And the Oscar Goes To......

The first Cooking Club of 2012 was held on February 22nd at Michele's home. The theme was Oscars since the award show was the following day. Every dish had to be inspired by current Oscar nominess or past winners.

Of course Michele had a lovely table setting.

Fresh flowers from her yard.

Our lovely host preparing the hors devours.

Michele's first dish was inspired by Woody Allen's 'Midnight In Paris." Fried wonton wrappers with a generous dallop of veganaise topped with a slice of cucumber. Paired with some bubbly. A great starter for what was to come.

And here I am showing off the immersion blender I got for Christmas.

I prepared a soup based on 'My Week With Marilyn.' If you haven't seen the movie-rent and watch. Michelle Williams was nominated for best actress and was positively outstanding.

I made a cream of artichoke soup-lots of artichoke hearts, soy milk, and vegan cream. The connection? Marilyn Monroe was once crowned the Artichoke Queen in nearby Castroville.

Elizabeth prepared a tropical salad that she hacked from a fancy restaurant when she recently visited New York City. Her movie was the Descendents which takes place in Hawaii. Mixed greens, pomegranate seeds, fresh pineapple, and fancy burrata cheese-tasted as awesome as it sounds.

Here's Elizabeth showing off her serving skills in anticipation of the main course.

Michele prepared hot dogs with her own homemade apple leek slaw. She even grilled some Tofurkey dogs for the vegan! Her inspiration came from the movie, 'Moneyball," which is based on the Oakland A's baseball team.

For dessert I threw together a chocolate stout cupcake with a crumble topping. Yep-this was inspired by the excellent book and movie, "The Help." Inappropriate to go into a detailed description about this but there was an issue with a chocolate pie.

Get your hats and flasks ready for our next CC-Kentucky Derby! Hosted by Elizabeth in SF on April 28th.

Better Late Than Never-Urban Picnic

I hosted Cooking Club on May 21, 2011 and yes, I'm just now getting around to putting up a post 7 months later. I'd like to explain the lack of post by telling you that I'm very busy and important but seeing that Janet has two children, moved from CA to TX last year, and is still able to keep her blog updated with multiple postings per week, I know that won't go over well with the group.

Since I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and am still recovering from when I hosted, "Organic and Under $20.00," when ELEVEN people decided to attend that CC, I felt a picnic was most appropriate and would hopefully keep my anxiety low. I chose the theme, "Stacked and Stuffed," which allowed for creativity. Plus-there was this mock tuna fish sandwich recipe that I've been dying to try out.

I live across the street from Lake Merritt in Oakland and as luck would have it, May 21, 2011 was a gorgeous day. It was a small group that day-just me, Heather, Michele, EV, and Ashley. However, these are the CC members that tend to drink the most so while our other members were missed, we had a blast that included a few bottles of bubbly and some great whites.

First dish was prepared by the ever-fashionable Ashley who came decked out in Kate Spade. Ashley prepared chilled stuffed tomatoes.

Next up came by tuna-less sandwiches served on different artesian breads with freshly grated carrots, mixed greens, and dill pickles. The "tuna" filling was made out of chickpeas, celery, and blanched almonds.

Michele prepared a classic-potato skins with homemade pesto, cherry tomatoes, and a sour cream drizzle. While most people serve potato skins heated, serving them at room temperature really brought our all of the fresh flavors.

Heather out did herself with not one but two stuffed sandwiches. One vegan and one vegetarian (main difference was that the veggie had cheese slices). She hollowed out a loaf of bread and layered on everything you could think of from roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, avocado to sun dried tomatoes and hummus. Then the sandwich was foiled wrapped & pressed for a few hours until we attacked it.

EV chose dessert and channeled her inner Martha with these adorable cherry lemon muffins. Not only were they a perfect end to the meal but they were fun to pick up by the stem and drop into your mouth.

After our picnic we posed for some pictures and practiced the teapot pose.

They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab But I Said No, No, No....

