second weekend in February

Remember last weekend?  Maestro on Friday night,

Amara on Saturday morning? 

Same thing this weekend.  But we were at the condo last night, not Van's.  I made us dinner again, though:  lamb chops with an eggplant and pea curry and saffron rice. 

And then today, Sunday, it's more cooking, with a vegetarian lasagna in the oven for me and Van tomorrow.

In short, a regular weekend.

Conrad is off to Japan tomorrow, Van and I will enjoy each other's company through Saturday, and next weekend is a long weekend.  Let's see what the middle of February brings.

curry for dinner (plus a sunrise)

I turned to a recipe yesterday that I hadn't made in a while.  In truth, I don't even remember where I have the recipe written down.  At this point, I'm just going off recollections of things and winging it when I make the dish.  It's a long time favourite of mine, though:  eggplant and green pea curry. 

Tasty stuff.  A mound of rice, a dollop of yogurt, and it's a satisfying vegetarian dinner.  Take away the yogurt, and Bob's your uncle:  vegan!  Happy to have returned to this one again and make it for Van.

In other news (and thanks to Van for the photo), I am gay as a French horn and a real ham at times.

It's Friday, and Conrad comes home tonight.  Alas, we'll be down in Santa Monica for dinner and a concert (and I hope to blog those) and unable to pick him up.  It will be good to have him home, though.  It's an easy Friday so far, working away on program review today, a nice walk under my belt shortly after sunrise this morning.  And oh, a pretty sunrise through the oaks trees!

Happy weekend!

making the most of an unwelcome adventure

I'm in the lounge at SFO as I write this, heading home with Conrad from Boise.  We'll be back at the condo early this afternoon.  A short trip to Idaho done, and one we wish hadn't had to happen this way.

I met Gina I don't know how many years ago thanks to our work in our association.  In 2014, she and I were elected to the executive board, and that bonded us.  Three years of working together, sitting next to each other in meetings and passing notes.  The accidental coordination of our outfits when we were installed on the board. 

The getting to know her wife Kathy, them getting to know Conrad.  Gina's career took her out of libraries after our experience on the board, but we have remained friends.  Conrad and I attended Gina and Kathy's wedding,

the two of them came to California for a Disneyland weekend with us.

About a month ago, Gina let me know that Kathy had been having some health problems, and at last they had been diagnosed.  As late stage pancreatic cancer.  There wasn't hope for a cure, just some relief.  And even that hope was evanescent.  Kathy died on Easter.  I cried at the news and since then.  Just so unfair.  I usually keep these blog posts happy and light.  I won't post much about experiences I hate, and I usually try to find good things to say.  So forgive the profanity:  fuck cancer.

Gina sent out word of when the memorial service would take place, and Conrad said to me, we have to go.  Yes, we did.  We absolutely did.

No, no photos from the memorial, though it was lovely.  Kathy was devoutly Catholic, and this reflected in the service and also in what seemed to be many people from her congregation in attendance.  Truly, it was a large number celebrating her life, at least 200.  Gina was able to speak to us all, and she told us some loving things, some funny things.  At the reception that followed, we got to talk with Gina a couple of times and give her our love, but we also got to hear a little more from others there about Kathy, which was so delightful.  But no, no photos from the memorial.

Conrad and I made the most of our time in Boise, all things considered, and Boise made the most of things as well.  It's spring there - trees in bloom,

young leaves painting the branches that fresh green.  Mild, even warm weather.  We arrived in time for a nice steak dinner at The BrickYard,

plus some oysters

and a bottle of an Idaho red wine,

on Wednesday.  On Thursday, we went to Modern Bar and Restaurant and had excellent cocktails (the Celery and Smoke was mine, and it was so good),

plus more oysters,

bread service,

duck curry for me,

halibut for Conrad,

and a warm chocolate cake for dessert. 

And then we packed up and got ourselves to bed for an early departure.

Boise is a handsome city

in a state that has cruel and awful politics.  I hope we'll go back to see Gina.  She's absolutely welcome to come see us as well.  We won't get to see Kathy again, but as we did multiple times the past few days, we can raise a glass to her memory and be glad we called her a friend.

