San Francisco and Napa Valley, CA

I start work again tomorrow and I have to say that it has been an amazing three months off, traveling the world, trying great cuisines, meeting new friends and spending time with my family. I rounded out my time back in the United States with a stopover in San Francisco for a family wedding and then a couple of days with my mom in Napa.

The weather in San Francisco was windy and cold (isn't it usually?) but we still had a wonderful time wandering the city over the weekend and attending wedding events. The wedding itself was out at Treasure Island, the island that is halfway across the Bay Bridge, thus providing stunning views back at the city and over towards the sunset. The Italian meal at the wedding was great -I especially loved the sprig of rosemary at every place setting and the antipasti platter with all sorts of veggies, cheese and roasted garlic.

On Sunday, we explored out to Muir Woods National Monument where we were almost swept out to sea at Muir Beach and then stood in awe of the gorgeous redwoods. In between, we warmed up at The Pelican, arguably the most British pub I have seen outside of Britain. So cute, real fires burning and fresh yummy plates of greens and cheese to tide me over. Too bad that child playing on the lawn fell into my plate halfway through eating. That must have been the diet god talking.

Sunday night we were back in the city in the Nopa neighborhood eating Southwestern food at Green Chile Kitchen. This is an order at the counter and they deliver it to your table type of place but it was very fresh and had a ton of vegetarian options. My red chile tofu blue corn enchiladas hit the spot in a way no Minnesotan version has yet to even come close to. They even had kombucha on tap! Only in San Francisco.

On Monday, my mom and I left the city for two nights up in Napa Valley. While the weather never improved enough for hiking or biking it was really exhilarating to be in Napa in a different season. On this Spring/Early Summer visit, the roses were breathtaking. In many instances the bushes were practically trees and some of the roses were almost as large as my sadness of having to return to work.

We had an amazing dinner that night at Bottega, with Michael Chiarello himself standing guard in the dining room (on a Monday night!). The flavors were wonderful and so fresh as we dived in to foods prepared in new ways. For starters, we split a sugar snap pea salad, burrata with artichokes two ways and a special appetizer of the day consisting of buttermilk fried morels. The snap pea salad was composed of tiny slivers of sugar snap peas and daintily dressed with oil and lemon and then topped with crunchy pistachios (or was it hazelnuts?). I loved the way the snap peas slices were so very fine, making them unrecognizable and thus focusing your attention on the flavor rather than the normal crunch and strings of snap peas. The burrata and artichokes were good but I will easily say that I have had better burrata elsewhere (Morandi in NYC). And then on to the morels. These were exceptional. It was a huge plate of halved morel mushrooms, battered, fried, and then topped with a bright paprika sauce. When we saw the size of the plate we had sudden fears of what the pricetag was going to be on this special. What a relief (and what a deal!) when the bill came and it was only $13. California must have had a better morel season than the Midwest!

For my entree, I had a raviolo! Yes, one huge ravioli piece. I didn't really realize that this is what I ordered and I was even more surprised when the egg inside my one huge ravioli popped and bled out on to the plate. How did he do that? Boil pasta with an egg in it and know when it would be done? I have no idea but it was decadent and delicious mixed with rest of the fillings on my plate. I want to tell you in extreme detail what was in that raviolo but, bien sur, the menus on the website are not up to date. I love that the menus are clearly changing all of the time at Bottega but such a popular restaurant as Bottega could do with some daily updates. French Laundry and Ad Hoc down the block certainly do it.

Overall, Bottega was excellent, from the appetizers to the gelatos for dessert. I don't care that Michael had a show on the Food Network, which is now a suspect thing in the foodie community, this was darn good eats with excellent service to boot.

On Tuesday morning we stopped in for a tasting at Chateau Montelena near Calistoga, one of the stars of the Judgment of Paris, the book about the 1976 wine tasting between Californian and French wines. It was the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay that took first place in the whites and the chardonnay we tasted was absolutely excellent (and this from a sauvignon blanc lover). After a quick stop to see some bubbles at Mumm, we had lunch at Tra Vigne Pizzeria, where we didn't even try the pizza but enjoyed sandwiches and salads to the sound of pouring rain onto their huge and fragment rosemary bushes outside (when I have a house someday...).

