Guest post: Vegetable pulao and fruit lassi.

Today’s guest post comes to us from Sandy of mango on an apple. Sandy and I were a year apart at the same high school, and somehow reconnected after ten years, despite a distance of 3,400 kilometers, via the Internet. She’s now travelling India and having grand adventures, and graciously offered a recipe from a cooking class she took along the way. I’m making this tonight for Meatless Monday.

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On our year off to find the cure for quarter-life crisis, we began in India where in addition to sightseeing and avoiding cow poop, we took a cooking class in Udaipur at Shashi’s Cooking Classes. We learned lots of Indian cooking methods for rice, naan, and curries, plus how to make a delicious cup of masala chai. Check out mango on an apple to see more of our trip so far!

In keeping with the theme of cooking healthy and staying low-GI, I thought the vegetable pulao would be great here, along with a nice fruit lassi to finish off the meal.

Pulao means more vegetables, less rice. Biryani, on the other hand, means more rice, less vegetables. The vegetables used in this recipe are flexible – use what’s in season, but make sure to include something crunchier in texture, like cabbage, to give the dish more personality.

Vegetable pulao

• 2 tbsp. oil
• 2 shallots, sliced*
• 2 tsp. dry anise/fennel seeds
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, sliced julienne
• 1/2 cauliflower, sliced into long strips
• 1/4 small cabbage, sliced julienne
• 1 carrot, sliced julienne
• 1/2 tsp. – 1 tsp. chili powder, to taste
• 1 tsp. coriander powder
• 1 generous pinch of turmeric
• 1 generous pinch of garam masala
• 1/4 cup – 1/2 cup water, depending on the vegetables you choose
• 3 small firm tomatoes
• 2 cups cooked basmati rice
• 2 tbsp. cashews, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp. sultana raisins, soaked in water for about 5 minutes before using so they’re nice and plump
• Salt to taste

*Shashi used red onions, but they were really small and flavourful, so I’d suggest using shallots if cooking this in North America

  
  

1. Heat the oil in a large pan until hot, and then add anise seeds and onion. Cook until onions become translucent and start to caramelize.
2. Add in the sliced vegetables and green onions, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric, and garam masala. Correct with salt to taste.
3. Add the water, stir, and then cover and let simmer for about five minutes.
4. Add in the chopped tomatoes, stir well, and simmer for another five minutes.
5. Once the vegetables are cooked through (not necessarily mushy, but if you like softer vegetables, give it a little longer), add in rice and combine.
6. Add in the cashews and raisins, toss together, and correct again with salt.
7. Serve with freshly chopped cilantro and perhaps a bit of grated cheese if you have some on hand.

After a meal in India, with all the spicy tastes lingering in your mouth, the best dessert is often a lassi. Lassi in India is a milky drink, although depending on the fruit used, sometimes it is a bit more like a smoothie. The best kind of lassi we found was plain, sweetened, and sold in terra cotta cups that you throw out when you’re done!

Fruit Lassi

• 1 cup pureed fruit (banana and mango are typical choices in India, and I think peach, when in season, would be delicious as well)
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• Pinch of cardamom powder, or open up two cardamom pods and crush the seeds between your fingers and a little bit of granulated sugar
• 2 – 4 tbsp. of milk or water, depending on the thickness you’d like, the thickness of the yogurt you use, and the fruit in question

Whisk everything together, and serve. If you’re feeling extravagant, top with one tablespoon of finely shredded coconut.

Feuerzangenbowle!

A few weeks ago my mom and I went on our annual holiday outing to Christmas shop and eat and generally be merry, and we went to the Vancouver Winter Market beside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre downtown because the ad said there would be food and festivity and because this was the first time we’d ever heard of the thing.

When we got there, the first thing we saw was a kiosk dispensing something German we couldn’t pronounce, but it smelled good so we put a deposit on a pair of mugs and had our first round. Feuerzangenbowle, the thing we got, is mulled wine with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, orange, and rum, and when I did a bit of research I discovered that it’s also something that involves fire, which stirred my mild pyromaniacal urges in the best possible way.