Sunday dinner with Erik

It feels as though I've been dining out a lot lately, what with travel here and there (and more to come this week) and the like.  It was good, then, to spend my Sunday in the kitchen.  Not toiling away, sweating and swearing, but moving through the planning and preparation of a dinner at a nice pace.

Conrad and I had invited our next door neighbour, Erik, over.  It had been some weeks since we'd caught up with him, and we thought it would be nice to hear how his summer was going.  He shower up at 6:30 with a gift of Norwegian gin in hand, we poured him a cocktail, and from there dinner played out.

Up first:  burrata served with tomato and nectarine slices, some fresh basil, and a light sherry vinegar and garlic dressing.  Sweet and tangy and creamy and herbacious.  I thought it was a nice start.

The main course:  rack of lamb that I served as double chops to each of us atop some eggplant and green pea curry (needed more salt and cayenne) along with some rice and an apple and golden raisin chutney.  It was fine, not quite reaching what I was going for.  But fine enough.

Dessert:  olive oil cake with roasted strawberry and nectarine sherbet, nectarine macerated with mint, and a piece of almond praline.  The cake was a little dry, alas, but otherwise, it was all good.

Final grade?  A solid B, maybe a B+.  I'm hard on myself, I know, but I have made this food better.  Nonetheless, we had a nice evening with Erik, enjoying some good wines and the dinner.

cleanse, day 30

Thirty days. Thirty days without consciously consuming caffeine, red meat or poultry, sugar (or honey or agave or maple syrup or the like), refined flour, dairy, or alcohol.

A few days in and I thought to myself how very daunting it would be. A week or more in, and I was expressing dismay with the beaniness of it all. At every meal shared with friends, I apologized profusely for being such a nuisance, such a bore. Still, I stuck with it. And now, tomorrow morning after I do my gym and swim, I will be free to ease back into a less-restricted diet. Frankly, I have reservations about how much I want to reintroduce. And given that Conrad is out of town for work, I may just stick close to the cleanse diet a day or two more.

You know, I've cooked many things, many meals in my life. I have never, so far as my sieve-y memory can recall, cooked tofu. Heck, I generally avoided eating it until Medgar offered me crispy fried squares of it when we lived in Montreal. I rather like it now, though as with many things, it also depends. Tonight? I liked it.

I started out by sauteing sliced onion and shallot with chopped garlic and ginger in a bit of vegetable oil. Along with the vegetables I cooked some green curry paste to remove the rawness. After the vegetables had softened, I added a can of light coconut milk, then let that simmer to develop the flavour. I can think of other things I would have added if I had them on hand, but some salt was all the seasoning I gave it.

I had pressed the tofu for about an hour to remove excess moisture, then I cut it into rectangular pieces, frying each a bit to lend some colour and bit of a crust to each piece. I added these to the green curry, then added in asparagus I'd cut up. Plump pieces - it's the season (though I'm not as mad for asparagus as I have been in past years). When the asparagus was just tender, I added a chopped tomato, stirred it to heat the tomato, then served it around a mound of basmati rice.



This, happily, was an occasion when my dinner pleased me, the harsh critic of my own cooking.

Also happily: leftovers!

A month of interesting dining and cooking ends, but the habits won't, not entirely. And by gosh, I think I may cook with tofu once again some day.

cleanse, day 2

Dinner number two on the cleanse, and I learned afterward from MG that I should have gone with brown basmati instead of white. Ah well, no sense making a fuss over things. In principle, it was a meal to meet the intention of the cleanse.

I learned this recipe at the restaurant years back from Megan. It actually makes a lovely side dish for lamb, I find, and perhaps for some chicken or fish preparations. On its own, it fills a roti quite nicely, or sits with rice well, too.

The curry starts with sesame seeds, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. These are sauteed in oil until the mustard seeds just start to pop. At this point I added turmeric, salt, and cayenne and sauteed the spices a little more. Next came chopped onion, and once that had softened a bit I added cubes of eggplant. Not too large, mind you. The eggplant gets sauteed with the mix to coat it well and begin cooking, and then water is added. In fact, I added water a few times so that it was never too soupy but always had a nice nit of liquid for braising the eggplant to tenderness. Near the end of that process I added the frozen peas and let them cook to tenderness. Yes, frozen - it's April, for goodness' sake!

