trantanphat

I keep my spices in alphabetical order.  I’m not that anal; it makes finding spices quicker when the number of spices exceeds a couple dozens.  I notice that I have quite a few spices under  ’c':

• Cardamom
• Cajun seasoning blend
• Cayenne
• Chili powder, Bolsa
• Cinnamon: stick & ground
• Cloves
• Coriander
• Cumin: whole seeds & ground
• Curry power

We dined at Swift’s Attic recently.  The host/partner, CK Chin, nattily dressed as always, had tied his tie with a knot that I have never seen before:

A quick Google’ing shows that this is either an “Atlantic” knot or a “Bosphorus” knot.  The same Google results also open up a whole new world of tie knots!  For example, “The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie” is a book based on mathematical formulation of the act of tying a tie, ”equivalent to persistent random walks on a triangular lattice, with some constraints on how the walks begin and end”.  The book specifies a notation used to describe how to tie a knot.  I bet CK Chin has that book, ’cause I saw another pic of him with his tie tied with another fancy knot.

I made this “Sea Bass In Papillote” recipe today. I used dried thyme (about 1/4-1/2 tsp for two) so I “toasted” it along with the garlic and capers and tomatoes in olive oil beforehand. My twists were a bit of red pepper flakes, and a tiny bit of butter on each fillet (about 1/2 tsp each).

“En papillote” is a fantastic way to bake fish, especially fish that is delicate and might fall apart from handling. I used Atlantic cod which is quite delicate. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully pan fried Atlantic cod before. It always manage to crumble upon turning. When baked “en papillote” and therefore not handled at all, the fish comes to the table intact.

Even though there was no extra fluid added, the dish has a fair amount of sauce when done, probably juice from the lemon slices, the tomato’s juice and the fish’s juice, drawn out by salt.

Prep: fish, with lemon slices, on some olive oil on the parchment paper.

Almost ready for oven; a couple of dabs of butter complete the dish.

Voilà! All done!

…or so goes the famous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.  Not so with certain culinary quests, I say.

For example, I bake French baguettes.  A lot.  I bake all the bread for our family of two.  My issue is regardless of how fastidious I am with my ingredients and methods, the end result is never exactly the same.  A loaf would be slightly more brown or less brown, slightly more or less crusty, the crumb slightly more or less open.  One might think that I am being too critical and too unrealistic, but I don’t believe so, and I think I know the reason why the results are never the same.

Recently, I was chatting with a colleague at our Friday beer bash-cum-company meeting about brewing beer.  I asked him if he thinks he can reproduce a particular batch of beer if somebody asks him to.  We eventually decided that while it may appear that a product is reproducible, it’s really quite near impossible for amateur small-batch producers to do so.  Variance in ingredients would singlehandedly thwarts such an effort.

In my case, the flour might differ depending on the crop, on how soon it was milled after harvested, on its age when I use it.  The water, though from the same faucet and filtered in the same filtering pot, might have varying quantities of dissolved gases because of temperature, season, or atmospheric pressure.  The long pre-ferment time may give the yeast too much leeway in its interaction with the flour, diverging down different paths of development each time.

Large-quantity producers produce products of consistent quality perhaps not only because of greater skill and experience, but also because the amounts of raw materials involved are so large that there is a much much larger “averaging” effect within any one batch, and also from batch to batch, such that the products vary little in quality.

I had five teeth pulled recently in preparation for getting braces. Food-wise, I prepared by making a huge pot of cháo, the Vietnamese version of “congee”, or rice porridge. Since I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be up to chewing anything, I opted to purée everything into a soup-like dish. I cooked rice, with twice the usual amount of water. I made chicken broth, with chicken (duh!), onions, ginger, and salt and fish sauce to taste.  I separate the chicken meat and then purée rice, broth and chicken together into a thick soup.  After I have puréed everything, I tasted and seasoned the “soup”.

To serve, I add caramelized/crisped thinly sliced shallots and thinly sliced scallions (no chewing required!) to bring a bit more oomph to the dish.

