So I think recently Dad has been trying to encourage me to cook more (I think he senses that I am getting restless at home), which is good news for me. I'm starting to get a little discouraged by Mom's criticism of me in the kitchen, but now reinforcements have arrived, and I re-emerge with renewed strength!
Yesterday, I was supposed to go out with Gordon for lunch and the library (he's working on his med school application, poor boy), but I decided to cancel and spend the July 5th holiday catching up on pre-medical school issues with Dad. Which means shopping for electronics (seen by me as nothing more than an unfortunately necessary evil - computers and I are not friends). Anyway, that meant I wouldn't waste my stomach on a big lunch and could therefore eat properly with my parents...which Mom hadn't counted on and so had nothing to cook. So Dad suggested I cook up my Pad Thai, which I've cooked a few times in San Diego and once for Dad in NorCal. I use
Pim's recipe (seems like everyone does), which is surprisingly fast and simple. One major twist - we didn't want to buy limes, so we used the lemons from our backyard. It didn't have the EXACT same taste, but it was close enough.
If you ever meet a Taiwanese person, he/she will literally swear by this dish. I'm serious...they are extremely protective of their beef noodle soups!
Today was a pretty food-heavy day. My friend Priscilla came over to cook with me and ended up staying for dinner as well. I'll post up some future posts about the stuff we made...but dinner consisted of Vietnamese bún, or cold rice vermicelli tossed with an assortment of veggies and herbs and meat (in this case, Mom's lemongrass pork chops), all drizzled with nuoc cham dipping sauce. It's definitely tasty - but not exactly filling. I think I started getting hunger pains a couple hours after finishing.
I have about 3 more days until I board the plane for China. My dad wants to go out for Pho tomorrow, and we're spending Saturday in SF using accumulated travel points to stay at the hotel so we can catch our 6am flight on Sunday. So I figured we ought to have a fairly light meal so that if there were any leftovers my dad would be able to finish them off during his midnight cravings (instead of the ice cream he always tries to sneak past me).
now if there is an English name on it...but if you're interested, look for the package design. It also comes with a sauce (different flavors for each package). The one I chose was "Sichuan Spicy Hot" flavor.
