Discolor Online

Things around here have been a bit chaotic of late and I've been doing far less cooking than I intended when spring started. When I have mustered the time or energy or preparation to do a little cooking, I've been relying on things like ready-to-grill kabobs from Metropolitan Market. We haven't done the CSA this year and I've barely visited the farmer's markets. Even so, I did manage to try a couple of recipes that were good enough that I felt I should pass them along.

First, I have tried yet another winner from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. If you haven't bought this book yet, why not? It's seriously the most unique, delightful, astonishing collection of recipes I've had the pleasure to discover in a long time. Here's an example:

Lime-Bathed Peanut Salad

2 cups unsalted raw peanuts
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 large jalapeno chile, seeded and diced
3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp fine-grain sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350. (Since it's summer, I moved this step to the toaster oven to keep the heat down and it worked just fine.)

Place peanuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring or shaking the pan a couple of times for more even browning.

Combine the tomatoes, jalapeno, and cilantro in a bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, and salt. Gently stir into the tomato mixture to combine. Just before serving, fold in the peanuts. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Makes 4 to 6 servings


The other success I had was serving a fresh pea/mint soup from Cooking Light alongside some wild salmon patties.

Fresh Pea Soup with Mint

2 teaspoons butter
1 cup coarsely chopped green onions
4 cups shelled green peas (about 4 pounds unshelled)
3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth (I used half vegetable broth, half chicken)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced mint
Cracked black pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions to pan and cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peas, broth, and 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes or until the peas are very tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and let stand 15 minutes. Stir in juice, salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Place half of pea mixture in blender and process until smooth. Do this carefully as hot liquid expands very fast in a blender; I recommend holding the lid down with a kitchen towel just to be safe. Pour pureed soup mixture into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining pea mixture. Strain this half of the pureed soup mixture through a sieve over a large bowl, reserving the liquid; discard the solids. Return strained soup to pureed soup mixture. Ladle about 3/4 cup soup mixture into each of 6 bowls; drizzle each with 1/2 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle each serving with 1 teaspoon mint. Garnish with cracked pepper, if desired.

Makes 6 servings

Labels: food, recipes

People have been asking how it went, so here's a little clip that the school put up. I took video from a different angle of the whole performance (including Kate's favorite, Back in Black) but this will give everyone who doesn't have Mom-level devotion a taste.




Kate was scheduled to go back to Canada to spend some time with her dad on Sunday morning but there was a change of plans which means Kate and I are getting to spend extra summer time together and we've made the most of it. Saturday was a viewing of the new Hellboy and some barbecuing with Ray and Christine (taking advantage of the long overdue nice summer weather) and Sunday Kate and I hit the summer festival circuit while Pramas got some work done.

First we stopped by the Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon down on the waterfront. It was a gorgeous day and we walked a little way along the water before heading into the convention space. Unfortunately the exhibit space was sweltering and many of the exhibitors were having trouble because their chocolates were melting on their tables. I tasted at least a dozen interesting chocolates, truffles, caramels, brittles, cocoas, and brownies. The hands down winner for the "WOW, I've never had anything like this!" award has to go to the savory chocolates from Eugene, Oregon's Kekau, especially their "Smoky Blue" which is made with Rogue Creamery's Smoky Blue cheese. Holy crap was that good. Their Black Truffle Honey was another winner. There were many other delights (such as Poco Dolce's Aztec Chile chocolates topped with grey sea salt and I have a list (and a bag full of things I couldn't resist buying) for further study. We also tried to hit the rumored Berry Bash at the Pike Place Market but we arrived too late for any pie eating contests and saw few stands that were anything "special" that we couldn't find regularly in the market or at one of the excellent area farmer's markets, so we didn't linger too long. Instead we hopped the bus down to Seattle Center for their Bastille Day celebration. Food, live music, and perfect weather for playing in the fountain.

Unfortunately I ended the weekend with a flare-up of my TMJ, which hasn't happened in many months, and the pain/popping/locking is still plaguing me today. Add in a couple of doctor appointments, a bunch of household chores (like trimming our front foliage before the HOA decides they don't appreciate the natural look) and our printer spewing magenta toner all over everything and making very, very bad grinding noises and the work week seems off to a pretty bum start but at least the weekend was pretty glorious.

Labels: chocolate, food, Kate, music

Our game night has been pretty sparse since Jess and Tim both moved to California within a month of each other. The last couple of weeks it's been down to just three of us getting together, four if we're lucky. Tonight it was three again.

Luckily for us Kate is getting to that age when we can play adult strategy games together and still all have fun. Tonight we played 3rd edition MagBlast. We've been MagBlast fans through all the editions. It's been a little jarring to go from the more 'serious' science fiction version of MagBlast to the most recent version with the Kovalic art and the more 'wacky family game' feel but we're still all on board. Kate was very excited to play as this is one of her favorite games ever. We had fun but had to gang up on and kill Kate once it got to be 11:00 since it's still a school night for her. Poor kid, someday she'll be able to stay up as late as she wants. Heh.

Ev's currently on a restricted diet as he tries to sort out some allergies and whatnot so I went to Metropolitan Market and just let myself be inspired by what was available. Between all members of the group we've got to be carb conscious and avoid wheat, soy, dairy, and seafood at the moment. I was going to make some of my favorite sesame noodles with shredded chicken with some rice noodles but remembered there was also soy in the dish and decided to look elsewhere for dinner. Instead I bought a bunch of Indian-inspired ingredients. I made a Sri Lankan eggplant curry from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, some peppered cauliflower, some packaged Neera's Urad & Channa Dal (a hit, will definitely try again, along with others in this line), rice, Sharwood's papadums, and a round (or two) of tamarind martinis. Kate helped a lot with the food prep tonight, which was great! She helped with something in every dish and made several things largely on her own (including the cauliflower, the papadums, and the dal). She also made dessert, a rosewater and strawberry sorbet. Good meal!

Tomorrow Pramas is headed for Enfilade in Olympia. I have to get up for 6:30am yoga. Kate and I are staying home for a "girl's weekend" with Rosie (the World's Sweetest Pitbull [tm]). Monday we're having people over to play Descent. Next week looks to be busy as I continue to catch up from the Month of Travel ad prep for Book Expo. I fly out on Thursday!

Not too bad of a day, I'll say.

