Creatures of Habit

We love to try new spaces and places, however, we also have our list of never-to-be-missed spots that we continue to repeat every time we visit a city. San Francisco is probably the one city with our most tried and true favorites despite endless new places to experience.

Every time we are in San Francisco on a Saturday morning, we try to hit the Ferry Building Farmer's Market. It has grown to become a city and tourist favorite over the years, but hasn't lost any of its charm despite its growth. The building itself is beautiful and at over 100 years old, it was once a transportation hub for the city. We are always interested in spaces that allow you to experience history with a modern utilization.

We started our visit with coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee; it was a heat wave this trip so we opted for the New Orleans style iced coffee in lieu of our usual lattes; creamy and lightly sweet, it's the best iced coffee we've had this year.

Interior of the Ferry Building Farmer's Market

Primavera Mexican Tamale

We also always go to Primavera Mexican. We don't have a lot of authentic Mexican food in Orlando, yet it's one of our favorite cuisines. This trip we got the tamales and chilaquiles. Perfection!

Primavera Mexican Chilaquiles

It wouldn't be a trip to a farmer's market if we didn't bring back some goodies to keep the memories alive at home. This trip, we visited Dandelion Chocolate. We have a little bit of a fancy chocolate bar addiction, so we had to pick up some small batch dark chocolate. Be sure to head to their site and read about their artisan bean-to-bar process. If we lived there, we would definitely sign up for a class! 

We also picked up some lavender sugar, but we basically love all things lavender. A shortbread recipe is definitely to come.

We also rarely miss a trip to the Miette shop because eating macarons is something that is best done as much as humanly possible. Perfect "feet" and impeccable flavors. We paced ourselves with just three.

Ferry Building Farmer's Market | 1 Ferry Bldg Marketplace, San Francisco, CA 94111

Top of the muffin... TO YOU!!

That's a Seinfeld reference, in case you didn't catch it -- watch some comedic gold here. I'm pretty much known to quote Seinfeld daily, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of my comedienne heroes, so it probably won't be the first time I rope Seinfeld into a cooking post.

We've hit that time of the year in Florida where afternoon storms roll in every day and you get stuck inside for a few hours. Matthew left for his European tour a few days ago, so on days like these, it just ends up being me and Miyuki (our French Bulldog) holding down the fort. I find this to be perfect weather for baking.

I don't have a gluten allergy, but I'm always interested in working with alternative flours. I grew up on plain bleached white flour, and I don't think I ever knew you could bake with anything else until well into my 20s. 

One of my favorite baking cookbooks is La Tartine Gourmande, not only because I really love any variation on tarts and tar tines but because her book has helped me understand varying flours so well. Amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, brown rice, coconut, hazelnut -- just some of the interesting flours the book introduces you to.

I'm pretty much head over heels for anything with banana and chocolate. Throw some nuts in there, and I'm sold. And who doesn't love a muffin? A food that is socially acceptable as both a dessert and breakfast is a winner all around. These Banana Chocolate Hazelnut muffins are delicious and definitely different than the muffins I grew up on.

The recipe gave you a choice to use walnuts or hazelnuts, and I went with walnuts because they're pretty much my favorite nut.  The recipe also called for three kinds of flour -- hazelnut, quinoa, and buckwheat. I ended up using brown rice flour instead of quinoa flour because I had it in the pantry. They are both medium flours, so I thought the swap would be equivalent. The only thing about these muffins is that they didn't rise as much as I had expected, but perhaps that was the flour swap. Either way, puffy or not, these muffins take the cake! Definitely indulging in them for breakfast tomorrow.