reproduction thoroughly.

Last night's Japanese, which I should make a lot more often: tofu dengaku; Ottolenghi ginger-sesame cukes; salmon teriyaki; brown rice with butter and furikake; a little homemade wasabi mayo just in case. Not pictured: Bibb lettuce with Benihana dressing, really good.

BTW, I really can't say enough about Saveur's instructions for perfect brown rice, it's indeed perfect every time. Basically you cook the rice more like pasta: boil a lot of water (amount hypothetically doesn't matter but I use 1.5 liters for 1 cup of rice), rinse rice under cold water for 30 seconds, add rice to boiling water, boil uncovered for 30 minutes, dump rice into a strainer, drain for 10 seconds, return to pot and cover, steam for 10 minutes. Add butter and salt to taste.

+++

You know, lots of people are bitching about the weather here, but to myself I'm spinning it as "most productive summer ever". No distracting sunny days to take your mind off your to-do list, no nights tossing restlessly in the sweltering heat, etc. Just 55°F and cloudy.

+++

it's the time of the season for etc.

Above: Drew's Pub Quiz at The Tara (no longer anything resembling the Irish bar it used to be), our first night there, fun even though we came in dead last (we were the only two-person team). Drinkable-yet-affordable wine by the glass; pleasant people; moderately hard questions, etc. I'm sure we'll be back.

+++

I decided in bed this morning that the answer to the question "when is the best time to visit Amsterdam" is either June or December. I'm basing this strictly on cheap and unusual entertainment options: this month has been so full of potential shit to do we have been thoroughly spoiled for choice. And December is the winter version of June, this-wise.

So between season closings (English for this? it's when a regularly occurring concert series has their last night of the season before closing in July and August...the Dutch for this is seizoensafsluiting), overdue socializing, friends from out of town, and especially special shows for unfortunately recently dead people, tonight is our last quiet night at home for the next several days.

And thus we are trying to have something light and healthy, so I'll be trying to do something Japanese.

Less healthily: I'm also reminding myself to try and eat at The General Muir next time I'm in the ATL. Also the next time I'm celebrating some weight-loss milestone, I should make this sandwich with mortadella, smoked mozzarella and pistachio pesto.

+++

tofu dengaku.

400g tofu
3 tbsp miso
1 and 1/2 tbsp raw sugar
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sake (I replaced the mirin and sake with 2 tbsp shao xing and a little extra sugar)
2 tbsp dashi

These are not my directions yet: wrap tofu with paper towels and place it on a flat tray. Put a cutting board or a plate on top the tofu and let sit for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix dashi, sake, mirin, sugar, and miso in a sauce pan. Simmer it on low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Set aside. Slice tofu into 1/2 inch thick rectangles and dry with paper towels. Lightly oil a baking tray for a toaster oven. Place tofu pieces on the tray. Cook tofu on high heat in the toaster oven for about 8 minutes, or until the surface is firm. Spread miso sauce on the tofu pieces and cook until sauce is warm.

+++

benihana salad dressing.

1/4 cup sweet onion
1 tbsp peanut or other neutral oil
2 tbsp mayonnaise

1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
2 tbsp minced celery
1 tbsp ketchup
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Process everything pretty thoroughly. This was really good.

+++

for your eyes only.

+++

DINNERS

28/12

salmon rilettes

http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2007/11/armed-dangerous.html

kale frittata with caramelized onions, roquefort and smoked gruyere
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2010/10/kale-fritatta-with-gorgonzola-and.html

apple + hazelnut + rosemary salad?
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/heirloom-apple-salad-recipe.html

KH + DG + HBF brownies
http://www.bakeaholic.ca/brownies/tribute-to-katherine-hepburn-brownies/


29/12
sea scallops with pernod
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2012/12/victor-who.html

roast clams in beer
http://www.epicurean.com/featured/pale-ale-oven-roasted-clams-recipe.html

mara's caesar salad


30/12
maple-soy salmon with roasted scallions and mustard mash
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2012/01/1997.html

sesame spinach

arugula, carrot, snow pea, almond, tomato salad with soy-lime-miso vinaigrette

treacle sponge

31/12
oysters with mignonette
http://chefbolek.blogspot.nl/2011/01/oysters-with-lemon-basil-mignonette.html
http://cheflaurafu.blogspot.nl/2009/03/meyer-lemon-oyster-mignonette.html

roast figs, shallots, chestnuts w/gorgonzola polenta
http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/395700/roast-figs-shallots-and-chestnuts

asparagus with butter/tarragon/sauteed breadcrumb dressing

sweet potato pie with white chocolate and brown sugar/bourbon sauce
http://m.dominosugar.com/recipe/sweet-potato-pie-with-white-chocolate-and-brown-sugar-bourbon-sauce-252