Labels: food, life, recipes

Pramas and I spent the weekend in Las Vegas before the GAMA Trade Show officially kicked off. Gabe "Mondo" Vega is eve expanding his ConQuest gaming convention empire and this year he kicked off ConQuest Vegas. We came down to show our support. They had a lovely space up on the 26th floor of Bally's (rooms with a view!) where the GTS seminars have been held. In the future I hope to be a bit more involved than we were this year (the lead-up to Vegas coincided with having to get a lot of other things under control around GRHQ and Chez Ronin). We may even make an appearance down at the next ConQuest franchise: ConQuest Reno in November. We'll see.

Pramas and I were here early on Saturday and couldn't yet check into our room so we went over to enjoy brunch at the Las Vegas incarnation of Thomas Keller's Bouchon . Really good idea. Great food, relaxing atmosphere, and it killed just the right amount of time to allow us to go back to Bally's and check into our room. We've also enjoyed meals at Wing Lei at the Wynn (the only Michelin starred Chinese restaurant in America, where we enjoyed the Peking duck tasting menu) and Michael Mina's Seablue over at the MGM. We also made a trip over to the Stage Deli at Caesar's Palace before Pramas had to pack up and hit the airport. So, the eating's been alright so far. Ha.

Chris heads home tonight to rejoin Kate, who has had a grand little adventure of her own bouncing around to various friends and hitting going away parties and Passover dinners, among other excitements. We waited all day to see if there were going to be any further announcements of clarifications on the situation with the GSL but we didn't glean any further information. No one we've talked to seems eager to sign on for 4E support current conditions. It seems like WotC has cast somewhat of a pall over things as retailers and distributors (not just third party publishers) try to make sense of what's happening and try to predict what the gaming landscape is going to look like in six to nine months time. At least one RPG liquidator is already offering to buy up any and all d20 products publishers will be forbidden to sell after the end of the year. Meanwhile I've already seen an absolutely adorable book that I can't wait to snap up from Atlas Games. I look forward to seeing more stuff tomorrow when the exhibit halls are set up for real.

Will try to find time to get some of my food photos posted this week but it may all wait until I get home. Damned getting older. 9:30 in Vegas and I'm dead tired (and the exhibit hall hasn't even opened yet!). For now, this is all the news I can think to report.

Labels: food, GAMA, game industry, GTS, Las Vegas, restaurants

Doctors appointment at the crack of dawn tomorrow but today was all about the fennel broth.

Met with the nutritionist today. It's energizing to be told I'm doing the right things. She seems to find me amusing, she laughs a lot. "Oh Nicole!" she gasps, and writes things down. She asks about my recent cooking forays and I try to give her an idea of the sorts of things I've been successful with. I tell her about Super Natural Cooking, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and A New Way to Cook. I tell her about soba noodles, tofu and vegetables... about homemade fennel broth, curry noodles, braised cabbage and smoked ham. "I've written a cookbook but nothing like this," she says, jotting, jotting. We laugh and joke for half the appointment. This talk invigorates me. I'm doing the right things, approved by a professional. She is looking forward to my restaurant recommendations from Vegas after GTS.

This afternoon Christine needed a ride home after an appointment at the PolyClinic. I caught a distinct vibe that she might also need some fennel broth so I whipped some up and brought it with me, then ran off to get Pramas and groceries and returned with provisions enough to make Coriander-Crusted Scallops in Fennel Broth. I improvised a bit with the recipe (the original calls for saffron noodles but I substituted a bed of sauteed spinach and roasted root vegetables) and bought but forgot to add the creme fraiche and chopped herbs but it was delicious anyway and we ate like royalty.

The recipe, as it appears in A New Way to Cook:

Coriander-Crusted Scallops in Fennel Broth

4 ounces saffron noodles (or tagliatelle or linguine)
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups fennel broth
1/3 cup coriander seeds
1 1/4 lb. sea scallops, rinsed and patted dry
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp creme fraiche
1/4 cup coarsely chopped mixed fresh herbs

If using noodles, boil in salted water until al dente, drain and run under cool water. Toss lightly with 1/2 tsp. oil to keep them from sticking together (this is where I wilted some spinach and roasted cubed parsnips, fresh fennel, carrots, sweet potatoes and a couple of mushrooms for good measure).

In a small saucepan bring the fennel broth to a boil and reduce to about a cup and a half to concentrate the flavor. Cover and keep warm over low heat.

In a small skillet, toast the coriander seeds over low heat until fragrant. Grind into a medium-fine powder with a grinder, blender, or mortar and pestle.

Sprinkle the scallops lightly on all sides with mixture of salt, cayenne, and sugar. Thoroughly coat the scallops in the coriander. Shake off excess.

Heat a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Add 2 tsp of the oil to coat pan and heat for 30 seconds. Add scallops in a single layer without crowding in the pan (cook in two batches if necessary). Cook for about 2 minutes per side.

Stir the creme fraiche into the broth.

At this point I layered the veggies into shallow bowls, arranged the scallops on top, and topped the whole thing with the hot broth. I should have garnished with herbs, but I forgot both the herbs and the creme. It was just dandy anyway.

Labels: cooking, food, health, recipes

I wanted to thank everyone for their sympathy on the whole friend moving away issue. I really do appreciate it. I just needed to cry a little for myself so I could move forward being supportive and positive for my friend and his opportunities. Everything about this move has the possibility to be good for him, personally and professionally. I'm fully supportive of him taking this and running with it, he deserves it. He's even considering starting a blog so we can all keep up with him, which would be great. I've been able to remain closest to distant friends who are enthusiastic internet users.

Meanwhile it was game night last night, so I made up some Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf and Guinness Chocolate Cake in his honor and we drank some Bowmore 17-year and had one last game night hurrah. We even squeezed in a couple of games of Tsuro right at the end so we could say we actually played games on game night.

Labels: food, friends, games

I'm desperately behind on updating my recipe pages because I'm also desperately behind on a bunch of stuff that is way more important. Still, I'm continuing to try new things. Earlier this week I made seared sea scallops with a side of the tabbouleh we made at Ray's and some broiled fennel with Parmesan and lime which was simple and really, really good. Last night it was shrimp and papaya salad over spinach (from Pacific Flavors) and tonight it was leftover salad plus a curry udon pot (from Super Natural Cooking). The udon pot was really quick to make and pretty delicious, though Kate objected because it contained flavor. She prefers her udon in an artificial chicken flavored salty broth. Will be eating that for lunch this week. Yum!