The most important thing about feuerzangenbowle is zuckerhut, a sugar cone which is doused repeatedly in rum and set on fire above the heated wine mixture. The sugar caramelizes and melts into the wine, and the result is magic. I wanted to create this on Christmas, so I asked Brigitte, a German lady I work with, how to spell the thing I wanted to make (I still can’t, and pulled the name from the email she sent me, which also included this recipe for “rumtopf,” which I also must make) and where to buy the zuckerhut. I ended up not being able to find it in town, but she would be going to Greco’s Specialty Foods in Surrey and she had called and found that they had some, and she would pick one up for me. And she did.

To find zuckerhut, visit your local German deli; if they don’t have it, they may be able to order some in for you.

And so, on Christmas Day, we poured two bottles of cheap, off-dry red wine into a Crock Pot, and set it to heat for an hour. We added strips of orange and lemon peel, and two cinnamon sticks and two cloves to the pot and let it simmer with the lid on; next time, we’ll add two star anise pods and slice the orange and lemon into the pot so that the fruit flavour is more pronounced. Our adapted recipe comes from this one from WikiBooks, but deviates significantly enough that I’m okay calling the recipe below an original interpretation – we wanted it to taste like the drink we had at the Winter Market, and I think we made it work.

After an hour, we placed the zuckerhut in a wire mesh strainer and held it over the pot. We poured rum over top, and then lit the cone on fire. It was awesome. We ended up using about a cup and a half of rum; the cheap white stuff worked better than the good amber stuff for burning. When there was no more rum and we couldn’t light the sugar on fire anymore, we stirred the remains of the cone into the pot and let it dissolve. We served it in mugs immediately, and felt very warm and delighted and then had naps.

(Serves six.)

• 2 bottles of off-dry red wine
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 whole cloves
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 orange, sliced
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 zuckerhut
• 1 1/2 cups rum

Heat wine with cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, orange, and lemon slowly. If using a Crock Pot, set on high heat and let sit for about an hour. Do not bring to a boil. If heating on the stove, heat over medium-low heat, covered, for 30 to 40 minutes.

Suspend zuckerhut in a wire mesh strainer (one that has no plastic on the edges of the strainer). Pour two tablespoons of rum over top, ignite, and continue feeding the flame with small amounts of rum until no rum remains. Do not pour rum directly from the bottle.

Stir any remaining sugar from the zuckerhut into the pot, test temperature, and if it’s warm enough to serve, ladle the drink into mugs.

Moon Chai.

Ugh December. I have a bijillion things to do and am way too easily distracted. On the one hand, my holiday shopping is just about done; on the other, my apartment looks like a crime scene.

Last night I had macaroni and cheese for dinner. From a box. Which I ate on the floor while watching the cartoon channel and wrapping presents while simultaneously attempting to defeat the cat. It’s her first Christmas and she doesn’t mean to be annoying, I’m sure, but to a tiny wild-eyed beast nothing is more thrilling than scissors cutting Iron Man-themed wrapping paper.

It’s easy for me to think that my life is real life, but I can’t imagine how overwhelming this would all be for someone with more people than I have to buy for (I’m shopping for 14) and a family who cares about folded laundry to impress. I had a temper tantrum the morning after laundry day and there’s still a pile of socks beside my front door and that’s embarrassing and it’s been that way since Tuesday. And then there are all the events, and I noticed as I was getting dressed for this evening’s party that these tights aren’t controlling a goddamn thing up top anymore.

But the party was fun, and filled with the kind of geeky people I love so much, book people, and we talked about reading and writing while sitting on my friend Tracy’s kitchen floor while her pug Penelope snorted all over us, bounding from lap to lap like the excited little monster she is. Evenings like these are why I am so excited about December.

