The Selective Echo write-up on espresso at caffe d'bolla

John and caffe d'bolla's espresso is featured in The Selective Echo, a blog of Salt Lake City and its metropolitan best!

I am very proud of John and our shop, and thanks to Les (of The Slective Echo) for this wonderful write-up. You can read the article "At caffe d'bolla, the quest for great espresso blends always open ended" from www.selectiveecho.com.

a latte

The other day John was cleaning our glassware and asked if I could make a small latte in a martini glass. Of course I could.



I liked it.

cookies

I bake everything for the shop, and pretty much everyday there will be cookies. I've been making a few different types of cookies: butterscotch, chocolate chips, sweet and salty butterscotch, "blackout", etc..

Since I have to bake everyday, and the making dough part of the cookie baking usually takes a little while, I would make a bigger batch of dough, put it in a container and store in the fridge, and when I'm ready to bake the cookies I'll use a small ice-cream scoop and scoop out the dough onto a cookie sheet to bake. This method has been saving me time and energy, and helping to produce yummy cookies!

Here are a few that I like to make these days:

butterscotch cookies.

mocha chocolate chip cookies.

sweet and salty butterscotch cookies.

"blackout" cookies.

I'm thinking about making pumpkin or more autumn and winter "relevant" cookies one of these days.

mmmmm cookies.

Teacher. Leader. Friend

I haven't blogged for over 3 months! I think I should start again NOW!

For the past couple of months I had been making a lot of coffee at the shop, baking, planning our trip to Seoul, reading, and playing with our animals... just the usual stuff and I love it.

The only sadness was that Nuki passed away. At about age 13-14 he was a trooper. To us and the other animals, he was a teacher, a leader, and a friend. We have missed him dearly.


This is a haiku John wrote on the day Nuki passed away:

Masterful disguise
Buddha wrapped in a fur cloak
Your new path begins.

You can read John's post here.

And yes I want to blog frequently again!

a passion flower

A friend of the shop, Carly, brought a flower for me the other day. She told me it was a "Passion Flower."




It was so beautiful. I had never seen anything like it.




Carly said this passion flower was from the garden of one of her friends'. It was grown in Utah. Wow!




The passion flower closed itself up after a day, but it was still beautiful...



Thanks, Carly!

fried rice

I make fried rice sometimes just so I can use up some veggies or meats in the fridge. 

One of the "known secret" to make fried rice that's not all clumped together is to use "old" rice... rice that's been chilled in the fridge that is. An awesome Taiwanese chef shared his method on making "golden" fried rice once, where he mixed the whisked eggs with the cold rice before frying it. This way (almost) every grain of rice get coated with eggs and when it's done being fried it's golden!

I used some diced Taiwanese sausages and carrots, and I also added some blanched spinach (so it was easier to mix with the rest of the ingredients) and then seasoned with a little bit of hondashi (a Japanese bonito "soup stock" seasoning) and shichimi.

Yummy.

the thousand-year-egg experience

I personally love Pidan （皮蛋）, also known as Century Egg or thousand-year-egg. They look and taste crazy, but I grew up with them, know what they are, and actually enjoy the flavors of these black eggs.

John is not a big fan of Pidan. I guess by looking at them they look totally wrong. Jello-O like "egg whites" and soft cheese gooey "egg yolks" don't seem to be components of eggs. I'd offer him a piece of Pidan every time I'm having some, but he'd kindly refuse.

Growing up we would have the Pidan sliced and topped on tofu,with special sweet and thick soy sauce, bonito flakes, and maybe some Asian mayo (!) such as Kewpie.

I also really like diced Pidan in rice soups (Cantonese style.) Some of the Chinese restaurants in town serve them and all the ones I've had so far are delicious.

When I enjoy Pidan at home I'd simply just dip them in Taiwanese black vinegar. Yum. And then I read about how you can enjoy Pidan with slices of pickled ginger (like that besides your sushi.) I tried it and it was yummy! The acidity from the pickled ginger blends with and balances out the flavors of the Pidan so it tastes milder, smooth, and actually very good!

So I wrapped a piece of pickled ginger around a little wedge of Pidan and convinced John to give it a try.



ready...


uhh... it was not THAT scary, dude...


bite it, John!


umm...

John looks all silly in the photos, but I think he actually enjoyed the Pidan wrapped in pickled ginger slices. In his own words, the pickled ginger-wrapped Pidan is "like strong, aromatic soft cheese. Strangely good."

anniversary dinner at Franck's

You probably know by now that Franck's is one of my favorite restaurants in the city, and for John and my anniversary we visited Franck's again. It was fabulous.

Menu.

And of course John found a wonderful Pinot to go with our dinner.

Wild mushroom tart.

Artisan French Toast.

Lavender soup with butter popcorn.

White Shrimp Stew. (Chef's comp.)

Franck's Meat Loaf.

Pan Seared Duck Breast.

Dark Chocolate Tart with Sea Salt. (Chef's comp.)

Coconut Cake.

Oh my. Everything was again cooked to perfection. I adore Franck's attention to details, and how beautiful and honest his food is. I am a HUGE fan! Thanks Franck for a wonderful anniversary dinner.


Franck's
6263 S. Holladay Blvd.
Holladay, Utah 84121
801.274.6264

5:30 in the morning

I don't quite remember when I was last up before dawn. Maybe it was when I was really excited about a trip or something.

But I was up around 5 this morning and I drove downtown. The story behind it? Not really that important. Silly, even. But I "learned my lesson."

I'm not that much of a morning person anyhow, and getting up at 5 this morning is now catching up with me. I need my Americanos throughout the day I'm sure.

I did, however, saw a beautiful sky driving back home around 5:30 a.m.:

happy anniversary to us!

It's John and my 11th anniversary! We're not planning on anything big, but just a dinner reservation at Franck's along with some wines both of us love... and then we'll just chill with the animals at home and relax.



♥ !!!

Happy Anniversary to us!