Hatam's changed hands last year and although I've been there to pick up Persian goodies from the grocery section, I'd yet to try their new dining experience in the front of the store. Although I loved the cobwebbed and authentic peek at much loved things under the old ownership, the new owner has brightened it up and moved the groceries to the back and a fresh breeze has encircled the place.

I decided to stay for dinner this time, and I was served a lovely fresh appetizer of lavash bread and fresh greens (green onions and copious amounts of fresh mint leaves), butter and feta. I must have been Perisan in a past life as I so take to rolling up fresh mint leaves in the soft lavash and eating it.

I found a way to work in the phase "does a bear shit in the woods?" to my book. sweetness! Ok, so I've downgraded my goals from 11 pages a day to 1 a day. So maybe I won't write a book in a month... but hey, progress is goddamn progress. Ok, and I didn't quite stick to one glass of wine. damn! I need to stop buying shiraz...too damn tasty! I'll start buying white zinfandel or something. : I~~ Or alternatively I could just drink vinegar. Or rubbing alcohol. Perhaps vanilla extract...

There have been some changes in the Marin Persian restaurant scene in the last year as we've seen Hatam change hands, and Papillon cease operations. Hatam and Jasmine Market both have grocery sections for making your own Persian delights.

The Persian Restaurants in Marin are:

San Rafael
Apadana Restaurant
Hatam

If you are in Sausalito, and hungry for kabobs, the Bridgeway Cafe makes a kabob sandwich and some superb Perisan appetizers, although 99% of their fare is American. If you know of any Perisan delights I've missed in Marin, please leave a comment!

Potato chips are about my only real vice, when it comes to junk food. Don't do candy bars. Don't drink pop.
Unless hamburgers are counted as junk food…. which to me would seem sort of a bit blasphemous, since I am convinced that hamburgers are proof of the existence of God.
I could live quite happily on a planet that had only hamburgers, as food.
I wish that all hamburgers were as large as the cows they came from.
They are made from cows, aren’t they?

And what do you suppose this is? I couldn't resist it when I was in Japantown last. I've wanted one for some time, but there was always the question of whether I would use it... well I did. This is a Japanese pickle maker particularly for shio-zuke (salt pickles). The screwlid is to put pressure on the vegetables you are pickling.

A Vegan Lunch Box reader named Melissa emailed me a few months ago suggesting that this recipe for pupusas would make a tasty vegan lunch. Pupusas are traditional El Salvadorian corn masa "cakes" filled with meat, cheese, or beans that are patted flat and fried. They are often sold by street vendors in El Salvador and Honduras.

A little French joie de vivre. My neighbor Jerrie and I took a drive to San Anselmo the other night to visit Bistro 330. It had a very bright atmosphere and busy owner?/waiter greeted us warmly and sat us.

Jerrie tried the spinach salad with goat cheese, which she said was very good.

Not your ordinary breakfast. But yet, it came out of a box, and not a cereal box. It's basically a savory pancake which is particularly popular in the Kansai area of Japan. This version is an Osaka-style okonomiyaki where all the ingredients are mixed together, rather than the crepe like Hiroshima version where ingredients are layered, which was my first exposure to this dish. It's one of my favorite Japanese dishes. Any number of my Japanese friends of the male gender have told me that in Japan it's considered 'women's' food, or snack food.

Last night Sam's Anchor Cafe was the meeting place of Yelpers and Filmmakers at the Tiburon International Film Festival (TIFF). The room was quite well set up, and Sam's did a great job on the food and drink. The little bits and bites that kept circulating with costumed people were quite tasty, as were the Hog Island Oysters set up in a corner. I sampled some kumamotos, just freshly cracked open and seasoned lightly - quite good! Sake2Me had a nice set up in the facing corner and were handing out bottles of quite refreshing infused sakes. I tried their Asian Pear, it was so light and the calories are only around 110 per bottle so I may just have to add this to my on-hand supply of drinks.

Don't judge a book. Hidden away in a strip mall in Larkspur near Fukuzuke is a new casual Italian eatery that opens early for breakfast every day! Cafe Lucano is so unassuming, but when you step inside the staff is friendly and the place is well cared for and you can just tell...

I was tempted by a watermelon Italian Soda. Each table had a clean, folded and squared up Examiner for your reading enjoyment. Everything was so orderly and inviting!

What's that on my pancake? Wood shavings? I promise, it tasted better than that. I was just very intrigued when I saw this jam in my local Persian market.

This orange blossom jam runs like honey and the blossoms are tender-waxy. It was a lovely topping for some freshly made buttermilk pancakes.

