This is the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.  Not necessarily this exact one, but one like it.  The peanut butter, banana, granola, and honey sandwich on panini pressed buttered bread is the greatest mix of texture that I’ve ever had.   It’s the reason that I had to have a griddle.  The key is to get fairly thin bread.  It can’t be too thick.  I recently had a peanut butter and jelly at a local sandwich shop that was made with thick nine grain hearty wheat bread.  The bread was great, but completely mismatched with PB&B.  It HAS to be thin.

The banana can’t be too ripe — slightly green is best.  After a couple minutes in the press, the peanut butter and honey get super melty, and the filling is like molten hot banana lava.  It has to be piping hot.  It’s not the same thing if it isn’t run through the panini press.

More than vegetables are coming out of our garden this year.  We’ve had close to record amount of rain in Ohio so planting has happened a lot later than we envisioned.  The upside of all of this water are the beautiful peonies that we’ve got growing in the garden.

I’ve been quite addicted to Chicago style hot dogs for the last year or so.  It’s not always easy to get them in the middle of Ohio, so this past weekend we made the trek to the one place in the world where you’re guaranteed to get a spectacular Chicago style dog – Wrigley Field.

Until Thursday night, I’ve never tasted a morel.  Ever.  I’m thankful that my first taste was of fresh ones.  My friend Seth found a dozen or so small ones in his aunt’s yard.  He was gracious enough to share.  Neither of us had ever had them, and our attempt to describe them was strange.  We couldn’t equate the flavor to anything else we’ve ever had.  We both love mushroom, and wanted to compare them to other mushrooms that we’ve had, but couldn’t.  Are they pure umami?  Maybe.  As luck would have it, I found a rather large one in my yard as I was mowing this afternoon.  Round two comes tomorrow.

We were in SF for a few days in March and we stopped by the Woodhouse Fish Company on a recommendation from my brother-in-law.  This is their amazing lobster roll and fries.  The sourdough bread had a great crunch to it and the lobster salad wasn’t too runny with mayo like others I’ve had.  I’d definite stop back in for another one next time we’re in the Bay Area.

On this snowy and icy day I’m thinking back to a warm summer day sitting on the patio at Relish Modern Tapas in Mason, Ohio.  Their beef capaccio plate is one of our favorite dished on the menu.

This is my first attempt at tackling a whole recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook.  Having New Year’s Eve off from work gave me a lot of time to prep – which if you’ve ever seen some of the recipes in the book you’ll know is usually necessary.

The Mac and Cheese portion is orzo, creamy lobster bisque, and mascarpone cheese.  The wafer on top of the lobster is freshly grated parmesan backed into a crisp wafer.

My brother in law brought me some really great coffee from SF when they recently visited us.  This is the Panama Duncan Estate Reserve.  Obviously it had to go through the French press — I wasn’t about to defile it with the auto drip that I normally use.  It’s a little pricey, but definitely had a unique character that you won’t find at your typical Midwest grocery.  Order online at FourBarrelCoffee.com.

Easily the best hot dog I’ve ever had, this is the PukaDog.  The bread was incredible and the sauce and cheese selection was what really pulled it all together.

After learning about Jamie Lauren from Top Chef, we stopped into Absinthe on one of our trips to SF.  This was one of the many small plates that we sampled during the trip.