01/01

lunch
miso shrimp + grits
http://heritage.challengedairy.com/recipes/main-dish/creamy-buttermilk-miso-grits-with-kicked-up-shiitakes

dinner
jamie's cauliflower risotto with pangrattato
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2010/04/home-bodies.html

salad of pear, cashel blue and hazelnut/pecan (recipe?...what's the dressing? honey something?)
http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/395714/salad-of-pear-hazelnuts-and

roast figs and plums in vodka w/cardamom cream
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/northern-delights-511938.html




02/01

mark's swedish herring app w/ caviar + creme fraiche + potato

smoked forel with horseradish and bieslook spread/dip?

quebecois mussel chowder w/ cod and hard cider (but then not with cod)

roast winter pumpkin salad w/lentils and goat cheese
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/roasted-winter-squash-salad-recipe.html
http://keitopotato.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/roast-winter-squash-salad-with-lentils-and-goat-cheese/

crème brulee, lavender AND earl grey
http://craftonomy1.blogspot.nl/2011/02/lavender-earl-grey-creme-brulee.html

03/01

smoked eel with potato poppy seed cakes & apple beet relish
http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/395720/smoked-eel-with-potato-poppy

some wintery salad that ties together the eel and the polenta, endive and fennel and balsamic orange something

rosemary + brown butter apple cobbler

+++

LUNCHES

onion and cider soup w/ melting (smoked) camembert
http://www.greatfood.ie/item_display.asp?cde=2&id=1301


cheddar, beer and mustard pull-apart bread this is a rye bread, so assi can eat it.
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/02/cheddar-beer-and-mustard-pull-apart-bread/

some kind of salad

black eyed peas something...maybe this if we can't get excited about the bean itself:
http://vegetarianduck.blogspot.nl/2012/01/this-is-how-we-clean-pantry.html

DESSERTS

roasted pear + chocolate scones....breakfast or dessert? BOTH?
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/10/roasted-pear-and-chocolate-chunk-scones/


BREAKFASTS

fig jam and sweetened chevre turnovers
http://www.whatwereeating.com/recipes/fig-jam-sweetened-chevre-turnovers/

cardamom buns
http://gourmetfood.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/cinncardbuns.htm

kohlrabi hash browns

sweet potato biscuits (i've already got mashed sweet potatoes in the freezer)
http://www.weber.edu/wsuimages/employeewellness/Sweet%20Potato%20Biscuits.pdf

blueberry buttermilk pancakes
http://www.food.com/recipe/the-best-no-kidding-buttermilk-pancakes-173284

+++

you said hot goo.

Above/below: Tuesday night's gig downstairs, me as Dracula, photos by Jeff Kaiser.

+++

Another bao day here at the ranch, this time the winningest combos were the BBQ tofu (an extra day of sitting around in the sauce worked wonders) and the salmon teriyaki with pineapple salsa.

It nice to be cooking out of Momofuku more and more; we tried a half-assed version of the fried apple pie (minus the pie crust and hot goo, which is melted apple jelly) with miso butterscotch and sour cream ice cream, it was almost really good, but maybe it does need the crust to integrate all of the slightly-tweaked flavors. But the miso butterscotch itself was delicious, though it's hard to imagine what its perfect use would be.

+++

miso butterscotch.

1/2 cup miso
1 tbsp mirin
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 tsp apple vinegar
4 tbsp softened butter

Roast miso in one thin layer on a piece of parchment paper for 20 minutes in a 150C oven. Combine everything in a food processor. Puzzle over possible uses while eating fingerfuls from the processor bowl.

+++

terrific, pacific.

We need more vegetables. Back in our former lives, we vaguely remember making a couple of broccoli things that we used to eat all the time, but I can only seem to find this one, from an oft-used and now dilapidated and barely-usable pan-Asian cookbook called Terrific Pacific by Anya von Bremzen.

You can see that this was a well-loved cookbook, despite the mid-90s graphic design nightmare that is the cover. That is the whole book really. As a physical object, this thing is quaintly misguided, dated, and, um, shoddy (! damn, grrl, wtf? It uses Curlz MT, OK?).

But the content! I'd kind of forgotten about it until this week, but looking at it again, it's one of the most useful cookbooks we own, almost every sidebar is informative in one way or another, and the recipes are well-selected and authentic.

Since it's only $0.01 from Amazon I should buy another one, because as you can see, this one has fallen apart into 10 or 11 sections. Not so useful for actually finding anything, but kind of nice as a random-access nostalgia generator: for example, the "Cooking Squid" page sticking out of the top reminds me of one of my earliest bachelor gourmet cooking attempts, where I actually did that thing that cookbooks always fucking tell you to do. "Go see your local Asian fishmonger for the freshest (and cheapest!) fish around."

