enraptured

breakfast at ferry terminal market.

lunch at the french laundry. 

more to life than meat

i talk about meat an offal lot. i really love meat. i want to be a part of the cycle of life. don't get me wrong, i'm not hating on the veggies. i spent the morning in the garden, planting tomato starts that have been flowering on my windowsill...the heat in Thailand withered them when they sprouted. i trying making like a bee and using a q-tip to pollinate the flowers, which may or may have not worked. between third and fourth grade, i spent summer in oklahoma "pollinating" my mom's vegetable garden, catching crawdads and playing with my pet catfish. seriously, i made my mom buy me a live catfish at the farmer's market. he lived in a kiddie pool with some bluegills i caught (mom used to take me fishing, too). i would dig night crawlers out of the compost pile to feed them, and taught the bluegills to jump out of the water for worms. i would put on "fish shows" at the family barbecues. (when i came back from camp, they had unlearned that particular skill.) i also caught tadpoles and kept them in the pool which my mom promptly pickled and jarred. good on sticky rice, she said, but i digress. butter lettuce from our garden was the only lettuce other than iceberg i had ever tasted. i couldn't understand why they were so different, and why we couldn't have butter lettuce all the time. the thought of lettuce made of butter really appealed to me, and  it's still my favorite. i haven't been to my garden in two weeks and it's out of control. favas and orca beans (my term, i think they're technically called calypso beans), radishes, spring onions, beets and huge heads of lettuce. the micro greens have turned to macro greens, due to neglect. and i planted the tomatoes, although it seems a little early. i'm really excited about the Mexican Midget tomato plant. i imagine it sprouting fat, juicy little luchadores. i guess my thought process hasn't changed much from lettuce made of butter... i also planted Black Krim tomatoes. they make me think of a Yugoslavian woman in a babushka, picking tomatoes as dark as the black sea. and Beaver Dam peppers? just plain funny. i've harvested beets, pounds and pounds of kale, snail-laden leeks and one beautiful head of cauliflower. i wish i had some chickens or quail. i wish i was a farmer.

roast beef

after reading angela's eat and tell about the whopper jr. and a recent discussion of arby's with a minnesotan friend of mine, i got to thinking. while i love a whopper, burger king's fries are a travesty. 

i harbor a secret love of chicken fries, and i am guilty of flexcar-ing to ballard when luke is at work to have some, with honey mustard, while publicly denouncing the bk advertisements that urge you to substitute the chicken for potato fries. since leaving the u.s., i have guilty sought refuge in the mall, ordering chicken nuggets at Mcdonalds, but my true love doesn't exist here.

 my perfect fast-food meal is arby's. it brings back memories of mom working late; dad would get the two-times the 5 for $5 sandwiches and we'd eat arby's for a week. i was oddly repulsed by the iridescent, slightly green-tinge of the meat(from the slicer, says my dad). the sweet, wonder bread bun would be steamy warm, soft and soaking with roast beef juice by the time we opened them at home. when i was old enough to my own ordering, i tried the GIANT (double the meat), SUPER (tomatoes, lettuce, special sauce), Beef & Cheddar (onion bun, cheez sauce), but i always came back to that paragon of beef, the Regular. The double messes up the perfect meat to bread ratio. The super is superfluous. and cheez sauce? need i explain? 2 Regulars (2 packets of horsey, 1 of bbq sauce for each) and curly fries (ketchup and horsey sauce to dip). a medium orange soda; i've discovered orange soda is the only pairing for arby's and subway. and if you're in the money and not hating your thighs, a small jamocha shake and a coke. You cannot order the shake without the coke. Shakes especially, and ice cream, too, require a coca-cola palate cleanser. it'd be like ordering a Regular and no curly fries. the biggest crime of all, the closest arby's has no drive-thru. 

here comes the bride...

when they make a wedding dress, i will have a bacon-themed wedding. prosciutto bouquet, coppa garter...something old (cured bacon), something new(pig veal?), something borrowed (angela's lomo) and something blue??? i can sub bacon fat for the butter in the buttercream icing on my cake.

speaking of sour...

this story by sara dickerman, on the cookbook Memories of Philippine Kitchens. 

read the first comment about how the food isn't all that because the flavors aren't strong. maybe your co-workers thought you couldn't handle the funk?  maybe they childhood memories of being made fun of for weird lunches came back to haunt them.

can one find the necessary ingredients in this country? outside of a major city? can we give people a break because, like many asian nations, their cuisine is the result of a colonized people just being resourceful and making delicious food with what they have.

  Pan Asian Peanut Sauce (adapted from)Cendrillon's Recipe 1 cup peanuts 1 lemongrass, minced 3 shallots, minced 2 inch ginger, minced 1T peanut oil 1 cup coconut milk 1T chili sauce 2T soy sauce (or 1T soy and 1T nam pla) 1T mirin 1t chili flakes, or to taste Hard toast peanuts in oven. Buzz in food processor until coarsely chopped. Reserve 2 tablespoons. Lightly brown the lemongrass, shallots, and ginger in a small pot with peanut oil. Add the peanuts and coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes. Season with the chili sauce, soy sauce and mirin. Let cool to room temp. Pulse in the blender until smooth. Fold in reserved peanuts. i love this with brown rice and pan-fried tempeh (don't forget to splash on some patchouli and change into your PETA shirt). it's good on lumpia, vietnamese summer rolls and your finger. Cendrillon's website p.s. The photos in the book are by Mika's papa, Mr. Neal Oshima. Mika did Cendrillon's website, by the by.

pour a jug on the ground...

for fallen homie, ernest gallo. he died today, so we will imbibe a jug in honor of the man who created an empire from a library pamphlet recipe for wine. one out of every four bottles that americans drink is a fine gallo blend. my parents were fans of peach-y riunite. riunite on ice, that's nice! i poured myself a big ol' mug of the stuff in eighth grade. this was off the hook, it tasted like peach ne-hi and made you feel all warm and fuzzy. julie l's wiccan, hippy mom was a fan of the gallo jug. we'd sneak some when we were working on wax voodoo dolls, apple switch magic wands and love potions, which was a lovely combo of old kitchen spices (ground cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice), vials of my mom's sample perfumes (chanel no.5, giorgio, poison) and julie's mom's sandalwood and patchouli oils. 

is "witch nerd" a common social phenomenon among pre-pubescent teens? check out ernest's arch enemy's web site to create an homage to the master.

i'm in love with:

beef tartare-union bread soup-serious pie cirrus cheese-mount townsend creamery steamed meat dumplings-7 star pepper shrimp cakes and crispy crepe-tamarind tree goose foie terrine-harvest vine pretzel with mustard-licorous yellowtail carpaccio-lark escolar-hana sushi tonkotsu ramen-samurai noodles hawaii original saimin (with raw egg, mushrooms and scallions)-uwajimaya