When we came home, I made Nick and I mugs of moon Chai. Moon Chai is a tea we used to get at this place on Broadway. It’s a Middle Eastern restaurant that’s filled with chaises and awkward tables with tiny little stools, and for awhile I really liked it but now it annoys me to have my knees bump the table I’m eating from, and I don’t particularly enjoy their prices these days. These must be signs of aging. It’s just that I feel a buffet should be reasonable, and that the price should reflect the quality of the food, you know? But anyway. The thing I took from there was their Moon Chai, which is really just hot hot hot Chai tea spiked with brandy.

I don’t know Chai’s recipe, but I’ve adapted and interpreted and made up my own, and this stuff is a sedative if you use decaffeinated tea. I’ve never had it before 8:00 p.m. So you can see how it would be perfect for the holiday season.

(Serves two.)

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1  tsp. fennel seeds
• 10 green cardamom pods
• 10 whole cloves
• 2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or real milk, if that’s what you have/prefer)
• 1/2 vanilla bean pod
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 bag black tea, such as orange pekoe (bonus points for decaf)
• 1/4 cup French brandy (not the stuff that tastes like paint thinner)

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, toast cinnamon, peppercorns, fennel seeds, and cloves until fragrant, stirring frequently, about five minutes.

Pour almond milk into the pot. Add vanilla bean (seeds scraped plus pod), and honey, and tea bag, and reduce to medium heat. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat. Add brandy, cover, and allow to steep for five minutes.

Strain into mugs and serve hot. I guarantee instant relaxation. And possibly a slight buzz.

Stout hot chocolate.

We put up the tree a week or so ago, and the cat is just thrilled. It was cute at first, the way she’d clamber up the middle and make a nest of her own legs and tail in the branches. We didn’t put ornaments on at first, because we thought that we could get her used to the tree so she’d ignore it, but it turns out she intends to do no such thing.

Irritating as she is about the tree, the cat has had a calming effect on our holiday season. This will be our third Christmas married to each other, and so far it has not been marked with the usual bickering, moping, or scrambling to get everything done once we’ve decided we can save the fighting for February because we’re bored then anyway. It’s still early, but I’m optimistic. We’ve committed to fewer events this year, and we’re not spending so many evenings and weekends running around. We’re spending our time eating comfort food and entertaining friends and petting the cat, and it’s working out pretty well so far.

And with the exception of the dinner I ruined tonight, which was not salvageable and which I and subsequently pouted about for an hour and a half, this evening was fairly relaxing. We watched a holiday movie, and I made hot chocolate.

I love hot chocolate, but don’t make it very often – it’s a treat, and the last time I made it was this time last year. Tonight’s batch was made with stout,  just enough melted dark chocolate, a bit of milk, and cream to fill the whole thing out. It was rich and dark like coffee, and its effect verged on sedation. Nick was in bed by 9:45, suddenly overcome by feelings of warm snuggliness and a desperate need for his pillow.

The recipe will make enough for two to four people, depending on how big your mugs are. It’s rich, so you will not need a lot. It’s not too sweet, but pleasantly  bitter with that dark chocolate and beer. We drank it as dessert after Nick finally made grilled cheese sandwiches to make up for dinner.

• 1 1/2 cups stout or your favourite dark beer, at room temperature
• 4 oz. chopped dark chocolate
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Put chocolate into a saucepan over medium-high heat, and pour over stout, whisking briskly to knock out any bubbles and to ensure the chocolate melts without burning. When chocolate appears to have melted, add milk. Stir occasionally until the whole thing comes just to a simmer – you don’t want it to boil, but it doesn’t hurt to have it come close.

Taste. Depending on the beer you use, you may find this a touch too bitter. If that’s the case, add a tablespoon of granulated sugar (or to taste).

Whisk in cream and vanilla. Serve in mugs, with a dollop of whipped cream if you’re feeling saucy (or sulky).

Basil lemonade: Perfect for sunny patches, summer picnics, and chilled bottles of vodka.

It’s the weekend! Fantastic. And it’s sunny, which is making my headache and massive to-do list seem less like factors that could screw up my whole day … perhaps the sun will be to blame for a whole day of doing nothing, perhaps with a magazine, perhaps on the beach. Fortunately, the lemonade is ready to go, and my bike tires aren’t as flat as I thought. To the water!

