Apple Love

My Southern Gentleman Husband and I were invited to dinner by our dear friends Dirk and Josine this weekend. I brought this meandering centerpiece, partially to honor Steve Jobs, but also because I know that Josine adores apples. The tulips are a nod to our hosts' Dutch roots and I chose acorns because Josine's maiden name means oak tree. The winter berries? Just because.

It was a wonderful evening catching up with each other over wine, a gourmet home-cooked meal, and thought-provoking conversation.  Thank you Dirk and Josine, we cherish your friendship.

Merry Christmas

Photos taken at the 2008 Filoli Holiday Faire

Happy holidays to all of you!

The Blogger Beast

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For twenty years I worked as a software developer which offered me limited opportunity to express myself creatively. Even though problem solving often requires thinking out of the box, I had no idea that I still had oodles of pent up creativity locked inside me until I retired. I was surprised how hungry I was to feed the need to create. It was like an ever-hungry beast lived inside me.

To quel The Beast, I made wreaths and floral arrangements, painted elaborate banners for my kids' elementary school, accepted more calligraphy jobs, took a Photoshop class, and several floristry classes. I even accepted a few event jobs where I provided all the decorations for weddings and bat mitzvahs. 

It turns out that these activities only whetted The Beast's appetite. Then I learned about the world of blogging. The Beast stepped up her appetite and became The Blogger Beast. 

There are times when I simply can not devote my time to feeding her, and then she slyly morphs herself into a hungry child, sweetly enticing me to feed her, one small morsel at a time. I have a choice; shall I let her go hungry or indulge her with fast food?

 

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Though it hasn’t happened yet, will the time ever come when she will refuse to be fed? Will she become like a petulant child refusing to be fed?

 

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I'm usually cooking up something for The Beast. On the front burner is the very next meal, almost ready to serve. On the back burner some ideas are simmering, in the fridge some thoughts are marinating, and on the counter I'm slicing and dicing the next post.

 

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Sometimes I'm just planning the menu, figuring out what to feed her next. What would be delicious for my diners? Which ingredients would I like to surround myself with? How many courses should I make? It seems my Blogger Beast sometimes enjoys multi-course meals.

Then there are the times when I have to run out to get more ingredients.  If I'm lucky, I already have them in my pantry of photos, or at Getty Images or in Flickr's Creative Commons store, but sometimes I have to wait until I have time to go out to shoot. Other times I can borrow a cup of images from my neighbors like Fogbay.

Now that this is my 100th post, I realize that The Blogger Beast may not be a beast after all. Maybe she's a Blogger Sprite who only morphs into a beast only when unfed. She is a frequent presence showing me her point of view. She sits on my shoulder and points out yummy things to eat, whispering in my ear how it would make a great dish. She reminds me to carry my camera, just in case we happen upon a perfect ingredient for a future meal. Right now she is a great friend who is great company and relatively undemanding.

  

To celebrate my 100th post, I would like to have a dinner party with my blogger friends. I will of course invite Tangobaby who introduced me to the wonderful world of blogging.

Relyn will grace the evening with the uplifting, soothing, spa-like atmosphere as we come sit by her fire. Cuban in London will provide us with a great playlist filled with music a propos for the occasion. Lala will fly in from her Castle in Spain to set the table with style and grace.  No need to have wardrobe angst, The Sartorialist will provide heaps of inspiration. On the walls, we can have a never-ending parade of exhibits featuring Elsa Mora's intricate papercuts, or photos provided by Ramsey at Fogbay or Robin at Birdtweets. All will join the round table of discussion. Also at the table is the ever-interesting, multi-talented Ruth from Synch-ro-ni-zing. We can go on and on about how much we love Paris. While we are talking about travel, who better to join the conversation than the flight attendant at Postcards and Coasters and Tara at Paris Parfait? When the conversation turns political, Tara will chime in with her insightful knowledge Middle Eastern politics and culture. Gabby could regale us with some of his gripping tales. The conversation will, no doubt, turn to movies, at which time we can call upon Hollywood producer, William Horberg, for his considerable expertise in the all things film, cartooning and graphic illustrations. What a fine time we will all have in each others’ company.

This is also the perfect occasion to pay forward the wonderful awards Tangobaby bestowed upon me and others many moons ago. All of you here at the dinner party, I would like to raise my glass to you and express my admiration for your talents by giving you these awards. If you haven’t already been given this award, please come up and grab them.  If you’ve already been honored with these awards, a pair is always nice. The great news is that you will have no time limit for your acceptance speeches and you will have the opportunity to pay forward these awards to your favorite bloggers.

 

Thank you, Tangobaby for these awards and for your inspiration!

