food | kimberly ah

Aug 08 2013

adventures, cocktails, what's for dinner

K&N and the Girl & the Goat

Naoto has been wanting to eat at Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat for years. Our neighbors have eaten there a few times and have raved about it so much. Naoto has been trying to get us a reservation for awhile now…he was especially anxious to eat there after we ate at Little Goat and had such a delicious experience.

Last Friday, we were able to go after one of his co-workers offered up her reservation to us. (Thanks, Missy!) So at five o’clock on a Friday night, we sat down to a dining adventure at the Goat. My favorite part was the cocktails. Don’t get me wrong–the food was AMAZING–but my cocktail, the Foghorn, was the scene-stealer (pictured above with Naoto’s boring beer). The Foghorn is, according to the menu, “SanFrancisco’s answer to the Manhattan”. It is made with gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur and orange bitters, garnished with an orange peel. So simple, but when it’s the right mix of quality ingredients and good proportions, simple can be so good! It was sweet, but not too sweet and no one ingredient overpowered the others–a perfect drink in my book. I also enjoyed the Charlie Ross cocktail (gin, sugar and bitters)…so tasty!

The menu at Girl & the Goat is separated into three parts: veggies, fish and meat. It is a small-plate restaurant, where you order several things and share a few bites of each thing. I like this style of restaurant, because if something is underwhelming, it’s good to know something new and different will be showing up at the table soon. But, at Girl & the Goat, nothing was underwhelming.

We ordered six dishes (pictured in order below): Squash Blossom Rangoon (crab and yogurt inside a lightly fried squash blossom), Kona Kompachi Crudo (raw fish with aioli and pork), Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon (salmon with a peach panzanelle salad), Roasted Cauliflower (pure heaven, with pine nuts), Sweet Corn Goat Cheese Wontons (goat cheese wontons served with tiny heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn and popcorn!) and Wood Oven Roasted Pig Face (pork cheek served with a fried egg and potatoes). Every dish was really creative and interesting, but my favorite was probably the most simple–the cauliflower. Naoto and I roast cauliflower pretty often around here, and it’s pretty delicious, but it’s nothing like this. I can’t stop thinking that they must really have a secret to making it so good… I’m glad Naoto let me eat most of the cauliflower, and because of his generosity, I only had a bite of the pig face. He was crazy excited to eat Girl & the Goat’s most popular dish. Of course, we had to get coffee and dessert. Naoto got the Miso-Butterscotch Budino (a creamy miso and butterscotch pudding with cashews, pineapple and bacon toffee on top). After this dessert, and the other miso dessert at the Little Goat Diner, I’m convinced that Naoto has the utmost respect for Stephanie Izard and her skills with this Japanese ingredient. I ordered the Goat Cheese Bavarois (brown sugar cake topped with blueberries, caramel krispies and goat cheese). I would tell you that the creamy goat cheese was the best part of this dessert, but then I’d be leaving out how amazing the brown sugar cake was, and the blueberries, and the caramelized krispie gems…What I liked best about Girl & the Goat was that it’s a casual restaurant…no white tablecloths or pretentious servers…it’s just incredibly creative food in a comfortable atmosphere. We definitely want to go back again…the menu changes all the time, so it would be fun to go back in another season to see what’s new. And to get another Foghorn.

Tagged adventures, cocktails, coffee, food, summer

Aug 06 2013

4 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Garden Update: Leaning Towers of Tomatoes

This week at the garden, I was informed that I bought “terrible tomato cages”.

Thanks for the “advice”, fellow gardener…a couple of months too late.