I went to Buford Highway to one of the "International Farmers Markets" (really just a big Asian grocery store), and as the only non-Asian person there, I must have provided a few minutes of good entertainment trying to pantomime "squid" and "dead, please" to the non-English-speaking guy with the dirty apron and the big knife.

But when I got it home, it was in fact squid and thankfully dead. And I did cook it the way Terrific Pacific told me to (3 minutes, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, basil, lime, sugar, cilantro, mint, basil). And while I was doing so, a repairman came to fix something, probably something one of our friends had pissed on or threw up on or otherwise destroyed, and he said: "Man, what the hell you cooking? You a chef or something? Smells like a damn restaurant in here...I got to get me some lunch after this".  

+++

broccoli with miso sauce.

2 tbsp shiro miso
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 and 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp raw sugar
2/3 cup chicken or vegetable broth
2 tsp sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste

+++

little things.

Würgeengel (The Exterminating Angel) was one of my favorite Berlin experiences this time around: an excellent cocktail bar with serious bartenders and an extremely "old Berlin" vibe, as if I know what that might mean. And they let us stay there til 4am on a Tuesday.

I think we're going to try and recreate their basil gimlet on Sunday, and of course thinking about that made me think about what kind of food we might want to be putting in our mouths....

+++

I feel like something light and Asian-ish, but I'm kind of bored with most of the Thoroughly Repeatable things in our repertoire, so I started poking around in Viet World Kitchen and came up with some interesting little things:

I thought this Avocado and Mint Chutney sounded possibly nice, basically kind of an Asian/Indian guac.

These sweet potato fries with kimchi sour cream sound good for something, maybe not Sunday though.

Then I saw this tuna hummous in my sidebar, which started me thinking about something else but I can't remember what.

It wasn't the unfortunately-named Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad.

I'm also thinking about doing the magnolia leaf-miso thing again.

+++

codebreaker.

This dinner is a mystery solved. A trusted food friend brings you foodstuffs back from an exotic location, but you can't read the package. You can't even type the language to Google Translate the shit.

Closer inspection reveals that there are in fact a couple of English words, so you Google them. Eventually you manage to find out that what you are holding is a starter kit for making hoba miso, from Takayama, Japan. Here's Wikipedia Japan's article, Translated.

This is hoba miso with catfish in place of the usual beef and/or mushrooms (I know, it looks like tofu). It was really really good, we were licking the magnolia leaf at the end, but it's quite unphotogenic, no? Apparently it can be made to look better.

Basically: I pan-fried the catfish in butter and sesame oil for 3-4 minutes per side, with a tiny bit of salt and raw sugar added at some point in the cooking process. Then I rigged up a fake hibachi (grill pan with foil on top), slathered the magnolia leaf with miso, placed it on the fauxbachi, added the fish and scallions, and waited 10 minutes or so (over low heat) until the miso was bubbling and starting to caramelize. Serve. 

commence research period.

Yis, you are clicking here to view in ze ol' Google Maps.

Maybe I haven't mentioned this: in two weeks we're going to Sardinia for a week of beaching and eating and, yes, even drinking. Andy and Valentina have done a lot of research already, but I am suddenly confronted with the fact that, even at my ripe old age, I am still not comfortable going somewhere interesting without doing my own research.

So, here comes some.

+++

In other news, stevia is not sugar. Or even remotely sugar-like. It's so different from sugar that it doesn't even come close to satisfying my cravings for something sweet.

I mean, it is a kind of sweet, but there is something distinct about the way it interacts with your tongue, like the wrong taste buds are firing or something. Mara made some coconut macaroons with stevia today, and, yes, they were pretty good for sugarless cookies, I guess, but...you'd never mistake them for normal human cookies.

+++

TONIGHT: maybe start some fish with miso a-marinatin'.

+++

Do we really need any more tuna recipes on this site? Not if they're basically the same old recipe again plus or minus a few ingredients. And yet:

+++

tuna, celery, green apple.

1 can Spanish tuna in oil, drained

1/4 cup sweet onion

1 celery stalk

1/2 Granny Smith apple

1 tbsp EVOO

2 tbsp apple vinegar

freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

+++

stolen moments.

Seems wrong to go back to light and fluffy kitchen notes after all of the angsty Deep Thoughts of the past few days, but as we say around here, it can't always be magic.

I made Klary's red cabbage and tahini slaw for dinner, and yep, she's right, you should totally make this. I'll probably make it again tomorrow. I made a couple of small alterations based on my current diet (no creme fraiche) and my personal taste (raw onion), so I'm just jotting down my proportions here (it's still your recipe Klarykins!)