As for the rice, little adornment - I added some green cardamom pods when I cooked it for a bit of scent, but that's it.



In other times, I might have used some yogurt with this as a garnish, and perhaps a homemade chutney. Not last night. Still, it made for a satisfying dinner, and one that gives me some leftovers for a couple of days ahead.

cook one day, dine the next

It's tough to have friends over for dinner on a weeknight, even if it is casual. Tougher still is doing so on a Monday. I coach on Monday nights, so that eats up an hour and a half or so out of the dinner hour. Advance preparation is clearly in order.

Sunday was ideal for that. I rubbed a few lamb shanks with oil, cumin, salt, pepper, and cinnamon, then browned them in a pan. They then went into a big roasting pan while I sauteed some spices (peppercorns, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and bit of coriander, a few bay leaves) with some sliced onion and celery. Some chicken broth went into the pan, then when it was hot, poured with the rest of the mixture over the lamb. I popped on the cover and put it in a slow oven for a good couple of hours or more.

Up next: eggplant and green pea curry. I learned this recipe years ago at the restaurant. Saute some whole mustard seeds, sesame seeds, and cumin seeds. Add some turmeric, cayenne, and salt plus chopped onions. Cook for a bit to remove the rawness from the spices, then add chopped eggplant. Let that soften some, then mix in frozen (yes!) green peas and bit of water. Let this come to a nice stewiness until the eggplant is soft.

Note: I closed off all the doors in the house and opened a window to get some of the fragrance out.

While the curry was cooking, I sliced some red onion and tossed it into a small saucepan with sliced dried apricot, candy ginger nibs, sherry vinegar, and brown sugar. This I cooked into a chutney of sorts.

I let the items cool when done, then refrigerated them.

Flash forward one day, and post-practice, Brian came over to chat about Vancouver and gossip about our swim team mates. I was gently reheating the lamb during swimming, plating it a little while after he got there. Conrad and Brian helped themselves to the chutney and a very simple green salad while I dished up the lamb atop the curry and drizzled it with a seasoned mixture of yogurt and coconut milk.



Nice little dinner, in fact. Cheese, grapes, and chocolate for dessert. The cook one day, dine the next strategy paid off in a relaxed time enjoying Brian's company.

And even as I type, I have pork in the oven for after swimming tonight!

ViJ's Rangoli

We usually try to make it to ViJ's at least once on each Vancouver visit. Far and away our favourite restaurant in the city, we both will tell you. My sister loves it, too - happy for us if ever we want to dine with her. It's like Vancouver's version of Frontera Grill, but with Indian food. Search the blog and you'll find a fraction of the number of times we've enjoyed his food.

We didn't make it to ViJ's this time, alas, but we did enjoy his food twice. Smart man - you can buy his food in boil-in-the-bag pouches. We had a lovely last night with Marie enjoying some of that for dinner, plus our last bottle of Joie Noble Blend. And where did we buy the food? It's available in some stores (including Edible BC, a place we love), but Conrad and I picked it up at ViJ's Rangoli the same place we'd enjoyed lunch a few days earlier.

Rangoli is spare, casual, full of young hipsters (but never mind - they have to eat somewhere, after all), and serving good food. Dine, and then pick up something to keep in the freezer for later in the week. Yum!

Conrad had the pulled pork. Funnily enough, the waitress got to the table and was setting down a plate for Conrad, announcing what it was, and even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew it wasn't right. It went back immediately, and Conrad was treated to some flat bread and chutney. He managed just fine, and no hard feelings. The pulled pork was delicious - I kind of wish I'd ordered it, but he expressed interest in it first.

As for me, I had the goat and jackfruit. I promise, it, too, was delicious. Utterly. The side of cabbage slaw was tinged with coconut but not really sweet. I was very happy with it, and because Conrad was driving us around, I got to indulge in a glass of Monster Riesling.

ViJ's is always worth the sometimes very lengthy wait, but I would not decline a meal at its sister restaurant next door. Another place to add to the Vancouver list...