The Kitchen Sink

How is it that after getting it completely empty yesterday, and topping it off with a baking soda scrub no less, my sick is now once again full of dirty dishes? And this, despite ordering in for dinner last night with my sweetie. Like laundry, some fun chores just seem neverending. Sigh.

I guess I'm just cranky with myself because I've done a whole lotta NOTHING this weekend -- despite it being absolutely gorgeous (sunny and 70ish) weather -- and have been diligently avoiding organizing my tax papers so that my accountant can deal with the whole mess before I go on vacation on April 8th. In other words, my aggravation is basically all self-inflicted. Genius.

So yeah, my sink awaits me. Again. But part of the reason it's full is that I made beef fried rice (top photo, in one of my newest bowls back from the kiln) out of an assortment of multi-cuisine leftovers: rice from Thai delivery last night, smoked beef brisket from Southern BBQ doggy bag the other night, along with its accompanying collard greens and pork/ham seasoning, two "new" eggs, and of course, the remainder of my (rather wilted) scallions and some freshly minced ginger, two seasonings I always think of as Chinese even though many countries use them.

I have to say, the end result tastes pretty good (or it could be that I have a weird palate -- either way, as they point out in Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant, only *I* have to eat it, so there) even though it is perversely amusing that I had to find instructions for this quintessentially Chinese recipe from The Joy of Cooking!

The second photo in this post is part of my dinner last night from Wondee Siam V. (I don't have any photos of my sweetie's dinner because I didn't think about it till he'd already decimated his meal. Heh.) My yam ped yang salad ( crispy boneless duck with pineapple, green apple, red onion, scallion, cilantro, peanuts, cashew nut, lime juice & chili ) was excellent, and I still have lots left over: a 3-meal dish!

And then we both / each ordered tom sum, otherwise known as green papaya salad, which is the photo with the crushed grape tomato. (Between the peanuts and cashews, SE Asia is a dangerous place for those with nut allergies.)

My engineer also ordered catfish pad pett ( fish sauteed with thai eggplant, lime leaf, basil, bell pepper and red curry paste ) which was tasty and gone baby, gone. I thought I'd give the gui chai a whirl ( crispy chive pancakes wrapped in rice noodle/mochi ) but though tasty, they were not memorialized. Whoops.

We wound up our spicy dinner with some spicy viewing. Now hold on -- I just mean that my engineer found a commercial-free showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on TV last night, only a few minutes after it had started. So we settled in and watched the whole film (again), with occasional consultation of IMDB to see where various folks were these days. (Yes, we lead a very exciting life here in the big city!) Throughout the film, I kept trying to imagine explaining the plot to my 80-year old mom who was raised in rural, pre-Communist China and... nope. No dice. Couldn't visualize that conversation, nosirree.

Neither can I visualize what I an going to do about any future cookbook acquisitions, since my "foodie" bookcase has now been filled to the gills. (You knew that had to happen sooner or later, right?)

While most recent items have made their way into my home via PaperBackSwap, I bought The World Encyclopedia of Cooking Ingredients on Friday, which coincidentally has Thai eggplants on the cover, which were in the catfish dish.  I thought a visual encyclopedia would be handy the next time I ran into some baffling cooking ingredient (and less than a day later, I did), plus it was in the bargain books section at my local Borders, AND with this week's 30% off coupon, the grand total (WITH tax) was $3.80! A reference book on food on SALE -- how could I resist?

Blink is indeed via the swap club, and kept me company on the subway on Friday (just started it). Picturing Hong Kong: Photography, 1855-1910 came out of the dumpster at work: our office is moving in a few months, so we have been vigorously purging (if only I could apply that discipline AT HOME!) and both my engineer and I thought this book was interesting, especially since we've both been there (separately).

Coincidentally, my book club is currently reading The Piano Teacher, set in midcentury Hong Kong, but since I have developed a dislike of said teacher, I am having a hard time progressing with it. (British colonialist attitudes, while historically accurate, tick me off to no end.) One can only hope she will become less annoying as the book goes on, otherwise I will not have a lot to say at the next book club meeting (i.e., it will remain unfinished).

Let there be light

... or in the case of orchids, not so much. According to the care instructions of the orchids I bought for my mom's birthday last February, they prefer indirect sunlight. So all year Mom (who has an amazingly grren thumb) has been conscientiously moving the pot back and forth, to strategic spots in her SW-facing living room.

Voila! She was rewarded for her diligence with 9 beautiful blooms this year. So a year later, she has decreed that it was a good gift. Heh. (The plant I bought her for Mother's Day did not behave so respectfully, and so it has been relegated to the status of Bad Plant, Bad!)

