Day of Cooking AKA "I'm Taking a Day Off Work Because I'm Sick"

Call me crazy, but on my sick days, I like to buckle down and make a week's worth of food and store it all in the fridge. I think part of it stems from me not wanting to be bored. I'm not a television watcher, and my radio is broken so I can't listen to it for long without getting severely irritated with the static in the background.

I've also run out of good recipe books and novels to read. So, stuck with a refrigerator full of produce and much time on my hands, I run over to Whole Foods to round out the ingredients and start cooking. From 2pm until about 8:15pm, I have been in th kitchen chopping, dicing, blending, wrapping and mincing.

I made some carnival squash soup, swiss chard and tomato sauce to be paired with penne later in the week, sauteed broccoli raab, pickled morning radishes, kale and canellini ragout, pork wontons and fingerling potato salad with green chile-cilantro salsa.

It all turned out well. I feel relaxed, much better than I did yesterday, and actually ate a few items.

Check out the wontons I made:

mwahaha...my legions of wontons!

I Won!

I won!
I won!
I won!

I'm off to Chicago to compete in the finals in January. YEE HAW!

Iron Chef Competition

This Saturday, I'll be cooking against two other foodies at Bloomingdales in an Iron Chef competition. Needless to say, I am very excited. So much so that I went to Whole Foods tonight, bought the ingredients that I'd be using during the competition and practiced this evening using a borrowed waffle iron. The thought of doing a cooking demo in front of a few well-known chefs tickles my ribs.

By cooking and figuring out plating issues prior to the competition, most of the major issues were resolved, and the recipes turned out pretty well. I am going to make a triple decker breakfast sandwich from pumpkin waffles, with bacon, tomato and cheddar. I'll also serve some ginger-orange yogurt on the side.

Wait, have I told you how excited I am?

Here are some photos from tonight:

Miso Soup

Miso soup is one of those extremely simple soups I like to make whenever I'm in the mood for something salty and hot. Usually I end up drinking the broth straight from a large coffee mug. I have made this so many times, I simply eyeball the amounts to add.

However, for you miso neophytes, and measuring fanatics, here's a pretty good recipe (with measurements):

Easy Miso Soup

For the dashi:
4 cups of water
2 large pieces of kombu
one handful of shaved bonito

One large, rounded tablespoon of either red or yellow miso paste

Optional ingredients:
1 tbsp of chopped scallions
3 oz. small soft tofu cubes
1 tablespoon of dried wakame or dulse
A few thin slices of daikon radish
2 or 3 reconstituted shitake mushrooms, sliced

Bring the water to a hard boil, then remove it from the heat source. Place the kombu pieces in the pot and cover for 8 minutes. Once the water acquires the kombu flavor, toss (or eat!) the kombu and bring the pot of kombu-flavored water back on the heat source at low-medium heat.

Once the water gets warm again, but before a boil, add the bonito flakes and steep for a minute or two. Skim off any foam or scum that accumulates on the top of the broth, then pour the broth through a fine sieve. You don't want the bonito flakes, just the pure dashi broth. Toss the bonito in the trash, the flavor is mostly gone and the soggy flakes are rather useless now.

Place the dashi back on the stove at medium heat, and in a small bowl, put the miso and a few tablespoons of the broth together to thin out the paste. This will prevent it from clumping in the soup when you mix all of the ingredients together.

If you are adding daikon, wakame, shitakes or tofu, now is the time to throw those in the broth and cook for 3-5 minutes until hot.

Finally, turn off heat, mix in the thinned miso paste, add your other optional ingredients and enjoy.

I always do in my giant green coffee mug!

Napa Cabbage Casserole

One small head of Napa cabbage cut into chunks
One can of cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup of whole milk
1/2 onion rough diced
10 reconstituted shitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 30 min, sliced, keeping 1/2 cup of the mushroom water
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp fine white pepper
1 cup of shredded gruyere or swiss cheese
1/4 cup flour
Vegetable oil for cooking

Cook the cabbage and onion in vegetable oil until cooked through and wilted. Take out of large pan. Add more oil, then flour and make simple roux. Add mushrooms, salt and cabbage/onion mixture. Stir fry until thick, and then add mushroom water, milk and cream of mushroom soup. Cook down until thick.

