Little Pillows of Heaven

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

I had originally scheduled a shopping trip for my provincial Chinese main course dishes today, but decided to postpone it until tomorrow and make beignets instead. Today is a special day in our household, part of an ongoing tradition that my son Will and I share every year by watching all three of the Triple Crown horse races. Two weeks ago, we watched as Giacomo turned the world of horseracing upside down when he won the Kentucky Derby at 50-1 odds, and today we watched the Preakness to see if Giacomo had the staying power to win leg two of the Triple Crown.

Horseracing is my favorite spectator sport, and for some strange reason, derby days always put me in the mood for beignets...those little pillows of heaven that, along with its rich chicory coffee, brought fame to the Cafe du Monde on Jackson Square in New Orleans...one of my very favorite places in all the world.

In anticipation, I set out all the ingredients and utensils for making the beignets last night, including the last portion of the Cafe du Monde beignet mix that I bought on my most recent visit to New Orleans. In my first few attempts at making beignets, it took a few tries to get them just right. But now that I've made several batches, I know exactly how to make them puff up airy and golden every time. And today's batch was no exception. They were perfect, especially served alongside the basket of luscious ripe strawberries that my friend Michael Alimusa gave me on Friday when I stopped by the Small World Restaurant.

Fortunately those little pillows of heaven were there to cushion our disappointment when Giacomo crossed the finish line in third place behind Scrappy T and Afleet Alex, the odds-on favorite who led the field. Looks like there will be no Triple Crown this year. But you can bet that Will and I plan to go the distance on June 11 by watching the Belmont Stakes anyway.

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

Revisiting the Provincial Chinese Main Course Recipes

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

The main course recipes for my 'Raise the Red Lantern' Provincial Chinese menu include Kung Pao Shrimp, Crispy Mandarin Orange Chicken and Spicy Hunan Beef. My Kung Pao Shrimp recipe calls for soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, water chestnuts, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, ginger, peanuts, chili peppers, cornstarch, and vineger. Many of these ingredients are also included in the other two recipes as well. The Hunan Beef also calls for broccoli, and the Mandarin Chicken calls for egg white, sesame seeds, mandarin oranges, green peppers, and catsup. And while I'm at it, I realize that I'm almost out of rice. So I have a somewhat lengthy shopping list this time, but many of the items on it are already in my pantry.

I'm looking forward to trying all three of the dishes, but am just realizing that I've chosen some rather spicy recipes. Thankfully I will be serving them over the course of several nights, rather than all on the same table. Even so, I've been craving spicy food lately, so I'm feeling a little daring and adventurous. I'll just have to make sure I have plenty of cold Tsing Tao beer on hand to put out the fire.

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

A Busy Week Ahead

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

I have scheduled several evenings next week for preparing the entrees for my 'Raise the Red Lantern' Provinical Chinese menu. They include Kung Pao Shrimp, Mandarin Orange Chicken, and Spicy Hunan Beef. But in addition to paying a visit to my favorite Mexican carneceria to buy the fresh ingredients, I have a full dance card that includes the annual tradition of watching the Preakness horse race on Saturday with my son Will, the Italian Street Painting Festival at Copia Center for Wine, Food and the Arts on Sunday, a lunch date to interview the proprietor of my favorite sushi bar for a writing project I'm working on, Will's last chorale performance of the school year on Tuesday, renewing my driver's license on Wednesday, and the opening of the 2005 Chefs Market in downtown Napa on Friday evening. Yikes! With all that going on, when am I going to find time play in the kitchen?

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09:33 PM PDT Permalink |

A Respite from the Kitchen

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

After several days spent focusing on recipes, shopping for fresh ingredients, cooking up my Velvety Hot and Sour Egg Flower Soup and Mandarin Chicken Salad, and [yes] playing hooky on a long, lazy, rainy day yesterday, it was time to put nose to the grindstone, fingers to the keyboard and get some writing done. I am currently working on not one but two books. The first is a creative project on Japanese food, and the other is an editing project which, at the moment, mostly involves managing a lot of incoming text submissions from outside sources, which will later be compiled into a published book. I hope to have both manuscripts ready to hand over to my publisher by the end of the month, so I'm working diligently to make sure that happens. Thankfully, my efforts in the kitchen have yielded a bounty of leftovers that can be served up in a matter of minutes, sparing me from yet another evening in the kitchen.