Do you know what I love about Napa? The people you meet are real people working real jobs producing a real product. At Bottega we sat next to a table of people from a winery and when we stopped in for a drink before dinner at AKA A Bistro in St. Helena on Tuesday we met a winemaker and a vineyard owner, who were both more than happy to chat about wine and life in the valley. I think I could live in Napa in a heartbeat.

Walking out the back of AKA, we walked right into our dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. Here again, I was delighted by my meal, especially the fava bean starter. They took whole fava bean pods, doused them in olive oil and heartily grilled them. Sprinkle on a little salty cheese like ricotta and then you pick them up with your fingers and chomp through the whole thing. It was a pity for those white cloth napkins but heaven in the mouth - the charred flavor, the crunch of the bean pod and then the meaty goodness of the bean itself. I had no clue you could eat the entire fava pod! What a discovery and what a treat. For my main I had the incredible mushroom tamales with creamy grits, almond and chard. These were decadent with the cream thus making them rich and delicious. Easily the best tamales I have had, as vegetarian versions usually tend to be quite dry and boring. For dessert we tried the Campfire Pie described as "toasted marshmallow fluff, fudgy chocolate, almond ding and oreo cookie crust." It was incredibly over-the-top sweet and way too much for me. Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen was great until the dessert. Although I will add that our waiter was quite crotchety. Must have been the rain.

The next morning after our mediocre breakfast buffet at the Harvest Inn, it was back on the road to SFO and home, home, home to Memorial Day Weekend in Minneapolis.

Mozaic Restaurant, Bali

Most of my travels the past three months haven't been taking me to the creme de la creme of fine dining. I don't really enjoy the theater of it by myself but after 3 weeks eating in Egypt and two weeks putzing around Bali, I was ready for some white tablecloth dining. Thus, I found myself at the incredibly impressive Mozaic Restaurant in Bali. What an amazing surprise to find a French Laundry trained chef serving gourmet meals at an independent restaurant in Bali (not attached to an overpriced hotel). That is what can happen when love takes you to Bali. Then again, I could probably be convinced to move to Bali without the love bit attached.

Love story of the chef aside, I made a reservation, got myself dolled up and went off to see what Mozaic had to offer, and quite wonderfully one of those things was a vegetarian tasting menu. I sat back and allowed myself to be awed by the combination of Balinese flavors and ingredients worked into Western fine dining technique. It was a giggly, wonderful experience to see how the flavors I had been eating and seeing in the markets around the island could all be so elegantly brought together into dishes that could easily grace the finest tables around the world. I wish I could bring Chef Chris Salans home with me, but I think his Indonesian wife might take issue.

I knew my night was going to be very special when before heading down to my table, I first was seated in the bar and offered a cocktail and amuse bouche. I selected a fruity Bali-esque cocktail and then was handed amazing-ness. They were little gougeres stuffed with truffle. Now, I love those little gougeres that you start with at La Belle Vie but these put those puppies to shame. Time for La Belle Vie to shake things up with some flavor.

I was then moved to the table, which took me from the air-conditioned, ultra-modern lounge down through the garden and to the dining pavilion, which is outdoors overlooking a lush tropical garden. A little bit Bali, a little white table cloth. Up comes another amuse bouche, my first hint of tropical flavors melded into fine cuisine - cherry tomato, local water chestnut and young starfruit with tomato sorbet, all in a small shot glass. It was extremely refreshing and interesting to taste, kind of like very cold tropical ketchup. But I say that in a good way, since I do love ketchup (Stonewall Kitchen makes a very good gourmet one).

My first real course arrived - roasted cauliflower soup with curry foam. Some people vehemently hate foam and I have never figured out why. Personally I love the feel of tiny bubbles of flavor popping on my tongue. These particular bubbles exploded curry and melded wonderfully with the rich roasted soup beneath it. The cauliflower soup was the familar element here, while the curry foam hinted at the exotic.

Next up, gnocchi with apple ginger puree and tamarind sauce. You look at this gorgeous plate and it looks like it could be gnocchi from any fine restaurant in the world but then you taste it and the tamarind and ginger ground you in Bali, both flavors that were strongly present in both of the cooking classes I took in Ubud.

