A Well Read Book

I'm proud of my kids' love of reading, and of course, they have their favorites. This one has span both kids, and it's a shame it won't quite make it to the third kid. I'll probably tape it up and make it last a little longer, but there are pages that are torn too, so maybe it should go into well deserved retirement. In the meantime though, Sara will soldier on with the copy she has, and continue to read about aunt Annie's alligator, Silly Sammy Slick, and Young Yolanda Yorgenson a little longer.

Leftover Frittata

Maybe because I've seen it on a lot of food blogs lately, but I have been really wanting to make a frittata. It's relatively easy to make, the kids love eggs, and as I started to notice looking at various recipes, you basically just throw a bunch of stuff together and use the eggs as a binder to hold it together. It's like a casserole without the Midwestern church potluck vibe. So when I came home from work tonight to complaints of hungry kids, I decided to raid the fridge and make something up.

As you can see, it's a bunch of stuff thrown together. There's leftover pasta from last night's dinner, cut up smoked bratwurst purchased for a BBQ a few weeks back, diced onion that's been sitting around for a week, the eggs of course, and a potpourri of cheeses that I found in the fridge.

(incidentally, how can you tell if a cheese has gone back if it was all green and veiny in the first place? Well, that's in there too so if my next post is from the hospital, you'll know)

Anyway, cooking eggs is always a good test of how seasoned your cast iron pan is, and I admit I was a little nervous (even though I've had this pan for years and have probably cooked an equivalent of two pigs on the thing). So just in case, I fried a few strips of bacon for some extra lubrication and chopped up the bacon to line the bottom of the pan. I had grand plans of flipping over the finished product, showing the crumbled bacon covering the dish, but have you tried flipping a cast iron pan over to a plate? You have to be an Olympic weight lifter to pull that off without wiping the floor with the frittata. So you throw in your mixture of stuff, pour the egg and cheese mixture over it all (plan for about 2 large eggs per person), and cook over medium high heat until the sides set. Then you put it in the oven at 375ish and cook until the middle sets, about 20-25 minutes. The middle can still be a little runny, but take it out to cool and the heat in the pan should finish the egg off to perfection. Slice into wedges and serve. A nice salad would go great with it. I added a dollop of sour cream on top, but I think salsa or even marinara would be ok (there is pasta in the thing, after all). That's about it. I don't even know if it's still technically a frittata, but I can tell you it was filling and delicious. There are also Spanish tortillas which are like frittatas with potatoes, and I think I will try that too. I think I just planned weekend brunch!

Eat this List!

Somewhat inspired by the list fun seen on another blog and the upcoming Slow Food Nation festival in San Francisco this weekend, I ran into a post on the blog Very Good Taste of the "Omnivore's 100" of foods that every omnivore should try once in their life. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but there's plenty of time, right? At least now I have this list to get focused. Instructions attached, so let me know how you guys do!

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison (jerky, anyway)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (Mmmm too bad it's like 2000 degrees out, I want some now!)
13. PB&J sandwich (hey my kids have started the path too! cool!)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (definitely on my Top 10 food of all time, if I were to make such lists)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (novelty store thing, crickets, I think they were)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (hmm i remember the Sierra Nevada BigFoot. I think I almost threw up)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (all of the above!)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (wha?? I'm not crossing that out though. Who knows, I might try it)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

By my count 49 out of 100. Not terrible. Being chinese helped, I think (I actually might have tried some of that other stuff without knowing it). The only thing that I crossed out was the cigar because I don't smoke, but I respect the choice. I'm ready to tackle the list though, so let me know how you did, and we'll go eat some of this stuff together!

Vacation slideshow

It has been almost a month since I've been on vacation. How time flies. There are a few pictures that I really wanted to share, and really only took to put on the blog, so in true Patty and Selma style, let's rip off a quick vacation slide show...



The vacation was pretty food-centric, which sounds good until you are bursting at the seems. This is the Dairy Queen in Medford that kind of kicked off the week. Notice how happy we are eating our ice cream If we only knew what piggies we would become...