Today, my son Will called unexpectedly around lunchtime, on his way home from school with an upset tummy. But after an hour or so, he was craving a light meal, so I offered him that beautiful bowl of Velvety Hot & Sour Egg Flower Soup that appeared in yesterday's photograph. He ate every drop of it and even felt well enough a couple of hours later to keep his date with a classmate for the premiere of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith this evening. Ah, the magical healing powers of homemade soup and a little of Mom's TLC. And for lunch today, on a brief respite from my writing, I revisited yesterday's Mandarin Chicken Salad, feeling positively guilty as I relished every bite. I'm not used to having anything that fancy for lunch. But I was hungry, and there it was...

And there's still one portion of last night's bonus dish left, something that wasn't on my original Dinner & a Movie menu: Chinese Five Spice Pork Loin with Vegetable Stir Fry. Alas I have to relenquish that pleasure to Will or Rene, as I seem to have had a disturbing and recurring reaction to the Chinese Five Spice powder. Something in the blend sends my heart into a palpitating frenzy. I woke this morning from a deep sleep at 5:00 a.m. for the third time in three months after using it in a Dinner & a Movie recipe, with my heart racing at more than 120 beats a minute. Maybe it's the anise, maybe it's the cloves, because licorice, fennel, ginger and cinnamon have never bothered me. Whatever it is, it looks like I've had my last taste of Chinese Five Spice. Too bad too, because it's such an unusual and versatile spice blend. But the leftover Grilled Five Spice Pork Loin won't go to waste. Will or Rene will definitely do it justice.

Meanwhile, it's back to the keyboard for me. Except that I never left...

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12:06 AM PDT Permalink |

The Best Laid Plans

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

In my Technicolor dreams, I envisioned a beautiful spring afternoon with a table set on the patio, where Rene and I would enjoy a light lunch of Velvety Hot & Sour Egg Flower Soup and Mandarin Chicken Salad, followed by a motorcycle ride up-valley. What I got instead was rain, rain, and more rain. This spring has been anything but typical. Springtime in the Napa Valley is usually a little piece of heaven, but this year the rainy season has lasted well into May with no end in sight. On the positive side, I guess there will be no drought this year.

But I digress. The Velvety Hot & Sour Egg Flower Soup was everything I'd hoped and more. The balance of hot and sour was a perfect blend of chili paste and vinegar, and the texture was just as velvety as its name implies. But getting there was no easy task. It took several hours of adjusting the recipe last night, straining the broth, correcting the seasonings, adding cornstarch little by little until the texture was just right, and then experimenting with the egg drop process. The results were definitely worth the effort.

The Mandarin Chicken Salad was another delight, with its gingery blend of soy sauce, rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil...my favorite combination. Instead of poaching the chicken, I sliced it into tiny bites, dipped them in egg and flour and deep fried them to a golden brown. A nice variation on an old standard, especially in an ensemble of crispy chow mein noodles, crunchy-fibrous water chestnuts, and luscious mandarin sections over a bed of baby greens. A truly wonderful salad.

After lunch, instead of finally experiencing the thrill of a ride on Rene's motorcycle, between sessions in the kitchen, we camped out on the sofa, listening to the downpour outside and watching an old Mexican movie called Cartas Marcadas starring Pedro Infante. A light and lively romantic comedy, but since it was showing on the Spanish channel, Rene had to translate most of it for me. What a dear.

So...sometimes you gotta take what you get and be thankful for it.

The recipes and photos will be posted at the end of the month.

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11:58 PM PDT Permalink |

Clearing the Decks for a Day of Fun and Food

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

Rene and I are playing hooky tomorrow, taking the day off to relax and enjoy each other's company over a leisurely Chinese lunch of soup and salad, and if the weather's nice, a ride on his motorcycle. So, between other projects throughout the day, I was in the kitchen preparing the basics for my Velvety Hot & Sour Egg Flower Soup and Mandarin Chicken Salad. I deboned and sliced the chicken breast, washed and chopped vegetables, made chicken stock and mixed up a batch of sesame-ginger salad dressing.

With the leftover vegetables, I made a colorful stir-fry that I will serve with some grilled pork loin tomorrow evening. There was even enough for a dish of stir-fry with noodles for Will's breakfast tomorrow morning. He's spending the night with me after his Taekwondo class this evening, a rare treat on a school night when he would normally be with his Dad. And as odd as it was with all that Asian food simmering in the kitchen, we had take-n-bake pizza for supper and a nice mid-week visit.

