use real butter

While I am in between X-ray and heart scan, I’m making good use of the wireless network in this part of the hospital. Oooh, someone in medical imaging just gave me a meal voucher! I love this hospital, people are so friendly and upbeat. Unfortunately I can’t eat anything for the next 3 hours, but hopefully I won’t be feeling nauseous when I’m done so I might get myself a sammy.

This blog revolves around food and so does my life. I’m sure I think about food and what I’m going to prepare and eat much more than the average bear. Probably not too much more than the average food blogger :) One thing I wasn’t expecting over the next several months is that I would have to make a few adjustments to my diet. The main kicker: no sushi. *gasp* Honestly, I can forgo anything if necessary. I am not so inflexible.

What better reason to go and enjoy a nice sushi lunch with my sweetheart? There are a lot of places in Boulder to have sushi considering the landlocked status of the state. I haven’t lived here long enough to accept the prices for the quality compared to what I got in So Cal. Okay, but there is one place that has excellent quality and a price tag to match: Sushi Tora.

Recipe: chinese hot pot

While I was pondering a non-trad Thanksgiving menu, HolyBasil reminded me of a favorite dish from my childhood: Chinese hot pot. Call it what you want, huo guo, shabu shabu, fondue… it’s delicious and fun. My mom prepared this on cold nights and it was perfect for someone as picky as my sister. I distinctly recall the steam rising from the broth in the electric wok, fogging the insides of every window in the kitchen. The wok was the centerpiece of the table, surrounded by plates and bowls of colorful vegetables, meats, noodles, and tofu - ready to be picked and cooked. My mother hand sliced everything with such precision and laid out all of the ingredients in beautiful fans.

Recipe: laab

First the admin stuff: I’ve decided to show only 3 posts per page. I’m not sure if this matters or not to anyone other than me, but it makes the traffic on my server easier to handle. The traffic… I thought when we left Southern California we also left traffic behind! Not so. When I made this blog public I was expecting maybe a couple dozen foodies to drop in from time to time to talk food. But now, each time someone links to me on StumbleUpon, it’s as if all of those people are kicking my dear old server in the shins. This blog, my other blogs, and my entire website go dead. So until I can switch out the hardware and optimize caching within the next week or so, I am blocking requests from StumbleUpon. Sorry folks - but you are killing me with your love and I think we need a break… just a short one. It’s not that I don’t enjoy visitors, just that I hadn’t prepared appropriately for the magnitude. So let me be a proper host and get my house in order (i.e. put the old server out to pasture).

On to the topic of the day: larb or larp or laab. It is a wonderful Thai seasoned meat salad of sorts. We were introduced to the dish by our friend, Pailin. She’s Thai and she’s a chef and she’s amazing. We met her hitch-hiking in the Eastern Sierra. Jeremy and I had hiked out of the John Muir Trail a day early because we fell a day behind and were going to miss our scheduled shuttle pick up at Whitney Portal. Instead, we exited via Kearsarge Pass to Onion Valley where we encountered Pailin and Wayne as they finished a day hike. I had never hitched before, but I’m not a very intimidating person (except that I stunk something awful after 6 days of backpacking without a shower), nor did they appear to be serial killers. Gee, I hope my mom isn’t reading this… I asked if we could catch a ride into town. We became fast friends and they stayed with us in Pasadena a couple of times when they came to LA to replenish their pantry with Asian groceries. Wayne and Pailin treated us to dinner at this authentic Thai hole-in-the-wall joint in downtown LA. That’s where we had laab and that’s where the addiction began.

My version of the dish uses ground turkey because it’s healthier, and I probably Chinesified it over the years adding ginger and garlic. When I decided to post this recipe, I realized that perhaps I should check its authenticity against some of my Thai recipe books. Hmmm, no garlic or ginger… Anyway, you can use pork or beef or chicken or tofu. There appears to be enormous flexibility on this dish.