What's for (TV) dinner?

A homemade TV dinner: Butternut squash, carrot and cauliflower soup; red bean veggie chili; and mixed greens in blood orange olive oil with heirloom tomatoes, sliced kiwi and fresh basil picked from the garden. Kiwi in salad is, I must say, pretty damn delicious.

...All on a tray on my lap with a ginger ale as a treat.

Now for some Sleepless in Seattle, and maybe later some sleep for me.

A thousand words

I was sifting through some old photos, and I found this from a visit to Din Tai Fung with Ryan, Patty, Ben and Ruth last year:



Our waiter happened to place a basket of freshly steamed dumplings on the table just as this photo was being snapped. Note that Ryan stays properly posed for the camera while I dive straight for the dumplings, teeth bared. I'm surprised I don't have spittle running down my chin.

What's for dinner?

Broiled Alaskan king salmon with toasted rosemary on mixed baby greens with chevre, manchego and previously mentioned tomatoes in a homemade lemon/garlic/olive oil/fresh basil dressing.

The two cheeses were almost too much, but I still maintain that everything is awesome with more cheese. I went a little crazy at Earth Fare the other day when I decided I don't eat enough goat cheese. Now the chevre needs eatin' and I've been slowly cutting away at the big chunk of manchego in my fridge. It makes me think of Cobras and Matadors every time I cut into it.

My mom made some roasted asparagus, shiitake mushrooms in garlic and olive oil and some quinoa in sesame oil. Dinner, I must say, was a treat.

Now we're off to veg in front of the TV for a while and watch Two Brothers, a movie about tigers separated as cubs, starring real tiger cubs. It's so ridiculously cute, it'll make you pee your pants.

At Home Again

I have to say...

One awesome thing about being home is having a proper kitchen in which to play. Instead of a foot and a half of counter space on which to push veg and crap around, I have arm room, leg room and a whole kitchen island with a sink when space on the kitchen mainland gets tight.

It's also nice to have normal-sized appliances. The appliances in my old apartment in LA looked like regular appliances, except literally shrunken down to about 3/4ths the size of regular appliances. It was awkward to say the least.

And most importantly, I have toys, mainly this one:



I find every excuse to use it: Slicing 1/2 cm of skin off a salmon fillet, julienne-ing lime peel, whatever I can do to get my hands on this thing.

Today was legitimate. I made salsa: tomatoes, onions, fat garlic, handfuls of cilantro, red pepper flakes, cayenne, and a nice dash of rice vinegar. I mixed it all in the one piece of pottery I threw in college ceramics 1 that didn't turn out like a third-grader's ashtray.



It's a tricky time of year for tomatoes, but the ones my mom found at the co-op are so pretty, you want to bite into them like apples:



I'm also excited because my mom gave me a tour of the backyard my first day I was back, and we have "guest" tomato plants growing in the garden. She didn't plant them, but they popped up nonetheless and we're happy to have them around.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table right now, munching away at the salsa. There are windows to the front yard and the back yard, which is nice now that it's gorgeous and green and the weather has cooled down a bit. I wish I you could see how green everything is here. I forgot about seasons.