As the end of the year draws near so does my own personal deadline. On January 8th 2009 I vowed I would cook all of the recipes that Personal Trainer Cooking could offer within one year. There are a total of 245 recipes and I have prepared 190 of them so far. With only 20 days and 55 recipes left I honestly don't know if I will be able to make it. Personal Trainer Cooking seemed like such a novel idea. Think about it, PTC turns your friendly hand held gaming device into your own personal kitchen slave. But novel can shortly turn into novelty. I didn't want that to happen I really wanted to use this as if it were one of my kitchen tools so I took the vow. To be sure I have had my ups and downs with PTC but overall it has become not only a part of my kitchen but one of the most valued items in it.

I'm not an idiot I know how to boil water and then some. I love food of such chefs as Tom Douglas and Ina Garten. I take food and cooking very seriously in the terms of taste, quality and health. So why PTC? When I lived in Japan I would drool over what seemed to be hundreds of various cooking programs available for the DS. In case you live in a cave or something the Japanese have this incredible ability to make just about anything look either delicious or insanely cute but often both at the same time. I am all for anything that can teach me how to make food look and taste as good as the Japanese can. Alas being in Japan all of the cooking programs where in Japanese. If I bought one of the programs I was not confident I would be able to use it confidently. So I was so excited last year to see Personal Trainer Cooking enter the US market. I thought by familiarizing myself with one of the cooking programs in English first then I would be more confident to use one of the better looking programs only available in Japanese. Also there was the hope that if PTC caught on other programs would fallow. Sadly that doesn't seem to be the case. To date there are only two other programs that have been made for the US market. One featuring Jamie Oliver and another focusing on healthy cooking. Neither one of these is at all interesting to me. In fact I was never even really interested in PTC for the recipes either. But over this past year I have fallen in love with Personal Trainer Cooking.

I fell in love for many reasons. The layout of the program is well through out. I love being able to choose what I want to cook on a whim. Out with traditional cookbooks and their table of contents and indexes. Instead pick a country or maybe and individual ingredient. Don't want to bother with that? Just use the stylus and write down what you want! You never see someone carrying around a cookbook in a grocery store or at a market, checking off each item that they need for a dish. If you were like me you had to use that silly table of context and the index to first find the recipe and write it down and try not to forget something and then go to the store. But my DS fits write in my purse! It also has a shopping list feature so no flipping through recipes to make sure nothing is missing. There are so many other features to go on about but I won't.

Let's talk about the recipes. For the most part the recipes are at least decent. Tonight my boyfriend and I dined on Veal Saltimbocca. It was just lovely. Clearly though this was written from a Japanese point of view. For example the lasagna recipe calls for bachamel sauce and not the typical ricotta mixture often used in American versions of lasagna. This brings back a bit of nostalgia for me because personal experience tells that ricotta is insanely hard to find in Japan. I never found any and I am sure if I did I wouldn't have been able to afford it. But the lasagna kit I use to buy always had bachamel sauce. Making lasagna the DS way brought back nice memories of Japan and it tasted good too. The DS interruptation of American Chili Con Carne seemed to have gotten lost in translation somehow. The recipe calls for hot dogs to be added to the traditional bowl of meat and beans. But it just seems like they got a chili dog confused with a bowl of chili. Or the fine staff at Tsuji Cooking Academy looked at how messy it would be to eat a chili dog and they cleaned it up a bit. I don't know. In fact the vast majority of the recipes have been really tasty and easy to prepare. Except for the Vietnamese Stuffed Pancake. That was horrible mess. I don't know what I kept doing wrong but it just didn't work out. I was very disappointed too because I really was excited to try it. Also I was not very fond of the Broccoli and Tuna Sushi. Somehow the pickled ginger, broccoli, mayo and tuna, all things I love, sadly did not taste very nice together. Overall many of the recipes have been amazing and verified hits among family and friends who became my unknown guinea pigs on countless occasions. Among top crowd pleasers have been the Tartiflette, Chocolate Mousse, Egg Tarts and Crab Cakes to name a few.

