use real butter

I am spazzing out just like I always do the night before chemo. I started my steroids today, which make me hyper. I drank a cola tonight (I rarely do, but caffeine helps to reduce this crazy swelling I get right about now) and that makes me hyper too. Last time this happened I just rattled on and on all night while lying in bed. My mouth was running 100 mph at poor Jeremy who was trying desperately to catch some shut eye, but he’s too kind to tell me to shut it… or maybe he just knows it’s pointless. There I was, “bluhluhluhlubluhluhluhluhbluhluhluhbluh…” until I finally got up and turned on the computer and eventually went to sleep out of boredom.

Luckily, I took advantage of my spike in energy and made a shit ton of food tonight after dinner. I had an ungodly amount of egg yolks leftover from the petits fours, so I made a quart of matcha green tea ice cream and another quart of coffee ice cream - all for Jeremy. The man loves his caffeine. He drinks two large mugs of dark roast coffee and can fall asleep within the hour. That’s crazy. I wash a coffee mug and I don’t shut up all night. I also cooked up a batch of laab for the guy. It’s always a little frenzied right before chemo. Because Jeremy spends the next 4 days working, cleaning, taking care of me, taking care of the dog, I feel it’s the least I can do to prepare a bunch of food for him ahead of time. He’s got a lovely red curry waiting for him in the fridge too.

Another regularly scheduled event either the day before or day of chemo: big dump snow day. Why? It could just be some periodicity in the parade of troughs that march across the continental US this time of year. Or it could be Mother Nature flipping me the bird. Either way, it’s one more thing I’ve had to just suck up and accept. We had 4 inches on our deck when we grilled dinner this evening (yeah, great planning on my part), and the forecast is for another 8-12 inches tonight. $%#^&@*~!

j-man does his thang

marinated beef skirt steak kebabs

The kebabs were fabulous. If you see kebab meat in the grocery store - don’t buy it. They use some crap chuck cut. What you should seek out is the skirt steak. In beef, tenderness is inversely proportional to flavor. The most tender cuts like filet mignon have okay flavor. The toughest cuts like shoulder, rump - great flavor as long as you slow cook the hell out of them. Skirt and flank are a happy medium for grilling, particularly with a marinade. I cut up a pound of skirt steak and sealed it in a ziploc with the juice of 1 lemon, 3 tbsp of olive oil, salt, pepper, and some oregano. 24 hours later… skewer those lovelies and grill on high to rare (okay, rare for me - you do what you want). That is some happy carnivore fare.

But back to our bipolar weather. Yesterday was hot in our town. Like 60F. The good thing about the warm spell was that we could finally give Miss Stinky a bath. Yes, Kaweah has been sporting a serious stink lately. No longer! Now she’s soft, fluffy, and smells of lavender (Buddy Wash and Buddy Rinse are teh best dog shampoo/conditioner).

she hates the baths

don’t feel too sorry for her

Okay, and back to dinner tonight. [Can you tell I’m spastic right now?!] I had an extra lemon chiffon cake from making petits fours, because you can’t make THAT many petits fours without becoming a little homicidal. What better way to use it up than to make some faux strawberry shortcake. I don’t think I’ve ever made real strawberry shortcake, I just take extra cake I have lying around, macerated sliced strawberries, and freshly whipped cream (add a little vanilla and almond extract for that “oh!”)…

oh, how can i NOT plate it?

top with more cake, more cream, and a garnish

I confess, I took a nibble. I’m supposed to avoid strawberries, but I couldn’t help it… just like the time I ordered a salad because if I didn’t get some raw greens I was going to run outside and gnaw on the hedge. Strawberries taste of warm weather - like the time we had just gone backpacking in Kings Canyon NP and were driving back to Pasadena on the 99 through California’s San Joaquin Valley on Memorial Day some 14 years ago. We (Jeremy, myself, and this other fellow who is what you’d call a human Golden Retriever) stopped at a roadside stand and bought a flat of strawberries for $7. FOR $7!! These were the kind that bled juicy goodness at the slightest touch, they were so ripe. We ate them all while crawling through the Grapevine with the rest of Los Angeles. It looked like murder. Then we got stomach aches. But it was worth it… and so was this.

Well kids, that’s all I got and that’s all you’ll get for a few days. Be good.

The university is on spring break this week which means very little to Jeremy other than the fact that he gets a reprieve from teaching relativity (special and general) and cosmology. His trusty graduate students are still in town and working on their research (I’m going to send them some cookies because they are such sweet, hilarious, and conscientious students), and he still has unbelievable amounts of work to do… But since he doesn’t have to teach and his students are quite smart and self-motivated, he has opted to spend this week with me! What a champ he is. Our intention was to ski on Monday, but the winds were ridiculously insane. So he worked at home while I baked and baked. Then we planned to ski Tuesday, and the National Weather Service LIED about high winds and then decided to update and reduce the winds after it was too late to drive out to the big mountains. Again - more work for Jeremy and I can’t recall what the hell I did yesterday (more baking and cooking, I suppose and then we had dinner with Beth in Boulder).

