Last night the kids were at a sleepover and Mike and I went to see Julie & Julia. I had read great things about the “Julia” part of the movie, and I was vaguely interested in the “Julie” part, as my friend Lola had followed the blog way back then and really enjoyed it. Alas, like everyone else said, that part of the movie was pretty “blah”. Julie looks for a gimmick for getting rich/famous as a writer, lucks into a good one, gets rich/famous as a writer while spouting some nonsense about being saved by Julia or becoming a better person through Julia. A pretty weak dramatic arch, if you ask me, and one that the actual Julia Childs does not seem to have bought into. Indeed, she seemed to think, correctly IMHO, that it was just a stunt. But hey, more power to Julie, right? Too bad she didn’t wait until Julia was at least dead so as to not mock her on her face. But as Julie herself acknowledged in the movie, she is quite the egocentric person.
The Julia part, as everyone said, was wonderful – and yes, I hated not seeing Meryl Streep/Julia, more on the screen. I thought that Mery Streep was great in mimicking Julia’s accent and joie de vive, though I’d like to have seen more complexity to the character – which I’m sure could have been shown if they’d cut the Julie story out of it.
In all it was a sweet movie, nothing if not fluffy, but enjoyable enough. I did not get out of it wanting to cook or eat French food (the way you drool over Mexican food in Tortilla Soup), though that duck at the end seemed like a fun challenge.
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My food website now has a new section: Granny’s and Gladys’ Recipe Book. This new section will consist of the typed-up recipes from the notebook that my paternal grandmother and aunt left me when they passed away. I tasted some of these recipes as a child, and some never at all, but I will try to make them all at some point. There aren’t that many. To start, I’ve typed up this recipe for Apple Sauce Cake a la Lacabe that my sister has been asking me for. I guess I’ll have to make it as well 🙂
Last night I made Reeses peanut butter cup ice cream, from the Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book
So here is the recipe. I used an egg beater to whisk everything, easier than a whisk and it gave it the right consistency. I used slightly less than the 3/4 cup of sugar, regular whipping cream, 1% milk and organic salted smooth peanut butter.
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 cups whipping cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1/3 cup smooth natural peanut butter
- 8 Reeses peanut butter cups, chopped into largish bites
Whisk the eggs until light and frothy. Add the sugar slowly, whisking constantly to incorporate. Add the whipping cream and milk and whisk until smooth. Pour 1 cup of the mixture into a separate bowl and add the peanut butter to that bowl. Mix well and pour peanut butter mixture into the cream mixture. Whisk in until fully incorporated.
Freeze mixture in your ice cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Two minutes before the ice cream is due to be done add the peanut butter cup pieces.
Pour into a tupperware or similar container and freeze until hard (it should take about 5-6 hours).
I usually get my olive oil at Trader Joe’s (though I wonder if it’s real olive oil), but I was out of it a couple of weeks ago and I was at Costco and decided to get their house brand: Cost Kirkland Filippo Berio Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Bad call. The olive oil has a very nice olive oil scent, fresh and vibrant. But it has a bitter edge to it, it probably doesn’t matter for cooking, but it’s not too pleasant to eat with bread. I won’t buy it again.
Yesterday and today I made grilled/smoked steaks for dinner, served with a very nice mustard-basil sauce. I got the recipe at epicurious.com, my favorite recipe site, and it was surprisingly good. When I just made it I thought it tasted too much of mustard, so much thought that it’d overwhelm the meat, but it mellowed down when it cooled and the basil took over, not really tasting like basil, but giving a nice fresh tasting to the meat.
Here is the recipe, which I copy because it’s so easy.
Ingredients
- 1/2 tsp. drained capers
- 1 small garlic clove, peeled
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh basil
- 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
- 2 tsp. coarse grained mustard
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
Directions
Mix all the ingredients in a mini-chopper and chop/grind until it becomes a smooth paste. Put the bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes. Remove and scoop the butter into a clean cutting board, shape in a cylinder shape and cover with plastic wrap. Freeze or refrigerate until solid.
Meanwhile grill your choice of meat, serve a pat of the solid butter on top of the meat.
Marga’s Best Recipes
I ran out of strawberries, but got a lot of blueberries at Safeway for $5 – so I decided to make blueberry smoothies for dessert. Everyone agreed it was a good idea. I made them using the recipe for strawberry smoothies I made the other day, modifying it a little. The results (of my second batch) were quite good, though not as good as the strawberry smoothies. The blueberry flavor was also more subtle – if you want it stronger, use more blueberries.
