Crunchy French Toast

So we are building a house. We are excited about this project for a bunch of reasons as you can imagine, but we are especially excited because for the first time in our lives, we will have a real kitchen. With an oven that isn't the cheapest thing at Sears. This means we have to learn to cook. Since I can't make toast, this has been an uphill battle.

Recently, Holly got a great cook book that I can't find or I'd recommend. I think that it is called Cooking for the Blind with No Appendages or something like that. Advanced apologies to blind people with no appendages, but I'm guessing you aren't cooking much these days. It is super dumbed down. Anyway, there was a great recipe for Cruchy French Toast that I made the other morning. Seriously, this was the first non-microwave /non- pasta thing that I've cooked since I made lasagna in 8th grade 'Single Survival' class.

Total aside: In 8th grade I had to take a course called 'Single Survival'. Don't ask me why as now that I look back on it now, there was no chance that I'd be living on my own for at least 5 more years and I would have forgotten how to sew buttons and bake brownies in that time. I did learn to make a mean lasagna, though.

It came out really well, but despite my doubling of the recipe, we were still pretty short.

Prep Time: 20 minutes (ready in 2 hours 40 minutes) - Yield: 8 slices; 4 servings

3 eggs
1 cup half and half
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups cornflakes cereal, crushed to 1 cup
8 slices (3/4-inch-thick diagonally cut) French bread
Strawberry syrup
Fresh strawberries

1. Grease 15x10x1-inch baking pan. In shallow bowl, combine eggs, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla and salt; beat well. Place crushed cereal in another shallow bowl. Dip each bread slice in egg mixture, making sure all egg mixture is absorbed. Coat each slice with crumbs. Place in greased pan; cover. Freeze 1 to 2 hours or until firm.

2. Heat oven to 425°F. Bake bread slices 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Serve with syrup and strawberries. If desired, garnish with whipped topping.

I also pre-cut the bread into little quarters. This made them more bite sized and I didn't feel like I was really eating 4 pieces of french toast. It was, however, some of the best french toast that I've ever had. I was really stoked. I can't wait to get our real kitchen so that I can make this on weekend mornings, drink lattes and read the paper online.

St. John's Bar & Grill - Tri-Tip Tuesday - Sunnyvale, CA

As a lot of you know, I recently started a new job. Jodi, one of the key members of my team, immediately started raving about how great Tri-Tip Tuesday is at St. John's and how we need to go out there for a team event. Sure, sure, I thought. Who is this crazy person and why did I come to this company again? Tri-Tip? WTF?

But like Old Faithful, every Tuesday, Jodi went to Tri-Tip Tuesday at St. John's and every Tuesday, she came back to the office and praised the gospel of St. John. I wanted to go at some point just to shut her up, but some how I would have meetings or what have you and miss out on the venture off campus to get tri-tip sandwiches.

This past Tuesday, I happened to be talking with Jodi while she was in line at St. Johns and asked that she please bring back a Tri-Tip sandwich so that I could sample it and write a typical nasty post about how the food tasted like burnt play doh or some other catchy, multi-glass of wine metaphor.

You know what they say about assumption being the mother of all fuck-ups. To Jodi, I owe an incredible apology. While I'll admit, I'm a novice when it comes to tri-tip sandwiches, I've had a few in my time. St. John's makes a sandwich that is head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, it is so good, that TTT, as it is called, is now in the regular rotation.

For those that don't know, St. John, AKA, John the Baptist, is who baptized Jesus. He should have baptized Jesus in the marinade that his namesakes bar and grill uses for their sandwiches. I don't believe in heaven, but these little morsels are probably as close as it comes.

First, the steak is amazing. I don't know how some dive in Sunnyvale can pull off getting such a great cut of beef, but they have. It is like St. John baptized all the cows that they serve. Secondly, and this was new to me, but the put a little bit of salsa on the sandwiches. This gives it just a bit of a kick and a very unique taste when it comes to tri-tip. Imagine the best beef taco you've ever had. Double that, put it on the cream and the clear and you're almost there.

If you are near Sunnyvale and dig on Tri-tip, you need to get your sexy back down to St. John's. One word of caution, get there early. Seriously early. After 11:30, the line is out the door.

Once again, to Jodi, I sincerely apologize. You were right about TTT. I've been to the altar and am a believer.

Blasphemy and beef. There it is from the man on the street looking for something to eat.

Kelly's French Bakery - Santa Cruz, CA

The weather in the Bay Area over Thanksgiving weekend was amazing. So nice in fact, the wife, kids, dog and I packed up the car and headed over to Santa Cruz for the day. We figure we'd let the kids and the dog exhaust themselves running on the beach, then grab a bite at Emily's or Saturn Cafe.

We were lucky and bumped into some friends who had the same idea and they highly recommended hitting Kelly's Bakery on Swift St for lunch and even said that Kelly's has the best fish tacos north of the border.

