Norm Matthews

I went to an Asian grocery today so we had Korean food: Beef bulgogi, two kinds of kim chi and rice. We also had some kim bob but we ate that while I was cooking the bulgogi.

I asked Charlie what he wanted for Easter. I gave him a choice of ham, lamb, turkey, roast beef or Cornish hens. He chose Cornish hens. While I was at the store, I also picked up a small lamb roast which I braised with wine and rosemary. I liked the hens better. We also had deviled eggs, rice, creamed corn and strawberries with whipped cream and angel food cake.

I used to live by the largest lake in Kansas and they would (maybe still do) have a fishing contest once a year with money awarded to anyone who caught and turned in alive various crappie who had been tagged. The biggest money award fish was caught by someone who didn't know there was a prize and filleted the fish. I made Mongolian Beef for dinner. Charlie said it was good.

Dinner plans for yesterday were delayed so the marinade for the pork chops and the brine for the apricots and radishes were on overnight instead of a couple hours. I think they turned out better that way.

Koreans like the combos in the videos. I was suggesting stuff you might like to substitute. A video that followed used leaf lettuce and grated carrots. My son is Korean. He has no problem with Spam. He just used some in kim chi stew. His grandmother put cold hot dogs in kim bob.

How about ham and gruyere?

We had our Rueben sandwiches today.

True, corned beef isn't Irish. Green beer isn't Irish. St. Patrick wasn't Irish and he didn't introduce Christianity to Ireland nor did he banish all the snakes. St. Patricks Day in Ireland is a religious holiday. In the United States it's based in part on what Irish immigrants ate in America because they were too poor to afford much of anything else. And they didn't save it for once a year. Our St. Patricks day is an Irish/ American concept embellished and enlarged upon by some people who would have trouble finding Ireland on a map. It's a fun holiday for anyone who wants to eat and drink too much and pretend they are a little bit Irish, if only for a day.

It was just the two of us for dinner tonight. March 17th dinner is always a given. Homemade corn beef and all the usual stuff. We had Irish scones instead of soda bread, and I made accordion cut potatoes, baked with butter, parm cheese and other seasoning instead of boiled.

Spam was ubiquitous where I grew up. I guess you are always accepting of something that was always there. It was good fried crispy in a sandwich for a quick meal or snack. I still like it but not as much. I get some once or twice a year. Charlie recently made some Korean/Hawaiian Kimchi stew with Spam.

The first thing I was told by the maker was to fire up the smoker a couple of times while it was empty to get the smoker tempered with a coating from the fire. It is supposed it be "smoked" inside. I clean the racks every time I use them with SOS in the sink. I usually clean the convection plate by scraping it with a putty knife maybe three times a year and scrape the excess out of the bottom once a year. I never gave a thought about the smoke build up inside. The metal is a quarter inch thick and not supposed to ever burn or rust through, at least not for at least several decades.

Charlies cat is 21 years old and that is one of his medicines. I probably should have moved it but it has sat there long enough to have become almost invisible to me.

Charlie asked if we could ask his cousins family over for dinner tonight when I told him I was going to smoke a pork shoulder. The pork was about 5 lbs. and took 10 hours. I made some corn relish from Stevensons Apple Farm Restaurant cookbook that closed 15 years ago but once was a great place to eat. I made a salad that the lady who gave it to me about 20 years ago said "even men love this salad" and she was right mostly. I also made baked or roasted potatoes that are waffle cut and seasoned with butter, herbs and parm. cheese.

I was preparing some sides for dinner for tomorrow so Charlie went and picked up some Korean food from a restaurant he said was well known for fired chicken and a had just opened one here in Overland Park. He got some wings that he said were fried then grilled. They were spicy-sweet. A little sweet a LOT spicy. I needed to eat some ice cream after. He also got a dish with vegetables, fish cake and rice cake and some white radish kimchi. We already had the rest.

When I was 9 or 10 and we were visiting my aunt and uncle in West Plains, Mo, my uncle saw me spread my toast with butter then some jam. He commented disapprovingly, I think it was something about excess. Even now, I always remembered that, but it never stopped me from doing it.

Charlie suggested hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. We ate outside. I tried a new brand of hot dogs: Wimmer's Las Vegas Brand made in Illinois. They were really fat and kind of long. They tasted like i remember hot dogs tasting when I was young. Charlie like them too.

It was warm enough to grill outside today so I got a couple of thick ribeye steaks and some corn on the cob. I had mine with a salad and a small baked potato. Charlie had Mac & cheese with his.

We had crispy pork chops. They got a little too crispy around the edges. There was a sauce and pickled radishes and apricots included in the recipe.

Charlie made dinner tonight. I told him I was going to the Korean grocery because we needed rice and fresh kimchi. He told me not to throw out the old kimchi because he wanted to make stew with it. His best friend from high school had made some when he visited last and gave him the recipe. He gave me a shopping list that included Dasida ( seasoning blend) tofu and lite Spam. It was very spicy. I also picked up some frozen, ready to cook spicy pork bulgogi.

Our dinner was beef sirloin in an oyster sauce based marinade. It was good but I don't think I'll make it again.

Yes it is a cherry preserve. There was a story in the KC Star about how the owners of Bonne Maman helped Jews during WWII.

I picked out three chicken wing recipes that I thought looked good. Charlie narrowed it down to two. We had one about a week ago. It was a Korean style. Today it was one with a cherry glaze. We had mac and cheese with it

Valentines...valentines. That seems to ring a bell. I'll have to look it up if I can't recall what it is pretty soon. We had galbi for dinner. I double checked the sugar cannister to make sure it wasn't filled with salt this time.

Today is the second day in a row that I made these. We couldn't eat them yesterday because somehow I filled the sugar canister with salt. Charlie ordered sushi for delivery. Fortunately I had an extra package of chicken wings to properly make this Korean style chicken wings.

They were good and they just needed thawing with the steam in the pot. I will wait until they are on sale because they are expensive. During Christmas through New Years and a little beyond, they were $10/lb. Now they are nearly twice that.