Probably not for everyone who reads this but I just found out via Julien Smith that there’s some pretty awesome Atheist Rap out there…
And my favourite part? The guy is *good* – of a quality that I’d listen to even if I weren’t so fond of the message.
I feel like I’ve been away from this for years. In part I blame twitter as I am able to post what I think in small bites and get immediate response. It’s nice on the one hand but on the other hand it keeps me from putting things together into longer entries here. But there have been things other than twitter going on in my life contrary to what it may seem to those who follow me there.
With the advent of the Frugality Game Sage and I have been dining out less (except lately when we were both too sick to want to cook). The nice side effect of it is that we’ve been cooking like crazy. While Sage is Baking homemade bread nearly every day and occasionally trying to burn down the kitchen, I’ve been trying all sorts of different recipes.
A couple months ago I read Fuchsia Dunlop’s book Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper. It was an excellent read simply from a travel book standpoint (and you all know how I feel about travel books). In it she spends a great deal of time in Sichuan province and manages to work her way into a cooking school. Outside work she explores the streets and gathers recipes as she goes.
The first effect was to lead me to the northern frontiers of Toronto to the Hot Spicy Spicy restaurant where for the first time I sampled authentic Sichuan cooking. After one meal’s experience of ma la (numbingly hot) food I was hooked. Unlike other spicy cuisines (Indian and Thai come to mind), Sichuan cuisine also makes liberal use of Sichuan pepper, a somewhat lemony-flavoured seasoning whose most notable effect is a numbing sensation in the mouth. You know how you feel chewing a strong wintergreen gum and then breathe in cold air outside? That’s the sensation (but with a different flavour). Add to that a bunch of chillis and you’ll begin to understand ma la.
I went home after that determined to learn to make the dan dan noodles and mapo tofu I was so fond of. But first I had to get to the asian market to find a bunch of new ingredients. Paul and I started off at my favourite Asian grocery at Spadina and Dundas, Oriental Harvest. Normally I love the vibe there, a complete crush of people all the time, lots of noise and excitement. It’s fun when you know what you’re looking for. But this time, as I tried to scour the shelves for Sichuan pepper and preserved ya cai, I was having a hard time, feeling like I was always in someone’s way. Eventually, though it took about 45 min to get there we worked our way to the T&T Market. All their branches are a bit out of the way but I could count on there being more space in the aisles and more English names on the packaging. Eventually, after about an hour there, I found what I needed. The good thing is that many of the things I found will last for months, and I know where to find the others as I need them so it was time well spent.
And the verdict? Dan Dan noodles (by the way, this doesn’t resemble P.F. Chang’s Dan Dan noodles at *all* so those of you looking for that, my apologies) were incredibly easy. The meat (I used veggie ground round instead of the usual pork) was prepared in about 5 min, the sauce in another 5 and the noodles (FYI, we found plain old spaghetti the easiest and tastiest to use over Chinese noodles) another 10 min. So another quick lunch or part of a dinner was made.
The mapo tofu was equally easy to make and used many of the same ingredients. I find it an easy and filling dinner and the recipe leaves lots of leftovers for lunch the next day. Rather than tell you how to make it, though, I’ll just share the original video I learned from:
The only tricky part with this one is the tofu. Firm tofu is no good but soft tofu (as in the kind that falls apart and is tasty in Chocolate Silk Pie is no good either. Ideally you will find something called medium tofu (though some brands’ soft and others’ firm will work). Essentially you want the kind of tofu you’ll find in miso soup at a Japanese restaurant.
Along with these recipes we made a short foray into making moo-shu tofu (success but I can’t find the recipe I used – sorry!) and vegetarian dumplings (we cheated and bought dumpling wrappers pre-made) worked equally well. It’s nice to have added a few more dishes to our regular fare.
Next up: adventures in Indian Cooking
Wow, it’s been a long time without posting here. I’m hoping to remedy that in the near future. But not today as I only have the energy for one observation:
For the past 2 days the whole family has been sick with a bad cold or the flu – hard to tell which but the end result is that nobody is particularly energetic, we’re all miserable. It’s giving me flashbacks to the yurt years when we were often sick, and often at the very same time. But whoa, what a difference a location makes. When we’d get sick there no matter how bad off we were, someone always had to keep the fire going, someone always had to cook something, and there wasn’t much in the way of respite in terms of entertainment – especially if your brain was muddied by fever as mine is now (probably obvious as I write this!). So while it doesn’t feel good to be sick, we were able to order delivered food, have some groceries delivered, and amuse ourselves with mindless TV on youtube. And of course if things get worse we not only have free healthcare, we have a clinic across the street. Remembering what it was like to worry about sick family members while cooking dinner with the flu I am *very* grateful for what I have now…
Still, the flip side is I’m home sick from work at the busiest point we’ve had in a few months. I realize I’d be useless if I went in and would likely infect everyone else. Still, it is hard not to feel guilty.
So now I’m going to watch The Beach with Sage – (you can watch it online at that link too if you like). One of our favourite movies. It may seem sad that we’re communicating from two rooms via skype text but it isn’t easy for either of us to talk and Paul is in the room with me sleeping off his fever so I don’t want to wake him…
Parenthetically – is it only me or is it somewhat nice, in a strange way, to be sick with the same thing your kids have? I’m much more sanguine and less likely to worry when I’m suffering through it as well…
More later, when I”m feeling better…
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