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mood cure

How much of mood can be attributed plain and simple to vitamin deficiency? I just had a weird and sudden attack of the Oh My God Everything Is Pointless and Can't I Just Go Watch TV blues.

Trying really hard not to eat my way out of it, I went and took a multivitamin and a fish oil capsule, and half an hour later I am feeling significantly better (though I still kind of want to curl up and watch a couple hours of Tony Bourdain). Last night I drank one of those energy/vitamin packets and had a similar rise in energy and willingness to deal with my fellow humans.

I always assume that because I eat a varied diet full of vegetables and proteins that I'm unlikely to be deficient in anything particular, but I am really starting to wonder now.

I never remember to take the damn vitamins though they are right out on the kitchen counter. Morning head is a problem for me. Maybe I should bring the bottles up and sit 'em on my desk near the computer, so when I get all mopey and unfocused I can immediately squash the problem with NUTRIENTS.

lawdy, why am i so HUNGRY?

OK, granted, I did actually exercise for 45 minutes or so this morning, but why am I on constant hunger alert today? I ate granola and yogurt and black tea for breakfast right after the workout, then brown rice and smoked salmon and broccoli for lunch, plus some dark chocolate when I was still hungry afterward, and then some leftover chicken hash with turnips and sweet potatoes because I was hungry AGAIN two hours later, and now again two hours later I am STILL HUNGRY. I am drinking water, even. Healthy food, reasonable portions, lots of fiber and protein. WTF?

Sigh. I am going to go drink some more water.

another reason I love the internet

LOST characters explain how to make a sandwich. Awesome.

winter fruit treat

A friend makes a cranberry-orange relish at Thanksgiving that is to die for, and all she does is throw cranberries and oranges in the food processor to chowder them up. So good!

And I had a handful of leftover cranberries from the last upside-down cake, and one lingering clementine, so I figured I'd just grind 'em up and eat them with something. But the pork roast I envisioned is getting delayed by all the other leftovers in the house, so I threw some of my ground-up goodness into some yogurt with a splash of the orange syrup left over from candying oranges at Christmas.

Yum.

Matt the farm-fresh cocktail man

While in LA we went out for drinks with our pal hedge and wound up at the Library Bar in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. Hedge met Matt the bartender at the farmer's market that morning by happenstance and when we suggested drinks she had just the place to try.

A sampling of Matt's creations:

- umami manhattan: shiitake infused Basil Hayden bourbon, bitters, italian cherry

- arugula gimlet: arugula, mint, lime, sugar, Hendrick's gin

- Last Tango in Modena: strawberries, balsamic, Hendrick's, with St. Germain foam

- vanilla Basil Hayden, ginger beer, lime, sugar, mint

- wo kaffir lime drinks.... one with cherry liqueur foam -- we'd prefer an orange foam or no foam in that one. I much preferred the kaffir lime, Hendrick's, coconut milk thing he whipped up for the folks next to us (he gave us a sample).

We got a couple tastes of his saffron vodka and fresh coconut/pineapple rum, both quite interesting and complex.

And then he whipped up a new drink on the spot based on a single phrase: Just The Tip. This ended up being a multi-part extravaganza in a nipped-waist vessel, with a 20 yr Pappy Van Winkle old fashioned in the bottom, followed by a cherry to block the narrow part of the glass, then lemon, sugar, aperol, and possibly vodka in the top section, with cherry foam on just the tip. Insane. Awesome.

tempura sifu

We went to the fancy tempura bar here in LA at the Kyoto Grand hotel, where they sit you at the bar and the tempura master brings you morsel after morsel.

The master barked orders at the waiters just like in the sushi bar scene with Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill, which we found entirely charming in its absurdity. We got a bit of sashimi and some jellyfish and mountain vegetable in sesame sauce to start, and then the parade of fried goodness began. There was a lemon wedge and some green tea salt to dip in, which I rather enjoyed as an occasional break from the delicious ponzu with daikon.

The best of them were the astonishingly tender squid and the delectable orange roughy with green onion, though I enjoyed them all, from the asparagus to the eggplant to the lotus root to the crab claw to the unagi to the shiitake. Nom nom.

why Boston needs another Shanghai restaurant STAT

While we've been in LA, we've gotten xiao long bao from Mei Lung Garden, and braised pork belly with preserved vegetable and clear fried shrimp from Mandarin Chateau. All of these are even better versions than what we used to have at Wing's, but our reaction has been one of overwhelming sadness that we cannot have these tastes any more in our home city. We have perfectly reasonable Cantonese places, spectacular Sichuan places, and a reliably excellent diner-style place, but we have nowhere to go for Shanghai cooking at an equivalent level.

Shanghai emigre community of Massachusetts, hear my plea! Start a decent restaurant and I promise to eat in it and drag all my friends too.

Christmas dinner with the other side of the family

We had dinner Christmas day with tallasiandude's LA-based extended family, and damn, was that a spread! Enough cold plates to feed an army, followed by an equally staggering battery of hot dishes and a pair of desserts.