Basil lemonade

• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 large basil leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (about four ripe lemons)
• 1/2 juiced lemon, quartered

Juice lemons. Cut half of one lemon into quarters.

Over high heat in a heavy-bottomed pot, heat sugar, water, basil leaves, and quartered lemon-half until sugar has dissolved. Let stand five minutes, pour into a bowl or large measuring cup, and chill up to four hours.

Pour lemon juice into a pitcher, and strain sugar-water-basil mixture into the pitcher as well. Stir, and add three to four cups of cold water, to taste. Alternately, you could use sparkling water for fizz.

Serve chilled, with basil leaves to garnish. Is improved greatly by a generous splash of vodka and a patch of sunshine to sip it in.

Chai tea: Perfect for thunderstorms.

When I was young, my parents had some very good luck with daycare providers. There weren’t after school programs or “amenities,” but there were very interesting people like Mrs. Gill and Mrs. DiAntonio, immigrant women with fantastic recipes who were at home all the time, cooking. And looking after me, I guess, but mostly cooking. And more often than not, they shared. From Mrs. DiAntonio, I learned about the other kind of amaretti cookies – the soft ones with the almond thumbprint in the centre, about how magnificent just tomato sauce could be on pasta, that mozzarella doesn’t come in bricks, and that wine is something that happens after you squish grapes with your feet. I never got to taste the wine, but Mr. DiAntonio would make it that way, and grew his own grapes to boot.

From Mrs. Gill, I learned about bright red tandoori chicken, still one of my favourite things, about samosas (and, incidentally, ketchup on samosas which is still the only way to have them) and potato pakoras and twisty orange jalebis and chai tea. At one point, Mrs. Gill and my mother traded skills – my mom taught Mrs. Gill to sew, and Mrs. Gill taught my mom about Indian cooking. Armed with spices Mrs. Gill had given her, my mom was able to make that chai tea at home. I still remember the taste of Mrs. Gill’s chai – it’s nothing like the Starbucks iteration, and nothing at all like what you buy in teabags labelled “chai tea.”

Today it rained a lot, and there was thunder (and I discovered that Molly is a scaredy cat), and I had a lot of housecleaning to do. A regular cup of tea would not quite have done. I don’t have Mrs. Gill’s recipe, but I remember the taste. If you don’t keep them in your kitchen, go buy the spices – you can buy them at Indian grocery stores, and you get a lot of them for not very much money. I buy most of my spices from Indian grocers (or from the Indian section of Superstore), because they are so plentiful and inexpensive.

So, here. A recipe for chai tea, which I’ll hope you enjoy anytime there’s thunder and downpour, even if you end up drinking it while cradling (and reassuring) a bawling kitten.

Chai tea

(Makes two cups)

• 2 cups cold milk
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tbsp. whole green cardamom
• 2 tsp. whole cloves
• 2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1 tsp. fennel seed
• 3 allspice berries
• 1 slice of ginger (sliced horizontally from ginger root, about the thickness of a quarter)
• 1 piece dried orange peel (optional, but if you have it, all the better!)
• 2 teabags of black tea

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, toast whole spices until just fragrant, about two minutes, moving them about the pan frequently. Reduce heat to medium, and add milk and honey, stirring to dissolve the honey. Add teabags once honey is dissolved, and allow to come very slowly to a gentle boil, about 40 minutes.

Once it begins to boil, remove the mixture from the stovetop and strain into mugs. Serve immediately.

Bribe Santa and warm your little bones with Mexican hot chocolate.

There was fog this morning, and I almost thought it was snowing. It was dense in parts, but clear in others, and maybe it wasn’t fog as much as it was the fluff of a low-slung cloud, but for the whole rest of the day I felt a chill in my bones. Especially the little ones in my feet, to where the heat of the office never seems to creep.

Tonight was the first night in a long stretch of nights where there wasn’t talk of holiday logistics, empty bank accounts, frustrating jobs, or family pressure. No leaving the apartment, nothing frantic. This evening, with a stack of toys and two rolls of paper to bring together, I ate this for dinner, and there was frothy chocolate and I felt warmth and cheer, as far down as the tiniest bones in the tips of my toes.

