Peter Green

It's such a shame to be limited to three........ There's also fresh fingerling potatoes from the market, boiled skin-on, and served with a melted camembert and just dipped in.......

When we were in university we'd do this, but we'd use everclear rather than vodka. This did have the desired effect, but I can't say the flavour did a lot for me. Paul Pairet did something of this sort at Jade on 36 in Shanghai when we were there a few weeks back. But rather than vodka, he'd infused the watermelon with a sweeter liqueur (can't remember which just now), and then froze it on a stick, harkening back to the old summer days. That did work very well.

It worked! It worked! Okay, it was nothing like what I'd planned, but it worked! It was supposed to be a gin martini sorbet, based upon a snippet I'd found posted by Jamie Boudreau who was the mixer at Lumiere's tasting bar in Vancouver. It looked wonderful, a soft texture (perhaps more of a sherbert than a sorbet?) and had little caviars of olive to authenticate the martini experience. Easy, I figured. I'd phone up my friends in Kits and they could mosey on over and chat him up for the recipe. Wrong! He's moved to south of the border to Seattle, to Vessel. I was destitute. But, at the last minute, as I was enjoying a gin and tonic while getting the stocks ready for dinner (okay, my definition of last minute may not be everyone's) I thought, "frozen G&T"? I have an ice cream maker, or rather the pot of one. The paddle and crank never made it to my kitchen. I tossed in 8 shots (one per guest), finely grated lime zest, the juice from the lime, a quarter cup of sugar syrup, and half a can of tonic water. Then it was just a matter of coming back every half hour and working it around a bit. (I forgot to shoot the individual glass with a twist of lime on the side.....we were kinda far gone at this point) This was a great way to wake up the taste buds for dessert. And it would work well on a hot Bangkok evening, come to think of it..........

1) Belgian frites - as noted above, anywere in Belgium and they'll be good. (McD's was right up there before they dropped the beef fat out of the equation). 2) Roasted potatoes British school style - lots of pig fat in the equation, crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. 3) Pesto mash, with lots of cream to smooth out the finish.

I did a camel shoulder awhile ago, and it worked out well. I salt domed the whole thing. The meat was tender, juicy, and the marrow was jelly...just as I wanted it.

My grandmother used to do something that sounds quite similar: she called it 'instant kimchi' ← Yoonhi agrees. She took one look and said "instant kim chi". Most of the fixings for kim chi, but with lettuce swapped in, and served up cheerful and light. Chrysanthemum leaves work really well with ssam. toss a leaf in with the lettuce wrap for a pleasing aroma. So, Sheena, are we going to have a travelogue next month?

I've had fantasies about buying the Ovaltine Cafe in Vancouver, down on the other side of Main on Hastings. Big walk-in fridge. All those chrome fixings on wooden doors. The butter patties with "butter" imprinted on them in case you got confused..... I'd love to take that place over. Pipe Tom Waits through the overhead, and cater to the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. crowd. Hire a couple of Beloruss heavies to watch over the cars out front...... And provide the sort of food that you're craving for after a hard night on the town, when you're shakin' in your boots and you need some fried kidneys to settle you down...... And then my wife slaps me upside the head and I give up on it. But I love that neon sign.

Tofu. Check. Definitely need to do something on that. Another idea I had overnight: desserts. ← I can think of several desserts... Shaved ice: Malaysian and Taiwanese (Chendol for Malaysian and Tapioca Pearl for Taiwanese) Red bean (azuki bean) pancake: Shanghaiese (Joe Shanghai) Azuki bean/Green Tea/Ginger ice-cream: Japanese or fake Japanese joint runs by Non-Japanese Caramelized sweet potato/apple: Korean-Chinese (Sam Won Gak) Kamquat (extincted)/Fortune Cookie/Almond Cookie - Chinese or "Polynesian. Lassi/Kufti and other sweets soaked in rose water - Indian Vietnamese Coffee/flan/jackfruit or othr fruits over ice. Red bean soup - Cantonese Mango with coconut flavor sticky rice - Thai Mango or Ube Ice Cream/Halo-Halo - Filipino And of course almond tofu! ← And the Khmer thingy where they have the congealed coconut thingy inside the banana leaves.....I've really got to look up that stuff. And the sweet Indian carrot dessert. I'm getting hungry again..... but how many of these can we find in America?

Know your tools........... At first I was about to go on about the importance of using the right implement at the right time. But, as our original topic was on dining in Asian restaurants in America, how vital is this? Good chopstick skills are generally essential (even if just to avoid hitting people at neighboring tables with your food), but should we be carrying table etiquette beyond that point? Should we avoid putting our forks in our mouths in Thai restaurants? Should we take our khao niao with our hand in an Essan restaurant in Alabama? What happens when these restaurants are actually staffed with Chinese mainlanders who have no idea about the niceties are of Indochine dining? Still, there's nothing wrong with knowing the rules. (On a side note, I've got to try out this idea posted in the thread of Kentucky fried phat Thai....this could be the next big thing after deep fried pizza)

More topics for comparison....... Pickles (which would include kim chi, of course) Drinking culture, and the foods that go with it Tea (and its culture)

The upshot on that it is..... Don't wear something that will offend someone....unless you intend to offend them. But, there, I'm back to the fighting arts, again.