One of the more interesting thing was with different trade laws in Canada, we saw a lot of things they are available back home. Here's Hannah with a dragonfruit. You've all probably had the juice, but have you seen or cut into one of these things. Interestingly enough, the fruit is rather bland. So think about that the next time you spend $3 on dragonfruit ginseng natural organic tea.



Just as exciting, the chinese market we went to sold live sharks! I don't know how one would prepared these for dinner, but I would certainly look into attaching freaking lasers to their heads.



On a related note, walking around in Chinatown in Vancouver, there were tons of stores selling all sorts of dried goods. Dried shrimps, dried scallops, dried oysters....oh, and even...



...dried lizard on a stick. This is the 'money shot', so to speak, of the post. I don't have one idea what you do with that. Make soup? Dip it in chocolate? Leave a recipe in the comments if you can help me out. (not that i bought any, of course. Imagine how many more hours it would take me to cross the border if I had to sneak one of those things by the border guards)



The only cup of coffee I drank in Seattle. On top of the Space Needles good, but the low quantity bad. I'm usually pretty good at adapting to local customs (I spoke a lot more chinese while we were in Richmond, BC., where there are more asian malls than probably 45 states), but by the time I got around to buckling down and going for some coffee tasting, I ended up wandering the suburbs of Seattle on a Sunday night with no coffee. I did, however, find...



I just thought it was funny. Would I eat there? Ye-ah!



And finally, a quick thank you to one of my favorite Canadians Nicole (ranking up there with Ryan Reynolds, Michael J Fox, and maybe even Bullwinkle) for the tip of having lunch at Burgerville in Oregon. Two days after she left me a note to check it out, on the way home from eating entirely too much crap, we pulled off the freeway for lunch about 10 miles outside of Portland and found a recently opened Burgerville. It's a pretty cool place. The most eco-socio-conscious fast food place I have ever seen. All food is locally produced (well, the Northwest, Oregon beef, Walla Walla onions, etc), recycles practically everything, compost bin at all restaurants. Oh, the food is very good as well. I would show you, but I ate it WAY before the camera even made an appearance. The girls are happy to show off the balloons they gave them though.

Ok that's it. Vacation is long over. School is starting. Indian summer kicks in with a few more 95 degree days before fall rolls in. Maybe we'll start saving to go back to Vancouver when the Winter Olympics roll around in 2010. Next time though, better pacing on the eating, and less touring of the world's Chinatowns.....

We Now Interrupt This Regularly Schedule Vacation Slide Show...

Vacation memories aside, we also returned to an important point in Britt's pregnancy. She had an ultrasound appointment on Thursday where the sex of the baby can be determined. We had gone the surprise route with our first two kids so we decide to try it the other way and find out. We had a lot of well wishers who was pulling for some balance in the family and hoped for a boy this time around, but it was not meant to be. Come Christmas time, we will welcome our third blessing into the world. As with the first two kids, the sex doesn't really matter. We are still very excited and look forward to her arrival. Now we are getting a lot of official offers from people who have a lot of hand-me-down dresses that they want to pass along. I am ok with that. People often want to find out so they can start planning and have everything ready. For me, it just gives me more time to think and wonder and worry whether I will have everything ready. I mean, I have no excuse to NOT be ready. I've known what was coming for five months! So prepare we will. Hannah and Sara are very excited about getting a new little sister, and want to be good little helpers to their mom. We'll see how long that lasts....

Vacation numbers

Vacation Stats, because they are fun:

Number of cats almost adopted from Oregon: 1



Number of Canadian parking tickets my dad received: 1
Number of Canadian parking tickets my dad plans to ignore until they come after him in this country: 1
Number of hours it took to get into Canada: 0.4
Number of hours it took to get back into the US: 4.5



Number of times my parents went to an Indian casino during our vacation: 5 (I think)
Length of tantrum Sara threw when she realized there was only 1 "room" in the Space Needle: 20 mins



Number of Ichirolls that comes with each order: 8


Number of Ichiroll regurgitated by Sara when she found out it was spicy: 1

Minutes between meals: Felt like 5
Pounds gained on trip: ???



