There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

As much as I would like to convince myself otherwise, there are few things in this world that excite me more than food. I once told My Honey that a very under-rated, but downright amazing superpower to have would be to be able to speak the language of whatever native country you're in. He scoffed at this, saying that he would much rather have laser eyes or something, but I replied 'if you could speak the language of the locals, you could find out all the best places to eat!'. He laughed at me and said 'it all comes back to food, doesn't it?'.

Yes, it does.

For the past 5 years, I have been having Vietnamese Pho withdrawal. Vietnamese food in general. Whenever I got the chance to go home, the foods I immediately had to cram down my throat as a welcome ceremony for being back in the States were fish tacos from non-English speaking hole in the walls, and Vietnamese food.

I love how fresh Viennese food is- you literally eat the stuff within seconds of it being made, and only fresh ingredients will make it work. So imagine how happy I was to find out that they sold rice paper wraps at the Asian Mart a block from my flat in Edinburgh. I threw myself into making Vietnamese spring rolls, and for a while, it sated my desire for Vietnamese food. I also expanded and made Vietnamese noodle salads and tried to spread the Vietnamese goodness to anyone who would come to dinner. But my precious Pho was always unattainable.

I've found plenty of recipes for Pho online, but the beef stock in itself would take a day or so to prepare, use 800 spices and ingredients, and honestly, I couldn't be bothered.

Yesterday I had to go shopping for a little dinner party I have having where I planned on serving Vietnamese spring rolls with a peanut sauce as a starter. But I had stupidly forgot to purchase the rice vermicelli at the Asian mart the day before, and sadly, it was closed on Sundays. So I hoped and prayed that the large stop Waitrose would have what I needed. As I walked from Tollcross up and over towards the Morningside area, I passed a Thai mart in Bruntsfield. Obviously I had to go in. Not only did they have my noodles, but they had PHO STOCK! A little brown jar filled with a gelatinous mix of garlic, spices, and chilies. I felt like I had just completed a mission in life. They also had a fresh section that had Thai Basil, Thai coriander, and mint, and beansprouts. It was like Jesus said 'go forth and make Pho'. And I did. I had planned on just having it veggie style, but on the way home, I passed the giant ScotMid and figured I might as well take a look at their meat. Lo and behold, they had a thing of thinly sliced Angus beef slices for sale. Another sign!

I raced home, and even though I had to prepare this big dinner, I had to have my Pho first. I boiled the water, added a spoonful of the Pho stock, and giddly danced around the bubbling pot, unable to contain my excitement as I threw in the noodles. I put 3 strips of the beef in the largest bowl I had (my giant mixing bowl) and poured the hot soup mixture over it. The beef was thin enough that it cooked within seconds. Then I washed and threw in my fresh, precious herbs. I even had some Hoi Son sauce to bung in. The smell coming from my pot was orgasm inducing and the taste....oh my sack, it was like finding the holy grail of deliciousness.

Naturally I found this amazing shop about a month or so before I have to move, but I plan on stock piling the Pho mix in the event that I will never find it again. I know that London does have Vietnamese restaurants, but we will be living quite far from the city center, and cost wise, it might not make sense to dash into London proper for a bowl of food (not that I'm sure it won't happen), but now I know I have the ability to replicate the food I love, and I haven't been able to stop smiling since!

Naturally, I get a call on Thursday from the Temp Agency asking if I could work an extra week at the Hospital. And since I am desperate for the cash, I eagerly agree. Only to discover on Friday night that that strange tickle in my throat had morphed in to sore, aching, painful to swallow pain in my throat. By Saturday morning, when I had to go into work at the Library, it was def. obvious that I had caught something and was suffering. So I employed my Quick Cure For Sickness technique- drank about 10 cups of tea and went to bed early. Sunday I woke up feeling leaps better. The sore throat had reverted back to it's dull ache, the stuff coming out of my nose was no longer sludge green but back to clear, and the headache that made me want to decapitate myself was reduced to just a aching inconvenience. Do I feel well enough to paint the town red, hike a mountain, or wake up the next day before 6 to go to work? No, but I do fell well enough to spend the day inside, listening to 1920-50s radio, baking, cooking, and knitting. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Being sick like I am, I felt like soup was in order. So I bundled myself up, took a quick trip to the store, and came back prepared for the week. Dinner for tonight (and most likely tomorrow and possible the following night too) will be Leek and Potato Soup with Fresh Baked Bread rolls.