Let there be light ... or in the case of Greenwich, only if you're lucky. My sister and older niece's homes are in the 60% of town residents who had no power after the Nor'easter that pounded the NYC area last weekend (75 mph winds slammed against my apartment windows and made me think that I would NEVER, EVER want to move to hurricane territory). They still do not have power back yet (!) and Connecticut Light & Power estimates THURSDAY NIGHT (!!!) for full restoration of power to the unlucky 27,000 CT residents.

My sister is staying in a guest (i.e., hotel) room at her club, and my older, 7-months pregnant niece (!) and her entire family (2 toddlers, hubby, and Ruby, their sweet-natured Rhodesian Ridgeback who is the size of a small pony) are staying at a hotel in White Plains. Oy. Terry (the aforementioned hubby) cancelled a business trip to help my niece wrangle the herd. Gold star for Terry!

About the only two bright spots in all of this for my sister (who of course had gone grocery shopping on Friday -- oops) are (a) she can order a cooked meal at the club after she gets back after an hour-long drive from the Bridgeport Hospital every night, where she visits my brother-in-law, and (b) we had a slumber party at Mom's on Sunday night!

I had gone up to visit my sister & brother-in-law on Sunday, and when she still had no power Sunday night, she wisely decided it was a good time to visit Mom for some TLC, dinner, heat, light -- you know, the LITTLE things in life. (D'oh!) So we went back to NYC together, albeit much later than Mom expected since my sis stayed to feed my brother-in-law his dinner (yes, literally -- I think it's safe to say he is in Stage 7).

So Mom had both her chickadees under the same roof for one night. It was neat, since we both got to fuss over my sister, who deserves lots of spoiling.

It is hard to see my normally tough sister cry when she sees her husband, but I am glad that she is at least not bottling it up. At least I can hug her and tell her how much I love her. (My younger niece is also very sweet and calls her every morning before she goes to work in San Francisco at the crack of dawn.) I told Sis that I would be happy to go with her to the hospital every Sunday if she wants company.

Mom, Sis, both nieces -- the women of my family all ROCK!

Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity

In between bouts of dining at BBQ joints with my friend Sam, and my week-long craving for a slice of GOOD white pizza, I try to eat healthily. Mostly. Really!

So, I always have an apple a day (preferably my favorite Pinovas, as I have previously rhapsodized about), chopped for easy munching at my desk. And the perennial hunt for GOOD clementines (dried out ones are unfortunately more easily found). And probiotic dairy, LOTS of that (but more on those later).

This shot of the Westside Market location near Columbia was fun since the row of fruit seems to stretch out forever. I took it months ago, during one of those rare 60 degree days in midwinter which made everyone pop out of the woodwork, and my friend Ellen and I joined them on that day, with a walk to midtown along Riverside Park.

Remember how I mentioned death by dairy? I have been on a Greek yogurt (nonfat) and cottage cheese (lowfat) kick this winter. (I now have enough empty cottage cheese containers to start my own supply closet.) Part of the fun is mixing in a spoonful of flavor du jour of Bonne Maman preserves (only 1 WW pt!) to sweeten the yogurt / cottage cheese.

If it's cottage cheese, then it MUST be cottage cheese with fiber and healthy bacteria, such as the Friendship 2% lowfat cottage cheese with probiotics "for digestive health" (I became very conscious of the importance of your friendly neighborhood intestinal bacteria after my party with the giant antibiotic horse pills earlier this winter. Plus, as an added bonus, all that fiber lowers the points value of the cottage cheese to ONE per serving. Woohoo! Okay, 2 with the jam swirled in.)

On the other side of the spectrum, there is BEEF (although it's kind of related actually -- think about where dairy comes from, eh?) which is stored in its own cold room at the uptown Fairway. No dinky freezer cases here -- just a whole wing of the building. My friend Ellen says it is a delightful place to visit during the summer. Heh.

When we went shopping there a few months ago (has it been that long already?!) I bought some packages of oxtail for mom, since (as my sweetie puts it) now that the yuppies have discovered oxtail, the prices have skyrocketed, and Mom won't buy it for herself. So I will. :-) (I brought her some tasty clementines recently for the same reason -- too pricey for her thrifty soul. ;-P)

Speaking of meat, I could not have made this supertasty BLT sandwich (with Arnold's Sandwich Thins, another new favorite) a while ago without some decadent bacon from Nueske's, courtesy of my friend Margaret. Since I had mentioned that Chez Squirrel is literally bursting at the seams with all sorts of clutter that I really need to chuck out, her solution to the Xmas dilemma was to send me something comestible and what could ever be wrong with BACON!?

Horse trading

One of the things I find most amusing / fascinating about my ceramics buddies is how everyone has completely different tastes and styles. Now while that may sound obvious, it can be demonstrated more viscerally in several different ways.

For example, a sample of different potters' works at one studio I frequent gives a small idea of what I mean. (I will have to scan in some other samples to give you an even broader range so you REALLY see what I mean.)