Put mixture in casserole dish, spread cheese over top layer. Sprinkle white pepper over and then broil until cheese browns.

I added crimini mushrooms and pumpkin in this particular photo. I also had some really old cheese in the fridge I wanted to use. Turned out more stew-like than creamy casserole, but still pretty freaking tasty with steamed brown rice.

Simple Watercress Salad

What do you eat for dinner when you've stuffed yourself silly with pasta for lunch? Salad, of course! A summery, peppery and light salad.

Ingredients:
arugula
watercress
red grapes
endives
Roquefort
a light vinaigrette with white balsamic and dijon mustard

Pizza Dough Recipe

OK. Pizza experiment. Day 2.

First day's pie came out sponge-y and flavorless. So, I added more garlic and cheese, and a ton more salt and pepper, which really did make a difference in taste. I rolled out the dough thinner, about 1/8" all around. This technique allowed for a crisper and more authentic crust and crunch. Pat on back, it turned out really well tonight. The real beauty of pizza is that anything tastes great on it. I topped mine with chevre, sweet peppers, heirloom tomatoes, garlic and a couple of fried eggs.

I can vouch for prissy Ms. de Laurentiis' pizza dough, but here are my measurements (I strayed a little from the original recipe):

Pizza Dough

3.5 cups organic unbleached flour
1 cup organic bleached flour
3.5 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
One packet of yeast
1.5 tbsp sugar
4 cups of warm water (110-115 degrees. This is important as it allows the yeast to activate properly)
2 tsp sea salt

Mix sugar, water and yeast together. Let sit about 15 minutes until foam develops. In a large bowl, combine the salt, flour, yeast water mixture and the canola and olive oils together. Using your hands, knead dough into ball. Transfer the ball of dough into another bowl that has been coated with some oil so as to allow the dough to rise. Cover with a towel or cling wrap. Wait about 1 hour.

The result should be a sponge-y dough ball about the size of a cantaloupe. Makes about 4 medium sized pizzas.

Wow, the egg on the right looks like it had the stomach flu:

Sufferin' Succotash!

I won't even begin to tell you how long it took to chop and dice everything. (And yes, that is bacon in my succotash)

Cold Soba Noodles

I made some delicious soba noodles with just a touch of cilantro and scallions (scandalous, I know!), but they turned out very fine and Q. There is not one drop of oil to prevent the noodles from sticking because I put them in an ice wash as soon as they were done cooking in boiling water.

There is nothing better than a mouthful of clean-tasting buckwheat noodles with a little bit of ponzu and bright cilantro and spicy scallions.

More Tasty Photos!

Tasty Photos!

Persistence Pays Off

After being a fairly annoying nuisance in my Senior Director of Restaurant PR's life, she finally caved in and asked how much I charged for freelance work.

Corporate restaurant writing career, here I come!

In The Professional Kitchen, Part Deux

It all went very well Saturday night, without any major glitches except for one where we though we had finished a course with all of the tables and one of the servers slowly saunters up to the service counter and says her 7-top was ready for their salad. I had never wanted to strangle someone more than at that moment, but I held my breath and muttered something akin to, "We're out of salad ingredients because we thought everyone communicated the salads had been served. I'll sub something in, but next time, you need to communicate your table status to us."

Anyway, the Executive Chef worked the crowd and manned a portion of the service, but I did most of the prep in the afternoon and also plated/prepped every course. We did a fine job for a group of mostly nonprofessional volunteers. The food was edible, and given the one unfortunate prosciutto display in a peach salad, it felt good to serve all of those dishes.

*pats self on back*

In The Professional Kitchen

One of my recurring dreams these past few years has been to work in a professional kitchen with a real chef. It's finally going to happen this weekend when I work as a line cook for my friends who are putting on a Burning Man fundraiser for their camp.
"Tasty" (http://sf.tasty-music.com/) has been around for a while and although I used to be an active participant in their shenanigans since the inception a couple of years ago when I was still lolling around with the group. Only now, I have become much more of a stranger than I would like to be with this crowd of really interesting and fun 30-somethings.

Good people are hard to come by and I'm a idiot for letting good friends go. My intentions have never been mercurial, but sometimes people change, situations change and more often than not, I change. The intentions to stay in touch, to keep up with friends have always been there. In this sense, I'm not a very good friend. On the other hand, I am always there to fulfill a favor. I will always be there.