(When I do phở gà, I refrigerate the chicken meat in a bowl covered with plastic wrap.  Upon uncovering, the chicken would  give off a rather strong smell, a  ”chicken” smell on steroids!  It dissipates quickly and by the time it’s served, it smells great, but the initial smell is always quite off-putting.  I wonder why it’s like that…)

I did another simple salad for dinner, modeling it after a similar salad that my multi-talented sis-in-law made when she visited us recently.

Julienne and boil yellow beets until fork-tender.  (I only used about 1/2″ of water in the saucepan to boil/steam the beet, keeping the pan tightly covered.) Hull an slice strawberries about 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick.  Thinly slice green scallions.  I cut the scallions into 2″ sections then julienne them (lengthwise), but you can also slice them crosswise thinly.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Add salt and pepper.  Toss & serve.

Dire straits often yield interesting, innovative, inspired, outcomes.  My kitchen dire straits often arrive at week’s end, just before we buy groceries for the coming week, when the cupboard is at its barest.  OK, so my “bare” may be many people’s “laden” but that’s another topic altogether.  Today, I need to make a veggie dish of some type for our dinner.  I had zucchini, some cherry tomatoes, and scallions.  I did a zucchini and tomato salad, with scallion and bacon bits, and orange juice-based dressing.

Bring 1/2 C of orange juice to a boil and reduce to a simmer; reduce to about 1/4 C.

Cut two bacon slices crosswise into 1/4″ pieces.  Line a bowl with paper towel (to soak up bacon fat) and microwave  the bacon for  about one minute.  Remove the paper towel and microwave the bacon some more until crispy; it will render some more fat.  Remove bacon bits to a paper towel and add the bacon fat, about 1 Tsp, to the orange juice.

Meanwhile, slice zucchini thinly, 1/16″ or less: my kingdom for a mandolin!  Actually, with a sharp knife, it didn’t take too long to slice up a couple of zucchinis.  Thicker slices is OK too, if you like your salad crunchy (I don’t, much).

Cut cherry tomatoes in halves (which makes them a lot easier to eat; chasing little spherical objects around a bowl with a fork is no fun).  Thinly slice two scallions.

For dressing: add about 2 T olive oil to orange juice/bacon fat mixture.  Add salt and pepper and about 2 tsps red wine vinegar.  I also threw in a bit of orange zest. Whisk until emulsified.

Toss zucchini, tomato, and scallions in dressing. Sprinkle with bacon bits just before serving.

My wife and I had the honor of being invited to a Persian New Year celebration. It was an amazing experience. I really enjoyed the opportunity to be up close and personal with a crowd of Iranians and their customs and food. I had two big revelations about Persian customs and food.

The first is about customs: everybody, and I do mean everybody, from children to old people needing a walker, introduces themselves and/or greets everybody else upon entering the house. I thought that was so cool: it immediately familiarizes everybody with each other and makes for a more comfortable gathering.

The second revelation was about the food: amazing combinations of flavors, tastes, and textures. I had had various versions of “Persian” food before at places around town so many of the dishes are familiar. However, there were two that were new to me and they also happen to be my favorites: mirza ghassemi, Persian eggplant, tomato, and egg; and zereshk polow, Persian saffron rice with cranberries/barberries, candied tangerine peels, onions, with chicken. The zereshk polow was by far my favorite, with its contrast of flavors (saffron, turmeric) and taste (cranberries/barberries) and texture (the tangerine peels are quite chewy and are a great contrast). Here’s a quick vid of the banquet.

I heart Zojirushi stuff, a lot! We’ve owned two Zojirushi appliances: a rice cooker and a 5-liter hot water boiler.

My sis-in-law gave us the rice cooker as a housing warming gift when we moved down to Austin over twenty years ago. You read that right: twenty, as in, two decades! The rice cooker still works as perfectly, cooking our rice almost every day. Its Teflon-coated liner has collected a layer of gunk, from years of
cooked rice bits not properly cleaned off thus getting “re-cooked” upon the next use. Despite such abuse, the non-stick coating still works and rice does not stick. All the same, I don’t like the way it looks, so I researched into getting a new liner. I emailed Zojirushi’s support. They replied:

Unfortunately our model NMDC-R10 has been discontinued since 1998.  We no
longer manufacture the inner pans. The inner pans are not interchangeable
with other models. I apologize for the inconvenience.