One of these days I'll get the recipes (and my various modifications) posted. Right now I'm struggling with some new medications that are knocking me for a loop, cutting into my already tight schedule. I absolutely had to take a nap this afternoon because I was so devastatingly tired, a side effect from the new medication that I started yesterday. On the good side, I got some much-needed sleep. On the bad side, I awoke feeling groggy and I lost two hours in the middle of the day where I'd hoped to be productive.

Kate's class play is over at least. Now it's just the distraction of getting her class trip to New York sorted out. The teacher swears he'll get me their itinerary tomorrow. As we leave in less than 30 days, I'm increasingly anxious about not having the details in place. I finally just had to make my own plane reservations because I couldn't stand not having that part sorted out less than 5 weeks from the travel day. Luckily I got a really good rate for us so it won't be any more expensive than flying with the group (and probably less).

Fingers crossed that I can make some progress on things this week without too many distractions, crises, doctor appointments or general wackiness.

Labels: cooking, food, life, sleep

Followed this recipe from Super Natural Cooking. Midway through prepping the ingredients, we got a call that we could pick up a package we've been waiting for at DHL but only for another 20 minutes. As the sole driver in the house, I took off to get the package and Pramas finished the dinner prep. I arrived home to a spicy, tangy blend of soba noodles, cucumber, tofu, green onion, cilantro and sesame seeds in a lemon-ginger-honey-rice vinegar-sesame oil dressing. Kind of a cold salad. Our family likes soft tofu better than fried so we skipped that step altogether. This is a great jumping off point for all sorts of permutations on the provided recipe. I would have enjoyed twice as much cucumber and could see adding other veggies or elements to the dressing easily.

Good food after a long day of running around and being "on" and stressed. I can't do anything tomorrow until I go to the nearest gas station and fill up, though, because I accidentally ran the poor PIF severely under the empty line tonight. Really glad I didn't run out of gas on the road or out in the dark and remote industrial park where the DHL office was!

Labels: cooking, food

I laughed my way through this story on Iron Chef America today.

Hint to Robert Sietsema: Kit isn't really a talking car, the actors in Star Trek didn't actually "beam" anywhere, and that cute baby from Full House was played by twins. TWINS!

Of course tv shows are edited for maximum excitement. And we totally know that "The Chairman" isn't really a "chairman" of anything, or the nephew of the Japanese actor Takeshi Kaga who played the role of the original Chairman. ::roll eyes::

Labels: food, Iron Chef, television

Coming clean about my vast collection of too neglected cookbooks, I have to admit that poor Mark Bittman has been among the most neglected. For years I've had his cookbooks on my shelf. How to Cook Everything, The Minimalist Cooks Dinner, The Minimalist Cooks at Home. I received How to Cook Everything Vegetarian off my wish list this Christmas. Over the years I've browsed each book idly but cooked precious little. I've marked a single recipe (Fish Simmered in Spicy Soy Sauce) as "very good" but I can't tell you how many years ago it was that I tried it.

This is shameful behavior on my part because Bittman deserves better.

It was a little over a year ago that I started to reawaken to Bittman. I can trace the moment exactly: it was when every foodie blog and cooking site went absolutely nutso after his No Knead Bread in the New York Times. What really won me over to Bittman was when I started getting New York Times video content through TiVoCast. The Minimalist segments were right up my alley and Bittman's goofy, good-humored personality won me over immediately. It was the first time I'd seen or heard him instead of just reading him and that was the key.

He's recently started a blog at the New York Times website, Bitten which has quickly become one of my favorites. today's tip on parboiling brown rice in advance so you can use it in quick recipes later as you would white rice is a nifty trick. Though I don't shy from just taking the time brown rice needs not everyone has that luxury and so they miss out on whole grain specialty rices, which is a shame.

Once I've plowed through the list of recipes I want to try out of Super Natural Cooking and A New Way to Cook, Bittman's recipes are next on the list for trial. I may even screw up the courage to try the No Knead Bread (though my anti-bread aura is nearly as strong and infamous as my anti-technology aura).

Labels: cooking, food, recipes

Jess has a wine locker at a wine storage place here in Seattle. One of the benefits of this is that they have a room that members can use for private tastings or small gatherings. It was the perfect location for a little wine and gaming. Originally we were going to play some old-school D&D but we were down a couple players and the GM had a hard week so we defaulted to Descent instead. Great space. I took a bunch of photos.

Sunday Pramas left for GDC so Kate and I cooked up a batch of food John and Jenny. Yesterday was the official due date (though no baby sign yet) and we wanted to make sure they were loaded up with some food in the freezer while they wait for their little pumpkin to arrive. They got a batch of Thai-style Ground Beef, a couple pans of Chicken Enchiladas Verdes, and some Lasagna Rolls that Kate did herself from start to finish. Then we baked up a pan of Chicken with Olives and Lemon and a rice cooker full of rice and arrived with dinner hot and ready to go. Had a nice dinner and and even nicer visit. Am very excited to see them with their baby... not long now.

I also uploaded a gazillion photos that have been sitting on my hard drive waiting for attention. I've got a set for our trip to Boom Noodle, my visit to Brouwer's for Belgian beers and pomme frites, a photo set from the Theo Chocolate tour, photos from Jenny's baby shower last month, a look at the room where Chris did his sleep study, and a recent visit to Aoki Sushi.

Whew. You'd think I'd been busy or something.

Labels: food, gaming, photos, restaurants, wine

Busy day. I've got photos and whatnot to recap with over the weekend if I find time but I'm frankly exhausted. In addition to prepping for a gigantic shipment of individual orders related to Green Ronin's Freelancer Fundraiser I had a pretty action packed day.

I went on a tour of Theo Chocolates in Freemont. Pretty fun and interesting (except for the oompa loompa dance, ug) and definitely worth the $5. Came home with lots of interesting chocolates and some freakin' awesome chocolate scrubs and lotions to boot (that stuff cost more than $5 but sooooo worth it).

I attended a meeting at Kate's school to go over the so-called details of the trip with the other parents and kids (supposedly). This was not at all fun, so I'm not going to dwell on that right now except to say that I may just be begging for crash space with people I know in New York because I can't imagine actually trying to stay 27 miles out of the city in a random New Jersey city ("I can't remember the name, it starts with a P.") in a $55/night Days Inn with 38 kids and calling that a trip to "New York". Ug.

