use real butter

Recipe: pandan ice cream

[Today is the last day to get the early bird registration discount of $50 for the Food and Light food photography and styling workshop in Boulder, Colorado this summer. We are so looking forward to working with you!]

P is for party! In my case, a dosa party hosted by my favorite little blogger down the road, Manisha. She has ruined me, ruined me. I dare not set foot into an Indian restaurant lest I be disappointed that it’s not as good as Manisha’s cooking. [I’m sorry, I don’t have good photos of the dosas because I was too busy EATING them… Priorities, man.]

manisha tops the little papads (which i kept sneaking)

mango panna cotta with cardamom and pistachios

Did I mention that I love having friends who cook? It seems to be a problem that plagues many of my food blog friends who happen to be phenomenal cooks – none of their friends cook. Sure, people eat, but few people actually know and prepare their food at a fundamental level these days. I’m guessing this readership is in the minority when we consider our society of convenience and junk and corporate-mystery-crap-peddled-as-nourishment. But back to friends who cook… Just the other day I was having a pleasant catch-up with Lisa over breakfast and she bemoaned that all too familiar plight of the avid cook: no one invites you over for dinner. Foodies (I know some people hate that word – so call them food enthusiasts or whatever, I really don’t care) are always told “I can’t cook like you.” That’s not really the point. Both Lisa and I agreed that being invited over for take out pizza would be terrific because it’s about spending the time together, not going head to head to outdo or impress. At least, that’s not what my friendships are based on.

(from left to right) great cooks: kitt, manisha, birthday girl dana, and teri (not pictured: kathya)

I was lucky in grad school because I had two girlfriends who were great cooks and we took turns inviting each other (and partners) over for big bash meals – something to take your mind off the grind of research for an evening. I bond with people over food. My dad had a rule in our house: we all sat down to dinner together as a family and the television was turned OFF. And you know what? It was nice (except when the topic turned to SAT scores, college admissions, and why the heck I insisted on playing field hockey). It took a while, but after a couple of years in Colorado I have found a great gaggle of gal pals who love to cook and love to feed one another. We go to ethnic grocery stores together like fifth graders on a field trip. So it was a few weeks ago that Kathya and I were cruising around H-Mart in Denver.

p is also for pandan

defrosted

Truth be told, I didn’t know what pandan leaves were. I just knew that southeast Asian bloggers loved the stuff and made pretty green desserts with it. I held the bag in my hand… a mere two dollars or such. “What is it?” I asked Kathya. Her face melted into a big smile and she told me she loves the stuff and it’s a little nutty, a little floral. I put the packet in my cart thinking I would enlist the help of the interwebs later to figure out what to do with the leaves.

tie into a knot for ease of retrieval

milk, sugar, cream, and a pinch of salt

steep the leaves in the hot cream

Pandan is screwpine leaf and the flavor is nutty, floral, and a tad piny, if that makes sense. It’s subtle and lovely. I was always drawn to it because it’s green and I’m a sucker for green foods. What I learned was that the green color comes from pandan extract, which I didn’t have. So I chanced a visit to my local Asian grocer and found it. I picked up a bottle for myself and another for Kathya.

pandan extract

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pistachio crème brûlée

little love letter #1
I remember in the early days when we were backpacking the Olympics of Washington and it started to rain. You thought it would get better. You really believed it would because you grew up in New Mexico where it’s sunny almost every day. After 24 hours of non-stop rain I declared we were packing up and moving on, in the rain. We discovered that a journey can be magical, rain or shine or horizontal snow. And that is how we choose to live our life together to this day. Throughout the years there have been so many great moments along with a few very hard times. I’m glad that you are my eternal traveling companion – then and now, rain or shine, laughter or tears, but always love.

little love letter #2
There is no way for you to ever know how much you broke my heart the day you left. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you. I often find myself chuckling over something silly that I know you’d appreciate or discovering a little knick knack you had given me: the little moon doggie, the office supply cube, a newspaper clipping. I still have your number in my address book, have all of your letters squirreled away someplace safe, hear your voice in my head. I don’t cry as much anymore, but it still catches me by surprise now and again. I think of the plans we had – to grow old together, to take care of Mom and Dad together, to watch your children grow up, to be best friends and sisters into old age. I still keep you in my heart.

little love letter #3
Can you tell how much I love you even though I don’t know how to say it? Some of my earliest memories include walking with you on a sunny afternoon around the neighborhood. I always felt safe and secure with you near. You were the calming presence. You never yelled, you were never mean, your eyes danced like sparkling stars when you smiled. You held my hand when I walked up the stairs as a toddler. Now, I offer you my arm or my hand when we walk together. I don’t understand everything you say to me and I’m pretty sure you don’t understand everything I say to you in my mangled Mandarin, but it doesn’t matter. Your eyes still dance when you smile and I know what you mean when you squeeze my hand.

littler love letters
Thank you for letting me be me. Thank you for getting who I am. Thank you for being you.

