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Technique: shucking oysters

You could say we met each other early in our lives. I was 21 and Jeremy was 19. It’s not early like his grandparents who knew one another since the age of 5, but early compared to most of our friends. When we married four and a half years later, our low-key wedding was a bigger deal for others than it was for us. We just liked being together. We liked exploring, discovering, learning, growing, playing, and working together.

jeremy on the sand dunes, death valley

We started out as opposites:

I’m loud. He’s quiet.
I’m an extrovert. He’s an introvert.
I lose my temper easily. He remains calm, cool, and collected.
I’m practical. He’s whimsical.
I’m clueless. He’s not.
I like savory. He likes sweet.
I’m a visual thinker. He’s abstract.
I’m organized (OCD). He is chaotic.
I’m assertive. He’s inertial.
I’m Tigger. He’s Eeyore.

surrounded by desert gold in death valley

After almost two decades of shared experiences, I think we have as many similarities as we have differences. I’m still my own person and so is Jeremy, but we make a great team. Our relationship never feels like work, never feels like a burden. If anything, the challenges are always what life throws at us. We navigate them together, supporting one another. Fifteen years of marriage today and it’s stronger than ever.

jeremy coaxes a tired kaweah to look at the camera

the only time he has ever danced in public (at our friends’ awesome wedding)

Our wedding anniversary isn’t such a big deal, it’s just that round numbers seem to be more significant – multiples of 5 or 10. So in honor of our 15th anniversary, I decided I’d learn to shuck oysters. If you had asked me about oysters this time last year I would have said, “oyster whut?” But this past summer, when the Food and Light team went to happy hour after the workshop was over, Jeremy got hooked on oysters.

i blame this young lady

Diane saw Kumamoto oysters on the menu for a steal and got so excited that she asked if the rest of us wanted to order some too. People said sure and she counted, “two for you, two for you, okay that’s a dozen…” then she turned to the server and said, “We’ll order 2 dozen.” We looked at her in surprise and she flashed that adorable smile of hers and said, “I need a dozen!” I like oysters just fine. I can take them or leave them. Jeremy loves them.

some barron point oysters from washington

I went to the seafood department at my local Whole Foods in Boulder (on Pearl Street) and asked one of the nice seafood guys to teach me to shuck oysters. It wasn’t especially busy, so he took the time to explain the morphology of the oyster, the tools required, safety, and then technique. How cool is that? Then he set to work on a couple, quizzed me, and packed up several beautiful Barron Point oysters for me to take home to practice.

equipment: a kitchen towel and an oyster knife

the point closest to you is the hinge, the well or bowl should be on the bottom

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Recipe: chinese honey walnut shrimp recipe

Some time last week (Nov 7th) marked seven years since I began blogging. I hadn’t even realized this until today as I’ve been bogged down with so much. It seems fitting though, because I’ve been talking with some blog friends lately about blogging “back in the day” compared to now, today. It’s quite different. But I won’t bore you with those musings. I remember how excited I was in the early days to find a handful of blogs that posted Chinese recipes I wanted to make. The two I loved most were Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen and Bee’s Rasa Malaysia. They still crank out reliable recipes and I often reference their blogs for all manner of Chinese (or other Asian) cooking help.

Bee recently released her first cookbook, Easy Chinese Recipes, a lovely collection of favorite Chinese recipes and beautiful glossy photos to entice the reader to make every single dish. Bee’s style in her book is no different from her exacting instructions and helpful background information on her blog. The recipes are easy to follow even if you’ve never cooked Chinese food before. But I’ve cooked Chinese food before. LOTS. OF. IT. Yet, I still found plenty of recipes that I’ve been wanting to make and never found a good recipe for until I flipped through Bee’s book.

easy chinese recipes: family favorites from dim sum to kung pao

As any cook is bound to do, I compared some of my family recipes with Bee’s versions and they totally jived. There was never any doubt. I dog-eared several pages – recipes to revisit when I had more time. I finally settled on a restaurant favorite that I never had the guts to try at home, until now…

shrimp, honey, walnuts

marinate the shrimp in salt and egg white

The shrimp are raw despite their pink color (these are wild-caught Key West pink shrimp from Whole Foods), so be sure to use RAW shrimp and not cooked shrimp. It’s a straightforward process considering there is frying involved. Peel and de-vein your shrimp, then butterfly them if you like. (I like to butterfly them because they take on a pretty curled and flared shape when cooked.) Marinate in salt and egg white.

candied walnuts

mixing up the sauce

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Recipe: black cod with miso

Over a year ago, I was contacted by the program director of the Denver Botanic Gardens about giving a lecture and doing a workshop for their Bonfils Series. We met over tacos at Pica’s and I cobbled together a proposal – something to inject a little ethnic culture and cuisine into Denver. I asked my friends Manisha, Todd, and Diane if they wanted to join me and then we worked out a date… October 20-21, 2011. That seemed quite far off, and now look – it’s next week!

If you’re near the Denver area, we’d love to have you come to our lecture: Three Food Blogs, Three Cuisines, Infinite Inspiration on Thursday, October 20, 2011 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. If you want to arrive early (5:30 pm) there will be some great Denver food trucks to grab a nosh! On Friday, October 21, 2011, the four of us will lead a workshop in the kitchen facility where we will share and demonstrate Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese recipes and cooking techniques. The workshop runs from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm with a short break in the middle for participants to grab lunch. So come join us for great stories, fantastic food, and heaps of laughter. We can’t wait to meet you!

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I see more bare branches than aspen leaves around my neighborhood, thanks to the winds that whipped through here a few days prior. While walking Kaweah on the local trails this evening, I could see the skeletal dried flowers, puffballs, and solitary leaves shivering in the cold. They make a sad rattling noise as the winds race along the ground. They crunch underpaw when Kaweah goes careening off the trail to sniff something. Sunset comes earlier each day and practically sneaks up on us. When we came home from Boulder on Monday, I looked out the window to see some Kelvin-Helmholtz waves over the Continental Divide. These clouds are typically short-lived, but to get them at sunset? SCORE! Jeremy and I love to geek out on beautiful examples of fluid dynamics at work.

indicative of high shear aloft (SCIENCE!!!)

We had no such glorious clouds at sunset today, but that’s okay because I had something glorious going on in the kitchen. On my fall colors recon/40th birthday long weekend, Jeremy and I spent a couple of days in Aspen. One evening, we went to Matsuhisa for dinner because so many had recommended it. I have to say, I was pretty underwhelmed with the sushi and sashimi which was decent, but seriously overpriced. However, the items we ordered from the kitchen were pretty phenomenal like their heirloom tomato salad with cilantro dressing or the black cod with miso. Let’s talk about that black cod with miso. Melt. In. Your. Mouth. I’ve been obsessing over it ever since.

white miso paste, mirin, sake, sugar, black cod fillet

Flipping through some of my own books, I found a miso black cod recipe. But a quick search on the internets led me to the recipe from Matsuhisa on Food and Wine! The anticipation was crushing. I checked my local Whole Foods and asked my buddy Dustin (he’s the head of Seafood) when they’d have some black cod in. We talked about the recipe and he nodded, “That’s good stuff.” I just had to be patient. Upon my return home from my road trip, I picked up some groceries at Whole Foods and saw they had black cod fillets on ice. YES, PLEASE.

pour the mirin and sake into a small saucepan

whisk the sugar in with the miso, mirin, and sake

pour the miso marinade into a baking dish to cool

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