After the meeting Kate and Chris and I decided we were going down to Columbia City to catch the Spiderwick Chronicles. We decided to have dinner out tonight and instead of going to one of our usual favorite restaurants I suggested that we try something new and hit up the Kawali Grill. Kawali Grill looks a little like a Pho joint or some other casual dining establishment and the food is unpretentious but the chef is top notch and the food was some really good and interesting Filipino-inspired stuff. We had some truly fantastic chicken satay with a great peanut sauce, then Chris tried a dish called Lechon Kawali and I had the house special Oxtail Kare Kare and Kate confined herself to a grilled cheese and fries. Food was fantastic, the Filipino television was hilarious, the chef personally came out to check in with us a couple of times and we were the only white folks in the place (usually a good sign of authenticity). Oh, and Kiro 7 News showed up to film something while we looked on but we couldn't quite figure out what it was about.

Spiderwick was enjoyable. I thought the visuals were incredibly faithful to Tony D's original artwork, which was so cool. The kid playing the role of the twins was convincing as his double character, and even though Kate ran down for us all the changes between the movie and the books I thought the changes were sensible and acceptably faithful to the source. A solid family movie. Congratulations to Holly and Tony!

And now: bed!

Labels: food, movies, restaurants

This one is a real winner! I'm ashamed of myself that I've never done more than look through some of the pretty photographs in this book before now. Maybe if I'd read this glowing review in The Atlantic Monthly ...which it turns out I completely agree with, seven years late.

Yesterday I made a simple fennel stock from scratch from the recipe in this book. Glorious! It was hard not to just sit down and eat the broth as it was. I had something else in mind for the stock, though, and for dinner we moved on to the recipe for Beans and Wild Mushrooms in Fennel Broth. I used the pressure cooker to cook up some dried Great Northern beans from scratch instead of using canned, so I followed the recipe for Basic Cooked Beans from the book, and then combined my beans and broth with the remaining ingredients for the soup. I used oyster mushrooms because they were plentiful at the store but this soup would be incredible with something more like a morel instead. Chris, upon trying the soup, proclaimed that had he been served this soup in a fancy restaurant he would not have been disappointed.

Fennel and fish go well together so I used last night to hit my goal of having fish once a week and whipped up a recipe of Sesame Crusted Swordfish with Cilantro and Coconut Chutney, once again from A New Way to Cook. Simple, easy, and very yummy.

Another excellent bonus of this book is the author includes nutritional information for each recipe in an index, so I could quickly calculate the calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat and fiber of these dishes. I've been spoiled by having Cooking Light as my go-to source for recipes all these years and have been finding that I really want to have the nutritional breakdowns for the things I'm cooking at home. That information is not included in most cookbooks, so extra bonus points to Sally Schneider for figuring out and including the information in hers.

I expect I'll properly update my recipe pages over the weekend for my own reference. I am kicking myself because I made some excellent baked beans with kale at some point this winter (prepped the dish ahead and put it in the freezer for later use) and I've now forgotten where among my vast collection of cookbooks, magazines, and online resources I got the original recipe! Updating my recipe pages is one way for me to keep track and I've been terribly lax about it these last several months. No more!

Labels: cooking, food, recipes

Tonight was wargame night for Pramas so Kate and I had a girl's night out and we went to Stellar Pizza for dinner. Kate was cracking me up, just random stuff like referring to Washington apples being grown "way out there in Tukwila or something," (part of Tukwila shares our zipcode, but to City Girl Kate it seems like the sticks or something) or, when I said that I really didn't like the heavy metal that was playing because I'd lived through that once in my teen years, she said, "What, did they play it at the dentist?" (in her mind my dislikes must somehow be related, I guess...) meanwhile I'm laughing my head off imagining a dentist's office that played heavy metal and Kate says, "Just imagine, your dentist was a former tattoo artist!" Frickin' hilarious, that girl. We were having a good time.

Amidst the topics of conversation was Inn Fighting and how much Kate likes it. I teased her that of course she likes it, she wins at it! Next thing I know, I look over my shoulder and who should be sitting with a large group in the next section over but Inn Fighting designer Rob Heinsoo and his lovely wife! Kate couldn't go over because they were in the over 21 section but I sneaked over and tapped him on the shoulder. "My daughter loves your game." We caught up briefly (they were in after a successful soccer game with the rest of their team) and then I excused myself back to join Kate in the family section. Rob and Lisa were nice enough to come by our table again for a few minutes to say hi to Kate and we gossiped about neighborhood politics and whatnot. Rob threatened to challenge Kate to a game of Inn Fighting someday.

It was then that I realized that the only reason Kate and I were out tonight was because we have the PIF, the good ol' Pay-It-Forward car. Going out for pizza for a couple of hours was precisely the sort of activity that I would have denied myself most of the time if forced to do it by Flexcar but with the PIF it's possible for us to roll the mile down the hill and back without expense or having to watch the clock the whole time or any of that nonsense. I mentioned this to R&L because I knew that before J&J had the car it had been gifted to them and they'd been the ones who had passed it on to John, who had since passed it on to me. I didn't bother to tell them I've dubbed her PIFfany because it would have taken too long to explain. We declared that it was, indeed, a Good Karma car.

How lovely to spend a fun evening with my girl and run into Rob and Lisa all in one night.

Labels: food, PIF

Having exhausted myself on Cooking Thin for the time being, I've been combing through my excessive collection of cookbooks in search of other inspiring options. I have about a week's worth of recipes from Super Natural Cooking that I can now put together at any given moment (minus one or two ingredients). I expect we'll have some Otsu this weekend.

I also pulled out a book of mine that I got sometime between 1993 and 1997, when I was living in Vancouver, BC. Several pages in the section on rice and noodles are filthy, marked, and well-used. When I was living in Vancouver on my husband's grad student stipend, we couldn't afford the recipes that called for shrimp or salmon or steamer clams and I haven't looked much at it in the last decade or so. An interesting book of Asian fusion cooking, it was good for its time but many of the recipes rely very heavily cilantro, ginger, garlic and lemon or lime over and over. I guess a decade ago, those were ingredients that were common enough that it was safe to build a recipe around them with slight variations and still capture some of that "Pacific flavor" but even trying very hard to only pick recipes with the most differentiation, I felt my mental palate beginning to tire. I'm still interested in trying a couple of the recipes I've flagged but I have to admit they show their age a bit. Still, the Thai Papaya Shrimp Salad sounds good enough that I'm going to give it a spin as soon as my green papayas are sufficiently ripe.

