Hot Kale Chips: Birthday dinner

Sorry It's been a while since my last post. While I have been keeping up with my solar and conventional cooking (more posts to come soon), I've been a little preoccupied with making travel plans (for this current trip as well as upcoming Italy), getting and setting up a new computer (MacMini!), finishing paperwork for my new job with Stanford starting Monday, and of course celebrating my birthday with so many thoughtful friends and family. Thank you so much for your love and kind wishes.

So in other words, I will be posting plenty of photos and videos with accompanying recipes in the coming weeks, just as soon as I get settled in again. And after that I hope to make regular, bi-weekly updates. Keep me honest, fellow foodies!

So I got to celebrate 27 trips around the sun with my parents and Marisol at Anthony's fine dining! The food was good (crispy duck, escargot - yum! - moist beef tenderloin medallions in mushroom sauce, and a rich pork tenderloin roulade) and the wine, chosen for our namesake (Dalla Valle), totaled half of the bill! It had a beautiful bouquet, though left me wanting a fuller, richer taste and body. Grenache? I think so, but to be honest the nose was the most memorable part. It smelled sweet with fruity, floral aromas, and reminded me of my favorite petite syrah (Turley 2005, if you were wondering).

And what birthday would be complete without cake, Maria? Or in this case, baked Alaska, which is basically a yummy ice cream cake covered in meringue and set on fire! so much fun.