Next up was my favorite dish of the evening, one that I wish our friends at Saffron will read about and recreate for me - lemon stuffed medjool dates. I never saw a date tree in Bali but I certainly saw them in Egypt so this was a wonderful meld of tropical citrus (almost candied) with the sweetness of the Middle East date flavor. But then it was paired with herbaceous dill to bring an earthiness to the palate. It was phenomenal - one of those dishes that you want to stand up and applaud for its creativity and perfection, particularly as a vegetarian when you know the chef is working with a more limited laboratory.

Sweet corn in phyllo with an herbed potato puree rounded out the savory dishes of my tasting menu. This dish had less punch than the others but it was still beautiful to look at and fine to taste. It was, though, simply not as memorable as the others. The other item that was interesting but not amazing during my meal was the seaweed bread, which was one of the bread options. I liked the idea of using a seaweed in place of a green like spinach but all it did was add a hint of saltiness and no other flavor. I had high expectations of uniqueness and was disappointed.

And then to the sweets. I loved the Ginger Flower Sorbet with strawberries and a Black Rice crunchy candy on top. It was so refreshing after the warm dishes and the more mild flavor combination was wonderful relaxation. Sigh, I was happy. But, then wait, I had another dessert course!! This was a surprise to me as a Lemon Curd Cake with Lemon Chili Sorbet and Passion Fruit sauce was placed before me. By now I was seriously stuffed and starting to feel overwhelmed. I couldn't even take a picture but I also couldn't resist citrus and gave in to the intense flavors of this dessert, relishing it completely. I have no self control.

While it was expensive for Bali, this was by far the most affordable tasting menu I have ever had - running me $55 for an evening full of amuses and tropical flavors. I couldn't have picked a better treat for myself as my time on Bali drew to a close.

Food Lit: Spice: The History of a Temptation

Quite by coincidence, I downloaded Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turkerbefore heading out on my journey around the world. The book ended up being a bit more academic than I might prefer (aka dry) but I trudged through it and was delighted to see how completely relevant it was for the journey I was taking through France, Egypt and Indonesia.

First, it was Europe (including the French) that through much of the last thousand years until recently helped create the demand to make spices such a prized commodity, one that sent sailors and adventurers setting sail around the world in search of pepper and cloves. The book was purposely written from a Eurocentric point of view.

And then there is Egypt, which was for many centuries a spice crossroads, with them arriving on the Red Sea coast from the East and being transported across the Eastern Dessert and then up the Nile to the Mediterranean. Suddenly the fact that every market in Egypt had spice purveyors aggressively accosting the tourists made sense, especially because I saw no actual spices growing in Egypt. Could these market specialties really be a tradition that has continued for centuries?

Finally, Indonesia, which is home of the Spice Islands, where many of these explorers were actually trying to go! While I wasn't in the THE Spice Islands (the Moluccas) Bali itself was indeed growing spices. I saw both clove and pepper trees, picked up some vanilla beans and often was served my coffee with a whole cinnamon stick beside it. I was in the islands of spice and it was so incredible to see such things as a clove tree (they are quite large!).

My takeaway from this complicated book was that spices used to be a heck of a lot more rare and important than they are today. So, what today do we think is rare that willsomeday simply be everyday? Gold? Diamonds? Truffles?

Casa Luna Cooking School

While in Bali, I went to two cooking schools for classes that lasted about 4-5 hours. One of them was so horrible that I dare not mention it so thus I give a strong thumbs up to Casa Luna Cooking School for making up for the other not-to-be-named cooking school.

Casa Luna is a restaurant in Ubud owned by Janet de Neefe (pictured). Prior to my setting out for Bali, I tried my hardest to get a hold of her memoir Fragrant Rice which tells her tale of moving to Bali and discovering Balinese cuisine. Unfortunately the book wasn't available on Kindle and after I read it I realized it was also quite geared towards the Australian reader.

Undeterred, I joined one of the programs at Casa Luna Cooking School that included a stop back at the Ubud market, where I had been with the other cooking school. But this time the market came to life as our guide took us to hidden corners and showed us everything from the "fast food" vendors to the basement of fruits and vegetable stalls.

After an hour traipsing through the market, we walked back to the Honeymoon Guesthouse hotel for the class. Our menu to prepare was daunting but luckily the ingredients were all pre-prepped, and then, in reality, the chef made most of the food with us helping out on the chopping and saute block as needed. Regardless of the lack of hands-on, they were constantly talking and teaching us about Indonesian, and more specifically, Balinese cuisine. About half of the class was done by a Balinese woman and then Janet herself came and did the rest, regaling us with tales from her book and about moving to Bali from Australia when she was younger.

