I heart pork

The last of the old sprinkler valves are at the end of their useful life. Well, one of them is still good. But my anal retentiveness has been bothered by the non-matchy matchy valves for years now. And the PVC work is really just haphazard.

And now I have updated virtually the entire irrigation system. We now have matching valves, and pipes that are less spaghetti-like. And it only took one trip to the hardware store. I may have a future as a surgeon.

Twice cooked pork lettuce wraps. The chili peanut sauce... whoowhee... packs a whallop. My own valves and pipes are totally going to need some work too if I keep eating like this. But my sinuses are clear.

Put a fork in it

Tonight, I'm taking a break from turkey leftovers. We attempt to make fried rice. And then I am reminded that I never learned how to use chopsticks correctly. I am such an embarrassment to my grandma. But fried rice is still tasty with a fork.

Second to last session of wheel throwing class tonight. Overworked Junzo finally fired some of my plates and lumpy vessels. There's some ugly ass plates this go round, probably because I've been in an ugly mood a lot lately. If I send you one of the ugly ass plates as a gift this year, it means you're on my shit list. Carol the instructor wanted to steal the spotted dimply vase. I guess nobody else does the spotted glazing waxing techniques like I do. It's not that hard at all. I thought it would be an obvious thing to do.

My favorite plate so far. I was going for a rustic kind of mid-century type of feel. The blue grey glaze came out really deep and rich. And the shape is exactly how I envisioned it. Very happy with this one.

And I did multiple color glazes on the bottom. Which is also something nobody else thinks to do. Even if you don't see the bottom all the time, why wouldn't you put in the effort to make it interesting also? I'm very happy with the yellow brown leathery looking glaze. And the combination with the shiny blue grey is nice.

I heart salt

Tonight, I work on making heirloom quality Loo Juice. A sodium umami bomb to pass onto the next generation. Soy braised chicken wings, tofu, beef shank, shiitake, and eggs. I should probably get one of those home EKG machines. I'd mod it to spit out menu planning advice. And my EKG machine would support RSS.

Pig latin

It's been ages since I've seen one of my favorite Sachi's. We will catch up and reminisce with the aid of pork dishes. Sachi brings gifts of beautiful irises. Are irises edible?

A bit of wine, some manchego, and a nibble or two of salame while I finish up the other courses.

We will be guinea pigs* to my new invention. Interactive caesar salad. Slightly grilled romaine lettuce for a bit of smokey flavor. And the components of a traditional caesar dressing broken out and treated as their own individual side dishes of fried eggs and warm bagna cauda. Just mix everything together however you wish when you eat it. This was a bit too interactive for my tastes. I'm essentially lazy, so I'd rather not play with my food on the plate and would prefer something pre-tossed. Sometimes, it can be too much work to eat something. But I have to admit it looks nice on a plate.

But the old standby of tomatillo braised pork loin never fails. It's doubly wonderful today because pork is cheap this week due to the Jewish holidays. I have 18 lbs of pork in the refrigerator.

I kleenz krumms auf u.

*there was no lipstick on the above mentioned guinea pigs

Imaginate

I'm starting to recycle the old standbys to use up all those tomatoes. I should be more inventive.

The rule around this house is that the uglier the pizza, the more diliciouser.

Egg on face

Bruce sandwiches again. Now firmly ensconced into the repertoire. Bacon makes everything delicious. Thanks Bruce and Meredith!

I'm no longer a fan of the white peaches. Sure, they're super sweet. But they lack soul. The old yellow cling peaches may not be as sweet and commercial, but they have peachy soul- a wonderful balance of acid and sugar. A sense of history and tradition. When a yellow peach is at it's peak, biting into a sun warmed one with juice dribbling down your chin is transcendent. Why bite into a saccharine silicone Britney Spears when you can have the full volume joys of an Aretha Franklin?

Cracker jack

Eggs and salsa. I'm guessing that jet lag food is the same as hangover food.

A fluffy clean furminated Preston is not jet lagged, but happy to just hang with me.

Manly tattoo. I'm telling everyone I got tattooed while stationed overseas in Korea. And I barely remembered what happened because I woke up in a gutter after a month of drunken debauchery. That's my story.

New bathroom shelves are needed to hold the items kicked out by the proliferating pandas. The lower shelf is slightly droopy because power tools and travel loopiness shouldn't mix.

Plane crazy

The airport "limousine" is optimistically named. Sigh. Less than 3 days on the ground, and I'm heading back to California already. I'll just have to squeeze all my restaurant hopping in the limited time I have at the airport. 

Korean draft beer is good.

So-so bulgogi. I guess most airport food is of similarly overpriced quality all over the world.

I found a gelato stand in Korea! Black sesame and yogurt flavoured gelato. Surprisingly good. And the yogurt gelato texture was spot on. I got two spoons so I can share with myself.

