Living Rancho Delux: November 2014

I received a copy of Sunday Suppers Recipes + Gatherings by Karen Mordechai for review.

Karen Mordechai has put together a lovely cookbook for small gatherings and meals to enjoy at home or taken on the road. I was first taken with the front cover of the book, simple and inviting. There was something about the look of linen fabric with a gorgeous photograph of a simple peasant meal on the cover, I knew this would be the cookbook I would use to entertain my closest family and friends.

Karen's photographs in this cookbook are beautifully done and I enjoyed the introduction, it gave me an understanding of Karen's passion.

Each section of the cookbook starts with a menu and a description of the plot and wonderful quotes, I find this cookbook very romantic and thoughtful.

The very first is Morning and the Menu is Cream Biscuits with Jam Butters, Perfectly Scrambled Eggs, Greens, Blood Orange, halved, Green Juice and French Press Coffee. I looked forward to reading the next menu and start planning what I was going to make first from Sunday Suppers.

For this review I picked the Date Cake with Toffee Sauce. This is one of the best Date Cakes I have ever made. The cake is moist with a lot of flavor and the toffee sauce is perfection that I will use with other recipes.

Karen is the founder of Sunday Suppers, a Brooklyn based food community and blog. Karen also is a photographer and stylist who has won the 2013 Food and Wine Digital Award, top food blog Saveur and number six in Babble.com top 50 Design Blogs. You can find Karen's work in New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, New York magazine along with other publications.

Karen Mordechai Photography
Sunday-Suppers Food and Community

I would like to thank Blogging for Books for their generosity with supplying we with a copy of Sunday Suppers.

After a year of planning and postponing our vacation we finally made it to California to visit our daughter. It was a good and bad trip. Five days before we were leaving I woke up with a sore throat, the next day it turned into a full blown cold. My husband thought it best that I stop my exercising and baby myself until we left. (we really didn't want to postpone our trip again) I sat around in my pjs wrapped in a blanket, drinking hot tea, not to mention a couple of shots of bourbon, it didn't help my sore throat but I was toasty.

The drive to CA was perfect, no traffic and smooth sailing, we arrived at our hotel at 3:30 in the afternoon. The hotel wasn't great but it was the only one close to our daughters apartment that allowed dogs. Olive was in carpet heaven being able to zip around the room and have traction, she even jumped up on the bed and back down, she has never done that at home.

Anna and her boyfriend Cliff came by after she got off work. We were tired from our drive and thought it best just to pick up dinner and bring it back to the room and I was so happy that Chipolte was just around the corner from our hotel.

The next morning we had a full day planned.....Bill woke up with a sore throat and grumpy. He decided to stay at the hotel. With my purse stuffed with Kleenex and cough drops we were off to Fashion Island in Newport Beach.

Anna and I have a tradition of going to Mariposa Cafe in Neiman Marcus, we love their popovers and strawberry butter, I also had their cream of mushroom soup which was delicious. (note to self I need to order the cookbook)

We walked around and checked out the stores, so much had changed since I was there 2 years ago. Another place we had our foodie hearts set on was Yard House to get the Grilled Artichoke appetizer, we also ordered the Hawaiian Poke Stack. We had a fantastic server Adam who helped me pick out a drink and now I'm all about the Moscow Mules, the one I had was a Ruby Red Moscow Mule. I have already ordered me a couple of the copper mugs.

Wednesday we nixed all of our plans and just enjoyed each others company. Anna and Cliff also had colds, so we were just one big sick happy family.

Thursday Anna, Cliff, my mom and I had Dim Sum, it was so good and I was in Chinese food heaven. We did a little shopping at Target I was on the hunt for a Christmas pillow that I spotted and didn't buy, I have it now.

Friday Anna wanted me to go to Soul Cycle and experience her work-outs. Oh my gosh, if there was a Soul Cycle close to me I would be there. Now, because I was new and had no clue what I was doing I did the best I could, watching everyone else do the routine was making me want to get into this. The next day and a few days after the workout I was sore, but a good sore.

During the trip I was able to get my fill of my Asian craving with a Sushi lunch, my pampering getting a mani and pedi and a trip to BevMo.

My plan is to fly back to California in the spring to visit people I missed, shop and eat at all the places we had to cancel. I would have been happy just spending the week at the hotel with Anna having a giant slumber party.