Ugh, I still get a tummy ache looking at that...but one more look at a Canadian meal.



Til next time...I'll be on my WiiFit.

Day 8 - Finally Home...and a brief visual recap

There were times where I didn't think we would, but we made it home this afternoon safe and sound (but not all the way sane, I'm sure). After vacations come laundry, and lots of it. Then comes the collection of souvenir and pictures that were collected on the journey. I am too tired to really get into it, but here is a few to prove that pictures were taken. Pictures requiring a little explanation is forthcoming. A whole Flickr set will follow as well, for those of you who like the vacation slide show experience (without the Patty or Selma impressions). But for now. My vacation in 6 pictures:













That's probably enough for most of you. If that is the case. Come back in a week or two. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Day 7 - Homeward Bound

In a circle of life twist, I am here again at Motel 6 Medford, using the WiFi of the Travelodge next door. If there is one theme on this trip, it's WiFi still does not come easily or cheaply. I figured that a trip in today's age to major metropolitan areas, I would have little trouble getting a wee little bandwidth to keep me connected with the rest of you. That didn't turn out to be the case, which is too bad. I certainly failed in my attempts to provide a picture or two of amusement. There are plenty of pictures, don't you worry. On three different cameras and everything. So tomorrow night, when I finally get home, I will start sorting through both the pictures I have taken and the stories in my head, and hopefully, if laziness doesn't set in, you will be bored to death of endless recounts of the last 7 days. As with most vacations, there are goods and there are bads, there are hilariously funnies and hopelessly sads. I probably won't get to it all, but here's a preview (and a way to hold me to telling something stories):

- There wasn't much to day 5, except an excruciatingly long wait at the US border. I might never tell this story though. Just mentally put it in a dark place and never speak of it again. 

- Then there was the search for coffee in day 6. You would think in the Seattle area this would be a short story. You would be SO wrong....

- More pictures of us eating than I care to admit to. I need some seriously physical activity when I get back to feel normal again.... a few more helpings of vegetable won't hurt either.

So hopefully, a quick, uneventful trip home tomorrow. (knocking on some serious wood) See you all on the other side...

Day 3/Day 4 - Blackout!

So much for more stories when I get to Canada. I knew that I would no
longer have regular cell coverage in Canada (the roaming fees are
ridiculous, thanks Rogers wireless). That also means no Internet for
me either (it IS possible to miss the EDGE network). I didn't think it
would be so hard to find some Wifi somewhere though. The hotel I am
staying in charges $6 for 24 hours, which I just couldn't justify
(thank you unfriendly exchange rates). So here I am, happily going
back to the States tomorrow, sitting in the parking lot of a motel
down the street, borrowing their wifi (thank you Days Inn!).

Don't get me wrong, Vancouver is great. It even rained here like it
should to give me an authentic experience. Apparently I am just not
the kind if guy that can take one of those technology vacations. I
feel like I am in the dark ages!! Rest assured there are plenty if
pictures and stories. Depending on the line at the border, I'll be
back in Seattle tomorrow afternoon. Until then, it's back to an
unconnected world, and a not as useful phone in my pocket.

I better get going before the Days Inn employees hunt me down and kick
me out....

Day 2 - Now with minimal technology!

This is the first post that I have ever done by email. Email and
slowly tapped out on my phone. We finished our journey to Seattle
today (Bellevue, to be specific) and am staying at a relative's house
for the night. We will cross the border tomorrow and be in Richmond
for two days before coming back to the Seattle area for the weekend.
So another day on the road. Just a couple of observations:

- eating on the road usually consists of a lot of fast food, and our
trip is no exception. My parents aren't the most adventurous eaters
either so it severely limits the choices some more. We had McDonalds
for breakfast and Denny's for lunch. Considering the fact that my
sister has pretty much taught me to travel for food (her and Anthony
Bourdain), this is flat out embarassing. In my defense a bit, the
choices of eatery in southern Washington leaves a lot to be desire
(along I-5 anyway). And we HAD to have found the Denny's with
construction going on so my mediocre chicken salad came with a side of
power tool noise. I am expecting my eating to take a turn for the
better now that I met up with my sister. Hopefully I'll have better
news to report tomorrow.

