Sake-Poached Asian Pears with Ume and Li Hing Sauce
It all started when one of my friends emailed me the link to the Pear Recipe Challenge at Santana Row. Basically, people enter a recipe using pears, and 5 of them would be chosen to present their recipes before a panel of judges (one of the judges is going to be FoodGal, Carolyn Jung) at the Pear Festival at Santana Row on October 19. The winner would get a cookbook, a restaurant gift card, a shopping spree, and their name in lights, (well, okay, their name on the SR website…close enough). It got me thinking because I recalled seeing this amazing picture of a poached pear in "Working the Plate" by Christopher Styler and wanting to do a poached pear myself.
Last week, we visited the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences, located inside Golden Gate Park in the beautiful City by the Bay, San Francisco. The museum had been closed for years while they rebuilt it from the ground up to be one of the most amazing facilities in the world. We had taken the kids to the Steinhart Aquarium when it was temporarily located in downtown San Francisco, and I was looking forward to its grand reopening to experience it more fully. So when I saw FoodGal Carolyn Jung’s post about her sneak-peak into the Academy before the doors opened, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we went as well.
Once inside, we immediately went down to the under-water level of the Steinhart Aquarium. There, you are greeted with an expansive viewing room of the deepest live coral exhibit in the world, the Philippine Reef Tank. Diver Dave Chan was in the water, answering questions from the audience.
Diver Dave Chan in the Philippine Reef Tank at the California Academy of Sciences
If you’ve ever visited an Asian bakery, you’d have noticed that the tables are predominantly covered with bread-y pastries.
Baked Red Bean Buns
Some are savory and others sweet. Most of the fillings are very common to Asians, like red bean paste, lotus paste, and custard for sweet buns or charsiew, curry chicken, pork/meat floss, and sausage for savory buns. I especially enjoy things that have red bean filling in it.