Personal Trainer Cooking isn't a toy or a novelty for that matter. It is a real kitchen instrument. If we can check our email from our phones, watch movies from our laptops why can't we seriously cook with our gaming devices? A DS is far more versatile then a cookbook or a cuisine art. You can play games and feed a family all with the same device. Plus it is small and portable leaving a lot more space in your kitchen for fun kitchen gadgets! As technology continues to march on all around us this is some serious food for thought.

Disappointment at the Night Market

Frankly I should not be surprised at my own disappointment in last Saturday's International District(China Town) Night Market. For those who don't know Seattle is notorious for having the nation's strictest food laws. Since the 1970s the city of Seattle has passed countless food laws in order to protect the public's health. All it really has done has made it practically impossible to have any street food. Come to Seattle and our street food is almost nil. With the exception of a handful of hot dog vendors scattered through the city and very specific times of day that is pretty much it.

With all the permits, fees, specifications and other things that vendors have to get from the city to even participate in special events like the Night Market it is no wonder that there were only four food vendors among the 30 or 40 stalls in the one block long night market. Of the food vendors there one of them was Tamarind Tree http://www.tamarindtreerestaurant.com/. One of Seattle's best Vietnamese restaurants. I have yet to visit the restaurant itself because it is a bit hard to find but there offerings were the best of the evening. They offered various kinds of rolls, drinks, and fish or shrimp mousse balls. My friend chose the fish mousse balls and I chose the barbecued pork meat ball roll and the sweet salty lime drink. The fish mousse balls where every chewy probably from sitting in their warmer too long but the dip was nice refreshing vinegar oil sauce. My drink was hmm. Interesting. It kind of tasted like sweet ocean water or like some kind of Asian pickle juice. Not for me. But the rolls!!!!

Ohh the rolls were sooo good. They were made fresh to order and for that reason were prefect in every way. They had all the textures and flavors one could ask for all rolled in one. There was the soft chewiness of the rice paper. Then the firm but giving texture of the rice noodles, the fresh crisp red leaf lettuce. Finally there is the year of the roll. The perfectly grilled pork meat ball with hints of ginger and fresh cilantro. When you think it is over then there is the surprising and oh so pleasing crunch of something crispy inside. I am not sure what it was exactly, It could have been fried wonton strips or yuba. I will have to go to the Tamarind Tree for further investigation.

The other offerings where sad in comparison. Jade Garden, one of Seattle's best dim sum restaurants had a stall but they didn't offer any dim sum. Instead they offered chow main and egg rolls. When I think of their luscious turnip cakes with bacon or their heavenly bbq pork buns and other wonderful treats they offer in their restaurant I couldn't even give their stall a second glance it was so pathetic. I don't blame them though. I am sure the street side dim sum is yet another big no-no in the Seattle street food regulations.

The remaining food offerings consisted of a Japanese snow cone stand. A youth group selling fresh coconut drinks, a roasted corn vendor and some restaurant I didn't know selling average looking chicken wings. I saw people with some roti looking thing but I could never find that stall. I suspect they may have gotten it from a neighboring restaurant.

Maybe for some cities this might be considered a good turn out. What truly makes it disappoint is that the International District is so diverse. It is a mixture of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese etc. Some of Seattle's best restaurants are in the International District. I really expected to see at least a takoyaki stand, or some dim sum, yakisoba, soup dumplings, things on sticks, ramen, a chestnut man, grilled meats. You know more! Something more representative of our ID, our culture and our people what it means to be from Seattle. Sadly Seattle laws have slowly strangled any hope of true organic Seattle food culture.

There is hope though!

While waiting for my Tamarind rolls a man handed me a flyer advertising a permanent, indoor, seven days a week night market coming soon the ID. Complete with 40 food vendors and 20 retails spaces. This could be an interesting fix to Seattle's stupid laws or it could soon become another indoor strip mall. Out of the way and soon forgotten within five years the property itself will be on the market waiting for a buyer who will redevelop it.

If I sound like a pessimist it is because I am. I know Seattle. Seattle sadly has a way despite our public image, of crushing anything remotely good that might come our way culturally. It extends past street food and into other avenues such as our bars and music scene or our parks and recreational areas. Still for the Emerald Night Market. I hope for the best. I really do. I am tired of not having a place to eat late at night.