Please make this right now.

Mexican hot chocolate

For each big mug of hot chocolate, you will need:

• 2 oz. dark chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. Mexican chili powder (or to taste)
• 1.5 oz. Kahlua (or coffee liqueur)

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt dark chocolate into the milk, whisking as you do so that the chocolate doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pan. Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the vanilla, cinnamon, and chile powder, then whisk continuously until the mixture comes to just a boil. It’s got to be frothy, with a dense layer of bubbles on top.

Measure Kahlua into your mug, and then pour the hot chocolate mixture in. Stir to combine, and then drink right away. You can top it with whipped cream or marshmallows if you like, or on its own, with a side of sugar cookies for dunking.

This is rich stuff, and can work all on its own as dessert. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and layered with spicy, robust flavours – dark chocolate, coffee, vanilla, and spice. It’s robust. It’s infinitely better than any seasonal hot chocolate that you’ll find at Starbucks or its ilk. And it goes well with the smell of wrapping paper, cookies, and tree.

Three more sleeps (that’s it!) and Santa’ll be here! I’ll bet if you leave a mug of this out for him, he’ll leave you something equally special. It’s caffeinated, so if you make yourself a mug too, maybe you’ll even stay up late enough to greet him?

Happy holidays!

August 6 was National Root Beer Float Day. Did you know? DID YOU CALL YOUR DAD?

And, most importantly, did you celebrate? I did everything except for the Dad-calling part because when I finally got around to celebrating it was after ten o’clock and he gets up at 4:30 in the morning because he’s insane.

I made a root beer float. Here are instructions. I know you know how to make one, but you’d be surprised what other people don’t know. I continue to be surprised by that.

Root beer floats will forever be inextricably linked to dads. Particularly my dad, but I suppose you could replace my dad with your dad if you’re remembering, but if you want to remember my dad as an integral part of your childhood, I wouldn’t think anything of it.

There are a few things that I remember for their Dad-specificity – Cheez Whiz and marmalade sandwiches, long john doughnuts, Get Smart, sitting in front of my bedroom door to think about what I’d done while everyone else watched Star Trek … things that I’ve mentally filed next to “Parents > Dad” in my memory-bank, like that time I ordered kalamari at the Knight & Day on King George Highway on my twelfth birthday and I didn’t realize it was going to come out looking like spiders because I really didn’t know for sure what kalamari was at that point, or what a squid looked like, and I looked up with panicky eyes and my mom was all, “you don’t have to eat that,” but my dad made me eat it anyway because Knight & Day was even overpriced then, so I ate the spiders and tried to wash it all down with Orange Crush but then I got this gross feeling and threw up all over myself, and then I think my dad was going to make me eat the spiders that didn’t get covered in Crush-puke, but my mom was all, “it’s her birthday,” so I didn’t have to finish. My dad starts a lot of his stories with, “nobody else thought I was funny, but I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.”

Which is how I start a lot of my stories, actually.

Which I think means that my dad is hilarious.

He once ran for president of his union just to annoy the president, who ran every year unchallenged, and who had gotten just a tad too comfortable. He almost won. He would have had to move to Ottawa.

My dad is hilarious.

Dad didn’t just make me puke on myself, though. He made some good things, too. Like apple fritters, which were chunks of apple dipped in batter, then deep fried, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. And bread, without a bread machine. He’d make the dough, and I wouldn’t be paying all that much attention, and then he’d stuff it in a huge, cleaned-out can, and then all of a sudden the house would smell like fresh bread and it was glorious, all yeasty and warm-smelling, and when it came out of the oven, it looked like a giant, super-tall muffin and he’d pop it out of the can and slice it up and we’d get to eat it with jam that my grandma had probably made and it was the best bread I’d ever had. I’ve never seen cans big enough to re-create his makeshift bread pans, and I’ve always kept my eye half-peeled. I bet when I find them, Nick and I will have to eat our way through a lot of baked beans.

