I am surprised it’s taken me so long to share this “recipe” (which is really more of a how-to than a recipe) because it so often makes an appearance at my house. The key is to get great quality ingredients and let them really shine.

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I am one of those rare San Francisco natives – that’s right, I popped out at UCSF hospital and grew up in Cole Valley. After a stint in San Diego for college, and a few formative years in Brooklyn, I moved back to the city for good. I tried out the Tenderloin, the Mission, and even (gasp) Oakland before settling into the Castro. So believe me when I tell you that I know my San Francisco treats. Here are 10 things to eat in San Francisco before you die, in no particular order.

Carnitas Burrito “Dorado Style” at La Taqueria

What if you took a perfect, rice-free burrito and then grilled it on a flat-top to give it an extra crunch? That’s what they have been doing at La Taqueria for decades. This is the best burrito out there. I love it so much I constructed an epic gingerbread La Taqueria last Christmas. It’s that good. It was also recently voted best burrito in the U.S. Don’t listen to those carpetbaggers who claim allegiance to Taqueria Cancun or El Farolito. I theorize that those people only eat burritos when they are drunk so their burrito judgment is impaired.

Brutti Ma Buoni Cookies at Dianda’s 
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Dear fellow citizen,

Here we are sharing that most intimate of experiences, the economy section of a modern airplane. Welcome! I can see by the sour, pained look on your face that you have already decided that you hate me and everything I stand for because I am traveling with a small child. I sense you are annoyed. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear the air (ha ha.)

Here’s another fun one for the holidays – swirly red and green sugar cookies! I love soft sugar cookies that melt in your mouth. They are so easy to make and getting this swirled effect is really simple to do. So pretty!

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Want to make your cookies look super cool? Here’s an idea that got a lot of rave reviews at my holiday party: glittery coconut macaroons.

Did you know that edible glitter is really a thing? It’s really fun to play around with! I usually buy the Disco Dust brand, which comes in dozens of colors. The “hologram silver” is my favorite for this kind of application.

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These are some pretty magnificent chocolate caramel cookies! I have been eating them like crazy. A tiny bit salty, not too sweet, oozing molten caramel… yeah. So good.

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Here in Northern California it’s been raining like crazy and the skies darken so early each afternoon. This kind of weather almost demands you make something nourishing and warm, with just a little bit of spice. This green lentil coconut soup fills the bill perfectly.

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A friend recently told me she had received a jar of truffle salt as a gift, but didn’t know what to do with it. She came to the right place, for I have answers! And strong opinions about what you can do with it!

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Do you believe in reincarnation? Based on how much I enjoy making and eating rainbow foods, I think I may have been a unicorn in a former life. I have been wanting to try rainbow cookies for some time now but all of the recipes I found looked pretty cool but seemed like they wouldn’t actually taste that great. So I felt compelled to invent the rainbow tie-dye snickerdoodle, which offers both good looks and great taste.

So how did I do it? It was a little laborious but not too difficult to pull off. I made snickerdoodles and divided the dough into 6 roughly equal parts. I colored each of these with one of the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. After some time in the fridge to chill the colored doughs, I set up an assembly line and tore off little wads of each color and made a dough caterpillar. I turned the caterpillars in on themselves and rolled them gently into balls. Then I rolled the balls in white sugar and set them on the cookie sheet.

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Up until recently I always made bacon in a pan on the stovetop, but now that I have learned to cook it in the oven I realize I wasted many of my prime bacon-cooking years on an inferior cooking method.

There are many things that suck about cooking bacon on the stovetop. For one thing, I never have a pan large enough to cook all the bacon I desire so I invariably have to use two pans (which means more cleanup) or cook multiple batches (which means some of the bacon gets cold.) It requires attention to make sure the bacon is cooking evenly, not burning, and that the individual pieces are cooking at the same rate (which they never are.) Also, there is always a lot of greasy splatter on the stove to clean up afterwards. [Read more →]