Bring It Back Home

When special occasions come up, excluding holidays, why does it seem necessary to eat out?
Why in order to celebrate a special occasion do we feel the need to blow tons of money on a restaurant with so many stars, or such and such owns it but actually hasn't cooked there in years. What is wrong with our own tables? Our own kitchens and our home hands?

Recently I have taken to having casual dinner parties. In fact tonight we had a combined birthday party for my father and my fiance's grandmother. Yes it is stressful picking a menu that everyone will like, making sure that there not too much for or two little, making sure their is enough variety, or planning and then executing the time so everything comes out as it should and so many other little things to think about.

Ultimately it is worth it. The oohs and aws at first for the appetizers. I made bruschetta, zucchini corn fritters, and had a plate of cheese and fresh figs. Then as the main meal is cooked the excited looks of anticipation of what's to come. The questions of what's this marinated in? Where did you buy that etc. Tonight we grilled local organic free range beef sirloin that was raised just on the other side of the Cascades near Wenatchee the same area that my dad goes deer hunting ever year. Fresh asparagus grilled with olive oil, sea salt. pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Twice baked potatoes full of real bacon, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Shrimp that I shelled, and deveined myself. Then marinated for two days in a mixture or garlic, parsley, basil, olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and pepper before being skewered and grilled. My mom brought along a fresh green salad with radishes, carrots, cucumbers celery and green pepper. Finally what is a birthday party without dessert? Just as we think we can not simply eat another bite I bring out dessert. There eyes pop open in amazement. You made that?!!! Wow!!! Suddenly they just found some more space in their stomachs for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte or Black Forest Cake in English, for my dad and a cherry pie for my fiance's grandmother because she likes pies not cakes.

The comments of glee, the excitement of the meal, the success of a weeks worth of planning and finally the meal itself. Seeing the ones you love most of all, the ones closest to you enjoying themselves. around your own table, it the food you cooked yourself simply can't be beat. It is a very gratifying feeling. If for nothing else being in your own home you can feel relaxed. You don't have to worry about judging the quality of the waitress. worry if you stay to long and chat over drinks and desserts, fret it an order may have been forgotten or misinterpreted somewhere between diner and chef. In your own home you can cook what you want the way you want, you can eat your fill, and enjoy your family and friends while being yourself. It is so luxurious to retire to your own couch after a satisfying meal and just lay back and chat.

So why don't we seem to have dinner parties at home more often? Is it because the dinner party of yesteryear from the time of our parents and grandparents seemed to stuffy? To rigid that we stepped away from home entertaining? Is it because now both spouses in the family work and so there is no time? Or is it because we are lazy? I think it has to do with privacy.

For many I think it has to do the fact that our homes are our sanctuaries. They are the places we come to and let down our hair and get away from the world outside after a long day. By inviting people into it, even our families, is like letting the world into the last place you can call our own. It means having to clean up your home, hide those things you may not want just anyone to see, and simply not lounge around in or underwear, watching TV.

We need to get off our lazy butts more and open up our homes. The end result far outweighs the trouble it took in the first place.

So clean up your place, whip up something tasty. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or elaborate. In fact despite all the effort on the food. It was still served on papers plates tonight. It is about the quality of the company and the food. Not the decor your home offers. It is about taking a little time to show those special people in your life that you love them enough to have them over and cooked something tasty in their honor. So the next time you have a special occasion forget the restaurant and bring back home to your table.

Enjoy!

It Starts with a List

I spend a lot of time making list. There is something very satisfying about it. Making the list, looking at all the great stuff I get to buy and then the big day when I get to go to the grocery store and burn through that list. Getting all of the things I need for the week so I don't have to go back again is very fun and rewarding for me.

There are a lot of good reasons for making list. First I make a list or "menu" of what we will be eating for lunch and dinner each week. I check recipes for ingredients and portions, scan my cupboards for what I already have and check the calender to see if the meals I want to make will work with that weeks schedule. For an average week I plan for 4-5 days worth of meals. Usually though I have little bit of extras from the other meals that I will use to whip something up at random over the weekend. Or I plan for us to eat out because it is fun to eat out as much as it is too cook at home!