(to prove my point, my sister flew up to Seattle and had lunch at
perhaps the best salumi place ever. I'll link to her post as soon as
she writes one)

- one more note on roadside eating. There are Subway restaurants at
literally every exit. It's either a standalone place or inside a gas
station. Terribly annoying when you are trying to find food to eat.
Talk about taunting...

- We are staying in a huge house and is more than comfortable, there
is even Wifi here but we were tired and rushed to bed pretty early, so
here I am rapping away on my phone on email. I will have to remember
to ask for access when we come back for the weekend.

- Hppefully when we get settled in Canada tomorrow I will have time to
throw a few pictures on here. Right now it would just be a gallery of
people asleep in the car anyway. If you really want to keep track of
things I am trying to keep my facebook and twitter acount (ak3700)
updated. Hey, what else am I going to do in the car?I love my phone....

The Pacific Northwest - Day 1

Just want to leave a quick note on day one of our adventure. I'll update this post with a few pictures later. 

I should have known, but this trip got off to a wonderful start when we went to pick up our car and the lady told us, "We don't have a minivan right now, but we have an SUV for you." Uhh... that is not going to work for six people. So she had to call the Berkeley location and ask if they had anything that sat 7. They did, so we went over there and found out that we were the proud renters of a Suzuki XL7. Sitting seven is really a stretch, as it's really a regular SUV with an extra row of seat stuck in the back. As you can imagine, this puts an even further cramp on luggage space, which was a problem with so many people going. So we finally all crammed in, a cooler and luggage taking the window seat next to Britt, and off we went....

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful up I-5 and out of California. We had dinner in a town call Weed that was funny until we couldn't find any restaurants opened. Another hour and a half or so we pulled into Medford, Oregon where I now sit in a Motel 6, borrowing WiFi from the Travelodge next door. (Motel 6 offers WiFi...for $2.99 a day. My head still hurts trying to wrap itself around that). On the plus side, there is a Dairy Queen across the parking lot that is opened until 11, so I am also enjoying a Peanut Blaster Parfait as well. Mmmm... another 6 or 7 hours on the road tomorrow before we get to Seattle, so I better head to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly than today. But then, you would have no reason to come read this then, would you?

Leaving...On a Jet Plane

...it's a fun song, but sadly no, we are actually taking a road trip. The bags are packed, and tomorrow we hit the road north to not-so-sunny Seattle/Vancouver. Will my kids survive the long drive? How many cups of Seattle's Finest coffee will I consume? Will I find some free WiFi to keep you all updated? We will all find out soon....

Quietly Mumble Happy Birthday Amongst Yourselves...

...That was what was instructed to everyone right before I cut the delicious homemade cheesecake (darn, forgot to take a picture) for Britt's birthday. She is not a fan of birthday attention, so a nice, quiet BBQ lunch is all she gets. It ended up cold and windy anyway (great precursor to our vacation, I guess), so we came, we ate, and we retreated indoors, where the warmth of technology kept us company.

Right guys?

Perfect Cookies?

As stated many times in this space, I am not the baker of the family. But if you start attaching words like "perfect" in describing your recipes, and fill the articles with science to back up your claim, you will have me interested. So perhaps when I get some free time, I will give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes....

(Of course, the recent mishap of my standup mixer's engine breaking will make this difficult. If anyone knows where a good place I can take the mixer to get repair, I would greatly appreciate it... and perhaps thank you with some cookies.)

Playtime?

The kids have a lot of barbie dolls and they play with them in all sorts of ways.

I do not know which way this is.

Sheperd's Pie

Had some potatoes around the house that were ready to bloom so I decided to use them along with some leftovers to make a quick sheperd's pie for dinner. Nothing especially exciting. What I actually wanted to bring up was that as I was leveling the mashed potatoes on top and getting ready to put it in the oven, I realized that I had no idea how to make those cool peaks with a fork that everyone seems to make that gets all browned and delicious looking. I ended up kind of plowing across them like I was getting ready to plant corn in them or something. Not quite the same. If anyone can show me how to make nifty peaks, please let me know....