+++

red cabbage and tahini slaw.

2 cups finely shredded red cabbage

1/2 cup sweet white onion, sliced very thinly

3 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water (or less, or more, depending on your tahini)
salt

1 tbsp cilantro, chopped fine

1 tbsp dill, chopped fine

and if you're not on my diet, a little sriracha to taste

+++

Semi-inspiring challenge to work with ingredients you don't normally use. Kiwi. Grapefruit. Research reveals unexpected flavor partners for these two: kiwi and anise seems to be popular (a cold kiwi and anijsmelk smoothie?), and I've also found a couple of Korean recipes with kiwi subbing for apple or Asian pear. Maybe this means an experimental steak-free bibimbap later this week. Pistachio, lime, cilantro, and avocado also show up as friends of the kiwi, which sounds like a salsa verde of some sort to me.

For grapefruit, most of the focus seems to be contrasting the bitterness with sweetness or with fresh herbs like basil and mint. Champagne and butter also seem popular, but are not within the specs of this program. Allspice and ginger each make appearances, and here's an interesting salad that could work maybe subbing in smoked salmon for the soppressata?

Unrelatedly, I have got to get me some kelp noodles. Anyone seen these in Amsterdam?

OK, commence recipes-in-progress.

+++

salmon with grapefruit and miso .

I made a version of this that was extremely simple just to see how the flavors worked, and they do. Still thinking about who else to invite to the party.

+++

salmon, grapefruit, tarragon, champagne vinegar, lemon zest, olive oil, apple. mustard?

No progress here yet other than confirming the grapefruit-tarragon thing.

+++

salsa verde with kiwi, pistachio, avocado, and lime.

1/2 cup shelled pistachios, kind of crushed

2 kiwi, peeled and cubed small

1/2 avocado, pitted and cubed small

juice of one lime, maybe more maybe less

I'm not sure what you'd do with this, I just ate it by the spoonful. Maybe shrimp? A ceviche kind of thing would probably be nice.

+++

and someday maybe this.

+++

photography! mine! sucks!

I'm on a run of really hideous picture-taking, and for that I apologize. In happier news, I'm on a (very short) run of good Amsterdam eating: dinner at Issa was very good....simple, unpretentious cooking with very fresh seafood, along with the always-unexpected bonus of sweet, efficient Japanese service.

Pictured below are fried baby sardines (almost perfect); broccoli with grated daikon and cabbage (tasted like my Nan's broccoli salad in a very comforting way); fried scallop with something like a tonkatsu sauce (a bit like scallop doughnuts, these were great); takoyaki (octopus balls, very much like okonomiyaki but with a softer texture); and banana tempura.

Not pictured are the 700 other things we ate (there were four of us): beef tataki, tuna yakitori; a very simple clam soup containing 12 or so clams on the half-shell; kabocha squash tempura with green tea salt for dipping your slices into; horse mackerel sashimi; a pile of futomaki and nigiri (which, while good, were the least interesting things we ate), steamed spinach, sesame-marinated bean sprouts, cucumber salads, etc. The last pre-dessert bit was just about the best thing of the night: nasu dengaku, eggplant broiled with miso (recipe here).

Highlights: the scallop, the beef, the eggplant, the kabocha....the sardines...actually, there wasn't much that wasn't a highlight. Maybe the bill. This is a very easy place to spend lots of money. Nonetheless, it's a great way to eat. If/when I go back I will be skipping the sushi and focusing on all the little fried and grilled bits.

Afterwards, OT301.

parable of the bad programmer.

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

+++

Have you ever worked on a technical project that literally (well, literally enough) haunted your dreams? Where the client you were working for, though you got along with them well personally, had a completely different set of eyes than yours (literally, and figuratively), and it seemed that you could make no correct decision on your own?

A project from which you were so desperate to escape and get on with your life that, behind the scenes, you hacked together a borderline ridiculous and at least thoroughly inelegant solution to a sticky and terribly time-consuming problem, because: heck, you were never going to have to deal with that code ever again....this website would last them forever (hopefully literally).

And then, through some hideous alignment of circumstances, you find yourself not only working for the same person again, but having to reverse-engineer your own gross and undocumented code so you can figure out how to overextend it into an even more fragile state?

Oh...no? Huh. Uh, no...me neither.

+++

Maybe a few moments with Crayon Physics Deluxe will calm both of us right down. Here are some examples of how (not) to play.

UPDATE: OK, it is possible to become too calm as a result of Crayon Physics Deluxe. For instance, I wouldn't recommend playing it before going to the gym, because all of your testosterone evaporates into a big hostile cloud that takes off down the hall to look for beer and women.