Unsurprisingly, this occasionally leads to some spontaneous horse trading, when one person finds their finished, glazed work just viscerally revolting, while another one is "oooh-ing" and "aaah-ing" with admiration over the very same piece(s).

This happened twice to me, albeit on opposite ends of the transaction, once a few years ago and then again last month.

One bowl (I think -- or maybe it was a vase -- this was quite a while ago) came out of its second firing (the glaze firing occurs after the wet clay is first fired into bisqueware, similar to terracotta) and I immediately disliked it. A LOT. I can't even remember what combination of glazes it was, but I knew I'd never want to use it, or even want to give it as a formal present. Meanwhile, one pal (whose work is for sale here) thought it was great. I promptly gifted it to her.

Last month, the reverse occured to another pal, who found a particular shade of grey-blue revolting, whereas I admired the glaze mix tremndously. Guess who wound up with a pair of FABULOUS mugs? :-D (Noriko, one of the associate artists, was very jealous. Heh.) Plus, these are my favorite size: very large, holding 16 ounces of liquid each!

It's all a matter of perspective, kind of like these electric pottery wheels, turned on their sides. I thought they were turbines or something at first (!) but then I realized that no, they were simply moved aside, prior to the December holiday sow and sale.

And it's funny, because frequently, the hated objects are not intrinsically ugly (as these mugs certainly demonstrate) but rather, just not what was intended by the creator.

I joked with Diana, the mugs' maker, that it was like an adoption, where I immediately gave the mugs a loving home, even though they were rejected at birth. She promptly replied that it was not going to be an open adoption, so I was not to fear that she would come seeking them out years later, and in fact never wanted to see them again. Heh.

My pottery buddies crack me up sometimes. ;)

Babies 'R Us

Here is a picture of my friend's adorable baby boy (you know who you are, missy!) wearing the Little Bubbles sweater I made for him during my prenatal visit to Seattle last year. It's a bemusing reminder that I really did used to knit. Like, complete projects even!

Happily, it is still a little too big for him, so they'll get a few more months of use out of it before it becomes too small.

I'm also pleased that I got to use some of these buttons I bought on eBay, which I think are lots of fun on baby boy clothes. It even fortuitously matched the blue on this sweater. (If you click on the photo, you can see a larger shot of the puppy dog on the button.)

Speaking of creatures which require midday naps, I stayed home from worked today, as my cough was just unrelenting and I thought it would be nice not to cough all over my coworkers. Again.

I suppose I am getting somewhat better since today's naps amounted to 3 hours instead of yesterday's 5-1/2 hours, and I am going slightly stir crazy.

And on the bright side, I found out about this goofy panda video that was captured by CCTV where a wild giant panda calmly wanders into a farmer's pig pen and starts gnawing on discarded meat bones. (Pandas being the rock stars they are, you can also see the farmer bring him an extra meat bone.) The panda then wanders calmly out after finishing its meal.

You will not be surprised to hear that this piece of video made the news in Australia, the UK, (of course mainland China), Taiwan, and the US.



It's a good thing I seem to be gradually improving on my own since my GP is out of town and the guy who is covering him has an appointment desk that doesn't return calls (I left 2 messages and will be having a talk with my doc when he's back). Yes, that sucks (I particularly like the part on the new guy's website where it says my call is important to him -- my sweetie's response: yeah, but returning calls is NOT) so as you can see, I am trying to keep myself amused.

For example, I dug out these dinner photos from Les Halles Downtown, coincidentally taken from the weekend before I got spectacularly laid out with my respiratory trifecta. My friend Walter (who has since become the proud papa of twins Isabella and Alexander, and will thus be unlikely to have time in the future for such leisurely evening meals out)

I persuaded Walter to throw caution and Lipitor to the wind by starting with a shared portion of Les Halles' pork rillettes du Boucher, a "shredded pork confit" I once likened to French ham salad and so rich that I couldn't survive a portion larger than an appetizer since "confit" is the code word for "ADD more fat and cook IN IT"

He then proceeded to have a delicious portion of steak au poivre...

...while I opted for a HALF portion of mussels mariniere (I've never figured out who could put away an entire FULL portion, since while utterly delicious, the very generous portions of mussels at Les Halles intimidate me), filching the occasional fry from Walter's plate to help round out the baguettes in the bread basket for the mariniere sauce: white wine, shallots, and garlic. YUM!

Somehow, we managed to find room for profiteroles (Walter)...

...and sorbet (me) -- green apple and cantalope (the green apple was more interesting, I thought)

Eyeing Walter's steak au poivre made me decide to defrost a steak from the freezer and use a recipe from the March 2010 issue of Cooking Light (thank you MyRecipes.com) for maple and soy-glazed steak, my only substitution for the marinade being Chinese hot chili paste instead of sriracha (which I don't have). So yummy that I, um, ate the whole steak (!) and forgot to take any pictures before the devouring. Oops.

Does this mean I am getting better?