, 2012
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“I dunno, when I eat a cake, I usually like it fresh, not old or vintage” quipped AJ as I unwrapped a review copy of Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson that Ten Speed Press had sent me. I mentally rolled my eyes, but really I found AJ’s bad jokes to be endearing. After all, he [...]

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Photo Essay: New York City (Support for Sandy)

November 8, 2012
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I rarely tell people this but I once had aspirations to move to New York. It was back in college, when all my friends were moving to New York and, obviously, I chose San Francisco instead. I have no regrets about my move here, and most of my friends who used to live in New [...]

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Photo Essay: Taste of Hawaii 2011

November 2, 2012
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About a year ago, I was invited to a lovely event to promote the Taste Of Hawaii Tour. Sadly I never got around to posting about it, but I’ll be honest when I tell you that I don’t think Hawaii needs any promotion. I spent the entire month of July 2011 on Maui and despite [...]

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