Wednesday 1 Mar @ 1730

Here it is, the first day of that most hallowed of months. Yes it's true ladies and gentlemen, the ,moth that you were all given the gift of me is on us once again and I will be 46 years of age. When my boss found out that my B-day is Monday, he asked where I wanted to go for lunch and I replied, "Paris, I've always loved Paris in the Spring...". He suggested that we hit the crepe stand in Pioneer Square. Well, it was worth a try.

Onward...

I've been experimenting with Thai food @ home. I made a green curry last night and the first pass turned out too salty as I used far too much of the curry paste. Not to bright of me to try going by color huh? I cut it with more coconut milk and it is fine now, in fact it made a fine lunch today. I will endeavor to perfect this going forward. Soon I will be on to mussaman curry, another Thai stew. This is a red curry with cinnamon and I had a lamb version while in the UK and it was terrific. I like the fact that lamb was on so many menus there even though chicken seemed to be an afterthought on many of those same menus. I've seen other references to lamb mussaman curry so it must be somewhat authentic. I'll try it here as I have a reference for that and then probably switch to chicken. I found both of those curry pastes relatively easily but another I'm searching for I have found only online, kaeng par or jungle curry. This is a coconut milk free curry as it is considered a peasant dish so the lack of the coconut milk makes the stew less expensive. It is very spicy and is basically a curry broth with lots of vegetables, very yummy as well.

Now that Spring is almost sprung, I'm starting to get the cooking bug and even the grocery produce is starting to look far better for the most part. This happens to me a lot this time of year, I think it's the beginning of availability of affordable crisp fresh asparagus. I can use it in curry! and so many other ways as well.

I've also been experimenting with expanding my knowledge of tea. I find that it makes a nice afternoon pick me up w/o the coffee buzz that so often accompanies coffee or a shot of espresso. I was able to lay hands on a couple of single estate Assam teas while in London ( the cute girl behind the tea counter @ Harrods didn't tell me the jumbari estate was $27.00 for the 100 grams I ordered!) and they make a nice afternoon cuppa. In fact I substituted tea for coffee last Saturday morning (not sure I'll intentionally do that again but it was worth a try). I also picked up a tin of Assam TGFOP from Fortnum & Mason as well as a couple of their coffees to taste out with the kids in my department. The coffee so far has been retched (that's as nice a thing as I can come up with to say) but the tea has been lovely. I have also asked that I be a guinea pig for the new yea master program that will be unveiled @ work next month. Much to learn...

Back to my birthday, I think I'll get a ticket to the closing night of Cosi Fan Tutti w/ the Seattle Opera. It is a new production and sounds tremendous according to the reviews. I haven't been to the opera for a while and would like to attend again. I've found that attending the theater alone is a very enjoyable experience. It allows for much pondering and always the ability to sit in the shadows and watch all the funny people.

I have Henry for the weekend and we're going to try and hook up with a couple of his friends so he can see some he hasn't for a while. We're back on the regular treadmill now until we have a 3 day weekend together for St. Patricks Day. We're thinking of Oregon if we can get it put together. If not, maybe Vancouver or something else. That weekend will be followed on Monday the 20th by the 2nd Annual Great Protest of the Great Meat-out. The Great Meat-out is the day those Vegan types would like to see us all give up eating meat, however a group @ work has decided to make a tradition of last year's observance and eat nothing but meat. At this time we are still accepting ideas for the largest plate of meat we can find in the Seattle area for lunch. At this time the leader seems to be the sampler platter @ Mac's Smokehouse. Apparently we can measure the amont of meat on the plate not by mere ounces but by pounds. This could be this year's winner.

Well, back to the grind. Have a lovely March