#72 - Adventures in cooking

So here are some photos from cooking at last.


Apparently technology and I are still not on great terms because I thought I got the photos earlier but found I hadn't put them on my computer after all. Oh well...so - still work to be done but getting better.  Initial try was a basic roast chicken dinner with some salad, stuffed mushrooms, jus and rice. Rice - because this is Hawaii and my audience prefers rice instead of potatoes. As do I. Looks like the Asian roots of Hawaii are coming out!  I had a little problem with the julienned snow peas, but I now know that it's because I tried to julienne them after I had cooked them (when they were slippery inside) instead of before.  Note to self for the next time...


I couldn't find decent chicken stock.  They keep selling chicken broth so I thought I'd try one out.  Ick - the stock wasn't good until I added a ton of wine to the jus, at which point it tasted good enough that eventually people just ate it on the rice.  The list of ingredients on the "broth" had chicken flavoring and some kind of sugar extract and all kinds of other stuff on it.  I just wanted to see chicken, some veggies and water.  Is that so much to ask???  At the moment it looks like I will have to make my own to get what I want, but it just means I have to plan at least a day in advance so that I have enough time to make some stock.  I got a mock-horrified look from the guy at Tamura's (a local wine store who also sells some specialty ingredients and yummy food) when I  mentioned the chicken stock wasn't my onw.

Some other sights...
-just another day at the mall...Ala Moana Centre Stage.  So nice to see hula while waiting for them to finish making my coffee.  This seems to happen most days - I think it's around noon or 1pm or something.  It's nice for the tourists because they get a little show and it's nice for the dancers because they get an appreciative audience.  For me it's just one more thing that makes home, home.

A Saturday afternoon in the winter...our view while we had our lunch by the water just off Diamond Head.  On men's canoe, one women's canoe.  It was kind of nice - we got the vicarious thrill of watching some skilled paddling while eating by the water.  Is it possible to claim someone else did your exercising for you???



Welcome back dinner for the parents:
Prep = 4 hours.  Cooking the amuse bouche - 3 minutes.  Cooking the appetisers - 10 minutes (while we were eating the amuse bouche).  Cooking the main - 8 minutes.


I read Anthony Bourdain's updated edition of Kitchen Confidential and I finally found out that I am not crazy for getting pissed off when people mess with my stuff in the kitchen.  It's called mise en place for a reason and I had to try to keep my cool while fending off my mom's well meaning but incredibly annoying attempts to help.  (Yes Mom - I know I can use that pot.  I chose this one for a reason.  No thank you - I want the shrimp shells, I need them to infuse the oil for the dressing/salsa.  Yes, you may watch and I am happy to explain what I am doing.  No, don't touch that bowl!  No, please don't try to help me plate - they all need to look the same.  Yes please to helping put the plates on the table - careful, they're hot and they need to face the same way.  Thank you!)


Apparently it has something to do actually organizing our minds - in which case mine is still messy.  Organized chaos is not acceptable in the kitchen so I have to think a lot harder because I sometimes forget things are there if I can't see them.  It helped to separate the things into the various courses.  I think I used most of the small pots in the kitchen and we went through a lot of plates.


Preparing amuse bouche

Amuse bouche - pan fried scallop and celeriac puree, Thai-ish style shrimp with celeriac puree (right - for the person allergic to scallops but not shrimp...)  I didn't know one of the guests generally doesn't like scallops so it was a compliment to be told that she liked this one.

Starter - stuffed mushrooms (and bacon bits!) with zucchini spaghetti and tomato concasse.  My plating on the left, my sister's suggestion on the right...

Preparing main - pan fried ginger and green onion Ono steak, lemongrass and keffir lime shrimp, rice and zucchini spaghetti.  Inspired by the lobster open lasagne in Superior...

Plating the main...

Dinner being kid tested...

Verdict:  yummy.

(Q:  Want some more?

A:  Mmm hmmm.)

