old vines
coconut curry and eating snacks in the dark
Hello again. Does the onset of fall give everyone a mini existential crisis? Somehow, we are halfway through September and knowing how many things are coming up soon and how we’re supposed to move by the end of the year but are no closer to a permanent place to live than we were last month at this time, I’ve just been feeling a lot like this tweet. But I’m all right, mostly.
Last weekend on Star Trek Day, Jeff and I went to an event at the Dunbar Theatre (an area of town I basically never go to) which celebrated Star Trek animation. I assume they chose animated material specifically because of the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike, and it did feel a bit like Paramount trying to get in people’s good books. But, there were people from Lower Decks’ animation studio in the audience and I’m very glad they got to get a standing ovation at the end of the show, and I did have a very fun time watching Lower Decks episodes on the big screen and laughing with a full crowd of people. (The new Very Short Treks have wonderful art and sound but have so far been deeply, upsettingly unfunny to me.)
I met up with a couple other Trek friends from online, and all the attendees got a little swag bag of stickers and things, plus free popcorn and drinks and candy. And as we all know, the best part of going to the movies is eating snacks in the dark. I also love day-old leftover popcorn, when it’s gotten a little soft from sitting out overnight. I know I’m not alone in this.
The zucchini plant has finally, finally given up, and I am down to the last one in the fridge. We are nearly free. With one of the others, I made this zucchini-lemon orzo, which is a nice easy one-pot dinner that’s also really tasty and filling. I make it slightly differently from the recipe method, using finely diced fresh onion or shallot at the start with the garlic rather than onion powder (because mine is always a brick), and I add the lemon zest and juice at the end with the coconut milk so that the flavour is more pronounced. If you aren’t meal prepping or feeding a large family, halve the recipe— it still makes quite a bit. And if you happen to have leftover toasted breadcrumbs from something else, those are very nice to put on top.
Since I opened the can of coconut milk for the orzo and only used a bit of it, I made a coconut curry the next night with green curry paste, which I’ve been loving lately (usually red curry is my go-to). Aroy-D is my preferred curry paste over Thai Kitchen, the other one you tend to commonly see at the grocery store, because the container is huge and it’s actually decently spicy. Curry is great for just using up whatever vegetables you have around— I used zucchini (of course) and some carrots I bought awhile ago for something I never ended up making.
I have also learned my lesson from past occasions when I’ve tried to fry tofu crumbles in the pot before making the curry, and it just gets stuck to the pan because there’s too much steam in there, and then I have to scrape off a bunch of burnt crispy bits before I can cook the onions and whatnot. Now, I toss the tofu in corn and potato starches with salt, then fry in a cast iron on another burner while the curry is cooking, because I feel that having to clean another dish is a reasonable price to pay to avoid fury. I made plain jasmine rice so I could have more rice for my fried rice breakfasts, but coconut rice is amazing if you feel like doing that: sub in coconut milk for some of the cooking water, and maybe add a handful of shredded coconut if you have some.
As I write this, Thursday evening, I’m drinking a glass of Stag’s Hollow pinot noir from 2016 and boiling water to blanch tomatoes for this sauce, which I love for when tomatoes are ripe, cheap, and plentiful. Making this gives me that same end-of-summer feeling I get over Labour Day weekend, especially if I have enough tomatoes to put some of the sauce in the freezer. I’ll be using the last of my tomato confit oil in this rather than infusing new olive oil, which feels extremely meta (and delicious).
Damn, I really didn’t cook much otherwise this week, it seems. I steam-fried some House of Yee frozen dumplings one night when I was home alone, and on another, ordered an entire large pizza for myself— the absolute height of decadence. A friend described this experience as feeling like your inner child is getting away with something, which is so true.
Jeff’s also gotten back into the habit of fermenting pizza dough at the beginning of the week for us to use on the weekend. On one we used a handful of our remaining cherry tomatoes from the garden with some olives and salami, and the other, dry chorizo with kale, feta, and artichoke hearts. We’re still struggling to get the crust of the pizza that gets cooked second to turn out as nice as the one that gets cooked first, and I really don’t want the solution to be getting another pizza stone in order to do both at once. But I’m concerned that might be it…
Media:
It’s been a bit since I wrote something here, since I haven’t been engaging with much of anything because I’m always writing, or just watching Star Trek again. However, I had a good chuckle at this piece by Tammie Teclemariam on how to tell if the restaurant you’re about to eat at is going to suck. Obviously, it’s an opinion piece, and it gets pretty specific because they’re writing about New York, but there are a few themes I feel are fairly universal.
Although ambience is important— otherwise we’d just get takeout all the time, and I wouldn’t cringe thinking about going back to that ramen place that had great noodles but lighting like a hospital— if it’s putting too much energy into making the space look instagram-worthy or blasting the music, they might be more concerned with appearances than taste. Same goes for using a trendy ingredient or dish regardless of how it fits with the rest of what they serve. And if the menu is trying to do too much, either in terms of the number of dishes or giving you whiplash with the types of food featured, it’s probably not going to do anything particularly well. Though I do think that in Vancouver, a place can be forgiven for having sushi and burgers on the same menu. (Yes, Earls is my normcore fave, how can you tell?)
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats (or moving costs 😓) are much appreciated. Anyway, I definitely think this guy should be thrown in a hole until he learns how to be a member of society.