So, what started off as a quick request to borrow my roasting pan quickly turned into: "Some people bailed, can you be one of my line cooks this Saturday?"

YES. Yes, I can.

Tomales Bay

Hog Island Oyster Farm 7/12

Stuffed Calamari

My friend at work made these incredible stuffed calamari once, and I thought I'd try something akin to it tonight, but I also added a few twists since I have been craving pasta lately.

1 lbs of squid, whole, cleaned and tentacles removed

Stuffing:
One lemon, zest and juice
3/4 cup bread crumbs
2 scallions, chopped finely
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried basil
4 spanish anchovy filets, chopped finely with a little of the oil
One egg
Chopped calamari tentacles

Salt, pepper and olive oil to taste

Turn oven to 350 degrees.

Cleaning squid: This is perhaps the most time consuming part of preparing the dish. The tentacles and head can easily be pulled apart from the squid body. Pull out the sharp cartilage spine from the inside the body as well as any residual "guts" of the squid. Cut off the head/eyes from the tentacles and pull out the beak if it is still intact in the tentacles' portion. Pull off the outer speckled membrane on the body of the squid as you would a membrane on a hardboiled egg. Rinse the squid thoroughly after "cleaning" and squeeze some lemon juice. Set aside.



Mix stuffing ingredients together with a healthy amount of salt and pepper. Stuff into calamari bodies and brush olive oil over each stuffed calamari. Put in the oven on a cookie tray and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the calamari shrinks and turns golden.



I boiled some fresh spinach pasta, and stewed some diced tomatoes with some dried Italian spices and a bay leaf. Once the pasta was cooked, I topped it with the tomatoes and three of the calamari, squeezed some lemon juice on it, added a little more salt and pepper, and voila!

NYC Day One

Times Square



Chrysler Building



Caribbean Food Vendor Cart on Madison and 46th



The "Fame" School of Performing Arts (right next door to my hotel!)



So here I am.
Summertime in NY.
Old haunts, new faces.
Fun times.
Great eats.

All Things Natto

Since I'll be making natto sushi this week, I thought I'd pull some interesting reading I've found on Japanese fermented soybeans first. I know a lot of you have probably already tuned out after reading the subject heading, but I am convinced natto and shiso leaf maki rolls are the best way to eat the stuff if you're a beginner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natto
http://www.squidoo.com/IHeartNatto
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hartnupj/35640029/

For those who absolutly love natto, add a fresh raw quail egg on top or puree the beans and add it to an omelette with scallions. The simplest way to eat it is straight out of the package on top of hot steamed rice. I like to add a little flaked nori and shaved bonito to give it that extra punch. I also enjoy it as a topping to agedashi tofu.

* Fermented soybeans are very high in protein for you vegetarians out there.

Emily Gould

I just read a great article about blogging by Emily Gould in the NY Times' Magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/magazine/25internet-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

Frisee Salad and Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

I've been spending a lot of time with my man, but tonight, I had to work a little OT at the office, hit the gym (literally, I just started doing my punches and kicks with the bag at the gym again. My knuckles are bruised and a little bloody, and it makes for difficult typing, but it's all worth it).

When I came home, I wanted to reward myself with asparagus and spanish anchovies. However, not together. Something fresh and spring-like. Something satisfying without too much carbohydrates.

So, I made a frisee and raddichio salad with spanish anchovies marinated in a lemon juice, garlic, oregano, and olive oil. I just tossed the salad in white balsamic vinegar. I mixed the lemon juice, minced garlic, freshly chopped oregano, olive oil and some chili pepper flakes and then threw in a few anchovies to marinate. Then, I spooned the anchovies on top of the salad, making sure I had extra marinade spill onto the salad.



With the asparagus, I roasted them in the oven with olive oil and sea salt. Then, I wrapped prosciutto around every other stalk and laid them onto a plate. A little lemon juice drizzled over the asparagus, then grated pecorino romano, fresh ground pepper, and a sprinkling of chopped fresh leaf parsley. Finally, I boiled two organic eggs and placed them on top of the asparagus.

