Coronado

Beau and I ventured out to the Coronado Hotel while we were in San Diego. There’s a hotel in Disney World that’s modeled after this one. And there’s a definite reason! It’s beautiful! It sits out kind of away from the city with a little town surrounding it. But the hotel is vast and sits right next to the ocean. You can see the sun set and walk the beach and just relax. Beau and I headed out there one afternoon before dinner so that we could catch the sunset.

 

 

Surprise!

Beau arrived in San Diego on Thursday so we could celebrate our anniversary out here. I surprised him with a hot air balloon ride over the vineyards. We woke up at 3:30 that morning to drive to Temecula to catch the giant balloon. It was amazing flying that high up over vineyards and citrus orchards. The while process of watching inflate and soar high was fascinating!

After the flight they took us back to the vineyard for a delicious breakfast outside with mimosas, fruit, cheese and bread. And they gave us a bottle of their wine to take home. Very memorable.

More pics coming.

Wild Mushroom Quiche

Our friends, Dave and Robyn came into town for SEWE this past weekend. What a great opportunity to make one of the Bouchon breakfast options! Thank goodness they live mushrooms as much as we do! This was super rich and creamy and earthy. We loved it! The great thing about all of his quiches are that the crust and the batter is all the same. You just change up the ingredients!

Fwd: Bouchon Cooking Round 2

This particular Sunday night I attempted four Thomas Keller Bouchon
recipes rather than just one. You'll understand why in a few moments...



Here's what was on the menu:

Salad: Frisee Salad with Bacon Lardons

Entrée: Mussels with Leeks and Red Ver Jus

Dessert: Chocolate Bouchon



And if you're thinking, wow! You are right! Wow! It was deeelicious!



Beau first had this frisee salad at Thomas Keller's restaurant,
Bouchon, on his bachelor party in Vegas a few years back, probably
almost three years ago to the month. I first had it on our honeymoon
in Paris at a little bistro one afternoon. The same restaurant we saw
Kate Moss enter that restaurant.



Anyway, it's a heavenly salad. The bitterness of the frisee and the
sherry vinegar mixed with the saltiness of the bacon lardons and the
creaminess of the runny yolk from the egg is just divine. THIS...this
time...was my first attempt at poaching an egg. I've been terrified to
try it. With the exception of one broken yolk, I successfully poached
three eggs on the first try. And the salad was everything we
remembered it to be.



Moving onto the mussels. I love mussels. To me, I feel like it's
something light to eat but something exquisite at the same time. I
made a big pot of them and just gave everyone some bread and we shared
the giant dish. The mussels were steamed in a mixture of butter, white
ver jus (couldn't find red), parsley, shallots, leeks and garlic
confit.



As you can see from the three dishes, there were in fact just three
that we ate. But at the beginning, I stated that I tried four recipes.
The fourth was this above-mentioned garlic confit. I had to make that
in order to make the mussels dish. It first involved me peeling 24
cloves of garlic while keeping them intact. Which, in case you didn't
know is hard. Peeling garlic the easy way normally involves smashing
the cloves with the flat side of the blade of a knife, causing the
skin to loosen. This was not the case. This was quite labor-intensive.
After peeling them, I covered them in over an inch of canola oil and
very slowly cooked them on top of the stove until they were tender. I
used half of them for the mussels. Thankfully I have the rest in my
fridge ready for the next recipe.



The last dish were the Chocolate Bouchons and by bouchons (which
actually means "cork") I mean decadent brownies. I have always held
tightly to the statement that boxed brownies are better than homemade
ones...at least until now. These homemade brownies were far better than
any brownie I've put in my mouth to date. They were crispy on the
edges and soft and dense and chewy in the middle. I baked them in
popover pans so they would be tall and kind of "stately" like I felt
they deserved. I'm pretty sure one major reason these were so
fantabulous had to do with the 24 T of melted butter in them. J



Next Up: Wild Mushroom Quiche

Commordore's Ball 2014

Beau and I were invited to attend the Carolina Yacht Club’s Commodore’s Ball again this year. And, naturally, we were thrilled! We always have such an amazing time at this event. The friends we go with are so much fun and it’s a weekend of acting silly and as if we have no responsibility, which is so nice! We get to get all dressed up, go out on the town with the high society of Charleston (which we are not normally a part of) and eat amazing food. We love it.

This year’s highlights:

Ice luge that bartenders poured drinks through rather than a shaker

Seared scallops

The band (it’s always amazing and we just dance until our hearts are content

Hand-rolled cigars (for Beau of course)

Beau’s new Gamecock bow tie made of real gamecock feathers (I gave him that as a Christmas gift)

The biggest charcuterie display I’ve ever seen

Lamb tartar

Raspberry Macarons

Little mini blueberry pancakes

Homemade sausage, egg and cheese biscuits at 3:00 am

Beau and I say every year that “this old gray mare just isn’t what she/he used to be”. Meaning, every year it gets harder and harder to stay up that late and wake up the next day and “function normally”.  But we do our best. Thank goodness it’s only once a year. We couldn’t do it more than that for sure.