Bunissima

I kid, my cat is called Grey. My cat actually has many names. Some of them are the common Kitty, Cat, Pisica, Piti, Pisi, little smelly, fur ball, etc. Conceptually I like to refer to her as “my cat Dinah”, but that is only when I am in wonderland, conceptually still.

But I am not here to tell you everything about my cat. The real matter is that I feel guilty. I can see the accusation in her reproachful eyes when she eats that dried-sock flavored food, the little pieces of crunchy brown gravel that you would not eat if you were starving to death. While I am eating my delicious human food.

I had been theorizing before on the fact that this food is not cat food because they like it but because we call it so. I can see now that cats do not prefer and do not like this so-called cat food. They just take it as a final option, as the only option they are given. After all, their denture and digestive systems show that they are carnivores (well, my cat is omnivore and loves papaya, mango, and chips&salsa, but who cares). It’s like painting the roses red. Well, more like painting weeds as roses, but anyway.

After the Fryday’s concert with the Decemberists, Saturday’s Arctic Monkeys were sadly missed because we got there later, and this one concert was actually on time. We had been busy gorging on sourdough pretzels, beer and German wursts at a different venue.The fortunate but infortunate event was a pale copy of the real Oktoberfest organized by St. Arnold’s, but at least I got the first ever stein for free… after paying some 50 $ for the ticket. I am saying this because it is not easy to get things for free. I had previously gotten a free Budweiser hat from a very good looking girl, but I am not big on red hats or bud for that matter. At least I can use the stein. I like to look at it mostly, and the colors are lovely.

I also got hooked with this incredibly handsome guy, was crazy, believe me!

But I digress. What I meantersay was that the concert season is not over, and tooo-night it is Thievery Corporation!

Yes, here they make a festival out of everything, you’d think. And yes, there really is an annual hot sauce festival. There were people selling their sauces, even though there was place for more, meaning there were not as many sellers as expected for a hot sauce festival.

People were walking around tasting sauces, buying sauce bottles and jars or the inevitable crap associated with events like this: hats, bowls, nice silk dresses, neckalces, stuff, or sitting at tables and eating mexican food, crawfish sausages, chocolate cheese cake, drinking beer, on the green grass, between the llittle shops, listening to a live zydeco band. Like good little fellow citizen.

We tasted some of the sauces. I was also kind of hungry so I kept tasting and tasting, encouraged by my companion who is an incurable hotness adept. I had to do an emergency stop after I was tricked into eating what must have been the hottest sauce I ever had in my entire life. It kept burning after a while, long after I felt like I was going to puke and my eyes were going to pop out of the eye socket. I do not remember at what point I had a brownie, but it was sure worth. Much better than hot sauce.

We still ended up with numerous bottles of hot sauce, the purpose of which eludes me, but it’s nice to have them and make colorful photos of them (also got a bowl of queso, but that one was not in the photo).

And, since I do not care for the hot sauce, I wish I had bought more brownies.

Cooking at home and eating home-made food can sometimes be a bigger satisfaction both in terms of accomplishment (like “I am good enough at cooking something new and make it come out well) and satisfaction of the taste buds than eating at restaurants. I have always loved sushi, from the very first time I had it. I cried that time, as I was being generously advised to put as much wasabi as I could, because it’s good for the savour.

And ever since I dreamed of making my own sushi. I have found yesterday in a supermarket a sushi meal kit. It was perfect for me as it had the instructions on how this actually works, what is the process. they always make it seem so complicated in the cooking shows and in the recipes online that it almost scares you, making you think that you’ll fail and waste time and money on it, so the cooking kit was perfect, not too expensive, not too complicated.

It had
a cup of uncooked rice,
1oz rice vinegar (30 grams).,
some soy packets, which obviuosly were not sufficient, but happily I had some soy sauce at home,
some wasabi paste which did not look too appealing, but I was fortunate enough to have had some wasabi powder from someone who loves me,
4 nori sheets,
the bamboo mat and chopsticks.
I also used about 6 oz of smoked salmon and 1 cucumber cut in the size of matches, as it was suggested on the package.

I boiled the rice, mixed it with vinegar and let it cool. While the rice was cooking I cut the cucumbers.

After the rice was cooled suffciently, I spread it on the nori and added the salmon and cucumbers.

The result was great. The rice was sticking all together without spreading, the wasabi and soy were awesome, and the overall taste was great. I think it should be easy to try this with ingredients separately bought, but the most important thing is to buy the special rice for sushi. The rest is easy and fast.

Special thanks to Cristina for assisting me.

I like to cook. Once in a while I like to try new things. While paella is not all that exotic, I never did it and today I just told myself that I have to try it once and for all. Here is what you need:

1/4 cup (2 fl. oz) of olive oil

5 cloves minced garlic

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4 cups (32 fl. oz) vegetable broth

2 cups (16 oz) rice

4 medium tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped

1 small red bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 small green bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

1 small yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips

2 cups (14 oz) artichoke hearts (I used endives but I guess artichokes are much better)

3 oz surimi

1 lemon

a dash of pepper

some parsley, if desired or to garnish

lemon wedges, to garnish

1. I cut all the vegetables, and sauteed the onion. I added the garlic a little bit later, as garlic cooks faster than onion. Meanwhile I started boiling the water for the broth.

2. Add the rice and sautee for a little while, up to 5 min max, add the bell peppers and tomatoes and cook for 3-5 more min. I also added some garlic again and some pepper.

Meanwhile the soup was ready so I poured it over the rice.

3. When the liquid was absorbed, I added the endives. I also put some chipotle chile pepper. After 5 more minutes I turned off the gas and added the surimi.

Here is how it looked when ready to eat:

It was a great cooking experience and this will become one of the dishes I cook at home regularly.