Several images are from a dinner in December at Benu. A few are from recent meals at Monsieur Benjamin and Mama Ji’s. The rest are scenes from our kitchen.

As usual, click a picture on the mosaic for a larger-sized version.

Coconut chiffon cake

Salted walnuts, dried persimmons, sweet rice cakes

Ginkgo flour “tortilla”, matsutake mushroom, pine needles, 10 year old aged pine syrup.

Omija sorbet, olive oil

Grilled veal short ribs, seasoned with sesame seed, perilla seed and pine nuts.

“Shark fin” soup – Dungeness crab, ham, egg white and black truffles.

Chicken with tree ears and Chinese mushrooms in a clay pot.

Arctic char amandine, haricots verts, brown butter.

Steamed Japonica rice with powdered scallion.

Caviar with hand-pressed sesame oil, sesame leaf and daikon.

Marinated mussel, root vegetables.

Thousand year old quail egg, cabbage juice, ginger.

Left: Pickled crosnes and pearl onion. Right: XO sauce, house-made soy sauce.

Blood sausage, sweet rice, squid ink, shiso.

Kohlrabi kimchi.

Butter lettuce salad, French breakfast radishes, chervil.

Short ribs.

Shrimp tempura, jellyfish, seaweed

Xiao long bao with lobster coral, house-made soy sauce, vinegar.

Broccoli rabe with garlic and lemon.

Asian pear and Napa cabbage kimchi.

Pickled long beans with pork and chile peppers.

Whipped ricotta cheese, chestnut honey, chopped pistachio nuts.

Chrysanthemum leaf and scallion salad.

Butter with orange blossom honey and ginseng. Not shown are some sprouted grain rolls.

Black truffle steamed bun.  Basically a play on Peking duck – stuff the bun with quail, top with condiments and enjoy.

Chicken meatballs with ricotta and lemon.

Monkfish liver steamed in rice wine, with toasted seaweed and chili.

Spicy fermented bean paste with tomato, served with crudités.

Sauternes.

Anchovies and parsley.

Chicken wing stuffed with abalone and abalone liver mousse.

Barbecued quail from Wolfe Ranch.

Quail liver mousse, au jus, black truffles.

Pernil – Puerto Rican-style roast pork.

Sea urchin marinated in fermented crab sauce, with thinly sliced celtuce

Endive salad with walnuts, mustard vinaigrette and apple.

Milk pudding, salted caramel sauce, peat

I’ve never committed to a regular blog posting schedule in the nearly 13 years this blog has been in existence, but I suppose I should start doing that, no? That should be my New Year’s resolution…or one of them, anyway.

So here’s to a beginning of sorts.