relaxin' at camarillo.

New trivia: the wonderful Bottle Rocket's opening "ca-caw!" scene was actually filmed at Camarillo. Poor Owen.

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Tonight was my first time back at the stove in a while, and I tried a spin on an old favorite substituting Surinamese ingredients for the original Southern stuff. Afterwards, General Consensus said, "These results are pretty goddamn tasty, PFC Morse: what the fuck did you do here, soldier?"

Well, sir, I: marinated my cod in Javaanse sambal (hopefully a recipe for this to follow), soy sauce, and sesame oil; substituted pink-skinned sweet bataat for reg'lar ol' taters, which meant I didn't have to use as much butter as I usually might...in fact barely any at all.

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Sidebar: Ipomoea batatas, also known as boniato, Margarita, or kumara, is the version of the white-fleshed sweet potato that's used in Caribbean and South American cooking. But it's not actually a potato...they're apparently much healthier than potatoes).

One of my least favorite pastimes of late is the detective work necessary to figure out culturally-specific names for the same ingredient. Here's at least one helpful veggie-oriented resource for Asian/tropical ingredients.

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Back to dinner: I also used palm sugar and butter in my corn; and sprinkled a touch of seroendeng and a tiny grate of nutmeg over the top when serving. In general a much healthier version of this dish. Garnished with celery leaves, basil, and chives...because my contract here requires me to sprinkle chopped green herbs over every dish I serve.

It really sounds like a fusion nightmare, but (mostly due to sudden energy wipeout) I seasoned with a lighter hand than usual, and the end result was suprisingly subtle and comforting. So subtle, in fact, that our Elizabethan collar-wearing Mačka kitty was able to enjoy many hand-fed morsels.

She is...a pitiful mess at the moment (it's been a run of rather dismal health for Apt. 100-M this month, hasn't it)...she's run into every piece of furniture in the house, can't eat or drink, and as a result has decided to just give up and lay there. Purring, though. We'll see what she decides to do at night to entertain herself (and Jo3n).