London: Borough Market and The World's Best Grilled Cheese

I found it extremely difficult to choose where to spend my precious free time while in London. How do you see the highlights of one incredible city between 6:30-10pm on weeknights and in just one single weekend? The obvious answer is that you can’t. I could have spent months in London and still not have even scratched the surface.

For me, though, there was one no-brainer. I did some of my own research in the few days before my trip and read about Borough Market, and then it was hammered home when pretty much everyone I met told me it was a must-see for anyone with the slightest interest in food. Safe to say, I have a SLIGHT interest in food. Lucky for me, it was right up the road from my flat in the London Bridge area, so I was up and at ‘em bright and early Saturday morning to beat the crowds.



Borough Market lived up to the hype,  and then some. It was opened in 1851 (dates like this are pretty rare stateside!) and sits off of Borough High street just south of the river at London Bridge, twisting its way through multiple buildings and open areas. Vendors sell flowers, fresh produce, meats and poultry, fish and seafood, cheese, baked goods, more cheese, and then more baked goods amidst restaurants hawking their best of the best – chorizo burgers, fish and chips, English sausage rolls.













If I hadn’t done my research, I most likely would have been paralyzed by indecision on the food front and possibly have ended up in bed all day with a fish and chips induced stomach ache. And in all transparency, when I say “research,” I mean noticing this interesting little Google nugget when looking it up:



Grilled cheese, you say?

So THEN I did some research and found rave reviews by foodies all over the world, touting the toasted cheese at Borough Market “the world’s best grilled cheese.” I was armed with a plan, a latte from Monmouth Coffee Co., and prepared to wait in any length line.

I found my way to the Kappacasein stall after a few loops through the market both by the identifying the long line and the smell of cheese from about 50 feet away. I paid my 5 pounds, was handed a ticket, then spent about 5 minutes considered changing my order to the raclette, a melted cheese that they were burning and shaving off into big gooey piles of it onto roasted potatoes.



I managed to hold strong only after noticing the sign stating that they add grilled leeks and garlic to their grilled cheese, and then noticed the case of “raw” sandwiches, waiting to be grilled – shredded sharp white cheddar on sourdough with tiny hints of purple peeking out from the leeks.



Like the market, the grilled cheese met every single ounce of my expectations… buttery, crunchy, salty, gooey… and I’m pretty sure I’ll never again want a grilled cheese without the added punch of leeks and garlic. I will find SOME way in this lifetime to return to the Borough Market to experience this glory again.

San Francisco + Napa: Bouchon Bakery

I have no earthly idea where to start in describing the last 3 weeks of my life. I’ve never been away from home for that long and while I was definitely happy to see my own bed and pillow Monday night, my little 3-week adventure was one that I’ll never forget.

So instead of trying to write one big post for London and then one for San Francisco, I think I’ll just blog about some of the particularly memorable experiences – you know, like cheese. (See: Halloumi :))

We happened to be in SF/Napa for TWO Bears games and while JB was a trooper about missing the Monday night game with all of the Giants-going-to-the-World-Series madness, missing this past Sunday’s game was not optional. This meant spending an incredible Napa morning in a dark bar, so as a trade off, we headed out super early for a run through Yountville which culminated in a stop at Bouchon Bakery.

I had heard rave reviews of Thomas Keller’s Parisian bakery in NYC, so nothing could have made me happier than seeing that cute little yellow house off the side of the road, line out the door and great smells a half mile away. I did a bit of reading and Yountville was actually their first location, with locations in NYC, Las Vegas and Beverly Hills added later.

I quickly negated our three-mile run (and then some) with the coffee of my dreams and after agonizing for ten minutes over the pastry case, settled on two scones: chocolate cherry and bacon cheddar. They were perfection -- buttery, crumbly, just sweet enough.

If you have the chance to go to a Bouchon bakery, please go! Run! Or walk, but go, and have a pastry for me.

Loving London

As expected, I am totally in love with this city. It’s absolutely stunning – soaring modern architecture against castles and huge expanses of parks. It doesn’t hurt that the weather has been insanely perfect the whole time I’ve been here. There have been a few showers but on the whole, it’s been crisp, sunny fall weather; the perfect backdrop for exploring!

A few things:

• I’ve found it less expensive than I anticipated. I am obviously very lucky to be travelling for work and I do imagine that renting a flat or hotel room would be extremely expensive here; similar to New York, space is at an absolute premium. However, I’ve found that there’s a huge range of both costs and choices when choosing food and shopping -- yes, it would be easy to go crazy and spend a ton, but it’s definitely not impossible to keep it under control, either!


• I’ve noticed a lot of Londoners reading while walking and even reading while running. To borrow a phrase from my new British friends, "wonderful and weird."


