use real butter

Admittedly, I haven’t been cooking much lately. I’ve been having a few issues with my left arm as well as a few other annoying and lingering side effects, thanks to chemo - the gift that keeps on giving… or not. I’m doing my best to ride it out and be patient (ha!) because getting my panties in a wad over it isn’t going to make anything better. On Saturday, our pal drove up to our place and we all went for a nice hike with the crazy (Kaweah) in tow - or rather towing Jeremy along at the end of the leash. The spring runoff is the highest we’ve seen it in our three years here. We’re having a late thaw and we also had some nice late season dumps in the high country.

runoff was high

but that didn’t stop miss crazy from gettin’ her swim in

my chica is a polar engineer

the continental divide from the lake shore

globe flowers love the boggy streamsides

kaweah had the most fun

I am definitely improving in my strength, but it’s merely a fraction of what it used to be. That’s okay though, I at least know how strong I was and I’ve made it my goal to work back up to it and beyond this summer no matter how painful, how long, or how difficult. Besides, getting back in shape is pretty nice when you’ve got so much eye candy around you.

Today I managed some cooking, although it’s all stuff you’ve seen before (and if not, it’s in the archives). I do have some recipes squirreled away for just those times when I’m feeling culinarily uninspired or more accurately: physically hosed. I was first introduced to edamame in a sushi bar. Soybeans in their fuzzy pods are such a treat at the start of a sushi gorging. Only years later did I run across shelled soybeans in bags in the frozen section of various Asian grocery stores. Huh, what’s the fun of that? You don’t get to squeeze the beans out of the pods with all of the lovely salt crystals exploding on your lips. I ignored the bags of shelled soybeans.

bags like this

One day I took my good pal to the Asian grocery store in Ithaca, New York. She’s white and she’s a foodie. Claire was dying to check out the grocery store, but she didn’t want to go by herself (this is a phenomenon that happened with my white friends in So Cal who wanted to go to dim sum - they didn’t want to go without me - I got a little sick of dim sum after a while). She loaded her cart full of groceries after interrogating me about each one. By the end, she didn’t even ask me to identify anything and just chucked in anything that looked remotely interesting. During checkout, the proprietor of the store held up a bag of the frozen shelled soybeans and shouted (all of the Asian women store owners seem to have one volume of speech: shouting), “Dis is guuuuud! You know how to cook!? Stir fry with pork, chicken, beef, or shrimp - it’s all guuuud!”

pork, green onions, garlic

add cornstarch, sesame oil, and soy sauce to the pork

The funny thing about shouting lady was that she always shouted, but happily, at customers. She also shouted at her husband - a quiet and tired looking little Chinese man. I understood what she was saying, and it didn’t even remotely qualify as happy shouting. So, I don’t know if Claire ever went home and tried that combination, I mean - she practically purchased the contents of the entire store that day… But on my weekly shopping trip, I did grab a bag and I did try the shouting lady’s suggestion. Fantastic and so simple to make.

first sauté the pork

then add the soybeans

You can play with this recipe ad nauseum. Add shredded bamboo shoots or pickled mustard greens for more texture and punch to the flavor. I like to serve it with steamed rice, but it is also terrific in a hot bowl of noodles and broth. This is more pedestrian than the stir-fried flank steak, but it is incredibly satisfying.

stir-fried pork and soybeans

Stir-Fried Pork and Soybeans

1/2 lb. pork meat, cut into strips (I prefer dark meat)
1 lb. shelled soybeans (edamame), thawed
3 stalks green onions, cut into 1-inch strips
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 tbsps soy sauce
2 tbsps sesame oil
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsps vegetable oil

Mix the pork meat with the cornstarch, soy sauce, and sesame oil until the pork is evenly coated. Heat vegetable oil over high heat in a large sauté pan (frying pan, wok, whatever). When oil is hot, add garlic and green onions and sauté until fragrant. Add the pork to the pan and stir-fry until pork is nearly cooked. Add the soybeans and sauté for another 2-3 minutes. Serve hot.

