GUEST BLOGGER WEDNESDAY - Only guess what?

I'm the guest blogger!!!

bun ca - recipe here

She sings, she cooks really delicious looking (and sounding) gluten-free food, she makes and sells homemade jams, and today, she's hosting my guest post about Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad With Fish aka Bun Ca (boohn KKAH).

Thanks for having me over, Opera Girl. That was fun. :)

shinae

A Wok Inn To A Different Perspective...

As much as I care to ensure that the food I make is delicious (well, to me anyway), I'm a little bit of a dice roller when it comes to dining out in low to mid price restaurants. While I frequently yelp to find new restaurants, I am almost as likely to try a place for some odd compulsion often understood only by my subconscious mind.

Their version of red curry.
P.S. If you look real close, you can see Christmas...

This is supposed to be the pahd kee mow.
It looks a lot like pahd thai.
It tastes like neither.
But that's ok.

And having moved from Orange County to coastal North San Diego County (with short in-between stints in other places), and no longer being willing to drive more than 20 minutes for a casual meal, I've had to reset the bar when it comes to dining out. It's not exactly a culinary desert out here, and it's easy enough to find decent food of a few sorts, (I'm particularly pleased to have found a decent sushi joint), but the food scene in North County is still somewhat unpolished from a lack of demand and competition it would seem...

But back to my whack methodology of restaurant selection, which is not unlike the way I pick football teams if someone is dumb enough to ask me to make picks. Sometimes it's the fonts and colors on the signage, other times an intriguing name, and yet other times the nearest option that suits the current craving. Yesterday, we picked Door Number 3.

A little bit of everything on my plate.
P.S. If you look underneath, you'll see London.

I saw London, the Man saw France...

I wanted something generally Southeast Asian, and as luck would have it, The Wok Inn - which happens to be five minutes from our place and run by a middle-aged, peroxide blonde, half Vietnamese, half Thai lady named Linda who reminds me of every madame I've ever seen in a Vietnam War pic - serves Vietnamese, Thai, AND Chinese food.

Three - count 'em - THREE cuisines.
That's Linda up top.
'Ssup, Linda? :)

???Three cuisines under one roof and no talk of fusion. Isn't that a red flag, Shinae??? 

Why, yes. IT IS. A HUGEBIG, HONKIN' RED FLAG, and precisely the strangely compelling kind of reason that makes me want to shoot craps for my lunch and eat there.

Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Is that a dog made of pink feathers???

And by *there*, I mean dusty, old silk flowers strewn all over the place, some with lights hanging from them, blown up pictures of someone's daughter's prom night hanging on the east wall, garishly red cheong sams and designer knock-off purses for sale in the southeast corner (along with other things that look vaguely like Beanie Babies and a stuffed Ziggy), a whole bunch of other things tacked (literally) onto non-strategic places on the wall that range from menus to baskets to photos to paintings to newspaper clippings that tell me this place has been in business for over 20 years, and finally a piece de resistance of sorts to cap off the dizzying array of everything some Asian person's hillbilly cousin might find aesthetically pleasing, light fixtures that remind you of a brothel and Valentine's Day at the same time.

Something to take the edge off the heat
and the *TRIP*py Chic decor...

I don't know what it is about Thai food that
makes me double up on the starch...
P.S. If you look real close, it's leaves this time.

Overwhelmed by three cuisines' worth of menu options, we told Linda we wanted something spicy, and she told us to order anything off the Thai menu. We ordered red curry and pahd kee mow, both with shrimp, because the shrimp was good and plentiful on this day according to her. So, apparently, were the red and green bell peppers that managed to find their way in large quantities into both dishes, neither of which tasted quite like the things they were supposed to be, and yet oddly edible in that way they become so when you decide you're not going to judge them as the things they purport to be. Both a little on the sweet side and likely adapted to the palates of the Marines who live and work just down the street.

These lights made me consider telling the Man that
 I'd love him long time when we got home,
but something about garlic and chilies
keeps a decent woman from
doing such a thing...