This first year has been all about learning. I didn’t remember from my dad’s garden (which is about twenty times the size of our plot) that tomato plants grow this much. I didn’t do a lot of research about each of the tomato varieties that we planted, but if I had, I would have learned that Brandywines (the tomatoes pictured above) are very heavy, and tend to weigh the plant down a ton. We should have staked it with a pile driver. (Kidding.) Now that we are harvesting the tomatoes, I feel like as long as we can keep the plants standing and producing, we’ve succeeded for Year One.Right now, since we cannot turn back time and buy sturdier cages, we are doing what we can to keep the plants stable and (as much as possible) out of the walking paths in the community garden. We bought some sturdy stakes and have tried to situate them in a way that holds up the cage along with the fruit-laden plants. We also brought some twine to the garden so we could tie up the wayward branches (as seen above on one of our Early Girls). Our garden plot isn’t going to win any Garden of the Year awards–especially considering the Wild West portion (pictured above…seriously, have you ever seen such a mess of plants?!) but we are really happy with our tomato harvests so far. We’ve pulled juicy red tomatoes from each of our four varieties and they are all sweet and delicious and there are many, many more green ones in waiting. As long as we can keep the plants standing, I’m sure we’ll be eating tomatoes throughout August and into September. We’ve also harvested a few more peas and some lima beans–not quite enough to make a side dish, but enough for me to have a first little taste of freshly picked peas and limas…a win in my book.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Aug 01 2013

4 Comments

gardening, homemaking, Simple Summer Suppers, summer manifesto

Simple Summer Suppers: Homegrown Panzanella

Tuesday I was watching the TODAY Show (Don’t judge…it’s a sickness, I know.) and Giada was whipping up a dish with bread and tomatoes and artichokes and vinegar and basil–panzanella! I could not stop thinking about it. So I decided, eying the fresh harvest of tomatoes and basil sitting on the counter, that we would have to have panzanella for dinner.

Panzanella is the perfect summer meal. It’s the ideal recipe for fresh garden (or farmers market) tomatoes. I can’t imagine this dish could ever be enjoyed in the winter with the mealy, barely pink, imported grocery store tomatoes. Nope…better enjoy it now while we are harvesting the rich red tomatoes of summer.

Homegrown Panzanella
(slightly adapted from Giada’s Artichoke & Tomato Panzanella)

3 cups bread, cubed into 1-2 inch pieces (I used ciabatta)

3 large tomatoes, cut into 1-2 inch pieces, or sliced (I used a mix of tiny Juliets and two big Brandywines, all freshly picked from our garden!)

1 can artichoke hearts, sliced in half

handful of chopped basil

2/3 cup good olive oil (For salads, we love Trader Joe’s California Estate Olive Oil.)

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

drizzle of olive oil for cooking

salt & pepper

Preheat a grill pan on medium heat. Toss your bread and artichokes with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and add the bread and the artichokes to the preheated grill. Turn every couple of minutes until each side is golden brown. Remove from the grill and add to a serving bowl with your tomatoes and basil. Toss to combine.

Whisk the good olive oil and vinegar together and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

You could add olives, red onion or parmesan cheese.

As it was, the panzanella was amazing. We ate it as our main course, with a side of fresh green beans from the farmers market and a couple of glasses of red wine. We took advantage of another mild summer night and ate outside…it just might have been the perfect summer meal.

Tagged food, forest park, garden, gardening, homemaking, summer

Jul 26 2013

4 Comments

Office Supplies, snail mail

Japanese Care Package

I came home Tuesday to a care package from Naoto’s sister (my sister-in-law), Hisae. Holy cow, was it a good one! Hisae sent Naoto some stuff (the serious looking packages on the left side) and she sent me a ton of Japanese snacks, sweets, some awesome office supplies, a huge bag of Japanese postage stamps and super-soft socks.So far, I’ve only eaten the little peanut candies (in the bag with orange and yellow stripes) and the cheese curl-like snack (behind the peanut candy)…both are really wonderful. The peanuts have a hard candy shell and tiny crumbles of peanut candy inside. Naoto remembers eating them as a kid. The cheese curls have three strong cheeses pictured on the bag (cheddar, bleu and one other), but they were cheesy and sweet…weirdly delicious.

I am most curious to try the actual Cheetos–one is salmon roe & mayonnaise flavor and the other is barbeque sauce flavor. I love when American snacks are made with foreign flavors…I usually find them far more interesting than the American ones. (It could be the novelty though…) Green tea Kit Kats are my favorite (and Hisae sent those along with mango Kit Kats!)