• England’s bad rap for their food and cooking is totally undeserved -- I have eaten a ton of great food in my time here. Indian, tapas, pastries, yum. There is a HUGE food culture here too, beyond just the restaurant scene. I went to Borough Market, the city’s biggest and most notable on Saturday and was so glad I did (best “toasted cheese” aka “grilled cheese” OF MY LIFE!!) but that was honestly choosing one from a list of many, many Saturday food markets. I’ll be back for more, London!


• On the toasted-cheese/pastries note… thank goodness London is an incredibly safe and therefore incredibly walkable city. I’ve walked to and from work every day and did a ton of exploring this weekend, walking literally everywhere. It’s not on any type of grid so I’ve relied fairly heavily on Google maps, but thanks to the River, I’ve started to be better able to orient myself when out and about and do feel that I am getting the hang of it!

Dumb American in London moments:

• The River Thames is pronounced “Temms” – please, kill me. No one corrected me for like a week.


• Though my head knows that I should look right first to check for cars coming when crossing the street, it has proven nearly impossible to reverse 28 years of left-right-left checking and I look like a total weirdo at every street corner, shaking my head back and forth at least 10 times. It’s habit fighting logic and I’m just a mess.


• Speaking of things being on opposite sides of what I’m used to, the escalators are also reversed so I have tried to go up the down escalator twice.


• I cannot work my microwave to save my life. I’m not sure if this is a cultural difference or because I’m staying in a high-efficiency green building. Either way, I definitely ate cold curry for dinner tonight.

Apologies for the short (and week late post!) but I've been trying to see and do as much as I can in the non-working hours and am therefore finding myself totally exhausted every night! In tonight's case, I had a stressful (sarcasm) day of tapas, the Tower of London and cold curry... also, Downton Abbey’s on soon and that is serious business here. :)

Cheers from London!



I've been fighting with my wireless here but will be posting lots of pictures when I get home!

Chain O'Lakes State Park

The view from the back patio

This past weekend, we got our urban sherpa on. (This is Ali's ingenious term for the plight of the automobile-free when attempting to leave the city or trek around the city without multiple trips home. Basically packing laptops, gym clothes, makeup, two changes of clothing, etc. in various bags: purses, totes and shopping bags and dragging said bags everywhere you go.) On Friday, we headed up to the burbs to celebrate our stepdad's birthday. As always, it was a great time, but I think its safe to say the highlight of everyone's weekend was the family canoeing trip.

Before we could get going, we had to make an emergency trip to DSW as our shoes were deemed "impractical." We helpfully both brought home our respective pairs of leopard print shoes, so there was a family-assisted, fast and furious hunt for appropriate boating footwear. Mission accomplished in under 12 minutes; we are champs and the fam has great taste. And yes, we are aware that we are ridiculously lucky we are to have the kind of family that feeds us and houses us for the weekend and then buys us new shoes.

Chain O'Lakes State Park is about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago, and we really couldn't have picked a better day for a drive. We admired our shoes and were there in no time flat. After a hike through the woods, some time acting like children on the swings, and a lunch of Ali's amazing chicken salad and Asian apple pears, it was time to face the canoes.

Ali and I both love the water, but were less than thrilled at the perceived high probability of our canoe tipping and and flipping, fully clothed, into the muddy water. Luckily, my sister has an eagle eye and politely demanded a canoe roughly the width of a pontoon, so flipping turned out to be a non-issue.

She also turned out to be a pro navigator and the stronger paddler of the two of us, though I maintain my half-assed paddling was to take pictures. "ITS FOR THE BLOG!"

Our parents paddled along next to us and the four of us spent the next two hours canoeing up and down the banks of the river in total awe of how beautiful the scenery was, totally alone on the water with the exception of a crane and some elusive jumping fish. It was absolutely perfect in all respects: company, weather, and a new adventure, and a day I know I'll always remember.

Ending the day with a dipped cone from Dairy Queen!

NYC in Pictures

One week later, I'm finally ready to wear heels again, the extreme bloating from Cuban food/rose/halal cart/bagels/more rose/the BEST DINNER EVER at Bell Book & Candle/vodka sodas/late night pizza/mimosamimosamimosas has gone down, and I'm safely above water on the work front.

Totally. Worth. It.

I am so very sad it's over.

I am finally posting my pictures from last weekend! Three things I'd like to call out:

1. I should have taken many, many more photos, and preferably with a real camera.

2. It was three thousand degrees and nine million percent humidity - so I have a whopping two pictures that I allowed myself in and only one with Shai, which is particularly sad.

3. If you're looking for a real peak into NYFW, I'm going to point you over to DrunkOnShoes just as soooon as she gets her pictures up. She'll do it much more justice.  She really experienced NYFW as you'd imagine it - the shows, the celebs, etc.

So enjoy, in no particular order. Click to enlarge!

[gallery orderby="rand"]

Slutty Brownies

Happy Saturday!