But sometimes you walk into a place, hopefully for the food, and you walk out having experienced something else that makes you think your time and money weren't spent for naught even if the food was fair to middlin'. This restaurant, which has been in operation for twenty-five years now, appears in so many ways to be a monument to this woman Linda's tenacity, adaptability, persistence and resourcefulness.

Thai cuisine if Vietnamese doesn't suit you, Vietnamese if Chinese doesn't suit you, Chinese if Vietnamese and Thai don't suit you. Don't want to eat? Howzabout a purse? Don't need a purse? You might like this stuffed Ziggy. Don't like Ziggy? Maybe you need a new cheong sam...

Pictures of family and friends, probably to remind her of the people and things she's giving her life to this restaurant for. Bright, colorful, mismatched things that remind her of home, or maybe just look pretty to her. After all, she's gotta be there all damned day, 7 days a week, 11 AM to 11 PM. And plates of every design from who knows how many seasons of her life. Crappy yelp reviews from snarky young hipsters who can't see beyond the tacky decor and less than perfect food to a woman who probably shed more blood, sweat and tears just getting to this country than they've seen in their entire, short, and fabulous lives.

And still she triumphs, one scrappy day after another, twenty-five years and going...

We foodniks tend to believe it's always all about the food, but often, life is about so much more.

In all honestly, I'm not sure how likely I am to return anytime in the near future. There's a lot more ground to cover in this place I now call home. But despite getting something other than I bargained for, I'm not one bit sorry for my lunch at The Wok Inn.

The Wok Inn
511 Mission Avenue
Oceanside, CA 92054
760.754.2167

shinae

P.S. I don't crave neoprene dogpile football or football players in any way, shape, or form, ever.

Open Letter To An Accidental Reader...

Reading google search terms can be such a piercing look into the souls of the people doing the searching.  This morning, I checked my blogger stats to see that someone found this post by searching

"are you a bad mom if you don't cook?"

I can't remember them verbatim, but the Gods know that in my darkest moments, I've typed some very specific, searching, even desperate, words into that little white google text box hoping against hope to find someone out there who not only felt the way I did, but might even choose to use the exact same words to express their feelings.

If you ever change your mind about cooking, these green beans
in oyster sauce are a perennial hit with kids. :)

And the crazy wonderful thing about this interconnection we call the web is that, at least enough times to matter, I did. And in moments, feeling surrounded by people who knew me but didn't really know me and who needed me to again be things I was unable to be for them because I was in a state of near catatonic and yet deeply painful depression, I felt un-alone. 

I realize lots of people have lived greater horrors, sadnesses, and tragedies than those four years that were the most difficult of the thirty-eight I've lived so far. But those hardships were very real and personal to me, and I truly believe that were it not for the kind of assistance, kindness, acceptance, and clean slate only strangers can afford you, I would not be here, in this place, and in this way, today. Many of those strangers, some of them now good friends, one of them the love of my life, would not have entered my life but through the portal that is the internet.

And so to the mom who found me thusly, if I am privileged to have somehow inspired you to come back and consider becoming a mom who does cook (or at least likes to read about it), I want to say that you're not the only person who wonders, perhaps even often, if they are something other or less than they should be. And for what it's worth, I personally think anyone worth knowing does at least wonder it from time to time.

Oh, and, also for what it's worth, not cooking doesn't make you a bad mom. But caring if it does might mean you're a better one than you think.

With love,

shinae

DEEPLY FRIED - How Guy Fieri Influences My Eating Habits...

While I find other avenues to keep abreast of pop culture, I don't watch much television. The limited tv I do watch usually has something to do with food and/or travel.

But I must cop to watching the occasional episode of The Real Housewives Of New York because I find myself often educated and enlightened by that countess gal who's always showing us poor people how to be classy - like talking about yourself in the third person, referring to all your friends as *daahling* in the most condescending manner possible, hanging on to your countess title when your count husband has left you for another woman, and also calling yourself classy. That last one is especially effective, I think.

This is deeply fried and therefore deeply delicious...

