our son the cook

For our family Thanksgiving meal this year our middle son used these recipes:

Ham with Gingersnap crust
Ruth Chris' Sweet Potato Casserole
Pineapple upside down cheese cake

Most recently he experimented on us and made this yummy food:

Honey Brined Turkey

International food for Christmas

Four years ago we decided to start a new family tradition of allowing our middle son to choose where he wants to eat when we go out for his Christmas Eve birthday. It is sometimes difficult to find a place open on Christmas Eve, but since he likes trying different international food, that makes it easier actually. Many years ago we were visiting my mother in Tucson for Christmas and we could only find a single restaurant open. It was a Mexican food and that started the idea I think. Four years ago when living in San Antonio, Texas he came up with a great idea of eating Thai food. My coworkers pointed us to what many considered the best Thai food in the city. It was definitely a treat to take all of the family to that place. After returning to North Carolina the following year, our son decided he wanted to try Sushi. He knew it was not my favorite so he found a place that served both Thai and Sushi. Last year was difficult as we called so many places that he wanted to try but they were all closed. We found some other interesting places but they were too expensive like the "Melting Pot" which serves only fondu. So we decided on Greek food, which was a great choice. This year we went for Thai food again and it was wonderful. Who knows what next year will hold? At least we decided not to get ice cream cake this year as we have not had much success with those in the last few years. The photo on the right is the straw covers from our Thai ice tea which were mysteriously formed in beautiful rose shapes. The rice served for our curry dishes was also interesting as one was the shape of a teddy bear and the other one was a fish. Such a great place to eat. It was called Sawasdee.

18th Greek birthday

Yesterday was our middle son's 18th birthday. We try to eat out so my wife does not have to cook a special meal for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We have eaten in several different places. One year while in Arizona visiting my mother in Tucson, we searched everywhere to find some place open where we could eat. We finally found an authentic Mexican restaurant that was open and enjoyed the food a lot. One year while in San Antonio we ate at the best Thai restaurant in the whole city. It is the best Thai food I have ever eaten. This year, our son wanted to eat traditional southern cooking, but we could not find a place that was open. We decided at the last minute to eat Greek food. I had heard people at work talk about two of the best Greek places to eat. The one closest to work was not open so we picked the other one. We were a bit sceptical when we arrived at the restaurant as no one else was there, but we were early since we wanted to attend the Christmas Eve service at church later in the evening. It was fun eating something none of us had had in an authentic restaurant. We topped off the meal with one of the best desserts any of us had eaten, which was a raspberry cream cake. It came with a single candle on it. The name of the place was Mythos Mediterranian Bistro.

food in Army

On the first night that our oldest son was home for the Christmas holidays, my wife fixed meat pot pie, which was always our son's favorite. I was really very tasty and nearly perfect in every way. As we sat at the table, he asked if this was all we were having. This was kind of odd since we have always eaten like this with simple but nutritious meals. Last year at this time, when he came home, he was starving from living on his own and a home cooked meal was all he dreamed about. So I asked him why he spoke like this about his mother's wonderful cooking and what the food was like in the Army. He told us of their multiple course meals three times a day. There were many varieties of everything to choose from at every meal. He did not overeat but always looked forward to each meal and made the decision at that time as to what he fill his plate with. He was select a meat, a couple of vegetable sides, always dessert. He was describing a super buffet selection for every meal. No wonder our single dish meal was a bit too simple for him.

family and food

Yesterday was the first time we have not had our whole family together for our traditional Thanksgiving Day meal. Our oldest son could not get off the Army base so we are going down there to see him today. For the last week we had hoped he would be able to come home, but on Tuesday night we learned that no one was able to leave. Our next to oldest son is in California and everyone left in the house talked to him by phone yesterday. He was going to try to have a meal with those in the school who remained, one from Pennsylvania and one from Michigan. He is so out-going that life is an adventure for him, of which this is yet another one.