Another book I've had for the better part of 7 years is one that I've looked through once in a while but never tackled in any meaningful way. This weekend I went through it thoroughly. Unlike Pacific Flavors, A New Way to Cook remains fresh and enticing. With my current nutritional goals in mind, suddenly this book was singing to me. I went through it thoroughly over the weekend, taking notes and marking out almost a dozen recipes that I can hardly wait to try. Cabbage Braised with Smoky Ham and Riesling. Sesame-Crusted Swordfish with Cilantro and Coconut Chutney. Honey-Cured Pork Loin with Juniper and Fennel Seed Rub. Beans with Wild Mushrooms in Fennel Broth. I'm so excited about these new flavors, I can barely contain myself. I didn't have the energy to make homemade fennel broth when I got home from the store tonight at close to 10pm, but soon, very soon, it will be mine.

Labels: cookbooks, food

I just adore Heidi Swanson's food blog, 101Cookbooks.com so when I was thinking of what to make for lunch today (which turned into a bit of an impromptu Bed Day when Kate went over to a friend's house for the day) I immediately thought of the gorgeous Vegetarian Split Pea Soup recipe she just posted. Inspired, I added her Curried Egg Salad on a piece of whole grain dark toast.

It turned out great! The soup really benefited from the garnishes: olive oil, smoked paprika, and just a hit of lemon zest. Wow, what a winner!

Heidi's book, Super Natural Cooking, is also an excellent resource. I highly recommend browsing around Heidi's generous blog archives and if you like what you see, give the cookbook a look for yourselves.

Labels: food, recipes

Met with a nutritionist today. Wow, was that RIGHT up my alley. It was great to have my gut instincts validated by a professional who gave thumbs up to my recent food choices and was able to laugh at my enthusiasm when I blurted out things like "I already have that in the fridge!" or "I have a great recipe for that!" in response to her suggestions. Her selections of rubber foods to demonstrate portion sizes for everything from peanut butter to pork chops were a hoot. Hooray for nutrition therapy, that's what I say.

Am continuing to move my diet back to including many more vegetables. Now, I'm a former vegetarian and I have a broad palate and no fear of veggies or soy but I've also got a weakness for meat and cheese. I am, after all, a Midwestern girl at heart and the daughter of a hunter to boot. Trying to be a vegetarian in my dad's house meant a lot of iceberg lettuce. Blech.

Three more recent recipes, simple but different enough, both from the Kathleen Daelemans book that I've referred to before.

Oven-Roasted Carrots and Parsnips

1 pound peeled carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 pound peeled parsnips, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Put vegetable chunks in a ziptop bag with the oil and shake to coat evenly. Pour vegetables onto a baking sheet in a single layer, salt and pepper to taste. Roast uncovered 25-35 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until vegetables are cooked through. My parsnips were softer than my carrots, so I would recommend judging doneness from the tenderness of the carrots first.


Fennel, Carrot, and Cranberry Salad

1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 head fennel, cored and grated or finely julienned
2 carrots, peeled and grated or finely julienned
1/4 cup dried cranberries, cherries, or raisins
salt and pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, honey and olive oil. Combine fennel, carrots, and cranberries in a medium bowl and toss with half the dressing. Refrigerate for at least four hours. Before serving, drain off any water given off by the fennel and re-dress with the remaining dressing. Season to taste, serve immediately. This salad was absolutely delicious and went great with a broiled herb-crusted tilapia fillet.
EDIT: That should be 1/4 cup dried cranberries, NOT 14 cups dried cranberries. Yikes!


Apple and Raw Beet Salad

1 tsp. grated ginger root
1 pound beets
1 large Granny Smith apple
3 Tbsp. sherry vinegar (I actually used 2 Tbsp raspberry vinegar and 1 Tbsp cider vinegar)
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. cracked black pepper
1 to 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Grate fresh ginger directly into a medium bowl (definitely use a microplane grater for this if you have one! It also works to press the ginger through a heavy duty garlic press if you have that instead). Grate beets and apple with a large-sized grater (I used my food processor for this but you could use a box grater just as easily). Toss until ginger is evenly distributed. Add vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil to the bowl and toss to coat evenly. Adjust seasonings if desired. Serve immediately or chilled.

Labels: cooking, diet, food, nutrition, recipes

Monday I had a minor procedure done at Virginia Mason and when dinner time rolled around, I did not feel up to being on my feet and cooking anything. I was also definitely not in the mood to drive (or ride the bus!) anywhere in the cold and damp. Luckily for me, my sweetie is a capable cook and stepped up to the plate.

It's undoubtedly a factor of my childhood poverty that drives me to keep my house ridiculously stocked with food. That tendency has served me well (like the summer when I was pregnant and my grad student husband didn't have a job... we lived on little but my stores got us a long way through what could have been an even more unpleasant situation) and came to my rescue again this week. Chris was able to pull from a selection of foods that I'd prepared in advance and chose some lean pork chops that had been frozen in a ginger-soy marinade. We had the spinach-pear salad with them and called it a good meal.

Tonight I was in the same frame of mind but for a different reason. After a week that involved a lot of stress and a lot of running around, today was Bed Day. I made a thermos of hot tea and took it to bed with me, where I watched my ancient VHS tape of Groundhog Day (from back in the days when you didn't have to watch commercials before the movie you just bought), read my Cooks Illustrated 2007 Annual, lounged, napped, and never got out of my jammies.

Pulling together a dinner from leftovers and what we had in the fridge, I sliced a couple of remaining pork chops and sauteed the strips, heated some leftover Black Japonica rice that I'd served this week with some sweet and sour tofu, dug out some whole wheat tortillas, shredded romaine, a little extra sharp cheddar and a jar of salsa to make a hearty and delicious meal. I wanted to make my favorite tomato, avocado, and preserved lemon salad but when I went to cut into the avocado it was gross so I improvised a tomato-hearts of palm salad with balsamic and lime instead. I was inordinately pleased with the dinner.