The Londoner is basically a genius with the best hair ever. I love all of her posts and recipes, but I've had her Slutty Brownies bookmarked for a long time to make for my baby bro. He's away at college, studying hard at nuclear engineering (proud sister alert!) and I thought today would be the perfect day to whip up a batch. Nothing like a triple dose of sugar to fuel his late night cram sessions studying, um, whatever it is that nuclear engineers do.

His incredible metabolism annoyingly balances out his incredible sweet tooth quite nicely, and I'm grateful that I have somewhere to send these off to so that I don't eat them all by myself. I did taste test just one (swear) and oh my goodness.

These are ridiculously easy, hence the name. I followed her recipe to a T, springing for the Double-Stuf version AND Ghirardelli brownie mix - nothing but the best for you, bro!

Mussels in Basil White Wine Sauce

Happy Labor Day!

I spent the majority of my weekend hanging out with two of my favorite people - my mama and stepdad, who we call "Big" to differentiate between him and my little brother as they coincidentally share the same name. After feasting on my mom's amazing big-as-your-head burgers on Friday night, we were feeling like something a little lighter for dinner on Saturday. The stars aligned and my mom happened to flip to a cooking show on a local station called Secrets of a Chef by Hubert Keller.

I hadn't heard of Chef Keller before, but I definitely bookmarked his site and will be going back for recipe inspiration as soon as possible. On this particular rainy Saturday afternoon, Hubert was whipping up a batch of mussels in basil white wine sauce, and we knew what we had to do for dinner.

Oh my goodness.

However good we thought these mussels were going to be - and we had sky-high expectations! - they were about a billion times better. And really easy to make, too!

Seafood can be a bit intimidating for me and I had never made mussels before, but this was a breeze and I can't wait to make it again... though I'm sure I won't be over my squeamishness at the fact that they're alive when you get them. (The seafood monger at Mariano's informed me that all I had to do was knock on them to make sure they were alive - they squish their shells shut just a little bit tighter. I knocked on practically every shell. Thanks, sir!)

We doubled the recipe for the sauce because we had a TON of mussels (hey, they were our whole dinner, don't judge!) and the only change we made was to omit the tomatoes... but the recipe only calls for a whopping 6 cherry tomatoes, so I can't imagine that really made much of a difference.

Make sure you get lots of French bread to sop up as much of the sauce as possible... it manages to taste both rich and fresh at the same time between the cream and the fresh basil, and Big may or may not have caught me slurping the last bit of mine straight from the bowl.

Image via Voice-Tribune.com

*I somehow managed to accidentally delete all of my own pictures of this, but this picture is almost exactly how they looked, except I had about three times this many!

Mussels in Basil White Wine Sauce

From Hubert Keller's Secrets of a Chef

Ingredients:

(Yields: 4 servings)

•   3 ounces fresh basil leaves
•   1 cup olive oil
•   2 tablespoons butter
•   2 shallots, peeled & finely chopped
•   7 cloves garlic, peeled & finely chopped
•   1 cup dry white wine
•   1/3 cup clam juice
•   1/2 teaspoon salt
•   1/4 teaspoon black pepper
•   30 Mediterranean mussels
•   ½ cup heavy cream
•   2 tablespoons lemon juice
•   2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
•   6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved
•   4 slices country bread, toasted

Directions:

TO MAKE THE BASIL OIL:
Fill a medium saucepan halfway with water and bring to a boil. Lower the basil leaves into the water, and boil for 30 seconds.
With a slotted spoon, remove the basil from the boiling water and plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Immediately remove the basil from the ice water and pat dry on paper towels.
Transfer the basil into a blender. Add the olive oil, and blend until basil is very finely chopped and oil is bright green. Remove from blender and set aside.

TO MAKE THE MUSSELS:
In a 12" skillet, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic, and sauté just until translucent, about 1-2 minutes.
Add the white wine to the pan and let it come to a boil.
Add the clam juice, and season with salt and pepper.
Gently add the mussels, cover, and let cook 1 to 1 ½ minutes, or until mussels have fully opened.
Once the mussels are cooked, remove them from the liquid with a slotted spoon and cover with foil.
Finish the sauce by adding the cream and lemon juice to the boiling wine mixture. Whisk until combined and let mixture boil for 2 minutes, or until slightly thickened.
Add 3 tablespoons of the basil oil and stir until combined.
Gently stir in the Parmesan cheese and cherry tomatoes.
Uncover the mussels and gently spoon them into the serving dish and pour sauce on top. Serve with toasted country bread.

Secrets of a Chef:
•   Check the mussels when they are raw to make sure that they are closed, or that they close on their own if you tap them. If any are open and will not close on their own, discard them because they are no longer alive.
•   Chef Keller likes to serve this in cast iron dishes to keep it hot, or he suggests that it is served straight out of the pot in the middle of the table
•   The extra basil oil can be refrigerated and used later. It is great for any seafood dish.