Meyer lemon and rosemary shortbread cookies

I don't really consider myself much of a baker, though I have been known to bake up some tasty treats. To me, baking takes too much forethought to make it fun. Plus, all that precise measuring sucks even more fun out of it. For someone as slightly OCD as I can sometimes be, I am a little haphazard in my baking.

Recently though I've been thinking about shortbread cookies. It started with having one of those magnificent chocolate, fleur de sel ones from Miette Confiserie near my house. I've been wanting to recreate it, and Eleanor kindly sent me a recipe for chocolate shortbread cookies, which I still need to work on once I figure out the conversion from metric mass to non-metric volume.

Then, on Sunday, we went to Colin's mom's house in Burlingame, where we picked Meyer lemons and rosemary from the garden. I left with a giant bag of lemons (perfect for making limoncello, just as summer is nearing) and had the bright idea that Meyer lemon and rosemary would go together well in shortbread cookie form. I've never made shortbread cookies before and none of my cookbooks had a shortbread cookie recipe. But, Google gave me my answer. I went over multiple shortbread cookie recipes, found one that seemed simple enough, and got to work in the kitchen.

I followed the recipe exactly, with the addition of the lemon zest and chopped rosemary. The finished dough wasn't coming together and was all crumbly. I didn't quite know what to do. Should I add melted butter? That sounded gross. Ian suggested some water, which worked in pulling the dough together. I rolled the dough into a rectangular log, wrapped it in plastic, and stuck it in the refrigerator. Ian and I made cabbage pancakes and tofu for dinner, and ate while the cookie dough was chilling.

After dishes were done, I pulled the dough out, sliced it, and placed the slices on to two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. They went into the oven and cooked for a little while. Once done, we ate them. I didn't know how they were supposed to be, but these ones were buttery, crisp, and just barely sweet. I could taste the rosemary and wished that the Meyer lemon was more pronounced. But, overall, not bad for a first time shortbread cookie baking experiment. Ian took some cookies with him and I took the rest to school to share. The other counselors and some of the students thought they were great, heavenly even. Lauren asked me for the recipe, which I typed up for her. It follows.


Shortbread Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup European style butter (Strauss Creamery butter for me)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1. Sift flour, powdered sugar, cornstarch, and salt together. Put in a bowl.
2. Beat butter in a separate bowl until fluffy.
3. Gradually add sugar and vanilla to the butter.
4. Stir in the dry ingredients in three batches. Do no over mix.
5. Roll dough into a log and put in refrigerator for about 2 hours.
6. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Slice dough into 1/3 inch slices. (I think I would have liked my cookies smaller.) Bake for 18 minutes, turning the trays once.
7. Let cookies cool until they are cool enough to not burn your fingers and mouth.
8. Eat.

A note: I added the zest of two Meyer lemons and maybe a teaspoon or so of chopped rosemary to my cookies. I think you can really add whatever you want to the basic recipe.

Peninsula and South Bay Adventure Day!

When I suggested to Eleanor that we reinstate weekend brunches, I didn't think it would turn into an all-day adventure touring around my possible new home, the South Bay. Somehow, though, it did.

The Sunday started off like many Sundays before. I met Colin and Eleanor at the Blue Bottle kiosk. Colin and I had frothy cappuccinos out of tiny brown mugs. Ben showed up shortly, still with crutches, and ordered coffee too. Tucked out of the rain, we caught up for a bit, finished our coffee, and walked over to Ben's car. We headed to Burlingame to have brunch at Alana's and then get some photos from Colin's mom's house.

At Alana's, Ben and I split the oatmeal pancakes with bananas and the Company's Coming, which was potatoes, sausage, cheddar and Provolone cheese, tomatoes, and scallions (we asked for no mushrooms), and topped with two poached eggs. Colin and Eleanor split a variation of the same two dishes. The oatmeal pancakes were as delicious as I last remembered them. They were light but substantial, incredibly tender but not mushy, and packed full of oats. With a little smudge of butter and maple syrup, they were fabulous. The Company's Coming was good too, especially as a nice salty balance to the sweetness of the pancakes. Ben didn't quite eat his share of food though and I couldn't eat it on top of what I had already eaten, so we left some pancake on our plate.

After the yummy brunch, we went to Colin's mom's house, where we looked at old photos of Colin, were mesmerized by and contemplated bees, and picked Meyer lemons. We then drove to San Mateo to do some shopping at the Japanese grocery store. I picked up some sesame oil, bonito flakes, and a box of sauce for eggplant.

At the market, Colin asked if we were getting hungry yet. At first, I thought it was ridiculous to be hungry again, since we only finished brunch about two hours earlier. But, when he asked, I could see how I wasn't as full as I expected to be. I told him that I could probably eat again. Ben said that he was easily swayed. We told Eleanor that we hadn't eaten at Santa Ramen before, and that settled it. We would eat again and eat noodles at Santa Ramen. But, after a quick phone call, we had a change of plans. Santa Ramen was closed until later in the evening. Eleanor was ready with a backup: Maru Ichi in Mountain View.

