crouching tyler

You could see what the folks at Eat Local have to say - they might be able to come up with something that combines the possibilities of a gift basket and home cooking ? http://www.eatlocalonline.com/ Another choice is Pasta & Co: http://www.pastaco.com/ Neither of these are gift basket companies, but both have good food, that I would be happy to receive as a gift in those circumstances... I don't think either has a delivery service, but maybe you could work something out?

Honestly, I would probably give them one more chance, if I was feeling charitable, and steering well clear of anything that required toasting. And that one more chance would be because it is small town, and it is nice to patronize local business. I know some people like their toast dark, but I don't know anyone who likes a burnt croissant. Gorgeous kitchen, by the way. Could you demonstrate exactly what this Miele Coffee Center does? Or is it just the area where you perform coffee related functions ? EDIT to say - Oh nevermind, I see you did that back on page 1. Carry on.

Oh, I had been wondering if you were ever going to show off that new kitchen of yours (I've been following along on your blog). That pup looks like a Winston to me, by the way.

Stickman Coffee is open in Fremont. It is sort of in the alley, just east of Deluxe Junk and the Lenin Statute.It is the old downstairs of the Fremont City Peoples' shop for all you old-timers. 3516 Fremont Place N (between 35th St & 36th St) Dismas is the guy behind the gleaming machine and his americanos make me very very happy.

I, too, am sorry to see them go. They fit a particular niche for me, and now I'll have to find another place to fill it. Drat.

Penang Style Stir-Fried Kuey Teow Noodles - Char Kuey Teow Stir-Fried Asian Greens with Garlic & Chiles - Tumis Sayur This is the first CoF recipe I've made that involved the dreaded shrimp. I dread shrimp (or shrimps as I always called them as a child). I will eat them as an ingredient, but if you put a shrimp cocktail in front of me, you are going to watch me sneer at it. My parents used to have cocktails parties when I was a child, and guess who got to peel, clean and devein pound after pound of shrimp ? Yes, twas me and now you know why I don't like the shrimp. However, turns out shrimp get good while prepared in Char Kuey Teow. Go figure. Smoky, spicy and sweet - the dish is a total weeknight winner. I might like it better with chicken, or tofu, but I would make it again with the shrimp. Is it crazy that I think Char Kuey Teow tastes quite a bit like Pad See Euw (or however one might spell that)? Char Kuey Teow: CKT (oh, good abbreviation) with Stir-Fried Greens (CoF suggests CKT should be eaten on its own, but I still had a pound or two of what I think is Baby Baby Bok Choy ? Or does it get a name of its own at this size?)

Christmas Dinner at our house this year was straight out of Cradle of Flavor: Beef Rendang - Rendang Daging Sapi Celebration Rice - Nasi Kuning Stir-Fried Asian Greens - Tumis Sayur Javenese Carrot & Cucumber Pickle - Acar Timun For desert, the DH made Cardamom Ice Cream, which while not a CoF recipe, was a great complement. I also made the Nutmeg Tea Cookies, which didn't really work out for me, but as I believe I have mentioned, baking is not my strong point. The DH also took quite a few good photos. All the photos of ingredients and preparation are mine, but all the shots of the cooked ( I won't go so far as to say "plated") food are by the DH. So, the pictoral evidence follows, with a few explanatory captions. I won't go into detail as these dishes are already well documented on this thread. I will say, that the Beef Rendang did take longer than I expected, but I expected that. And that the plate full of food was fantastic as a meal. I think it is obvious here that the credit should go to Mr. Oseland and all the people with whom he learned about cooking in this region. I am not downplaying my significant cooking efforts, but I feel like I mostly deserve credit for (1) choosing a good cookbook, (2) shopping well, (3) selecting good recipes from said cookbook, and (4) diligently following instructions. That is why when I say the food was fantastic, I don't feel like I am bragging, but instead praising my sources. Nutmeg and Cloves in the Mini-Food Processor: The next batch of ingredients in the seasoning paste (shallots, garlic, ginger, tumeric, galangal, Fresno chiles, candlenuts): Seasoning Paste: The beginning of beef rendang, in the dutch oven: A few hours later, in the skillet: A few hours after that, in the same skillet: Beef Rendang, on the table: Rendang, with friendly Celebration Rice: Javanese Pickle: Stir-Fried Greens with Chile & Garlic: Dinner: We didn't take a photo of the Cardamom Ice Cream, but I have to tell you it was a perfect match - sweet but not too sweet, and just enough cardamom so that it is really right in the middle of subtlely and strongly flavored.