It’s so old Zojirushi no longer makes parts for it! I suppose such is the downside of appliances that last forever!

I don’t understand why garlic bread recipes always call for “rubbing halved garlic cloves on bread”. I find doing so either doesn’t impart enough garlic flavor to the bread, or, if I do it too vigorously, would break up the crumb. My method is to squeeze garlic with a garlic press into some olive oil, butter, dried herbs (oregano, parslet, thyme, etc.), red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, then zap that mixture in the microwave to heat up the oil/butter. I let the mixture sit for a few minutes for everything to get nicely infused, then spoon it onto bread. It’s much quicker and the flavors are more intense and more evenly distributed.

The great thing about size is that it’s relative. A scrap of fabric may seem useless in terms of making a garment, but it’s practically a huge treasure in making Xmas cards! I tried my hands at making Xmas cars this year. Growing up, we did not have a lot, so we did not any of the type of “crafting” where one can randomly slap stuff together to make things, simply because we did not have a lot of “stuff”! I think I now know how kindergarten kids feel about Play-Doh.

I’m close to achieving a State of Yo with the tart crust! I can now get from ball-of-dough to crust-rolled-and-crimped in about five minutes! Anyway, the current baking procedure is 12 minutes at 400° covered with foil and pie weight, then removing foil and pie weight, piercing crust all over with fork, then bake for 7 minutes more uncovered, with a “rim protector” to prevent the rim from over-browning. (I use rice for pie weight, saving and re-using the rice.)

My tart this week is filled with anise bulb, eggplant, and zucchini squash, all thinly sliced and sautéed separately, blue cheese, and topped with fried fronds from the anise bulb.

Still on a quest for that perfect tart crust, I baked another tart over the weekend. Technique-wise, I did pretty much the same thing with the crust as the last tart, except for baking time, which I notched back maybe by ten percent to see if it would dry out less. It looks like I still need to reduce the crust’s baking time more. I think I’m rolling the crust out too thin, because I had left over crust dough for two minitarts!

The filling consists of sautéed veggies: bell pepper, fresh porcini mushrooms ($50 a pound!!!), zucchini squash, purple eggplant, all organic, all from HEB Central Market and all sautéed separately prior to assembly. A crumble of blue cheese adds needed zest and punch. It was a kick-ass combo, if I do say so myself!

I made a vegetable stew recently. A quick Google’ing shows a fairly common set of ingredients: onions, zucchini, eggplant, green beans, mushrooms, bell peppers, etc. Another commonality is the preparation: sautéeing the veggies together. Many reviews complain of the resulting stew being “tasteless”! One browns the meat beforehand when making meat stew, so why not brown vegetables? I sautée and brown the vegetables separately before assembling them into a stew. Sweating and then browning the vegetables brings out more flavor.

Also, sautéeing vegetables separately allows me to cook them all to the same doneness, though if one cooks all vegetables at the same time, one can probably achieve that by cutting the vegetables to different sizes according to their required cooking time: bigger pieces for vegetables that cooks quickly (zucchini, mushrooms), and smaller pieces for vegetables taking longer to cook (onions, eggplant, bell peppers).

I used:

• 1 onion
• 1 eggplant
• 3 zucchini, two yellow ones and one green one
• 1 lbs harricots verts (a slimmer, firmer, version of green beans)
• 8 ozs crimini mushrooms, pre-sliced
• 14 ozs canned diced tomatoes
• 1 Tsp tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• salt to taste, about 1 – 1 1/2 tsps

The onions was the only aromatic.

A friend recently asked me about sewing leather. Since I had recently sewn a leather jacket for an acquaintance’s client, I said I would jot down some notes.

For the most part, sewing garment leather is similar to sewing a heavyweight denim, which is about 14 ozs or heavier. (Joann Fabrics’ denims are mostly 12 ozs.) If you can sew denim, you can sew garment-weight leather. You will encounter some of the same challenges but there are also things that make sewing garment leather more enjoyable than sewing denim. For instance, leather doesn’t ravel, so you don’t have to finish the edges!

