My wife has taken a short trip back to see her folks in Michigan, leaving me to fend for myself while she is gone. Normally, a hiatus from each other every so often is a good thing, as I then sleep when I want, wake when I want, and, wait for it, yes, even cook what I want to eat!!! These are all good things until the ‘cook what I want’ part comes up.
Now I’m a whiz when it comes to breakfast – I can cook an egg just about anyway you’d like to eat it. When I was in college, I lived on eggs and toast for years. Scrambled, fried, even poached, if that’s your liking, and I make a mean deviled egg during the holidays. And lunches with a salad or sandwich are easily obtained from any close deli or corner grocer.
But nightly when it comes to ‘what I want to eat’ part, that’s another story. I seem to be bending to a more Asian cuisine lately. A friend of ours gave us a wok and a Martin Yan cookbook to get us started. Asian dishes take a bit to pull together, as I’ve discovered trying some of the basic recipes in this cookbook. And in Asian dishes there are many ingredients and of course sauces – poison sauce, hoisun sauce, fish sauce, hot sauce, cold sauce, ‘God only knows whats in it but it must be eaten with this dish’ sauce. You get the picture. These dishes aren’t the kind you just open a can of this and a can of that and mix together until smooth. Noooooo. You have to chop, dice, combine, heat, cool, mix, wrap, dunk and finally savor those 2000+ tastes coming together in that first bite of spring roll you just made from scratch. Ah, it’s a feeling of real accomplishment when you are ready to actually eat that Asian combination of colors and smells you just ‘whipped’ up.
I friend of mine told me recently she went into an Asian grocery store in San Francisco looking to buy lemon zest. (Okay, who caught this first mistake?) and came out with only a bunch of bananas cause she couldn’t tell what was what, and when and where the various stuff on those shelves should be used. I kinda feel that way when going into a fancy lingerie shop. I don’t know why but I chalk that up to a genetic quirk in my makeup.
Butch Wife Tip #14
When you’re on your own and its time for dinner, cooking Asian food on your own is tricky and requires several sets of hands to get it all put together before midnight. Therefore, my tip is to go to a good Asian restaurant, order a healthy selection of veggies and fish, and savor the varied sauces they bring to you. Someone spent all day pulling those ingredients together and should be applauded for the effort.
Julie Butch Wife Extraordinaire-in-Training
Julie
lindageb