Food For Men

What instantly comes to mind when I think of cooking for my man? Julia's Roast Chicken with Lemon and Herbs.

I think I'll do a spring chicken this week with a side of baby carrots in an orange and herb reduction. Also, I'll do asparagus wrapped in parma ham, pecorino and topped with perfectly poached eggs. Also, a nice spring mesclun salad with white anchovies.

I hope my man likes my cooking!

My Kind of Therapy

I had plans this evening of going out to the Castro to celebrate the CA State Supreme Court's ruling to allow gay marriages. My friends Andy and Adrienne really just wanted another reason to go drinking again, but after having spent little time at home this week and getting a little antsy to just relax [and especially in this unseasonably warm weather], I bailed.

Honestly, the office has been stressing me out as of late. The work keeps growing, and although I don't see myself in administration for the rest of my life, sometimes it feels like it. My only way out is to keep doing the things I love, like writing and cooking, and hoping that one day, someone will cut me some slack and actually be interested in what I have to say and the stories I have to tell.

So, still a little stressed and worried when I got home, I threw off my work clothes, and went straight to the fridge to pull out the ingredients for a simple supper. As soon as I got into the rhythm of chopping, soaking, kneading and saute-ing, I felt instant relief from my day....and much of my worries from this week. The neck muscles relaxed as my arms twiddled up and down with my chef's knife. Thwack thwack thwack thwack thwack.

I am feeling much better now!

Sweet and Sour Japanese Meatballs

Meatballs

4 pieces of reconstituted shitake mushrooms, chopped finely
3 tbsp of finely chopped green scallions
1/2 lbs of ground kurobuta pork
1/2 lbs of ground beef
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp of whole milk

Sweet and Sour Sauce

3 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
splash of sesame oil

Combine meatball ingredients in a medium sized bowl and mix well with hands. Form little meatballs about 1" in diameter. Place meatballs in a skillet with about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil heated thoroughly at low-medium heat. Please meatballs in skillet and brown, making sure to get all of the sides cooked.



While the meatballs are cooking, combine the sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Mix well, and when the meatballs look nice and brown on the outside, pour the sweet and sour sauce in, coating all of the meatballs well. Cook on low heat until sauce turns thick and the meatballs are well done.

Garnish with chopped scallions. Serve with rice and/or green salad.

HOT

Hot weather suppresses my appetite. All I want to eat is chilled fruit and drink water.

However, there are actually some interesting foods for warm weather that doesn't require too much prep like certain salads, gazpacho and sorbet. I really want to make that Persian rose water ice dessert from Maykadeh. Yum.

There's a First Time for Everything

OK, not to toot my own horn, but I managed to please EVERYONE in my family this Mother's Day with only a couple of hours of prep, and serving brunch an hour later than I planned.

[Side note: I also realized today why my prep time always takes longer than most people. It's not that my knife skills suck or that I am extremely disorganized. It's because I take after Japanese sushi chefs, cleaning everything between each step. While that may ensure a very clean and disinfected kitchen, and frees up quite a bit of utensils, pots and pans; it adds about half an hour to an hour. I'll need to keep that in mind next time I make a meal for someone.]

Usually, when I make something Mom considers delicious, Dad will turn his nose at it. When I make something good according to Dad, Mom will give me an ear-load of how unhealthful the food is and how Dad should really be eating more salads or drinking fruit shakes. Pleasing my brother is even more difficult. He's one of those who will clean his plate without making any comments, and then, after the meal is over, he'll say something like, "I kind of wanted to eat X instead. You also need to add more salt to Y. Oh, and where's the Z?"

You see how it is in my family?

Well, I finally made a meal that everyone seemed to enjoy greatly. Spicy oven-fried chicken marinated in buttermilk and spices topped with bacon, citrus-flavored red cabbage slaw, spring carrots sauteed with rosemary and lemon, accompanied with warm and crunchy French bread. We ended the meal with fresh, ripe mangoes from the Philippines.

[I had bigger aspirations of making yorkshire pudding and white bacon gravy, but I forgot to buy some cupcake pans and I burnt the roux for the gravy, which wasn't really my fault because everyone arrived at the moment where the roux was at its critical point and I had to answer the door and greet the family.]