Leather

Leather thickness is indicated by its weight in ounces. Each ounce of weight equals approximately 1/64″ of thickness. So a 4-ozs leather would be about 1/16″ thick. Garment leather weights range from 1 ozs to about 2.5-3 ozs. I find 1-1.5 ozs leather is approximately equal to heavy denim. A couple of sources for leather are Tandy Leather and Fashion Leather International.

Equipment & Materials

One needs a couple of specialized things for sewing leather. Of these, I’d say a Teflon foot and leather needles are the only absolute must-haves.

Teflon foot

An absolute must-have! A regular metal presser foot will drag on leather’s smooth finish, as counter-intuitive as it sounds. There is less drag when sewing with the leather’s sueded side up, and most seams are right side (smooth side) together and sueded side up, but topstitching will be on the smooth side. A Teflon foot allows leather to glide under the pressure foot without dragging.

Leather needle

Regular needles’ round shank makes a series of holes which turn the stitching line into a perforation. The perforation will make the leather tear more easily. A leather needle‘s tip is blade-like and is positioned at an angle to the stitching line.
It makes angled slashes rather than holes, which helps resist tearing.

Seam roller

To flatten the seam allowances in leather, since you can’t press or use steam, you use a seam roller. A seam roller resembles a paint roller except with a narrow, hard, roller. I would guess that you use it by position the seam allowance over a sleeve roll, or maybe a length of 1″ wooden dowel, and firmly roll the roller over the seam allowances, flattening it.

seam roller, with rounded edges

Seam roller, with square edges

I don’t have a seam roller, so I burnish the seam with the rounded bottom edge of a small empty mayonnaise jar. The jar’s rounded bottom edge reduces the chance of marking the leather.

You can optionally glue the seam allowances down with rubber cement.

Rubber cement

I use a rubber cement by Tandy, called “Tanners Bond”. Its main properties are adding little bulk and remaining flexible over time.

Tandy “Tanners Bond” rubber cement

Thread

I use normal all-purpose polyester-wrapped cotton thread. For top stitching, I use top-stitching thread for the upper thread and all-purpose polyester-wrapped cotton thread in the bobbin.

Techniques

Cutting

I cut leather the same way I cut fabric: with a rotary cutter, on a cutting mat.

No pins! No glue!

You can’t use pins in leather because they will leave permanent holes! One possibility is to use basting glue, but I have not tried that. I have heard of using small bulldog clips for “pinning”, but I have found that they don’t work well enough to be worth the bother.

bulldog clips

Stitching seams

I recommend a technique called “stretch sewing”. David Page Coffin explains this in his excellent book, “Shirtmaking: Developing Skills For Fine Sewing“. The technique is similar to sewing stretchy materials such as knits or swimsuit material. Grab hold of the material in front and behind of the needle, with your hands about 8-12 inches apart, stretch the material and keep it taut as you firmly guide it under the needle as you stitch the seam, neither pulling nor pushing against the sewing machine’s feed dogs. By keeping the material taut, you give it some tension and structure, which helps resist puckering or wandering. This is a similar concept to “hooping” fabric for embroidery, where the fabric to be embroidered is held stretched taut in a hoop. The taut fabric resists deformation.

A side benefit of stretch sewing is that holding on tightly to the material reduces the need to pin.

Gluing seam allowances

Glue seam allowances down with rubber cement.
Application is different than with normal rubber cement. Apply to both surfaces and wait until it dries, changing from milky to clear, then lightly press the surfaces together. Light pressure allows re-positioning of the pieces as necessary. When satisfied with the placement, press firmly to seat the bond.

You can also hem garments this way: fold the hem allowance up and glue.

Stitching multiple layers

Sewing garment leather is very similar to sewing heavy denim. Stitching across multiple layers of leather requires the same technique: guide the garment forward under the needle if the feed dogs fail to move it forward. Manually turn the wheel to help push the needle push through bulky areas.

Flattening seams

You cannot press or steam leather, so you’d use pressure to “press” leather. I used the aforementioned mayo jar as my seam roller/presser. Just bear down on the seam on a hard surface. A few dab of rubber cement helps keep seam allowances where they should be.

