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Recipe: stir-fried chinese chives and pork

You all are really great. Thank you for the anniversary wishes! Jeremy and I enjoyed a fantastic dinner at a favorite resto in Boulder – Jax Seafood. We always manage to overlap with happy hour because we have to get home at a reasonable time to feed Kaweah. Believe it or not, the dog gets acid reflux if she goes without food for a length of time. Perfect affliction for a lab, no?

jax – pork belly sliders

jax – old school tuna special

It was sunny and 40°F on my deck yesterday – a positively gorgeous day in the mountains. Spring is a wicked little girl. She taunts you with the sunshine and the longer daylight hours and that pervasive happy mood that sends people outside for sidewalk dining in short sleeve shirts. I happily wander toward the temptations of Spring like everybody else, but I also look back with longing and wonder if Winter is gonna diss me and withhold any further snow. Not a great ski season. Okay, I’m over it. Anything else is icing on the cake at this point. And really, I can’t complain because Spring is like the super social season when folks are ready to mingle but they haven’t left for their summer travels or vacations.

happy hour with the ladies (she’s only pretending to drink the cream)

One lunch gets canceled, another takes its place. There is always laughter, but yesterday we added sushi and hauntingly bad 80s pop classics to the mix. Right on! It was blindingly sunny and lovely outside and I think the temperatures were in the upper 40s or even low 50s? It’s hard for me to gauge because I felt like it was 90 degrees and that my skin was burning off my limbs. Ah spring!

good times

salmon skin roll

chirashi bowl (my fav)

I have a little potted plant in our great room that toggles between life and death on a regular basis. My grandmother gave it to me via my aunt (this is how Chinese people send things to one another, they never mail anything directly). This isn’t just a houseplant though, it’s a Chinese chive also known as garlic chive. Grandma can grow these on her balcony because… she lives in CALIFORNIA. I keep mine potted and indoors because I like to take snips of it for garnish at times throughout the year. Otherwise I’d only see it for three months of the year. Okay, maybe four. I don’t grow enough to cook with, so I have to make that special trek to Denver to get some.

chinese chives

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Recipe: kung pao chicken

We are quite enjoying the “no cleaning” directive after Chinese New Year. Not that I am an avid house cleaner in general, just that for these two weeks my slacking is condoned. This morning it occurred to me that I am more like my dad than my mom when it comes to cleaning. Dad likes things to be tidy and neat whereas Mom likes to disinfect and scrub until prettier than new. Kaweah was always disappointed when she visited my parents’ house because there was never anything to sniff let alone eat off the floors. Not that we have burgers and cake sitting on the ground, but this dog routinely monitors the state of the kitchen floor and snarfs up the tiniest of crumbs… she’s a lab for crying out loud.

you say the word, and i will eat these grapefruits

Why no cleaning for 2 weeks? It’s because the traditional lunar new year festivities last until the next full moon (Lantern Festival), but my family typically celebrates with a feast on new year’s eve and then they refrain from cleaning for 2 weeks. I guess I also leave the Chinese symbol for luck pasted upside down on our front door until the Lantern Festival. Anyway, even though the big party is over, I’m just telling you that it’s not officially over. I’m sort of having a little party of my own here…

little tripod, meet tripod on steroids (it’s tall, i’m standing on a chair)

I’m learning that the upgrade never really ends and that compact, lightweight, durable precision instruments are beautiful and ridiculously pricey. Well, for that matter, large, heavy precision optics are also beautiful and ridiculously pricey. I’m pretty sure these are tears of joy falling down my face…

two newest members of the lens family (left)

There is only one recipe left from our Chinese New Year’s Eve menu to be posted and I wanted to share that with you before I resumed staring lovingly at the new lenses I am cradling in my arms. I had an old kung pao chicken recipe for years and it was decent. I never ordered it in restaurants because it was so easy to make at home. One day I saw Bee had posted a recipe for kung pao chicken, and it looked heavenly. I bookmarked it to try and never got around to doing so until last week. [Hey, I never said I wasn’t slow about some things.]

green onions, bamboo shoots, ginger, red chili peppers, garlic, cashews

diced chicken meat

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Recipe: stir-fried beef with chinese barbecue sauce

There just is not enough time in a day. Or a week for that matter. It’s February! How did this happen? Either my memory sucks (always a possibility) or more likely than not, I’ve packed my calendar to the hilt. Okay both. Work hard. Play hard. Sleep is for losers. Last night was Ignite Boulder 8 and it was the largest Ignite in the world topping out around 830 attendees! Word. Every time I go I’m amazed and impressed by the organizers, the speakers, and the community. I’ve snuck peeks at other Ignites around the country online and well… *yawners*. Boulder’s Ignite is aptly named (it’s IGNITE, not FALL ASLEEP). Every time I come home after an Ignite Boulder, my face hurts from laughing and smiling so much.

head honcho andrew hyde

mel sportin’ the coolest shirt (the back reads: “poke me”)

thank you, organizers!

The ephemerides tell us that the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year – year of the Tiger) and Valentine’s Day coincide this Sunday, February 14th. Even though I scrunch my nose at Valentine’s Day, there isn’t really a conflict because the Big Partay for Chinese New Year is on Chinese New Year’s Eve. Chinese New Year is the most important holiday on my calendar. I can get away with blowing off Christmas and Thanksgiving routinely, but the week of Chinese New Year is my frenzy time. It’s a good frenzy because I like to share the celebration with friends.

red envelopes, fruit

In planning the menu for this weekend, I had to balance logistics with tradition. There are certain dishes I will not be preparing because it’s too time-consuming or it isn’t enough to serve a dozen people or I don’t have enough burners to cover that many stir-fries. For a beef recipe, I decided to try something new – stir-fried beef with Chinese BBQ sauce (sa tsa or sa cha).

it’s mostly flank steak and green onions

easier to slice semi-frozen

**Jump for more butter**