I am really loving all this nice weather we’re having in Georgia right now. February is normally the coldest month of the year, but we’ve had temps in the high 60’s for almost 3 whole weeks now. I’m just waiting for the inevitable cold snap to hit and crush all my dreams. 😉

I love it when it’s warm enough that we can walk into Decatur and grab a drink or a bite to eat; it makes me feel like we live in a real city!

One thing I always crave when the temperatures start to rise is spicy food. Mexican and Thai are all I want in the summer, and the heat wave has me craving both already.

I’ve been disappointed in the Thai restaurants in Decatur though, that is until we finally visited Garlic, a relatively new place that we’ve been avoiding like the plague.

First off, they’re in a spot that has had a few failed restaurants in it previously, so for some reason we just assumed that it was equally crappy. Secondly, they advertise $1 sushi between the hours of 5pm and 7pm, which is a surefire way to have me running for the hills. I’m of the opinion that you need to pay a good bit for sushi for it to be any good. It doesn’t have to break your wallet, but $1 is ludicrously low, and that fact left me skeptical of the quality of all their food, not just the sushi.

Well, the other day we wanted Thai and didn’t want to go very far for it. Since we already knew we weren’t that into the other Thai places near by, we figured we’d at least go to Garlic once so we could confirm our unfounded bias that it must be awful and never have to wonder about it again.

Well, it turns out we were wrong and Garlic was oh-so-right!

We started off with two thai iced teas and this plate of barbecued eel for an appetizer.

It was so good dripping in eel sauce and set atop both fresh and grilled veggies. It’s just one of the many tapas style items they offer. We were also eyeing the fried lotus root chips, one for next time!

Jeff got red curry with pork. This is his “litmus” dish for Thai food; if the red curry is good, it’s all good. And it was good!

It was lightly sweet and creamy with a creeping heat in the back of the throat. The best thing though was that it had a sourness to it that was much more authentic-tasting than typical Americanized curries which are always just cloyingly sweet.

I got a green curry with fried tofu that was out-of-this-world! The veggies were cooked but still snappy, the tofu tasted beany rather than bland, the sauce was rich and plentiful, and the frizzle-fried basil was so fresh and green-tasting.

One of the better curries I’ve ever had.

We didn’t try any sushi, but with the quality of their other offerings I’d be willing to give it a go now.

I haven’t made Thai curry at home in quite a while, whereas it used to be one of my weekly meals. Nope, I don’t only cook Japanese food, that’s just what I gravitate towards most often.

I think it’s time to bring back the curry, or at least walk up to Garlic more often and order some of theirs since we were so wrong about it.

Do you like Thai food? What is your favorite Thai dish?

February 25, 2011 Alayna Discussion 4 comments

I wanted to take a moment to formally introduce you to a staple of my spice cabinet that I’ve mentioned here a few times and tell you a little bit more about it.

Furikake. So, what is it?

Furikake is a popular Japanese condiment used mainly as a seasoning for rice. There are dozens, if not hundreds of varieties of this stuff available and there are really no rules as to what they should be made up of. The usual suspects include toasted sesame, bits of nori, bonito flake, dried vegetables, dried egg or other proteins, puffed and toasted rice, and usually salt and spices.

The two we have currently are a noritamago flavor and a katsuo mirin flavor.

Noritamago is a combination of the words “nori” and “tamago.” You know nori as the dark green seaweed sheets used to wrap maki sushi. In this furikake, the nori is cut into tiny pieces and serves as the salty element. Tamago is the Japanese word for egg, and this furikake contains lots of dried egg bits. There is also toasted sesame and a tiny bit of bonito flake in there too.

We like to eat this on top of plain rice, on fried rice, and sometimes mixed into plain rice and pressed into a ball to form what is known as an onigiri.

That one is definitely Jeff’s favorite as he isn’t as in love with bonito as I am.

But for all you dried and shaved skipjack tuna fans out there (anyone?) this is the one I recommend for you!

Katsuo is the Japanese name for the fish known in most other parts of the world as bonito. We call it skipjack tuna in the states, I don’t know why it has so many names. In Japan, katsuo is dried whole and then shaved into a product called katsuobushi. It looks a lot like sawdust and smells like dried mushrooms with a faint oily fish smell. It’s a critical component in making dashi, the popular seaweed stock used ubiquitously throughout Japanese cuisine.

