[Your First Cookbook]

My grandma gave me her old Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child) when I was in university about the same time my mom gave me New Chinese Cooking School (Kenneth Lo). I was lucky to start out with two comprehensive books -- I still refer to the Chinese one a lot and the French one occasionally.

[Japanese foods--nimono]

Buri teriyaki.

Pork kakuni (yum).

[unagi]

Ah, I should clarify -- I didn't have to kill it, the fishmonger took care of that for me. I just skinned, cleaned & filleted it. I looked at it as part of a larger cooking project I have: every week, buy an ingredient I've never worked with before, and make it tasty. A challenge every week!

[Dinner! 2003]

I'm on a definite Thai kick this week. Had simple green curry with pork & little Thai eggplants, plus larb with lots of lettuce & fresh mint/cilantro. Went freestyle on the curry (no recipe), but used the new good fish sauce (Golden Boy brand) for the first time, Thai sweet basil & fresh kaffir lime leaves found in Chinatown -- very nice.

[unagi]

Actually, once I tried to make kabayaki on my own with humorous results. I was visiting Japan a couple of years ago after having moved back to San Francisco, and picked up a great cookbook called Washoku no Kihon Gijutsu with all kinds of illustrations of how to prepare seafood. I flipped through and was inspired by the unagi section -- could I make fresh kabayaki in SF, and abandon the cryopacked frozen stuff? A quick trip to Kappabashi made me the proud owner of a meuchi (metal stake for basically nailing the eel to your cutting board) and long metal kushi rods for grilling.

Back in SF, I got my hands on a fresh eel from Chinatown and set about skinning and filleting it (stubborn to skin, not bad cleaning/filleting). Made the sauce for it, and then discovered the reason that most people don't make kabayaki at home: THE SMOKE! As I should have realized, unagi is a really oily fish (okay, eel), and grilling it in the kitchen resulted in smoke filling the entire house and setting off *all* of my smoke alarms. After pausing cooking to deactivate all of the alarms and calm my alarmed Japanese cat, I finished cooking the kabayaki and tried it -- really, not bad! But I'll never do it inside again!

I checked out The Barbeque Bible, and it suggests wrapping two bricks in foil and placing them on an outside charcoal grill -- thus imitating the yaki-dai that suspend the skewers over the coals without letting the food touch any grates. Maybe it's time to try that out!

[Japanese "street foods"]

Hot takoyaki just off the grill plate, with mayonnaise and toothpicks for two!

[unagi]

I've had good luck heating up pre-cooked kabayaki by putting the whole thing (either thawed or frozen -- right out of the freezer) on a foil-covered baking sheet and putting it under the broiler until the top gets slightly crispy-looking. I've tried putting it in a 350 deg. oven the same way, but prefer the broiler method (much better texture).

[Japanese foods--Agemono]

Lotus root tempura -- mmm.

Quail egg kushikatsu.

[Cookbooks – How Many Do You Own? (Part 1)]

90 from me (including Thai Food on its way!)