Chinese Dumplings are only getting better

For five years I have been making Chinese dumplings that most restaurants could never duplicate, but I have been using store bought dumpling wrappers. The natural evolution of cooking demanded that I  make the wrappers from scratch.  My experience with dough is like years ago when I really wanted to cook, but had no idea how things fit together in the food world. It seems weird to be there again with dough. It’s so picky but precise. Today was the 2nd time in a week we used homemade wrappers.

So another happy mistake happened. Market basket was out of ground pork so I had them bring up southern style pork ribs. This yielded some serious flavor on top of what was already happening.

Korean Steamed Egg in the Microwave

I always have this time issue in the morning. I want to eat a healthy breakfast, but I don't have time to produce one. I was watching a couple on YouTube the other day cook Korean steamed eggs in the microwave. And wouldn't you know it, our very own Maangchi has a recipe posted for those eggs... So I had to try.

This recipe was simple enough to put together. Two eggs, toasted sesame seeds, hot pepper flakes, third of a cup of water, tablespoon of soy sauce, into green onions chopped.

Mix well and cook in the microwave for 5 minutes.

I really enjoyed this, and it was easy to make. I do believe for my microwave the next time I do this recipe I might try 4 minutes, pull the dish out of the microwave, and see how the eggs are. By the texture of them on the top, I actually think that they were probably cooked a minute earlier and could have stopped right there.

Got to pay your dues if you’re gonna sing the blues and you know it don’t come easy....

Still really bombing on this blogging thing, and why? I kinda sort used to write, to quote Todd Rundgren, “so like the Naz used to do like heavy rock, then suddenly a light pretty ballad.” Yeah, so me and everyone else. Big deal right? So, yes, suffering complications, by which I mean I suck. Ok so getting over it here. Let’s use the blog for practical reasons, and then maybe, just maybe something really amazing might just happen.

So, what’s practical? How about the fact that I have now cooked so many spectacular dishes but have failed to properly catalogue them. After a while I forget that I did try something or maybe I remember  that I cooked it, but cannot remember how. It is time to show, explain and tell it’s story.  January charging at me with ferocious speed and power. Staring down the barrel of another
 winter, what else should I do, but make it memorable.

From a misty past comes light on something there, but unexplained until now...

Alison Steele the nightbird

Alison

I have made many friends in life. In fact a drill Sargent once told me that there is a lot of love in the world if you just st look for it.

In the faces of people not yet met, sometimes there is a depth. I have always known that I see this depth. It's like being from a far away land and hearing someone speak your native language in a crowd. It stands out.

I am pulled toward those that have struggled. Those to whom nothing has ever come easy. I see the struggle as a trophy. Owning this trophy myself, I feel I have license to say this.

I never analyzed why I have the respect and admiration for those who have worked so much harder than the average person, but the poem that Alison reads here sheds some light on it. If only by their faces to me would equate to the person who has a normal life; in bed at 9, 8 hours of sleep, dinner at 5:30, bills paid, everything works, predictability, trivial focus...bleeeehhcckk!

My crazed existence always finding me needing to have been somewhere 30 minutes ago would feel a little better with some of the person above's characteristics.

This incredible voice on the night sky, getting us to think about the deeper things. We took a soft ride into the night air, and you consoled us, you challenged us and you somehow loved us. We miss you Alison.

Julie and Julia and what it really means

Fragmentation of my existence continues. I feel that some of us are more fortunate than others. We are staggering around through life and we get our foot stuck in a crack in the trail. This happens because we are either nice people or we are inducted into some sort of servitude temporarily. Others made an unpredictable course change equivalent to suddenly jerking the steering wheel rail-ward on a long bridge. No matter what they did, when everything settles, somehow the pieces of who they are, are found to be more assembled than ever before.

It was certainly this way for Julie Powel, the author of Julie and Julia. BTW. I have never seen a movie that was so NOT the book ever before like this, meaning, if you saw the movie, you have no clue. Read the book. Julie clearly hated her life. She worked in the wake of one of the biggest tragedies there ever was. Even worse she worked for the bureaucratic remediation of said tragedy. Her personal life was empty or at least she perceived it was. She envied her friends that had lives that it seemed she actually would not have wanted if you said, "ok Julie, you win, you can have this life." Where is she now? Her life actually does not suck. Just as importantly, she brought great honor in defining another great woman who, herself was also feeling this incredible fragmentation of the sum of her being. It is a shame the movie got dumbed down to the level a 7 year old could understand. On a whole, you can only feed Americans entertainment from a Pez dispenser.

Sorry, I am doing that thing I do. Julia Child was one of those fragmented people who had some really great qualities that needed the glue of purpose, and well, we know she sure found it.

Getting to the point now. Last fall in September, we camped at this exact site at Winhall Brook Campground. I proclaimed then that I would wrangle those fragments of mine in a coherent and collected and hopefully talented person. The question is, knowing that I did not succeed, what DO I have to show for a winter of cold, cooking, loss and introspect?

More on this later. The coffee is done perking!

Bulgogi with Rice Cakes

Bulgogi, Korean beef Barbeque, is very versitile. Traditionally I have served it with Rice and lettuce wraps. This time I am trying Korean rice cakes. They are made from tubes of compressed rice, sliced on the axis. They soaked all those flavors.

• 3 Tbsp chopped garlic
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 Asian pear (I was out of them so I used a juicy Gala Apple)
• 1 Tbsp mirin
• 3 chopped green onions
• 1 tsp pepper

The most important things in life...

I'm trying to organize all of my stuff. Our house is really small and our family grows bigger by which I mean my boys are getting bigger and so do their stuff is getting bigger. I keep finding old card and old videos and pictures. They are so irresistibly beautiful of my sons when they were younger. Little note that they wrote me. Videos of them as toddlers talking to us. And although I love them with every bit of my heart in those moments I still feel that I could not believe or no at the moment just how incredibly precious they were at that particular stage of their lives. I worry that the normal stresses of life dull our senses and make us not appreciate what's happening right now. Life can be difficult taking care of a family. I have all these crazy things that I do to keep us going. I hold our cars together, keep the hot water heater downstairs bedroom heater and kitchen stove well-fed with 20 pound and 100 pounds propane tanks. There's always some sort of obstacle that makes it difficult. During all of this distraction I forget what I am missing. I don't like it, it is the worst form of robbery that  could ever happen.

Hotteok

Sourdough Bread

Southwest Egg Rolls

Bibibap!

My Amazing and Wonderful Noah