Outside The Box Sessions: Parasol Cookies

Inspiration can be found in a pile of junk. Sometimes, you can put it together with a good imagination and invent something.

                                          

Thomas A. Edison

When I was an art student, my roommates and I used to hold these weekly sessions that we called Outside The Box Sessions (OTBS).  The goal was to get our creative juices flowing and

Thai-ed Up To Spicy Chicken And Basil Fried Rice

Spicy chicken and basil fried rice garnished with cilantro/coriander.

If I were to liken a dish to a genre of music, I would say that fried rice is like an  improvisational jazz composition rather than a classical one.   Much like jazz music,  fried rice is a dish  about Its flavor profile and textures are built  at the cook's discretion, not necessarily built on previously established recipes. It can be as complex or as simple as he wants it to be.  The fried rice is as varied as the people who cook them.  More importantly, just like an improvisational jazz composition, there is no right or wrong in cooking a fried rice dish.

Perhaps The Witch Ran Out Of Choices....

This past Sunday morning,  I checked my email and in my inbox sat a message notifying me that Stella over at The Witchy Kitchen has left a comment on one of my posts.  So I checked her comment and to my pleasant surprise, were 3 badges/awards that were waiting for me.   

Top Chef It Yourself Challenge: Getting My Moo On With Corkwood Flowers And Chive Blossoms In Shallot Sauce

For this month's Top Chef It Yourself Challenge, last month's winner, Casey, the author of the blog Eating, Gardening & Living In Bulgaria, chose the following ingredients for this month's challenge.  She specified shallots, edible flowers of any kind that's locally available and meat (beef, pork or lamb).  I have to admit that this was quite a challenge, as I don't see that much edible flowers here in the Philippines, except for squash blossoms.

St. Patrick's Day-Always Something To Green About

I have not a microdrop of Irish blood coursing through my veins; therefore, the significance of this holiday is lost on me.  Fortunately, being of Irish ancestry is not a pre-requisite to enjoy this festive green holiday.  

Raspberry flavored macarons on my favorite green platter.

Hey Sunshiny Day

The Kitchen Masochist has been given the Sunshine Award by Natesgirl, the uber multi-tasker at Give Peas A Chance.  Thank you very much.  If you have a minute, please visit her site and you'll find a treasure of easy to do recipes that are perfect for busy parents with little ones to feed. 

Awarded by Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! on Tuesday, April 13, 2010.  Thank you, Lazaro.

The Sushi-fication Of The Paella

Like a lot of small, densely populated metropolitan Asian cities, traffic, both human and vehicular, is a daily fixture in Manila.  If you have been to Bangkok, then you have a very good idea of what traffic is like here in Manila. The traffic here is so horrendous that it pretty much eats up a large chunk of one's time.  A simple 30-minute, 8-mile  (13 km) journey on a weekday is a butt soar-inducing and mind numbing ordeal that  takes a minimum of 1.5 hours.  I thought the traffic back home in Los Angeles was pretty bad, but nothing prepared me for Manila traffic when I first moved here.  Take my word for it, it's pretty energy-zapping to sit for that long in a car doing nothing but wait for the car in front of you to move half an inch. 

Paella Temakizushi

Of Rice And Men

Like many longtime expats, I find myself thinking of the issue of distance and aging parents lately. My dad's birthday is two weeks away and I can't believe that he's going to be 69 years old, just a year away from being 70. I've been living outside the States for nine years now and I haven't been around to celebrate his and all of the members of my immediate family's last nine birthdays and milestones. As a result of being far away from each other for so long, they still see me as my former self from nine years ago and vice versa.

Seafood paella (paella marisco)