The theme of this month's Cooking Club was "Rehab." The concept was simple...take a dish from the past that sucked and make it better. I provided a list of options and everyone accepted the challenge. We have been doing this for 8 years, roughly once a month, and there are 6 to 8 dishes every meeting. That's 650 dishes, give or take. It look me a LONG time to even come up with 10 that qualified as needing to be rehabbed. That says a lot.

At the last minute I realized there was no way I could host at my house because it currently looks like this:

Michele very graciously allowed me to use her house instead (thanks again, M). As always she had a lovely table setting.

On everyone's plate I left a can of Rehab and Recovery energy drink with the 12 Steps to Cooking Club Recovery (get it? 12 steps....)

The list was as follows:

1. Stop making shit vegan
2. Realize that liquor is an underused ingredient
3. Sacrifice money for better ingredients
4. Admit that triple-washed actually means still-dirty
5. Remember: presentation is everything
6. Use a meat thermometer; guessing = salmonella
7. Don’t bother with garlic unless it’s freshly chopped
8. Add bacon; it makes everything better
9. Always taste before serving
10. Know that salt won’t kill you. But blandness will
11. Steer clear of jarred pasta sauce
12. Use real butter

We started with my champagne cocktails (one part vodka, one part ginger ale, two parts champagne. Strawberry for effect).

Tina rehabbed Heather's hummus (from Mediterranean). It was delicious and bright orange, due to the red pepper flakes. It was the only vegan dish, thank god.

Elizabeth rehabbed my baked eggplant (from Italian). She sliced and grilled thin pieces of eggplant and then filled them with a ricotta mixture and topped with (homemade) marinara.

Ashley rehabbed Michele's seafood sausage (from Mom's Cooking). She brilliantly separated seafood from sausage (because really, those two things should never go together) and made a very spicy and delicious jumbalaya with both shrimp and sausage.

Michele rehabbed Christina's Chicken Mole (from Mexican) and did a shredded mole over a homemade tostada, topped with avocado, sour cream, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and olives. Yum.

One of the options I gave was to rehab anything from Christina's Backyard BBQ (it was 9 million degrees and for some reason C wouldn't turn on the AC. We all melted and haven't stopped bitching about it since...I think it was sometime in 2006). There was no dessert at that meeting because Michele flaked at the last minute, so I made individual chocolate lava cakes with a melted center (so hot it was melting...get it?), topped with fresh whipped cream and a strawberry.

We missed Bonnie, Christina and Heather. Cooking Club has been a big part of my life since I moved to California in 2003 and I will miss the food, the company, and the inappropriate story telling immensely. I am very much looking forward to hosting "Cooking Club Road Trips to Austin." It's going to be legendary.

The Stanford Inn

I was invited to a good friend's wedding in Humboldt County and decided to turn it into a mini-vacation. I reserved two nights at an environmental campground at Humboldt Redwoods State Park for after the wedding. Of course this was the one week it ever rained in June so I made an executive decision two nights before and canceled the camping trip but I still wanted to take advantage of the time off I had. I heard about the Stanford Inn from Lauren a few years ago. Her husband did good and treated her to a weekend there and when she returned she was glowing with fantastic stories about this eco-resort with amazing vegan food, massages, and plenty of nature to appreciate.

Stanford Inn is a pet friendly resort hotel. My doggie craving was met as there's a resident pooch who greeted me when we checked in. one can actually bring any kind of pet. Apparently the hotel has hosted a variety of non human visitors including not only dogs and cats but also iguanas, parrots, Vietnamese pot belly pigs, and a tortoise.

After scarfing down the best chocolate chip cookies that were waiting in the room, we decided to walk the grounds of the Inn before dinner.

No shortage of gorgeous flowers on the grounds. Someone learned how to use the close-up feature on my camera.