This year we decided to deep fry a turkey. We first tried doing it ourselves two years ago and it was the best turkey we ever had. It is messy and a bit expensive but the oldest son in house suggested we do it again. Last time we followed Alton Brown's recipe and it worked out for us. It is really very easy to do as it just takes some patience. We even followed his directions on how to build a turkey derrick. But this time the turkey derrick did not fly as my son told me "that is for 60 year olds". I guess after being two years older he had not gained wisdom but had become more daring. All went well without the turkey derrick as we did not have any exploding turkeys to report or old burns. We have read stories of people trying to deep fry turkeys that were still frozen and they shoot out of the fryer, literally exploding. This year after the 35 minute frying had been completed, we decided to do a couple of tests after turning off the propane flames. We threw a frozen chicken nugget in the 350 degree peanut oil. When it did not shoot out, we tried throwing in a frozen bread biscuit. The chicken nugget and biscuit popped up to the top of the oil after a couple of minutes. When we still did not get the affect, we threw in 5 ice cubes. Suddenly things got really interesting. Previously the oil surface was quite calm but now it starting bubbling profusely. So ice definitely is a bad idea with hot boiling oil. Our last experiment was putting in ice cream as we had heard that at the NC State Fair they offer fried ice cream. Apparently there is a science in getting that to work as throwing it n just made the ice cream melt right away. This sounds like we wasted a lot of time playing around, but after removing the turkey from the hot oil, you have to let it sit for 30 minutes to finish cooking and that is when we messed around with the oil.

A final word about our meal. In the morning my wife spent hours preparing the food. She did comment that it did seem odd to spend so much time on food that is finished off in minutes. I told her that some people actually enjoy the act of cooking in itself. I just like how our family gets together around the table and sits and talks. Something that is not natural for teenagers! My wife took hours to make from scratch the following foods : bread stuffing, cream corn, sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, baked apples, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie. What a wonderful cook I married. All of that and she did not feel very good as she had a cold. It never fails to amaze me how she can cook when not feeling good and it always tastes perfect.

food and family

It is almost impossible to get our whole family together at this stage in every one's lives, but for my wife's birthday we came close. Since my wife was born and grew up her whole life in South Korea, she really likes Asian food, so we went to P.F. Chang's. I had always heard that it was a very expensive Chinese restaurant, which it was, but the atmosphere was really great for such special occasions, plus I did not have to pay for the bill so it was even more special! My wife's parents, my wife's sister and a really good friend of theirs as well as our children were all present. My oldest son is currently a waiter at another lesser food establishment so he could appreciate the high cost which means high tips and even said he would like to work at a place this nice. This is the first event in the series of landmarks for this year and hopefully they will all be as nice as this one. The older you get, the more the events themselves are not the focal point, but who is present to share them with you and this is why this one was so special.

Speaking of my waiter son, he rode is the car with us and as we talked I realized how much he has become responsible in the last four months. Can I dare say matured? For me, the idea of becoming mature means taking the responsibility you have been given and using it wisely. I see in the American Heritage Dictionary they define maturity as "The state or quality of being fully grown or developed". I am not sure when I can say any of my kids are fully grown mentally, but he is definitely on the path to getting there. I think life should be about getting better with age and learning new things all along the way, so I guess I will never fully achieve this goal either, which is good. The other good thing about my son is that is he learning what he is not good at doing, which is just as important as knowing what you like to do. This for me also is maturing.

To end the day, our two youngest children huddled on the floor in our bedroom to watch a 2004 Bollywood movie called Bride & Prejudice with us. We had all four watched this together before and the kids liked the line "no life without wife" so they did not mind seeing it again. It was nice to have them watch it with us as who knows how many more times this will happen as it is not "cool" to watch Indian movies with your parents.

Indochine Cafe

For my father-in-law's 80th birthday he requested we as a family eat at Indochine Cafe in Wilmington, NC. Besides the fact that my mother-in-law insisted on paying for the meal, it was a great place to eat. The food was so excellent that I would go back any chance I get.

We tried many things, but the 3 I liked the best were the following listed from hottest spice-wise:

    1. red curry
    2. green curry
    3. yellow curry

The red curry was one of the hottest dishes I have put in my mouth and just kept getting hotter the more I ate. Finally my temples felt like they were increasing 1 degree in temperature every minute. Then the back of my neck started sweating. What a strange experience but the taste was so good. I also tried the green curry and it must have been the coconut sweetness that did not give it the same edge. It was also very hot but the hotness did not last. If you like coconut and hot food, then it is a perfect dish. The yellow curry was spicy with tumeric based spices and had a great flavor but was not hot at all.

The environment is so unique with Buddhist statues all around and lovely pottery as well. What a nice evening!