Now in order to re-engage with my primal wrath I'm having to read about the revisionist history at work in drafting Bush's legacy. Before long I'll be like a pill-popping cliche, seesawing wildly back and forth between mania and depression, desperate for equilibrium: Crayon Physics! Bush legacy! Crayon Physics! Bush legacy! etc. etc. etc.

+++

Tonight? Sushi! Maybe. Today? Miso soup with tofu and leeks, because I forgot to eat before working out, and believe it or not, miso soup was the easiest/fastest vegetarian thing in the house to make. We didn't have any bread. It was good Emergency Food.

+++

indonesian throwdown.

You may already know this, but...there are a bunch of boring-ass blogs out there. I just clicked around for like 30 minutes wearing an unbudgeable "impress me" scowl.

This experience leads me to believe that this blog is also probably quite boring-ass as well. In fact, I know it is. Look, what's that above, just there? Cubed tilapia and kaffir lime leaves. Big whoop. What's just below us? Andy and Valentina wrapping an unappetizing-looking (but totally delicious) squid, coconut, lemongrass, etc. mixture in banana leaves for steaming.

Bah....whatever. This is the Internet, baby. I done seen that shit already. Then there's the completed version of Mara's always-chompable saté lilit, the only food-on-a-stick in town with no stick. But this too is deja vu, no?

Finally, we have four or five lovely bitches (I mean this in the non-misogynist, appreciative sense...as in, "them there's some fine-ass lovely-headed bitches.") shakin' all manner of thing on the dance floor to the sounds of Gal Costa while fluorescent blue dragonflies hover over their heads. Bah. "Seen it," you say. I know, I know.

Tell me about it...it's a cold world out there. Sometimes I think I'm getting a little frosty myself.

+++

thursday night smackdown, downstairs, i wish.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I've probably mentioned Thursday nights before. That's when this amateur big band rehearses in the basement of our building for about 19 hours straight between 7pm and midnight. Last week we made a pact to go out to dinner every Thursday night from now on until the end of time in order to avoid ever hearing their "smooth but shitty" sounds ever again, but tonight An Insurmountable Obstacle materialized and now I am sitting at my dining room table listening to Blue Bossa over and over and over and over and over and over.

Very much like the video above, with about the same level of grating, amusical pointlessness, but with 12 people playing 1 instrument each badly instead of 1 dude playing 2 instruments badly. Except they've also got a drummer. And an electric bass player, for which there's no excuse whatsoever.

+++

You may not take me for a Top Chef watcher, but I am one. Even though every season I try not to be one...it pulls me back in regardless. I'm not like a real fanboy or anything, but I did think that Stephanie's lamb dish with braised pistachios sounded like something my teeth would enjoy. So just in case the world ends and Bravo goes off the air, I'm putting her recipe right here for safekeeping.

I've made a couple of modifications to this based on what little I know about the English language: these recipes, it's as if whoever transcribes them is doing so while being chased by a pack of hungry werewolves, the screaming transcriptionist frantically typing on their Blackberry device with one hand while rummaging around in their pockets for a silver bullet sandwich with the other hand...

+++

roasted lamb with mushrooms, braised pistachios, and blackberry gastrique.

1 rack of lamb, removed from bones (reserve bones)
2 tbsp yellow miso
thyme to taste
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 pint blackberries
1 cup white balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
Salt to taste
1/4 lb mushrooms
2t olive oil
1 tsp butter
pepper to taste
1/4 cup manzanilla olives, minced
1 shallot, minced

Clean silverskin from lamb and rub with miso and thyme. Let sit overnight. Brown bones in the oven. Meanwhile in saucepot, brown onions and garlic. Deglaze with red wine and let reduce. Add in 1 1/2 cups chicken stock and 1/2 pint blackberries; let simmer. Add in browned bones and reduce to nappe (um, which means "to coat the back of a spoon" in Chefspeak. Come on, people). Season and strain.

Place remaining blackberries in nonreactive pot with white balsamic and sugar. Reduce to thicken and strain.

Place pistachios in remaining chicken stock; season with salt and simmer until nuts are softened.

Break mushrooms into bite sized chunks. When time to serve, saute mushrooms in one teaspoon each olive oil and butter, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Wipe miso off of lamb, season and brown all sides. Place in oven for a few minutes then let rest. Mix together olives, shallot and remaining olive oil.

To serve, place mushrooms on plate. Top with sliced lamb and spoon of tapenade. Place a few pistachios on each plate. Pour spoonful of sauce on top and drizzle with blackberry gastrique.

Serves 8.

+++

duk, duk, duk.