Root beer always reminds me of Dad. The A&W kind, specifically, even though there are better root beers, and I can’t remember which parent introduced Henry Weinhardt’s into my life. But it’s A&W root beer when I think about floats, because that’s what we had (though sometimes we had floats with Orange Crush, or cream soda, and those were also quite good). That, and ice cream that comes in brick-form, or in those big buckets. I didn’t think ice cream came in either anymore. They do. And this was a very satisfying rediscovery.

You can make root beer floats fancy, but that’s not the point. There are some things that you have to think about as if you were eight years old, and they should never, ever change, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Change sometimes equals bastardization (see TMNT), and to bastardize the root beer float would be unholy. It gets its own day. Like Christmas. And Father’s Day.

If you didn’t celebrate, it’s not too late. Just grab a brick of ice cream and a bottle of root beer, pour yourself a float, and call my dad.

This is a picture of me and my dad. He's the one in black. I don't think he reads this. We're dancing here, which is weird, since neither of us actually knows how.

Eating in Portland: Touristing for the Gluttonous.

And this post isn’t about recipes, because I am currently in the process of inventing one, although maybe it’s already been invented but I’m not going to search online for it and then once I post it, if I Google search for it, then my post will come up first and it will validate me AND the creative process. Tomorrow: Recipe. Today: Portland Love Fest.

With the exception of a few racist billboards, America proved to be pretty awesome. And not to be totally unpatriotic, but I think Canada has something of an inferiority complex as far as the US is concerned. I think it’s because we don’t have Happy Hour here. Or Crunchberries. It’s like America is Canada’s cool older stepbrother – we don’t really get some of the things he does, and sometimes he’s an asshole, but mostly we wish we could be as cool as him. Unless he’s Republican that year.

In America, they have a special line of Doritos just for stoners.

"Tacos at Midnight," anyone?

It was a hot one, registering 103°F, or 40°C, so we were parched the whole time. We got some lemonade, which I was totally going to make fun of until @katarnett posted her discovery that blue dye is actually good for you now, so now I guess I’m jealous that in America, raspberries come in blue.

It was freakishly good!

Although it’s only a five-hour trip to Portland from the Canadian border, it took us closer to nine hours to get there, because of all the stops. Theresa’s dad’s truck, which we borrowed, had air conditioning, but old cheapness habits die hard for Theresa, who couldn’t bring herself to turn it on because of the chance that using the air conditioning might eat up all the gas in the truck, which might mean we’d have to get more gas, which was expensive. So we drove fast with the windows down, and stopped a fair bit for cool drinks and swims in lakes.

When we got to Portland, we refreshed ourselves with some deliciously cold, enviably cheap pints of good microbrew.

We stayed in a hostel called McMenamins White Eagle Saloon, and even though it didn’t have air conditioning and we were sweltering, it was a pretty awesome place to sleep for $50 (total, not each). Except that sometime after we returned to the room from the bar downstairs, I remembered that I once heard that there have historically been more serial killers per capita in the Pacific Northwest than anywhere else in the world, so then I couldn’t sleep in case one lept out of the closet or climbed through the open window to serial kill one of us. I never think of these things at home, which is also Pacific Northwesterly. It could be time to get serious about medication.

At the bar, we ate and drank for cheaper than we may ever have done either before.

And we learned about this amazing beer called “Ruby,” which is the most perfect girl-beer ever invented. It tasted like raspberries (the red kind), and it was magical and cold and everything great about the world in a single pint glass.

And we drank and drank and laughed and laughed and The Exhasperated Ex-Ex-Patriot came from across town to join us, and a marvellous time was had until I dumped too much dijon onto my $3.00 burger and then I felt sad but then more beer came and life was good again.

The next morning, after several cold showers and night terrors over serial killers, we went for breakfast at Voodoo Doughnuts. Prior to the trip, my two goals for my time in Oregon were simple: eat a foie gras jelly doughnut, and also eat a maple bacon doughnut. Turns out, the foie gras doughnut is sold somewhere else, and the maple bacon doughnut sells out like crazy at Voodoo, so much so that when we got there around 9:00 am, they were completely out of stock. I settled for a PB&J doughnut, which was a delicious combination of peanuts, peanut butter, deep fried dough, and raspberry jam. Manna.