We got back into the car (Colin had a triangle of rice with pickled plum and wrapped in seaweed) and headed further south. Apparently, none of us had plans for our Sunday and were more than happy to drive for more food. Downtown Mountain View looked freakishly similar to downtown Burlingame, with the exception of the angle of the parking spaces that lined the sidewalk. I was surprised at how many Asians there were and all the Asian shops. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of downtown Mountain View since this was my first time there.

We made our way to Maru Ichi and sat down at a booth. Eleanor told us that we should order the Kuro Ramen, which has a black slick of oil on top. It sounded a little gross and a little weird, but tasted amazing. The oil was made with browned garlic, which was fragrant but not overpowering. And, surprisingly, for a bowl of soup with a layer of oil floating on top, the soup wasn't oily or heavy. Was it magic? I had no clue how they did it. Other highlights were the homemade noodles, which was chewy but tender. Too bad the noodle-making booth in the corner was lacking a noodle maker.

Eleanor had discovered this place in the back of a Japanese newspaper and had tried it on her ramen noodle extravaganza. It and Santa Ramen topped her list. I was glad to know of it too. And, I would be glad to share it with all my potential Stanford friends so that I could be the coolest kid at grad school. We also talked about Colin and Eleanor now having an excuse to either visit me in Palo Alto (if I do end up leaving my Hayes Valley house) or to visit the two ramen houses. Life wouldn't be so different if I had a little San Francisco respite.

As if we didn't see enough of the South Bay yet, we made one last stop in Palo Alto, in search of Keeble and Shuchat. Colin's iPhone battery died so we had to find it the old school way, with Google text. We had a problem though: we had no idea how to spell the name. After multiple text messages to Google and some driving around Palo Alto, we finally got the phone number and went way old school and made a phone call to ask for directions.

We were all exhausted by the time we left the camera store. As much fun as the South Bay was, I think the warm weather and all the food from the day was taking their toll on us. I was ready to head back to the City.

Post-run dim sum

When Billy, Winnie, and I get together for a run, we usually end up spending more time and energy eating than actually exercising. It was no different this time when we met up to do a 5K run for liver cancer and hepatitis B awareness in Golden Gate Park. We, along with Winnie's friend Tim, ran the race together through the rain and mud. We finished in about 30 minutes, a decent time though not great. I struggled a little bit with a hill and then a cramp, but I hit a stride just as we were nearing the end. I think I could have kept running.

Afterward, we were hungry and decided that dim sum was what we wanted. Nothing beats pork and shrimp and countless dumplings after a morning run. We made a stop at my house first. Tim took a bit of a nap on my couch, while Billy showered and then lied in my bed.

At Tim's suggestion, we went to Chinatown's Great Eastern Restaurant. I usually avoid Chinatown and have only ever had dim sum in Chinatown once. But, I was game to try a new place and possibly have a dim sum go-to in Chinatown. Winnie picked us up from my house, we navigated our way across the city, and found parking relatively easily.

Though were were four Chinese people, the folks at Great Eastern didn't give us the Chinese people treatment. We weren't asked what kind of tea we wanted; we were just given the pot of house tea. And, we were even given forks! Sure, we might have all be born in the US and, sure, our Cantonese isn't all that great, but we know how to use chopsticks. We blamed it on Winnie speaking to the hostess in English to get seated.

I took me a little while to realize that there were absolutely no dim sum carts and that we had to order everything off the menu. I have mixed feelings toward the menu system. Sure, you know what you'll be getting and don't have to anxiously eye carts that come around. But, they eying and the waiting is part of the fun, part of the leisurely activity that is dim sum. Plus, with the carts, you know when to say stop. With the menu system, I've noticed that my friends and I usually end up ordering way more food than we need or want. Our eyes are usually bigger than our stomachs.

That was the case this time too. We ordered tons of food and all the dishes that I grew up eating at dim sum: shrimp dumplings, chive dumplings, turnip cake, chicken feet, tripe, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, pork and mushroom dumplings, Shanghai dumplings, taro puff, ham siu gok (which translates to salty water corner), steamed rice noodles with shrimp, steamed rice noodles with barbequed pork, eggplant stuffed with shrimp, bell pepper stuffed with shrimp. At one point, there was no room on our little table for more plates and steam baskets. The women made faces at us. But, we worked our way through all the dishes and took two little boxes of food to go, which wasn't too bad considering all that we ordered for just four people.

Generally, the food was good. It wasn't greasy and the flavors were on spot. The taro puff was especially good though, as it tasted of taro and was crisp and light. The ham siu gok was also particularly good. If I were ever in Chinatown and had a hankering for dim sum, I would go here again. Winnie also ran into one of her former student's mom.

And, because we are that ridiculous, we stopped by Golden Gate Bakery for egg custard tarts on our way back to the car.