The Veggie Everyone Loves to Hate

Currently I am in the midst of board studying and to say the least, it is incredibly utterly terrible. On a better note, a couple of weeks ago, before I dove into boards world, JC and I went to the Nutrition and Health Conference in San Francisco. This is by far my favorite conference of the entire year, for obvious reasons. We heard great talks about vitamin D, soy, GMOs, the dangers of fructose, and lots of other important topics. I also saw a cooking demo with Mollie Katzen and Dr. Wendy Kohatsu and also met with Michael Pollan. The conference was absolutely amazing and I'm really hoping to be able to attend next year in Boston.

Michael Pollan and I

Appetizer at The Slanted Door

 Another highlight of the conference was that it was in San Francisco, one of my absolute favorite cities. Not only is the city tons of fun, but some of my favorite people live there too. They showed us a great time, thank you guys so much! We basically had a foodie trip around the entire city. We started with the farmer's market at the Ferry building and then did some tastings at St. George Spirits in Alameda. The next morning we had dim sum at City View restaurant--super delicious, but come with a full wallet. We made a stop at Magnolia near Haight-Ashbury for some fried pig ears washed down with a great kolsch.We also hit up an amazing Pakistani restaurant (Lahore Karahi), had great ramen (Katana-ya), udon in Japantown (Mifune), and our splurge of the trip was The Slanted Door at Embarcadero. We also had a fabulous dinner at Crustacean (Garlic Noodles!)--thanks Will! We also took a quick day trip up to Berkley to see my sister. She showed us around the campus and we were lucky enough to eat lunch at Chez Panisse and an afternoon snack of pizza at The Cheeseboard. We did an ice cream tour of the Mission stopping at Bi-rite (salted caramel and honey lavender) and Humphry Slocombe (Secret Breakfast and Vietnamese coffee). We had lunch at 'wichcraft and also coffee at Blue Bottle and Philz. But the food highlight of the trip was Izakaya Sozai. I was so excited about the food, I completely forgot to take any pictures. We had a great dinner (with great company) of ramen, tempura maitake with truffle salt, shishito peppers, takoyaki, fried oysters, tempura flounder, beef tongue yakitori, yamaimo fries, raspberry duck yakitori, tsukemono, and probably a few other dishes. It was absolutely divine. Everything was cooked to perfection. Great choice Ralph!

Lunch at Chez Panisse

 You can tell we are big foodies in this house. We also had a dinner in and had a dumpling night. We taught our wonderful hosts the art of dumpling making and made a huge mess of flour. An odd pairing, but our veggie of the night was Krista's brussels sprout hash. A word about brussels sprouts: this is definitely the veggie everyone loves to hate. I don't know where it got its terrible reputation from because it is one of my favorites. Prepared right, you can eliminate that sulfur flavor and bring out a wonderful sweet, nutty essence that goes great with just a little butter and garlic. You need to make sure you cook them long enough to release the sulfur, and then a beautiful veggie will emerge. I've been trying to convert JC to because a brussels lover like me, and this is the only brussels sprout dish he has actually enjoyed. It's so simple yet so tasty, and also great for you. Plus, it only takes about 10 minutes to prepare.

I paired the brussels sprout has with some baked salmon. The acidity of the veg goes nicely with the fish. We also had some lemon goat cheese on had that tasted great on top of the fish. Enjoy!

Krista's Brussels Sprout Hash

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 shallots, diced
• ~20 brussels sprouts, sliced from butt to head into 1/8th inch slices
• 2 Tbsp honey
•  Sea salt
• 1/2 lemon, juiced

Brown the butter with the shallots. Toss in the sliced brussels sprouts and add the honey and salt.  Cook on medium high, tossing occasionally until bright green and softened (this should take about 7-8 minutes). Turn up to high to char the bottom layer. Remove from heat and toss with lemon juice.

Kuma was sick earlier this week. Sad but so cute.