And so we took to the road again, sad to be leaving so quickly, but delighted at ourselves for all the gluttony. And I shall return to Portland very soon, as it turns out I am madly in love with it for the same reasons I am in love with Vancouver but somehow Portland managed to out-doughnut Canada and also the drinks are very cheap there.

Also, in America, they still have POG. No. Fair.
So, I guess what I mean to say is that you should come back tomorrow, because I mean to tell you all about brandied apricot cobbler with ginger, and it will be all kinds of delicious and completely new because I will have invented it. I think. It’s very warm out still and that could be why I’m finding it very hard to have coherent thoughts, never mind the struggle it’s been to try and write them out.

Saucy meat makes romance.

The thing about being flat broke most of the time is you have to plan. And you have to be able to make your own fun, usually on $20 or less.

For Nick, fun is cleaning and purging three garbage bags full of all the awesome clothes I don’t wear but still love and will someday lose enough weight to fit into again. Jerk. My idea of fun is anything but that. So Nick cleaned, and I cried, and then we had dinner, which was fantastic.

By the way, as of this evening, I have called a ban on all sesame oil-soy sauce-delicious-but-played-around-here standbys. I thought I’d done it last night – Other Emily came over to spend the night pre-move to Portland, so I made Jerk chicken and a sweet potato, tomato, and okra curry on rice fried with peas and parsley, and it was delicious and filling and then we had pudding. So, good night, and then I thought tonight I’d really give’r and we’d have something awesome and I’d bake bread, and then Nick turned the afternoon into a suckfest and made me listen to Metric, and the kitchen was disgusting, and we were hungry but too lazy to do dishes, and everything was dirty, so I had to get creative. Kind of. I did the sesame oil soy sauce thing again. But it works, so whatever. This is a variation.

Oh! About planning. We always have a freezer full of things we can use, and a bijillion things we can use for seasoning, marinades, and crap like that. And canned goods, and a few vegetables left over. Today, we had two potatoes, half a yam, and a bag of baby bok choy. And some pork tenderloin. So I barbecued the pork and the bok choy, because everything I could have used to cook either of these inside was dirty.

Grace, who is awesome, and who I’ve mentioned before, said once that anything tastes good when it’s marinated in a bit of soy sauce and ginger: this is correct. I tossed the bok choy in a bit of each, then a bit of sesame oil, and set the veg aside. For the pork, I mixed up:

• 1 tbsp. dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp. mirin
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. finely minced fresh ginger
• 2 cloves finely minced garlic

I rubbed a bit of this onto the pork tenderloin before I threw it on the barbecue, and reserved the rest for later.

I let it cook for about 12 minutes, because this was a small piece of meat, and I turned it once. The bok choy cooked for about seven minutes on the top rack.

The pork smelled amazing while it cooked.

Toward the end of the pork’s cooking, I painted both sides with the rest of the marinade, because Nick was all, “I want saucy meat.” And I was like, “Of course you do, muffin.”

Here’s dinner:

After that, we took our $20 and bought two bottles of terrible wine and biked down to Kits beach because Nick said we’d make out on the beach and be all romantic and shit, which is better than eating the rest of a five-pound bag of Mini Eggs on the couch while he watches another three hours of hockey. It was nice. The whole ride there, the air was fragrant with wood smoke and pink flowers, and I kept exclaiming, “seriously, why doesn’t everyone live here? It’s amazing!”And then when we got there, the beach was lovely and empty, except for the couple of geeks with guitars. We totally made out. Nick and I. Not me and the guitar people.

Now we’re back at home, surrounded once again by dishes, and Nick is trying to make me watch a Mastodon music video while I Internet it up and we finish the last of the wine, the one in with the sweet zebra-print label. So, romance is alive and well, kids. Don’t give up hope.