The chicken turned out with a thick, panko crust and extremely juicy, and my father LOVED his drumstick with the crunchy crust and bacon. He gnawed that piece clean. The slaw was the perfect tangy accompaniment, which my mother called, "very refreshing." The carrots were sweet and tasty and balanced with the fresh rosemary and lemon; I think this dish was my favorite today. My brother loved the chicken marinade and asked for the recipe.

Now, I am going to sit back and relish this first.

Moroccan Feast

I've been on a Moroccan kick lately.

I think it was the visit to Cafe Zitouna that really did me in, having bastilla for the first time and then having to describe it in a review, which really started my juices for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean spices and food. There's something about the mix of all of that region's herbs, meat, grains and what little vegetables they have growing under harsh circumstances that makes me yearn to learn more about gypsy and desert lifestyles/cuisines.

Tonight, I made sugar snap peas with fresh mint and then a turmeric potato stew, both from the encyclopedia of vegetarian food by Madhur Jaffrey. Coincidentally, Madiha's mom Yasmin is very good friends with Jaffrey, and has attended some dinner parties and such in India and the UK.

Clearly, Jaffrey knows her Indian, but pulls on friends' knowledge of Native American, Chinese, Middle Eastern, European and a host of other regions to build her collection of vegetarian recipes. The tome is actually quite well put together.

Anyway, I didn't take any photos tonight because although the dishes turned out quite tasty, unfortunately, they're not so photogenic. Somewhat like me. Har har har.

Carrot and Cauliflower Soup

I made a few changes to the original recipe, adding coconut milk and fennel.

1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 a head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 bunch of fresh spring carrots, washed, trimmed, unpeeled, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 fennel bulb, cut into squares
1/2 medium yellow onion, cut into squares
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp course sea salt
1/2 cup coconut milk

Saute onions, fennel, cauliflower and carrots in large nonstick pot. add cumin and salt towards the end when vegetables look cooked through, about 15 minutes. Add coconut milk and 5 cups of water. Simmer soup for half an hour until vegetables are very soft and break up under the slightest pressure.

Either with a hand blender or regular blender, puree the ingredients until creamy and smooth.

I topped off the soup with some white truffle oil and sprigs of cilantro. Serve with warm, crusty French bread and sweet butter.

Spring Vegetables Part II

I've already hit on the topic of seasonal ingredients in a prior post, but looking through the list of ingredients for every season, I'm tempted to say my favorites are Spring and Fall. Summer is packed with fruits, and the sugar levels in a Summer diet filled with fruit is just a little too much for my palate. Winter is great, with all of the citrus fruits, but also lacking in a lot of leafy greens.

The menu this week:

Fresh Carrot and Cauliflower Soup
Sugar Snap Peas with Mint
Moroccan New Potato Stew
Stewed Hunza Apricots with Vanilla Rice Ice Cream

I realize I need to add protein to my diet, but I'll probably go out to dinner or lunch around 2-3 times this week so I'll order meat entrees as well as boosting up the nut intake. I'm also slowly starting to consume eggs again even though I don't process them well. We'll see how it goes. I've already lost 2-3 pounds since limiting my carbohydrate and meat intake.

I also plan to stop drinking at those dumb happy hours on Fridays. Destroy Your Liver? No thanks. I like my liver and Saturday mornings too much.

Btw, HOORAY! The Fillmore Farmer's Market is back, on Saturday mornings!!! I just saw a flyer for it this morning on my way home from Ashtanga class.

I FINALLY did a Pincha Mayurasana (bent elbow stand) with the aid of a wall, and didn't run out of steam halfway through the five-minute pose. It felt incredibly normal to be upside down for that long...perhaps I was a bat in a previous life?

Tempura

Tempura is one of my favorite picks at a Japanese restaurant, and I judge restaurants by the type of batter they use, texture of the tempura crust and how well the vegetables and proteins hold up underneath. I decided to make it at home one night and although deep-frying is not the most healthful option to cook, sometimes a girl’s just got to give in to her cravings!

Basically, any vegetable can be fried in tempura batter, but typically, you will find: eggplant, sweet onion, green onions, sweet potato, haricot verts or green bean, potato, carrot, shitake mushroom, and enoki mushroom on the menu at a restaurant. The trick is to slice the larger vegetable items into the same width and size so that cooking time is about the same for everything. Items such as eggplant and potatoes should be sliced into ¼” rounds. Green beans or haricots verts should be washed, dried and trimmed.

