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.

Asian pear and Napa cabbage kimchi.

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

Kohlrabi kimchi.

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

Anchovies and parsley.

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

Steamed Japonica rice with powdered scallion.

Pickled long beans with pork and chile peppers.

Chrysanthemum leaf and scallion salad.

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

Pernil – Puerto Rican-style roast pork.

Salted walnuts, dried persimmons, sweet rice cakes

Marinated mussel, root vegetables.

Butter lettuce salad, French breakfast radishes, chervil.

Thousand year old quail egg, cabbage juice, ginger.

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

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

Chicken meatballs with ricotta and lemon.

Coconut chiffon cake

Sauternes.

Barbecued quail from Wolfe Ranch.

Endive salad with walnuts, mustard vinaigrette and apple.

Short ribs.

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

Quail liver mousse, au jus, black truffles.

Omija sorbet, olive oil

Spicy fermented bean paste with tomato, served with crudités.

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

Whipped ricotta cheese, chestnut honey, chopped pistachio nuts.

Broccoli rabe with garlic and lemon.

Shrimp tempura, jellyfish, seaweed

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

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

Milk pudding, salted caramel sauce, peat

Chicken wing stuffed with abalone and abalone liver mousse.

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

Blood sausage, sweet rice, squid ink, shiso.

Arctic char amandine, haricots verts, brown butter.

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.