Tucson Festival of Books

This is my third year volunteering for the Tucson Festival of Books. Although my favorite authors have been dead for quite sometime and they are unable to be physically present at the festival, it is always fun to attend various types of seminars and workshops. Last year, I spent a lot of time in culinary tent enjoying seminars on Indian food, wine, Mexican sweets and many other things. The festival invites authors in various genres, so there is something for everyone.

New Blog: Inspire Me

Problem: my bookmark list is now enormous with websites unrelated to this blog's objective and unsuitable to share here.
Solution: create a new blog dedicated to post all sorts of inspiring sites, articles, videos, and music.
Inspiration comes from everywhere.

Lazy Sunday Readings

It's over 110 degrees outside at 11 am. I didn't really feel like doing anything after returning from farmers market so I was checking websites I haven't been following recently.

At BuzzFeed, I found two articles that are actually worth mentioning. Click the pictures to jump to the articles.

38 Anthropologie Hacks

This article introduces some DIY blogs and websites with brilliant ideas of making things at a fraction of Anthro price. I am mot a fan of their inflated prices but they do have inspiring products. I have snapped pictures with my phone so many times at Anthro, hoping to use the idea later.

41 Camping Hacks That Are Borderline Genius

 

It's been several years since my last camping trip. I am so taking my exercise mat on my next trip!

Spicy Tomato Soup and Cheese Toast

Tomatoes are probably on the list of veggies and fruit kids hate but it has been one of my favorite ingredients all my life. Tomatoes are so versatile; they are tasty fresh, sauteed, or roasted.

This tomato soup is good hot or cold. The chilled version is great to beat the summer heat. As always, I am a believer of substitutions and additions. There are some rules to be followed, I agree, but cooking should be flexible (and fun)! For example, this particular soup in the picture has mushrooms in it. I'm sure most tomato soups don't have 'shrooms in them. It may sound odd but mushrooms add a lot of flavors. Although it could be blended with the rest of the soup, I like them sliced to enjoy the texture.

This type of soup is a great way to hide veggies. My husband, a meat and potato guy who hates 98% of vegetables, loves this soup. He has no idea that this soup has celery and carrot in it. Ha-ha!

The best companion for this soup is a cheese toast. I'm sure grilled cheese is fantastic as well. I am addicted to rustic baguette, a baguette with sesame seeds (from a bakery nearby), so that's what I usually use. Use what ever the melting cheese you have in your fridge. Cheese toasts used to be one of my favorite breakfast items when I was in elementary school. It is good any time of the day!

Click "Read more" for the recipe.

A Mystery Vegetable

It was the end of spring this year. My favorite vendor at a local farmers' market gave me an unfamiliar Asian vegetable she didn't remember the name of. She told me that she was experimenting growing new plants in her garden. The flowers and the leaves definitely look like it belongs to Brassicaceae but I had never seen this plant before. An hour of Internet search didn't really give me an answer.

It was already lunchtime so I took out my wok and stir fried this veggie, aburaage, and udon noodles. I flavored it with soy sauce, shichimi,  and sesame oil.

The flavor of this vegetable was pretty mild. I would use it as a substitution for mustard green or komatuna. The leaves were a little glossy like kai-lan but the stems were tender like that of komatuna.

What I Don't Have This Summer and I Really Miss

These are pictures I took with my phone in 2012.

I didn't have time and energy for serious gardening so I enjoyed container gardening. Mint and arugula survived last winter and were doing fine until two weeks ago. Both of them died when I was away for a week.

Basil, mint, and oregano

Arugula

 Thai basil and a special guest, humming bird

What I need to do is to build a gardening bed of some sort with a fence. Fence! See the beautiful basil in the first picture? My iron gate has openings so it does not stop small animals from coming into my yard. When I came from a weekend getaway, BUNNIES ATE half of my basil. I'm sure they had nice basil-scented poop that night.

Smoked Salmon Salad

I found this picture in July of 2011 holder. Smoked salmon salad!!!

This is a great appetizer in summer.  I served this salad on different occasions and got many compliments. It goes great with crisp, dry white wine. 

Click "Read More" for the recipe.

Garlic Flower Buds

This is the second draft I started in July, 2011. These pictures had to be taken in April or earlier when fresh garlic is in season. These are garlic flowers and I was told that they are edible when I bought them. It did have a mild garlic flavor.

Sauteed garlic flowers with chicken and whatever the green leafy vegetable I had. It was ok. The flowers were a little tough so I cooked it longer than I should have. Figuring out the right cooking time is always a challenge when I cook new ingredients. It would have been better in a strong sauce like black bean sauce.

Ghinji and Renjirow

I started working on this post in July of 2011 and forgot about it. My extreme laziness would not allow me to rewrite so I'm posting it as is.

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I made a slightly larger frog Renjirow 2 months ago.  The only thing I did different for this one is to use a 4mm hook instead of 3.75mm hook I usually like to use.  I just wanted to see how loose it would turn out to be.  It didn't get as loose as I thought.  I used the same yarn for all three frogs.

