Short Term Memory

Not all food memories have to be from childhood, younger days, or even North Bay memories.

Today I went with friends to a lovely tea place in Benicia and we created wonderful memories.

One of us was a newly-initiated member of the group we belong to, P.E.O., which is a philanthropic educational organization that gives scholarships and loans to women. We were gathered to talk about our ways and what we do so well, raise money for women's scholarships. Of course we also talked about a wide range of other subjects, from travel to friendships to health issues.

The Camellia Tea Room, where we enjoyed the hot tea and delicious food, has been there on 1st Street in Benicia for many years. The room is beautifully decorated and today they had some Christmas decorations up, along with garlands and pretty lanterns on the tables.

The Full Tea here is presented on three tiers. The top tier has a selection of finger sandwiches, the middle tier has scones and tiny bowls of jam and whipped cream, and the bottom tier has sweets. Today's sandwiches included traditional cucumber sandwiches with herbed cream cheese, a tartine with chutney and sharp cheddar shreds and a third one that I can't remember the parts of, but I think it was turkey on pumpernickel. Since I was eating a delicious egg salad sandwich on herbed focaccia, which came with a small salad, I didn't really pay attention to the selection on the full tea tiers, but the cute lemon tart and the pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing looked really delicious.

Another in our party had a wonderful main dish salad with plenty of cashews and another had onion soup with toast and cheese on top. Everyone seemed quite pleased with their choice.

They have many kinds of sandwiches, salads, two soups, and plenty of combinations with sweets, plus an amazing choice of teas. My citrus blend, a black tea with lemon and orange, was delightful.

So today will be remembered for excellent food and tea, wonderful fun with good friends, and fine, cheerful service by our hostess and servers in beautiful surroundings. If you decide to go and make your own memories there, do make a reservation. They often have every table filled at lunchtime.

A Day Off

Life sometimes hands you an unexpected day. Mine was today. I thought that I had a day off...nothing scheduled on the calendar. That happens less frequently than you might think. Then I read my e-mail and made a phone call to an old and very dear girlfriend who was not feeling well on Monday (I took her to her doctor's office at her request) but was feeling even worse today.

Sweetie waved me off with a smile as I went to pick my friend up to take her to the hospital emergency room. He was happy that I was able to help her out since it was a day off. He also was planning on crawling around below the house seeing what he could do for something with straps and knew that he would have lots of time to do so without interruption.

My friend and I headed to the new Sutter hospital in Santa Rosa. She wasn't ill enough to need an ambulance, thank heavens. Neither of us had been to this facility but it is right next door to a place where my daughter used to work, so I knew the way.

Everyone was outstanding in the ER, and the equipment is brand new and does everything but stand on it's head and clap. My friend is doing better and they figured out what was wrong, but we were there from 9:20 am and I left at about 4:15 pm. A long day off, but a satisfying one. I was able to help explain her symptoms, to help with the hospital gown, to keep her company, tuck in the blanket when her feet got cold, keep her from getting bored by telling her Pohnpei stories that Sweetie told me, and get her to laugh later in the day. We have over ten years of friendship so we know each other pretty well.

All in all, it was an interesting day off. I know she would do the same for me, anytime. A good day.

No food today...too tired to cook.

Wood Fired

A friend, a Lassie from Nebraska, has a wood fired oven in her backyard and knows how to use it. For Memorial Day Sweetie and I were invited over for pizza,so I was able to see how it is done in that oven. BTW, it's been two months since Sweetie sliced his fingers and he is doing really well with the recovery. He can button his shirt cuff with the left hand again...a true milestone since it requires that he use his thumb where it was injured. Yay!

I know that I just posted about pizza, but wood fired pizza is even better! These were smaller pizzas, about 9 inches in diameter, but that was just big enough to cut into 6 pieces so we could each have some.

 First the Lassie from Nebraska cleaned it out since this is the first use of the season, then she built a fire on the oven floor, which is almost shoulder high. Once the fire was going well and had heated one part of the oven, she moved it around to other parts of the oven...the inner roof of the oven let her know when to move the fire to heat other parts. Eventually she moved the fire to the back corner and used a cool laser tool to measured how hot the floor was...800 degrees F!

By the time she had prepared the first pizza on a long-handled paddle, the oven had cooled enough to bake the pizza. She slid the pizza off the paddle (thanks to the corn meal which kept the dough from sticking to the paddle) onto the hot oven floor. She used a smaller long-handled paddle to turn the pizza half way through cooking, but the whole thing took about 3 minutes. It was outstanding! The crust was crisp and golden brown and the toppings heated through and the cheese melted.

Eventually I helped with making the pizzas so that she could do the baking (hot work)

and we could have to kinds ready almost at the same time. She had already portioned the dough (and it was a nice simple dough without any oil), so we sprinkled corn meal on the paddle,

let gravity help stretch the dough into a sort-of-circle, then did the final stretching on the paddle on top of the corn meal. Some of the pizzas were then brushed with olive oil before being topped.

She had prepared a lot of topping combinations. We started with classic Margherita pizza, with tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese. Simply wonderful!

Next up was Scottish smoked salmon, dill, and fresh cheese. That may have been my favorite, but then I do love salmon.

There was one with blue cheese, caramelized onions, fresh thyme - a perfect flavor combo. You can see that the blue cheese melts down so it is hard to tell it is there...until you bite into it and taste the blue cheese with the perfection of the cooked onions.

Another had yukon gold potatoes (tiny slices), asparagus, thyme and Fontina cheese - delicious!

How about pesto, tomato, brie and asparagus? - a winner.

The last one was a combo with bits and pieces of many of the forgoing ones, although we didn't mix in the smoked salmon...that would have been a waste of excellent salmon.

Although we had a relatively small piece of each pizza, it was filling after the 6th or 7th slice. The pizza was followed by a wonderful spinach salad.

For dessert we had a homemade creamy cheese pie with fresh blueberries and strawberries. Truly a memorable and delightful meal and the company was wonderful, too. Thanks Lass!