Lest I give the impression that everything is a success, I made an egg and vegetable dish for breakfast that took so long to prepare it turned into lunch. First I had to slice and grill (or roast) several slices of zucchini and eggplant. I had bottled roasted red peppers so I didn't do those from scratch, though they undoubtedly would have tasted far better. When the veggies were roasted, they were layered in a baking dish with a chopped mix of herbs between each layer (I used fresh parsley, oregano, and thyme) and four hollows made and then four eggs cracked into each hollow. The whole thing was topped with a little tomato sauce and grated Parmesan and baked. I was feeling pretty good about it (the directions for the recipe I was following said bake for 7-10 minutes until the yolks set) but my yolks absolutely would not set! I baked for 10 minutes. Nothing. Five minutes more, still not even close. I tried giving the whole thing a zap in the microwave and the yolks finally set. Once the dish was done, it was fine and all but pretty much not worth the work. As I said to Chris, it's no Eggs Beatrice (though to be fair, it doesn't have the better part of a stick of butter in it, either).

Labels: cooking, food, recipes

Visiting with a friend recently, he asked me what I'd been cooking. I realized that I my usual convention season cooking hiatus had extended itself through the holidays and was clinging on. I haven't been nearly my usual cooking self.

I'm turning that around and have been trying a bunch of new recipes. Here are a couple of easy, tasty salad recipes that we've given the thumbs up to:


Napa Cabbage Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce
from Cooking Thin by Kathleen Daelemans

1 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup light soy sauce
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
8 cups thinly sliced napa cabbage
1 cup loosely packed, roughly chopped cilantro leaves (or, if you're Marc, sub in parsley)
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, grated
1 cup toasted peanuts (I used low salt dry roasted) roughly chopped

Whisk together sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar until sugar dissolves. Add ginger and red pepper flakes. Set aside.

In a large bowl, toss together cabbaqge, cilantro, scallions, and carrot. Toss in peanuts. Toss all with dressing until evenly distributed.



Spinach & Pear Salad with Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette
from Seattle and King County Public Health

2 tablespoons water
1-1/2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 pears, cored and sliced lengthwise
8 cups torn fresh spinach
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced

In a small bowl, whisk together the water, vinegar, olive oil, honey, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. In large bowl, add the pear slices and 2 tablespoons of the vinaigrette and toss to coat. Add remaining dressing, spinach and onion and toss to coat

Labels: cooking, food, recipes

Chris and I are having a cocktail party this weekend and I'm struggling to get properly motivated. Mostly, I'm feeling cramped. Kate is out of school, needing attention or just kind of bumping around in the background. Rosie, the world's sweetest attention sponge, is staying through the next week and is really a very sweet girl but she's desperate to be right on top of me if I so much as sneeze, plus there's a Christmas tree up and taking up space along with the usual assortment of boxes and random whatnot.

Usually I'd find the prospect of preparing for our cocktail party very energizing but I'm having trouble ramping up for it and I'm running out of time. Tomorrow is going to be insane. In addition to prepping for the party I'm meeting friends for lunch at Farestart (something we agreed to do in lieu of exchanging gifts, although a certain friend cheated and handed us "stocking stuffers" anyway) and Bruce is in town and joining us for dinner at Umi Sake House tomorrow night.

I was out running errands today so I got to start my morning at the Columbia City Bakery, which makes my favorite Americano in Seattle (not to mention the delicious pastries). I did not see any donut muffins as reported at Cakespy recently but I'll be keeping my eyes open from now on. At the tail end of my day of errands, I treated myself to lunch at the newly reopened Hangar Cafe. I heard about the reopening thanks to JvA over at Mid Beacon Hill and finally found myself out, about, and absolutely starving at the right time. Had a delicious ham-packed Hangar Crepe and a couple of steaming mugs of coffee on this cold and crappy day. I'll definitely find an excuse to go back soon. I haven't checked my camera to see if my stealth photos (when you're one of three guests in a place that has a total of seven tables, obsessive food photography can be a little obtrusive so I try to be as inconspicuous as possible) turned out but I'll post 'em up soon if they did.

Now to figure out why I'm not tired when I should be and hopefully get some decent sleep tonight. Busy day tomorrow.

Labels: food, Hangar Cafe, restaurants

I'm feeling very loved this holiday as my friends and family have been very attentive, we've had plenty of time to spend together, we've talked on the phone or gotten cards from many many people. It's been lovely.

I was also completely spoiled with gifts this year as well. In addition to the already-blogged presents Chris replaced my very old (like "bought it cheap when I was barely out of my teens" level old) and thoroughly trashed bakeware with a glorious new heavy-duty set, some thoroughly awesome books, and a new pressure cooker.

My mom had a super heavy-duty pressure cooker when I was a kid but pressure cookers fell out of favor and weren't even really available when I was setting up my kitchen. In the last few years they've come back in style and there's a whole range of pressure cookers out there now, both stovetop and electric. R&C have one they've spoken highly of and I believe J&J have one as well. Chris got me a stovetop model, very similar to the version from my childhood. As I've never had the hardware, I also don't have too many pressure cooker recipes but R&C loaned me their pressure cooker recipe book.

I busted out the cooker for dinner tonight and put together a quick dinner of Spanish rice. It involved nothing more than chopping and cooking some onions and celery, then browning some Italian sausage, throwing the rest of the ingredients in and bringing it up to pressure. After about two minutes, when it was happily hissing away on the stove, the rest of the cooking time took a mere 6 minutes. Maybe 20 minutes from when I started chopping to when I started dishing up the finished meal. Additionally, Kate thought it was great and had two bowlfuls!

I definitely have to play around with it some more. I'm not sure if it's big enough to make portions for game night but it would certainly be perfect for whipping up some meaty main course for the guys if it is.

Labels: CHristmas, cooking, food

Seattlest (a part of the vast -ist empire) used this photo of fatty tuna from my Umi Sake House Flickr set to accompany an article about food handling permits, toilet paper failure, and no bare hand contact. Yay! (And ewwww.)

Labels: food, photos, Seattlest

Spent all day working on holiday treats. Most of the recipes are out of books or magazines but I'll put them up on my recipe pages as warranted.

One that IS online is Kitchen Wench's Walnut, Honey & Espresso Caramels, photos of which she posted on Friday and I haven't been able to think about anything else since. They are every bit as good as the photos promise (and I even got them to come out alright despite discovering mid-boil that my candy thermometer was broken and useless). Highly recommended!

