Catching Up...

With the wedding less that two months away, I unfortunately have not had time to post very often. If I were to have some spare cycles, here are a few things about which I would write:

• A recap of our dinner with Jeremiah and Tesha at Manresa back in March, complete with pictures of course


• Our short trip to Napa, doing a bit of wine tasting and ending the day with a fabulous dinner on the patio at the newly renovated 25° Brix in Yountville


• A short congrats to the 2008 Bay Area James Beard Award winners


• Five Facts for Karen: After I posted my list for Scott, Karen suggested that I have a list with non-food related facts


• Progress on "The List" - yes, I will share it with everyone some day...

There are more things, but these were the ones that came to the top of my mind. Of course, I will also write more about our wedding: the planning that we did, the vendors that we chose, etc. But all in good time...

I hope that everyone has a restful and relaxing Independence Day! I know that I can use the day off. Don't forgot about your favorite annual eating contest. Let's see if anyone will break the 20000 calorie barrier at Coney Island this year.

Cooking for Mom

My mom was in town for the past few weeks to help out with the wedding planning, so I had a rare opportunity to cook for her on Mother's Day. Since we were doing engagement photos on Mother's Day, we actually decided to cook dinner for my mom on Saturday. My mom didn't really have any preference as to what she wanted for dinner, so it was up to us to decide what to prepare and serve. We spent a good part of the morning deliberating various options but ultimately, Karen came up with the fabulous menu that follows.

We began our dinner with a simple fennel and orange salad. It was crisp and refreshing and a nice way to start off our meal. Plus, it was fun to suprême some oranges.


For the main course, Karen decided to go with surf and turf. The "surf" dish was roasted sockeye salmon with roasted plum tomatoes and caramelized lemon slices, courtesy of Dave Lieberman. Not only was it a fabulously colorful dish, it was quite delicious as well (even though I did overcook the salmon a little bit this time). We used Meyer lemons in the dish, which added a bright, citrusy flavor.


The "turf" component of our meal was a roast of the Bay Area-favorite Fred's Steak. Not the prettiest thing to look at, but in this case, looks are deceiving - it was wonderfully tender and flavorful as usual.


We didn't neglect our veggies. In fact, we had two sides of vegetables. The first was a side of roasted purple cauliflower:


We also enjoyed some tender asparagus tips, which we roasted with garlic and sesame oil.


Yes, it was a lot of food. Probably too much, but it was a lot of fun to cook for my mom. Of course, we didn't forget dessert. For the sweet ending of our meal, we had macerated strawberry and raspberry shortcake with a little bit (okay, a lot) of whipped cream and mint chiffonade.


It was a very hearty and satisfying meal. I have to give kudos to Karen for putting together such a fantastic menu. My mom loved the dinner and is looking forward to many more meals cooked by us in the future.

Engagement Photos!

I know, I know... Things have been pretty quiet around the FFT blog the past few months, but there's a good reason! As I mentioned earlier, Karen and I got engaged last summer and have been ridiculously busy working out the details for the wedding. After months of work, we are finally looking down the home stretch of wedding planning.

The past weekend, we had an engagement photo session with Laura, our fabulous photographer from Beautiful Day Photography. Accompanied by my mom (on Mother's Day!), we had a really fun time getting shots from multiple locations around San Francisco, including Alamo Square, the Presidio, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Chinatown.

Yesterday, Laura gave us a sample of some of the shots that she took this weekend and they look fabulous! Below is one of our favorites. You can see more photos from our weekend shoot on her blog.

Photo courtesy of Laura Grier/Beautiful Day Photography.

We had a blast working with Laura and are really excited that she will be working with us to capture a special moment in our lives.

A Couple of Quick Comments

Lots of work + loads of wedding planning = no time to post on my blog...

I just have enough time for a few quick comments about my current favorite TV show, Top Chef:

1. Is it just me or are the chefs this season weaker as a whole than in past seasons? Maybe it's just the San Francisco-based chefs who are sucking...

2. Is it just me or are the cheftestants quite a bit more snippy and aggressive than in past seasons? See how often they are dropping the F-bomb on the show? Even Tom commented on the noticeable increase in profanity this season.

3. If you are looking for some morning-after commentary on the week's show, check out David Dust's Top Chef episode summaries - they are simply hilarious.

Looking Forward to 2008!

Like many of you (at least I hope!), I'm looking forward to a great 2008. This is going to be quite a big year for me. As many of you already know, Karen and I got engaged a few months back and are in the midst of planning our wedding. We haven't set a date yet, but we are looking to getting married in the Bay Area sometime toward the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall. Over the next few months, I'm sure that you'll see some posts chronicling the trials and tribulations of our wedding planning. Of course, not all of it will be bad - I'm sure that we'll have a fun time tasting wedding cakes and sampling delicious food as we go through the process of selecting a caterer, so stay tuned!

I'm also looking forward to an exciting year at work. Last year, I picked up a lot of new tasks and additional responsibilities, so I hope to continue expanding my role in my immediate team and in the larger organization. I'll likely be doing some travelling, both for work and for leisure, which should give me the opportunity to expand my culinary horizons, as well as to continue my airline food reports.

Of course, I will continue to blog about our food adventures. Work and wedding planning permitting, I will try to post at least as frequently as I did last year. I recently joined up with the Foodbuzz Publishers Program, which will hopefully motivate me to write more often. And yes, I still owe you "The List" of restaurants - hopefully I will be ready to share it with you very soon.

Anyways, I'm pretty excited to see what 2008 will hold. I look forward to your continued comments and encouragement which make writing this blog so fun and enjoyable, so keep them coming!