Is There A Better Job in the World Than Cookbook Recipe Tester? Besides Professional Pinner?

I think not.  

I love steamykitchen.com.  and so do thousands of other people.  Do you already follow it? I love Jaden's recipes as well as reading about her family life, particularly their adventures in raising their own chickens.

When I read that Jaden's compensation for testers is she will "forever owe you my eternal love and gratitude," I was so in.  Put it on my card: Will work for eternal love and gratitude.  

Really, it is easy Asian cooking and if you know me, or you are my husband, you know I love Asian food.  And if you are, indeed, my husband, you only like Chinese, but I love Japanese, Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese, too.  Oh, and I drive you crazy because I like to go for foodtainment (teppanyaki) -- the hibachi style Japanese where the chef prepares the food right in front of you. And throws shrimp in your mouth and makes a volcano of fire with the concentric rings of a halved onion. 

Back to recipe testing.  The other night I made this. Note that it was night, therefore the picture has terrible color, but the soup in real life was much prettier -- filled with healthy fresh veggies.

In my favorite blue dish that I carried back from Japan.

I made this dish, too, another soup, in a miso based broth -- Loved this one! (below)

Gratuitous cat shot.  One of my useless feline assistants.  They provide entertainment. When they aren't sleeping.

Back to food.  Dish number three, eggs with oyster sauce -- holy moly, it was delicious.  Proving that it doesn't have to look perfect be super tasty.

These first two photos (above and below), the eggs look a bit mangled, but they are the better photos.

Oh, yummy.

Here the eggs are prettier but the photo isn't as good.  Take your pick and start fantasizing about Jaden's new cookbook!

In the meantime you can check out her other recipes and if you don't already read her blog, you definitely should add it to your rotation -- her photography is beautiful and writing is just right and very accessible.

Off to meet one of my blogger-girl-crushes this afternoon.  More on that later, taters. (Edit note:  We missed each other today, bummer but I look forward to us stalking each other another time)

Yours, in blogger bliss,

JPV

Is the Holiday Weekend Over? Can I Have it Back? Pleeease?

It was fantastic!  Pictures and stories to follow all week.  And my homemade by me lobster ravioli for snacks all week, too!  We picked those lobstahs alive ... this is some dead serious ravioli.

  Not bad for a pic with the crackberry ...

More to come.  Hi Mom!

xoxoxo

Of Cooking and CAT Scans: Thanksgiving 2010

My mom (that's her beautiful self to the left, with baby tree-climbing Moroccan goat) was supposed to come to DC to visit for Thanksgiving.  A few days after she returned to Boston from our girl bonding trip all over Morocco, she came down with pneumonia (that's her in Morocco, a day pre-pneumonia).  More on that elsewhere (and the goat in the tree behind Mom.  For real.  Not. A. Joke).  Our wonderful friends Mary and Stilly invited us to Thanksgiving at their house, very close to ours.  Hubby and I met on Thanksgiving Day and got engaged 15 days later so we consider it our true anniversary.  This year makes five years (eeee so cool!!).  Mom was supposed to celebrate with us.

Instead, the day before, she went to see her doctor at Mass General who promptly admitted her. My reaction to this is not to cry or scream or freak, rather, I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion and literally wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep on the floor of my office.  Ditto next day, Thanksgiving, 10:30 AM when 1.  I hear how scared she is, 2. CAT scan showed fluid around lung and heart and a problem with her liver.  This time I freaked.  Called hubby on golf course.  I thought.

Hubby is Jr. 

I called Sr. By mistake.

Who I later found out thought his oldest son had been in some horrible accident.  Smart man, handed phone to wife, my glorious mother in law.  She is not just an R.N. The woman runs hospital E.R.s.  Rides in choppers.  Medical and managerial badass.  Talked me off ledge.  Didn’t even bother hubby on golf course.  Set about to chopping.  Very therapeutic.  Before that, I went through over my entire iTunes library and every some I clicked on every song that made me smile AND made me feel good, like I wanted to dance.  If I could.  Even though I can’t. (Listening now, loooove it).

Played music, made Mom’s dressing with my tweaks, and her sauerkraut, also tweaked for hubby.  I eat the former, but not the latter. 

Yup, that’s the Thanksgiving story.  Finally spoke with Mom and her attending physician (so very Grey’s), who explained how they were ruling out all sorts of things (bad things, this is where I started rooting hard for infection, any infection, bacterial or viral; I’ll take it over lupus or rheumatism). 

Happy Thanksgiving!! (That's a shot I took of Mom in Morocco a few weeks ago.  Did I mention she's 71?  Just wanted to see if you read to the end, kidding!! But I bet you're going to check out that close up pic at the top ... I would.)