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Recipe: caesar salad

Last night I made eggplant parmigiana (or Pecorino Romano is more like it). I hadn’t ever made this before, but I had eggplants, bread crumbs, mozzarella, some leftover sauce… I sort of wung it and it turned out different from what I had expected, but wasn’t bad at all. I have thoughts for improvement the next go around which will be soon because I have another eggplant waiting in the wings. These should improve on texture and the reduce the “vomit-like” appearance of the sauce.

Recipe: korean glass noodles

I have to admit that I wasn’t exposed to much Asian cuisine other than Chinese when I was growing up. It was a big deal when my mom started cooking more western style foods when I was in junior high. When Dad began his foray into gourmet cooking, he went for the big splashes like rack of lamb or roast pork loin – something that makes your guests go “wow!” while you serve it up with a flourish.

I had been eating sashimi since I was four or five years old, but wasabi was my only introduction to Japanese food and it was prepared unceremoniously at our house as opposed to a sushi bar. And on rare occasion in Washington D.C. my parents would take me to a Vietnamese place for pho and then they’d order all sorts of things I refused to eat like tripe… When I went to college, I began to frequent the sushi bars, Thai restaurants, and other joints around the LA basin serving up good authentic Asian fare. Imagine my surprise when I took my parents to our favorite Thai restaurant and their reaction was, “meh.”

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It’s a good thing I stuck to my menu, because it was cold tonight – perfect for hot and sour soup! I also made spring rolls, which I haven’t done in over ten years. I just hate deep frying in general. But these worked out well and I’ve gained a lot more kitchen experience and equipment in the last ten years to make the process relatively painless.

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