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12:26 AM PDT Permalink |

Culinary Gestalt & Real Magic

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

It occurred to me this afternoon as I was sorting through bins of tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, carrots and spring greens for the freshest best ingredients for tomorrow's Velvety Hot and Sour Egg Flower Soup and Mandarin Chicken Salad, that cooking is the act of transforming nature's produce, which is already perfect as is, into something even better. A kind of culinary gestalt in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Now THAT'S magic!

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12:00 AM PDT Permalink |

Revisiting the Soup & Salad Recipes

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

For the next phase of my Raise the Red Lantern Dinner & a Movie menu, I will be making the Velvety Hot & Sour Egg Flower Soup and the Mandarin Chicken Salad. For those two items, I will be needing to shop for a few fresh ingredients. I already have chicken breasts for the salad and the soup stock, a can of Mandarin orange sections, crispy chow mein noodles, water chestnuts, ginger root, garlic, chili paste, eggs, vinegar, cornstarch, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds. So it looks like my shopping list is going to be very short. Spring salad greens, bamboo shoots, carrots, cucumber, celery, shitake mushrooms, and scallions. With only seven items in my basket, looks like I'll be eligible for the express lane.

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03:00 PM PDT Permalink |

How Does My Garden Grow?

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

Mary, Mary! Quite contrary!
How does your garden grow?
With silverbells and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

I loved nursery rhymes as a child, and I am often reminded of this one when I go out in the mornings to survey my garden. There I have sown two kinds of tomatoes, four kinds of peas and beans, zucchini and yellow squash, cantaloupes and watermelon, corn, cucumbers, japapenos, tomatillos, leeks, swiss chard, two kinds of lettuce, watercress, and several herbs, including mint, dill, basil, marjoram, chives, parsley, and catnip. I also have planted several varieties of flowers, including Sweet William, zinnia, lobelia, marigold, impatiens, and nasturtium. Still to be sown are Japanese eggplant, pumpkins, and bok choy.

I must say that I am puzzled at the results. Some of the things I thought would surely grow have failed to germinate. Some of the things I had doubts about are doing the best. And then there is the daily battle with the garden pests. They've eaten the cotyledons off many of my seedlings before they got a chance to sprout a second set of leaves.

Among the most successful varieties are romaine lettuce and mesclun greens, leeks and snow peas, corn and watercress, zucchini and yellow squash, cucumbers and tomatoes. The slow starts or complete failures are the melons, most of the herbs, and all the flowers except nasturtiums. I've had to put out insecticide for pill bugs, snails and a host of other hungry vermin that emerge at night and feast on the most delicate sprouts and even whole mature leaves. It's astonshing to wake some mornings and find yesterday's growth completely vanished. And I planted some things a little too early, I think, and therefore they did not germinate. Those I will replant tomorrow.

The fruits of my garden are definitely too far off to make an appearance in any of the dishes for this month's Dinner & a Movie, but I've got a good feeling that I will have a bounty of vegetables and greens for my summer menus.

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02:23 PM PDT Permalink |

Raise the Red Lantern Redux

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

As the credits rolled at the end of Raise the Red Lantern last night, Rene asked me why it had unseated Babette's Feast as my new favorite international film. I was hard-pressed to give him an answer. So, in the stream of extemporaneous verbal analysis that followed, I began by saying that much of my love for it is visual. Zhang Yimou makes such powerful use of the world he created within the palatial setting and its furnishings, not to mention the riveting beauty of his leading lady, Gong Li.

But beyond the veneer of its aesthetics, Raise the Red Lantern has so many deeper layers, from the specious treachery of the female dynamic that builds by subtle degrees among the master's four wives, to the unquestioning observance of tradition, without regard to reason or circumstance. I think Rene was also puzzled that I would favor such a tragedy, when my all-time favorite movie is a dead-heat tie between Zorba the Greek and Groundhog Day, two very profound yet buoyant films.

Perhaps it's for precisely that reason that Raise the Red Lantern speaks so strongly to me. That, despite its dark message, the tale is beautiful and compelling enough to hold the place of highest esteem in my international film library. But... I still love Babette's Feast as much as I ever did, so maybe I will have to declare a tie for my favorite in the international film category as well.