Absolutely gorgeous.

The Pacific NW Magazine (the sunday magazine in the Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer has a story on sambal today, including a recipe (Dec. 9, 2007)... Link. I wonder if Indonesian cooking is going to be the next craze... Will sambal replace salsa as the most-sold condiment ?

I think is true in many many situations. I can think of so many things that would be improved by a half a can of coconut milk.... -Robin

I saw something in the paper (Seattle Times, probably) saying Caffe Minnie's got shut down due to unpaid taxes.

We spent the weekend in Walla Walla, hoping around the wineries, having dinner at Whitehouse-Crawford and experiencing some seriously divine pastries at Colville St. Patissierie. The dh, after finishing his share of the kouign aman, said that it was quite possibly the best pastry he had ever had. He has not read this thread, and had never had a kouign aman before. He also said he really hadn't ever understoood why I liked pastries so much before our two visits to Colville St. Patisserie. We also had an almond croissant, a quick bread, a cinnamon roll, a peanut butter cookie, and a goat cheese and herb croissant ( these were all shared between two people, over the course of two days). The wineries were fascinating, dinner at Whitehouse Crawford was really fun, but it is the pastries that will lead me back to Walla Walla.Thanks for the tip, Ling.

First off, please excuse the photographs - the food tastes so much better than it looks here. I am hoping to get a mini-tripod soon, so there may be an improvement in my food photography in the near future. If anyone is planning on undertaking many of these recipes, and they have not yet acquired a small food processor, let me give you a bit of advice: Wait no longer! I made two seasoning pastes and a sambal today, so I used that magical little machine three times (3!)! Yes, my biceps would be in better shape had I used a mortar and pestle, but dinner would have been at 9:30 instead of 7:30 and I probably would have skipped seasoning paste #2, and thus the water spinach would have molded in the vegetable drawer. Stir Fried Water Spinach, Nyonya Style - Kangkung Belacan And I am so glad I made the water spinach, since that gave me a chance to use the Sweet Soybean Paste - which I spent a fair amount of time looking for today. When there is an entire aisle (or two or three) of glass jars full of condiments, finding the one bottle of sweet soybean paste can take a while - particularly when you can't always read the writing on the label, you and the grocer speak different languages, and you don't actually know whether the stuff in question will hang out with the other soy bean products, or the condiments, or the other sweetened bean products, or the sauces.... You get my drift. A minor victory, assuredly, but a victory nonetheless. And to top it off, the water spinach rocked! I can't get mine to look appetizing (there is something about getting the stems swirled the same direction, I think) but it tasted great. Two of my dinner guests said it brought up fond memories of eating morning glory while they were living in Vietnam. I'll take that as a compliment. Nyonya Sambal - Sambal Belacan Speaking of sambal, the Nyonya Sambal had some seeeerious power. I used about a half of teaspoon with my dinner, and that was more than enough. Obviously, the relative heat will vary tremendously depending on your chiles, but I stayed at the small end of the chile range (quantity wise) and my sambal was definitely not wimpy. Malaccan Beef and Vegetable Stew - Semur Daging Lembu The stew, as dyee100 mentioned, is a bit fussy, but I did like that vegetables didn't get soggy. My beef was tender, though not meltingly so. I am not sure whether it would have become more tender with further cooking or not. And for the record, I fried the potatoes with absolutely no fear at all - just a healthy does of caution and respect for the hot oil. Progress is being made here. We also had some Steamed Rice, but I neglected to capture the stunning presentation (2 quart pot with some white rice still in it). I should mention that our dinner guests brought Mango Sorbet (could eat this stuff every day) and a new flavor of ice cream - Pomegranate with Chocolate Chips. Oddly, the Pomegranate Ice Cream comes in a metal tin which makes it very hard to handle - but it was worth every frozen fingertip. It had better be I guess, since marketing people made sure to indicate on the label that the ice cream was "Ultra Super Premium,".