Much of what they serve at the Raven's Restaurant is grown in their organic garden on the grounds at the Stanford Inn. I did my best to identify what I could but it seemed to be mostly chard, kale, and broccoli. I was tempted to poach but am a dignified lady and therefore have control. Also-we had reservations at Raven's Restaurant where I was treated to one of the best meals of my life.

Compliments of the chef! Always makes me feel so fancy. House made tortilla chips with broccoli pesto and cashew cream.

Corn cakes. Totally underwhelming. GK found a worm wiggling around in that pretty purple flower AFTER I had a bitten into my cake. But we didn't talk about that and instead chose to marvel at this beauty-

I can't wait to try to recreate this special-raw lasagna. This was by far my favorite dish of the evening. Slices of heirloom tomatoes, ribbons of zucchini, cashew cheese, basil, drizzled with balsamic dressing. It was so beautiful I almost did not want to mess with the presentation by cutting into it. But I'm not stupid.

Caesar salad. Good but not amazing. I viewed it as a palate cleanser.

I had difficulty deciding between 3 different main dishes. Luckily GK wanted one of my choices and even luckier-he doesn't mind sharing. I decided to go with our server's recommendation and ordered the eggplant Napoleon. Roasted eggplant topped with pesto, slices of fresh tomato, and cashew cheese. I usually steer clear of eggplant when I'm out unless it's pureed but thankfully I was feeling adventurous because it was super fresh and amazing.







GK's main-the house made spinach ravioli stuffed with butternut squash served in a cream sauce and cute little mushrooms. One of the best dishes of the night.

Dessert-the raw cheesecake with mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries). I loved how they actually put the fruit into the cheesecake. The crust was also raw and unusually salty but it was a great mixture of sweet and savory. Sorry Cafe Gratitude, but this is the best raw dessert I've ever had.

Breakfast is free for overnight guests. It was so difficult to choose but I finally decided on the the Raven's Potatoes. House grilled potatoes with green onions, pinto beans, vegan cheese, salsa cruda, and avocado. I chose wisely.

GK's breakfast-the Santa Fe Burrito. Scrambled tofu with black beans in a whole wheat tortilla served with house made chipotle sauce,salsa cruda, vegan cheese, russet and sweet potato fries. Soy latte in the background.

And here we are-deliriously stuffed.

Ole! Ole! Ole!

Hosted by Heather, the latest Cooking Club celebrated a belated Cinco de Mayo (Mexican theme). We were 4 members down this time around and as a result, missing the two most important courses: drinks* and dessert. Thankfully, we were able to rally.

Michele claimed that she "didn't do anything special" when she made her guacamole. However, please note the chips served on the side. Those were corn tortillas 5 minutes prior to this picture. Woman fries her own chips.

She also sauteed and seasoned pumpkin seeds in a delicious sweet and spicy mixture.

Bonnie saved the day by bringing a 12 pack of Pacifico. Louis also made his first appearance but he drank formula (not beer).

I (Janet) made a romaine lettuce salad (with black beans, corn, radish, avocado, etc.) with a honey, lime, jalapeno dressing.

Along with the beer was tequila. In champagne glasses. Heather is a classy broad.

Bonnie made a delicate, yet spicy, Mexican soup with dumplings made out of same deliciousness as tamales.

Louis was very interested in what was going on.

But not quite sure who to trust...

Heather made incredible vegetable enchiladas. They were stuffed with all kinds of goodness.

Elizabeth rounded us out with an incredible pico de gallo rice side dish.

Michele hung out with Lou.

Bonnie practiced her portrait taking skills on Elizabeth (my camera, but Bonnie was the photographer for 95% of these shots).

Heather the hostess.

Bonnie and Lou try to catch a nap.

Delicious food and good company, as always. It took all of 5 minutes for the first poop story to be told, which I think it an all time record (usually it's about 30 seconds).

*This was to be Kate's inaugural Cooking Club and she was doing drinks, but she was unable to make it at the last minute. To make it up to us next time she's going to have to do both drinks and dessert. And it better be good. :)