Our menu was quite vast - we had a tempe and tofu curry, fried noodles (mie goreng) roasted eggplant sambal, eel sambal, a tomato and lemongrass fish dish and then several coconut and greens salads, from ferns to seaweed. We then finished off with green pancakes filled with coconut for dessert. Here is a before picture of the ingredients and then an after of the final dishes:

Some thoughts on Balinese cuisine:

- It would be really sad if you were Balinese and didn't like coconut. It seems to appear in one form or another in just about everything. Coconut milk, coconut juice, palm sugar, roasted coconut etc.

- It takes a lot of arm strength to prepare Balinese cuisine

- Sambal is amazing!! It is the seasoning that is used kind of like we have salt and pepper on the table in the United States. It is a fresh mixture of garlic, peppers and shallots and often very pungent but it is amazing and so fresh in comparison when you just want add a bit of something to a bite or dish.

- Frying is definitely a preferred method of cooking. There is a lot of coconut and other oils constantly going into the pans. This will prevent a lot of Balinese cooking from happening in my unventilated Uptown condo unless I want to smell like a coconut for a few days.

In the end, the food was stunning and delicious. And I finally was able to get an autographed copy of Fragrant Rice, which was a very educational about life in Bali. While it wasn't the most well-written book, it was full of wonderful personal stories about Janet's move to Bali to marry a Balinese man and her adaptation to a new culture, both through food and more general life experiences. If you ever take a trip to Bali, I would call it a must-read but if you are looking for simple armchair pleasures, I might wait for a cookbook with photographs.

Bali Drinks

It was karkade in Egypt and in Bali it is called Hibiscus tea. I was so excited to run into this delicious treat in Bali, where it was served at one of the cooking schools I went to! So what was the difference between the hibiscus drink in Bali versus Egypt?

- In Egypt it was made with dried hibiscus flowers. I bought some at the market.

- In Bali they grabbed an actual flower off of the tree and poured hot water over it. Gotta love the tropical life.

Both times add some lemon and sugar.

Jamu!! This is your health food drink in bali with lots of turmeric and ginger. Variations I had on the trip also included lime juices, clove, palm sugar, and other roots. My first Jamu was at the shop of the healer Wayan, made famous from Eat, Pray, Love. We watched one of her assistants put together this bright orange drink that we were told was good for our energy and blood.

At a resort I visited on the north side of the island, I went to a Jamu-making class, which ended up being pretty entertaining because the person supposedly teaching the class didn't actually speak English. Instead we watched her just make Jamu, which involves a lot of chopping, boiling and straining. The two varieties were called "stomach" and "strength".

While it was fun to drink Jamu and try not to stain my life with turmeric, I never felt any better for drinking it. Maybe it has an accumulated effect...

Or maybe that is because the Balinese have their own true health drink that they drink on a market morning - a coagulated green water from leaves mixed with coconut milk and bright pink rice pieces that look like tapioca. Think sliding down the throat and not drinking. Unfortunately I didn't try it because the market setting and water would have given me a bout of Bali Belly for sure!

Bali Coffee is about 1000% better than coffee in Egypt and 100% better than France. How could we forget that Indonesia is home to some of the best coffees in the world? Just think Sumatra. So every morning I was served beautiful dark roasted coffee from a French press, which they call "Bali Coffee". Bali itself is also famous for the coffee that cats have digested and then... yeah, I didn't go there. Here's a picture of a coffee tree covered with young green berries from the north side of the island:

And dare I forget to mention it, the very best drink on Bali was the juice!!! So much delicious fresh fruit juice everywhere - watermelon, mandarin, lime, and especially banana juice. Mmmm... the perfect way to wake up in the morning.

Off the beach and into the country

My body battered and bruised from learning a new sport in the humidity of a tropical climate, I excaped the beach towns and headed inland to the cultural center of Bali, the town of Ubud. Okay, shake yourself off and get it out of your mind that I am on an Eat, Pray, Love adventure from the infamous book and remember I came to Bali because of the surfing, not to find an older Brazilian husband. Although no one will believe me when the Julia Roberts movie comes out in August in the states and every single woman over 30 runs to Bali. Although let's admit it, if I did run into the man of my dreams in Bali I wouldn't be complaining. Always have to be hoping...