Seafood is the primary protein used in tempura, so shrimp, Atlantic cod [or any kind of fleshy, white fish], red snapper, and scallops may be used. Just make sure everything is cut and trimmed into slightly larger bite-sized pieces, and the shrimp is deveined and shelled.

Batter:

One part pastry flour
One part cold mineral water
Sea salt
A quart of vegetable or peanut oil

Special equipment: cooking thermometer, large deep fry pan and tongs

Heat oil to 400 degrees. Oil should not drop lower than 325 during the course of frying.



Mix the pastry flour, sea salt and mineral water together in a large bowl. Coat a few of your ingredients with the batter.

Once oil is hot, gently place 5-7 pieces of the vegetables or seafood into the pan. Needless to say, the oil will be HOT, so be careful of any splatter or splashes.




When the tempura items turn a light-medium golden brown, use the tongs and pick them out and place them on a plate lined with either newspapers or paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

Sprinkle with some sea salt flakes and freshly ground white pepper before plating. Serve with some steamed rice, a green salad and a traditional Japanese or German lager like Asahi, Sapporo or Spaten.

Great Chefs Do Simple Dishes Well

Amazing what you can do with a few fresh and seasonal ingredients. I took a recipe off of Epicurious today from Eric Ripert's repertoire and it turned out not only delicious, but a feast for the eyes as well.

Ceviche and Artichoke Heart Salad

Remember when I said I was fresh out of ideas of what to do this week? Well, duh. Spring vegetables are hitting all of the produce stands and there are plump artichokes, gigantic fennel, crisp and green asparagus and a host of other tasty tidbits just waiting for me to put my knife to them.

And so I did.

I bought some fennel with fronds, which I ultimately tossed anyway. Man, those fronds are GOOD with ground lamb in boiled dumplings, Mongolian-style. Too bad I didn't have any ground lamb or else I would have rolled some dough and made some dumplings. Oh well, next time. It was my poor planning, really.

I also grabbed a few artichokes that looked pretty good.

Anyway, there were a couple of recipes I wanted to test out. I wanted to make a semi-labor-intensive meal, and with artichokes, I knew prepping the items would have been half of the hard work. So, to balance it out (because you know it's ALL about balance), I put together a simple ceviche of scallops, grapefruit, avocado (in season and oh-so-buttery), parsley and lemon juice. I didn't want to use limes right now because I've recently been hit with dry, juiceless specimens from Whole Foods, and it just gets me upset. So, I tossed the ceviche with some salt, pepper, lemon juice and a tiny bit of sugar. So simple, yet so very tasty. Nijiya Market had some plump scallops that was perfect to slice thinly and marinade for one person.

My secondi consisted of a simple recipe I found from Alice Waters' repertoire, which listed thinly shaved fennel, artichoke hearts, parmesan and parsley with lots of lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and white truffle oil (which I still have in my cupboard, I swear that tiny bottle will last for a millenium). I trimmed the artichokes, peeling off the outer leaves and snapping off the sharp tips with a pair of kitchen shears. Then I rubbed each artichoke with a lemon half to prevent them from browning prior to cooking. Amazing--all of the uses of lemon and vinegar!

I sharpened my Wusthof with a new whetstone from Soko Hardware Store, and went to town THINLY slicing the fennel. Then I plated the fennel as a base layer, squeezed lemon juice and ground some pepper and salt, and drizzled extra virgin olive oil over it. When the artichokes were done, I carefully lifted them out of the pot with a pair of tongs and slowly pulled apart the leaves, careful to keep the heart intact and saving the leaves for a light snack tomorrow with some melted, clarified butter.

I sliced the artichoke hearts thin as well after spooning out the hairy chokes, and set them as a second layer atop the fennel. Then, some more lemon juice, salt and pepper and the olive oil. Lastly, I sprinkled some shredded parmesan and about a quarter cup of parsley, and sprayed a couple of pumps of fine balsamic vinegar with the rest of the olive oil and white truffle oil over the dish.

Needless to say, it tasted like Spring.

