Honey and Erratic drivers

This morning I rolled out on the 'ol Trek1000 on my usual ride to work. Decided to ride up 7th to Laguna Honda to get a little more riding in before the day begins. On my way around West Portal School, this VW driver does a uturn into my lane and just stops to let his kids off. Fortunately, my jedi mind skills anticipated such a weak move on his part. Angered and frustrated for nearly being taken out before I had even a cup of coffee in the morning I rolled up to the guys window. I looked him in the eyes and said, "watch out!" He was a little blown away but he needed to be reminded that his kids won't be late and he should take his driving a little more carefully especially when he is performing illegal uturns. Disgusted at such action, I persevered and was soon back to my happy cycling self but I knew that he plastered onto the web as a bad driver, so if you are around West Portal School in the morning hours watch out for an Asian mid-40s male driver in a VW Golf.

My good friend Nettie Kelly and her sister arrived on the red-eye this morning from Honolulu, so I did the airport pickup. The Forester was in full capacity when I left SFO. They were quite impressed with her abilities to haul such quantities of goods. This was a pretty early pickup at 6:23 am. The plan was to pick them up and then drive home and get the bike and get a little breakfast at Squat and Gobble in West Portal. Arrive at Squat and Gobble at about 7:40am and they have a sign that says food only served between 8am-10pm. WTF dude?! What breakfast places only start serving breakfast at 8am? They are dead to me now so I rolled over to Noah's Bagels across the street and ordered a toasted pumpkin bagel. I like the seasonal flavors =) Most go with cc on their bagel, not me I prefer it plain but asked for a little honey to drizzle on the top. When I asked for the honey the attendant, rather than handing it too me, placed it on the counter box just inches from my hand. I was a little bothered on why she just didn't hand it to me. Its like travel companies offering you a sick deal then saying all you need to do is buy this ridiculously priced plane ticket to get here. If people were just a little more courteous with these small exchanges then I think bigger and better changes would occur in the world.

I picked up my 3 Fuji apples from the West Portal Produce again this morning. I am quite the regular. I think they have some of the freshest fruit in the city. The Chinese man who oversees the stocking in the morning always rings me up, $0.85 is the typical charge which I usually give exact change for but this morning it was $0.90, I guess I am a victim of inflation =) He always smiles and is very cordial. When I left he said, "see you tomorrow morning!" Nice guy and good reason to continue to support to local merchants.

The highly anticipated butternut squash ravioli had positives and negatives. The flavor was top notch. I roasted the butternut squash with a little olive oil drizzle over and sprinkled with sea salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg to give a nice fall flavor. After pureeing it in the food processor I sauted up some fresh sage until crispy then chopped it and added it to the squash puree then scooped in a little ricotta and mixed thoroughly. The next part is what I need to work on. I used Asian wonton wrappers. At first I tried doing the triangular fold with a little scoop of squash/ricotta in the middle. I used water on the edges to seal the wrapper. Then I tried the wrapper on top of wrapper square method. I think this was a better result. i used the end of a fork to make the nice ravioli presses on the end. Boiled in water with sea salt. I think I boiled them too long. Ravioli was very translucent and falling apart. I believe the wrapper are just too delicate for boiling. I looked on the web for suggestions. I found that they are probably good at 3minutes. Also need to take each one out and pat dry with a paper towel and not lay them on top of each other b/c the starches make them stick together. I think next time, I will try steaming them or going Gyoza on them, ie panfrying them which will give them a crispy outside. Soooo many methods to try! Perhaps I will have to start making my own pasta. My awesome office-mate Molly suggested I check out this Italian supermarket in the Mission where its possible I could buy some homemade ravioli pasta. Its worth a checkout....

Yesterday I started reading, Think Like a Chef, by Tom Collochio. Head chef on my only reality-tv drug, Top Chef. I thought he was some arrogant tv chef but his background is quite impressive and he earned himself his attitude through a lot of hard work. what I like most about his idea is his resilience to following recipes. I can never follow recipes. He proposes following what your tastes lean too and what is in season etc. His book does contain recipes but its more about how to think about making good food. Something that is always consuming me. I often go to high-end markets just to check out the deli and see how they pair things and getting ideas. Weird? Extremely, but I guess thats my cross to bear...lol...

Just got off the phone with one of my good friends, Morgan Colana, from St. Mary's Catholic School in Johnson City, TN. She just came up with this great idea to have a dinner party over the Thanksgiving break. I told her absolutely then I said its going to be off the hook so be prepared. Pretty much is going to be a fall culinary nirvana!

So if you are going to be TN and want to sync up shoot me an email...I will keep you posted as the menu develops but its going to be full-blown =)

Chow,
Matthew