Adventures in cooking

[batskeets]

The Chinese Food Extravaganza/Long Overdue Housewarming Party is still in the works. Thing is, A) my house is still kind of a mess, B) I don't actually have much in the way of good seating for guests, and C) I am too freakin' busy to do much about A or B. I mean, it took us a freakin' month and a half just to get an honest-to-god bed.

The cool thing is, I have the California trip on tap in a couple of weeks, here, so if time permits, I can spam my mother with questions about making my fabulous Chinese Food even more fabulous. Because she's good at that sort of thing. And I'm only sort-of-good at it.

Her teaching method is primarily by demonstration, so this is going to be my best opportunity for the next few months, at least, because I can't just call and ask her how to do something and expect to get anything I can use. She's not a recipe card kind of cook, which is a little frustrating, given how I work. J is much the same way, too.

The problem with this is that, when I'm asking "how do you make such-and-such?" I'm expecting a response that includes times, temperatures, one cup of this, 1/2 a teaspoon of that, and so forth. What I actually *get* from people like J or Ma is stuff like, "wait for it to get brown around the edges," or "combine these umpty-some items until it tastes right," or any number of directions that are subjective to varying degrees, and not at all based in the quantitative.

Yes, I realize that most of the really famous and really good chefs don't work in measurements, either, but you know what? I'm totally not that good at this crap. Sure, I can follow a recipe. I can even make something that tastes decent without a recipe. But something that actually tastes really, really, good? That's hard, yo. For the really cool stuff, you have to start me out with measurements and figures, so I can learn how it's supposed to taste. Then, *maybe* after that, we can talk about winging it without a recipe card in my face.

So yeah, anyway. I will glean some knowledge from Ma, and I will arm myself with many pens and copious amounts of paper. And those of you who choose to partake in my foodage will thank me later. :D

In other news, I am giving Gizmo a bath for the first time, this evening. I'm not too worried about it, for the most part. However, I'm told that Gizmo has been known to bite people who are using the blowdryer on him post-bath, because he haaaates the blowdryer. I don't want doggie bites! Giz is a pretty mellow and happy dog, though, so hopefully he'll cooperate with me.

Taiji was hard last night. My knees were being a beasto. Blah.

That's all!

Comments

[whiteraevyn.livejournal.com]

Personally, I prefer the "rubbing-the-dog-down-with-a-towel", and then "let-the-dog-tear-around-the-house-like-a-psycho-beast" method of drying, but to each his own. ;)

[a-wags.livejournal.com]

i love wet animals, they always look funny to me