It doesn’t happen frequently, but every now and then I just can’t bear to eat another meal of chicken, beef, pork or seafood. On those occasions when Mom’s in charge of the meal and asks what we want for dinner, I’ll say Kang Chup Chay, or our family’s version of a hearty Asian-style vegetable stew.
We rarely have lobster, and it always seems like such a heavy thing to have for dinner, with all that butter for dredging it, but I was inspired to grill lobster tails and use them to fill Vietnamese-style spring rolls, instead of the traditional pork and shrimp combo. As Emeril would say, it’s kicked up a notch.
Most people squeeze lemon juice on oysters in the half shell and then dunk them in cocktail sauce or ground horseradish, but I’ve always enjoyed the fresh flavor of mirin and ponzu and was inspired by a recipe for cucumber salsa for oysters in chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s book Nobu West. I added a twist of my own and served them to Mom and Charles, who eagerly gulped down my test bivalves. I broke with my usual abstinence and ate one too.
Cold somen noodles in miso sauce act as a foil for grilled Pacific spot prawns. This marriage of salty (noodles and miso sauce) and sweet (grilled prawns) are perfect for a light dinner on a hot summer day.
When I was planning Saturday evening’s meal of Hoisin Barbecued Pork, I wanted a grain dish and an appropriate salad-type side. I located a perfect slaw recipe using Mae Ploy’s Thai Sweet Chile Sauce in the dressing at www.epicurious.com. This and a Bhutanese Red Rice Salad would be sensational together.
When we have friends over for dinner, or when we host parties, one of the things that’s fun to do is to push the boundaries of “finger food.”
Face it. Sometimes you’d rather serve things that people can use their fingers to eat so you can manage the volume of dirty dishes and silverware.
And when you [...]
One of the nice things about living in the Pacific Northwest is the availability of live shellfish at the grocery stores.
Almost any time of the year we can find live oysters, clams, and mussels. The mussels come from mussel farms in Washington State’s Puget Sound, live oysters come from the many Oregon bays as well [...]
When contemplating what’s for dinner, fish comes to mind often in our household because we’re trying to eat healthy.
One of my favorite childhood memories from living in Singapore is of eating out at seafood restaurants and being served whole fish that had been steamed with pickled plums (the Japanese call them umeboshi) and covered with [...]
In the wintertime most of the U.S. is gripped by snow, freezing weather, or some combination of the two. In Oregon, we have the winter monsoons. It rains almost daily from November until April.
Most of the time it’s a civilized, spritzing kind of rain, where you don’t need head gear. Sometimes it’s a heavier spritz. [...]
Pranee doesn’t eat meat (meat=beef to her; pork, poultry and seafood are still on her “A list”) but occasionally renders up some beef dish for her hungry sons. Not long ago, she surprised me with her Beef with Peppers. She noticed the tears and sweaty scalp all the way through my enjoyment while asking, “Too spicy?” “No,” I wheezed, “just right.” Tears and reactions such as perspiring aren’t always synonymous with sadness or discomfort. Sometimes wonderfully spicy food will just shoot you straight into an endorphin high.
In the great crab race, there are those who believe that Alaska’s King Crabs get the checkered flag and beat all other decapod crustaceans for flavor. When Charles and I lived in Baltimore, Md., and Fort Worth, Tex., we were in the stands cheering on the sleek Blue Crab while the rambunctious Floridians were raising [...]
When you get adventurous with food, sometimes you just want to drag your friends along, whether or not they know what they’re getting into. Lately I’ve been having this craving for something from my childhood in Thailand—Periwinkle snails—and I was thrilled to finally find that I could get some at Om Seafood in Portland and [...]
