Buddha Beer - Bow Down!

Americans love pickup trucks.  We love liberty.  We love Coca-Cola and bikinis and cherry lip gloss and handguns.  And Americans love… Buddha.   Think about it – we do!  We f-ing LOOOOVE Buddha.  Or more like buddha, with a small “b”.  Put him on yoga mats, stickers, t-shirts, little garden fountains, hipster tchotchkes of any shape or size – we gobble them up.  Now, some brilliant person has put Buddha together with the thing that Americans love most of all: BEER. 

Where do they sell this earthly delight?  At Target.  I know, it just gets better and better, right?  Strolling through the familiar, well-lit aisles, I glanced to my right and saw these little beauties staring back at me:

This is a clear indication that we view eastern religions with a certain irreverence.  Have you ever seen “Jesus Beer” in the supermarket?  I think not.  There are loose, internet-specific threads connecting the son of God with brewskies (like this little gem):

http://www.spunk.org/texts/humour/sp001521.html

…but this idea is not ready for the mainstream.  When it comes to Siddhartha, on the other hand, we’ll put it right out there.  Target is such a squeaky clean company that it may as well be Disney.  So my take-away is that Isaac Mizrahi, Target, and Disney all think Buddha is a big fat joke.  And that everyone else out there is OK with that. 

Yet I say thank you – thank you Mr. Mizrahi.  Because this bottle is more than adorable enough to justify drinking the mediocre adult beverage contained within.  Mmmmm… beer and religion in one affordable 6-pack. 

"Sharing Stir Fry": A cunning ruse resulting in involuntary vegetable consumption by minors.

This is the bloody tale of how two children fought to the death – TO THE DEATH! – in my kitchen, over a plateful of vegetables. Sound like a dream? One less child to worry about; only the strongest offspring left standing, flaming chopsticks raised in triumph, fueled by roughage, newly prepared to carry the family name on with pride and voracity? Read on. 

My stepdaughter’s 9 year old cousin is visiting from Bangkok.  In Bangkok she enjoys riding astride Tuk-tuks, kicking rats and roaches in the streets, and picking tourists’ pockets.  She mostly likes to eat weird fish and chilies belched out of the devil’s own throat.  My 7 year old stepdaughter isn’t really allowed to cross the street by herself yet.  She enjoys going to Catholic school, knows all the words to “Party in the USA”, and is a badass soccer player. She mostly likes to eat chicken nuggets and anything that looks or tastes like cornbread.  Making dinner just got complicated. 

Veggie stir-fry seemed like good culinary middle ground, and also a way to get rid of whatever was starting to colonize in the crisper drawer.  Foreseeing that there would be items in this dish that one rugrat or the other would find repulsive, I started them horse trading with each other.  You don’t like your broccoli?  Trade it for daikon radish. If you have kids you’ll know they’re easy to trick.  My plan was to manipulate them into at least tasting one bite of everything to figure out what to part with and what to hoard.  Things were going well.  But I underestimated the competitive nature of young ladies. And I underestimated, too, the sweet, green, crunchy Helen of Troy that is the snow pea. 

Sparing the details, the desire to monopolize every available snow pea drove these two into a lethal spiral that no force could reverse.  A tragic ending… Parenting is difficult, even when one has the best intentions. I’m sure you wouldn’t be insensitive enough to ask who won the fight. Either way, don’t let this battle have been waged in vain. Use this recipe wisely. You’ve been warned. 

Fight! Fight!

"SHARING" STIR-FRY RECIPE:

3/4 lb chicken, pork, beef or shrimp, cut to bite-sized pieces

1 egg white

1 T cornstarch

1 1/2 lbs mixed vegetables, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 T minced or grated ginger

Sauce:

2 T cornstarch

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 T soy sauce

5 T oyster sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Scramble egg white with corn starch.  Pour over meat and refrigerate 30 minutes or more.  Make a slurry with the cornstarch and water, then add to remaining sauce ingredients. 

Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a wok over med-high heat.  Add meat and stir fry quickly until cooked through.  Remove meat from wok, wipe clean, and return to heat.  Heat 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil.  Add garlic and ginger, fry for 20 seconds, then add vegetables.  Add longer cooking veggies first, such as carrots and daikon, followed by quick cooking veggies like snow peas and bok choy.  

Stir fry vegetables until lightly cooked but still crunchy.  Add meat and sauce, cook until heated through.  Serve with white rice for guaranteed east/west kiddie palate satisfaction.  

"Pork and Beans" ...Asian Style (Chinese Long Beans with Chilies and Garlic)

Chinese Long Beans with Chiles and Garlic

Sometimes home cooking can induce just as powerful a craving as your favorite restaurant dish.  Logic would imply that we’d usually crave the MOST outrageously decadent and delicious things we can get our hands on, but I think you’ll agree that’s not the case.  And thank god.  Constantly coveting blue cheese-stuffed foie gras with bacon sprinkles would leave us all fat and broke.  Well, some people are fat and broke without the foie gras, but that’s beside the point.   Cravings are mysterious.  Even those of us lucky enough to have access to the exotic cuisines of the world (delivered in 30 minutes or less) can find themselves obsessing about the simplest things.  That’s how this dish is for my sweetheart and me - sometimes nothing else will scratch the itch.   When it’s that time, there’s a 2PM text that says something like:  Hey! How about that spicy pork thing tonight?  The answer is, without variance: Yes.

