trantanphat

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.

We did an omelette for lunch today. We had eggs from hens raised by one of my wife’s colleagues and scallions from the garden of our neighbor across the street. We added red bell pepper and onion (remainder of which to be used in a stir fry later in the week), left-over lunch stuff from previous week: smoked turkey and cheese. We also threw in some serrano and tomatoes. Ciabatta from HEB Central Market rounded out the lunch.

 

I browsed through the Screen Actors Guild photos on style.com with low expectation that the men would acquit themselves well sartorially. I was not disappointed. Sheesh, gentlemen, get thee a decent tailor! Of the nine photos that include men, six of them were wearing pants that fit atrociously. They were all far too long, bunching up around the ankles like turkey neck skin. I cannot believe any self-respecting tailor would let his or her client go out wearing such ridiculously ill-fitting pants:

            

But, on the positive side, there were men who didn’t look like they bought their formal wear at a thrift shop and could not afford a tailor:

      

It’s beginning to look a lot like a “booties” Christmas! I’m making a gaggle of booties as presents this year, eight pairs in all. (Last year it was home-made scarves and spiced rum fruitcake.) I’m using McCall’s M6449 booties/slippers pattern.

The pattern is fairly straightforward. However, one of the pattern pieces has a bit of a gotcha:
The seam between piece #4 (top of foot) and piece #5 (front of shin, views BCD; or piece #6 for views EF) does not make sense. The distance between the large dots on piece #4 is fixed, yet the distance between the large dots on piece #5/#6 varies with size.



This is probably OK for one of the available sizes (XS – L); some people simply ease in any differences in length between the two pieces, easing/stretching one piece and/or gathering the other piece so the seam lengths would match.

For sizes larger than L (I needed to make a couple of pairs in XL and one each in XXL and XXXL), I made a new #4 pattern piece for sizes XL and up, with additional width:

I used an upholstery synthetic suede for the outer layers (on sale 50% off at Jo-Ann’s), polyester fleece for the lining and cuff contrast, and red denim bias binding on the outseam of the shaft and around the sole.
To stiffen the sole, I used a plastic grid (used for tapestry I think, also from Jo-Ann’s):

I find that the ones with larger grid is a little stiffer than the ones with a finer grid.

I used a #16 needle and normal cotton-wrapped polyester thread. I put two layers of fleece in the insole. I did not use any padding, though I like the idea of sandwiching foam/insole material into the sole. For the bottom of the sole, I used a “grip dots” material. It’s by a rubberized fabric with tiny rubber dots, available by the yard at Jo-Ann.

After making a couple of pairs, I realized that they run a bit small, so I ended up having to make more than eight pairs. OTOH, the extra ones will make unexpected Xmas gifts for some others!

Here are a couple of pics:

Tips:

• Baste, baste, baste! Every chance you have, baste, especially if you have multiple layers of a fluffy material such as fleece. In my case, for example, the perimeter of the finished foot has three layers of fleece, one layer of outer fabric, one layer of sole material and one layer of “grippy dots” material. Basting the four sole layers together (“grippy dots” material, sole material, two fleece layers) and the upper’s two layers (outer fabric and fleece lining) makde things much easier to deal with when attaching the upper to the sole.

• Sizing appears to be accurate, but in my case, since I used fleece for lining, which is a bit bulky, the sizing ends up a little smaller than indicated. Size L turns out to be more like size 8 women (about size 6 men) than size 10-11! You may want to make adjustments for that.

We skipped the usual turkey and went with semi-boneless Cornish hens and semi-boneless quails. The quails were already deboned; I deboned the hens myself. I brined them for eight hours in a brine of:

• 4 qt water
• 1/2 C salt
• 2 C sugar
• 2 Tsps + 2 tsps green peppercorn
• 4 tsps juniper berries
• 8 sprigs dried rosemary
• 10 sprigs fresh thyme

I rinsed them, patted them dry, and kept them on a wire rack (over a roasting tray to catch drips) in the fridge for two days. I roasted them brushed with melted butter. I stuffed the hens and quails with store-bought stuffing: cornbread, apple, dried cranberries, and cornbread, walnuts, jalapeno. (We test drove the stuffing the week before and liked them a lot, so we went with them, saving quite a bit of work). I used Oxo’s “Chef’s Digital Leave-In Thermometer”, programmed to roast until the breast temperature reaches 165°F (USDA recommended temperature).

