use real butter

Recipe: tomato garlic pasta sauce

My old office was directly across the hall from the Los Angeles Times Press Room in the Seismology building at Caltech. Every time there was a local earthquake in California or a sizable earthquake around the globe, the press would flock to this room where Dr. Kate Hutton would calmly answer questions. During my years at Cornell, graduate students got word of seismic events and went down to the seismograph on the first floor of our building to see the three paper records tracing out first motions. The seismology group would be analyzing the digital records, but the rest of us watched the drums roll as the wave signatures slowly came into view. Sometimes a rupture was merely scientifically significant – occurring out in the middle of “nowhere”. Or it was a scare near population centers where there was thankfully no loss of life… And other times, like this past week, it was catastrophic.

I remember talking on the phone with the lead investigator on the Sumatran plate boundary research project right after the Banda Aceh earthquake and Tsunami in 2004. As he gave me a list of maps and images he needed from our group in preparation for his flight to Sumatra, he choked on his emotions and quietly said, “So many people have died.” Part of his research involved outreach and education for the local population including posters that instructed the island inhabitants to run inland after a seismic event. Even though he felt so helpless, his work saved lives. We do what we can, however we can.

If you want to make a contribution to a charitable organization that is working in Haiti, I recommend going to Charity Watch for a comprehensive list of top-rated organizations based on how effectively they use donations to meet their aid goals. We chose Doctors Without Borders. Whatever you choose to do, make it count.

There is a recipe for you because I’ve actually been cooking AND shooting despite an insanely busy schedule. Go figure. My only explanation is that we haven’t had any snow. Thankfully, it started snowing Sunday afternoon to my utter delight.

tomatoes and garlic

blanching tomatoes

I don’t tend to post a lot of pasta recipes because I don’t really eat a lot of pasta. I know it sounds strange considering I call myself a noodle-girl, preferring noodles to rice any day of the year. Maybe it’s because I eat rice noodles, cellophane noodles, ramen noodles, somen noodles, soba noodles, udon noodles, All Kinds of Asian noodles, that I never think to make pasta. On occasion though, I have made a pasta sauce that my Chinese mother taught me to make.

peeling the tomatoes

slicing in half

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Recipe: taco seasoning

It’s Kaweah’s eleventh birthday today! In celebration, we here at use real butter are having a giveaway this week in honor of Kaweah. Hmmm… what should we give away?

a puppy?!?

I can’t give that puppy away – that was Kaweah almost 11 years ago (it was sunset, so she looks brown). We tossed around a ton of ideas, but finally settled on this puppy:

how about a $100 gift card to chefs?

I’m giving away a $100 CHEFS gift card this week. What better way to launch the giveaway than on our little random number generator’s birthday? To enter, follow these rules:

Leave ONE comment on this post telling me what you want to do with the $100 gift card (e.g. What are you going to get? Is it for you? Are you going to give the card to someone else?) Multiple comments will be deleted. Entries will be accepted until midnight, Friday December 18, 2009 (12:01 am will be Saturday the 19th). The winner will be selected at Crazy Random courtesy of Kaweah and the Astrophysicist and announced on Monday, December 21, 2009. I’m pleased to tell you that CHEFS ships internationally, so this giveaway is open to ANYONE. Woohoo!

For Kaweah’s birthday, we did an early celebration because we have too much going on today. I’m sure the majority of you will think us insane, but I thought a little bit of steak might be nice for Kaweah’s birthday dinner. Just a little. That’s not the insane part. The insane part was finding ourselves in front of the Whole Foods meat counter. Hmmm, why was the dry-aged rib-eye $19.99 a pound? I asked what the difference was between dry-aged and regular. Curiosity got the best of us, so I pointed to one steak and said, “How about that one?” I thought it was 1.5 inches thick… when the nice gentleman lifted the steak out of the tray, it was 2.5-inches thick and the bloody thing cost me $30!

more wondrous snow

she even got dressed up

We grilled the steak and set aside a few thin slices for the birthday pup. The problem with giving Kaweah any kind of beef is that she scarfs it down without chewing. And just in case you thought it was because the piece of meat was too small – she does the same thing with large pieces of meat too (I have experimented with this in the past).

the birthday plate

it was gone in seconds

Jeremy and I sat down to share the remainder of the steak. It was like butter! So tender and melt-in-your-mouth. Can you dry-age beef at home if you have a cellar or some such thing? I’m tempted to look into it just for kicks (and well – to save having to pay out the nose). I don’t know that I will regard steak the same way again.

When Kaweah cleared her plate like a good girl, we gathered her favorite toys together for birthday cupcake. But that beef was fatty enough as it was, she didn’t need frosting too. Jeremy graciously volunteered to polish off the cupcake while Kaweah enjoyed a healthy carrot. She’s a simple girl, you know.

when kaweah really wants something, she won’t look at it until she hears her release word

what’s that mr. bunny? oh no, i’m 11 years old, not 11 months!

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: korean bbq-style burgers

Administrative note: The strong undertow of the holiday season is fast sucking me down to the bottom of the sea. I will do my best to answer any pressing questions in the comments this weekend, my good people!

Jeremy and I met our pal for a quick happy hour yesterday evening and there were THREE parties going on at the restaurant. I guess Office Party Season has officially begun. We had one to attend ourselves last night. It’s more of an event though. Ignite Boulder 7 – another sold out crowd at the Boulder Theater! My friends Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and heaps of wonderful coordinators, volunteers, sponsors, and speakers pulled off yet another hugely entertaining evening of presentations, music, and prizes. AND they donated all proceeds to The Food Bank of the Rockies. It’s great meeting so many people from my online communities in real life, plus some fresh out of the blue.

ef always warms up the crowd with his sweet voice, guitar, and wit

sold out crowd

fellow citizens play the intermission

What was I saying the other day about my love of summer food in winter? Right… I can’t help it. We had some record low temperatures smacking the Denver-metro area about recently. Last weekend, I was flipping through my copy of Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. I know, everyone has already seen it. It was part of the schwag bag from the after party at BlogHer Food 09 and I had emailed in for my free copy a few months ago. I waited and waited. I saw tweets and posts from everyone and her sister raving about the book. I waited some more. Then one day, I whine-tweeted online that mine had yet to show up.

Then Jaden, aka Busiest woman on the Planet, said she’d fix everything. And she did.

i love this book almost as much as i love jaden

For as long as I have been aware of food blogs, Steamy Kitchen has always been one of my goto sites for rock-solid Chinese recipes. That and Jaden makes me laugh much like the way my sister made me laugh. But her book is more than just Chinese recipes. It has Thai, Viet, Korean and lots of great Asian fusion dishes like her Korean BBQ burgers.

look at all those goodies

they go *in* the burger

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