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04:19 PM PDT Permalink |

How the Appetizers Turned Out

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

As part of the new scheduling format for my monthly Dinner & a Movie, I made three appetizers last night: Petite Pancakes filled with Mu Shu Pork, Tiny Egg Rolls filled with chicken and minced vegetables, and Crab Rangoon baked in tiny tartlets, all of which were delicious, and either met or exceeded my expectations. I served them up on trays in the living room to enjoy while we watched this month's film, Raise the Red Lantern.

Rene liked the Mu Shu Pork best, but for me, although absolutely delicious, it was edged out ever so closely by the deep fried Egg Rolls. Perhaps that's because, after many greasy, soggy, failed attempts at making them over the years, I finally got them right for the very first time. This batch turned out perfectly. Perhaps it's because the oil was just the right temperature for the quick sizzle needed to render them light and crispy. Or perhaps it's because they were tiny, instead of enchilada-sized and therefore didn't need to spend so much time in the oil. Or perhaps it's because the filling wasn't too juicy and had been pre-cooked so that only the wrappers needed to brown. Or perhaps it's all three. Whatever it was, the gods were smiling on my kitchen last night.

Only slightly disappointing were the Crab Rangoon Tartlets. The tiny pie crusts I shaped by hand and baked to a golden brown yesterday afternoon turned out perfectly, and the finished appetizers were tasty, but not nearly as pretty as I'd hoped. The addition of steak sauce and soy sauce to the snowy white mixture of cream cheese and crabmeat, as prescribed by all the Rangoon recipes I consulted, produced a muddied effect, somewhat reminiscent of the 'Silly Putty' we played with as children. So I am going to adjust the recipe slightly by omitting the offending ingredients and substituting a little ginger for spice, and perhaps a little rice vinegar for tang, in hopes that the next batch will retain both its Asian ethos and its pristeen purity.

And regarding my new, more relaxed cooking schedule, I think I could get used to this. By preparing only one course each week, I am so much more relaxed than after those hair-pulling, kitchen-wrecking, stress fests that I produced every month for a whole year. Not that I didn't love every minute of it, but this is just so much more sensible, practical, realistic, and favorable for the cook [that's me]. So after a rhapsodic yet leisurely afternoon in the kitchen, I was able to sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labors with my sanity and good humor intact.

The recipes and photos will be posted at the end of the month.

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03:35 PM PDT Permalink |

Shopping for Fresh Ingredients

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

This afternoon I went shopping at my neighborhood Safeway for all the ingredients to make my 'Raise the Red Lantern' appetizers: Petite Pancakes with Mu Shu Pork, Crab Rangoon Tartlets, and Tiny Spring Rolls with Sweet & Sour Sauce. As exotic as the dishes may sound, the fresh ingredients are anything but. I was easily able to find garlic and ginger root, napa cabbage and scallions, bamboo shoots and bean sprouts, cream cheese and crabmeat. And had I needed any, hoisin and soy sauce were both available in the Asian section of the international food aisle. So shopping was a breeze.

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

Revisiting the Appetizer Recipes & Making a Shopping List

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

Of all the dishes I have planned for this month's Dinner & a Movie, the appetizers are the most tempting. I have chosen to make Mu Shu Pork, Crab Rangoon, and Spring Rolls. However, instead of making them standard sized, I'm going to make tiny pancakes for the Mu Shu Pork, I'm going to bake the Crab Rangoon in tiny tartlet shells, and I'm going to wrap the Spring Rolls in little wonton wrappers instead of the usual 8" sheets of dough. And since I'm only preparing appetizers for this week's phase of the menu, I will be making plenty of 'em!

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

Serving Dishes for a Provincial Chinese Dinner

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

Having already prepared a dozen Asian feasts over the past year, I'm well stocked with attractive serving dishes. However, I can never resist stopping by my favorite thrift shop to see what turns up. The only problem is that I'm rapidly running out of space in my cupboards to store them all. And if this keeps up, who knows, one of these days, I may have to open a thrift shop myself.

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |

Special Chinese Cooking Utensils

This Month's Film: Raise the Red Lantern
Cuisine: Chinese

To produce the menu I've chosen for this month's dinner, I need nothing more than a good sharp knife, my wok, electric rice cooker, and garden variety utensils, cookware, and bakeware. That's the beauty of Chinese cuisine...no fussy gadgets or elaborate devices. Just the basics.

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12:01 AM PDT Permalink |