The other dishes were: Sicilian-style green beans with garlic, anchovies and lemon slices; mashed sweet potato and butternut squash; home-made macaroni and cheese; “chicken rice” (rice cooked in chicken broth with a pinch of salt); corn with onions and scallions; and home-made cranberry sauce.

My wife made desserts: blueberry coffee cake, pumpkin cheesecake, and sugar-free apple pie (we had a couple of guests who are diabetic).

More pics here.

This past Sunday was “National Plug-In Day”, which celebrates the effort to wean ourselves from oil as a source of energy, specifically in transportation and specifically by the adoption of plug-in vehicles. A plug-in vehicle runs solely, or in some cases like the GM Volt, primarily, on electricity. I regard their usage as equivalent in spirit and in practice to that of my cell phone: I plug it in, I use it, I plug it in some more.

My acquisition of a Nissan LEAF hinges on two main factors: independence from oil, and reducing impact on the environment.

As a citizen, I feel that the U.S.’s dependence on oil, a significance portion of which comes from countries with regimes hostile to us, poses a bigger threat to our security and our economic well-being. Consuming less oil can only lead to good things for the U.S.

Environment-wise, while it’s debatable whether plug-in vehicles are environmentally cleaner than their hybrid counterparts, it’s incontrovertible that plug-in vehicles are leagues cleaner than internal combustion engined (ICE) vehicles.

OK, enough of the boring soap box-y stuff. Here are some pics of our National Plug-In Day gathering in my home town, Austin, TX, all y’all.

One of my “go to” multi-meal dishes that I cook on weekends for dinners during the coming week is Fine Cooking’s “Arroz Con Pollo”. I mostly follow that recipe, with variations in the protein I use (chicken, sausages, etc.), addition of home-roasted bell peppers (charred under the broiler & peeled), and addition of olives.

An email from patternreview.com has an ad for this extremely clever gizmo: a magnetic seam allowance guide that sticks to the side of your scissors’ blade. You can adjust its width guide depending on the required seam allowance. So clever!

What’s for dinner:

Linguini e tonno (OK, so the “tonno” was StarKist!)

While boiling linguini, sweat chopped red onion.
Add capers & chopped garlic and brown.
Add julienned sundried tomatoes and tuna.
Deglaze with white wine and reduce.
Add red pepper flakes.
Using a pasta fork, fish linguini out of pot (boiled for 2 minutes less than called for) and add to tuna mixture.
Garnish with chopped scallions.

Salad: cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onions, Thai basil, white vinegar vinaigrette.

My Singer Fashion Mate Model 248 weighs 30 lbs. [Insert Tim Allen grunt here.]

My local meetup.com group, “sewingwithstyle”, recently had a meet-up on working with fluid/sheer fabrics.

Here is the information from my research as well as from the meet-up:

Cutting
There are several methods to stabilize sheer/fluid fabrics. Each is suitable for different requirements.

• For fabrics that are washable, a good method is to saturate the fabric with a solution of 1 part laundry starch to three parts water then hanging the fabric to dry.
  Prior to wetting the fabric, pull a couple of threads from one raw edge to establish the true square grain; pin and match this end to ensure the fabric’s squareness.
  (Do this before wetting it; it is much more difficult to line up layers of wet fabric.)
  When hanging the fabric to dry, make sure to keep the square end evenly matched.
  I fold the length of fabric in half and dry it on a hanger, spreading a towel on the floor to catch the dripping starch.
  When the fabric is dry, probably overnight, it will have quite a bit more body and more stability.
  Another alternative is Sulky Solvy, a water soluble stabilizer.
  And a really cheap alternative worth trying is a solution of corn starch in warm water; you will need to experiment with proportions of each. I’d be interested in hearing about your results.

• For fabrics that cannot be washed in water, I tried Sulky’s “Totally stable” iron-on tear-away stabilizer. This stabilizer is about the weight of light fusibles. Apply it to fabric as you would a fusible.
  Again, pull a thread from a raw edge to determine squareness, pin the fabric to the stabilizer, then apply heat.
  The stabilizer seems just a little too heavy to sew through, but I imagine it’s doable.
  You can simply peel the stabilizer off of the fabric when ready; it leaves no residue.
  And, the great part about this stabilizer is that it’s reuseable! You can “fuse” it to fabric multiple times. Of course, once you have cut out a garment with it, you will no longer one whole rectangular piece so you will need to do some “patching” for subsequent uses. Use scraps of the stabilizer as pieces of “tape” to patch bigger pieces together.