Ghinji was my newest cat...the reason I have to put it in past tense is that Ghinji and Renjirow are on their way to Japan.  They will got their separate ways, however, I have arranged good families to adopt them upon arrival.
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"Sora, you need to practice yoga. Someone this inflexible cannot be called a cat"

Sloths have taken over my brain...oh my brain

It's been over a year since the last post. I did not have time or energy to devote for creating things and, as a handmade junkie, I need my fix now. There is a list of things I want to make over the summer such as more crochet aliens and something to do with sloth.

Sloth! I've been obsessed with sloths for about two years. It all started when I adopted Slowpoke at the thrift store (owned by a local animal shelter) I used to volunteer once a week. My first impression was "What is this ugly plush that resembles a middle aged man in whole body suit?" I mean, look at him

and compare it to this picture (<- click). They have to be related. His unattractive appearance made me realize that no one would adopt him and he would eventually end up in the dumpster behind the store along with other items no one wanted to buy. His adoption fee was two dollars. His only friend is a baby devil duck. However, his happy sloth genes keeps him smiling even after everything he went through: being abandoned by his owner, getting squished into toy basket at the thrift store, and being brought to home where two scary felines roam.

After that, I kept noticing numerous sloth pictures and videos all over the Internet. They are everywhere. It is some sort of sloth brainwash. It's even on my tofu package.

If anyone wants to join me and adore sloths, check out these videos:

Yawning baby sloth


Baby sloth bath time


Sloth crossing the road

Being Elmo

Wow.   I just watched one of the most inspiring movies I've seen in a while.  The movie is called Being Elmo, a documentary film about a guy who's behind the most famous red furball we all love.  I can write more about it but it's probably the best to take a peek.  Here's the trailer (don't forget to pause the music player above):



It's simply amazing to see someone who had so much passion about puppets as a teenager and started creating his own puppets.  I became speechless (good thing since I was in the theater) when I saw a muppet came to life---without Kevin's magical touch, it's just bunch of fabrics and threads.  Of course I've heard about Jim Henson's name before and I knew he created my Kermit (I'm thinking about roasting the pig...you know who) but I never even thought about others who supported the Sesame Street and the Muppet Show.  Living in problem filled society, the majority of the documentary films we see are depressing and hopeless.  It's really nice to find a movie that's uplifting and warm!  If you are lucky enough to live in a city where you can watch this movie, drop everything and go see it.  I caught the very last screening in Tucson and I'm soooooooo grad that I checked the Loft Cinema's schedule at 5pm this afternoon.

It's Finally Cold Enough

The warm weather stuck around longer in Southern Arizona this year.  Although I hate cold weather and I never look forward to winter (I wish I could hibernate!), there was one thing I couldn't wait to do this winter: to try the blanket I finished knitting in March.

This blanket is large enough for two adults to share on a couch.  I have hard time staying awake for a movie under this soft and warm blanket.  My cats are also in love with the blanket and they try to take it from me every chance they get.

I fell a sleep several times while I was knitting this blanket...that's how comfy this blanket is!

Sundried Tomato & Oregano Bread

 

I have a bad habit of taking food pictures and forgetting about them.  I think I baked this bread when I made garlic prawns.   Sundried tomatoes in olive oil was kneaded into the dough and the dough was topped off with feta cheese and fresh oregano.  If anyone wants to try this at home,  any pizza dough recipe would work.  I used about 1/4 cup chopped sundried tomatoes with oil.  Kalamata olives and wild mushrooms would make great toppings on this bread as well.  I usually bake this type of bread on a baking stone at 450F.

Speaking of baking stone, I've always wondered why many baking stones or pizza stones come in rounds.  Yes, that's the most common shape for pizza, but it simply isn't long enough to bake long loaves.  It's not as practical as a rectangle stone.  If anyone is interested in getting a rectangle baking stone in the US, the one from Williams-Sonoma is reasonably priced and works great.  I bought mine from there about 5 years ago. 

Gardening in Arizona

One of my favorite greens is arugula. It is a versatile super veggie I can use in many dishes including salad, sandwich, risotto, and pasta.  I first started growing my own in a container when I was living in Texas.  Although the summer heat in Texas is sometimes unbearable, the humidity was good for my plants.  That's something we don't have in Arizona, and gardening in dry heat has been a challenge.  Arugula is doing all right so far, but I have to water every day. 

Earlier this year, I planted rapini, or broccoli raab, in a container (pictured above).  Although it didn't get as tall as I wanted it to be(probably because I planted it too late), it was delicious sauteed.  I need to make a in=ground planting bed for this type of veggies for next year or this fall.  Greens seem to have hard time growing in containers.

Food for Wine: Garlicky Spicy Prawns

Instead of picking wine for certain food like most people do, I often decide what to cook based on what I want to drink.  As it gets hotter in Arizona I shift from red wine to chilled crisp white wine.  One of the dishes I love with chilled Sauvignon Blanc is garlicky prawns.  It is a flexible recipe.  As long as I keep the essential ingredients (prawns, garlic and olive oil), I can add or subtract ingredients depending on what I have or what I'm in the mood for.  I threw in some fresh oregano from my container garden. 

Click on Read more for the recipe.