C. sapidus

Hmm, you notice the smaller skillet without the potholder thingie? That's because potholder thingies on small skillets catch fire (or at least smolder in a threatening manner) when used on a gas stove. Bring back asbestos potholders?

I’m not very good at describing flavors, but galangal seems to have more of a woody or muddy flavor compared with the clean, sharp flavor of ginger. If you find frozen galangal, thaw it and use it like fresh galangal. I have heard that dried galangal loses a lot of flavor. You can mail order fresh galangal from Temple of Thai (click) in New York. Until I found a local source, I frequently substituted ginger for galangal in Thai curries. The taste is different, but the end result can still be very good. YMMV, especially if galangal is dominant flavor in the dish.

Mmm, that looks delicious, Shaya. Did you use a particular recipe? ETA: better to reply on the Thai cooking at home thread. My bad.

Rachel - I cannot take credit for the skillets. The small one was a present from my MIL, and came with several decades of seasoning. The other, a recent addition, was seasoned by the good folks at Lodge. Why thank you - you are too kind. Ah Leung's mapo tofu is definitely on my to-do list, and please thank Carol for her questions and excellent suggestions for future stir-fries. Definitely - but probably after a few days of spaghetti with pre-formed meatballs and jarred sauce (one of the boys favorite dinners, by the way).

I wish to thank everyone for their kind comments, thoughtful questions, and for making this a very enjoyable week. I would be gravely remiss if I did not thank my family for their support. The boys were very tolerant about this rather odd endeavor. Particular thanks and appreciation to Mrs. Crab. She had lots of great ideas, took many of the pictures, and bore without complaint extra shopping, clean-up, and parenting duties while I resized pictures and tapped away at the keyboard. Thanks a bunch, hon! Thank you for sharing this week with our family, and visiting Frederick . . . . . . where there are angels in the architecture . . . . . . and the sun sets over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Goodbye! Edited to add the pictures that I meant to add in the first place.

nice way to end the blog. i have a bottle of elk run ice wine downstairs that a friend gave me several years ago that i've never opened. i should get to that one of these days... edited to say thanks for doing this! good fun. ← Thank you - everyone helped make it quite enjoyable.

Thank you!

The boys eat in the school cafeteria, and they seem to like the cafeteria food (I did too, at their age). I have not heard them complain about not having enough time, but they usually wolf down their food pretty quickly. Younger son goes through lunch money twice as fast as older son – we still haven’t figured that out. Mrs. Crab and da boyz have been very, very good sports. Edited to elaborate.

Thank you, Pam. WW has had some influence - we use a lot less coconut milk than before, for example. For the most part, we are still making the same food. Mrs. C fills up on veggies (which typically have zero points) and adjusts portion sizes on the points-rich dishes.

Oh, I hope so! Um, I was just following the recipe. Is it unusual to "blanch" the tofu? Using both sounds like a great idea - I'll try that next time. You are quite welcome!

Thank you very much, alana. I'll have lots of ideas for the next mapo dofu session.

Thank you, Kay. I have heard of the Carriage Inn, but never had the pleasure of a visit. Yes, the shopping options have greatly improved in the past few years. We will see about the wall to wall houses. When my parents moved to Silver Spring in the late 1950s, it was considered "out in the country." My father told me that Piney Branch Road, now a major thoroughfare, was still a dirt road.

Awesome! Do tell how you like the chicken. Who knew cucumbers would be the star of the blog.

Yes, a very nice person kindly sent that to me. I thought you might notice the chilies. Thanks, Susan. We would not change many things about the kitchen, although we have been very unhappy with the Whirlpool dishwasher - two service calls in the first year, and it does a lousy job of getting dishes clean. We were very happy with our last Whirlpool, so maybe we just got a lemon. I once read that if you get 80% of what you wanted after a kitchen renovation, you did a pretty good job. It is a Black & Decker with one long slot. We are happy with it, but we don't use a toaster that much. This was the first time we had it out in several months.

Thank you very much!

Dejah: We found the knife block at Artisan Central (link). Mrs. C uses Weight Watchers online. Many dishes already have WW points assigned (the database did not have ginkgo nuts, but it did have dried tofu). Once you have entered an ingredient or a meal, you can pull up that information for future entries. Mrs. C does not get too hung up on exact details – for example, candlenuts are related to macadamia nuts, so she entered the data from macadamias when I used candlenuts in the sambal udang. If in doubt, she overestimates the points. We adopted our boys from Russia. Elder son was from eastern Russia, hence his Asian features. He thinks of himself as Asian, Russian, and American. No other Asian heritage in the family - I just love the food.