• Finally, for fabrics that cannot be washed or that cannot take a lot of heat, or are too light and gauzy, sandwich fabric between two layers of tissue paper ¹.

Sewing

• Use “microtex/sharp needles” which has thin shaft and sharp point. For instance, Schmetz Microtex/Sharp Needles. The thin shaft and sharp point these needles are more fragile and need to be replaced more often. They are good for high thread count fabrics such as silks and microfibers.

• Use fine sewing machine needles for silk: size 60/8 or 65/9.

  American sizing	8	9	10	11	12	14	16	18	19
  European sizing	60	65	70	75	80	90	100	110	120

• Information on needle types:
  • http://www.sewing.org/files/guidelines/22_115_sewing_machine_needle_charts.pdf

  • http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3752/sewing-machine-needles-an-overview
• Use needle point types H-M, H, or HJ.

• Information on needle sizes:
  • http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3751/machine-needle-know-how

  • http://sewing.about.com/od/sewingmachineindex/ig/Sewing-Machine-Needles/Needle-Sizes.%2d-94.htm

  • http://www.thesewingplace.com/schmetz-microtexsharp-needles-p-3898.html?osCsid=m4ido4oes1ojogquim8fan1e93
• Selection of needle: use 60, 65, or 70 needles ¹.

• Thread: with 70 needles, use regular polyester thread; with 60 or 65 needles, use embroidery thread, which is finer.
  Use polyester thread, which stretches slightly (cotton thread does not) ¹.

• Use fine pins or silk pins. I use Clover’s “patchwork pins” which are very fine: 0.016″ (0.4mm) diameter, 1.4″ (36mm) long.
  By comparison, Dritz #21 pins are 0.027″ diameter. Dritz #44 pins are .035″ diameter, which is about twice as thick!

• craftstylish.com has a page with lots of tips on working with silk, as does denverfabrics.com.

Construction

• Interface with silk organza ¹.

• Use a “baby seam”. This page has a very good tutorial on sewing a baby seam. This page has a couple of pics of baby seams in black chiffon: pic 1, pic 2.
  The same “baby seam” technique can be used in a “baby hem”:
  • Stich 3/8″ from edge, fold on stitching line & press

  • Stitch again about 1/16″ from fold, trim raw edge as close to second stitching line as possible, removing about 1/4″.

  • Fold on second stitching line and press.

  • Stitch again 1/16″ from folded edge.
• The Threads April/May 2003 issue has a seam technique for sheer fabrics in an article by Kenneth D. King.
  • Overlap pieces (right side to wrong side) and stitch together.

  • Fold one seam allowance over on the stitching line and stitch 1/16″ from it through all layers.

  • Fold the other seam allowance over (in opposite direction) on stitching line and stitch 1/16″ from it through all layers.

  • Zig zag a satin stitch over the stitching lines, covering them.

  • Trim off both seam allowances close to stitching line; trim thread whiskers with an electric razor.

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  youtube video, “Mastering Silk with Sandra Betzina”: Helpful Hints for Sewing With Silk

Have you ever wondered what the heck is “omakase” and “kaiseki” and how they differ? Me neither but now I know!

We had dinner at Uchiko for my birthday. There’s no other place I’d rather go for a special occasion. Executive Chef Paul Qui and Chef/Owner Tyson Cole made it a memorable culinary event for us.

We started with some of the specials on the menu that night:

Kusshi Oysters With Fish Sauce Sorbet, a touch of sweetness really highlighted the oysters’ cool brininess. I thought there was sugar cane juice in there, but Paul said it’s sugar. I wonder if sugar cane juice, maybe reduced some, would work even better. Thinly sliced cilantro stems was an inspired addition.

Sunchoke Dashi, rich velvety creamy “dashi” with shaved spring vegetables (carrot, zucchini, and watermelon), arugula, noble sherry, uni bottarga:

Seared white fish, with cherry tomatoes, crisp shallot chips, in fish sauce with Thai chili, in a classic Vietnamese style:

Smoked scallops, olive oil, radish, cherry tomatoes, potato chips, fish sauce, Thai chili. Smoked scalloped is a good deal firmer than fresh scallop. I loved the texture, the smokiness. The tang of the radish, the fish sauce and the Thai chili completed the masterpiece:

Wagyu Rib-eye Carpaccio: smoked wagyu rib-eye steak, truffle oil, fried brussel sprout leaves, micro shiso, with a “fritter” that has a molten quail egg yolk in the middle. This picture does not do the dish justice:

While waiting for the next course, our sushi chef, Angela Majko, plied us with our usual “regular favorite”: boquerones zushi.