But most days, if it's food related, it's Top Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef - that is, shows that have at least as much to do with cooking as with drama or personality schtick. Most recently The Next Food Network Star mainly because the whole family can get into it, and, a perennial favorite of the Man and the Monsters - Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.

While I'm not much for greasy spoon and truck stop grub, the show covers a lot of smaller mom and pop type eateries that serve some really delicious looking food I often find myself salivating over. Last night, they showcased a little place on Route 66 where they serve fry bread tacos that looked pretty *money* to me, so I went to bed with visions of fry bread fairies dancing in my head.

And then when I woke up this morning to an empty belly, not much left in the fridge (Saturdays are usually our grocery shopping days), frying oil left on the stove from last night's Monster-requested midnight snack of fresh potato chips (which were also pretty money, btw), and fry bread fairies still lurking somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, it made perfect sense to make these Funnel Cake-ish Fry Breads with a little dusting of powdered sugar and the occasional teaspoonful of strawberry plum jam to go with my hot, lightly sugared, and black (because we're S.hit O.utta M.ilk) coffee.

To make these fry breads more of a sweet than savory deal, I took a fairly standard fry bread recipe and added some sugar, melted butter, and a dash of distilled white vinegar to tenderize the flour, which resulted in a tender in the middle, crisp around the edges fry bread that tastes a lot like funnel cake if funnel cake came in one, big piece rather than all squigglylike as funnel cake tends to be...

FUNNEL CAKE FRY BREAD
Makes 4 fry breads the size of a grown man's face, but I could see making 5 or 6 smaller ones from the same amount of dough

- 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 Tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
- 1/2 cup water

- extra bench flour for working with the dough

- about 3 cups of oil for frying (or enough to have about 1.5 inches of oil in the pan). I like corn and/or soybean oil (which is often labeled *vegetable oil* here in the US) best for deep frying.

- powdered sugar for dusting and a little jam for spreading if you'd like

1) Preheat your oil over medium high heat until it reaches 375F (if you have a thermometer). I check my oil by throwing a pinch of flour in to see if it sizzles immediately. If the oil starts smoking, it's too hot, and the heat needs to be turned down. But if the bread doesn't bubble and sizzle as soon as it hits the oil, it's not hot enough.

At this point, you might also want to prep your serving plate/platter with a couple layers of paper towel to absorb the excess oil. I hate when I forget to prep the dish and I'm scrambling to find a plate while my food is fixin to burn...

2) Put all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and give them 7 to 10 good whisks to aerate and evenly distribute them.

3) Then add the butter, vinegar and water and stir with a fork until everything is just incorporated. You don't want to overwork the gluten in the flour, because if you do, your dough will get tough and chewy.

4) Once all the ingredients are incorporated, give the dough a light sprinkling of flour, dust your hands with a little bit of flour, and work the dough just until it forms a ball. It's tempting to keep working the dough and turn the ball into something prettier than it is, but don't.

5) If you want large fry breads, separate the dough into 4 equal segments. 5 or 6 for smaller ones the size of an adult hand. Add a little flour as you go if needed to keep the dough from sticking.

5) You can use the palms of your hands to form the dough into roughly 5 to 7 inch diameter patties. Because I've tenderized this dough with vinegar and butter, what I found easier was to flour the bottom of the mixing bowl and just gently pat and press until you have a nice, round 5 to 7 inch disc.

palm method - not so pretty

bowl method - much bettah...

6) Gently shake or dust off the excess flour and fry the discs, one at a time, 3 to 4 minutes per side until golden brown. Again, make sure the dough bubbles and sizzles as soon as it hits the oil. If it's not hot enough, give it another minute or so to come up to temp.

This is a really tender and somewhat moist dough, so if you find that it overlaps as you put it in the oil, not to worry - just take a pair of tongs or a fork and unfold the flap.

lumpy, fried, frittery goodness... 

7) Dust with a little powdered sugar and enjoy while it's still nice and piping hot.

Or dab a little of the strawberry plum jam you made last week on top, and ride that deliciously deep fried puppy all the way to Flavor Town...

shinae

Here's A Tip For You...

Expectation, which is really a symptom of a sense of entitlement, is the mother of all disappointment.

