I was anxious to use the newly arrived bounty of ingredients as soon as possible, so we invited some friends over for dinner, and decided to make a salad as a starter. Before deciding on the final roster of ingredients for the salad, we first tried out a critical pairing to see if it would taste good…

A luscious ripe fig with a small slice of triple cream goat brie drizzled with homemade guava jelly and a tiny twist of freshly gorund pepper. I know it may sound odd, but it tasted incredibly good!

So to make the salad, I started with a few leaves of buttercrunch lettuce on a glass plate. I added three ripe figs, cut open with wedges of triple cream goat brie drizzled with guava jelly and some ground pepper. Next I added thin slices of prosciutto and several arils of pomegranate for color. A drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil and a few drops of aged balsamic vinegar and voila!

The salad was huge hit. The saltiness of the prosciutto worked well with the sweet ripe figs, the richness of the brie, the subtle flavor of guava jelly, hints of olive oil and hits of acid from the balsamic vinegar and the bursts of sweetness from the pomegranates over a few pieces of greens… YUM. Serious YUM. We made several salads on large plates and they were all wiped out. One of our guests couldn’t eat pork so we served it without the prosciutto and it worked well nonetheless. This salad was a feast for the eyes and tastebuds. And super easy to assemble if you happen to have access to all the ingredients…

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Family, friends and business colleagues have always been amazed by the contents of our luggage when we return from local or foreign trips. I once ran into a professional acquaintance of mine at the Singapore airport (she transiting from Kazakhstan or somewhere equally unusual) and me on the the way home from Melbourne. She grinned on seeing me at the departure gate, and immediately said “your reputation precedes you, open up your hand carry for inspection…” and she was amazed by food items within. So while others may have the latest electronics or gadgets, fancy watches or jewelry, perfume, clothing, etc., we are almost certainly likely as a family or individually to be carrying food or ingredients… Such was the case when Mrs. MM recently arrived from a trip to the U.S. and her last stop was to visit with friends and family for just three days in San Francisco. I love San Francisco, but the last time we visited as a family was nearly 9 years ago, and I was anxious to hear how Mrs. MM found the city this time around…

At my request, she managed to visit the Ferry Building Marketplace, and loved it. She immediately emailed that we would all three (MM, Mrs. MM and The Teen) have to return soon on a family trip. I knew it – San Francisco food stores, kitchen stores, markets, restaurants, etc. make it my absolutely MUST visit U.S. city soon. Throw in a side trip to Napa and it is a dream foodie escape. So first out of Mrs. MM’s luggage was a small loaf of sourdough bread from Boudin Bakery in the photo up top. Baked for 5 minutes in a hot oven to crisp it up, it will go perfectly with this nice selection of Californian and French cheeses, including a triple cream goat cheese, another triple cream, a blue cheese, parmesan and an organic cheese. It seems a bit frivolous to haul this kind of stuff across oceans in one’s luggage, particularly since the pleasure is so fleeting… But that is precisely why we consider ourselves so fortunate to be able to indulge like this every so often. I’d like to think of this as market research… I loved the postcard that came with the bread that gave clear instructions how to heat it and best prepare and enjoy it, a great idea for packaging and instructions for a Zubuchon… :)

San Francisco Treats (Part II), here.

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This dish is just a slight variation of the baked mussels I have featured before, this time using scallops. Everything came from the grocery, and it was dead easy to make. Buy some fresh or in this case, frozen scallops on the half shell. Heat your oven to 400F or higher. Melt some butter with minced garlic in the microwave, a step I like to do to avoid raw garlic on the shellfish which can be annoying. Sprinkle each scallop with some butter garlic mixture, then add a slice of pickled chili if you have it. Alternatively you can go with a small piece of chorizo or chinese ham. Then cover with a mixture of grated cheese and panko bread crumbs. Add some salt to the scallops if you like.

Bake this in a hot oven until the cheese melts and it turns slightly golden brown. So easy and so incredibly delicious. Far better with fresh scallops but I just bought the frozen ones because they were in the cold case staring at me in the grocery. The frozen ones tend to stick to the shell after cooked, so if you like, lift the scallop meat off the shell and brush the shell with butter before you do the rest of the steps… that way it will come off the shell easily when cooked. This is a terrific party appetizer and it really gets your salivary glands going. The chorizo or ham and scallop variation sounds really good as well. :)

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