Enjoyed my own Little Black Saturday today, meaning: I shopped. But it wasn't crowded at all out, and I bought mostly secondhand books, including this cookbook for a dollar: Tony Chachere's Cajun Country Cookbook. Published in 1972 (or pre-Justin Wilson in terms of America's familiarity with Louisiana cooking), it's homespun but adventurous, and applies a rather omnivorous approach to protein, including recipes for armadillo, raccoon, frog, turtle, and nutria.

Afterwards we went to Sushi Ken for lumch that made me pretty jealous. $7.50 for miso soup. salad with ginger dressing, rice, 5 pieces of sushi and 5 pieces of tempura. It was all very basic but tasty and authentic. The menu was huge and completely Japanese, the kind of place you could visit many times without eating the same thing. Will Amsterdam ever have a Japanese restaurant like this?

While we were out, Dad went to the car show (I guess I'll have to explain this at some point) and would be returning home hungry. Pitts wanted to make him pork chops, but didn't feel like breading them, which is the way he likes them, so I volunteered to try this using a modified Epicurious recipe. My family doesn't eat pink pork, but the chops were so thick that they stayed juicy despite being "fully cooked".


+++

double-thick pork chops
parmesan, panko, orange, rosemary

1 cup panko
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon dried rosemary, minced
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 large eggs
4 bone-in center-cut pork loin chops (each about 1 inch thick)

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
lemon juice

Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix panko, cheese, rosemary and orange zest in a flat dish for breading the pork. Salt and pepper this mixture to taste. Whisk eggs in medium bowl to blend. I double-dipped: rolling chops once in panko mixture, then dipping in eggs, then again in the panko mixture.

Melt butter with oil in heavy large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork chops to skillet and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer skillet with pork to oven, or transfer to baking dish. Bake about 20 minutes. When they come out, give them a squirt of lemon juice over top and another grate of black pepper.

















+++

Since we moved across town from Cult Videotheek, easily the best video store in Amsterdam, it's been tough to find Asian movies with English subtitles, and I've fallen pretty far behind in what's one of my favorite regions for independent cinema. As of tonight, however, I'm now almost caught up on the films of Korean director Kim Ki-duk: after dinner Pitty and I finally followed up our Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring from last week with Bin-Jip (3-Iron) and Samaria (Samaritan Girl).

All of which came from Netflix, which seems like a pretty good idea: you pay a monthly fee and get to rent as many movies as you can watch. You select them online, creating a queue (that's what they call it) of what you want to watch. They mail you 2 at a time, starting with the ones at the top of the list, you can keep them as long as you want, and when you return them they send you the next movies in your queue. Very dot-com, yes, but beats going to the video store unless your video store is Cult.

integrity intact: let's eat.

Gig over, no foul sins committed by me. I honestly don't know what our drummer is doing in this picture (I wasn't watching). But this sort of pose is not terribly unusual...his general setup on stage quite often looks like he's recently passed out at a party and everyone just piled random junk on top of him while he slept and now he's trying to battle his way out from under.

















Nice photos of Joost and Gunga, while I apparently confined myself to the more shadowy areas of the stage...

















+++

Back to cooking something besides toast tomorrow. If I feel ambitious, I'd like to try something based on the incredibly inspiring StudioKitchen's king crab treatment here: maybe surimigarnalen (uh, fake shrimp made out of surimi) with lemon-miso glaze, daikon, pickled peaches, peppercress, and pink grapefruit. Sounds amazing.

+++

the weight is over.

Foto: Isabelle Vigier

BTW, the hypothetical casual reader may jauntily skip past this entry as it is decidedly unentertaining and exists solely for my possibly eventual personal reference.

+++

If it ever stops raining again, it'll be beach weather soon, and this ugly-ass motherfucker has not really successfully found his seat on the fitness train yet in 2007. I've been eating like a 'tard for weeks now, if not months. So, unfortunately, it's crackdown time beeyatch.

The thing is, I can't even think of what I might want to eat that doesn't involve cheese, pork, bread, or pasta. So here are some things I should probably try to cook over the next couple of weeks to see if I can add any non-tuna recipes to my extremely small list of healthy morsels that I make regularly. All the members of this first batch are coming from Epicurious because I've been using their recipes for a very long time and kind of know what to expect. This was very difficult, none of these look remotely appetizing to me at the moment.

1. SPINACH SALAD WITH STRAWBERRY CHAMPAGNE VINAIGRETTE
2. BULGUR RISOTTO WITH PEAS AND ASPARAGUS
3. QUINOA WITH MANGO AND CURRIED YOGURT
4. TOFU- AND WALNUT-STUFFED MUSHROOMS
5. STIR-FRIED TOFU AND SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS IN SPICY BLACK BEAN SAUCE
6. FARINATA WITH SAGE, OLIVES, AND ONION
7. VARKENSHAAS (Ha...OK, I realize that this is a pork recipe)
8. BAKED BANANAS
9. ROASTED BEETS WITH CUMIN AND MINT
10. STIR-FRIED TOFU AND VINE-RIPENED TOMATOES (I know this sounds hideous, but the recipe looks interesting.)

