In the last three days, I’ve made three Asian noodles salads.  One for the catering gig, and the other two from leftovers floating around the fridge.  They included, in various combinations:

Soba (buckwheat) or spaghetti noodles
Cilantro
Red cabbage
Mint
Stir-fried green garlic shoots
Julienned carrots
Julienned cucumber
Black or white sesame seeds
Pickled ginger
Yellow peppers
Red jalapeno peppers
Candied slivered almonds
Coconut sesame brittle from the [...]

I was talking to Bethany yesterday, and she was a little flummoxed about lettuce bounty–in her CSA box, in her garden. That’s the thing with lettuce–there’s really nothing to do but eat it fresh.  Something more sturdy, like kale, collards, or chard, can be cooked down and shrunk.  But darn if those heads of lettuce [...]

Recipe for crankiness:

Eat a small breakfast and late lunch
Run catering errands with a two-year old that screams, “I’m cold!” the whole time you’re in Uwajimaya
Go to Costco at lunchtime while everyone and their mother are there for Polish dogs
Bring home a rotisserie chicken whose aroma in the car makes your already acute hunger unbearable
Beat yourself [...]

In addition to Mark Bittman, I have another new crush. It’s on the poet Naomi Shihab Nye who Emily and I saw last night as part of this season’s Seattle Arts and Lectures series at Benaroya Hall.  I am still basking in everything she said, her haunting poems, sweet smile (she signed my book), sense [...]

 
Yancey and I got a pizza stone for a wedding present 14 years (!!) ago.  Yes, we got married when we were 12.  I don’t remember who we got it from or why we had the foresight to think we’d need one, but we’ve been using it since our starry-eyed newlywed days.  I remember our [...]