Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji is a very detailed instructional manual. From the mise en place of proper Tempura making to the various ways of skewering and arranging grilled fish, no technical question is left unturned.

Strange that my first attempt at making Oyako Don was a little bit disappointing. The ratio of soy sauce in the sauce and indeed the ratio of the sauce itself to the eggs and chicken seemed to be off, making a surfeit of broth. I can't say for sure it wasn't something I did wrong. After doing some comparisons, I will likely try again. The recipe is so quintessential.

The second attempt from this book was the Stuffed Foil Baked Salmon that turned out really well. The dish is simply a butterfly salmon fillet stuffed with Japanese style potato salad and baked with lemon.

Japanese potato salad is very delicate with only cucumber, onions and carrots. It has a creamier texture and fewer discrete potato lumps than Western potato salad. I would suggest using Kewpie Mayo rather than an American brand mayo as the flavor is slightly less sharp. In the end, the vegetables in the salad mellow and the potatoes take on the characteristics of mashed potato, crusty baked potato, as well as potato salad. So good!

The most difficult part of this recipe is filleting the fish and stuffing it, but everything is quick to prepare and cleanup is breezy. There ends up being leftover potato salad with a sharp onion bite, but I'm not complaining!

There is a copy of Japanese Cooking on Google Books but the Stuffed Foil Baked Salmon on page 361 is omitted.

World traveling sort of screws you in the food department. Once "authentic" Thai beef soup, Shanghai eels, truly stinky Stinky Taiwan Tofu and proto El Pollo Loco Mexican grilled chicken sears your taste buds, nothing you can order at the closest neighborhood joint lights the same fire. Cookbooks are somewhat in the same vein. Many often try to reduce foreign cuisines into palatable and kitchen ready 30 minute meals with often disappointing results. The recipes are limited to a number of familiar and hybridized dishes, Fried Rice Panda Inn style, rather than the more interesting and tasty Fried Rice with Stinky Dried Fish, minced chicken and Napa Cabbage.

Yearning after this book for years, I finally bought a copy after my Thai food cravings got the best of me. Thompson eschews all the traps of the cookbook authorship by providing a serious tome. The first 137 pages are in fact devoted to Thai culture, culinary history, and glossary of ingredients (including possible substitutions). The rest of the book, all 600 plus pages, are filled with beautiful photographs, detailed yet easy to follow recipes, and relevant techniques. You will not find Thai Iced Tea in the book. The drink doesn't exist except maybe in Touristy Bangkok spots anyway.

Ironically, the first recipe I try is this Chinese lunch favorite, Hainan Chicken because I had most of the ingredients available. I deviated from quantities of rice and garlic very loosely since I didn't know the weight of chicken drum and thigh meat I had on hand. I also used Japanese Nishiki rice, a short grain variety instead of the Jasmine and sticky rice combo the recipe calls for. Neither mistake was famine inducing inedible, but the rice was too wet and overpowered by garlic. While I didn't have a green gourd for the soup, the broth was tasty. I will probably try it with a little bitter melon next time. I suspect Thompson's measurements and timing are perfect and will follow them more closely, but I may add a tiny amount of Shiaoxing to the poaching liquid.

I made one addition not called for in the book - an oil sauce of finely minced ginger and shallot (green onion is better). At Savoy Kitchen in Monterey Park, they serve a small dish (mostly all ginger) right next to the pungent rice. I've also seen this as a condiment for dumplings, the greens sliced into delicate julienne. A plain old roast chicken perks up just as well with the same technique and the method also works as a Classic Chinese "dressing" for steamed fish or egg custard.

1/4 cup very finely minced ginger, fresh root
1/4 cup shallots or green onions very finely minced
3 tbsp hot oil, any clean flavored vegetable oil, not olive oil
1/2 tbsp kosher salt to taste

Ready the ginger and onions in a heat proof bowl and heat a shallow pan. When hot, add oil. As "legs" form at the bottom of the pan, the oil is on the verge of smoking. Pour oil over minced seasoning to "sizzle confidently" (I saw this phrase used in another cookbook). The sauce is pretty salty since the rest of the meal is rather light and the oil should have a definite flavor of ginger and onions but without any bite.

George Orr has dreams and then whatever he dreams come true. After doing a little too much self medicating, he is assigned to an oneiric specialist, a thinly disguised Freudian psychologist who may or may not be perfectly scrupulous in finding a cure for George. Ursula K. Le Guin's book is a terrific read, drawing from the fear of unconscious desires and documenting the power struggle between doctor and patient.

