esc – The Rookery

ESC #48: Valentine’s Day

Gotta do Italian for Valentine’s Day, of course.

ESC #47: Crawfish!

This one had a roughly Southern theme. Highlights were the Japanese fried chicken wings and the toasted pecan cake!

Featuring not one but two birthday cakes because that’s how your girl likes to roll. My sister popped into town over the weekend for a surprise visit, so naturally we had to bake something. That was cake #1, the Apple Rose Cake. On paper and in photos it looked great: pistachios, grated apples, olive oil,Continue reading “ESC #46: Birthday Edition”

ESC #45: Cabin Weekend Edition

My friends Tim & Gina graciously loaned me their cabin for a weekend again, and my friends Steph and Megan joined me for paddling, hiking, birdwatching, etc. We spotted some sandhill cranes, and I found some Alpine Waxy Cap mushrooms, which we didn’t eat because the squirrels had gotten to them first. No problem: IContinue reading “ESC #45: Cabin Weekend Edition”

ESC #43 and #44

Who doesn’t take a picture of their first-ever squid-ink paella cooked on the grill? Your girl, that’s who. I’m going to stop apologizing for not taking photos of these beautiful dinners and just start doing it! One of these days…. Until then, you’ll just have to be content with a picture I took in theContinue reading “ESC #43 and #44”

ESC #41 and #42: DessArt Night (ft. shibori dyeing)

My friend Gina asked me when I got interested in shibori, and I couldn’t remember, but I love the graphic simplicity of it and the rich color of the indigo. Indigo dyeing always intimidated me, though—until I found Yamato Indigo’s instant dye vats. It’s a mix of organic indigo with the agents you need toContinue reading “ESC #41 and #42: DessArt Night (ft. shibori dyeing)”

ESC #39 and #40 plus bonus ESC: Beach Edition

Yep. Been passing this sign outside Sebastopol for years and finally couldn’t resist pulling over and taking a picture given its current, shall we say, mood. Plus Bill’s is a really great organic market I didn’t know about with a great little coffee shop. So, win/win. Playing catch-up here after a couple of busy workContinue reading “ESC #39 and #40 plus bonus ESC: Beach Edition”

ESC #37 and #38 ft. Exploding Xurros!

I mean, it was high time for Experimental Supper Club to have a spectacular failure, amiright? The good news is no one got hurt. The bad news is it took me the better part of a day to wash my kitchen down from ceiling to floor (including the dogs). We had a vaguely Spanish/Portuguese themeContinue reading “ESC #37 and #38 ft. Exploding Xurros!”

ESC #36

I ran out of Irish recipes in the old Try file, so for St Patrick’s Day this year, we did a Breton-inspired menu: keeping it in the Celtic family at least…. The Kig Ha Farz was…interesting. I think this recipe from David Lebovitz would have yielded a lighter and fluffier “farz” or buckwheat dumpling. YouContinue reading “ESC #36”

ESC #35

This turned out to be a pretty pioneer-y menu featuring the kinds of things that Western settlers would have have in their cellars this time of year: venison, apples, cabbage, onions, carrots, etc. And it was really one of our best menus in terms of the way it all came together. The bang-to-buck ratio onContinue reading “ESC #35”