Year of the Donut (and Pizza, and Cupcake...)

Culinarily speaking, 2010 has been my best year ever - and we're only three days in! This weekend, Hook and I cooked some kick ass meals, discovered a few cute restaurants, watched a lot of Food Network (and recognized some SF eateries: hells yes), and hit the farmers' market. Highlights:

1) Returning from Kaiser yesterday, H and I grabbed lunch at Tony's Cable Car Restaurant (2500 Geary). He ordered the polish sausage, I the turkey burger; we shared fries. Yelp rates Tony's at 3.5 stars, and I'd be inclined to agree with the standing assessment: the staff were ueber-friendly (the old man at the counter praised my choice, then praised Hook's choice with equal gusto), the service was prompt, and the food was good: solid. Better than average for fast food, actually - the turkey burger was well-spiced and came on a legit wheat bun (as opposed to a dyed-brown white bun). Hook was disappointed that his sausage came with lots of fixins' (mustard, shredded iceberg, and an inexplicably grand amount of pickles), but enjoyed the meal nonetheless. I'll be back, probably the next time I'm picking up a prescription...

2) En route to BB&B ("Bed, Bath, and Beyond") yesterday afternoon, I spotted a cupcake bakery, smack in the middle of the deserted street! The bakery's door was open; the proprietress saw me look in and beckoned me forth. Not one to resist the offer of baked goods (even if the "offer" is really "the availability of nice-looking baked goodies for sale"), I (and H) went in. The shop offered about eight different flavors of homemade cupcakes, including a few basics like red velvet and straight-up chocolate, and some more esoteric varieties. Hook chose the root beer float; after some classic "man v. self" internal struggle, I went with the "pancake breakfast," a pancake-flavored cupcake (with bits of bacon incorporated into the batter) topped with maple-buttercream frosting. Holy mother of god: I could eat a pile of these cupcakes. It's good that Cups and Cakes Bakery is in the middle of SOMA, else I'd become a regular. And nobody needs that much bacon and maple buttercream frosting.

3) Saturday night, we made carne asada for dinner. I don't know if we were just ueber hungry or whether the fajita marinade we used was more-than-typically impressive, but Hook claims that this was the best meal he's eaten in months.

4) Not having tired of eating and cooking (ha!), I made buttermilk pancakes with blackberry compote for breakfast today (recipes from Mark Bittman and the Food Network website, respectively). The compote turned out so well, in fact, that I wanted to include the recipe here:

Blackberry Compote:

* 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
* 2 cups blackberries, rinsed
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1/4 cup blackberry or raspberry liqueur
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat the butter in a large saute pan over high heat until melted and bubbly. Add the berries and saute for 2 minutes. Add the sugar and liqueur and cook until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. (Be careful: The liqueur may ignite. If it does, cool the berry mixture until the flames die down.) Add the ginger and cinnamon, mix well, and cook 2 to 3 minutes longer. Let cool for about 5 minutes.

I didn't have any liqueur so I subbed in orange juice, which seemed to work well. The original recipe (part of a larger recipe for panna cotta with compote, actually) suggested the compote be topped with fresh whipped cream, which I also recommend (and which suggestion I did not follow). Hell yes!

5) This weekend of epicurean delights closed with dinner tonight: homemade pizza topped with fresh mozzarella, Nameko mushrooms, and beautiful greens (topped with tiny yellow flowers) purchased at the farmers' market. Hook made the crust according to Mark Bittman's recipe; he added half a teaspoon of black pepper to the dough. And now, after a delicious, mostly-local dinner, I'm sitting back with a beer, preparing for the coming week.