And here are a couple useful ideas from eGullet:

1. Su-miso (Japanese Vinegar and Miso Dressing)
2. Makloubeh (Palestinian national dish...this is not quick or healthy, but it looks great.)
3. Pare Tumis (Stir Fried Bitter Gourd)
4. From-scratch Green Bean Casserole (Um, not healthy. But it'd be interesting to try a version without cream)
5. Duck Biscuits with Cilantro Jelly (OK, not healthy at all, but holy fuck!)
6. Lebanese Spicy Fish with Tahini Sauce (Samke Harra)
7. Macchi Fry Koliwada
8. Nobu style black cod without the 3 day marinade
9. Brinjal and Chickpea Gojju (Kathirikkai-kadalakka gojju)
10. Grace's Corn & Blueberry Relish (this would be nice with duck...)

+++

OK, so my list of healthy recipes contained roughly 75% healthy recipes. This bodes poorly, as making lists is normally the easy part of dieting.

Let's change the subject: I also need some new salads. We are actually pretty great salad makers, but they generally follow a now-familiar pattern: greens; dressing with acidic, barely sweet, and pungent flavors; cheese; nuts; maybe a dried fruit if I can sneak one past the mooperbird. All good when executedly carefully, but also a really overdone salad concept. So, here are some newish salad ideas/reminders:

1. Chicory, Caramelized Apple, Salted Pecan and Beenleigh Blue Salad with Mustard and Honey dressing (Um, yeah...that's the same salad as always.)
2. Radish, Cucumber and Apple Salad
3. Roasted Pineapple and Avocado Salad
4. Watermelon- Feta Salad
5. Tomato, Fennel and Watercress Salad with Fennel-Tarragon Vinaigrette
6. Pear, Arugula, and Pancetta Salad (Not really a new salad, is it.)
7. Honey-Roasted Pear Salad with Thyme Verjus Dressing
8. Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Pistachios (Totally not a new salad.)
9. Arugula Salad with Manchego, Apples, and Caramelized Walnuts (OK, just stop...you've made all of these before.)
10. Goat Cheese Salad with Pancetta, Dried Cherry and Port Dressing (etc.)

+++

Some targets from an old Lebanese cookbook I stole from Andy (borrowed! I mean):

1. Kallaje: (grilled haloumi sandwich with garlic, lemon, and marjoram)
2. Courgette with walnuts and allspice
3. Honeydew with cardamom, yoghurt, honey, and lemon
4. Beet salad with cumin, mint, and ricotta
5. Avocado bi tahini

And, a mixed bag from FoodTV:

1. Arugula Salad with Grilled Tamarind Shrimp and Chile-Lime Vinaigrette
2. Duck Confit on Corn and Baby Butterbean Succotash with Smoked Tomato Ketchup
3. Marlin with Ginger Bbq Sauce
4. Tarragon-Dijon Tuna Salad on Mustard Rolls
5. Miso-Ginger Marinated Grilled Salmon

Some as-healthy-as-Louisiana-cooking-gets recipes from Louisianan John Folse:

1. Skewered Rosemary Shrimp with Louisiana Pesto
2. Crawfish Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
3. Pickled Mirliton Sticks
4. Crawfish and Green Onion Sausage Cabbage Rolls
5. South Louisiana Shrimp Rémoulade

+++

flora, fauna, whatnot.

I know my limits. Or I thought I did. I'm a really open-minded eater and taster, and there are very few foods which I absolutely will not eat. In fact, I can't think of one. I even almost enjoy durian, although every time is like the first time...it's touch and go. But I mostly enjoy it.

Oooh, I just thought of something I can't eat...my Nan's liver + onions, rest her soul, is something that is talked about to this day in my family for the waves of disorientation and hallucinogenic revulsion that overtook us all that fateful day she set it before us at the table.

I can still smell it, it's...it's...like a combination of that ruining-a-pan-by-continuing-to-boil-it-after-the-water's-gone smell + someone with extremely bad breath flossing for the first time in a long time + a very hot, nearly melting rubber garbage can. Maybe she just left a spatula in an empty saucepan on a burner. I don't know.

Anyway, I don't think I'd eat that these days. I also can't eat natto or any seriously fucked-up fermented Asian trickery. I'm making a distinction here between "edible" fermented Asian products (I eat miso often and happily; fermented black soybeans, rinsed and used in sauces, definitely; fermented shrimp pastes like gkapbi, trassie, belachan...yes please) , which I can eat and often do with great relish, and "gross" fermented Asian products.