2-3 good Leeks, cut up good
2-3 potatoes, diced
1-2 pints of stock- mine ended up being two parts chicken one part veg thanks to what was in the cupbord
1 garlic clove smushed.

Throw the leeks in the pan with a big knob of butter. Let them sizzle and get wilty while you're peeling and dicing the potatoes. Throw in the spuds, cover with stock, and cover and simmer on low for a few hours. I like to then take a hand blender and churn up the chunks so that the soup is creamy, but a lot of restaurants leave the soup chunky.

The Bread recipe is your standard googled one. Something like 3 cups flour, 2 tbls of yeast, some warm water, and a pinch of salt. Kneed, cover, let raise, bake.

But I still had to deal with lunch. Now, being a Cali girl, I get a big craving for things like artichokes all the time. Which they only sell as artichoke hearts in a jar at Sainsbury. It's also that time of the month when I desperately start craving iron- bloody steaks, or, in this case, spinach. Lots of it. So I'm thinking something like an artichoke spinach dip. Unfort., all the recipes online involve a butt load of mayo and I have cream cheese to use up, so I figured I'd make my own up.

Lunch: Open Faced Bagel Sandwich with fresh artichoke spinach spread and tomatoes.
1 Jar of Sainsbury grilled artichoke hearts
half a bag of spinach
1 clove garlic (two if you're trying to combat illness like moi)
half a tub of low fat cream cheese (gotta feel somewhat healthy)
bagels
Tomatoes
Parmesan cheese

I threw in the artichokes, letting some of the olive oil it was packed in drip off first in to my mini food processor. Then I wilted the fresh spinach in a bit of kettle boiled water. Dumped that in. Tossed in my garlic, and then threw in about half of my cream cheese. Churned that up good. Done. Then I just spread it on a bagel , topped with fresh tomato, and sprinkled with a dash of Parmesan. Toasted it for about 2 mins under the grill.

And now, nothing left to do but sit back, munch away, and debate which mitten pattern I want to finish.

My friend Kiki over at Make My Funk did a great post about cooking. The funny thing is that I had planned on doing one on the same subject as well, only I was too busy getting ingredients to write one until now. After she beat me to it. However, hers was all about learning how to cook- something I feel everyone should learn how to do .

Mine is on discovering cooking sources. Despite writing an 80pg dissertation on cookery books, I have never used them. I don't know why- I suppose following a recipe feeds into the feeling of homogeny, statically doing what I'm told, and recalls images of Communist Russian architecture to my mind- boring, bland, and docile.




I thinkI take after my mom and dad's style of cooking rather than my grandma's. My grandma is an absolute slave to the cook book and can't even make a dish without following a recipe to the letter.

But recently I've been getting bored with my meals and even though I think I can cook pretty decently with the random stuff we have laying around the kitchen, I acknowledge that I fail when it comes to just 'creating' a meal without a predetermined idea. If I feel like having chicken, I only really know how to make (a freaking amazing!) roast chicken, or chicken fillets, which I then put on baguettes to make (freaking delicious) sandwiches or salads. Recently, I've been obsessed with Thai and Vietnamese spices and flavours, so I've done my fair share of creating Vietnamese salads, prawn rolls, and Thai beef going by taste and trial and error. And those have been pretty amazing too.

But recently I was over at a friend's house and we were making dinner for the family. And like my grandma, my friend is pretty useless with out the aid of a cook book. The meal we made was fantastic and got me thinking about getting a few of these cookery books for myself.

What we had was chicken. Chicken rolled in brown sugar. Then cooked (she pan fried it, but I grilled it) . Then we made a Vietnamese sauce for it that I had never heard of before- green chilies, shallots, fish sauce, lime juice, coriander, and sugar. Freaking amazing! Most of the dressings I used to make were rice vinegar based rather than lime juice.

So now I'm rethinking cook books, but still holding onto my rebellious edge. I want to redo that chicken recipe, but use beef instead and omit the cumin. I'm realising that cook books have a lot more in them than I thought, and I can always just steal the ideas and amend them to fit my cause. I don't need to feel like every dish I make needs to be 'uniquely mine' because there's nothing wrong with following a recipe every now and then. Even though the odds of ever following one to the letter is still pretty slim.