By making a menu for the week really helps me decide what it is I need to get at the store. By checking my cupboards I already know what I have and what I am low on so I can add it to my grocery list. Then I organize the grocery list according to the different departments of the grocery store according to the path I take each time I visit. This really saves on time getting through the store and helps me make sure I got all the stuff I needed. I tend to always shop at the same store instead of looking at the newspapers and going from store to store. The grocery store I go to isn't the best but it's alright. They offer a discount card which is useful for the sale items and in general they offer a decent variety of fresh produce, meat etc. Again not the best but for daily needs it works just fine. I also include special sections in my list for other stores were I buy special items such as Uwajimaya where I often buy all of my Japanese ingredients.

I don't let my list dictate me though. In fact I always low-ball my list to allow myself wiggle room for buying too-good-to-pass-up deals or impulse buys. No my list and menus are just general guidelines that I follow so that I don't overspend while still getting all the things I need for the week.

Planning ahead like this really helps in other areas as well. By making menus, lists and planning my route in the store it saves in a lot of ways. It really helps to save money and not over spend but get the highest quality ingredients to make the most healthy and tastiest meals I can. It also prevents over buying and ultimately food going bad long before we are able to eat it.

I started doing this because my Mom always over shops and hoards food like crazy. Her freezer is so full of freezer burnt meat that instead of tossing it and cutting back on what she buys, she bought another freezer instead! It is the same when she buys such wonderful cheeses and wines but they turn to mold and vinegar because she is too afraid to eat them. She rather take one bite and then "save" the rest for a special occasion. Yes wine if properly stored can be saved and even improved over years. But she neither buys high enough quality wines nor opens and then stores them properly to ever get that far. As for cheese well that can only go so far. I learned for her poor example that if I am going to spend the money to buy food then I am going to eat it.

For that reason I also don't fall into the trap of super market deals very often. Just because something is on sale doesn't mean it should be bought. Or bought in the quantities that the store wants it to be bought in. I only buy what I use most often. Pretty much that means staples. For example like frozen chicken breast. My fiance loves chicken and we go through a big bag of it every two weeks. So if I see that chicken is half price even though I have a full bag at home I will buy it because I know that within a month both will be gone. But if it something like 10 cans of green beans for a dollar, then I think twice. I don't like canned green beans, I usually buy fresh, so I move on. Consider the quantities in another way though. Sometimes it is possible to still get the discount even if you aren't buying the full number of items .

Because of my mom I have also learned to ask for smaller portions. Most often it is just my fiance and myself eating so we really don't need a lot of food. Keeping that in mind if I am going to buy an ingredient that I know we will have leftovers of I try to thinks of other meals or ways I can incorporate the remaining portion into another meal. This can be fun because if it is something I never cooked with before such as rice noodles then I can find new recipes or ways of using the item. Or if the ingredient is expensive or something I know I would only use once before going bad such as meat I always make sure I get to the store when the butcher is there and ask them to cut a smaller portion. This saves money and prevents waste. There is no need to let food go back just because it was cheap or too much for what was needed.

This isn't a flawless way of doing things. Unless you come visit our house on Sunday our cupboards and frig look nearly empty. This isn't good for impromptu guest or earthquake pron Seattle. Frankly I am not really sure what we would do if Seattle had a major disaster. Perhaps I should think about that...

Making Lunch

Lunch. The least thought about meal of the day.

Usually for many people it is a meal squeezed in between more important matters of the day. For some it could be a bag of popcorn, fast food slop or a long nibbling business lunch. In essence it is an after thought, a tedious necessary and inconvenient part of the day.

For many across the United States we are not blessed with the fabulous food stalls and carts that much of the world seems to have. Where even though it is lunch, a quick mea, something to grab in a hurry, people still take thought to it and eat something amazing.

Seattle is no different. Yes if someone happens to be lucky enough to work close enough to Pike Place Market it is techniqually possible to grab a decent piroshki, maybe a nice slice of pizza or a sandwich from DeLaurenti or something unexpectedly yummy from Le Panier or Michou Fresca but honestly with the throngs of tourist it is impossible to get in and out of the market and eat lunch within an hour let alone thirty minutes.

No as Americans we are generally unlucky or not very demanding when it comes to lunch. Or at least that is what I suspect.