Replete with turtles, turtle-like alien suits, and shifting realities, the 1980 PBS film version of Lathe of Heaven is an accomplished translation of Le Guin's novel. Unlike other movies, such as Dune or Harry Potter, whose enjoyment depends on a lavish realization of exterior worlds, Lathe of Heaven emphasizes the cinematic links to integrate a dream come true premise with the actual plotting of the story. Poetic license is taken only to effectively expand upon the central themes.

The PBS narrative is slightly tighter than the book but still captures the high stakes tension, disorienting sensory experiences and a serious loss of reality. While the production isn't as slick as we're currently used to seeing, this is one of those extremely rare occasions where I can recommend the material and the remix.

The interweb has never known such linguistic and cultural feats of pedantry. First, the glossary of science fiction terms, then the comprehensive time line of imaginative inventions. Technovelgy is a fount of knowledge for geeks with a freak for warp drive dynamics and a great bibliography of sorts for hard sci-fi reading material and forgotten classics.

Most of my seconds these days between the spare moments between actual hours of work have been spent micromanaging resources in Ikarium. The drudgery of banking resources in topical Greece gets tiresome when you aren't a blood thirsty war monger like some, but the casual real-time browser game is good for keeping time.

However, to save the unemployed masses from despair and sure boredom are the spate of videogames with highly awaited release dates for this year. Below is my personal shortlist in order of anticipation.

Machinarium - October 09
Dragon Age: Origins - Nov 09

Starcraft 2
Star Trek Online
Diablo 3
Bioshock 2

Meanwhile, a couple of interesting demos will tide me over.

Auditorium
Majesty 2
Anno 1404
Sins of a Solar Empire

Some food phobias begin with a kind of trauma, and others are born of chance. I remember quite clearly being driven to daycare, lidded tupperware in hand, sipping my heated and by then significantly cooled milk (I've been a slow eater all my life). Suddenly, I found in my mouth a slimy lukewarm coagulated mass of fatty milk skin. Feeling quite rightly that this was unnatural, I eschewed milk drinking from then on. My father never quite forgave my grandmother for serving me that hot milk.

My grandmother, as I remember it, was a terrible cook (as was my mother after her). She had an irrational penchant for cutting up all my food into little bits and serving it, pell mell, altogether in a bowl. The provenance of the pieces were indistinguishable by themselves, lukewarm more often than not, and usually greasy. Another penchant, the need to feed everyone all time with meat, meat, and more meat. I'm not exactly sure why all the meat, probably immigrant hoarding, but I do know that the meat was always gristly, chewy, and grey.

I was known for being a squirrel, meaning, I stored the food in cheek pouches and pretended to chew ruminatively over the course of the meal hoping no one would notice. Eventually, I spit out the half masticated morsels into napkins and hid them in the trash. The summary punishment for such trickery was to sit at the table indefinitely until all the food was eaten and when that didn't work, there was a hard wallop and a long period of standing in one corner.

For obvious reasons, I didn't much like steak and milk, but according to family lore, I had other strange "Rules". Food could not be black. That meant shitake mushrooms, seaweed or sea cucumbers. Squishy stuff was out. So shrimp, abalone, squid, and octopus were on the nix list too. Oranges and items of orange color. Salad.

Now to give myself credit, salad in days not long past consisted entirely of soppy iceberg lettuce with dessicated scraps of cucumber or carrot if you were lucky and doused with gloopy sauce. The croutons, being the only crispy choice among those ingredients, I ate, but that's not saying much.

Examining the remaining offenders, I realize however that there were perfectly sane explanations for the madness. For instance, nori in a lot Japanese restaurants comes to the table soggy, making the sushi a bear to consume. Chinese glass noodles often feature rubbery earlobes of dried shitake mushroom, their mustiness covered with soy sauce. Tentacled creatures were nothing but unpleasant bits of dried out chewing gum covered in bread crumbs. Clam chowder soup meant thick goop with undertones of metal and rot. Fresh from acrylic aquariums, shrimp were overcooked and served replete with vein line. I admit there is an unreasonable ick factor to the whole vein thing, but consider this, you can taste the difference between deveined and veined on an unseasoned shrimp. Try it.