Fancy Food Show - Winter 2009

Hannah's Delights with Sofi Awards

One of my many passions is food. I love discovering new foods and new flavor combinations, the more unusual the better. The super bowl for foodies is the Fancy Food Show, produced by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) since 1955. NASFT is the organization who awards the Annual Sofi Awards, Oscar’s foodie brother. The summer show is in New York and the winter show is, lucky for me, usually in San Francisco. Sunday I attended this show for the fourth time.

Attendees & Exhibitors
This show is huge. 20,000 food professionals crowd both halls of the Moscone Convention Center all looking for the latest and greatest food-related products. Combine this with 2,000 plus exhibitors, representing over 80 countries, who are eager to show them off. What does this mean? Yes, you guessed it: thousands of tastings! Imagine Costco during the lunch hour times a thousand.

Photo by Stephanie

Photo by Jodi

If a product touches food, it was present in this convention. Obviously, food purveyors were there, but so were packaging and shopping bag manufacturers, retail display vendors, food associations, food publishers, and even breath mint vendors. I attend as publisher so I now happily report to duty as a reviewer. To help me with this review, some of my foodie friends came along. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Photo by Stephanie

Photo by Stephanie

It is very easy to overeat at this event. The first year we went, we tasted everything from every booth. We were full, and nauseous, before we got through ten percent of the booths. You could be tasting chocolates in one booth, olives in the next, salts around the world in the booth after that, and gosh now there’s cheesecake tasting. My my my, Mylanta! I now try to sample in sequence of a meal; savory items first, then dessert items. This means that I skip many booths, but it’s impossible to taste everything anyway.

Trends
Like in every other industry, awareness of a green planet is a strong focus. This year, organic foods as well as shopping bags were well represented and I was happy to see a few more fair trade organizations.

The natural and organic section grows larger each year, but there is a shift in what is considered healthy. Low carbs and low fat are taking a back seat to omega-3, antioxidants, and MUFA's (mono unsaturated fatty acids).

In previous years we there was always a lot of discussion about what was in a product, now more and more time is spent discussing what is NOT in a product. Vendors, like Willow Cole of Heritage Shortbread,  proudly tell you what's not in the products. "No corn syrup, no modified food starch, no saturated fats..." Hallelujah!

Trendy Ingredients
Walking down the aisles, you hear many overlapping sales pitches and conversations about ingredients. After a while you start to hear the same words over and over again. This year I heard lavender, sea salt, and goji berry repeatedly.

The first time I tasted lavender chocolate was at a Fancy Food Show around three years ago. This year, lavender was teamed with just about anything. Most chocolate vendors offered a lavender flavor, but I also saw lavender salt, shortbread, biscuits, cakes, cookies, honey, spreads, and ice cream. Dakota Angel and I both loved them all, but Jodi said: "It makes me just want to take a bath with it or use it as a face cream."

Photo by Lula's Chocolates

Artisan sea salts are still hot. No body of salt water in the world is spared; each and every one of them has given its all to season your food. It is passé to just say that your product contains sea salt; you better know which sea the salt was sweated from. Sea salt crystals are actually quite beautiful. It comes in many hues and they each have their own unique flavor: gray Celtic salts, red Hawaiian salt, pink Australian flake salt, or Black Sea salt. I even saw some green salt, but I didn’t stop to find out where it came from, probably because I heard a platter of prosciutto calling my name.

Goji berries, a heavy lifter in the antioxidant arena, are touted in many jams, smoothies, chocolates, and toppings. After a while, I began to think that no blended fruit product was complete unless it had goji berries in it.

That’s it for today; stay tuned, because next time I will tell you our favorites.

Tangobaby Crowned Princess of the Blogosphere

Yesterday überblogger tangobaby was bestowed a great honor: her blog was named Blog of Note by Google's Blogger team. I don't know anyone more deserving. This is a huge deal, she was named right there on the same page as Linus Torvalds’ blog. Linus Torvalds is a rock star in the geek world; he is the founder and chief architect of Linux. He gathered no less than 1656 followers since his first post on October 2nd.

I met tangobaby 3 years ago when she still lived here in Palo Alto. She started her blog when she moved to San Francisco, a few months after she discovered the world of tango down here at Stanford. I knew nothing about the blogging world, I just loved the engaging way she shared her passion for dance:

her unabashed love for food, even if it's not the most nutritious:

her passion for classic movies:

and how she recounted all her San Francisco adventures with her beautiful photos:

It didn't take long for me to get reeled into tb's world. We share a lot of the same passions so the inevitable time came when I wanted to come out of the shadows of lurkerdom and leave a comment. When faced with the option of using my real name (thanks, but no thanks), an anonymous note (too cowardly), or a pseudonym (interesting idea), I had to come up with a name. I looked at the top of the comment screen and saw the tangobaby heading. Hm, that might work. I'm only one fourth Dutch but I liked the dutchbaby pun. I had no idea that this moniker would stick!