I can only name one gross fermented Asian product, and that's natto. I don't think I can say anything about natto that hasn't been said better by Steve over at The Sneeze. For example:

"I dared to lift the lid, which made me regret that I needed to breathe. The natto was coated in some kind of sick slime and had the complex yet playful aroma of a dumpster in July. Actually, the little pile inside looked kinda like baked beans. It also smelled kinda like baked beans. If they were baked in the filthy heat of Satan's asshole."

Right. So go there if you're "hungry" for more.

+++

So, the gross Asian products I cannot name are relatively numerous, and for many years I seemed to buy one about once a month or so. I cook a lot of Asian food, and when I would go to my local Asian grocer, which is often, I would almost always grab one or two things I'd never tried before. While I did find plenty of great things like furikake, basil seed and grass jelly drinks, sweet peanut congee, bubble tea (before it was called bubble tea)...I also found stuff that made us leave the house after I opened the package.

+++

Where is this entry going? Why am I endlessly boasting about the resilience of my palate? I'll tell you. Zuurkoolsap. Sauerkraut juice. I've been drinking it. Why? Let me let Reuters Health tell you:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Fermented cabbage--otherwise known as sauerkraut--could be even healthier to eat than raw or cooked cabbage, Finnish researchers report.
The investigators found that fermenting cabbage produced a number of different compounds, known as isothiocyanates, which have been shown in test tube and animal studies to prevent the growth of cancer, especially in the breast, colon, lung and liver. Isothiocyanates are found in many foods, including cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and brussels sprouts, and wasabi, a pungent Japanese condiment.
Whether isothiocyanates have similar effects in humans, however, is not clear.
In the current study in the October 23rd issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers analyzed compounds in white cabbage that had been fermented to sauerkraut. Raw cabbage is rich in glucosinolates, another class of cancer-fighting compounds.
According to their experiment, the fermentation process breaks glucosinolate down into isothiocynates and other compounds that may fight cancer. Previous studies have found that isothiocyanates encourage precancerous cells in the digestive system to self-destruct, a process known as apoptosis.
"Our study implies that fermented cabbage can be a good source of plant-derived bioactive compounds such as breakdown products of glucosinolates," Dr. Eeva-Liisa Ryhanen, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.
"Some of these compounds have shown anticarcinogenic effects in vivo in animal models. To show the anticarcinogenic effects of sauerkraut in humans, clinical studies (in humans) are required," added Ryhanen, from MTT Agrifood Research Finland in Jokioinen.
She said the research team is now investigating ways to optimize the fermentation process so that sauerkraut could be even healthier.

Sounds good, right? This camper needs all the anti-cancer help he can git. So, I bought some zuurkoolsap and (thankfully) refrigerated it before trying it. The taste...how to describe the taste. It's kind of like drinking the juice from a can of sauerkraut. Would anyone really do that? I like sauerkraut, but I never really imagined it without the cabbage. Anyway, I'd kind of compare it, not in taste, but in effect, to...grinding a cut lemon into your eye? Licking a poisonous tree frog? Downing a large shot of warm gin?

I know this sounds like a negative review. But as I was finishing that last sentence I was honestly just thinking about having another little glass of it.

+++

dreams dismembered: huitlacoche

You know how there are some exotic foodstuffs that you read about and become a bit infatuated with and hope for a day when you'll stumble across it in some tiny ethnic deli or ghastly-lit mom-and-pop restaurant and the real experience will surpass the dream? Maybe you don't.

But I've kinda been this way with huitlacoche, I think because it's been described as "truffle-like", and I do love me some truffle and I am a lover of tutto di cibo Mexicano. And I used to be a fanboy of the Elton John of New Southwestern Cuisine, Mark Miller (I don't even really know what I meant by that), and that rugged, bearded, troll-child used to talk about it all the time. However, I believe that The Sneeze has brutally killed the dream forever with his Huitlacoche Exposé. Luckily, none of the other "Steve, Don't Eat It!" contestants were on my "list"...potted meat, fermented soybeans (natto), etc. (I've already had a few fermented soybean experiments that have destroyed the dream all by their little selves...godDAMN what nasty shit. I'm not talking about miso or anything that tastes remotely edible. But don't just take my word for it).

OK, but I didn't come here to talk to you about infected corn kernels or mushy, bitter, white soybean paste today. Today I'm here to talk about real beans. Or raw vegetables, haven't decided. Back after this food intake check, nothing but snacking today:

Bowl of all-bran with soy milk (200cal)
1 cup of kidney beans with tomatillos and red Thai chile (200cal)
1 half mango
1 granny smith apple
75g brown rice crackers (300cal)
3 rolmops (400cal)

Tot morgen.