Food

Chia Pudding

Years ago I picked up a packet of chia seeds from Trader Joe’s for fun. Once I got home I looked up recipes. I honestly had no idea what to do with the damn things. The most popular thing to do seemed be turning the chia into a simple “pudding.”

So I followed the recipe I found online. When I came back later and checked on my pudding, the entire bowl’s worth had globbed together into one giant chia mush. It was a confusing and disgusting mess. So I gave up. I sprinkled the remaining seeds on my yogurt and oatmeal, and quickly forgot about nonsensical chia puddings.

Fast forward to this week. After having some pretty decent premade chia pudding from Whole Foods, I took a stab at Chia Pudding Version 2. I’m happy to say that it was a success! The secret is that you can always add more liquid. The chia will eat it right up. It’s kind of terrifying to be honest. This chia could take over the world!

Eating gelled chia reminds me of being a kid. It’s a fun food to eat, and the mouthfeel is indescribable. It’s like eating boba, except more exciting because there are hundreds of seeds scrambling about in your mouth.

Because of the water absorption of the chia gel, it will FILL YOU UP. Great for breakfast! The omega-3’s can’t be beat for bothÂ joint health and hair, skin and nail radiance. Also, hella fiber. So, uh.. you’ve been warned.

Chocolate Vanilla Chia Pudding

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cup chocolate almond milk (I like Almond Breeze. Feel free to substitute with the milk of your choice such as soy milk or cow milk.Â You could also do juice.)
1/3 cup chia seeds
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Directions:

Mix ingredients in a Tupperware or mason jar. Stir vigorously with a fork to get the clumps out. Refrigerate a few hours, or overnight. The puddingÂ will have gelled by then. Add more milk if you prefer a thinner and more liquid pudding.
Top your pudding with whatever you like- nuts, berries, gummi bears. I like using granola and coconut flakes.
Serves 3

Food, San Francisco

Chipotle’s Cultivate Festival

Love food? Love music? Love massive burrito bombs from Chipotle?

Then come to the Chipotle sponsored BurritoFest Cultivate Festival in Golden Gate park on Saturday. It’s corporate sponsored, but I can’t snark. The lineup looks pretty good and …

Free is free!

Free music (The Walkmen! Mayer Hawthorne! People I haven’t heard of!)!!
Free cooking demos from Chef Celebrities such as Amanda Freitag and the Big Gay Ice Cream guys.
A free burrito if you visit certain”Learning tents” across the festival
There’s also a food hall with samples from local artisanal food vendors, and an educational section to learn about sourcing food sustainably.

It looks like it will be 82 in SF tomorrow, so probably a perfect day to laze in the park and eat things.

Art, Food, Shopping

Drink Like Your Favorite Characters

From Pop Chart Lab:

A catalog of 49 drinks culled from great works of film and literature, depicting everything from Philip Marlowe’s Gin Gimlet to Fredo Corleone’s Banana Daiquiri to the simple yet effective Buttermaker Boilermaker.

Finally, an infographic worth framing! Now I can finally make Â The Flaming Moe from the Simpsons and the Gibson from North by Northwest. Which drinks are your favorite?

Food, San Francisco

Tadich Grill: Very San Francisco, Very Noir

I love history, but not tradition.

I’ll make an exception for Tadich Grill. Tadich falls into one of the my personal favorite types of restaurants to visit. The restaurant with pedigree, mystique, but most importantly attitude. These places have been around for decades, maybe more than a century. They are often meat + seafood spots. They are often quite expensive. But hey, that’s part of the fun. I love deciding to go whole hog and fully embracing the show of dining out. Order drinks, order all the food. Order dessert. Order coffee. Smoke a cigarette. Sit there for a long ass time. It’s very romantic.

So here’s what Zagat’s says about Tadich:

In business since 1849, this “classic, film-noir”-worthy “seafood temple” Downtown has “old-time SF atmosphere” in every detail from the “19th-century booths” to the “jokingly grumpy servers” that are “straight from central casting”; sure, the “menu never changes”, but since “fresh fish at its best” and “classic cocktails” “never go out of fashion”, schools of “business folk”, “tourists” and “nostalgic” types still “wait their turn in line” and keep things “noisy and crowded, especially at lunchtime.”

A few weeks ago I lucked out and rolled in with my coworkers for a team lunch. I took a ton of photos, but in the end the official photos from the restaurant’s website really captures the mood best.

Yes, that is the bar. To the left you can see some private booths where they put obnoxious people who take iphone photos of their Chilean Sea Bass and Manhattans. AHEM.

Ze hiztory of ze restaurant

The menu is extensive, but I’ll give you a hint, it’s all meat + seafood! I took photos of my food, but they’re not all that exciting. It’s just really good and really solid fish.

Looking forward to coming back here again. It would be a great spot to finish off with a martini after the Hitchcock’s San Francisco Walking Tour.

Food, Health

I Quit Sugar: Week 6: All Savory All the Time

Â Week 6: End of the line for my vegan and sugar experiment.

When I started this experiment I figured that going vegan might be easier than cutting out sugar. That hasn’t changed.Â Thankfully I’ve found a few dishes that have been lifesavers. See below!

Vegan:

Potato and leek flatbread (Super fast and easy-the potatoes and leeks were so sweet the next day)Â , brussel sprouts and baked eggplant orzoÂ (wouldn’t make the orzo again. too bland)

Chard with butternut squash and curried zucchini fritters with couscous thrown in (been making this for ages)

Curried butternut squash and red lentil soup– Epicurious will not lead you astray. The coconut milk takes this soup to the next level. Surprise punch in the mouth.

Back on board the Meat Train:

Spicy fish chowder and Alton Brown’s creamy dreamy polenta– The polenta is Â amazing, I would throw mushrooms in this next time. Also good as a brunch side dish with greens and eggs.

Slow cooker curried lentils, potatoes and chicken with greek yogurt- fantastic, but not as awesome as the butternut squash soup

Â My vegan experiment has been over for more than a week, but the aftereffects are surprising.

I was so excited at first to eat meat and eggs and butter and cheese. Yet now that I can, I’m feeling pretty sensitive to meat. I feel grossed out if there’s too much, for example. Â It feels wasteful if the meat that I’m eating is not rocking my world. Carmelized bacon with eggs? YES! Random burger from so so place? EH. Also I’m really feeling the heaviness from meat and the accompanying heartburn. 🙁

I’ve faltered a bit with the sugar thing the last few weeks.

It’s been really really hard. I stole secret sniffs of a lemon pie at a party and pretended in my mind that I was eating it.(This is a trick I have heard that makes you feel like you’re tasting it, but IT DOES NOT WORK). SAD. I’ve purchased sugar free, lactose free and gluten free ice cream, only to get home and notice “may cause a laxative effect in sensitive individuals” on the side label.

Hard as it has been, the experiment has been enlightening. But with diabetes, liver and cancer all up in my family history, I think that it’s worth it to keep trying to cut it out to a manageable level.