I also came away with:
Sweet-and-Spicy Pecans
Orange-spice Mixed Nuts (I used equal parts pecans, walnuts, whole almonds and hazelnuts)
Chocolate dipped pretzel rods
Lemon-Rosemary Cookies
Midnight Brownies (so called because they have pieces of Milky Way Midnight bars baked in)
Molasses refrigerator cookies

I didn't get around to the sharp cheddar and black pepper crackers I wanted to bake because I decided that I wanted roasted chicken for dinner. I butterflied it Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen style and roasted it to crisp, golden perfection over chunks of parsnip, carrot, potato, butternut squash and onion. I meant to treat myself to a glass of wine but I didn't get around to it and it's too late to enjoy one now.

Here's hoping for a good night's sleep like I had on Friday night. I feel like I could use it.

Labels: cooking, food

Job related stress levels are still pretty high and Kate missed the bus this morning (though she was out at the stop at the normal time) and we had to cancel game night so you might think I'd be Miss Crankypants today but I'm actually feeling pretty good. Two small things happened today that made me downright jolly.

On the way back from taking Kate to school (and dropping off a bunch of kids movies on VHS which I'm donating to the school for their Parents' Night Out program) I stopped at the Columbia City Bakery. I'd just been in yesterday and I don't usually get down there two weeks in a row let alone two days in a row but I decided to treat myself since I had to be out and about anyway. I walked in, glasses fogged up, and checked out the pastry counter. I was fully intending to order a tall Americano (their espresso is so good!) and one of their "snowballs" (currently filled with spiced pears and maple mascarpone). My favorite barista chick saw me peering over my glasses and gave me a smile and I joined the line at the counter. When I got to the front, a tall Americano was waiting for me, just like I was some sort of honest to goodness regular, without me having to say anything. She read my mind and that small kindness had me grinning happily all morning.

One Americano is not enough, though, so I brewed up a pot of coffee this afternoon. As I was sitting down to my first cup, I opened my e-mail to see a note telling me to check my front porch... where COOKIES had appeared like magic. Chocolate chip mint cookies.

See? It's not so hard to make me happy. A little good coffee, a little chocolate... mmm, happiness. Downright frickin' jolly, I tell you.

Labels: food, friends

...and part of every day. (A funny childhood mis-hearing of "party every day" that was passed on to me and has now become stuck in my lexicon.)

It's been quite the go-go-go few days. Of course there's the usual end of the year/Christmas season craziness at work. Two products that were supposed to be delivered the week of Thanksgiving still haven't shown up, while another arrived ahead of schedule and without warning at the warehouse. Time spent fine tuning issues with our various webstore conversions and figuring out who to talk to at Payquake about strange transaction errors. Meanwhile distributors are tight with money/late on invoices/going out of business and need some personal attention as well. One distributor informed us he's closing up shop come 2008 (and since I've sold games to this guy going back to my earliest days in the industry, that was sad news indeed). Another called me to give me a heads up that they'd been bought and were under new ownership. Eeeya.

On the home front we had a crazy "game night" idea of trying to podcast our game group engaging in a round table discussion (as we game with a bunch of game industry pros) but I suspect we're not actually going to be able to use most of the material we recorded because of background noise, uneven voice pick-up and so on. It was a fine idea... maybe in a more controlled atmosphere. We'll see what we can do with it, I guess. This turns out to be the only "Kate-free" weekend we're going to have in December because Kate's dad is going to be traveling and can't take her again until January. As it happens, we're making the most of it.

Pramas and I had tickets to see Naked Raygun last night so I met him downtown before the show and we snuck into the last half hour of Wann's happy hour. Things were incredibly busy and it took almost twenty minutes for me to get my sake and we'd seen nothing from our order after half an hour but the waitress made sure everything came out asap once she finally she noticed the problem. Some chamame (like edamame but a different slightly stronger flavor), fried aonori potatoes (potatoes seasoned with dried seaweed), soft tofu (tofu with grated ginger & bonito flakes), an eel roll, a spicy tuna roll, and of course a Mecha Godzilla roll and we were happy. We topped it off with this fabulous dessert:


We rolled out of Wann and over to El Corozon where we saw four of the five bands on the lineup for the Naked Raygun show. We missed the very first band who, we gathered from the comments of other bands, were some young kids who were pretty good. We arrived just as local Ballard-punks Dreadful Children were setting up. The kids (and I mean kids... are they even old enough to drive?!) loved the Dreadful Children. They were followed by Chicago's Shot Baker. Their list of influences reads like a best of Pramas' record collection (if you leave out CCR and Cat Stevens, which you could more likely find in mine) and I wasn't surprised Chris considered picking up their CDs. They have the "Chicago sound" down pat. I was more excited about the Swingin' Utters who I've listened to for a long time but never seen live. Apparently they came prepared for a half hour set only to find out they were expected to do an hour, so there was a lot of stage banter and long breaks between songs. They played Tied Down, Spit On, which I love, but not Twenty-three which is one of my favorites but I guess it's too emo for their macho mosh-pitting testosterone crowd. There was one poor guy yelling for them to play it all night but they didn't. Naked Raygun came on and did a lovely long set with three encores. They were playing a lot of their "newer" (and by "newer" we're talking older than Kate) stuff that I didn't know at all but then they dipped into some of their older old material and everyone (including the band) seemed to perk up. By the end Pramas was pogoing like a young punk, singing along, shoulder to shoulder with the other old punks brave enough to push to the front of the stage. I sat up in the old punks' lounge and left the moshing to the kids and the fellas. Naked Raygun sounded great, though. If you're a fan, do try to see them on this tour! They're playing Tacoma tonight and heading down to Eugene and points south.

Tonight Pramas is heading out to see The Cops at the Vera Project but I'm going to see The Thermals. I've been waiting to see them since I missed them playing with Speaker Speaker at Chop Suey back in February. Busy busy Kate-free weekend for us!

Labels: food, music

Kate had a friend over yesterday for a play date that turned into a sleepover. Some Guitar Hero was played. Her new room set-up provided play and hang-out space so the girls didn't have to commandeer the living room. We made an abortive attempt to have dinner at Stellar Pizza because Kate wanted to introduce her friend to "the best mac and cheese in the world" but Stellar was closed so we routed up to Columbia City and improvised dinner at Geraldine's Counter instead. Then we made a run to the video store where the girls rented Lego Star Wars for the 360 (we only have the regular Xbox version) and Meet the Robinsons.

