I vant some blood.

If you are easily grossed out or haven't eaten lunch you may want to skip this next post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The other day Eddie Lin of one of my favorite food blogs Deep End Dining posted a blog about different blood related foods he tried for us. One of his pictures sparked a memory with me.

Pork Red Cake. Happy Garden. San Gabriel, Ca

Blood is a popular item in cuisine from around the world. Brits have blood pudding. The French and German's have blood sausage. But its Asian countries (China, Vietnam, and Thailand that I know of) who have taken the cake (pun intended) when it comes to eating blood. When I lived in Thailand some of my favorite lunch dishes from the street stalls included nice big chunks of blood cake a.k.a the pork red cake as its listed above. If you look at the picture the brown tofu-ish item is what I'm talking about. There were many a noodle soup bowls consumed with those luscious cubes of blood.

Another favorite noodle soup dish was beef noodle soup with fresh blood squirted into it. When the blood hit the hot broth it curdled and added a wonderful indescribable taste to the broth. Mmmm... memories... makes my mouth water just thinking about it. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to try this delicious treat, blood cakes are savory with a hint of sweetness. The texture is something between gelatin and tofu. It is commonly found in different types of soups, similar to the one pictured above. Oh and btw, those white things floating around in the picture. Those are intestines. Pig intestines, I believe. A favorite "variety meat" of mine.

Ok I think I need to go find dinner. I'm really starting to salivate as I write this. Alas, no blood or guts for me tonight. It's not an easy item to find in Iowa.
Sigh. I need to move to LA.

Happy Halloween! Muahahaha! ;) 

On Top of Spaghetti

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.

The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze.

Some people crave chicken soup when they are sick. I craved meatballs. Namely spaghetti and meatballs. Being a wannabe foodie I couldn't just go pick up a bag of frozen meatballs, I had to make them myself. So today my sick, sniffling, coughing, and aching body got up and made some meatballs. However, since I'm still a wannabe foodie I cheated and used Paul Newman's Fra Diavolo spaghetti sauce.

You know what? I'm no longer sniffling or coughing. There must be something to this after all huh?

Lyrics courtesty: http://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/ontopofspaghetti.html

I finally did it!

No, not that! I finally got myself a digital camera. (Yeah, that's what you were thinking I'm sure.) After I decided to blog I started looking for a digital camera. Well I finally found one I liked and that fit my criterias; basically fit in my purse, took good pictures for posting on this blog, and not too pricey.Today I walked into my local photo store, plunked down my little plastic card, and this is what they gave me in return. I liked it.


 

I guess I don't have a good excuse to not post pictures anymore. Somehow, I don't think your saddened by this fact. Jeez, what I do for you people. (j/k)

I've read a lot some of these.

I used to think I was well read until I found this list at Knit Tidbits. Sad, sad, sad. I guess I've got some reading to do huh? Now where did I put that library card?

List Of 100 Books You Should Read Before You Die

Bold if you've read it.
Italicize if you've read part of it.
Put ** if you want to read it.
Add a book, if you like


#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman **
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli **
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo **
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin **
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck **
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon **
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce **
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio **
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell **
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell **
#29 Candide by Voltaire **
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee **
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Kapital by Karl Marx#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey **
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller **
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh T.S. Eliot.
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov **
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut **
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess **
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
#111 The Odyssey by Homer
#112 Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
#113 The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
#114 Sphere by Michael Crichton
#115 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
#116 Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn
#117 The Bacchae by Eurpides **
#118 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
#119 Starseeker by Tim Bowler
#120 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
#121 Sabriel by Garth Nix
#122 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
#123 The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger **
#124 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
#125 Macbeth by William Shakespeare
#126 Othello by William Shakespeare
#127 Why I Am Not a Christian : And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell
#128 The Metamorphoses of Ovid **
#129 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
#130 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy **
#131 A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
#132 Empire Falls by Richard Russo
#133 Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka **
#134 The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
#135 Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
#136 Emma by Jane Austen
#137 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
#138 Guns, Germs, & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Tapas at Mosaix

Growing up Thai I've always eaten food that have complex tastes. Every Thai meal should be compiled of dishes that maybe sweet, salty, spicy, sour, and/or bitter. Most meals will consist of at least 3-4 dishes with dishes that strive for layers of different flavors all melding into something wonderful. Generally, dinners in my family would consist of a curry, a stir-fry or two, a fried dish, and a salad. These were served with corresponding dips and condiments to flavor our rice with. We would all sit down to dinner with a large plate of rice, take bite sized portions from the main platters of food, mix this bite with some rice, eat, and then chose a spoonful from a different dish. If you watch most Asian families when the dine in Asian restaurants you will see them sharing food this way. This way everyone gets a bit of this and a bit of that. I still have a hard time going to Chinese restaurants with most of my American friends as they usually order their dish and they don’t share :-( Or at least not as much as I’d like them to.

