"Thier Back!"

Tara and I went to dinner at a new place for us, Taylor's Chowder House, near Thunderbird and 35th Ave. We got there and were looking at the specials on a dry erase board. After a few minutes, Tara had a disgusted look in her face and told me to read the bottom of it. I did and saw the problem.

Tara is somewhat of a stickler for spelling and grammar. The bottom line proclaimed "Thier Back!" I forgot exactly WHAT was back, but the fact that they used the wrong "their/there/they're" option AND spelled it incorrectly, was really bothering her. It was all she could do not to grab the dry erase marker off the hostesss stand and correct it.

She thought I'd be bothered too, but I just found it really amusing that they got it about as incorrect as possible. Choosing the wrong word, OK. It happens to the best of us. But selecting the wrong word and also misspelling it? I found that just too comical.

Eventually she mellowed and saw the overall humor of the situation and her mood improved immensely. The fact that the food was pretty darn tasty didn't hurt either. :)

Seriously

How cute is this kid? At this point, Tara's greatest ambition is life is just to squeeze Jacob's cheeks. My sister is lucky we live so far away.

Yes, Tara IS alive

I've had at least one query, so I wanted you folks to know that, yes, Tara is still alive. I haven't buried her in some convenient plot of saguaro-covered landscape. She's been crazy busy at her new job. Between her regular work and "projects", she put in nearly 60 hours this week alone, including working yesterday. I have duly chastised her for letting her blog suffer. :)

Some Twisted Fun

A few weeks ago, Tara came across a recipe for soft pretzels. She sent me this recipe courtesy of Ramblings of a Frantic Home Cook. It looked really good, so I saved it for later.

I was in the mood for a snack this afternoon, and since the recipe is very simple, I decided to give it a try. Luckily my little KitchenAid mixer was up to the task (or at least it didn't burn out).

Soft Pretzels

1 1/2 pkgs dry yeast
1 1/2 cup warm water
2 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup bread flour
3 cups all-purpose flour


1. Sprinkle 1/1/2 pkgs of dry yeast onto 1 1/2 cup of warm water and stir to dissolve
2. Add 2 Tbs brown sugar and 1 tsp salt and stir to dissolve
3. Add in 1 cup of bread flour and 3 cups of all-purpose flour
4. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place in lightly oiled bowl and let rise for at least 1/2 hour in a warm place
5. While dough is rising, mix 2 c. of warm water with 2 Tbs of baking soda. Stir until completely dissolved
6. Pinch off a bit of dough and roll to about 12-14 inches long
7. Dip the pretzels into the baking soda/water mixture and shape into pretzels. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with course salt. Bake at 450 deg. for about 10-12 minutes

I made a few to sample and they tasted really good. I had some errands to run, so I let the rest of the dough rise for a few more hours. When I got home I rolled out the rest of the dough.
As you can see, I'm not a professional. :) Still after baking for 13 minutes, they looked pretty tasty.

Somehow I managed to miss the salt on three of them. Still, they taste pretty good. Tara sampled some of the first batch and they met her approval. Nice and crispy on the outside with a soft, chewy interior. If I'd thought, I would have sprinkled some of Tara's bacon salt on a few. :) Oh well. Maybe next time.

Teriyaki Chicken

Well, after a beef-tastic week, we are finally going to cook some chicken. I decided to use a slightly modified version of the grilled tuna teriyaki I made a few months back. I substituted 4 tbs each of mirin and sake for the Jack Daniels, as well as adding some grated orange zest from an orange we've had hanging around. I mixed the marinade in my blender and put the chicken into a Ziploc to soak overnight. Tomorrow night I'll fire up the grill and see how it comes out. I've used this recipe recently on more tuna, but only soaked it for an hour or two. Hopefully more flavor will infuse into the meat with the much longer soak time.

How to get Tara really excited

We stopped into Sweet Republic after dinner tonight and Tara started jumping up and down and grabbed my arm when she saw this flavor. We sampled it and she really liked it. She wanted to get Sugar n Spice ice cream, but I gently reminded her how badly she felt after out last visit, so she got Peachy Keen sorbet instead. I got Real Mint Chip. Very good.

We ended up chatting with the owners for quite a while. They are much younger than we expected. They are very friendly and discussed everything from where to get good bacon, what kind of ice cream flavors we enjoy, to Chinese and Thai food in the Valley. I introduced myself because I'd responded to a deleted thread one of them posted on Chowhound. It turns out that Sweet Republic is quite the CH gathering place. She knows quite a few of them now from their repeat visits. :) Or from the fact that one has always shown up wearing kilt... What's THAT about? :-D

Then again, you can't get this in Georgetown...

While I dearly miss my beloved hometown, some things just aren't available without an hour or so drive to Portland. Unless the culinary landscape has changed since my last visit, Vietnamese still isn't very common in Mid-Coast Maine. Sure, they are a dime a dozen in Boston, Worcester and thereabouts, but not so much in Sagadahoc County.

I never really got into Vietnamese until I finished college. Despite having a ton of Vietnamese friends in college, the one time we went for it I nearly gagged. I was the only white guy among a group of two Vietnamese girls, an Indonesian guy, and our Atlanta native white girl friend. My meal came out a full half-hour after they got their food and every piece of "chicken" was apparently joint-meat. It put me off for years.

Then came one of my visits to Montreal for the F1 race. I went with one of my Vietnamese college friends, T, and a coworker of hers. We ate lunch at a little Vietnamese place somewhere in Montreal and I loved it. Perfectly cooked, subtle flavors. Yum.

When I moved to Dallas in '95, I met said friend's family, who lived in a Dallas suburb. By that point, I'd known her and her sister, L, who went to BU, for six years. Memorial Day of '96, L was visiting her family and they invited me to lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. This was my first exposure to pho. They showed me how to use the various sauces and fresh herbs to season it. I was more or less addicted to pho from that point. There was a great pho place near my longtime home in Carrollton, TX, that I went to so often they recognized my voice on the phone before I'd even order. :) Dallas has a huge Vietnamese population among it's sprawlburbs, and I tried so many places I lost count.

Jump ahead to my move to Phoenix. While there are some great restaurants here, there just isn't the volume that I was spoiled with in Dallas. One place I've been to many times is Pho Avina. Tara went into work today, so I had the day to myself. Since I was going to be on that side of town anyways, I stopped in for lunch. They don't serve their banh mi on weekends, so I got the grilled pork with egg roll bun I snapped a picture of above. The grilled pork was nice and sweet. I love their egg rolls. The barely visible plate in the upper right is what's left of my appetizer order of them. All in all, the meal hit the spot. Speaking of spots, my poor white shirt took a beating, as my somewhat rusty chopstick skills tended to splatter the nuac mum just a bit. Well worth it, though.

Not that I wouldn't kill for fresh lobsters right now. You have to pick your battles. :)