chez pim

So, was it?

Need I say more? Found on gapingvoid via my dear friend Charlene.

Rhythm and flow

I really must get back into the rhythm of blogging again. It's really hard to get back into it after you let life took over for a while, I'm telling you. It's ironic isn't it? I am taking a year off to write, but it's causing me to miss the very activity that used to sustain my writing, blogging. I'm hoping that this is only a transitional phase, and hope to blog a lot more once I am gainfully unemployed. Promise.

A year to follow my heart

Sorry I've been quite tardy with the blog lately. I've been really busy with lots of things. There are huge, enormous changes brewing in my life. The biggest one, which precipitates all the others, is this: I am taking a year off from work, an entire year. I am giving me this time to find myself.

I have been wondering what I wanted to do with my life when I grew up, when my real life actually began. I knew that I enjoyed my job, but I did not love working for a huge corporation, with all the politiking and power play it entailed. And with the latest organizational changes that took place a couple of weeks ago, I finally had enough. I decided that this was it, and I was off. Luckily, having slaved for years in Silicon Valley affords me the luxury of not having to earn a proper living, at least not for another year or two.

Tsunami benefit dinner at 1550 Hyde

My favorite neighbourhood eating place, 1550 Hyde will host a benefit dinner tomorrow night to raise money for Tsunami relief.

Matt Licklider, a San Francisco resident, is the project manager for the Yanui Beach Recovery Project, which is a grass-roots effort to rebuild some of the homes, businesses, and lives lost in the tsunamis of December 26th, 2004. Matt has returned temporarily to the Bay to raise enough money to fund this project, and will head back to Phuket in early April to supervise the effort. On Monday, March 21st, 1550 Hyde will host Matt Licklider at a benefit dinner. He will speak about the realities of this multinational recovery effort while raising his glass to those who wish to contribute.

More information can be found on their website.

Shop (and cook) with Heidi tomorrow

My friend Heidi, of 101 Cookbooks, will be shopping and cooking at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market tomorrow morning at 10.30 am for the Shop with the Chef program. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Sorry I've been a little tardy with the blog, living and blogging are yet again not quite in harmony, but I promise to remedy that very very soon.

Talk the talk

You know, everyone is talking the talk these days, but how many of us are actually walking the walk? What am I talking about, you asked? The buying local thing, that's what I'm referring to. It's so hip these days everyone is talking about it.

What's getting me all snarky again? It's Ms.Pinckney on the Food Network's Food Finds. I stumbled on to the episode that she was hosting from the Cross Street market in Baltimore. The market, she said, was just the kind of place she loved to shop, where you could find, she said, great local produce from local vendors. All of this while walking by a produce stand and picking up a hideous looking mango for effect. Besides the mangos, the stand also proudly displayed some pineapples of dubious origin.

I mean, seriously, I had no idea they grow mangos and pineapples in Baltimore these days. Not that I go to that part of the world very often, so perhaps I am completely off base on this, please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong. Baltimore is now rampant with mango orchards and pineapple fields, right?

It's disgusting, disgusting, how people are paying lip service to ingredients these days. I wonder if that Ms.Pinckney would know good local ingredients if they bite her in the derrière. Heh!

Blog Appétit, bien sûr!

An email from Mijo in France told me to go check out Blog Appétit. Michel Porto, a famous French chef from Gironde, has made some comments on the recipes from the first Blog Appétit cook-off, with the themed ingredients of scallops (Saint Jacques) and leeks (Poireaux).

Here's what he said about my recipe for Saint-Jacques à la Sauce Curry, Riz aux Poireaux:

"C'est parfait, textures respectées, beaucoup de couleur et de goût, pas de crème. Il ne serait pas impossible que je la retravaille pour ma carte de l'an prochain... J'ai un vrai coup de coeur."

"This is perfect, respected textures, plenty of color and taste, not cream. It is not at all impossible that I might rework it for my menu next year...I've truly fallen in love."

Woah. How cool is that? And besides the kind things he had to say about my recipe, I was quite pleasantly astonished by the care with which he had gone through so many recipes to offer up interesting and educational comments on each one. And he did all this while away in Vietnam! Now that's serious dedication. He also offered up his very own yummy looking recipe: Noix de Saint Jacques et sabayon de truffe noire, gros blanc de poireau doré. Merci mille à chef Porto.