Black bean tea tastes like dirt. The dirt that the beans grew in. Blech.

Colonel Sanders looks Asian. I'm not sure this will go over well in Kentucky.

And one last fiery seafood tofu stew pot. Then onto the airplane for the 12 hour flight back to LA! Aie! (And yes Meg, I did eat all that.)

Loo pee

Loo'd items: Day 2. Eggs and tofu and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! Tonight, I added extra star anise and chen pees.

Wheat berry salad with parsley, lemon, and red peppers. Man does not live on loo alone.

And a third batch of loo'd tofu and seaweed and chicken. The sauce is getting darker with each use. That means it's getting extra flavah.

Bottled loo juice, 

Muddling through

Sexy new camera. It reminds me of a Klondike bar. A sexy Klondike bar.

Some of you may be getting dried herbs in the mail. Please don't get too excited because it actually IS oregano and NOT "oregano."

3 of my most favorite things all on one plate.

In honor of the Kentucky Derby, we celebrate with mint julep. Not only do I get to use Kentucky bourbon, I can smoosh the mint with the drink muddler. Seersucker suit not pictured. (I actually do have seersucker in my wardrobe.)

Sketchy

Camera died. So we will communicate visually using alternative methods.

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Peas and bacon fried rice. The secret to it's deliciousness is celery seed. And I cooked the rice in pineapple juice. And it had ketchup and bacon. (Especially the bacon.)

Foot in mouth

While in the area, I drop by Hannah's for a visit. Her shoe collection is very pink. I'm a bit jealous as I do not own any pink shoes.

Awesome booth upholstery at the Apricot Tree Restaurant.

Corn beef hash, eggs over easy, hash browns, and their signature apricot muffin. Breakfast was um.... well, the vintage lunchboxes hanging from the ceilings are nice.

Baker's dozen eggs

My new favorite way of preparing eggs. Plunk eggs into a 185 degree oven for about an hour. Foolproof perfectly gooey eggs. And my own bread to sop up all the eggy-ness.

And for lunch, my version of bacon sammiches that Meredith and Bruce made when I visited the other day. My raddichio was braised in chicken broth.

And the beginnings of both a lemon meringue pie and a key lime pie. Pie! Pie!



And banana bread and what will be a chocolate hazelnut mascarpone cheesecake.

And the kitchen madness doesn't stop there. Josh and the Flip are coming over for game night. So we have pesto pizza.

And salame pizza. It's been a busy cooking day.

And garlic and herb pizza. And we're still not done cooking.

And proscuitto pizza. The wiimotes may need a bit of de-greasing by the end of the night.

Combination dinner

Bacon and asparagus and eggs. Simple classic combination. It's deliciousness is so out of proportion to the time and effort to make.

Cold call

Spaghetti rigata carbonara. The spaghetti is ribbed for oral pleasure. I warmed the bowl by using it as a lid for the boiling pasta water. Who wants to turn on the oven or buy an expensive warming drawer to keep one single cold bowl from seizing up the carbonara sauce? This works just as well.



Theoretically worked as well. I had to take a conference call right in the middle of the mixing process. And I wound up curdling the carbonara AND it promptly seized up minutes later because the conference call ran 25 minutes long. Seriously, people should know enough not to call me during meal times.



I've always wanted to bake a fish in salt crust ever since I saw it on the original Iron Chef show 8 years ago. I had to work very quickly in forming the salt crust due to nasty paper cut. Salt and sliced lemons. Ouch! And to make matters even worse, I get ANOTHER conference call mid-smooshing salt around. What IS it with these conference calls today? Stop the madness, a man's got to eat!



Deliciously sautéed swiss chard with pine nuts. I would have used fewer pine nuts for sake of aesthetics if I was cooking for others. But it's just lonely old me tonight. And I love buttery pine nuts. And I'm going to eat the entire thing. And try to fill the gaping hole in my empty lonely heart. I fill my empty lonely heart with cholesterol and saturated fats.



Fishie done after half an hour. I'm on the edge the rest of the night when I'm around food. I just KNOW those conference calls know when I'm eating.



The fun is in liberating the trout from the crust. The salt crust technique is pretty forgiving, and the fish can be kept quite moist. But now I remember why I don't ever buy trout. There were lots of great herbal flavors from the chervil and savory stuffed in the belly, texture was moist and not overcooked. But the trout itself was kind of muddy tasting. This technique would be so much better with a fattier ocean fish. Preferably something endangered and over-fished.



Anyway, working late tonight, so onto dinner #2. Tonight's second dinner is Spanish tapas inspired. Sweet baby peppers stuffed with a mix of tuna, capers, chard stems, breadcrumbs, and brie. Is it still tapas if you eat a dozen of these at a time?