Food Blogger Bake Sale!

Just a little FYI, yours truly will be participating in the 2011 San Francisco Food Bloggers Bake Sale. When? Saturday, May 14th from 10AM til 6PM. Where? Hosted at 18 Reasons, 3674 18th Street, San Francisco. Why? End childhood hunger in America via Share Our Strength. Still not convinced? Come buy some of my goodies. 'Nuff said.

For more info, visit: http://bakesalesf.wordpress.com/

L'Ourcine

I should probably be posting pictures of things I ate while briefly visiting Tokyo, but I'm behind on my blogging. Way behind. How far behind? Back to Paris... behind. So I'll make this post short and sweet tasty.

Long weekend in Tokyo

Just a quick update as to what I've been up to. Yeah, that's right party people. Yours truly was in Tokyo... I was mid-flight when the 8.9 earthquake hit. Stranded in Haneda airport. Freaked out because of nuclear fallout. Rode out aftershocks every 20 minutes. Because of scheduling conflicts, we couldn't stick to the original itinerary of spending the 11th and 12th on a beach front resort. Lucky us.. otherwise I would have been pulled out to sea by a tsunami.

Our 10 day vacation was cut down to 3 days, as I flew out on Thursday night and back into California on Monday night, but I'm glad to be back home. My heart and wishes go out to those in Japan dealing with the devastation. One thing I did manage to do in Japan was eat. Food pics and updates soon to follow.

Burnt almond cupcakes

Someone once asked me if I ever get bored of baking the same things. Being back in the concrete jungle that is Silicon Valley, it's a bit hard to bake French pastries, or larger cakes that I'm accustomed to. Here I feed the masses. And as much as I'd like a 9-inch cake sitting on my desk, it creates quite a mess when serving. That's why I default to muffins, cookies, cupcakes, and smaller self-serve tasty treats.

Le Bistrot Paul Bert

You'll have to bear with me the next month or so, as I'm a bit disorganized and my blog posts will generally be all over the place spanning from the Bay Area to Paris. Needless to say, I've got some catching up to do and pictures to sort through.

Valentine's Day Treats!

I won't go as far to say that Valentine's day is one of those overrated "not-really-a-holiday" holidays that takes advantage of our consumerist tendencies by appealing to some romanticized notion that hearts, the color red and chocolate represent some half-naked cherub with a bow and arrow. Some people hate it, some people like it, and some just take it as an opportunity to nosh on chocolates and candies. I take it as an opportunity to bake and to feed people.

Larnicol's Kouign Amann

After reading a post by David Lebovitz about a new bakery/confisierie/chocolatier in my neighborhood that specialized in kouign amann, or rather kouignettes, tiny ones, I knew I had to stop by and check it out. Kouign amann is a buttery cake that comes from the Brittany region of France. As we know Brittany and Normandy are known for their awesome salted butter. In fact, in Breton, the word kougin means cake and amann means butter. Yep it's one intense buttery, sugary cake.

Paris Je T'aime

The time has come, I guess. In 24 hours, yours truly will be on a plane back to California. Words can hardly express how I feel. Anxious, depressed, and wistfulness for a chapter of my life that feels like it's ending. I really enjoyed the year and a half I had in Paris. It was a life changing experience. It helped me lick my wounds, discover a new language and culture (and cusine!), as well as build life-long friendships that I hope to keep even though now I'll be thousands of miles away.