Ingredients
- 6 ice cubes, crushed
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/3 cup vanilla yogurt
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
Blend everything together until your smoothie is smooth – pun intended 🙂
Update. Mika, my 7yo, made this blueberry smoothie today again, all by herself, and it was really good.
A couple of week ago I got a Bella Cucina Rocket Blender at Macy’s. It was on sale for $20 and they had a $10 rebate – so, if when I get the rebate check, I’d only have paid $12 – I bought it at the store so there were no shipping charges. I’ve only used it a few times, so I’m not going to review it yet. It’s working fine, but I’ve read that it doesn’t have much on the way of longevity – at least for regular smoothie makers, which I’m not.
Anyway, now that I have the little thing I’m motivated to make smoothies – at least once in a while. The first few recipes I tried underwhelmed me, but this recipe from allrecipes.com was great. I did increase the amount of strawberries it called for, but I think how many you use will be very dependent on the size of your strawberries. Similarly, how much sugar you use will depend on the sweetness of your strawberries. The ones I used were medium to small (and super sweet). Here’s my adapted recipe:
- 6 ice cubes
- 8-12 strawberries, hulled
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
- 2-3 Tbsp. sugar
Crush the ice. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until it’s all combined.
Note: If you are using a smoothie maker like mine, all the ingredients will fill the large mixing glass to the top. I still was able to get them blended, but if you are concerned, you can mix it in two batches (just divide the recipe above by 2).
Zocalo Coffeehouse, my favorite cafe in San Leandro, has revamped its website to make it more interactive. The Zocalo website lists events happening at the coffeehouse – but also some news and events in other parts of San Leandro. You can also subscribe to Zocalo’s newsletter and keep abreast of what’s going on.
Sonoma restaurant, on McArthur in San Leandro, has closed for good. I’m not surprised – while the concept was good, it failed on execution: the food just wasn’t that good. I gave it several tries, but it just underwhelmed me.
I’d be sorry to see it go, but the rumor is that Mike Wiesner of Paradiso is taking over the space and opening a (gourmet?) burger joint. He will also serve breakfast. The food at Paradiso is pretty good (if also overpriced), and I think that San Leandro could really use a good burger place. There are several, but since the closure of Joplins, the only one that does a good burger is Vila Cereja (though I haven’t been there for quite a while).
Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying the new place.
Sweet Fingers is San Leandro’s only Caribbean restaurant. Located on East 14th, near the Oakland border, it’s relatively inconspicuous. From the outside it looks like a bar, from the inside, like a third-world restaurant. The tables are cheap, the light is dim and the bar quite prominent. It’s the kind of place you go to hang out, listen to some reggae or just have some great Jamaican/Caribbean food. That’s what we did last night, when we had our monthly informal SLCAN meeting at the place.
Everything we ordered was a winner: B. loved the jerked tofu, T. became a fun of the shrimp curry and D. enjoyed his oxtail stew. R. and I had had dinner earlier and weren’t planning to eat, but we had to order the fabulous friend plantains ($4). After we enjoyed them, the waitress was nice enough to bring us a plate of jerk chicken to share. It was dark and moist and nicely spiced – I’m always afraid that jerk chicken will be too strong for my taste but that is not a worry here. In all, I regretted not having gone back to Sweet Fingers since my first review a couple of years ago. Service, as you can imagine, was really good.
The prices, however, are a little high – most entrees are in the mid-teens. However, you can usually buy a $25 gift certificate to Sweet Fingers for $10 at restaurant.com (just do a search for restaurants within a mile of 94577). There is a $35 minimum food purchase. Once in a while restaurant.com has specials which allow you to buy said gift certificate for $2 or $3 – keep an eye on dealdetectives.com.
Sweet Fingers is very friendly to vegetarians – their new menu features 11 vegetarian entrees. With over 15 meat and fish entrees, it’s also pretty friendly to carnivores.
The new menu keeps many favorites such as the jerk chicken, but adds new dishes such as brown stew goat ($16), braised blue mountain lamb ($18) and ginger orange chicken ($16). Â Some of the dishes are daily specials.
Sweet fingers is also increasing its musical offerings. They will have music every day but Monday from 10 PM to 2 AM. There will be live music every Sunday.
They will have a happy hour from 3-6 PM with half-price appetizers.
I’m unlikely to go for the music or the happy hour, but I’ll definitely return for the food.
Sweet Fingers
464 E. 14th St.
San Leandro ,CA
510.553.9869
http://www.sweetfingersrestaurant.com/
Marga’s Original Review
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
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