On The Road Again

This week finds me in Houma, LA. for work. This after a trip to Corpus Christi, last week. My tour of the Gulf Coast continues. Perhaps when I'm done in Houma, I'll keep going east for some beach time in Florida! I seriously may do this. A couple of days of R&R in New Orleans would be OK too... Hmm, ideas...

I was down in the Corpus area to check on things for a deepwater oil & gas platform I'm working on. I only managed to get a couple of pictures of the hull column. This thing is going to be huge.

This is one quarter…



Of one half…



of three legs that will make up the floating portion of the platform. Obviously, we have a long ways to go before this thing floats out its final home in the Gulf of Mexico...

SATURDAY WAS A VERY SPECIAL DAY
I made it back to the Houston area for a special Saturday. My college roommate and great friends Todd & Amanda held a 10-year vow renewal. I was best man at his wedding and was very proud to stand again for this event.

Almost the entire wedding party from 10 years ago was there for the renewal festivities. It says a lot that not only are Todd and Amanda still by each other's side after 10 years, but so are their friends. They are just that kind of people and I'm grateful for both them. Here are the bride, groom, and their first daughter Addison:



They are expecting their second child in January. Todd and Amanda are very lucky to have each other.

SUNDAY COOKING
Pinkgurugal started it. Last week Pinkgurugal posted some wonderful pics of a home-cooked Asian (Vietnamese) meal. This gave me some serious envies for the distinct aromas and flavors that you can’t get at P.F.Changs (blech!). My introduction to real Asian food came when I lived with a Chinese family while I was attending LSU. It’s been so long since I had the real thing, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it of by myself. But when the envies call, they must be obeyed. Why not try?

Armed with a vague recollection of ingredients, I embarked on an expedition down Bellaire Blvd. I strolled into the same Asian food store we (me & Chinese family) used to shop at years ago. Yep, still smells the same. (Nothing smells quite like an Asian grocery store). Yep, still the only white dude in sight! Everyone looks at me like I'm lost. What an adventure!

I bought a bunch of stuff based on 10-year-old and very hazy memory. Packaging was important, because some things, well…I can’t read the labels! But I did remember the shape and color of the containers! As I was shopping my memory of how the food tasted was translated into ingredients. Quite frankly, Chinese food is really, really simple when you get down to it. Anyway, I ended up with a bunch of different sauces for flavoring, dried cuttlefish (my favorite), a box of instant noodles, two kinds of tea, some medicinal potions (White Flower Oil rawks for muscle soreness), a type of dried mushroom known only to me as "fungus". Oh, also the obligatory huge bag of Thai jasmine rice. Picked up some veggies and beef, too.

I returned home, and performed the chopping of the vegetables. I’ve always wondered why chop sticks are called chop sticks. You can’t chop anything with them. All the chopping is done before the food is cooked. I entertained myself with this quandary as I continued to chop... I ended up with beef, spinach, broccoli, onions, celery and a bunch of garlic...



The spinach is real simple. I heated about 2 tablespoons of sesame oil in my deep skillet. Sesame oil is key. It’s got a great flavor that meshes well with spinach. I tossed in the garlic. I don’t really measure when I cook. But it was about this much:



Call that one palmfull. When the garlic started getting warm the fragrance was exactly what I wanted! I pitched the spinach in… beware it cooks down a lot. A bunch of water reduces out. The juices are super tasty. Don’t overcook, as it will get bitter if you do. It cooked down a lot, too. Here’s the before and after :



Now my kitchen smelled like it was supposed to. Familiar. Bouyed by my success, I pressed on - making the broccoli. This one was just a guess. I took about a tablespoon of sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, some water. I have no idea how much of each. I just kept adding a bit of this and that until is smelled right…. I ended up with this...



For the beef I started with… you guessed it… sesame oil, about 1 tablespoon. Then I added some soy sauce, some Shirracha chili sauce, some other sauce (I have no idea what to call it), a dash of Teriyaki, and threw in the onions until they cleared. Added the celery and beef...



While all this is going on my rice was cooking. Got the good stuff from Thailand, it really is better. Viola, here’s my Chinese buffet.



Yeah, I go straight to leftover containers. You can do that when you are a single guy…

That’s a bowl of goodness right there.



This was a really simple meal. Nothing that can be compaired to Mama Elaine's, or Pinkgurugal's folks. But, it did have the distinctive flavors I was looking to satiate.

When I get back from this trip I'm going to try some other things I think I can remember how to cook. My favorites being Bai Chi (white chicken) and Ma Dao Dofu (spicy tofu)...oh, and a chicken dish flavored with tequila. I also want to cook up something with a bunch of ginger too...hmm... can't wait to get home!