use real butter

Recipe: braised napa cabbage with mushrooms

This morning I was working on a blogging event project and thought making meringues would be a nice component to my creation. It would also be a good way to use up some egg whites leftover from making (far too much) ice cream. Color is as important here as texture, and my intention was to have a white topper. Well… damn it, Donna. I love Donna Hay’s books because the pictures are beautiful and white and – and why the hell doesn’t that meringue recipe of hers ever come out white? I suppose I should reduce the heat? Or maybe try a different recipe (hers includes vinegar and cornstarch – probably for stability)?

Recipe: fish-flavored pork

Fish-flavored pork is the translation for yu-shian ro-tse, a tangy and spicy Chinese stir fry of pork, water chestnuts, tree ears, and other fragrant ingredients. My mom makes this dish to perfection with her hands tied behind her back. Whenever we would go home to visit my parents, or if they came to visit us, they would invariably end up cooking a feast of our favorite Chinese dishes (and for Dad, he would do his western specialties like Bouillabaisse or roast rack of lamb). This happens to be one of Jeremy’s favorites. My mom is the type who, once she learns what your favorite foods are, will do everything in her power to make those for you. Got a little strange when she got me and Kris mixed up and kept buying gallons of cranberry juice for me when I’d come home from college!

One day, I thought to ask my mom for the recipe. Nothing is ever measured out in my family and documenting a recipe is an even more ludicrous concept. It’s all intuition with them because they’ve been cooking for decades. So I’ll sit on one end of the phone while mom says things like “a little sherry” – “well, how much sherry?” or “and some green onions” – “how many green onions?” I know I don’t cook this as well as my mom does. It will take a few decades to dial it in the way she has, but every time I make the dish I think of her and I feel a small tug from inside pulling me in the direction of my culture and my mom.

When Kell asked me what I would want for a last meal, sushi was my immediate answer. I love sushi – California style. That is, not in the traditional Japanese sense only because I haven’t been exposed to the traditional except in New Zealand (go figure). The Chinese are notorious for bastardizing sushi by dousing it with Sriracha and then dunking it in wasabi with a dash of soy sauce. *raises hand – guilty*

Jeremy and I had it good for almost a decade. We had a favorite sushi bar Ai, in South Pasadena. Fumito is the head chef there and he not only treated us to the best sushi, but he became our friend – teaching us to distinguish Good from Bad, sushi. When we moved to Colorado we discovered a handful of decent sushi joints in Boulder, but… price and quality just couldn’t compare to So Cal. They just can’t. We’ll dine out for sushi on occasion in town, but we will more likely make our own at home.

I have a favorite roll from Ai, the Not-So-Special Roll. Fumito has a Special Roll on the menu which is spicy tuna and spicy scallop with avocado, masago, and sometimes cucumber or daikon sprouts all crammed into a cut roll wrapped in halibut… or maybe snapper? I can’t recall because the Not-So-Special Roll omitted the outside fish (just because it got to be incredibly filling). That was my brain child and Fumito was happy to oblige. And that is what we create at home when we start to miss Fumito and all of the regulars at the sushi bar – except Hector and Eddie, those two made me laugh so hard I almost snorted my drink out my nose.

After spending the morning prepping our doors for the winter onslaught and then noodling around the hardware store for Things That Don’t Exist, we swung by Whole Foods to pick up some sea critters. We started with scallop carpaccio, something akin to a small plate I enjoyed with Kell and Jerad at Fish Face in Sydney (awesome place to eat if you’re ever there). I am a sucker for ponzu.