Today Pramas was scheduled to play SotC down at Tim's so Kate and I had a sort of Bed Day. Except I couldn't decide if it was better to have Bed Day in bedly comfort or have "bed" day on the new couch watching movies on the nice tv. In the end we opted for the nice TV.

It was all 80s all the time today. First: Adventures in Babysitting. Holy crap, I never clicked that Vincent D'Onofrio was "Thor" in that movie (and that was after Full Metal Jacket according to IMDB). I thought Kate might like it as a girly caper movie but her final verdict was "Meh." Then we watched Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome which I picked because it was rated PG-13. Kate hated it. "They gave you a character but no plot. It didn't make any sense." We also watched The Last Starfighter which TiVo had pulled down from SciFi for me. I had vague memories of that movie being decent but watching it again I found it pretty cringe-worthy. Kate was most interested in that one, though even she recognized it as a pale knock-off of Star Wars. That was enough 80s for me for one day, let me tell you.

For dinner I had failed to plan ahead and was looking to throw something together in a hurry for my hungry family. I remembered that I had all the ingredients on hand for Heidi Swanson's Toasted Wheat Germ Soup, from her excellent book Super Natural Cooking(and the blog 101 Cookbooks) so I whipped that up. It was so unearthly simple I could have kicked myself for not having tried it before. Seriously: a cup of toasted wheat germ, six cups of veggie broth, an onion sauteed and then simmered with a few red pepper flakes, some sea salt, a can of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes and four cups of white beans. To my utter amazement, after a few ultra-tentative sips Kate had multiple bowls of soup and declared it "pretty good" which made my night.

One more precious day of holiday.

Labels: food, holidays, Kate, movies

So Blue Ribbon Cooking School was fun. Robin was so thrilled she suggested we should do it every year! We had two instructors for the cooking portions, who I promptly dubbed "Chef Boot Camp" and Chef Laid Back." I ended up in Chef Boot Camp's group at the beginning of the evening but thankfully we started mixing and mingling as the evening wore on. Largely I photo documented the other guests, though I did participate in some of the hands on cooking as well. Unfortunately when I cook I feel most at ease in my own kitchen with my own equipment and without other people underfoot. If I'd started out in Chef Laid Back's camp, I probably would have been fine and participated more but Chef Boot Camp was more "my style" of chef, in that she wanted to have control and wanted to do things just so and consequently we clashed a bit. When the two "teams" were making gnocchi, Ray was kneading his dough and said, "I think I need more flour," but wasn't allowed to actually have more flour until Chef Boot Camp personally inspected a few minutes later, when she herself said "You need more flour," (as if Ray hadn't said that two minutes ago) and personally got the flour for him. Conversely, people on the other team were allowed to handle their own measuring cups and were getting their own flour, virtually unsupervised! OMG, anarchy!

We didn't actually get to cook everything on the menu, which I'd been wondering about when I saw the huge list of courses. The corn muffins and the salmon crepes were already prepared when we arrived. This was a little disappointing because we birthday ladies chose the crepes in specific because we wanted to get the professional guidance on preparing them, but also totally understandable. It was a huge menu and obviously we couldn't start from scratch on everything. Still, it wasn't clear that we wouldn't be preparing some of the courses when we picked and if I'd had my way I would have made the crepes and let the frickin' salads be pre-made! I've made a bazillion salads in my day.

There was one part of the evening where I feared that we were going to devolve into a bad place, as Chef Boot Camp was talking very critically about the choice of dessert. That creme brule-stuffed pears were "too much" and the Creme Anglaise "overrated." As the dessert was the only area of the menu that I really exerted myself (Christine pre-screened the rest of the menu, keeping every known special need in mind, and Robin and I signed off on it... willingly because Christine made excellent suggestions but still...) I was not thrilled to hear the chef thought so poorly of my choice. At that point I decided to go photograph the glassware for a while and felt better with a little distance. Heh.

Another contrast between our chefs was when we had mostly finished dinner (some of us were finishing coffee or wine, everyone talking and relaxing after a couple of hours in the kitchen) Chef Boot Camp came out to dismiss us! "You can wrap it up now," or some similarly expressed sentiment! I got up to use the bathroom and ran into Chef Laid Back on the way, so I apologized that we were lingering so long. He waved me off... no problem, he said. He really didn't care, where Chef Boot Camp was seriously stressed about time (at another point in the meal she came out and flat out told us to start eating... I was photographing my plate as I am wont to do and didn't appreciate being hit with the Achtung Baby.)

Anyway, don't read my whining as disappointment with the evening! Overwhelmingly I had a great time. It wasn't completely perfect and unmarred but none of my petty grievances even came close to being significant complaints. It was fabulous to get together with friends. I hadn't seen some of the attendees in many months and it was great to get together and share the experience. I loved having the chance to cook with so many of my friends all at once (and not have to clean up afterward!) and the meal came out spectacularly. They gave us a menu, complete with recipes, for us to take home. I will try to get it transcribed and posted on my recipe pages because everything we had (even the "too much" Creme Brule Stuffed Pears with Creme Anglaise and Port Wine Sauce our chef so disparaged) turned out phenomenally and ALL of us are excited to try making homemade gnocchi again soon.

Labels: birthday, cooking, food

Man, I'm STILL exhausted. We had a great time, cooked up a storm then many of us closed out Seattle's Best Karaoke at 4:00am. I'm sure it must have been after 4:30 by the time we got home and maybe closer to 5:00am by the time we wound down and actually got to sleep. Then, after too little sleep, Chris and I both had busy days of running all over town. Kate and I spent ventured downtown to pick up one of Flexcar's SUVs, stopped at a coffee house for a snack, spent several hours braving the madness that is IKEA on the weekends, plus did a trip to Target and now have several of the things we need to begin her promised room makeover. No rest for the wicked tomorrow, either, as I have to spend the day moving furniture around and preparing for some deliveries.

I'll write up more details about the cooking event tomorrow or Monday when I'm not quite as sleep deprived and generally muddled but for now there are photos to get the idea across.

Labels: birthday, cooking, food