My feeling is......treat it as the traditional karate belt. It starts off white It goes to brown It finally stains black And then you just toss it and start off white again.

I'd use it sparingly, as a highlight. Mick Edwards, from the London Nobu, did a neat soup. He shrouded the soup in a rice paper wrap, then dusted that, and dropped another shroud and steamed it to get a drum tight fit. You cut throught that tarp, and then you hit the aromatics. I've tried this as a take on mole, as a soup, and it works wonders on the nose.

Oh, the trippa! That and the pictures you've posted of hams has me crying.

First, thanks one and all. Please, keep them coming. I have a few days to experiment. The Campari (of which I have access ) is a fun option, and I may go in that direction. To provide more detail, I'm going to wash out my guest's palates from an odd conjunction. We'll go from a Thai hor mok - a seafood mousse heavy on coconut cream, kaffir lime, and chilis - to pan roasted foie gras, pesto mash, and grilled tenderloin steaks finished in the foie fat in the pan. So, basically, I want to slap them so silly with the sorbet that they can take the next course. thanks! Peter

Ah, to take arms against the forces of "correctness" and "authenticity". I've had several "lively" arguements with people about the use of tomatoes in Thai cuisine. They fight and argue, and rail against how it doesn't belong in the cuisine. But when it comes down to it, many of my Thai friends are going to have to have their bottles of ketsup pried out of their cold, dead fingers. People eat what they like. Thai food evolved from contact with the West, China, and the Subcontinent. They found what they liked, and used it. You can wander about and see the different levels of penetration. Cambodia, despite its coast, was cut off from the Euros, and so is weaker on chilis (which is kinda nice, as the herbs come out). The Lao are more prestine in some ways, not using as much coconut milk in their curries (a Sri Lankan thing), but you'll find all sorts of French influences in Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Countering this, there've been a very good set of articles in the Bangkok Post over the last couple of years detailing how the demand for "fast foods" has led to the cutting of corners on some dishes. It is now very, very hard to find a good mee krob, as the particular lime used in finishing the dish just isn't worth the bother of many of the vendors. Do the majority of the office workers care? probably not. They've got an hour (or three...this is Thailand) to do lunch. Okay, I have to go to the kitchen now. But I feel better for that rant. Fight the good fight, Steven.

I've been bored these last couple of weeks. And when that happens, I start planning dinners. I'm set for this, but I've my heart set on doing a gin sorbet as a palate cleanser between the seafood and meat (it'll disguise my horrible cooking). I remember reading once about how to get the impact of a martini into a sorbet delivery. Not a gin flavoured sorbet, but effectively a martini. I just can't find the recipe now. Can someone help? I need to do this in four days, and knowing me, I'll need practice.

We use lemon grass stalks to skewer prawns all the time. It adds a nice background to steaming in particular (and it keeps the prawns straight. But, my current favourite is stuffed lemon grass. Make up a mince of whatever takes your fancy (chicken, beef, pork, etc...) Slit the central section of the stalk 6 times and flex to create a cage that you can accordion. Put the stuffing into the middle of the "cage". And then either roll the whole thing in egg and flour and deep fry, or else wrap in banana leaf and grill. I'm having fun with this, as you can really play around with the stuffing. But stick with things that'll carry the lemon grass and not overpower it.

What's in a name?

This looks like fun! I'm waiting for what happens when you get to the pasteurization stage later on. Yoonhi remembers her family making their own soy sauce when they first emigrated, and the smell from the process would reach four blocks around. And beware, it's short step from this to wanting to make your own fish sauce! Cheers, Peter

This is great! Now I'm torn. On the one hand I want to rush off to Italy. But on the other I want to rush off to my kitchen. There are some great ideas here (as well as some drool-worthy photos). Thanks! Peter

Ask her about the future of high-end Chinese cuisine in North America. ← As an interesting twist, could you take her from that question, to how she compares this with the future of high-end Chinese cuisine in China? Cheers, Peter

I've seen the specialty restaurants have a hard time of it. You really need a lot of people who know your product in order to support a particular niche (like the beef blood soup place up on Kingsway in Vancouver......I wonder if they survived?). Is the problem that we, after several generations of dining, are now too comfortable with Asian food as we've been taught to enjoy it? Breaking the old dining-out prejudice of "This is my plate! Mine! Don't come near it!" and having moved to the family style approach to a meal, where a wide variety of dishes are on offer to all. We've apostized, we've embraced this new sensibility, and we've made it part of our culture. Now it just seems....well....sinful not to have a lot of different plates of stuff out there on the table, a panoply of flavours to snipe from. Luckily, I can work with sin.

Thank you Peter!!! (and everyone else too!) So the garlic in this dipping sauce is finely crushed and raw? Also, what type of vinegar is recommended or most often used? Rice-wine vinegar I am assuming? Thanks again! :-) ← Yoonhi'd use fine miced garlic in this, and rice vinegar would be the standard. Have fun!

Yoonhi says she usually does half-half. It depends on your taste. Find the right consistency for yourself. I asked her about what else to add, and she immediately said "garlic" followed by "and the usual stuff". Again, find the taste you like.