Another Helpful Hint

When your parents tell you not to climb on, or jump off of the tree in your backyard, they probably have a good reason. If you don't believe them, you will only find out for yourself, the hard way.

In case you were wondering....

...yes, if you happen to be on the Wii Fit, getting some exercise, and you suddenly feel the urge to go to the bathroom, but you are in the middle of being weighed and couldn't wait and you accidentally pee on the Wii Balance Board....it's ok. The Board can take it. Wipe it up, and it still works.

I'm just saying, in case you were wondering.....

Farmer's Market

When you want to go to a Farmer's Market in the Bay Area, the Ferry Building Farmer's Market is pretty much the gold standard that others are compared to. With Hannah having been freed for the summer from her busy activities, we decided to take a trip out and enjoy the summer harvest of local farmers.



I support being a locavore as much as the next guy. I think Michael Pollan has a lot of very good ideas on how we can be more responsible with our the way we manage of resources. Looking at all of the organically grown food on display (look at those pepper! beautiful), I am definitely inspired to do more to support the local farmer. It is pricier than your local grocery store, but you more than make up for it in quality. I really wasn't looking to do a lot of shopping on this particular trip, but I couldn't resist buying a few tomatoes as thoughts of a BLT swirls in my head. (I LOVE a good ripe tomato. I can eat those things like apples. On the other hand, eating tomatoes in the winter time is one of the saddest experiences that I can think of) Then, amidst the abundant free samples, I also bought some potato-stuffed indian naan, some rhubarb that Britt turned into a crisp, and this love cheese sampler from Cowgirl Creamery. (I mostly took this to sow my friend Tim, who has developed a taste for fancy cheese)



Back to the sampling for a moment... You would think that all the samples of ripe nectarines, artisan cheeses, and even pickled green beans would be a meal in itself. But you know, sometimes the sampling works and it does indeed get you to buy more stuff. Besides what was mentioned above, I also tried a salumi "meat cone" from newly opened Boccalone. Excuse the blurry picture, I was having camera issues, but it's a paper cone with meat. Isn't that exciting enough of an idea?



So on a lovely summer day, I really can't think of anything better than spending the late afternoon/early morning strolling the Ferry Building. If it was inspiring to get me to wake up a little earlier on a Saturday morning, it's certainly worth a visit from you.

My First Souffle

For my last birthday, Britt gave me a strong hint when she got me a souffle dish. Being the strong willed type (and lazy, let's not forget to give credit to...ah whatever), I pretty much left the bowl unused for about a year. Then one day, while perusing some of my favorite blogs in my Google Reader (the greatest time suck mankind has ever known), I run across the Amateur Gourmet's attempt at a simple Ina Garten souffle recipe. What really sealed the deal for me, besides the basic recipe, are the step by step pictures that Adam took along the way. It's one of the easiest recipes that I think I ever followed.

Of course, that means that reprinting the recipes or too many pictures would be highly redundant. So here a just a few of how mine turned out, and I highly encourage you give this a shot. As mentioned in his post, there are kind of a lot of bowls and such involved, so clean up is a bummer, but I found that it was a great way to distract myself while I tried not peeking into that oven.



As promised, a simple recipe with very few ingredients. I had to substitute the cheese choice as all I had on hand was some lovely Swiss Emmenthal. I thought it worked out pretty well.



This was what it looked like before it went into the oven. This is also one of the few times that I get to play with the stand up mixer. Britt is the baker, so she is usually the one mixing things with it. It was great to just put the whisk to the egg whites and walk away to other things.



This was the final product when I took it out of the oven. I was hoping for more rise, but I think when I let Sara help fold the egg whites in the mixture, she was a little heavy handed and mixed everything in. It's OK though, I don't blame her or anything. It was a lot of fun letting both girls help throughout the process. Besides, the pretty rise only lasts a short time before the souffle cools.



See? No hard feelings...