Gypsy Life

When meeting new people, I am inevitably asked the same things over and over again:

"Where did you grow up?"
"What nationality are you?"
"Where's your hometown?"

Simple questions, right? Well, not really. In my case, it's like reiterating A Tale of Two Cities, only more boring. So, I usually provide the abridged version: "around."

If the person I'm speaking to seems like s/he wants to hear more, I usually launch into it. If not, I hijack the conversation and steer it towards something more interesting like underarm odor or ask them about food (because everyone has an opinion about food. if they don't, then it's time for me to exit off stage left).

I know I've tackled this topic before, and even have probably come to some steady conclusions as to what to do in my current predicament-I'm stuck in one place, a slave to the devalued dollar I earn. Yet...I ask MYSELF these questions over and over again:

"Will I really ever be happy in one place?"
"Will I ever find someone who understands? Who would want to live this type of lifestyle if I choose to go the route of wanderer?"
"Can I ever feel satiated in one place?"

Ahh, the difficult answers that require more than one sentence.

Simple Pickle Meal (Japanese-style)

I am fresh out of ideas for the menu this week.

However, I'm enjoying a lovely Asian-themed dinner tonight of sweet and sour pickled leeks, braised young bamboo with shitake mushrooms, spicy pickled okra, pickled daikon radish with shaved bonito flakes and steamed organic brown rice with an Asian ragu (comprised of soybeans, braised tofu, fresh corn, carrots and pork).

I'm taking a lot of pleasure in taking tiny bites off of the umeboshi plum.

Poached Asian Pears (Chinese-style)

OK, is it sad I just had to look up the spelling for "expectorant"?

Anyhow, I was having a conversation with my mother on the topic of Chinese medicine today over brunch, and since she is infinitely more knowledgeable of medicinal qualities in various foods, AND I was making all of the other diners extremely uncomfortable with my wet hacking cough, I asked her about some Chinese remedies.

Here's a short list I compiled off of the top of my head from our conversation:

Daikon radish - brings phlegm up and out
Jellyfish - disintegrates mucus, or rather, thins it out
Asian pears - aides in reducing cough
Rock sugar - soothes the throat
Loquats - helps with reducing cough, and soothes throat irritations (there's an herbal cough syrup that's been around for years called "pi pa gao", it looks like black tar, but actually tastes like a minty molasses, I used to try to trick my mother to feed me the stuff even when I wasn't sick--operative word here being "try")

So, I'm poaching an Asian pear tonight with some rock sugar for dessert. Apparently, that should help with the cough and is a natural expectorant, but I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I may need to see a doctor to get rid of the infection. I certainly don't want this to develop into walking pneumonia or bronchitis.

Fortunate

I got this fortune in my cookie today.

Most Important Sense

The flu I have is driving me insane. Beyond the congestion, hoarse and man-ish voice, and gobs of snot/phlegm/viscous fluids coming out of my orifices, I'm left without any taste.

Everything these past couple of days have tasted mildly salty, a little sweet, nothing ever bitter, and nothing really all that spicy or sour. I don't think I can keep living like this. One of my few pleasures in life is to be able to distinguish whether something is fresh or contains too much spice or is underseasoned.

Needless to say, I can not detect umami either. Shit.

Take away my sense of sight, I can deal with it. Beauty is still determinable via the other senses, and in relation to humans, perhaps it would be even better that I NOT rely on sight as it usually deters me from really truly knowing people whom I'd otherwise just write off.

Take away my ability to hear, and I can still FEEL music through percussion and rhythm. Vibrato channeled through the body can be an incredible experience. Nuances would be lost, yes. Melodies would not be detected, but I'd live a decent life, nonetheless.

Without touch or feeling would be pretty upsetting, but there would be the other sense again to remind me that there is life beyond feeling burned, a soft cashmere sweater, petting a long-haired cat or holding a lover's hand. It would OK.

However, taste is something I just can not live without. To have to put food into my body for nourishment only would be like a slow and tortuous death sentence. Fresh live uni, slow braised pot roast, 2005 chianti, perfectly steamed xiao long baos with scalding hot soup in each perfect little dumpling and fresh ginger with black vinegar...I CAN'T CONTINUE THIS LIST RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I'M GETTING DEPRESSED.

I hope I get my taste back soon.