If you participate in any restaurant related fora, a perennial bone of contention for many of their participants is TIPPING. And understandably so.

Buy low, sell high.
That's another good one.

On one end of the spectrum, you have those who see restaurant food as just another commodity with all costs built in to the price of the item being ordered, and gratuity being a strictly optional grace to be bestowed upon the server at the patron's whim. On the other end of the spectrum are hospitality workers, some of whom work in states with sub-minimum wage provisions for those in traditionally tipped professions, who feel un- or under- appreciated by the general public who obviously don't understand how hard it is to be a server because if they did, obviously, they would tip and/or tip even more.

I fall somewhere in the middle. As a general rule, I tip

- 10% for buffet type situations (which is really, really rare these days because I hate buffets)

- about 20% for good service in a full service restaurant,

- up to 30% for truly exceptional service from the rarely encountered professional who has elevated food service into an art form, and

- twice in my life, $0.01 for unapologetically shitty service and attitude.

I treat servers with respect, always say please and thank you, do the partial self-bussing thing, and, having worked in the industry at times in my life, try my best to discern between server error and back of house issues when assessing gratuity.

I don't feel obligated to leave money in tip jars, but if I do, I think it's really nice when the person behind the counter says thank you as if they're grateful.

And while I've had the rare but unpleasant experience of having to make up for cheapskates who make a practice out of not tipping at all in full service restaurants regardless of quality of service, I personally think they are the lesser of two evils when compared to hospitality workers who feel entitled to a minimum gratuity from every patron who crosses their path, and who also, to be fair, are probably not the majority.

But if you read tipping threads, you will find they are a vocal minority who like to try to shame the public into forking over their hard earned money not based on service, but because

- people don't know how hard it is to be a server

- people don't understand we have to do sidework

- people don't understand that some servers make less than minimum wage by law

- people don't understand that servers have to tip out the bartender and busboys

- people don't realize what assholes the general public can be

and the list goes on and on and on...

Here's what I have to say to those whiny servers besides *BOO.FUCKING.HOO*:

- I'm pretty sure that lady who has to scrub other people's toilets for a living has some idea how hard it is to be a server.

- You mean that when you don't have customers to serve, you actually have to fold some napkins or polish silverware while you're yapping to the bartender about whateverthehell drama is going on in your life at the moment?

- If you chose to work at Walmart or McDonald's, you'd get paid minimum wage - GUARANTEED.

- You have to give away so much of your hard earned tips to other people so often that it isn't even worth it to work most nights and you still wanna work there?

- It's called the Hospitality industry for a reason. If it's that taxing on your psyche to deal with the assholes who are the general public, perhaps you're better off working the graveyard shift in a warehouse, which is another place you are sure to make minimum wage.

I personally look forward to the day when we in the US adopt the generally European model of building a fare wage for the waitstaff into menu prices. But in a place where people who choose to wait tables are more than likely able and qualified to work in other positions that offer more predictable wages, we're talking about a situation in which people who want to gamble on something usually far better than minimum wage are demanding that the dining public guarantee a return on that gamble.

Isn't that asking a little too much from life?

shinae

Separating Siblings & Stir-Frying Kimchi...

They say familiarity breeds contempt, and to some extent, I'm inclined to agree. Social animals though we are, too much of anything makes us at best less appreciative of it, at worst utterly contemptuous of it. So although it seems counterintuitive, sometimes a little distance is the best thing two people can share.

And when those two people are pre-teen siblings who have to look at one another's annoying mugs every single day while their little crank-making hormones are raging, it behooves those charged with their care to give them a break from one another lest someone should lose a Bieber-cut covered eye...

So while we have a couple of weeks of summer left, we have sent the boychild and girlchild off to their separate corners for a few days. The girlchild is with her dad so she can attend her Tae Kwon Do classes  - the kind where she's guaranteed a black belt within three short years as long as her dad keeps paying a hundred fifty bucks every month and seventy five bucks every six weeks for belt testing if by *testing* you mean *everybody passes as long as their parents pay* - and the boychild is hanging with me and The Man so he can do Chopped baskets and go for bike rides to the beach.