Tonight I spent an hour and a half prepare lunch for my fiance and I when it occured to me that this isn't normal. My co-works spend probably less then four minutes deciding let alone making their lunches. I do this five days a week. For tomorrows lunch we will be haivng stuffed italian peppers, eggplant parmesean, fresh broccoli and plums. These thing where all made from scratch no less. Some could contest that I spend so much effort making lunches just so I can use my cute little bento boxes I get from Daiso but really that's not true. I am not obsessed nor do I see any need to to cut up bits of cheese, ham and nori just to make cute little animals and other things. I find those kind of bento lunches largely unhealthy and unsatisfing.

No I use the bento for other reasons. Largley because of portion control. They are smaller than your average American lunch box thus it prevents the need to over pack them and thus over eat. I also have a general rule that I do not pack anything that can not fit in the bento itself with the occasional exception of sauces. This rule also greatly helps on cutting down on things that could potentially spill and it encourages me to cut up foods into easy bit size pieces that are easy to eat during a busy work day.

By making lunches in general it ensures that we both have lunches everyday. It cuts down on spending too much on a lunch that could ultimatly makes use feel worse. It ensures that we are getting a balanced lunch and most importantly it ensures a constant sources of variety of things we actually like ot eat.

Don't get me wrong. I work a full time job. Five days a week. I have to wake up at 7 in the morning. I don't typically cook the meals more then the day before we eat it. It is actually pretty easy making a good lunch the day before. It just takes a little planning and coordination. For example I was able to make the different parts of tomorrows lunch while I was waking for dinner to cook. It only took me an hour to make both lunch and dinner for us.

So my point is. Try making yourself lunch. You deserve it. Lunch deserves it. It just takes some planning but it can be done.

Farmers Markets: Are They Really Worth It?

Seattle seems to be very blessed with many farmers markets. In fact Pike Place Market is likely one of the most famous Farmers Market in all of the world. Aside from Pike Place the Seattle area alone has at least 10 other farmers markets 3 of which are open year round. Not to mention the other 40 farmers markets in the Puget Sound Area. By definition the majority of these markets contain nothing but fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meats, breads and similar products all fresh, in season, organic and local.

The last sentence is probably the most telling. It contains some of the most fashionable food words of the current food movements. Yeah I've read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. I know local is suppose to be better, we should try to eat as much real food as possible, don't trust something just because it says it's local or organic. Support your local farmers, save the environment. Yadda yadda yadda.

So today I went to my favorite farmers market in the district U-district. I liked casually wandering around the small market on a mild sunny Saturday afternoon. It wasn't too crowded. The local producers all seemed bountiful. Truth be told there are a lot of things I really love about this market. My favorite vendor is the Japanese farmers from Mair Farm Taki. They have the best and widest variety of kabocha I have ever seen, they make sublime spicy miso pickles, and their Japanese watermelon is so freakin red, juicy and tasty it puts all other watermelon to shame. There is also Appel Farms who has some of the best cheese ever. The cumin gouda, any of their quarks and their tomato basil feta are all winners in my book. In fact all of the cheese vendors are pretty amazing. Emipre Ice Cream is also outstanding with such flavors as Heart Attack (bacon blue cheese) or blueberry hyssop. Oh and I can't forget the vegan tamale people.
Finally there is Sea Breaze Farm for all of those snout to tail aficionados. I personally have not yet been taken into the fold yet but their stocks are amazing. Filled with so much good bone marrow that it is a very soft jelly until it is melting into soups and sauces. Their meats are the crown jem of all of the market though. Just by looking at them you can tell they were well cared for pigs chickens and cows. That were butched with care and then cured aged or roasted to perfection. I say look because well I simply can't afford the meat.

That's the problem though isn't it? Are farmers markets worth it? Well I certainly enjoy going to the market. Not because of the warm fuzzy feeling of helping out the local business owner, or reducing the impact on the evironment by supporting farms that are gowing organic and driving less to bring me my food. Frankly I don't care much about that stuff. It is all gimmick to me. What does matter to me is getting the best food I can on the budget I have.