I went again to Greens, so I thought I'd pull this cute little container out of the fridge and share for today! Good Belly is a probiotic drink that also has vitamins. It's surprisingly tart, but has a nice taste and goes down in an instant. The product contains a Swedish probiotic, Lp299v, which is a patented probiotic used by Swedish gastroenterologists to help their patients recover more quickly from surgery. I picked it up at Whole Foods, and will pick some up again next time I'm there as it is a pleasant way to get an immunity boost as well as vitamins.

Merry Christmas!

This is a traditional Japanese Christmas cake I picked up in Japantown in San Francisco on Christmas Eve. It's a surprise for Christmas tea at Jo-Ann & Jonathon's (with two children on Christmas, I'm sure they won't be reading this before I arrive with it!). It's interesting how different cultures interpret and adopt others traditions. It's popular in Japan to eat these special cakes on Christmas day.

Dessert First. Well I didn't have this Chocolate Lava Cake with Blood Orange Sorbet first, but if I'd have known, I would have been tempted. Lucky for me, Sachiko and I had just enough room after our feast at Betelnut to share this.

The weather has been quite summer-like! After a fun day at Marin French Cheese Company and browsing antique stores in Petaluma with Yukako and Mao on Saturday, Dad and I meandered over to Fairfax and drove by a most happening place. So we turned around, drove back and parked to try it out. Besides having great food and drink, Iron Springs Pub & Brewery is a green certified business, and has an interesting webpage of all the green efforts they've been making.

Day-After Brunch. After Thanksgiving that is. Paul suggested we have brunch and after numerous phone calls finding most of our favorite spots and new ones closed due to the holiday weekend, Paul suggested we try Comforts Cafe. Bingo! I reviewed Comforts for the first time October 2006 on a visit with Paul as well. It's easy to go back to the tried and true.

Actually Jonathon's 51st Birthday party. When I asked what I could bring he suggested the cake -- oh my! I don't think I'd baked a real cake in years... So I rifled through my old 3 x 5s that were in my mother's recipe box to come up with one. More about that later. Jonathon's birthday, celebrated with a casual barbecue with the usual suspects was the place to be yesterday afternoon.

There were quite a range of ages, from these green apple tossing kids, to my 87 year old Dad.

Near mega-outlet mall land. That is, in Vacaville with it's huge campus of outlets. I go here once a year or so for a buying frenzy, then I don't want to see it for a looong time. I met a business associate and a long-time reader of this blog for lunch in this fair city for a multitude of business reasons. We first let my 'car' do the choosing with its 'Points of Interest' restaurant listing as we had all been pressed for time and didn't do any research. That was not a good idea. We drove past our first pick, a Chinese restaurant, which looked like it was part of the set of a bad section of town in a B movie. We then just stopped at the first place that looked welcoming, which was Pietro's No 2 (yes, there is a No 1 owned by others).

Dad and I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at a restaurant we stumbled upon in the Castro, Tangerine. It is popular in the neighborhood, we had a short wait in the foyer.

Dad wanted some simple Oatmeal. Simple yes, but beautiful and generously portioned with an add of fruit. Dad said every bite was delicious.

Butterflies. When I found out that Cafe Papillon serves breakfast every day, it immediately went on my must try list. Dad and I dropped by what was I believe the last sunny Sunday in Marin for some time. The staff was friendly and welcoming, and we were obviously earlier than most of their Sunday crowd since we were the only ones in the restaurant until the clock struck 10 a.m.

Ahhh, a topic close to my heart: Rachael Ray's Christmas cocktails. Ever since Every Day with Rachael Ray started being published, we have a whole new source of cocktail goodness. And these aren't your average cocktails, either.

Vegetarian menu takes up real estate! I was in a hurry for lunch the other day, and thought Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers may somehow have ONE veggie burger choice, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a whole section of interesting ones.

Last meat-eating adventure. I alluded to a diet that I've started in a previous post, and one of it's key features is that it is vegetarian. Last week Dad & I visited a cute tofu house in Japantown, which coincidentally ended up being the last time I had any meat/poultry/fish product except for the Thanksgiving Day diet holiday. It wasn't planned that way, it just happened. More about the diet at the end of the post. DooBu is a gem of a place, with prompt and friendly service.

12-hour cheesecake. Well, at least that's how much time and effort Yalda put into this with her friend JC on Thanksgiving Day. And it was luscious. Another find from Sunset Magazine. Photos are of the one Yalda made. It's real name and recipe:

Orange Ribbon Cheesecake

Ingredients

For topping
1 large thin-skinned orange, such as Valencia

Taking a chance. I picked up a box at 99 Ranch some time ago in one of my experimental moods, and it's been pushed into a corner of my pantry for some months. As I was reorganizing today, I pulled it out.

Soybean Pudding, hmmm. Reading the directions, it really looked fool proof - mix hot water with powder and let it sit.