A little tequila plum-flavored juice to
celebrate the quiet in the house...

This kind of time apart is good for me, too. It doesn't happen as often as it probably should, but when it does, it gives me a chance to relate with my kids one-on-one without them feeling like they're competing for my attention and without me going batshit from hearing "Mommy!", "Mama!", "Mommy!", "Mama!" in rapidfire succession, one in each ear from the boychild and girlchild respectively.

We're scheduled to get the girlchild back tomorrow, at which point I am certain her brother will hold her to the promise she made to play an hour straight of Beyblade with him upon her return. So to commemorate our last night (this week) of alone time with him, he got to choose dinner at the beach, and the dinner he requested was kimchi bokkeum (stir-fry).

We packed up our dinners along with some fun juice <*WINK* *WINK*> in to-go containers and headed out for a couple of really lovely hours at an uncrowded beach. Which did make me feel like an Asian Ina Garten if I do say so myself, only without all her money.

Oh, and I also didn't visit any fabulous gay friends on my shopping errands in my 10 year old notBMW, either. (Not that my gay friends aren't fabyoolusssss...).

KIMCHI BOKKEUM (GIHMchee BOHKgeum)
Serves 3 to 4 with steamed rice

As with any good stir fry, almost uncomfortably high heat and small quantities cooked quickly produce the best results.

- 1 pound pork shoulder or belly meat, sliced into roughly 1/4" thick, 1" x 2" pieces
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

- 2 cups ripe kimchi with the excess liquid squeezed out (reserve 1 Tablespoon of the liquid for seasoning) By *ripe*, I mean at least as sour as a kosher dill.
- 1 cup sliced onion (about 1/2 medium)
- 3 green onions, sliced into 2 inch segments

- 1 Tablespoon gochoojahng
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic (about 1 small clove)
- 2 teaspoons to 1 Tablespoon sugar (depending on how sweet you like your food)
- 1 Tablespoon kimchi liquid

- 3 to 4 Tablespoons neutral oil
- 1/2 Tablespoon butter (optional)

- steamed rice

1) Season the pork with the salt. I purposely add only a little salt to the meat because the kimchi is pretty darned salty, as we all know.

2) In a large wok or skillet, heat about 2 teaspoonfuls of oil over medium high to high heat and wait until it's so hot that it starts to smoke. If you look closely, you can somewhat sorta see that the oil's so hot it's rippling.

 

3) Stir fry the meat in two equal batches, adding oil to the second batch, until the meat is cooked through and browned on both sides. Because these slices of pork are a little big for regular stir fry, you may want to let them sit on the cooking surface for a minute or so to give them a nice sear before you start stirring.

Set aside the cooked pork.

4) Now add 2 Tablespoons of oil to the wok or skillet and let it heat up again before adding the onions, green onions and kimchi.

Keep the heat on high as you stir fry these components until the onions start to become translucent.

5) Once the onions are translucent, remove the wok from the heat and make a well in the center where you'll add 1 Tablespoon of oil and, if you like, a half Tablespoon of butter (this is one of my dad's tricks that he picked up during the Korean War when he was lucky enough to get US government surplus rations of butter).

Put all the seasoning components into the well and return the wok to the heat.

Stir to incorporate all the seasoning ingredients and wait until you see the gochoojahng bubbling a bit - this is when the sugars start to caramelize. That caramelization that happens when enough sugar hits enough hot oil is one of the reasons that guai lo Chinese takeout tastes so good.

6) When the seasoning sauce has been bubbling for 20 to 30 seconds, stir in the veg and then the cooked pork along with whatever juices come with it.

Give it a few good stirs to make sure all the flavors are evenly distributed, and there ya have it - kimchi bokkeum.

Serve it over or with steamed rice and finish if you'd like with a little drizzle of toasted sesame oil. (I left it out because the boychild hasn't yet acquired a taste for it.)

