Lost in Translation

Tonight’s dinner was fried rice. I used Ming Tsai’s recipe for traditional Mandarin fried rice, with a couple variations to suit our budget and availability: we used thick-cut bacon instead of the lapchang, the entire scallion, and black pepper instead of white. Other than that, I followed the directions on the linked page, and although I’ve been enjoying writing my recipes out, I feel bad just rewriting Ming Tsai’s recipe, so I’ll let the link stand on its own.

Tomorrow… well, I have no idea! Maybe Greek; I just found our Greek cookbook.

Five things make a post:

• The tacos last night were delicious. Tonight I think we’re going to do something with rice - either Spanish (paella) or Chinese (fried rice).
• The New York Times reports that the California Supreme Court has overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage. Good on you, California. I’ve seen it said that this might be the case that finally makes it to the US Supreme Court, but I’m not convinced that they’re going to hear it; it’s a human-rights case, but I suspect that SCOTUS will call it a states’-rights case too.
• Yesterday I ordered cable internet from Comcast, but was told that they didn’t have any self-install kits and that a tech would be out Wednesday to install the modem. Last night I contacted Frank Eliason, a manager in Comcast Customer Outreach, via Twitter (@comcastcares), and asked if there was a way I could have a self-install kit shipped to me. This morning, I got a call from the local Comcast office saying that they had a kit waiting for me at the office. So I went over and picked it up, and after some finagling between the modem and the router, my new internet works like a charm! So good-bye, Verizon; we’re cancelling the DSL and the land line, and using our cell phones and Skype for voice contact.
• I don’t remember if I mentioned this here, but last weekend I had a blast going out with a bunch of the Ataxia crew. (Ataxia is my World of Warcraft guild on the Boulderfist server; it’s all people from Earlham, my alma mater, and their immediate friends and family.)
• Speaking of World of Warcraft, I really wish I could figure out what’s wrong with my desktop computer. It crashes routinely when I play WOW - either freezing up, rebooting, or shutting down completely - but only when I play WOW. Other processor-intensive tasks don’t bother it; other graphics-intensive tasks don’t bother it. Is it possible that I have a hard drive error in the sector that contains the WOW files? If so, is anything short of a defrag or a reformat going to solve the problem?

(It’s a ZZ Top song.)

Patrick Curl is traveling around the country (and, if he gets the sponsorship he’s hoping for, all the Canadian provinces) to interview bloggers: 50 Bloggers In 50 States. As of today he’s got bloggers signed up in most of the states, but he still needs volunteers in Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as each of the Provinces. If you can help out, head over to his directory and sign up - and if you’re in one of the states that already has bloggers registered, sign up anyway; you might win out!

(Patrick, if you’re reading this, the advantage to choosing me is that I’m right on I-70 and I’ll cook you a meal if you show up on my doorstep. ;)

I was going to make this the main body of the last post, but the spaghettini recap overtook me. Oh well!

First off, I just got a comment from someone who loves pesto, and I wanted to spotlight it for a second. If you’re a pesto fan, check out I Heart Pesto.

Tonight we’re making tacos, as the topic implies. Holly’s been having cravings for Mexican food recently, and anyone who’s cooked with me knows that cumin is my favorite spice. However, in addition to trying to cook more often (apparently Holly independently made a similar resolution), we also want to eat in a more “healthy” fashion, and we want to expand our foody repertoires. So tonight we’re going with a French-inspired version of the Mexican classic (I sound like an announcer on the Food Network already!). Sadly, we’re not making this all ourselves; we’re not that ambitious (yet).

This particular deviation from the beaten path actually started with a grocery-store basket: or, rather, a lack of one. The local supermarket has started cutting down the number of hand-baskets that they make available to customers, and I really dislike pushing a cart around a store, especially as crowded as it was, so we went in empty-handed. We knew we wanted tacos, but I didn’t want to carry a head of lettuce around like a football while we got the other ingredients, so I decided on spinach as a substitute. (I could put it in a produce bag and tie a loop-knot - a knot in the end of the bag where the extreme end isn’t pulled all the way through, leaving a loop - in the open end, so that I could dangle it from a finger.)