Over the weekend, we did a little sampling of a few dining establishments. It’s nice to be able to eat out again without the worry of getting sick from ice, utensils, garnishes, and even the food itself. I’m no longer neutropenic! We dropped by Wild Mountain Smokehouse in our own little town because Jeremy was in the mood for some Tennessee style pulled pork (where he spent many a summer of his youth).

i love me a little piggy

a third rack of ribs

The last time we ate here was after a chemo infusion (because I could usually stomach one meal before everything went to hell in a handbasket). I distinctly remember feeling so disappointed because the barbecue didn’t taste particularly good to me, and I assumed it was my chemo. It wasn’t my chemo… I really wanted to believe that the ‘cue was good here, but it isn’t so. My barbecue kicks its ass and I don’t even smoke my meats. Jeremy was disappointed with his pulled pork sandwich (and the reason for that might be because I had made him a pulled pork sandwich earlier in the week - Carolina style). And something is just amiss with their sauces - at least the Tennessee (vinegar-based) and their Texas (tomato-based) sauces.

The next morning we hoofed it on down to friggin’ Denver (I never like going into Denver - I never like heading East). We had two of our buds in tow with us because dim sum should always be enjoyed in multiples of 4 or 6 to maximize the sampling. I had searched online for the best dim sum in Denver and came up with Superstar Asian (I know… who names these places? Those *crazy* Asians…). They serve dim sum all week, but folks advised going on weekends when turnover is high and the output is fresh.

my chicas ready to chow down

Best in Denver. I suppose it may very well be the best in Denver. My problem (and I realize it is MY problem) is that I have eaten dim sum almost exclusively in Los Angeles and San Francisco - and Denver is neither of those. Not even close. I rate Superstar a C overall, but with grade inflation on the rise and this being Colorado (i.e. the middle of BFE as Asian cuisine goes) you could slide that scale to a B. They carried many of the standards that we enjoy like taro dumplings, shrimp and Chinese chive potstickers, riblets, bbq pork buns, braised pork and vegetables wrapped in tofu sheet, turnip cake, Chinese broccoli, tofu flower (sweet) and some of the items that I don’t dig (but my parents like): tripe, stomach, braised chicken feet, etc. But everything I ate was made in a crude fashion, the flavor either inferior or slightly off because of the addition of some random and odd herb. The bbq pork buns (a standard) were downright wrong. At least all of the ladies carting food around understood mandarin (well, they understood my mandarin) and they were as pushy as the best of them (a good sign). The clientele was mostly Asian, perhaps the single largest concentration of Asians I’ve seen in Colorado outside of Super H Mart thus far.

I avoided fish for the past 5 months. Obviously I couldn’t eat sushi because of my compromised immune system, but I also just didn’t eat cooked fish. They said if you really love a food, to avoid it during chemo just in case you get sick on it and have bad associations afterward. But I have the green light now. And green means GO.

oh, you beaut

I read somewhere that the Boulder Whole Foods sells the highest volume of seafood of all the Whole Foods in the US. There is always a line at the counter and their seafood is surprisingly gorgeous and fresh for being 1000+ miles from the ocean. It’s where we picked up a pound of luscious wild Copper River salmon for $30! I couldn’t resist. It sang to me from behind the display case.

simple lemon and dill

I like talking fish at the counter because people never expect a chick to know her fish, but I do. I began fishing at the age of 3 and we fished freshwater, brackish, salt water. I fished ponds, streams, rivers, piers, surfs. Once some dude was asking about a special shipment of bluefish and I made a face. He asked me why I was grimacing and I explained that we used to catch blues in Virginia and I would never eat one older than a few hours dead - because the flesh turns powdery in no time flat. So why on Earth would you eat one that was sitting on a plane for hours on its trip to Boulder? And then there was the time someone asked me to explain why the belly is so desirable for sushi lovers… [A totally hot guy in line after me. Yes Mark, there I go again - but he was impeccably polite, tall, and handsome - Jeremy will confirm this!]

to the grill!