Somewhere along the way, T. ordered one of Uchiko’s popular cocktails, the “Larkin”, named after one of Tyson’s daughters. It’s sparkling wine with a sprig of grilled thyme and cured lemon. What an amazing combination! The woodsy grilled thyme was lovely in concert with the lemon.

Then Paul brought some battered fried frog legs, on a bed of lemongrass and torn peppermints, seasoned with fish sauce. Frog legs, before:

Frog legs, after :

Tyson came by with his “special” for me: saba (mackerel) zushi topped with uni, vinegared shallots, and jalapeno. Saba and uni is a new combination for me, and is yet another example of the creativity that’s running amok at Tyson’s restaurants! I would have never thought in a thousand years of pairing saba with uni. The combination is amazing! The uni’s creamy sweetness plays well with the saba’s firm texture and strong flavor.

Tyson said he “challenged” Paul to do for us a version of adobo, a Filipino pork dish. While waiting for that, T. couldn’t help herself and ordered a boquerones sashimi from Angela. T. saw Angela prepared one of those earlier and thought it looked great. (Oh, I should mention that we sat at the bar, as we always do.)

Paul’s “adobo” was our last savory dish, and I must admit, I’m not a fan! I suppose even Mozart must have flubbed a note now and then! Roasted peppers and fried Swiss chard accompanied the rich fatty pork belly. I think a stronger sour note in the sauce would probably mesh better with the rich fatty pork and the roasted peppers.

Our dessert had to be quick ’cause we were pushing our time to leave to go see Cirque Du Soleil’s Dralion at 19:30. But even so, the small, “impromptu” dessert of corn sorbet topped with uni powder was kickin’:

And, we did not leave empty-handed: pastry chef Philip Speer, whose daily dessert we have never failed to sample each visit, sent us on our way with fresh baked cookies: dried cranberries, with strong hints of orange:

I finished the exhaust manifold for our new GE Profile cooktop <Tim Allen noises/>:

Our current cooktop is twenty years old. Only two of its four coils work. We replaced it with a G.E. Profile.

I looked up its dimensions on-line beforehand. The top, being a 30″ cooktop, presents no problem. I was a bit concerned about more…

I wasn’t planning on doing anything much special for Valentine’s Day, sweets-wise, but then while catching up on my Fine Cooking emails, I stumbled on this super-quick chocolate mousse recipe, made from scratch with real chocolate. The video of Heston Blumenthal illustrating the technique…

Quick Chocolate Mousse

Our Valentine’s Day flowers this year consist of one stem of lilies, two roses, one bunch of carnations, two stems of Bells of Ireland, and one bunch of some fluffy green “filler” whose name I can’t remember. Total cost was US$14.50.

I made chocolate-covered dried apricots and chocolate-covered dried strawberries. (Fresh strawberries are lackluster this time of year, plus I prefer the extra sweetness of the dried version.) I used El Rey Gran Saman bittersweet (70%) chocolate, melted and tempered. I used to use Scharffen Berger exclusively, but then I discovered that El Rey which I like a lot, at half the price!

The arrangement...

I came across this blog post on storing and keeping track of sewing machine needles. It prompts me to also share my method: I pin used needles to a piece of paper and note the size/type of the needle (“universal 80/12″, (“ball point 70/10″, etc.), the date I first used the needle, and what I used it for. Sometimes I also note the needle’s brand (“Schmetz”, “Singer”, etc.). As I re-use a needle for more projects, …

Sewing machine needles storage

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Press cloths pick up sticky residue from fusible interfacing. Always having the same side of a press cloth towards the interfacing ensures that your iron’s sole plate won’t pick up any of that gunk. I sew the word “UP” into my press cloths to mark the top side. “UP” is only two-letter long whereas “TOP” requires 50% more exertion! I suppose I could have used a meaningless (but functional) “G”.

File this under “Who knew?!” My friend Amy recently posted pics of messenger bags that she made for her daughter. The bags look really great! Here is a pic:

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