It is also a popular ingredient in furikakes. The one above is mostly katsuo flavored with mirin and soy sauce and accented with toasted sesame seeds and just a few flakes of nori. The flavor is a balance of salty and savory, with the soy seasoning the earthy dried fish.

I eat this on plain rice or in an onigiri, but every once in a while I’ll sprinkle it on a bowl of noodles too.

So, if you ever come across this stuff on one of your grocery shopping ventures, now you know what you’re looking at. With so many variations out there, I’m sure there’s at least one that fits your tastebuds exactly. Give it a try, it beats plain rice any day!

What is your favorite seasoning or spice?

February 23, 2011 Alayna Discussion 5 comments

Now that our new little lady is safely home with us after her long journey here from China, she must be successfully seasoned before she can be used to brew pu-erh tea. New teapots are often coated in a thin layer of wax, but even the ones that aren’t can have some rough spots and loose sediment that needs to be removed so that you don’t end up drinking it.

Seasoning is about more than just making sure your new pot is clean though. Yixing clay is a porous material that over time will absorb oils from the tea leaves brewed within it. This is a good thing. It is said that after using your pot regularly for 15 years, you should be able to brew tea in it with just the residual oils and flavors imbued in the pot itself, without adding any leaf at all!

So, in a way, seasoning a new teapot is much like seasoning a cast iron skillet. You want it to soak up the flavors from what you put in it, gradually building up more flavor and character within the vessel that over time can contribute to a more roundly flavored tea.

You start by lightly scrubbing the pot with something soft but still mildly abrasive. I’ve even read of using toothpaste and a toothbrush to do this, but Jeff and I were afraid that the toothpaste might somehow flavor the pot so we went with just this textured tea towel instead.

When she’s nice and scrubbed, it’s time for the spa treatment!

The pot needs to be boiled for about 30 minutes with a teacloth to keep it from rattling around. Rinse the teapot in warm then hot tap water for a minute or two before plunging it into the boiling water to avoid causing cracks from the sudden temperature change. I like to make separate compartments for the pot and lid so that they don’t rub up against each other.

Cover up with the teacloth and let it do it’s thing for 30 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let it cool down for another 30 minutes before taking it out, again this is so that you don’t subject the pot to sudden changes in temperature.

Just let it dry completely on a rack so that it gets good air circulation all around it. When it’s completely dry you can move on to phase two.

The next step is basically the same as the first, but this time you’re gonna boil the pot in the type of tea you intend to use it for.

Here I am unwrapping my new bing for the first time!

It’s dry and tightly packed, so we used a knife to carefully break the tea apart.

You need about 2 tbsp. worth. We let Lucas “test it for quality.” He quickly realized that this was not food and therefore of no interest to him.

Waiting for the water to come up to a boil and then pouring the tea straight in.

It takes less than a minute for the leaves to unfurl and start releasing their clouds of sweet and smoke-smelling liquid.

Just tuck away your pot and lid within the folds of the tea towel as before, and cover.

I’ve heard so many different theories as to how long you should boil the pot on the second pass. All from 20 minutes, an hour, 3 hours, and even letting it sit for a week! Jeff and I decided that a half hour was sufficient for opening the pores and allowing them to be refilled with the warm tea oils.

Lucas finds this whole process thrilling, can’t you tell?

Well here she is after her bath, not ready to let go of the memory of it. See, she took a souvenir!

Can you see the difference in smoothness? It’s a bit hard to tell in pictures. Holding it in your hand though it should feel almost like skin, smooth and lightly oily.

That’s pretty much it. This teapot is ready for service now.

Like I said, this one will only be used for brewing pu-erh teas. Jeff already has a slightly larger Yixing pot that we only use for Chinese black teas. You don’t want to mix teas between pots because the oils in the leaves will add to the flavor of the pot over time and can ever-so-slightly alter the flavor of the tea you are drinking.

It is important that your teapots stay in monogamous relationships with the type of tea they were “married” to during seasoning so that the flavor of the pot and the tea can compliment and enhance each other. A pot and its tea are like soul-mates; they can never be separated, they bring out the best in each other, and the relationship gets even better with age!

February 20, 2011 Alayna Discussion, How To 7 comments