Boa

Hey there,

For my grandparents anniversary (on Valentines Day) we took them to Boa Steakhouse. Funny, none of us ended up having steak! For my appetizer I had Tuna Tar Tar with thin toast. The tuna didn't have a lot of taste by itself, but when I added the toast it tasted really good. My mom had the same thing, she loved it, even my grandmother who hates raw fish liked it! My father had some of ours but he also had foie gras.

For my main course I had a medium rare cheeseburger with Camembert cheese. It was one of the best burgers I have ever had. There was a brioche bun that tasted like a bagel. In case you didn't know, I am a sucker for soft cheese so the moment I saw that it had Camembert and fries, I had to get it! My grandfather had the same thing but well-done and with regular cheese. My grandmother also had it the way grandpa did. My mother had raw salmon on a cracker that was too fishy for me and she said it was "OKAY". Dad had sea bass that was also too fishy. For the table we had chipotle lime corn, which was really good and only a little bit spicy and sour!

For dessert we had a plate of cookies, which I didn't have, big surprise, right! Me and my dad shared a marshmallow chocolate ice cream cup, it was too sweet and it tasted burnt.

That's all folks!

Who wants a cake from the pan?

Waking up from a sleepover and having pancakes is my cup of tea!

So, the morning after mysleepover I had my "cup of tea".

I love having pancakes because when I think of them, I think about

happy families and ihop. I also think about a book I read with my dad

when I was little called Little Babaji. That morning I ended up making

them with my mom, while my friend watched. I have to admit,

I did steal a little of the batter on my finger, shhhh!

Once the steaming little blobs of Gee ( which means butter in Indian)

were on our plates we cut them. Then we, at a snails pace poured

on the syrup. The sugary syrup, mixed with the buttery taste

of the cakes was deeeevine, as my sleepover buddy's dad always says!

We also had three of my FAVORITE fruits, Kiwi, Persimmon and Blackberries. The Kiwi was squishy and tart! Persimmon tastes like the name sounds, cinnamon. When I eat blackberries I love to eithersquish them in my mouth or pick off one piece at a time. To top it all off, we had a glass of superorange-tasting Orange Juice.

Tulu!

Do You Know The Way To Santa Fe??

We arrived in Santa Fe in time for Noches de las luminarias and bonfires up

Canyon Road. It was very overwhelming because there were so many people

and it went by so quickly but I really liked.

One cold morning we woke up and decided to eat at our hotel, The Inn of the Anasazi.

My father had a Chefs Skillet that I didn't try because it looked just like my

Huevos Rancheros. My mom had a plate of Bacon, egg and Guacamole quesadillas,

they were very good and crunchy. I like both turkey bacon and regular pork bacon

so I'm easy with both.

After breakfast we went on a cool hike. We went to a national monument called

Tent Rocks. The rocks were cone shaped and formed crevices. After the fun hike,

filled with snow and slips we had a picnic. There was one type of sandwich,

ham and cheese with veggies. We cut the sandwich into quarters and shared it.

It was very good with just enough meat to give it a smokey taste, cheese and

veggies to balance it out. That day we also went to a Pueblo and saw some

traditional dances. It was a very good Christmas day.

Adios amigos!

Golden Buddha

For our last night in Arizona we tried to go to a famous pizza place called Pizza Bianco, we arrived 30 minutes before they opened and asked the parking attendant how long the wait would be ( no take out) " Three and a half hours!" We said " thanks !" and went to a nice place that served Asian food called Golden Buddha.

First we had pork dumplings that were very nice and were not greasy at all! They were in a sauce that was like plum sauce but with scallions. Then we each had a bowl of soup, mom and I had soup with tofu and spinach. The soup was salty because of the spinach but the tofu made it sweet and soft. My dad had Sharks fin soup ( which he always orders whenever he sees it).

I would NEVER even try that! We all shared Peking Duck and made little tacos like this... first we take a fluffy burrito shell and put duck in it then add veggies, then add sauce and eat. We also had twice-cooked pork, that was really spicy but clean and great. For our next course we had really yummy Yang Chow fried rice ( my favorite) and Flounder. The Flounder was delicious and I liked it for two reasons, it was not fishy at all and it tasted like it had been prepared on the bbq. All in all a great meal ( and we didn't have to wait 3+ hours!).

We then drove to the Scottsdale Plaza, where Santa Claus was granting little chidrens wishes. We passed a Coldstone and since I had never been I tried it. I mixed Oreos with mint ice cream. It was mint-chocolate chip in the extreme! It was very cool to see them being mixed together on a board. I was a good night!

North of California

For winter break my family went to Arizona and Santa Fe. While we were in Arizona our friends who own an art gallery joined us for dinner at NoCa. NoCa stands for North of California and there were many choices on the menu that sounded good.

The chef gave us a special appetizer that was pomegranate seeds with fennel and orange. I personally did not like it because I don't like orange with other things. The Fennel tasted like licorice and it was squishy. The others at the table seemed to really enjoy it. For an appetizer both my mom and Peter ordered a Watermelon Radish Salad! It was very funny to see the radishes on the plate. I didn't try it but my mom rolled her eyes "in a good way" when she did. The rest of us ( me, my dad and Lisa) had Butternut Squash soup that was wonderful and tasted very sweet and creamy. I tasted even better with some Creme Fresh.