The office supplies deserve their own post next week once I’ve gotten a chance to try them. In the meantime, I think I’m going to try the mango Kit Kat while I clean house this afternoon!

Thanks again, Hisae!

Tagged food, snail mail

Jul 24 2013

2 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Garden Update: Let the Harvesting Begin!

Well, at least a small harvest can being…

Above is our first summertime harvest from the garden on Saturday. Small, I know…but things are just getting started. We picked our red Juliet tomato on Saturday afternoon before heading to the progressive dinner. We sliced it in two and toasted our first home-grown tomato. The peas were a little bit of a surprise, since they were planted in the Wild West portion of the garden and it’s hard to see what’s going on with them (a rookie mistake!) There are quite a few smaller peas still out there, but these three were ready to be picked and they were sweet and fresh and perfect.

In the “garden challenges” department…yesterday I received a tweet from Mr. Brownthumb about a fallen tomato plant. Sure enough, when I went to the garden later in the afternoon, I found this:
So, lesson learned…get larger, sturdier, more expensive tomato cages… At this point, it’s too late, but you can bet that Naoto and I will be doing some research over the winter to learn better ways to support our tomatoes next year! We just need to support them long enough to produce their little fruits and keep them out of the pathways. I re-staked the fallen Brandywine plant and tied up more wayward branches. The garden isn’t pretty at this point, but more tomatoes are turning and that’s really all we asked for in our rookie year!

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 22 2013

4 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Community Garden Progressive Dinner

On Saturday night, the community garden board hosted a progressive dinner for all of the gardeners in the Forest Park Community Garden. Naoto and I had a really fun time getting to know all of our fellow gardeners. We’ve decided that gardeners might just be the nicest group of people around (gardeners and letter writers, for sure!)

We all met at Amelia’s for a drink and then we walked to Bambi’s house for tapas and mojitos. We could have ended the night here…there was so much food! At Gina’s house, we enjoyed grilled pizzas and sangria. Naoto and I brought basil from the community garden planters and from our balcony and Gina made a magical tomato, basil & mozzarella pizza with it. At Michelle’s house, we enjoyed dessert–a homemade plum clafouti and an ice cream pie (generously donated by Brown Cow!) Every step of the evening was just perfect, and even an unexpected rain shower didn’t spoil our festivities!

Have you ever done a progressive dinner? This was our first one and it was loads of fun, especially for a group who was just getting to know each other. Walking from house to house gave us an opportunity to mingle with more people, either on the walk or in a different seating arrangement at each house. I think it just might be the most ideal way to break the ice with a group of new people.

Thanks for a great evening, fellow gardeners!

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 19 2013

9 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Garden Update: We Have a Red Tomato!

Randomly, it’s the only one…all the others are green as green can be.

But this little red tomato gives me hope that maybe, just maybe we will have a tomato crop yet! It’s hard to see up there, but our tiny pepper plant, dwarfed by the tomato giants, has four tiny peppers on it. And, I’ve spotted a few peas and a few limas…we still need to finish conquering the wild west portion of the garden before I can really see what’s going on though. It has been hot, hot, HOT here all week, so gardening has consisted of weeding and watering as the sun goes down.

Tomorrow night, we are going to a progressive dinner hosted by the board of our community garden. Naoto and I have met some super-nice people in the garden and we are looking forward to hanging out with everyone outside of the garden (and of course talking about gardening!)

Yay for the weekend!

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 18 2013

1 Comment

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, summer manifesto

Farmers Market Thursday

This morning, I headed over to the Hines VA Hospital for their weekly farmers market. Since the Forest Park market isn’t happening this year, the Hines market is going to be the next best thing. Well, it might be anyway…it’s pretty small.

That’s it up there…thankfully there is a lot of signage at the Hines campus, because, really, if you blink, you might miss it. There were a few farmers and a few people selling bottled products (vinegars, honey, salsa) and there was a bakery. One farm was selling berries and plums and green beans and they were serving freshly grilled corn. Yum! Another farmer, Jessica of Purple Leaf Farms, who I know from our Forest Park Community Garden, was selling greens and turnips and flowers. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the summer. As more fruits and vegetables mature on the farms, I’m sure there will be more offerings, but for now, I’m happy with my tiny purchase of gorgeous blackberries and pretty blooms.