So I guess here I have to be a bit honest. I could safely say that I probably spend at least $ 80 a week on food for just two people. I don't know if that is a lot for one weeks worth of groceries. It seems high. That $80 mostly entails fresh non organic non locally grown fruits and veggies from the local super market, meat (also from the same place and under the same conditions) and milk. We don't really buy much junk food. I cook most of our meals from scratch and I don't typically buy what's on sale I buy what is on the current weeks menu.

So keeping all of this in mind is the farmers markets worth it? Yes to some extent. First of all farmers markets are fun. Just going around sampling everything is a really great way to spend a lazy weekend morning or afternoon. Also farmers markets are great places to try new foods that otherwise we might have missed. By going to markets and avoiding super markets it is easier to avoid all of the junk food. Also I think it is true to some extent that the food at the farmers markets does taste better then the stuff from the super markets. I don't know why. Maybe it is because the people selling the stuff are the same ones that toiled over it and the success of the final sale has a direct impact on their livelihoods.

At the same time I like eating whatever I want whenever I want. If I want strawberries in the middle of December damn it I will buy them. Farmers markets aren't the sort of places where I can do all of my shopping. In fact I spent $40 dollars today and I only got half the stuff I needed for the week. Yeah I could have bought the meat and milk I needed at the farmers market as well but I simply don't want to shell out $10 per pound of meat I need. Or spend three times as much on half the amount of milk my fiance and I consume in a week. Farmers markets and super markets have their places in the food chain. The farmers market itself has to be considered too. Not all farmers markets are created equal. I like the U-District one because it has FOOD in it. Not someone's stupid art work. I can't eat art work. Unless their art work is the above mentioned cheese or aged meat.

Farmers markets aren't for everyone perhaps. Or at least not all the time. They are fun as a sustainable novelty. A place to go for a fun local food adventure, special treats or for impressing people at an upcomming dinning engagement.

It is good to treat yourself sometimes.

Thinking of Shareena

Some foods hold a special place in our hearts. They are the foods that we grew up with. The special dishes made for special events. They are the dishes that at first smell takes us back, first sight makes our mouths water and first taste sends us into a special euphoria that can only be understood by the ones closest to you.

I am not Indian but Indian food has that kind of special place in my heart. Whenever I smell a curry simmering, the char of a tandoori oven or the sizzle of ghee I think of Shareena. Shareena was my bestfriend throughout middle school and high school. Her and her family where Muslims Indians who came from Fiji. Each member of her family had a chore to do and Shareena's was cooking. Shareena hated it though. She loathed cooking because she hated getting burned by the hot oil, chopping up all the ingredients especially the chillies and she mostly just hated the responsibility of it. I loved cooking though and once she figured that out I was at her house almost everyday helping her cook.

I remember the first time I went to her house. I had never had Indian food before. I was not familiar at all with all the new smells, and textures ant taste. It was so amazing. I had no idea what half the ingredients where but I didn't care it tasted so good. Nothing had a name, a gimmick, or had been Americanized. It was just simple tasty amazing food.In hind sight I realize that there was some Fijian influences that where mixed in there as well. Influences that I sort of miss at now when I go to Indian restaurants. I had many happy memories in Shareena's family kitchen. We really became friends while cooking curries, filling and folding samosas and chopping many many chillis.

Indian food also reminds me of one of the first dates I had with my fiance. He had never had Indian food and he was a bit scared of it. At that time he was not very good about trying new foods. I ordered tandoori chicken, rice, naan and matter paneer. I think alot like myself he just didn't know what to expect when it came to Indian food. But with one bite he was sold and with that I think he had a greater level of trust for me and our relationship grew a little stronger.

These were the sort of thought I had tonight when I ordered our favorite things from Mehak. I love Mehak because not only does the food take be back but the people serving it do too. I love the old couple that run the place, they always give us a little free dessert and a hug. Yes a hug. I don't know why I have never been to a restaurant where they hug me. It is not like they hug the other patrons either but for some reason the old grandma lady always hugs me. It reminds me of Shareena and her mom. It reminds me of the love that Shareena, her mom and this grandma lady put into their food. More importantly I think that even though the nice grandma lady at Mehak doesn't speak English we understand the same language of food. That always makes me smile.