I suppose an education of classics has always been penciled on my bucket list, but navigating the prolific output of the genre and separating wheat from chaff is a daunting task. Spurred by the quality of The Stars My Destination, I'm planning on wending my way down the list of SF Masterworks, a series of out-of-print sci-fi novels republished by Orion/Gollancz. My hope is...

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Pad Thai - minimalist with just noodles, eggs, and chicken; not bright pink or overly sweet! Papaya Salad - real hot, almost like the real thing, as in, on a real Thai beach. Red Curry - fresh vegetables and tender beef! We ordered the affordable (under 8 dollars), combo dinner that includes rice, edamame, salad, soup (slightly tangy), with fried dumpling and eggroll (better...

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The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester This book is on countless best of sci-fi lists and for very good reason; hard and soft, prose and pulp, literary and accessible, scientific and mystical, fantastical and satirical, cyberpunk and steampunk, fastpaced and thoughtful... Hitting the sweet-spot between the directives of speculative techno/cultural fiction and new-wave psycho emo/humanism is a rarity - a feat even more astonishing, given...

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The Blade Itself (The First Law), Joe Abercrombie Abercrombie's first novel reads like one of the Coen Brothers more violent movies, with blood spattered everywhere and wry dialogue. But where the Coens are calculated and sparse, Abercrombie is halfway to a potentially cheesy version of cheesy 80's fantasy classics on tv. The scope may be a tad ambitious, but on a whole, the book is...

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Beyond the Great Wall (NPR link), by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, features recipes from the non-Han territories of China. These recipes can be previewed here. I'm not sure why the Tsampa Stew in the book is so red. I'm guessing it's because I used pressed instead of whole grain barley. I might add tomato to the leftovers just to see how I like...

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Not the film based on Do Angels Dream of Electric Sheep, but The Bladerunner, a 1974 novel by Alan Nourse. In some near future, good health care is provided to anyone who agrees to pay the fee - sterilization. Those who don't want to comply with these terms are forced to turn to black market practitioners. The idea is to weed out those...

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These doughnuts were a labor of love. First, after soaking my beans overnight with some foresight and spending all day babying my boiling beans, I ended up overfatting my first painstaking batch of bean paste with duck confit. Not my best idea. Determined not to give up, I starting over with just enough beans for half a recipe and started making the doughnut dough by...

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My friend's grandmother was a wrinkly toothless little mite with a big temper. She made the most wonderful mung bean pancakes which I couldn't stop eating. While the filling can be as fancy as you like, grandma's thin 4" pancakes only included strands of bright green chives that required no sauce. When using store bought mung bean flour I find it advantageous to...

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I am partial to the original Chinese version of Zha Jiang Mian 炸酱面, which consists of fried and lightly sauced meat with fresh shredded vegetables on top. The Korean version is another animal altogether and is composed with a rich syrupy sauce in which the vegetables are braised. For this recipe, the vegetables should be diced uniformly to bite size pieces, about 3/4" square is...

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While, I have a small collection of cookbooks, I really only use a few on a regular basis. Some are strictly for pictures or perusal of ingredients for dishes. Some I found initially lacking. Others I just outgrew ie Jamie Oliver. Some books, like Thai Food (comprehensive and very exact), are complicated, require more elaborate and time consuming techniques, or use foods that are hard to source...

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Stock Base: 10 dried anchovies 2 4" squares of kombu 2 dried shitaki mushrooms, or sliced equivalent 4 cups water or thin beef broth Tofu Soup: 4 garlic, crushed 1/4 red or yellow onion, sliced thin 3 slices of pork belly, sliced thin 1/2 daikon, peeled, cubed or radish kimchee, whatever is handy 1 tbsp red pepper flakes, kochukaru. to taste 1 tbsp fish...

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Typically a breakfast or snack food, Chinese style rice gruel with toppings and seasonings varies by region and family. My grandfather preferred his porridge with a simple baked yam, a healing dish. Leftover sauteed greens or meats are a frugal accompaniment as well. I often enjoy leftover roast meats and panchan vegetables with kimchee and sesame oil in my porridge.  1 cup rice -...

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Despite the inauthentic addition of soy sauce and coconut milk, this recipe, adapted from Memories of a Phillipine Kitchen, creates a pleasing roasted candy sweetness with a sour tang. 3 lbs whole chicken thighs works really well, as breasts easily become overcooked. Take breat meat out earlier if using. 1 1/4 cane vinegar 1 cup coconut milk. I use 1/2 thick coconut milk in a...

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At Romantic Steakhouse in Monterey Park, CA I would often order the special dinner set. The first course was always a cup of light and tasty ruddy soup, served with toasted baguette slices infused with melted butter and crispy garlic. A small iceberg salad with creamy dressing came next, followed by a sizzling steak platter, a substantial and perfectly medium rare tenderloin wrapped...

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2 chinese eggplants, halved, cut into two inch sections, quartered. If some of the pieces are still to big, I halve them again. 4 cloves garlic, minced1" piece ginger, peeled and minced2 green onions, white part minced, green part shredded into 2" sections1 tsp coarse ground sichuan peppercorn. I used 2 tsp of cracked black pepper because I couldn't find sichuan peppercorn at...

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Without a food processor or a hefty mortar and pestle its hard for me to make my own galapong for this dish. Instead, I used an equal amount of rice flour and added several tablespoons of water because the batter was a bit stiff. To my taste, the bibingka seemed more cake-like and dry, rather than slightly sticky inside. I like to eat...

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This dish is pure comfort food, but when I was young I had terrible experiences of it. The pork was usually pressed into a dense hard cake and the egg on top was often puffed like a fried egg and overcooked till green. The below version is mostly reconstructed through trial and memory, and I'm surprised I didn't post before because after perfecting...

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This place is so perfect.  Macarons: Hazelnut, Coffee, Pistachio  Pecan Tart  Lemon Tart Pork Sandwhich and Pickles from a nearby deli in Yountville. ...

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My mom used to order this for my at the Cantonese eateries, where the soft egg would appear in a bath of sweet tomato broth, slightly thick. I always thought it was ketchup in there, but this dish is actually very simple and fresh. The texture should be barely firm tomato with pillowy eggs, less cooked through than a perfect French omelet. 6...

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Pork Belly in all permutations is something I return to again and again. In Chinese parlance, Siew Yoke is deli food, the stuff you get in the case with lovely brown, hanging ducks. This recipe from Saveur is easy and works fairly well. With roasting, you dont get the slippery, melting fat as you would with braising, but what you have in the end is juicy,...

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Mine are not the sharpest in the drawer. Here is how to get yours to slice through a hair long-ways. ...

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Several classics appear in this cookbook, such as a detailed recipe for trice cooked lechon kawali and bibingka, as well as some harder to find staples such as pancit malabon. Be aware that some liberties exist. The adobo recipe includes coconut milk. By the authors admission, the puto recipe is omitted entirely for being too difficult. While there are a lot of "stories"...

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This is extremely belated but I thought my end-of-year should mural up at some point. Looking back, I find I'm not very attached to "listed" films. Rather, the images that stick in my mind most are of the older movies I've been watching, firecracker comedies with Stanwyk, or House on the Hill (image below) by Kurosawa.  The few exceptions are Everyone Else and the top...

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