use real butter

Recipe: green tea adzuki macarons

NaBloWriMo day 27.

World colliding: NaBloWriMo meets the Daring Bakers meets use real butter. Oy.

the daring bakers get stabby

The official line: The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

The unofficial line: I went with a tried and true recipe from Helen, my macaron expert. Sorry – I didn’t have time for screwing around with an unknown this month. I had a few hours before my flight to California, but I wanted to make some macs to take to my grandma for her birthday. Helen’s recipes never let me down. Never.

i like the matcha very mucha

blend the matcha green tea powder with the confectioner’s sugar

**Jump for more butter**

Rest in peace, Grandma Darling. We love you. We will miss you and your sweet smile.

jeremy and his grandma

NaBloWriMo day 25.

Short on time because I’d rather spend it with my grandma and aunt. It’s so warm here! And I don’t mean that to sound delighted or anything – I really really like my cold and snow back home. We went to a place that serves Shanghai-style dim sum this morning. It’s called, oddly enough: Shanghai Dim Sum in Cupertino. The big deal is the Chinese doughnut (called yo tiao) which is neither salty nor sweet – it’s just deliciously fried dough, and the do jian or soybean milk which we got in the savory version. Mmmmm. We also ordered some xiao lon tan bao or the soup dumplings. I love those too.

chinese doughnut and soybean milk soup

soup dumplings

I don’t get to indulge in Shanghai-style dim sum very often, certainly not in Colorado – like EVER – but this was Grandma’s birthday wish. It was her day! She saw the picture I posted of her yesterday and said she didn’t like it much at all. She complained that she looks old. I don’t think she looks anywhere close to 88, do you? I took some more pictures for her today.

grandma and my aunt elena

For dinner, we always take her to Chef Chu’s on her birthday. It’s not because it’s necessarily the best Chinese restaurant out there, but because my second cousin helps to run the business and she adores my grandma. In truth, everyone adores my grandma because she’s really thoughtful and nice to people, she’s got a good and wise head on her shoulders, and she’s so positive and full of spunk. And we always order the same dishes, because they are her favorites (again – birthday girl calls the shots for the day!): seafood sizzling rice soup (hai shian guo ba tan), lobster noodles (lon shia e mien), and hunan tofu. I know my pin ying sucks – Lisa even asked me about where I learned it (I didn’t, I just sound it out phonetically).

seafood sizzling rice soup

lobster noodles

hunan tofu

Fabulous dinner. Stellar company. I hope I get to celebrate many many more birthdays with Grandma. Thanks for all of the well-wishes! Grandma is aware of the blog, but she has no idea who you people are (except for my mom). Still, she’s a great sport about it all and she said to thank you :)