We ate dinner with friends at Tajitu, a fairly new Ethiopian restaurant downtown Frederick. I used to make regular forays to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in DC for outstanding Ethiopian food. Meskerem and Red Sea were my favorites back in the day. Street scene outside Tajitu (photo taken earlier): The building formerly housed the Snow White Grill, which operated from 1938 until around 2003 (picture also taken earlier). Dinner starts with hot steamy towels, brought by our charming server. She remembered our last visit, probably a year ago, because our boys devoured so many sambusas. The boys made short work of the sambusas again. The food is served on injera and shared among the diners. Picking up the food with injera. The happy crew (wearing a white shirt was obviously a mistake on my part): The aftermath. Mrs. C assigned 10 WW points for the meal. She was 2 points over for the day - not bad, all things considered. Edited to add WW points.

Wow, thanks for all the kind comments and excellent questions. Let me tell about our afternoon and evening, and then I’ll answer questions and close things up. This afternoon, we drove north of Frederick to fruit and orchard country, passing horse pastures on the way: We had amazing apples and blueberries from Pryor’s Orchard last summer . . . But they are closed for the year. We took some pictures anyway . . . . . . of the blueberry patch . . . . . . and one of the orchards: Next, we drove east of town to wine country. Although we did not have steamed crabs this blog, I took pictures at two of our favorite crab joints. Avalon: Most crab joints cook crabs in a separate building out back: Apparently, the building that houses Avalon started out as Mount Pleasant Public School No. 3 more than a century ago: The former school, now serving delicious crabs. Liberty Road Seafood also has very good crabs: Hmm, I might need a new avatar Elk Run Vineyards (click) was our destination, but several other vineyards are located nearby. They have several vineyards: Oak barrels outside: Elk Run sells Maryland cheeses in the tasting room. Mrs. Crab examining the wares. We brought home an ice wine and a port. The proprietor, I think (jeez, I am such a lousy reporter)

For lunch, I tried mapo dofu for the first time. This dish always reminds me of Rachel’s comment: I started with Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe in Land of Plenty, but had to substitute for some ingredients (yes, that is chorizo again). Cut up tofu and place in hot water: Line up ingredients next to the wok: Heat oil to smoking and fry the meat: Add chile bean paste, stir-fry briefly, and then add soy bean paste (substitute for fermented black beans) and roasted chile powder (substitute for Sichuan chile powder). Add chicken stock and tofu, simmer for a bit: Add Chinese leeks, stir to combine, and simmer until the leeks are cooked: Done! This had a ton of flavor - I liked it a lot, and so did Mrs. Crab. She doesn't care for the texture of soft tofu, so we used firm tofu. I’ll definitely try this again with the proper ingredients. Chinese food experts - any suggestions for doing better next time? We are off to an Ethiopian restaurant tonight. When I return, I will share some pictures from this afternoon's travels. See you this evening! Edited to add: as several of you noticed, I forgot to sprinkle ground roasted Sichuan peppercorn on the mapo tofu before serving. D'OH! I sprinkled some on leftovers the following morning - a definite improvement, adding another dimension of flavor.

This is what the kitchen looked like before the renovation: Late breakfast: buttered whole-wheat English muffin and a blood orange.

A few other kitchen odds and ends: An incredibly useful pull-out drawer sits to the right of the rangetop. The top drawers house kitchen and grilling implements . . . . . . and the pull-out drawer below holds oils and Asian sauces. Glass-fronted cabinets to the right of the rangetop. We made stair-step shelves to hold spice jars, and the baskets in the upper shelves hold dried chilies and bulk spices. Mostly Asian sauce bottles on the middle shelves. Farther right above the prep sink, the upper cabinet holds more bulk spices, Asian ingredients, and miscellaneous stuff. The drying rack also serves a cookbook holder. To the left of the cooktop, cabinets hold measuring cups, salt, cornstarch, etc. We keep plastic containers and the stock pot above the microwave. The glass-fronted cabinets in the dining room hold cookbooks and stemware. As the cookbook collection grows, some of the stemware will need to be relocated. We have some art glass in a slot below the cookbooks. Eventually, Mrs. Crab will make stained glass pieces to fill this spot. I just kinda like this picture – this is “my” prep area.