While I was picking out taco shells (I got the Old El Paso “stand-up” shells), Holly saw “homemade” peach salsa on the grocer’s shelf, and decided that since we were being weird with the spinach, she wanted to try the salsa. Since we were now using spinach and peach salsa instead of lettuce (milder and crunchier) and tomato salsa (sharper and spicier), we decided against using beef or pork in the tacos. I’m not a big fan of fish tacos (I’m picky about how fish is cooked), so we went with chicken. (It would have been turkey, but Holly pointed out rightly that chicken is sweeter and moister, and would complement the peaches better. Also, normally I’d use shredded or chopped chicken for this, but the packaged chicken at the store was looking a little wan, so we went with ground chicken.) And since we were now using spinach, peaches, and chicken, we wanted a mild cheese that would enhance the flavor rather than overwhelming it (like cheddar would), so we went with mozzarella and parmesan.

Here’s the recipe I’ll be using:

Chicken tacos with peach salsa and spinach
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. ground chicken
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground red pepper

Prep: remove the spinach leaves from their stems. Cover a large plate with a paper towel.

Heat the olive oil in a high-walled pan or a pot over low heat for a few minutes. When the olive oil moves freely around the pan (i.e., it’s lost some viscosity), add the chicken; be careful for splashing. Immediately increase the heat to just below medium, add the salt and cumin, and begin stirring and dividing the chicken with a flat-bladed spatula. When the chicken has begun to whiten around the edges, add the red pepper. The chicken will be done when it is thoroughly whitened; break open some of the larger chunks to make sure.

Remove the chicken from the pan and onto the plate with the paper towel; leave behind as much oil as possible. The paper towel will absorb much of the remainder and leave you with largely non-greasy chicken.

From here on out it’s just like making regular tacos. Lay a bed of spinach and cheese in the taco shell; cover with a layer of chicken; cover that with more spinach and cheese. Top with the peach salsa, serve immediately, and eat carefully.

If you want to make your own peach salsa, there are a couple of good recipes at Great-Salsa.com.

Today I re-made last night’s spaghettini recipe for lunch. It really is quick, especially if you’ve pre-diced the tomatoes. Most of the time is spent waiting for the pasta to cook. Today I changed the recipe a bit: I removed the rosemary (since the needles got stuck in my teeth last night) and added about 1/4 cup of chopped onion.

Here are some more detailed instructions for that bit:

* Dice the tomatoes (and anything else you’re adding to the pasta) beforehand. This lets you dump them straight onto the fresh-out-of-the-pot pasta.
* Prepare a pan of olive oil while the pasta water is heating up, but don’t heat the olive oil yet! When you put the pasta into the water, put the olive oil on the lowest heat setting your burners have. (You can add some garlic if you want, but keep a close eye on it; you want the garlic to get golden, not brown!) When the pasta’s about two minutes from being ready, crank up the heat under the olive oil to somewhere between medium-high and high (paying special attention to anything you’ve put in the olive oil). This will get your oil to about the right temperature right when you need it. Be very careful to not overheat the oil; I actually started a small range fire today when the oil popped and some of it got on the burner.
* Ideally, the sequence will be thus, in rapid succession: drain and rinse the pasta; dump in the tomatoes (and onions, if you’re feeling adventurous); put the herbs and spices atop the tomatoes; pour the olive oil over the tomatoes; toss everything together; and serve.

The tomatoes will not want to mix with the pasta. That’s okay. Once you’ve got everything tossed together so the oil is coating everything about equally and the spices are distributed, you can ladle pasta into bowls (or onto plates or whatever) and then put tomatoes from the side of the “master” pasta onto the served pasta. (Did that make sense?) I can’t decide whether it’s more attractive to have the vegetables mixed into the pasta or in a hollow in the middle of the pasta; what do you think?