But today, I said screw the National Weather Service and we’re going skiing. Which we did. We chose Breckenridge because Vail charges $20 for parking and A-basin doesn’t have express lifts and we like Breck (well, we like them ALL). It wasn’t crazy busy, but it was busy for a Wednesday because everyone else was also on Spring Break or Rich Person’s Vacay or whatever. No new snow, but lots of nice groomers and damn it if it wasn’t a roasting hot day (40s?!? that is insane!). See here… some of the nearby hills are melting out.

heartbreaking for some, like me

Jeremy let me instruct him on some drills I learned from my women’s tele program today. This is a rare thing, seeing as he likes to hot dog it and blow off things like Good Form or Proper Technique. In the afternoon I said we could play, which we did. The upper mountain called to us.

ahhh, an express lift to the top

it’s still skiable

At one point Jeremy said, “Let’s see what’s over here.” So we skied over to the edge and what I saw made me salivate.

nice terrain behind the ropes

let’s go!

And we crossed over to Peak 7 where there were some double blacks that I had never checked out before. Of course, it was mixed hard pack and tracked up powder - complete hard pack on the faces. While I was skiing down Art’s Bowl I heard Jeremy above me making strange scraping sounds and the next thing I knew he flew past me on his back and there was no way for him to stop as it was slick and steep. I skied down after him as he slid for a good 15 seconds over a lip trying to get his skis under him and his edges in - but to no avail. He finally slowed down as the face leveled a little. Scared the bejeezus out of me, but he immediately signaled that he was okay. Then we saw another dude yard sale it next to us and slide even further down the mountain since his alpine skis popped off about a hundred feet above where he stopped.

I dare say this may be my last tele day of the season seeing as my next round of chemo is tomorrow and by the time I’m feeling strong again, the ski hills will be closing shop for the season! But then we can switch to spring mountaineering and then summer hiking and oh, the possibilities are endless for a Colorado girl. Life is always Good if you make it so.

Once home, we were pooped, but in the good way. And I had already planned a super quick and easy meal in anticipation of our poopedness. Teriyaki pork chops - GRILLED! Even though it was 35F on the deck and a cold wind chilled our bones, we had a spring inauguration with the first grilling of the year.

fresh green onions, garlic, ginger

pork chops

I got this recipe in college from one of my apartment mates - a 5th generation Japanese from Seattle. Andy was like a goofy, sweet, and brilliant brother to me. He and Alex had just moved off campus and the first time they went grocery shopping they came home with bags and bags of junk food: chips, cookies, soda, ice cream. They gorged that evening while I ate some homestyle Chinese food I had made for my dinner. As they lay on the couches moaning and holding their tummies they declared, “That wasn’t a good idea.” So they started cooking for real and making some pretty nice meals (we agreed to cook separately for some reason, I can’t recall why - it may have had something to do with my sports practices). One day, Andy was on the phone with his dad for a teriyaki recipe and I asked if I could get a copy because it smelled terrific.

adding sugar to the marinade

placing the chops

It’s great to dump everything in a ziploc bag. Green onions, ginger, garlic, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and the pork chops. I also love to buy skinless, boneless chicken thighs and chop them up to skewer on the grill - delish. Andy’s recipe said to marinate for a minimum of 30 minutes. I go 24 hours. The doneness is up to you, but you should be aware of the dangers of undercooked pork. Still, I like my pork to be juicy and not leathery, so we typically shoot for an internal temperature of 160F and then off the grill we tent it and let the pork chops rest for 5 minutes. While we don’t *really* know what we’re doing, this is our general guideline and if you have better advice, then please hit me with it!

grill to a proper internal temperature

Because I have to be careful about certain raw foods - particularly leafy vegetables and knobbly berries and because vegetables wreak havoc on me for a good amount of time during my treatment, I have been craving salads and veggies like nobody’s business. But today, today I am in tiptop shape (which is why they hit me with the treatment tomorrow), and we grilled asparagus and had Japanese cucumber salad with the chops.

spring IS beautiful

I know folks think skinny asparagus is all the rage, and I used to prefer skinny to fat asparagus spears… until I had fat spears picked not more than an hour earlier from a professor’s garden in graduate school. Heavenly. I mean, sweet beyond compare and crisp and juicy and I was sold! I’d like to point out that skinny isn’t always good. Some of them are stuck up, stupid, and they have no muscles. Oh wait, I was talking about asparagus, right? ;)

a great topper to the day

Teriyaki Pork Chops
from a college apartment mate

4 pork chops (or a pound of chicken thigh meat - boneless, skinless and chopped into pieces)
1 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar (or more if you like)
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks green onion, minced
2 tbsp ginger root, minced

Mix all of this into a ziploc bag and marinate for at least 30 minutes, but I prefer overnight with occasional flipping for even marinate. Grill to appropriate internal temperature (we do 160F and then off the grill we tent the chops with foil and rest fo 5 minutes). To grill the chicken, we skewer the pieces and grill on medium high for 5 minutes and flip and grill for another 5 minutes. Take remaining marinade and boil in a pan. Strain the sauce and thicken with cornstarch to serve with pork chops or chicken skewers. * I like to use chicken thigh meat because I think it has better flavor and is juicier than breast meat.