I don't think I hated food per se. I was (still am) a picky eater and slender, but I wasn't then (or now), worried about health or weight. Looking back, I just instinctively knew the food I was being served was a waste of my time. There were better things to do than eat bad cooking, like build Lego castles or climb banisters. But I can name each dish, person or restaurant that returned a food to my good graces; the hot off the conveyor belt Krispie Kreme donut and ice cold Strauss milk drunk straight from the glass bottle, luscious Kosher new pickles from Katella Deli (a far cry from supermarket relish), the chef's table meal at a Newport Beach's Tsuru that inspired a fascination with dried bonito on dynamite (I'm not really a purist), the fresh off the tree, perfectly ripe cherries plucked from a branch, or the sweet orange served at Chez Panisse after dinner, sliced between the segments so no distracting pith remains. I appreciate such a thing because peeling and slicing fruit myself is not my favorite occupation.

There are inexplicable exceptions in my good taste. To this day, I still enjoy the cafeteria style metallic taste of Green Bean Almondine or Tuna Casserole. I have absolutely no idea why. But recently, Cook's Illustrated featured an recipe for Green Been Casserole in which no use of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup occurs and I may have to try it. However, suffice to say, I will stand by the idea that If I don't like It, I've probably just never had It good. Yet.

The verdant Aerogarden we received for Christmas, planted with the herb garden kit - thyme, chives, parsley and purple as well as Italian basil.

Right now the garden looks terrible because the Aerogarden website has been out of nutrient tabs for weeks and weeks. I am planning to make a trip to a Berkeley hydro shop to replace my supply.

My soil garden is finally sprouting, though I have low expectations of success. Our balcony really doesn't get enough sunlight to support the tomato plant and various herbs I planted. Still feels good to have living things outside though...

Since we have the Aerogarden for fresh european herbs, I keep various dried spices - mostly for Indian cookery. The bulk extras are stored in double ziploc bags in the "cellar"/freezer till I need them. My favorite is probably black cumin, because it has a delicate smoky flavor with a less "aromatic" scent than typical ground cumin.

This is a quick Italian style soup with roasted turnips - made from CSA ingredients and pantry items. Very adaptable!

several quarts homemade stock with water
red pepper flakes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 lb bag northern white beans, presoaked
1 medium yellow onion diced
a clove or two of garlic
1-2 large carrots
several fennel stalks
12 oz can of diced tomato
cubed potatoes
fresh herbs - thyme or basil, bay,
salt and pepper

In olive oil, toast the red pepper flakes in a large pot. Brown tomato paste and deglaze with a little wine if desired.

Add stock and bring to boil. Give the soaked beans and roughly diced carrots a head start with the garlic, onion, fennel and bay. No need to brown the veg. Add stock or water till ingredients are covered.

When beans are midway done, add the potatoes and tomato at a boil, then simmer till everything is tender. Top off with more stock or water to cover if needed.

Stir in the herbs and seasoning to taste right before turning off the heat to serve. The flavor should be bright and slightly sweet but not super spicy.

You need cold hands for this easy but messy, chocolate cookie from Martha Stewart's website. Note a correction: The dough should be rolled in granulated sugar before the powdered sugar or else the the cookie will not have any crispness.

I sometimes bake the last leftover batch in a flat pancake without rolling in the sugar. Eat with toasty nuts over vanilla or cherry ice cream while hot!

This Saveur recipe is absolutely perfect with countless decades, if not centuries, of refinement no doubt. I wouldn't change a thing. Honestly.

For the home pasta making, we substituted a smaller amount of on hand greens for the spinach specified. Next time I will make sure we've got the proper ingredient so the pasta will be bright green all over like in the magazine.

The ragu was painless and can be made ahead of time. Make extra for freezer pasta sauce! We made everything in one day and I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of the final result. Delicious.

For my Mario Batali cast iron pan 1.5 the amount of ragu, bechamel and pasta on the second to last thinness is enough to make a tall lasagna about 3/4 from the top. Doubling all of the components is just fine, since extra pasta and ragu can be frozen for creative leftover dishes. To get the greenest pasta, use large bunches of spinach chopped very fine. Cooking pasta for lasagna must be brief, just to firm them up in boiling water. The ground beef needs to be treated extremely tenderly or it will toughen. It is also better to use plum tomato puree; but a to-volume measurement of blended and strained diced or whole tomato may also suffice. I find a red wine rather than a white, provides a certain richness, and include 3/4 the amount of chicken livers chopped very very fine.