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jul 10 2013

5 Comments

adventures, summer manifesto

Boston: Part 3

On our last day in Boston we ate seafood! Lauren and Mark took us to Legal Sea Foods right on the water. Naoto had a crab salad and I had my first lobster roll (pictured above). It was huge and delicious, as was the maple smoked salmon bruschetta we all shared. After lunch, we walked down to the Harpoon Brewery and had a tour. I am not a beer drinker at all, but it was still fun to learn about the process and the history of Harpoon and Naoto enjoyed my portion of the beer tasting (though, they did have cider for me to enjoy!) I only wish we weren’t too full to eat a giant pretzel in the beer hall…those looked so good! (The goggles pictured above on Mark and Naoto were all part of the tour.) Harpoon lost a bet with a brewery in Chicago and had to display this tap in their beer hall, Ruined Bruin. As a Chicagoan, it was a fun sight to see (while subtly laughing and not giving away our Chicago origins!)

After lunch and beer we headed back downtown to hunt for Necco treats (pretty much a failed attempt…I got a couple of SkyBars and some Candy Buttons for a small fortune and two different candy shops seemed perplexed about the existence of Necco) and had cocktails in the Prudential Tower (views pictured above). It was a bit hazy, but we were able to see the whole city sprawling beneath us. It was a nice little end to our vacation.

At the airport, while we waited for our (delayed) flight, Naoto and I toasted our first Dunkin Donuts coffees of the weekend. (Why did we wait so long?!) We decided that we definitely want to visit Boston again, but in my mind, it’s one stop on a long New England road trip!

Tagged adventures, coffee, food, summer

Jul 08 2013

3 Comments

adventures, summer manifesto

Boston: Part 1

Boston seems like a lifetime ago. I guess that happens with vacations…you wait so long for them and then they’re gone and you’re left with good memories and the desire for another vacation (one that doesn’t end with the flu, hopefully!)

Naoto and I had a super-early flight on Friday (5:30AM!) so our first day in Boston was LOOOONG! We stayed with Naoto’s college friends, Mark and Lauren. They were gracious hosts and wonderful tour guides! They took us to all of the touristy things we wanted to see and to some amazingly delicious restaurants and bars…We felt lucky to have such adventurous local hosts!

After a hearty breakfast, we did a ton of walking on our first day. We saw every part of the city on our weekend visit, and I would say most of that happened on Friday. We spent most of the day downtown Boston (pictured above: looking way up at the John Hancock Tower, and the reflection of Trinity Church in the Hancock Tower) and then exploring the sights along the Freedom Trail, a route you can walk along to see many of the historic places in Boston.

We went to the Boston Public Gardens and looked at the gorgeous flowers and the ducks and swans in the pond. (pictured above: George Washington was sporting a Bruins jersey in the Boston Public Garden, in spite of the fact that they lost the Stanley Cup to Chicago, and Naoto having a ride on the ducklings)

Next, we went to the Paul Revere house (pictured above). I love, love, love seeing homes of historic people. These “museums” are usually small and have a handmade quality to the exhibits. I love seeing old kitchens and thinking about how much work it was to make a simple meal each day. I love looking at the simple furnishings and dishes. I love walking up old stairs thinking that Paul Revere walked up those same stairs back in the 1700s. I love reading the little mundane details typed on card stock and listening to the docent’s simple speeches about the house. I wish I had lingered longer.

We walked along the path to the Old North Church and the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, checking out little bits of history along the way until we were all walked out and decided to head home and get ready for dinner.

We had dinner at Stella, which is right in Mark and Lauren’s neighborhood. The food was amazing (I had the Braised Short Ribs & I’m dreaming of them now!) and the cocktails were fun. (That’s my Mango Vesper up above.) It was the perfect ending to day one.