Vegatables

In All recipes, Dairy, Vegatables

HELLO, ÇILBIR

“FORGET EGGS BENEDICT… THERE’S A
NEW BRUNCH CRAZE IN TOWN”

The sleep-bugs are hitting me like a brick today…

Maybe because I fought to stay up last night after Jason pulled a long work-night, and prepared him this as a very inappropriate thing to eat at 2 AM. I can be a very irresponsible wife sometimes. Lighting looks weird but hey, that’s the best midnight can do.

But the more pressing matter, besides the fact that I’m slowly murdering my husband (who helplessly squeezed out these words, “Is yogurt… fattening?” through his feeding mumbles…), is have you heard about this?

Çilbir.

02.18.2014

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Snacks, Vegatables

MULTI-LAYERED SCALLION FLAT BREADS

Do you have things that you tried and tried and tried making, and it. Just. Doesn’t. Work? In the kitchen, I call them my culinary nemesis, and they can be summed up by two words, “chewy” and “layers”. You whisper these words to my ears in the middle of the night…

I pee my pants.

12.06.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Vegatables

ANDY WRECKER GREEN CURRY MEATBALLS

Let’s all be honest here. Yes. Including those of us who say we love to cook, and would ferociously defend the legitimacy of home-making Turkish kofta platter, Taiwanese gua bao, or even Italian duck prosciutto, once in a blue moon at least, let’s not kid ourselves. In practicality, the song and dance of travelling to exotic and exhilarating corners of the world through a dialogue in our own kitchen is, most of the time, only romantic in theory. At the end of the day, if you are any lucky, the flaming urge for such adventures mostly gets put out by a take-out menu amidst a stack of its own kind, that quietly settles in a kitchen drawer with can-openers and plumber-contacts. Authentic, or not authentic. Good, or no good. Doesn’t matter.

That’s what normal people do.

12.02.2013

In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

LAMINATED POTATO CHIPS

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of effort in the kitchen, not just on the usual manual labor I do driven by unknown impulses, but on trying to draw the very blurred line on practicality/doability when it comes to home-cooking, which I have slowly come to realize to having a very different definition than the general public. Well, I suspect not having a day-job has something to do with it, but really though, what do people consider worth-the-effort when the grunt work is to be done by their own hands in their own kitchen?

11.26.2013

In All recipes, Seafood, Vegatables

RED HOT OYSTER+KIMCHI DRESSING

I thought I was going to forfeit the ticket to this year’s Thanksgiving recipe frenzy. I thought, for some strange reason, that this year’s Thanksgiving is sitting (impossibly…) on November 18th, and that by the time around November 12th when I start to entertain the idea of a Thanksgiving recipe, that it would already be too late… After all, I heard this is a holiday meal that people plan ahead for. I heard that even before the first leaf turned brown, the happy Californian designer-turkeys still obliviously eating their organic feeds, have no idea that someone in New York has already claimed the right to carve them apart and break their wishbones in two months-time. Better not tell them is what I think.

So the point is, a few days ago I suddenly realized I do have time this year, that it wasn’t too late. I could still do this! I could still… well, here’s where I ran into another problem.

11.19.2013

In All recipes, Dairy, Meat, Soup, Vegatables

THE WEST LAKE HYBRID

You know… as someone who’s been gutting dead animals… chopping things… hacking and hammering in the kitchen for the past 15 years, I pride myself for the fact that I seldom, and I mean rarely burn or hurt myself inside my ruling domain. No, it isn’t because I’m more masterful at wielding heavy machineries, but because I have a deeply-rooted, intolerated fear for pain which led to a full spectrum of obsessive precautions before any hazardous conducts in the kitchen. But… just before I sat down for a chat with you, I though, hey, maybe it was a good idea to first finish slicing those mathafuckin’ fibrous and tough galangals for easy freezing… just to check it off my list…

Well, just like that, there goes my left middle-finger now looking tragically like a tissue paper and tape-wrapped lollipop, summer strawberry flavour. You see? You see me waving my middle finger in 360º just so you can see clearly? Especially at you, galangals.