There was enough food left which we didn't cook that I ended up sending some home with friends and leaving some marinating in the fridge for the next night for my parents.  This is what my girlfriend KK did for dinner the next night, using her own ideas for plating - wish I'd thought of that.  Nice plating, Ms K!  It's nice that she went to the trouble of making her dinner pretty.  We had a rather entertaining text exchange about the cooking of the fish:
Her:  How do I cook the fish?
Me:  Hot pan.  Oil.  Fish in pan.  Cook.
Her:  I can do that.


No photos of dessert - lemon crunch cake (the remaining half from my birthday dinner a couple of nights before)...I hadn't made dessert because I didn't feel like it - between various food restrictions, gluten, eggs and to some extent, lactose were out which makes it a little difficult to make dessert.  Fruit salad had been done rather a lot, but something was missing so out came the leftover birthday cake.  Even the non-dairy/non-gluten/non-egg people had a teeny tiny bite which rounded out dinner nicely.


A gray, rainy, overcast winter day (left) and the same winter day an hour later (right).  Lunch at the Plumeria Beach Cafe (Kahala Hotel).

A no-no of presentation - crap sprinkled on the plate rim.  My sister said maybe it was their way of presenting their plate.  I told her it was wrong...probably it didn't help that I wasn't a huge fan of the food (tasted like leftover steak) - the batter or whatever it was supposed to be suffered from being super soggy.  The roasted salmon belly salad was good although it would have been nicer if they had removed the skin.  I found out why the dish was part of a prix fixe menu for lunch at what looked like a discounted price.  I'm still of the opinion that it's one thing not to waste food or to find another use for it in a dish, but I would have thought you wouldn't want the customers to be able to tell.  I mean really, if you look at the ingredients of each dish and break it down, this option was actually more expensive because you can't really serve the components as anything and they would have gone in the rubbish bin anyway.


Anyway, this trip home has been a great one to study what other people make and serve.  There was so much to learn and appreciate about the local food here (yum - time for dinner now, bye!) and what we like to eat.


So until next time, happy eating.

#71 - Stand up paddling and getting in touch with my inner Hobbit...

Making up for lost time...
Stand up Paddling?  Yes, I hear you wondering what that is.  I forget the name of the surfer, but I think he's married to Gabrielle Reese (? - used to be a pro volleyball player, I think) and he wanted to try something new.  So you get up on this long and wide board and stand with your feet facing front.  I found it's a lot easier to balance when you keep your knees slightly bent.  Apparently that's called an athletic position.  You know you are not an athlete when you have lived your entire life and not known there was even such a thing as an "athletic position", much less what it is...


Anyway - took a while to stand up.  First, I had to learn how to paddle.  Sounds simple, no?  You stick in the paddle in the water and you pull.  Well - kind of.  It felt like I'd been paddling for hours, even though I knew that meant it was more like 10 minutes.  Or so one hopes - looking back at the shore, I hadn't made it very far at all - slower than a slow walk, possibly around the same speed as a Galapagos tortoise.


Eventually got the hang of it - it helps if the whole paddle-y part of the paddle makes it into the water, apparently - then tried to stand up.  Actually, there was a lot of sitting and kneeling while paddling, then the standing up.  It's actually a lot harder than it looks and there were a couple of...hmmm, how to say this without sounding all girly and silly?  Nope, no way to do it.  They were actually little screams of dismay when a wave came under the board and I ended up running back and forth on the part where you're supposed to stand.  Fell in a couple of times, but then...there's no way to describe what it feels like to see the water looking all silky and cleary as it rushes unter the board once you have a rythm going.  It's even better than watching the bow of a boat cleaving through the waves because this is under your own power.  Of course it hurts your arms like nothing else the next day - I spent the entire week after that recovering so didn't make it to any of my ballet classes.

It has also been a time of continuous birthday do-s. There was a dinner with friends, then a lunch, then various other things. What can I say - birthdays aren't good things when the numbers start to creep upwards but at least there's the consolation of lots of good food! Some people might say that's not sufficient consolation, but I just attribute that to them not being sufficiently food motivated. If I were a dog, my appetite would be Labrador - although the breed would be something else (since I am picky about what I put in my mouth). As for any of you who are mentally making bitchy jokes, I can hear you!

Eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, cooking...did I mention eating?  It has been a sun drenched and fun-filled holiday so far.  I also finally got cooking, but that is a subject for another post - since I don't have photos of the food yet.
So until next time, happy (belated / early) birthdays to all!

#70 - Happy (belated) New Year

End of the holidays
The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur.  Somewhere in the midst of many departures from the islands of those who migrated here temporarily to be with their families (and in some cases, to escape grim, gray and cold weather) and the occasional computer issue, I have fallen woefully behind.  Hopefully you have all had happy and safe holidays.

Back to the basics
New Year's eve was a relatively quiet affair, for which I thank the various children in attendance.  Who knew you could still be tired after sleeping for almost a week straight?  We had dinner chez sister and brother-in-law with several babies (tears at various points in the evening since it was past their bedtimes) and lots of parents.  As always in any Hawaiian gathering, there was obviously not enough to eat...most of the food was take out, but we did prepare a couple of things at home.


2012
Cooking still requires some careful handling of various utensils and a lot of time so I went back to the basics on NYE.  We went up the hill to see the fireworks.  Apparently the crackdown on aerials has worked - they have been illegal for at least 15 years, possibly 20 but that hasn't always deterred the naughty pyromaniacs from setting them off.  This usually resulted in a number of fires so the fire department was kept busy unless it was a rainy year.  Not so this year but the only ones we really saw were the official ones:  Ala Moana and Aloha Tower Marketplace.  We got a good view of both, then the diehards who were still present were served fruit salad.  Yes - that fruit salad from basic Patisserie.  Luckily this time it didn't take 2.5 hours to make and I didn't have to submit the fruits for inspection by the chef.

Sunday morning we managed to get ourselves up and down to the water.  Brunch time!  The usual chef at the made-to-order omelette station was promoted so he wasn't there.  However, I had fun chatting with the new chef and even better, I got to have my omelette the way I like it - most likely overcooked by LCB standards but perfect for me.

Beef roulades with Asian salad
Outrigger Canoe Club -
got a new chef a few months ago
and the menu has changed accordingly,
mostly for the better)

Then it was the last minute flurry of catch ups with friends before they left town.  It occurred to me that I was pretty busy for someone who didn't have to do anything.  I love catching up with all my friends but sometimes it seems like a year (or several) between catch ups is a long time.  Somehow communication loses a lot of its immediacy when reduced to emails or text messages.  I think this is especially true since writing leaves out a lot of nuance while allowing the reader's own moods to creep in, sometimes to the detriment of the communication.  But again, I digress.

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea was at the Kahala Hotel.  I liked the savory options and the flourless chocolate cake - the remainder of the tea left me rather uninspired and I can't tell if I am being extra critical because I don't like sweets or because they weren't executed well, which is entirely possible.  Strongly disapproved of the scones (I like mine fluffy) and the clotted cream (it wasn't clotted cream).  There was quite a lot of yuzu jelly / cream in the pastries - a nod to the Asian influence in using the citrus, although it tasted a bit strange to a palate only just getting used to it.  At present I still find it indescribable beyond the citrus tang with a bit of sourness/bitterness behind it.

Then more cooking - baby steps...
I tried poached eggs and Hollandaise again.  We have a friend who cannot have gluten or dairy so I made vegetables for her instead.  The quenelles were just for the presentation so she would have something pretty.  All bets were off for the second serve and everyone dug in - much better for family dining but it's nice to be able to place something pretty in front of your friends and family.  Poaching eggs was interesting - mainly because I got a request to have the yolks fully cooked through (success and no gray ring, but there was a moment of annoyance when I thought I had overcooked it).  No English muffins so we used toast instead.  As always, I held my breath as I brought the sauce back to temperature because this is usually when my sauce splits.

The week ended with sunset and dinner by the water with friends and family.

So until next time, may your holidays be as drama-free and happy as mine have been.