This recipe was adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s version.  I bumped and tweaked the seasoning and reduced the liquid.  You can adjust for taste.   This one is hard to mess up (unless you burn the garlic, in which case your kitchen will bequeath the resulting smell to your progeny and to theirs after them). 

1 lb ground pork

1 – 1.5 lbs Chinese long beans

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

7 - 8 large cloves garlic, peeled and diced finely (if it looks like way too much garlic, you’re on the right track)

3-4 serrano chilies, seeds included, diced or sliced very thinly

1 ½ tsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp. fish sauce

2 Tbsp. soy sauce

¾ cup water

1 tsp paprika

SUBSTITUTIONS: You can substitute Thai chilies, red jalapeños, whatever you like.  Just adjust the amount added for the heat of the chili. We like it spicy so I leave in the seeds.  Instead of Chinese long beans you can use regular green beans.  However, the long beans are worth getting for their extra-crunchy texture and woodsy flavor.

Heat oil in wok over medium high heat.  Add garlic and chilies and stir a few times until garlic is just barely starting to brown.  Add pork and cook, breaking into small pieces, until it is just cooked through.  Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.  Cook on high heat, turning over 3-4 times, until most of the water has evaporated, about 5-6 minutes.  Serve over hot rice. 

EASY, RIGHT?   Let the cravings begin. 

Let's play "Where's White Girl?"

This map of the Bay Area popped up all over Facebook last week.  Wanna venture a guess at my neighborhood?  


Thankfully still close to the Mexican border, because fried rice cravings can only be rivaled by taco cravings.  Oh, and near the GayTown border where I go to work out, unmolested, at my nice clean gym.  God, life is grand.

YES YOU CAN! ...Make New Year's Dumplings

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Yep, even after 3 years of Mandarin classes I still say it the super-whitey way.  It’s a hard language, OK?

With the feasts, parades, monetary gifts, candy, superstitions and firecrackers, Lunar New Year is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and the 4^th of July rolled into one.   Seriously: get on board. 

Being a culturally sensitive Californian means a formidable number of holidays to thwart your New Year’s resolutions.  After January 1^st caps off else’s celebrating, we fire up the Yule Log all over again on the 7^th for Orthodox (Russian) Christmas.  Then Chinese New Year comes knocking, followed by Easter and THEN Orthodox Easter… and then we just have April through October to work off all the turkey, wine, vodka and piroshky before we start all over again.  Thank god they threw Lent in there or we’d all have one politically correct foot in the grave. 

So you know: Chinese New Year is a “real” holiday here.  People take time off with their families.  There’s a giant parade, music, people celebrating in the streets.  It’s not like, you know, Kwanzaa or something.  My 7 year old stepdaughter came home last week and informed me that this year we “honor the dragon”.  Mind you, she attends Catholic prep.  I imagine all the Irish parents grumbling behind closed doors about their kids studying that “f-ing Oriental horoscope bullshite” in school.  

Given we’re not Asian, our celebration’s contained to 1 day and consists of giving out HongBao (red envelopes) with a VERY small amount of money in them (after two Christmases, Santa’s a broke-ass), and of course DUMPLINGS.   They’re easier than they look so don’t be intimidated by the folding.  By next year my stepdaughter’s will be better than mine. Although she does have those pirogi-making babushka genes. Not fair!

I’ve used this recipe for years.  You can double or triple the recipe as they freeze well.  Freeze them in a single layer first before transferring them to a large freezer bag or Tupperware.  Otherwise they’ll stick together.  

CHINESE NEW YEAR DUMPLINGS

For Dumplings:

½ lb Napa Cabbage, very finely chopped. (regular green cabbage will work)

1 tsp salt

1 bunch green onions or chives, finely chopped

3 Tbls sesame oil

1 tsp sugar

¼ tsp white pepper

1 egg white

1 Tbls Chinese rice wine

½ lb. ground pork

25 dumpling wrappers

For Dipping Sauce:

2 Tbls Chinese Rice Wine Vinegar

2 Tbls soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 Tbls chili paste

(mix together and serve on side)

MAKE THE FILLING:

Toss the cabbage with ½ tsp of the salt and allow to sit for 20 minutes.  Drain any excess water and stir in the green onions. 

Mix sesame oil, sugar, remaining ½ tsp salt, white pepper, egg white and wine into the pork.  Add the cabbage and green onions and mix well. 

FOLD THE DUMPLINGS:

Place a small bowl of water next to your workspace.  Place about a tablespoon of filling in the center of a wrapper.  Dip your finger in the water and trace the rim of the wrapper to help it seal.  

Pick up the wrapper in a taco shape and, starting at one end, create folds and seal the sides of the wrapper together into a half moon shape.  **Beginner tip:  Start with a smaller amount of filling in the dumpling until you get the hang of making the seal without everything squirting out the end.

COOK THE DUMPLINGS:

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add dumplings, cook for 7 minutes then drain.

-OR Potsticker Style-

Place several dumplings in a large skillet.  Add ½ inch of water and bring to brisk simmer.  Cover and cook until water is gone and dumplings are browning, shaking pan to dislodge dumplings from the pan.  

TA DAAAA!