Some of you may wonder if I cook as often as I post (well, lately I haven’t posted as frequently and there is a good reason for that). Um… yes and no. My cooking and baking tend to cluster in that I will make 3-5 recipes in one sitting and shoot them all to blog about eventually. It’s an OCD dream come true really - keeping all of that straight in your head. I suppose it’s very good practice for those times I entertain guests for dinner. In any case, I have days where I whip something up and the little voice (me) in the back of my head says, “Oh, you oughta shoot this” and the other voice (me) in the front of my head says, “Yeah - you can go shoot it…” and those are the days I don’t record what I make.

I have recipes in queue for times when I feel unmotivated or times like tomorrow, when I’ll be out of commission for a day or more and unable to cook or bake anything. I just find it funny that I decided to post about barbecue pork ribs on a day when we finally, we finally got a decent dump of snow here. I’ve been waiting for it all season and of course, leave it to the storm track to arrive right before I can’t take advantage. Ah well…

spice things up with a nice rub

You can use whatever rack of ribs you like. I prefer pork and I like the cut that my local butcher refers to as Saint Louis cut. It has the spare ribs and the flank of extra cartilage and meat below that. I personally don’t dig on baby back ribs. Not as much bang for the buck in my opinion.

it’s called a rub because you rub it in and all over

When you make these ribs, you need to plan ahead. I know - for OCDs and people who are generally on top of things, this is a no brainer. Right. But for those whose idea of a plan is not to plan, give yourself a day and half for this recipe. After getting rubbed, the ribs sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I know the recipe says 4-24 hours, but 24 will do ya right.

see ya tomorrow

Don’t get too excited when it’s time to take the ribs out of the fridge, because they go into a slow oven for 8 more hours. Patience, young padawan.

into the oven she goes

That low and slow oven renders the ribs to the falling-off-the-bone stage. I swear I love me my barbecue pork, but this is most certainly my favorite of them all. Something really appealing about how cleanly it comes off the bone. That is also the tricky part.

careful not to eat them out of the oven - there’s one more step

Because the rack is now falling-off-the-bone tender, you need to exercise some care when transferring it to the grill. Yes, there is one more step, but it’s definitely worth it. I usually have two large spatulas, two sets of tongs, and my ever-faithful companion, Jeremy, to help me move the rack onto the grill without having it fall apart. I am sure that one day we’ll be grilling for guests and the whole thing will fall on the deck and then the dog will come running…

brush on some good barbecue sauce

Flipping the rack is just as nerve-racking (get it?). Try to keep the entire slab in one rotating plane - that is, no torquing or other application of differential stress on the slab unless you want the above nightmare scenario to play out (and my dog will most certainly come running to your house to eat the fallen ribs - her nose is *that* good). It’s not so bad once you get the hang of obeying those basic principles of mechanics. And when it’s all said and done, you will definitely feel it was worth it. I always do.

you’ll be left with nothing but a plate of clean bones

Slow Barbecue Ribs

4-5 lb. rack of ribs (I suggest St. Louis style, pork ribs)
1 cup dry rub
2/3 cup Mutha sauce
2/3 cup random store-brand BBQ sauce like Masterpiece or Bullseye (something with molasses in it - a sweeter type)

dry rub
1/4 cup cumin
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tbsp cayenne powder
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper, ground
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic

Mix together.

Mutha Sauce
from Dinosaur Bar-B-Cue: An American Roadhouse

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, puréed
2 tbsp garlic, minced
salt to taste
pepper to taste
28 oz. tomato sauce
2 cups ketchup
1 cup water
3/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup cayenne pepper sauce (yiha!)
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp allspice, ground

Mutha Sauce: Sauté onions and garlic in oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer for ten minutes and let the sauce cool. This makes a ridiculous amount of sauce - something like 10-12 cups.

Dry off the rack of ribs. Rub spices over all of the rack. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, but at least 4 hours. Preheat oven to 225F. Place the rack in a large roasting pan (I line mine with foil for ease of clean up) and cover with foil. Bake the ribs for 8 hours. Remove from oven and set the ribs on a rack to let the excess fat drip off (to reduce the grease fire on the grill). Mix the Mutha sauce and random store sauce together. Heat the grill on high for ten minutes, then reduce heat to medium. Place the ribs on the grill for 5 minutes, covered. Flip the ribs and grill for another 5 minutes. Flip again and brush the top side of the ribs with barbecue sauce and allow grilling for 5 minutes. Flip one last time and brush the top side with more sauce. Serve.