Issues/Problems

I had one issue which may be specific to my machine/thread combination: many skipped stitches and frequent breakage of the upper thread. I eventually stumbled on a fix: a drop of oil on the bobbin carrier’s thread groove. This fixed the problem, but I have no idea why! (In fact, I later found out that the machine’s manual does call for a drop of oil at that location!)

I saw some beautiful figs at the market today. Well, OK, it was more like, we ran into Paul Qui, winner of 2012 Top Chef Texas, and he was tasting a fig, and that gave me the idea. (He asked: “What are you guys cooking?” I said: “We’re roasting some chicken.” He said: “Oh, me too!”)

I brined four chicken legs (#5 chicken from Whole foods), about 2.5 pounds, in 5 cups of water, 1/4 cup each of salt and sugar, and 1/4 tsp of freshly ground black pepper. Total brining time was about 6 hours. I patted the skin dry then spread on a mix of 1 Tsp butter with 1/2 tsp thyme, and sprinkles of salt and red pepper flakes.

I halved the figs, and added some carrots and onions. In a separate dish, I had Japanese sweet potato tossed with olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Baked the whole lot at 350°F for about 30 minutes until the internal temperature reached 150°F, then I turned the oven to broil and turned it up to 500°F for another twenty minute. The final temperature was 180°F, which was 10° above the recommended 170°F, but the chicken was still very juicy.

I think because of the crowding in the pan, only the topmost part of the legs got browned. Next time, I’ll try a bigger pan so there’s less crowding and see if they’d brown more evenly.

I made these from a pants pattern that I drafted myself and refined over time. This is about the third iteration of the pattern. The major design element is a broad “stripe” slanting from top center front to the side down to center back. The stripe idea came from our “Penitentiary Prada” Halloween costumes. My wife said that the stripes in the back made me look like I have a butt .

I aimed for an overall smooth exterior: few stitches and trims visible. The cut-on waistband removes visual clutter around the waist. I eliminated the back dart, moving it to the bottom seam of the back yoke, further smoothing the back. I used the denim’s reverse side for the stripes, to highlight them in a subtle way. The pocket plackets are right side out, so they’d stand out against the wrong-wide out stripes.

Material is a white denim from Jo-Ann Fabrics. The lining is some cotton from a fabric swap of my local meetup.com group, sewingwithstyle.

If at first you kinda succeed, try again! And that’s just what I did this Labor Day weekend: I made another tart. This time, it’s a potato, leek, onion and prosciutto tart, using the same crust recipe as the first one. I sliced the potato thin (1/8″-1/4″) and browned ‘em. I sweated/sautéed the leek and the onion with a sprinkle of salt. I crisped the prosciutto, and then re-browned the potato in the rendered prosciutto drippings. The layers are: potato, leek & onion, prosciutto, and topped with grated Gruyère. Why Gruyère? I dunno; I see it used in some on-line potato-leek soup recipes. Monkey see; monkey do.

I made ratatouille for the first time this past weekend. It was a ratatouille tart and having never made pie/tart shell before, it was also my first time making a from-scratch tart shell!

I followed this recipe at epicurious.com for the tart crust. I did not have any shortening so I used some margerine. I loved the way the crust turned out but since I have never made one before, I wouldn’t know if it could have been better or not!

For the ratatouille I just winged it, using eggplant, red bell pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, and onions. I sautéed them separately, with a sprinkle of salt, prior to assembly.

I spread goat cheese on the crust before layering the veggies on. We had a ratatouille tart recently in a restaurant like this and it was great. My own twist was ultra-thin slices of dried chorizo, and then I the tart under the broiler on max for five minutes. The chorizo slices crisped up nicely, adding a bit of zest and texture to the tart.

We celebrated my birthday at my fav sushi joint, Uchiko.
One of the sushi chefs at prepared a sake drink for us of cold sake in which he soaked a salted cherry blossom. Yes, those cherry blossoms . They’re called “sakura-no-shiozuke. Fresh cherry blossoms are pickled with salt and vinegar and then preserved in salt. They taste similar to salted plums, albeit much lighter in flavor and far less salty. The salted blossoms add a great complexity to cold sake.