Also, I forgot to mention that this serves 4-6. However, keep in mind that Holly - whose fibromyalgia inhibits her appetite - has requested seconds both times we’ve had the dish.

This afternoon, we ate half of the leftover ratatouille for lunch. It’s even better cold because the flavors have condensed.

Tonight, I was planning to make spaghettini with Marcella Hazan’s scallop sauce with olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper, but the grocery store was out of scallops (they’d had lots yesterday; I guess there was a run!), so I improvised from my memory of another of her recipes. (The herbs at this store are awful too, when they’re there, so I used dried versions of all of them.)

Spaghettini with tomatoes and herbs
1 package of spaghettini
3 large tomatoes
1 tbsp rosemary, chopped
3 tbsp parsley, chopped
2 tbsp basil, chopped
1/4 c. olive oil

* Halve the tomatoes, remove the seeds, and dice the flesh.
* Cook the pasta. When the pasta is close to done, heat the olive oil in a pan on high heat.
* When the pasta is done, rinse it with hot water and transfer it to a serving bowl. Place the tomatoes on top, then sprinkle with the herbs.
* Pour the very hot olive oil onto the tomatoes; this will cook the tomatoes slightly while letting them keep their texture.

Toss and serve immediately. Salt and pepper to taste.

Edit: Just got the best compliment a cook can get: “I’m letting you have seconds, even though I don’t want to.”

I made ratatouille last night, using the Cooking for Engineers recipe. It’s pretty simple, and amazingly tasty, but I need to remember that when they say “large pot” they don’t mean our giant Le Creuset stock pot, which is well over two feet deep - I always overestimate how much ratatouille I’m going to end up with, and then have four inches of ratatouille and two feet or so of empty pot.

With all the cooking I’ve been doing lately (ratatouille last night, breakfast on Sunday, a variety of things last week), I think I’m going to make a resolution to cook as much as I can - at least one meal a day - and to actually try to get good at it. For one thing, I actively enjoy cooking; for another, it’s something I can do that actually shows immediate results. And, frankly, I love food - and I’m happier loving it when I’m the one who made it (and thus know what went into it).

At the risk of turning this into a food blog, I intend to post the recipes I’ve made each day; naturally, I welcome comments and suggestions. In particular, if you have any recipes you think I should try, please point them out!

So: yesterday’s recipe: Ratatouille. I substituted McCormick’s Mediterranean Basil Leaf for the fresh basil, since the local supermarket doesn’t stock it fresh and I didn’t have time to get to the good supermarket last night; also, I used a red bell pepper instead of the green, because Holly prefers the taste.

One of the consequences of my phone’s screen cracking is that I’ve lost all of the phone numbers I had stored there. Right now I’m down to family numbers (and not even all of those) and my boss. If you think I should have your phone number, please email it to me at canthony @ etherjammer.com.

Aaron Sorkin, of The American President, The West Wing, and Charlie Wilson’s War: “I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, ‘You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, giftless. I’m not your agent and I’m not your mommy, I’m a white piece of paper, you wanna dance with me?’ and I really, really don’t. I’ll go peaceable-like.”

I was getting hundreds of spam messages a day; when I cleaned up Akismet’s queue on a normal weekend, I’d have about a thousand spams in the trap, and a few that had slipped past Akismet but that Wordpress itself had caught. (Between the two, I have never knowingly had a spam comment land on Lost in Translation.)

I noticed that a lot of the comments that were slipping through were on a couple posts - Cookies, say (from two Christmases ago), or the one where I posted instructions on getting a dragonhawk as a Draenei hunter (from last spring). So I installed another plugin: Comment Timeout, which disables comments on all posts older than 30 days unless I tell it not to.

Today, after a week of having Comment Timeout installed, I checked Akismet.

Akismet had one spam message waiting for me to delete.

I think I’m in love.