While I would disagree that they were the best fish tacos, they were fairly good. I don't think that I would order them again, though. They had a very thick sauce and they came with a salad that had a yucky dressing on it. Holly went out on a ledge and got the same thing and didn't like it at all. The kids had chicken and fries and were a bit perplexed by the fact that it was actually chicken on the bone and not fried strips. Since I bat clean-up when we go to eat, I also ate the chicken which was really good. The fries were also pretty decent.

What blew me away about Kelly's was the location and the atmosphere. The overall environment was amazing. Of course it helped that it was 75 and sunny, but that is why we live here. Kelly's is located about four blocks from the beach in an old industrial park that has been converted into nice boutiques and art galleries. It would be a great place to have breakfast (next time, I'm getting pancakes) or just to sit and have a beer or a glass of wine.

I think that I struck out with the fish tacos, but I'm certainly looking forward to getting back to Kelly's. That's it for the man on beach looking for something to eat.

tis the season

tis the season for new additions to the family as well as thanksgiving, where here at the cod cheeks test kitchen on brannan st., we will be making a feast! we have some family coming to town, including the gourmet dad and the brother-in-law who is starting to find his way around the kitchen. that leaves me somewhere in the middle.....

i'll be documenting the whole thing of course, and this year is a bit more interesting since we won't get our box of veggies until wednesday night, so we won't really know what we're making until then, with one exception, a fennel sausage stuffing for the heritage bird we are getting from our favorite butcher. hopefully the new little boy will appreciate all the good food we are making that he can't eat.

also, we have the mother-in-law visiting from poland, and she has been wowing us with some great soups, my favorite being zurek, a sourdough soup, as well as many great potato based dishes including pierogi's and kopytka (polish gnocchi). i think we are going to be doing a big feast saturday as well, with another braising experiment coupled with a polish food infusion - it should make for some good food, and some good fodder.....

the newest codcheek member

i probably won't be able to post for week or two as we had a new addition to the codcheeks family on wednesday and he is going to take a bit of my time. . .welcome ben!!!

weeekend round-up

a few things that peaked my interest over the weekend:

• check out the amateur gourmets post on his free, white truffle meal at alain ducasse. it looks like a pretty amazing meal - the few times i have had white truffles i was blown away. this is the season, so find a place that does some dishes with white truffles and get there. scott, our man on the street in san jose, said we need to start doing stuff like this on codcheeks too. so, any restaurants in the bay are that want to give us a free meal in exchange for talking about it to our vast reading audience, email me and let's talk - help me help you.


• even though i hardly mention it, i swear i live next to one of the best restaurants in the city, coco500. i walk by this place every night on my way home from work, and the smells coming from inside always knock my socks off. i've eaten there probably 7 times this year, and at my last meal about a month ago, my wife, who always liked the food, but was never amazed, was finally converted after eating off the new menu. i had the duck pot pie that night and thought i saw god twice. with the restaurant a 1/2 block away, i think it will be our place for a quick night out when the baby comes (any day now i hope) - no complaints here.


• i did some quick and easy cooking last night (roasted pork tenderloin with a simple white wine and mustard reduction sauce, spinach, and salad) so i won't go too much into the details there. saturday however, i braised some short ribs, and they were pretty tasty. it was a bit impromptu - we went to golden gate meats (best butcher in san francisco in my opinion) for the previously mentioned pork tenderloin, and knowing that i am game for anything, one of the guys pulled out french cut short ribs. i'd never seen short ribs cut like that, bought two, and brought them home. that being said, i've had some requests to write a detailed run down on the braising methods in general, so i meticulously photographed every step and i am in the process of putting together a very long and technical post. . . it will get up in the next few days barring any bundles of joy coming my way. . .


• lastly, it looks like blogger (the platform i use bring you the awesomeness that is codcheeks) will be adding some new features in the coming months - the most exciting one is "tagging" so i can start categorizing things a bit better (recipes, reviews, etc.) - does it make me a big geek that this is really exciting to me? yes, yes it does.

finally, yahoo food! what??

since i'm an ex-yahoo and i happen to be obsessed (but in a good way) with food, i figure i should probably say something about yahoo's big announcement yesterday, the launch of yahoo food!!! my first thought to this big move was and still is, "WTF??!!" this will definitely help them beat google and microsoft, right? right?! my second thought was that i totally missed the boat! i was a little unhappy with my situation at yahoo, but if i could have transferred into the food department, i mean, c'mon! (fyi, i love my new job, please do not fire me!)

another one bites the dust

it's with a sad heart that i read today that enrico's in north beach closed last night. it was a north beach institution and a san francisco institution. it was an integral part of the music and hipster/beat scene that flourished in the city, and even though it had fallen upon hard times recently, it will still be missed.....