For my main course I had pasta that was shaped like flowers with a butter sauce. It was very rich and creamy, I couldn't finish all of the pasta because I felt quite full.

My mother had Veal Scallopini that I really loved because it was sweet and tangy at the same time and the Veal had a very strong taste of mushroom. My dad, Lisa and Peter all had scallops, that sadly, I did not try because I do not like the shape, color or texture of them. Sometimes scallops seem to move in front of me!

I may have been full, but not to full for dessert. We ordered a lemon tart with meringue, that was yummy with a capital Y. The meringue, was hard but when you put it in your mouth it turned soft. Also for dessert, every table automatically gets a big plate full of homemade cotton candy. " You can't brag about fluffy until you try this cotton candy!"

that's all for today!

check out the gallery at www.lisasettegallery.com

Last week my parents took me to a new sushi restaurant called Shu. It was really good and I would like to go there again. I am only going to tell you about the dessert I had. I looked at the dessert menu and saw something that said ‘Banana Spring Rolls’. It sounded more exciting than ice cream. I ordered it and when It came I knew I had made a good choice. Arriving on a plate covered in crisscross chocolate sauce lines, with a perfect scoop of Green Tea ice cream in the center. The ice cream had berries on top and chocolate sauce too. Around the base of the ice cream were four Banana Spring Rolls. A layer of thin crispy pastry was filled with gooey banana on the inside and a layer of powdered sugar on the outside. This of course, was drizzled with chocolate sauce. The Green Tea ice cream was very mellow and not too flavorful, which was sweet and also really cold. The spring rolls themselves were the best “spring rolls” I have ever had. The whole plate was sweet. The banana was a very good banana and not too ripe. The dessert was the best Japanese dessert I have had yet!

Sayonara!

Fudge!

Every year around Christmas time my mom starts to make the perfect blend of sugar, chocolate and holiday spirit. This food is her famous fudge, a delicacy that can soften even the grouchiest neighbors heart! This time I was out of school on holiday, so I helped make the first batch. There is one ingredient that I do not like at all, and that is chocolate. Our families secret recipe makes the chocolate taste very good and that is thanks to all the other ingredients.

There is Carnation Evaporated Milk, butter, vanilla and sugar(lots of it!). Sometimes we even add walnuts to make it taste better. Baking fudge is all about the time on the stove, even a few seconds can make or break a block of fudge. I love to stir the mixture and watch all the gooey chocolate become visible. One of my favorite parts are when we pour it into the baking trays and either me or my dad gets to lick the spoon. My other favorite part is the taste test at the end! The only hard part is we make over 25 boxes of it!

a sweet good-bye to all!

How to spice up a homemade chicken salad sandwich

Last Saturday we all made a chicken salad sandwich with arugula in it. The chicken salad was really good and very satisfying by itself and the arugula had a kick but was a little bit dry. It was an average, but superb tasting sandwich. If you want to spice it up you can add a splash of hot sauce, some balsamic vinegar or some lemon. ( I would suggest the balsamic vinigar, I love it)

The day before we had the sandwich I had a tennis lesson and we bought a bottle of fruit punch gatorade. After the lesson I put the gatorade in our freezer and it froze. The next day I got it out and it was frozen so I tried every way in my power to get the piece of frozen gatorade out of the bottle. I ended up just taking the bottle outside and smashing it on the ground ten times then putting it in a cup. So for lunch I had a spiced up chicken salad sandwich and a coffe cup of frozen gatorade. The gatorade tasted like a slushy you would get from the zoo (MY favorite place) The sandwich was really magnificent and they should hire us to make them for the First- class cabin on airplanes! Tomorrow is Halloween and I will probably write up a review on some top- notch candy!

That's all today! :) :) :) :)

Yesterday it was my Grandmother's birthday. So we went on a drive out to Ojai Valley. We ate at a restaurant called Azu. It was very cold in there!

We ordered tapas to start. A warmed brie with honey/lemon sauce, candied walnuts and grilled toast. It was really good because brie is my favorite cheese and I love honey and burnt toast. Then we had dates wrapped in bacon and stuffed with sausage. The dates were great, I don't usually eat them but these were wrapped in bacon! The dates were sweet and chewy, the bacon was crunchy and smokey and the sausage in the middle was spicy. Yummy and warm in my tummy. We also had ground lamb kibobs which were probably my least favorite, because they tasted too gamey. After that we had a chili's rellanos, which I have written about before. These were very different, because they had a light creamy tomato sauce with extremely spicy chili's.

My parents had an arugula salad, the only part I tasted was the Feta cheese (which was very good). For my main, I had a Kobe beef bruger. The burger was supposed to be medium rare, but it came very well done. It was still very good, but it was very black. I liked the french fries, which were skinny and mushy. After lunch we went to a homemade ice cream parlor, because it was a hot day. I had two scoops, one was vanilla caramel, which I love because I love both vanilla and caramel. My other scoop was blue oreo, it is the same as original oreo but blue - which makes it more popular. My Grandma had two scoops also, coffee and pistachio. It was a really great day!

Than's all Folks!