Even if you don't read French, you should go check out Blog Appétit. Here's the main page after Google Translate has done its magic.

SFist has got it in for Chez Pim

As though I intended to redefine the very meaning of overexposure, Chez Pim was featured yesterday in a rather lengthy interview on SFist's Bay Blogger Thursday.

By the way, um, no, really, SFist is not what you think, believe me. It reads es-eff-ist, not that other way you were just thinking. Get your mind off the gutter my dear readers. SFist is a news digest blog, covering everything from Indie music scenes to dirty city politiking to salacious gossips about our Pretty Boy Mayor. They are San Francisco's very own version of the famous Gothamist in NY, which now includes so many Big City-ists to link to all of them here.

They are ever so hip, has got a good dose of attitude, and ever so fun to read. Whether you live here or just visiting, you should check them out.

Blog-Appétit: Scallops with curry sauce, rice with leeks

So I finally have a bit of time to do an English version of the scallop recipe that I did for Blog Appétit the other day. Each month the French food bloggers are getting together to cook a dish based on themed, seasonal ingredients, sort of like Iron Chef without the loopy Chairman and the panel of giggling, bobble-head judges. There is a collective blog set up where you could find announcements and links to all who participated. The very first edition just took place two days ago. The theme ingredients were scallops and leeks. They even managed to invite Michel Porto, a Michelin star chef from Bordeaux, to participate. How cool!

I must admit I wasn't so sure I would participate when I first found out. I knew I would have to do it in French, which frankly is not quite for public consumption. Plus, I really wasn't sure what to do with scallops and leeks. Well, I know, I know, I would sauteed some leeks and sear some scallops and serve them like that. That would be delicious, but not exactly exciting as a recipe. I also gave some thought to doing something Thai, but just really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Leeks are not exactly a staple in Thai cuisine.

The problem was I didn't want to just do a curry or something and then throw in the leeks as garnish. You all know that's a recipe for disaster on Iron Chef: when someone just throw in the theme ingredient almost as an afterthought, just so there are bits of it on the plate to satisfy the rules. You'd never win with a recipe like that. Nope.

So hip it hurts!

Oh dear oh dear, I've been busy for a day or two and look what's happening in Blog Land. We are damn hip messieursdames, we are so hip it hurts.

It seems to me that everywhere we turn these days, a major paper or another is running a story on food blogs. In the past few weeks, our Pieman was spotted praising food blogs in Times Asia and the Guardian over in the UK. Roberto's Is My Blog Burning was cited in so many places that it seems on track to win Best Meme in the Bloggies. Amy made the front page at the Merc, and Clotilde has been showing her charmante self everywhere from Washington to Tennessee, even to SF.

Chez Pim is not doing too badly -if I may say so myself- beginning with a feature and recipe today on the hometown paper SF Chronicle with Alder, Sam, Derrick and others, plus a hop and skip autour du monde from way out East at the Star Bulletin in Honolulu, over the Pacific to La Prensa in Panama, up to Straight Magazine in Vancouver, and down again to The Post in Washington, then over and across the pond to the Guardian in London. And that's just this week alone! What fun!

Chez Pim will speak English again soon!

Sorry to scare you all. No, I have not decided to do the blog only in French from now on. This is just a temporary thing. I participated in a blog cook-off of sort over at Blog-Appétit, but I got it done so late last night that I didn't have time to translate it into an English post as well. I was planning on doing it today but all hell is breaking loose at the moment at work, so I shall have to get to this tomorrow.

No worries. See you tomorrow back in English, er, American, I mean.

Blog-Appétit: Saint-Jacques à la Sauce Curry, Riz aux Poireaux

J'ai découvert cette bonne idée sur le blog de Pascale: un nouveau blog collectif, Blog Appétit. Ils sont plusieurs de ces événements dans le blogosphere Anglophone, mais ceci est la première fois dans le blogosphere Culinaire Francophone. Franchement, je n’était pas du tout sure si j’allais y participer. Je n’avais jamais fait un blog en Français and my French is hardly for public consumption!

Merci à Laurent, qui m’a pressée -doucement- de le faire,voici ma contribution. J'ai décidée de faire une recette avec une influence Thaïlandaise, en l’honneur de mon héritage. C’était pas facile, la cuisine Thaïlandaise n’utilise pas de poireau! On a beaucoup d’échalote pourtant. Cela m’a donné une idée, je créerais une recette qui utilise le poireau comme de l’échalote.