So where is this all going? Well I’m hoping by explaining how why I’ve always wanted to try tapas. [Click here for a definition of tapas] I just love the idea of sharing multiple little plates of highly flavored tidbits while drinking good wine. Combine this with a nice atmosphere, a great friend, and wonderful conversation and you have one of my favorite ways to spend an evening.

Yesterday for my birthday Emi took me to a fancy pantsy restaurant in town called Mosaix. I’ve always wanted to go there because I had read they had tapas. Mosaix is one of the higher end restaurant in towns and this might seem like a antithesis of the tapas that are found in Spain (generally bar food), but since the owners also own JT’s Wine and Spirits at least your guaranteed a great wine to go along with your tapas.

I found this was definitely the case when we started our dinner with a glass of wine each. Emi had a love reisling and I had a wonderful pinot noir from Australia. Bad food blogger that I am I didn’t manage to get pictures or the correct names for most of the dishes. I really need to work on that huh? But at least I can give you enough descriptions of the dish that you be able to order them if you choose to.

For our tapas we started with grapes rolled in blue cheese and crushed pistachios. Emi and I are big fans of blue cheese and we both were very interesting in trying this dish. Six of these tasty tidbits arrive on a platter of arugula with slices strawberries in what was probably my favorite presentation of the night. I loved biting into these as the combination of sweet grapes and tangy blue cheese went well together. The texture of the pistachios added a nice crunch to the dish.

Our second dish was grilled oysters with a dark sauce. I don’t quite remember what was in the dish but do know that one of the key compositions of the sauce was a soy sauce or worcester sauce. This was probably my least favorite and I thought the cooked oysters tasted gritty. The sauce had a good flavor though.

Our third dish was Gambas al Ajillo, a well-known tapas dish. I believe this is the spanish version of shrimp scampi. This was my favorite dish of the night and the one I wanted to try the most. Mosaix version had wonderfully large shrimp bathed in lovely garlic butter. I loved the simplicity of this dish. The shrimp was sweet and very succulent. This would have been even better if they had served some nice crusty bread to dip in the remaining butter.

Our fourth dish was Patatas Brava which I believe is another quintessential tapas dish like the Gambas as Ajillo. After the prior dishes it seemed a bit bland but as I cleansed my palate with another glass of pinot noir it became more flavorful. I liked the flavor of the potatoes with the sauce.

Next came blanched white asparagus with a aioli sauce and baked brie with onions and apples in phyllo dough. Out of all our dishes these two I think I could have done without. The asparagus was something I could do at home and I really didn’t care for the sauce. It was similar to what was served with the patatas brava but didn’t add enough flavor to the bland vegetable. The brie was lost amidst the overpowering onion flavor and the doughy tasty of the pyllo. I certainly noticed the apples in the dish but I really couldn’t taste them.

All in all, I had a great time but I think that was more because the lovely company, the good wine, and great conversations as opposed to just a fabulous meal. It has given me great ideas for what to serve at a wine party.

Cryptonomicon

Awhile back I mentioned that I would be writing reviews of the books I read. Well I finished Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon a couple of weeks ago and never managed to get around to blogging about it.

So with no further ado...

Cryptonomicon is a story set during WWII and present day following the lives of Lawrence Waterhouse and his grandson Randy Waterhouse. Lawrence Waterhouse isn't good at much except music and numbers. He ends up in the Navy and after the Attack of Pearl Harbor goes on to become a high-level cyrptoanalyst for the US government. Intertwined with Lawrence's story is the story of his grandson Randy who is a computer programmer. The plot twist and turns through WWII battle scenes, high level mathematics, history, treasure hunts, and even romance.

I liked the book. It was, however, quite pedantic. If you like a story to go from point A to point B with no stops in between this is not your book. But, if you don't mind a story that gets lost, stops and has a picnic, and then takes the scenic route this is a book for you. Are you aware that there is a correct way to eat Captain Crunch? According to one of the protagonist, Randy, there is. All in all, this book is a full of geekish masturbatory material. Though, the non geek may appreciate it also you might find it a bit annoying.