use real butter

Recipe: agedashi tofu

[A Fund for Jennie Raffle Update: Kaweah has done her job and picked two winners. I'm waiting to get confirmation that the winners made donations. I'll announce the winners in my next post! And again, my sincerest thanks for your support and generosity to help Jennie.]

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While most people who maintain a blog fancy themselves writers and/or photographers, I don’t necessarily equate blogger with writer or photographer. I’ve never considered myself a writer, just someone who never shuts up. And even though I am not any flavor of good writer, I know what I like to read. A favorite blog of mine happens to belong to one of my favorite people. Certainly you’ve heard of Tea & Cookies? Tea (Tara) is a friend of mine and she paints scenes, feelings, stories with her words that flow so naturally. I’m there with her in her writing, or at least wishing I was. She recently released an ebook on her time spent in Japan – a country, culture, and people so dear to her:

I’m sending the little book I’ve written out into the world. It’s not the full story of my five years in Japan—just the first part (if there is interest, I will continue it). I’m selling it as a fundraiser, to raise money to continue supporting people who have had their lives shattered. A portion of the money will be donated directly to organizations doing work in the earthquake zone, a portion I may use to put in place some morale boosting efforts. There will be more information about that in the next month or so, along with some creative ways you may be able to participate (this could be fun!). They have to do the hard work of rebuilding, but we can cheer them along, remind them of hope and kindness.

you can read tea’s entire post here

You can purchase Tales from High Mountain in PDF or for Kindle. The price? A mere $3.99. Funds go to Japan and so do you. You travel with Tea to the mountains and explore a wholly different way of life through her young and curious eyes. I’m pretty sure this is going to cost me more than the $3.99 I spent on the ebook because now I want to go to there. It’s a beautiful account of her first months in Japan after college: honest, sincere, naive, respectful. Tea has a way of putting you right there – like a first person shooter game without the artillery. And of course there are the foods, traditions, celebrations, rituals, and several recipes she includes at the end. A truly delightful read that transported me across the Pacific. I highly recommend it.

In honor of Tea’s book, I’m sharing one of my favorite Japanese dishes with you today. Whenever I would see my late grandma, I would often take her out for sushi at least once during each visit. Knowing that she loved tofu, I’d order the agedashi tofu appetizer from the kitchen for us to enjoy together. It’s a tender, silky tofu with a crisp fried coating in a small pool of dashi-based broth. There would be grated ginger, daikon radish, and bonito flakes served on top. It usually arrived steaming hot and was especially welcome on those cooler winter nights in California.

cornstarch, silken tofu, green onion, daikon radish, ginger, bonito flakes

grate the ginger and the daikon radish

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese pickled vegetables

When Jeremy and I were a young couple, we would on rare occasion have dessert for dinner and giggle to one another that this was a perk of being an adult. I defined adult by age. I had no idea what adulthood really meant. I didn’t know loss. I didn’t know illness. I didn’t know that people would disappoint in times of crisis. I also didn’t know that there were those who would carry me through the toughest days with their love and support.

seek the rainbow in the storm

Today, I try to walk through life ever-present… to appreciate the beautiful moments be they the hug of a small child, an exquisite landscape, tucking my hand into Jeremy’s back pocket as we walk, hiking into the mountains, stroking Kaweah’s soft floppy ears, sharing a meal with a friend.

at dinner with jennie in sonoma valley (november 2009)

Sometimes beauty arises where you least expect it – like all of the peanut butter pies that the food blogging community posted per Jennie’s modest request after her husband tragically passed away two weeks ago. Or in this, my favorite tribute to Jennie and Mikey by my dear friends Todd and Diane.

a fund for jennie
Thanks to the efforts of Shauna and Maggy, we can offer some longer term support. Maggy, Erika, and Aimée have launched Bloggers without Borders and one of their first assistance projects is a fundraiser for Jennie and her girls. Many bloggers are participating by holding auctions and sharing the news. As part of this blogging community and as Jennie’s friend, I’m doing my small part to help and to get the word out.

I’m sort of raffling off two of my 12×18 inch photographs (matted to 18×24 inches, all archival materials) to two winners who will be drawn at random. I say sort of because it’s one ticket per person, but you are of course welcome to donate more than the cost of a ticket if you are so inclined. It’s about helping Jennie more than anything else.

Here are the rules:

1) To enter, donate a minimum of $10 to Bloggers without Borders (donate via the button below) AND leave a comment on this post sharing what you find beautiful in life.
2) This raffle is open to everyone.
3) One entry per person, please.
4) Deadline to leave a comment is 12:00 pm (noon) extended to midnight, Mountain Daylight Time on Monday, August 29, 2011.
5) Winners will be chosen at random from the comments and verified with Bloggers without Borders.
6) The winners are to select a photo of their choice.
7) The photos will ship anywhere (at my cost).

Or if you want to donate, but don’t want to enter the raffle – that’s perfectly fine too! Either way, thank you for your kindness and your generosity.

click this button to donate to a fund for jennie at bloggers without borders

a few of the photos the winners can choose from

There is a recipe too since these wonderful people and this incredible community are a part of my life because of food. In fact, I wouldn’t have known about nor made this recipe if Diane hadn’t introduced me to banh mi, the delectable sandwich of her people made with baguette, pâté, cilantro, a protein (pork, ham, etc.), pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber, and mayonnaise. I determined that I needed those pickles. So I made them myself a while back (as you can tell from the henna tattoos on my hand).

typically daikon and carrots, but i added the cucumbers too

julienne

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mee krob

It’s taken me a few years to figure this out, but I think I have finally turned a photo roadtrip into a nice mini vacation for Jeremy as well. This basically means I’m learning to chill out a little. Just a little. And that’s hard to do in a place like Crested Butte when hillsides are bursting with colorful wildflowers while snow still lingers on the high peaks. I’m getting a lot better at knowing when to call it good, put the camera gear away and grab the bike to go exploring with Jeremy. We helped a fellow who broke his shoulder (he went over the handlebars on the trail) down the trail to get help. We even hit the bike park!

not a bad place to live – at the base of mount crested butte

and the town serves up some creative martinis (red raspberry)

cruising the lupines

it’s mind-blowingly beautiful

All of the snaps from the trip are on the photo blog.

Everywhere we went, there was a constant buzzing – that high-pitched whistle of hummingbirds zipping from flower to tree to chasing off another hummingbird and back to the flowers. They are territorial little guys. I spied two kinds.

the broad-tailed hummingbird

and the rufous

More hummingbirds here.

There aren’t a lot of places that make me question how much I love living where I live, but Crested Butte is certainly one of them. I’m not the wistful type and yet that place makes me point to random plots of land and ask Jeremy, “Is there any way you could be a freelance astrophysicist?”

wild iris and yellow paintbrush

delphinium, golden eye, and mule’s ears

lupine, scarlet gilia, and golden eye

sticky geranium

See the whole set on the photo blog.

Realistically, I’m doubting I could make the move to Crested Butte because I need to get my Asian on. We’re not just talking about Asian restaurants, I’m referring to Asian groceries. I need to feed my addiction for all things Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Malaysian so I can make favorite dishes like mee krob. I had no idea what preserved garlic was (it’s really pickled garlic), but found it at my local Asian grocer, much to my delight!

rice vermicelli, fish sauce, vinegar, pickled garlic, tamarind, shrimp, sprouts, paprika, sugar

pickled/preserved garlic

**Jump for more butter**