11.15.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Sweets, Vegatables

SELL OUT

I recently landed in a couple of situations where I had to articulate the idea of my blog, a sales-pitch so to speak. The effort quickly brought brightened realizations to myself that whatever effort I made to explain the original vision or benchmark that I set out for when I started doing this, is now tainted with contradictions. A derailment, so to speak.

10.19.2013

In All recipes, Featured Attractions, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Quick Meals, Vegatables

STAINED GLASS NOODLE

Ahum… so. I was totally going to unveil my-first-time-ever… ground-shaking… storm-wielding… SALIVA-BURSTING TWO-TIER CELEBRATION BAKE that’s, gonna, rock, your, world!

But I fucked it up. Yep. Just, you know, the typical shit that happens to all of us, the cake batter crashing… buttercream breaking… bananas being bananas and the entire cake wiggling in a funky move like it was the 80’s and finally steadied itself in a very unattractive slant. I’m not sayin’ this with disrespect cuz I’m angry and all… but seriously, you bakers out there are fucking crazy.

Thus, brings us to this.

09.17.2013

In All recipes, Dairy, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Quick Meals, Vegatables

spicy cheesy. gochujang spaghetti

The wee-light of early morning started seeping in through the curtain, adding to my sense of unease particular to someone who knew she had done wrong and was most certainly about to get caught. Jason’s morning-siren promptly started barking at 6:30 (no, really, the alarm is a dog barking…) and was ignored for 5 minutes as usual until eventually, he turned over and witnessed my crime scene. Like the most gasping moment in a horror movie, an unsightly picture of an irresponsible grown-up, holding her i-pad with an earphone giggling like an idiot, secretly pulling a marathon on… a new-found television series. ALL NIGHT and 18 episodes in, not even of something socially excusable like Game of Thrones, or House of Cards to demonstrate depth, but a retarded high-school version of True Blood with a name too embarrassing to even pronounce… Va…Vampire Diaries! God! Just hang me by the neck!

09.13.2013

In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Vegatables

firey cold sichuan sesame noodle

My blog is currently suffering under the wrath of my chronic ADD, which is begging me for tiny changes that the blog probably doesn’t need. Actually, tiny would be for any able body who knows a thing or two about CSS coding, but for this rusty brain who still panics when her phone talks back, this, is gonna take awhile. So, I’m going to quickly leave you with.. I don’t want to say this but… the best spicy cold sesame noodle recipe out there. Why, because I looked.

08.28.2013

In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

corn and seaweed tempura popper

Before talking corny, you know how sometimes when parents, despite their best intentions no doubt, can suffocate us with all their unnecessary concerns followed by… uh… understandably agitating gestures? God don’t you just hate that? So freaking un-cool is what it is! And just to make it perfectly clear before I confess anything, I am still with you. You know, “Team Kids”. But yesterday… I think I may have done exactly that… ok and then some.

08.21.2013

In All recipes, Dairy, Snacks, Vegatables

cherry tomato vinaigrette and gorgonzola bruschetta

Dear shrink, I’m… wondering if I can now be qualified for that zoloft + xanax prescription we talked about last time, you know, and let’s throw in a couple of diazepam for good measure while we’re at it? I assure you that I have no previous record of substance abuse, in fact, I hardly drink alcohol for God sake, oh why because I’m naturally fun. But you see, it’s my kids… my kids who are competing in a race to my emotional hell by turning rotten-sick on me one after the other. Oh HELL, it’s even making me babble uncontrollably about it on my food-blog, right, a FOOD-blog that’s supposed to be about escaping to gastronomic neverland, not… Anderson Pooper on real world shit… Damn it! What the hell am I talking about, you see? I need meds!

08.08.2013

Vegatables

“FORGET EGGS BENEDICT… THERE’S A NEW BRUNCH CRAZE IN TOWN”

“FORGET EGGS BENEDICT… THERE’S A
NEW BRUNCH CRAZE IN TOWN”