After a while leaving comments wasn't enough, I started feeding tb ideas for her blog and the inescapable time came when tb put her foot down and said: "Get your own damn blog!" She was right of course. So on June 4th of this year, I took the plunge . Then was faced with the next challenge: what should I use for my profile photo? Fortunately, I remembered that tb posted a very cute photo on my birthday last year. Perfect!

I feel so grateful to have been introduced to the fantastic world of blogging, which is so brilliant at bringing like-minded folks together, and to become part of this community of kindred spirits, all because of my friend tb!

I congratulate and thank you, tangobaby! You have been more than an inspiration to me, you opened up a whole new world for me!

San Francisco Flower Mart - Part II

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are “market days” at the San Francisco Flower Mart. Wholesale hours on market days are from 2 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Yes, you read that right, the market opens at two in the morning! I read somewhere that the top designers in the area consider all the good stuff gone by three a.m. I have never been there when the market opens. My friends and I often threaten to go to San Francisco for a night out and then stay up until the market opens, just to see what this good stuff really is.

I usually go after I send my kids off to school which means I don’t get to the mart until 8:30ish. The earliest I’ve ever been there is 4:30 a.m. and I saw a difference in the product offerings. I saw flowers in unusual colors or new varieties that are in short supply. By 8:30, those specialty flowers are long gone. I can only imagine what is available at 2 a.m.

Wednesdays are the busiest days because that’s when most designers buy their flowers for weekend events. The mart is bustling with buyers from all over Northern California, the fragrance is at its headiest, and the parking lot is hopelessly congested.

It often reminds me of that fabulous flower market scene in “My Fair Lady” (especially minutes 3 through 5):

Non-market days are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The flower growers get to sleep in and show up at 5 in the morning. The Flower Mart is open to the public from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. six days a week.

I have my favorite vendors at the Flower Mart; you met some of them yesterday. Brannan Street Wholesale Florist and Torchio Nursery carry a great variety of flowers with consistent high quality. They are pricey, but you get what you pay for.

The day that Treasurehunter joined me, Brannan Street had the sweetest nosegays that flower girls in a wedding party would love to carry:

I asked someone to hold one up for me to show how delicate and sweet these bouquets were.

They also offer beautiful fruits and vegetables. In fact, this is where I bought many of the materials for the della robia arrangement Tracy and I made.

The long-stemmed artichokes I bought from Torchio Nursery:

Vickie (left - top photo), at Florist at Large , is the most personable vendor at the mart. Her sister Valerie collects greens and mushrooms all over the Bay Area. They creates the most lovely still lifes of their findings:

Blossom Valley is my favorite place to buy gerbera daisies and cut orchids:

Shibata’s tropical flowers are beautiful:

Shibata is also a great place to buy floral supplies including ribbons:

Coast Wholesale Florist carries fabulous dry flowers, silk flowers,

sea shells and other novelties to enhance your designs. I know Robin Bird will like these:

It’s a good thing flowers are perishable, because that means that I have to return time and time again.

Holiday Wreath Clinic 2008 - Part I

Since the year 2000, I’ve offered an annual, sometimes semi-annual, Wreath Clinic. It all started when I headed up the school auction at my kids’ elementary school and we were trying to drum up inexpensive ways to raise money. Parents of the school community offered tickets to a wine tasting party, Oscar party, a Harry Potter treasure hunt, a tour of the Stanford Human Genome Center, and we even auctioned off tickets to a lecture called “How to Get Your Kid into Stanford” offered by a Stanford admissions staff member. These items were not only fantastic, inexpensive ways to give to the school, but they proved to be great community-building events.

I love making wreaths, so I decided to offer wreath-making lessons. I provided all the materials to make Christmas wreaths plus continental breakfast and lunch.

The Wreath Clinic is now a two-day event and the students now also have the option to make kissing balls, centerpieces, or topiaries and the food is offered by The Roving Gourmet, Michelle Bailey and her very handsome baby boy:

This year I offered six spots to a corporate community-giving auction and the other students made donations to Second Harvest food bank.

We start the morning with mimosas and a delicious frittata,

then we work, work, work,

followed by a break for lunch. Michelle made a yummy chicken salad with almond sesame dressing. I can’t believe I forgot to take photos of the food!

The beautiful wreath featured at the top of the post is made by three-time Wreath Clinic veteran, Mary Ann:

Here is Shelley's wreath:

and her cousin Kellie's:

Their grandmother, Martha, made a kissing ball:

Shelley's mother, Susan, made a fresh topiary:

Kellie's mother, Ginger, made two dried topiaries:

Lydia is rightfully very proud of her centerpiece:

Some people are done with their creations by lunch; others finish up or make a second piece after lunch. Lydia made a fresh candle wreath after lunch:

The Sunday crew asked if the Wreath Clinic was a sleepover. Last year, Tracy Lou and I were still making topiaries after dinner in the dark wearing warm gloves.

Since I can't seem to cover these events in only one post, you will have to wait until next time to see what Tracy and her friends created. You will be amazed!