Dianabanana - I found it! Pictures below for reference purposes. It is one of the brands Mr. Oseland recommends (Kwong Hung Seng Sauce), and I found it at Viet Wah, in the 2nd to last aisle (the one that if you look down the aisle, you see Meat in Neon on the wall). It (and another brand of sweet soybean paste) were on the left side of the aisle (if you are facing the meat sign) and in the first half of the aisle. Viet Wah is on Jackson, on the north side of the street, a few blocks east of I-5 in the ID (Seattle). With an apple, to demonstrate the size of the bottle: Close-up of the label: By the way, I spent a good 20 minutes examining the wealth of options at the HT Oakwood Market, none of which seemed quite right. So, don't look there for the sweet soybean paste. They had ground soybean paste, salted soybeans, and something called sweet soybean paste that was very dark brown ( ala molasses) but did not resemble the substance described in Cradle of Flavor. Got to run - I am making the Malacca Beef Stew tonight and am significantly behind schedule.

Thanks, djyee100, for the updated list. We are really working our way through this cookbook. We still have lots of work to do on the seafood components of the book, though.

If I had some sweet soybean paste, I would happily tell you all about it, but as of yet, I don't have any. I know it is on my first shopping list, but I evidently didn't buy any (I can't find any in my kitchen at the moment) - and I don't think I've made anything yet that called for it (correct me, if I am wrong about this). I am going grocery shopping tomorrow, so I will keep my eyes peeled and tell you if I discover anything.

I know I keep saying this, but I really dig the brightness (both in terms of flavor and color) of this food. That plate of food is practically sunny. Now that the Thanksgiving food has been made and jammed into our small refrigerator, I am all fired up to make something with some serious flavor - Rendang, here I come.

I am heading over to Walla Walla the first weekend in December and have drawn up a nice little list of places to try based on the recommendations here. And the knowledge of a great pastry shop is crucial!

The original India Bistro isn't my favorite indian Food, but it is my favorite indian food in Ballard. I've only been there a few times, so I can't comment more than that. The India Bistro in Ballard feels more bistro than Indian in atmosphere, but I don't know if that will transfer to the new location. I've never been for lunch, by the way. Looking forward to hearing your report.

I wonder if the policy has anything to do with not wanting to deal with the consequences of someone (waiter, bartender, customer) spilling The Last Word all over a customer's laptop? I can see the merit in discouraging laptop use in bars, but I think I would agree that letting it slide once, while informing the customer of the policy, and having a nice chat as to the rationale (over a friendly drink) might have been a better path to follow.

Whitman College?

Does anyone know if this is related to the India Bistro in Ballard on Market? I hope it is. ← I answered my own question - Yes. It is a second location for them - see website.

Does anyone know if this is related to the India Bistro in Ballard on Market? I hope it is.

hey robin! glad you and tempeh are finally getting to know each other.... about tempeh keeping? i don't know, because we always buy it in these 350 gram blocks that are pretty much a two person serving. so, no leftovers, ever. the other thing about tempeh that i'm reminded about every time i cook it: it's really really important to brown it to within an inch of its life. undercooked tempeh tastes pretty nasty. did you eat the tempeh with the eggplant stew, or with the dipping sauce, or by itself? i really think that this tempeh needs some kind of dipping sauce or lubrication to make it appealing to tempeh newbies. and: your eggplant looks amazing! mark ← My tempeh was consumed with the eggplant curry sauce and the soy sauce, chile, lime dipping sauce. I can see how serving it with a side of ketchup might help with tempeh introductions.

Just an update: my father-in-law has been back to Barrio twice more. Each time another of his sons came into Phoenix to lend a hand, he would find an excuse to take them to Barrio for dinner. Guacamole prepared table-side was ordered each time. That is three trips to Barrio, in as many weeks, for my father-in-law. Good stuff.