We have three compost bins. With several mature trees, we could use more bins, but for now we toss the extra leaves in the woods. Any compostable vegetable matter, egg shells, coffee filters, etc. winds up here: We had a compost bin at the old house. To hide it from the neighbors, I planted a small garden with a Darwin’s Enigma rose, Fru Dagmar Hastrup rugosa rose, Ville de Lyon clematis, May Night salvia, and Japanese anemones. The clematis loved the nutrient-rich runoff from the compost bin, growing madly and flowering profusely all summer. Eventually, we will dig out some vegetable gardens and use the compost there. For now, we compost the lazy way – dump everything in and let the microorganisms break it down in good time. Edited: I forgot about Fru Dagmar - one of my favorite roses.

After renovating the kitchen, we have been slowly upgrading some of our kitchen gear. Pots and pans: We have an old set of disk-bottom Revereware pots. They did the job for 20 years, but the new stove’s burners are wider than the disk bottoms. This causes a burned ring around the bottom of the skillet and smaller saucepans. To remedy this problem, we bought the 1.4-quart (7-inch) “Try Me” copper sauciere from Falk Culinaire (1.4-liters, 18 centimeters for metric folks). We love this pot. It heats evenly enough to melt chocolate without a double boiler, caramelizes sugar smoothly, responds rapidly to changes in heat, reduces sauces quickly, and cleans up easily. We were so happy with this pot that we ordered two more Falk copper saucieres through eBay – one 4.6 quarts (11 inches) and the other 3.1 quarts (9.5 inches). We cook most meals in the wok or the large copper sauciere, and the extra pots are essential when we entertain. We bought two more pots during a post-holiday sales at a nearby at outlet mall. The first, a 12-inch pre-seasoned cast iron skillet, will be used for pan-frying and searing. The second, a 12-inch Calphalon Commercial non-stick saute pan, will replace a similar non-stick pan that is no longer non-stick. Mrs. Crab prefers non-stick cookware, and I use the non-stick occasionally for pan-frying delicate fish. We have a few more pots and pans on our wish list. Our beloved wok has a dangerously loose handle, so it needs to be repaired or replaced before I anoint myself with smoking oil. We could use a couple of small, straight-gauge aluminum saucepans. We store the most-used pots in a drawer under the rangetop. It’s a pretty tight squeeze, but very convenient. The lower drawer below the rangetop holds most of our other pots and pans.

Kitchen knives: A while ago I bought an Edge-Pro and sharpened our 20-year old Chicago Cutlery set. Two conclusions: 1) a sharp knife is a wonderful thing; 2) soft steel doesn’t stay sharp very long. After considerable research, I purchased three Japanese knives as an experiment: Hattori HD-8 gyuto (240 mm/9.4 inch). I love this knife. It is light, cuts cleanly, stays sharp, and has a nicely-rounded handle. I use it mostly for chopping veggies, which is probably 80% of my knife work. It also slices meat very nicely, but I prefer to avoid cross-contamination between meat and veggies. Ittosai Kotetsu GY-180 gyuto (180 mm/7.1 inch). This is Mrs. C’s main knife, and she loves it. Occasionally I use it to slice meat if she isn’t cooking or prepping. The steel is incredibly hard – 63 to 64 Rockwell units. I haven’t tried sharpening it yet. Tojiro DP F-803 honesuki (150 mm/5.9 inch). This is a chicken boning knife (insert chicken boning joke here ). We usually cook with chicken thighs, bone-in or boneless depending on the intended purpose and what is on sale. Deboning chicken thighs is time-consuming, especially on a weeknight, but this knife does a nice job. The blade is flat on one side, making it easy to cut along the bone. Tojiro knives provide incredible value, so they are an excellent way to find out if you like Japanese knives. Odd fact: I ordered knives from Korin and Japanese Chef’s Knife around the same time. Japanese Chef’s Knife delivered faster and charged less for shipping, even though Korin is only a four-hour drive from here. Confounding. Knife block: I love this – it was the only one that I found with several wide slots for gyutos/chef’s knives and cleavers. Most-used knives: heavy cleaver; 240 mm gyuto; 180 mm gyuto; slicer; honesuki; paring knife. To completely replace the old knife set, I would like to get a sujihiki for slicing meat and a small utility knife or two (petty, in Japanese knife lingo). I would also like to try a thin-bladed Chinese cleaver. I hear that Chan Chi Kee cleavers are a remarkable value, and I like the idea of a wide blade to use as a scooper.

Mmmm, I have to say that your pictures are the BEST in food porn! If I could crawl through my computer and have some of that fried rice for breakfast, I would in a minute. What a nice thing to say! Good luck with the fried rice - HSSS is one of our favorite cookbooks.