We grilled that delightful hunk o’ salmon with a sprinkle of salt, lemon slices, and fresh dill. Just a quick, simple, and satisfying way to serve a lovely fish. I used to get nervous grilling fish without foil underneath (that fear of watching it fall apart and down through the grate of the grill). Then ten years ago, my parents were visiting and while I was admiring a Williams-Sonoma fish grilling basket, my dad walked by and grabbed it from my hands and bought it for me. I love it and I love grilling fish with it because I can get the direct heat and all of the flavor without my fish sitting in a pool of liquid. I like the crunchy, crispy bits too. In any case, it was worth the wait.

fan-friggin’-tastic

Simple Grilled Salmon

1-2 pound filet of fresh salmon
2 lemons, sliced thin
2 cups fresh dill sprigs
salt

Layer lemon slices on fish basket. Set salmon over the slices (skin down). Sprinkle salt over salmon, layer with dill, then layer with more lemon slices. Close the basket. Grill over medium high heat, skin-side up for ~8 minutes (depends on thickness of your fish). Flip over and cook another 5 minutes or until done. Serve hot.

I am approaching the end of chemo season, about to start radiation season. That’s part of the reason I haven’t been able to cook much lately. Too many appointments for X-rays, blood draws, port removal, consultations, etc. It’ll settle down eventually. Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to ready the patio furniture for the season of unrelenting sun and thunderstorms:

oil rejuvenates

Another unfortunate occurrence this time of year is the inevitable crashing of little hummingbirds into our vast expanse of windows. We’re in the midst of searching for decals to deter the crashes, but not soon enough to prevent one this morning. Luckily, the little dude was merely shocked and had not broken his neck like two others this past weekend.

a little male broad-tailed hummingbird

He took about an hour to regain his balance and strength, but it was delightful to watch him get feistier and twitchier until he buzzed away in a green blur.

chinese eggplant

I grew up eating what I called skinny eggplant. I wasn’t really familiar with those chubby eggplants until I left home because my mom used the Chinese or Japanese varieties to make fish-flavored eggplant - a fragrant and spicy stir-fry of ground pork and that lovely purple vegetable. It’s called fish-flavored (yu shian) eggplant even though there isn’t any trace of fish in the dish. It has to do with the combination of flavors to give it a fish flavor (but it doesn’t taste fishy to me…)

mise en place the main ingredients: eggplant, garlic, ginger, pork, green onions

If you’ve ever fried eggplant before, you know the stuff can absorb about ten times its weight in oil, leaving a saturated mess. My mom wilts the eggplant over a hot, dry pan first so it loses that spongy capacity for oil.

wilting the eggplant

Once the eggplant is sufficiently softened, I remove it from the pan. With the heat turned up to high, I brown the ground pork and then add the garlic, ginger, green onions, and hot bean paste. You can find a jar of spicy bean paste in any Asian market.

stir-fry the pork with other goodies

When the mix becomes fragrant, return the eggplant to the pan and sauté for a minute.

dump the eggplant back into the pan

Add the soy sauce, broth, sugar, vinegar, and sherry. Let this simmer a bit and then add the cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce.

a little cornstarch and water

This dish is great over steamed rice. You can make it as spicy or as not spicy as you like. Instead of hot bean paste, you can always use regular bean paste. Or you can make it spicier with the addition of chili garlic paste. If you like this, you might like fish-flavored pork, which is one of Jeremy’s favorites.

hot, spicy, and delish

Fish-Flavored Eggplant

1 lb. Chinese eggplant, cut into thick matchsticks
3 oz. ground pork
1 tbsp hot bean paste (found in Asian grocery stores)
1 stalk green onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 tbsp cooking sherry
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water

Heat frying pan over medium high heat. Add eggplant and toss until the pieces begin to wilt and soften. Remove from heat and set aside. Add oil to the pan and set on high heat. Stir fry the ground pork, then add garlic, ginger, green onions and bean paste. Stir in eggplant and add remaining ingredients except for the cornstarch and water. Stir-fry for a minute while mixing cornstarch and water together. Add the cornstarch mixture to the eggplant and let sauce thicken. Serve hot.