J’ai fait cuire ensemble le riz et le poireau caramélisé pour bien infuser le goût de poireau. J’ai aussi fait une petite sauce curry piquante, à contrebalancer la douceur des Saint-Jacques. Comme garniture, j’ai fait frire les poireaux avec des feuilles de citron vert. Ce plat était à la fois épicé et doux. Le riz était bien parfumé, les Saint-Jacques étaient relevés doucement à la sauce curry épicée. Yum.

Et voila ! --drum roll--

A moment in time

Well, this is not really about food either, unless you count paintings of pear as food related. There will be lots of pears I am told.

Anyway, my friend Matthew is having a solo show at Art21 Gallery in Palo Alto. Matt -aside from being one of my dearest friends- is also a wonderful painter. This is first solo show. He's been busy being a successful corporate consultant, but now he is finally returning to his first love, painting.

Works in this show will focus primarily on the newer, abstract series I have been working on. These works continue my exploration of light and texture interplaying with minimal forms.

Each of these pieces is a study in both the interplay of light within the painting as well as within the medium of the paint. Constructed from hundreds of layers of paint, the glazing process allows for light to be captured and refracted within the painting's surface.

The reception is tomorrow, 7-9pm, at Art21 Gallery, 539 Alma St., Palo Alto. The exhibition runs through March 30th.

In a "snarky" mood

Just saw these on the menu of a new restaurant in Vegas.

“Black Jack” of Cod Brandade
Osetra Caviar, Tomato Diamond and Cucumber “Gelée”
Ocean “Baeckeoffe” with Maine Lobster
Artisan Foie Gras “Au Torchon” with Grilled Foie Gras

What is with all this hemorrhaging of quotation marks? The "Black Jack" of Cod Brandade is a proper use alright, but what's with the cucumber “Gelée”? Is it really Gelée or is it some other coagulated substances?

What about the Foie Gras "Au Torchon"? Which bit of that phrase was really in question I wonder: the "Au Torchon" or the "Artisan"? And what of the accompaniment, could we really be sure it's "grilled"?

If you ask me, the thing that truly deserves quotation marks on any menu is the dodgy "Kobe" beef everyone seems to be so enamored of these days.

heh,
Pim--in a snarky mood "apparently"

The frogs, the frogs..

Oh no, no, I wasn't talking about the French. And certainly not about French boys, I am so done with French boys.

I was talking about the frog curry I cooked last night for my dinner party. I'd never cooked with frogs before, though I certainly love eating them. While at the Chinese market acquiring live Monterey Spot Prawns for the party, I saw some good looking frogs so I thought I would experiment with them.

The dinner, I must admit, was something of a harried affair that hovered ever so close to the edge of disaster. I had a sudden inspiration to cook dinner for 6 friends, you see. Never mind that it was a work day, and certainly never mind that I ran out of crucial supplies like chilli Paste (Nam-prik Pao) and Curry Paste -which, of course, all needed to be made.

Typepad VS SiteMeter puzzler

Sorry, this post is not about food, but I have a puzzling question about Typepad stats and SiteMeter stats that I really want an answer. I'm sure there are bloggers out there who use SiteMeter and Typepad or Moveable Type and could help me out.

I've been using SiteMeter since around the end of September, and have been somewhat puzzled by the discrepency between the stats that SiteMeter reports and my stats on Typepad. For some reason SiteMeter reports on about half the traffic that Typepad seems to see. This has been a pretty consistent trend since I began using SiteMeter.

For example, right this very moment Typepad reports 3,388 hits so far today. SiteMeters only has 1,443. Typepad has 126 hits in the last hour, while SiteMeter has 75.

What is up with that? Has anyone got this same problem? I am rather curious. Thanks in advance.

So I got lucky..

I certainly did. Wandering around semi-aimlessly in Santa Cruz the other day -what a gorgeous town it is by the way- I found a gold mine. Well, it would be one if you were as into books as I am. This gold mine is otherwise called Logos bookstore, a used book and record store in downtown Santa Cruz.

The rambling space was jam-packed with -what else- used books of all sorts. Directed by my guide, who is as big a book geek and an even bigger food geek than I am, I made a sharp left turn as I entered the store, and there I found shelf after shelf of cookbooks, some nearly new, others old and crumpled, with an authentically funky, mildew-y aroma of properly aged books.