I honestly don’t think Moses said, “Word up, my people…” but I like the way you tell the story.

The way you think and the way you treat others challenge me to think differently, to do better, to be better. I love that about you.

We make a GREAT team. It’s a joy to work with you.

It meant so much to me that you were there when I needed you most, and I didn’t even have to ask.

Your stories make me laugh. Your curiosity helps me learn. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Watching you raise your children makes me so proud to be your friend.

Of all the random paths we have taken in this world, I’m glad our two random paths have crossed and that you are a part of my life.

If I had a tail, I’d wag it whenever I am with you.

That good heart of yours makes this world a better place.

“I sure do love you.”

dinner: pan-seared, dry-aged beef tenderloin on polenta with chanterelles and port reduction

dessert: pistachio crème brûlée

I am a fan of love. I am not a fan of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day isn’t love, it’s a gimmick. For me, love is a kiss and sweet words each morning. Love is that warm hug in the kitchen just because you’re there. Love is running through the house squeaking the dog toy – chasing one another and laughing hysterically. Love is poring over maps together to plan the next backpacking trip. Love is calling to the other to go outside and admire the moon one fine evening. Love is curling up under the covers and whispering plans to one another for the next day.

And in the House of Butter, love is also about making a great meal to enjoy and share.

easy: eggs, cream, sugar, pistachios

after removing the skins

sugar and pistachios

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: taro tapioca soup

gong xi fa tsai!

Xin nian kuai le. Wan shi ru yi.

Happy New Year, everyone! It’s the year of the Rabbit. Rabbits are lucky little guys, so I wish you all a very lucky, happy, healthy, and fruitful year ahead. The house has been busy here at urb-central as it always is before Chinese New Year. We have spent the past few days preparing food, cleaning the house, following the news, and hunkering down during the wicked cold spell that had a hold on much of the country recently. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kitt had posted a cool video of a young woman throwing boiling water into the -40°F air. Can you guess what happened? As Jeremy watched the outside temperature plummet the other night to -25°F, we wondered if we could get that same phenomenon to work. So we went outside on the deck to give it a try.

cool (literally)

love the droplet trails

The water evaporates in the air before hitting the ground. I’m pretty sure our neighbors thought we were on crack tossing water off the deck and firing the flash several times in the night. [I guarantee you we are the most sober residents in this town.] The next morning, it was still -23°F. So before Jeremy left for work, he humored me and we tried another boiling water toss off the deck. And because it was daytime, I was able to shoot a nice sequence of it. You can see more of the nighttime shots and larger daytime shots on the photoblog.

science!!!

That was pretty COLD. Kaweah kept wanting to come out onto the deck with us because she equates baking her brains in the sun with walking onto the deck. But we’ve been keeping her inside the warm house since her old body gets very stiff when it’s cold. A few times Jeremy has had to go and rescue her at night when she was let out to potty because she got stuck in the snow when her paws got so cold she couldn’t walk. She’s more susceptible to temperature extremes as she has aged, but she’s not any smarter.

that’s okay, we’ll just keep her on the snuggy blankets

Right now, our house is clean and our refrigerator is full of lucky foods. Per tradition, we always clean the house on Chinese New Year’s Eve because you can’t clean the house for the first two weeks of the new year or else you will sweep out the good luck. This put me in a bit of a panic because I’m hosting something during that time period at my house. I also made a small feast for our New Year’s Eve dinner – each dish or component represents some form of health, luck, fortune, and happiness.

fu is luck and it is upside down on our front door – it means “luck arrives”

potstickers, soybean sprouts, lucky ten ingredient vegetables, lucky bean thread noodle soup

And then there is dessert. I almost always make western desserts when we entertain because most people I know aren’t that thrilled with Asian or Chinese desserts. When I was a kid, the typical dessert in my house was fruit. On special occasions, my dad would make almond jello or sesame bananas, reading the recipe from a fat book packed with delicate, thin pages covered in Chinese characters. Kris and I would get so excited. At the real Chinese restaurants (the ones where the waiters can barely speak English), they would serve a warm sweet soup of some kind for dessert. Sometimes it was sweet red bean soup, sweet green bean soup, tapioca coconut soup, black sesame soup, or sweet peanut soup… Soup. And there was taro root soup.

taro root

coconut milk, taro root, sugar, tapioca

**Jump for more butter**