In Ubud, I signed into my small hotel overlooking the rice paddies. I woke up every morning to offerings on my doorstep and flowers everywhere. The flowers are something I will truly miss about Bali. Aesthetics are very important in the Baliness culture and flowers are everywhere and they smell delicious: frangiapinis, jasmine, magnolia, ylang-ylang. I even did a spa treatment where I soaked in a huge bath tub of flower petals. I have a new resolve to fill my life with more flowers.

Outside of stopping to appreciate all of the small moments of beauty in Ubud and the surrounding countryside, one of the activities that I partook of was a mountain bike ride through the rice paddies and to a traditional balinese home, where generations live and work together surrounding their family temple. Walking through the family compound, we saw:

The roosters readying for cock-fighting (they are everywhere in Bali and love to make sure you know they are primed and ready for a fight - if you didn't know better you would always think it was sunrise here!)

the bamboo grove featuring the next harvest of bamboo for the weaving of rugs and mats
bathtime
the small kitchen with wood-burning stove, very functional and not the social center of the house as it is now in the United States.

The mortar and pestle for the truly tough

This kitchen is always in the corner of the compound and all of the food is prepared early in the morning. After a small bite is offered to the Gods, the family may then partake throughout the day. The meal isn't a social occassion in Bali - people eat alone and when they are hungry, which is so different than the American dinner hour where the children get grilled on what they did in school today. They also eat with their right hands and less often with utensils. Although there are millions of tourists in Bali, our Western eating habits are simply so different, that Balinese must just shake their heads at the elaborate dining etiquette we have put into place, much in the same way that the tourists are befuddled by the many ceremonies and offering happening constantly.

Bali

Cosmos is the big winner - yes, I am in Bali, the small island in Indonesia with a big reputation... Hindu amongst Muslims, ceremonies everyday, rice paddies and Kuta Beach.

How the heck did I end up in Bali when I could have gone anywhere? When I realized that the best option for my career at the moment was a two month break, I made a list of things I have always wanted to see and do. And near the top of that list was surfing. Dude, you live in Minnesota! I know, I know, but maybe if I learned to surf I could cross that one off my list and then me a good Midwestern girl and get married, have kids and look respectable. As I started internet searching, I realized that my worst nightmare would be to learn surfing in a group of 6 year olds and myself, the thirty year old lady. I stumbled upon Surf Haven Bali, a new yoga and surfing retreat for women in Bali. I put down my deposit and booked the round-the-world plane ticket.

As it was a new retreat, I stepped off the plane in Bali hoping it was for real... and it certainly was. For one week I stayed at a beautiful villa with 7 women from around the world. We had five days of surfing and yoga lessons as well as amazing food from an Australian Organic Chef Samantha Gowing. Not to mention we had outings to the spa, for shopping, for sunset drinks at Ku De Ta and to Ubud for a bike ride and cooking class. After the intensity of Egypt it was good to revive under the tropical sun and finally stand up on a surfboard (those of you who question my ability to do this, pics and video coming soon!).

I loved the focus at the retreat on healthy foods and I also learned a lot about Balinese cuisine, which has been supplemented since then with more cooking classes and experiences here in Bali as well.

One of the very best things in Bali is waking up everyone morning to delicious fresh juices and tropical fruits galore. Some of the new fruits for me have included:

Snakefruit - a cross between an apple and a pineapple (or so I was told) but it has a dry hard skin and a tannic fruit

Mangosteen - this isn't just a flavor of Vitamin Water, it is a fruit and it is amazingly delicious!! Sweet and juicy, better than a lychee.

Rambutan - the fuzzy lychee of Indonesia. Sweet and fun to look at and eat.

I have been keeping my eyes out for durian but no luck yet...

Where am I?

Let's play a game. My internet is horrible here so I can't put up all the pictures but how about I list (and show some of) the main components of the cuisine and you guess where I am. No cheaters since those of you that know me personally probably already know where I am...

Here we go.

Red Shallots

Garlic

Chilis - small ones and big onesGinger, Lesser Galangal, Greater Galangal, TurmericAnd without pictures:

Coconut (every which way), tamarind, peanuts, shrimp paste, fish sauce, and lots and lots of rice.

So.... where am I??