let it snow.

I'm only writing instead of working because I got 8 minutes of sleep last night (see previous entry), and because it's actually snowing outside, only hours after I idly wished it would. That almost never happens. These are hardly conditions under which a man can be expected to get anything done.

Except maybe cook (and clean, fuck!). I have suddenly contracted a fi-yuuurious craving for Chinese food, specifically something from the Szechwan side of da house--my head needs blown off, badly. I want my lips to fly around the room screaming (assuming that's still possible when they're not connected to the rest of me).

But I ain't gwine to do takeout, you know...see, all my homies (New King, Nam Kee) live on the other side of town now, so I gots to do it my own self.

One of the better resources I've seen for making this stuff at home is on eGullet, innocently titled Chinese Food Pictorials. They're done by a guy called hzrt8w (uh, real name W.K. Leung), and they're thorough as all get-out.

If you're not already familiar with the degree of obsessiveness with which eGulleters can track a topic, the Szechuan Peppercorn thread is a good place to get a taste. Lots of additional photodocumentation of homestyle Chinese cooking can be found on the Chinese Cooking at Home thread.

There's also another thread that has piqued my interest these days: Korean Home Cooking. One of the ringleaders here, ChryZ, has a blog where most of the pictorials also show up. Here are the front runners on my to-cook list:

1. Dwenjang Jjiigae (pork stew)
   
2. Haemul Pajeon (seafood/scallion pancake with spicy dip)
3. Buldak (korean fire chicken with mozzarella)
   
4. Soondooboo Jjigae (shrimp/kimchi stew with tofu)
   
5. Jajang Myung (noodles with black bean sauce)
   

Jajang Myung is last because it's the only one of these I've actually tasted before. It looks like a can of motor oil poured over a bowl of linguini, but it's good eatin'. There was a good bulgogi restaurant in Atlanta whose bulgogi was so good that it kept me from branching out too much. I don't think it was My Dong. The restaurant.

Actually My Dong might have been Vietnamese. The restaurant. Here's eGullet's Vietnamese Home Cooking thread as well.

And....I also found Andrea Nguyen's Vietworldkitchen to be a valuable storehouse of great writing and recipes from the Vietnamese kitchen. The question is: will I get around to cooking any of these recipes, or will I get distracted by some other piece of exotic fluff that will generate yet another pointless post and no actual food?