I may have forgotten something, but to the best of my recollection there was:

salted eel (kind of like less-salty salt-cod)
vegetarian duck (layered sheets of tofu skin from the look of it)
wood ears and vegetarian kidney (some kind of gluten I think cut to look like kidney)
jalapenos stuffed with ground pork and braised in soy sauce & sugar
steamed egg loaf with 1000-year eggs and salted duck egg yolk
turnip pickles with soy sauce and szechuan peppercorns
cold tendon
sweet & sour spare ribs (not very sour, mostly savory)
salty ham with boiled lotus seeds, on lightly toasted bread to make a li'l sammich
clams steamed with scrambled egg and green onion
shrimps sauteed with garlic and green onion and spicy stuff
braised pork hock with bok choy
tofu noodles with green beans, ham and mushroom
mustard greens with shredded ham and dried scallop
soup with bamboo, enoki, napa and egg dumplings with pork filling
rice cakes sauteed with mushroom and cabbage in a brown sauce
sticky rice with red bean paste and dried fruits
my cranberry upside-down cake

Momofuku secrets

I got a copy of David Chang's Momofuku cookbook, and it is some of the most enjoyable food porn (and writing) I've seen in a long time. He paints himself as a bit of a bumbler, if perhaps one with borderline sociopathic passion for good food, and frankly I find that entirely charming. The fact is, this dude likes to eat the way I like to eat, throwing the low in with the high without regard for anything but deliciousness (and maybe the occasional gleeful fuck-you gesture).

Plus, there are recipes for nearly everything we ate at the restaurants. Nom nom nom nom nom nom.

I think that part of the reason I loved the sauce that came with our bo ssam is that it may actually have been pureed kimchi. And pureed kimchi is such a blindingly simple, wonderful idea that I can barely imagine I never thought of it myself. I am going to puree up some kimchi and start putting it on EVERYTHING.

UPDATE: now I've read through the bo ssam part of the book, and the sauce I really loved wasn't the puree, but I now know for sure why I loved it so much. He thins down his spicy sauce with sherry vinegar, my hands-down favorite vinegar of all time. OMG yum.

Still gonna puree some kimchi though... and maybe thin it down with sherry vinegar too so it'll drizzle. Be still my heart.

celery sticks, cocktail style

I have hated celery for years. As a child, I never liked any of the standard 1970s snack preparations: celery stick with peanut butter, celery stick with cream cheese, celery stick with dip. BLECH.

Readers of this site may recall that in recent years I have come to enjoy celery, even raw celery, in certain preparations -- notably the celery and pressed tofu salad in certain Chinese restaurants. (RIP Wing's Kitchen *sob*)

With this newly-opened mind, I decided that for my most recent cocktail party I'd put my oft-used green-olive cream cheese spread into celery sticks for a fancier presentation. I tried piping it with a big star tip but that was a non-starter so I snipped the end off the ziplock and piped it that way. Much more successful, if perhaps a little more rustic than I'd imagined. I figured other people would like it, but I'd probably not dig it so much.

WRONG.

The olive-pimento-parsley flavors in the cream cheese are great with the savory celery. The whole thing is like a crunchy martini in your mouth. Love them, and have been eating a couple before starting dinner prep every night this week. Yum!

Who knew?

fish soup

We got some fish frames for free and I made two soups with 'em. First I made a big pot of fish stock, pulling out the fish once it was cooked and picking off the meat, returning the bones and skin to the simmering soup.

Half the stock became a ghetto bouillabaisse, with only the picked fish meat in it along with the fennel and onion and saffron. Very nice, and much cheaper than the regular bouillabaisse we make for company.

The other half became a Russian fish soup with potato, onion, mushroom, tomato, wine, garlic, dill, lemon and paprika. I used some Trader Joe's mahi mahi and mixed seafood (scallop, squid and shrimp) since the free fish bits were all gone. This was very nice indeed, warming and refreshing at the same time.

mashed potatoes and celeriac

mmmmm... mashed potato and celery root with butter and salt and pepper and just the littlest bit of milk. diet-ish food that is SO tasty.

Kaya in Cambridge has kimchi bokum

Had lunch with K today at Kaya in Porter Square, and they now have tofu kimchi bokum on the menu. Turns out to be a very nice version indeed, quite rich and full of delicious chewy rice cakes. Nom nom.

Frantic Miscellany, part 85743

Still in a place where the last thing I want to do with my leisure time is stay parked on my ass in front of the computer. Sorry, Internet. However, while on a conference call, I share with you a few nuggets:

- a can of adobo flavored Muir Glen tomatoes plus a can of kidney beans plus random salsa makes a chili that really isn't half bad for something that took all of 3 minutes.

- pie plus cheddar cheese really is the breakfast of champions. Yum, and usually I'm not ready for lunch until after 1pm.

- dark chocolate covered shortbread stars from Trader Joe's are freaking AWESOME.

- also, Trader Joe's Nutty Bits nut-and-seed candies are pretty great too.

- I LOVE STUFFING.