Or pack it in to-go containers along with a little fun juice and head for the beach with a takeout meal so differently delicious not even Ina knows how to make it (I'm guessing). ;)

I'm not sure that Jeffrey would *LOVE* this...

He might *LOVE* this, though...

And who wouldn't *LOVE* this???

We shall see tomorrow if a little absence and kimchi make the heart grow fonder...

shinae

You Can Be A Bad Mom And Still Cook With Your Kids...

My time spent in that place where underachievers overachievers go to die live made it glaringly obvious that I am not made of ubermom material. All around me were mothers who seemed determined to joyfully devote every last ounce of their energy to the molding of their children.

"Alton says you need to cover the bottom of the pan
with aromatics, MAWMMM..."
(He did a nice job cutting them carrots, didn't he?)

And whether it was

- participating in the PTA,

- hanging out in the classroom helping some of the most overprivileged teachers I've ever met grade papers, tutor kids, staple shit together, cut out shapes, and chaperone Valentine's Day parties, or

- spending the better part of their afternoons and evenings shuttling their kids from music lessons, to dance or martial arts lessons, to Kumon, and back home just in time to eat dinner, shower and go to bed,

they did it with a smile on their faces, a triple skim milk mochalattefrappucino in their hands, a pair of Juicy Couture sweatpants on their asses, and the steering wheel of a tricked out Suburban or minivan in their hands.

"...so you can use the pan juices for gravy, MAWMMMM..."

And while I was determined not to spend my afternoons doing the same after a full day at the office, I would be lying to say that seeing those moms in action didn't often make me look at myself and wonder if I wasn't failing my children because I only spent half an hour one year typing names into the PTA database, rarely ever showed up in their classrooms, and only enrolled them in one activity at a time, none of them designed to make Ivy League attendees of my kids.

"Don't forget my Balsamic vinaigrette, MAWMMMMM...
And not too much oil! You know I don't like too much
oil in my vinaigrette!!!"

But at some point, after years of questioning my worth as a mother, I realized that every halfway decent parent has something different to offer their children and that, despite some cries of martyrdom, people mostly do what's in their nature and ability to do. That is to say, those parents, unlike this parent, who seem to take joy in rolling around in the grass with their children, really do take joy in it. Those parents who like to sit with their kids and have a reading hour on a Saturday afternoon do it because they themselves love to read and want to impart that love of reading to their children. And those women who devote every waking moment of their lives to their children and take immense pride and credit in so doing do it because deep down, it satisfies them to define themselves by their achievements as mothers.

And so it was at that point that I decided my options were to:

- continue to beat myself up for not being for my children what other parents seemed to be for their children, and/or

- try to be something I'm not and make myself, hence my children, miserable in the process,

OR

- accentuate the positive, share with my kids those gifts and abilities that came easily and naturally to me, and allow other people in their lives with other abilities to impart those gifts to them.

He doesn't eat corn anymore. Weird kid.

And that's why I choose to take my kids to beaches or botanical gardens or on roadtrips while allowing their dad the <ahem> *pleasure* of spending a day at Disneyland with them. That's why I watch Chopped and Iron Chef with them while allowing their grandmother the fun of watching Spongebob DVDs with them (though I am not immune to the occasional outburst of *BRING IT AROOOOOOUUUUUND TOWN!!!*). That's why I try to limit their TV/videogame time to one hour a day and force them to learn how to use their creativity and amuse themselves rather than carpool them from activity to activity.

And finally, that is why I cook with my kids instead of rolling around in the grass or going for bike rides with them (that's the Man's job).

There's a lesson in good bad parenting to be found
somewhere on this plate...

I know some will call me a selfish mother, and that's ok. I'd rather be a selfish mother who teaches my children by example how to be aware and accepting of their strengths as well as their weaknesses than to be a selfless one keeping emotional score on them and waiting for the day they'll thank me for all those years I *sacrificed* to turn them into whatever they were already capable of becoming themselves if they really so desired.

shinae

P.S. I do realize that, in the spectrum of human experience, there must be ubermoms who aren't also insufferable martyrs. I'm just saying that if I were one of those ubermoms, I'd probably also be an insufferable one. :)