A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

More Happy Birthday to me: Barb Made Carrot Cake

Last night Ashley and Barb took me out for dinner at Umi's--YUM!--and then to Parlor 88 for drinks. It was so much fun!!!!

This is so cool--Barb made cake! Homemade carrot cake that was sooooooo yummy.  Just perfect.  She didn't even know carrot cake is one of my all time favorites--how's that for great birthday telepathy?

Isn't it wonderful?  I just loved it.

I totally wasn't expecting a cake or anything like that, just thought we were hooking up for dinner and using my birthday as an excuse. I don't even have words to say how moved and surprised I was. That's one of the nicest things ever. 

They also got me a present that was so perfectly me it was frightening. Aunt Sally will be so jealous!  At Spencer's they found a talking parrot who cusses in both PG and R versions.  My absolute favorite of his parrot pronunications was "Who's a ****er now?"  LOVED it!

Gene went with us for dinner and then left us to girls night alone. It was a Tuesday night so Parlor 88 wasn't "hopping" with a crowd but we had fun just hanging out trying new cocktail combos and chatting. Those kinds of get togethers are my favorites, you know where you're just relaxed and happy to be with friends chatting away about life and everything or nothing at all.

Sigh.  So fun! Thanks you guys!

Kansas City: A Tale of Two BBQ's

Okay, so not the greatest pics but those two signs, or sign and a menu, are for Arthur Bryant's and KC Masterpiece Barbecure and Grill, as in KC Masterpiece of the sauce in your local grocery. The restaurant is the sauce folks' showplace. Arthur Bryant's is a over 60-year hometown original that has branched out into three locations. 

I think I might as well just say the obvious out loud: I abandoned my new found vegetarianism this weekend with finger-lickin' glee.  It is Monday and I'm back to my "no meat" ways but last weekend was all about the pulled pork.  Hey, if God didn't want us to eat pulled pork sandwiches piled high with cole slaw at least as a treat here and there then he shouldn't have invented sweet tangy BBQ sauce to smother it in or Kansas City as a place to serve it in, ya hearin' me?

We ran up to KC this weekend with friends Jeff and Dee to celebrate their mutual birthdays. While Gene turned 47 on October 24th, Dee turned 43 on the same day, and Jeff turned 49 on October 20th. We have a 20-year tradition of getting together on a road trip to celebrate and this year we took the Louisiana-born Dee to KC for the weekend since she'd never been.  Jeff and Gene grew up across the street from each other here in southwest Missouri but it's only been in recent years that she and Jeff moved back to this area after living in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Illinois.  We all had a nice weekend getaway, nothing fancy, just hanging out and enjoying the time together.

Wednesdays are my Favorite Day of the Week

Auntie Miranda, Ann, and I have a standing first Wednesday of the month lunch date to stay in touch and we usually end up at our favorite restaurant Fire & Ice in the Oasis Hotel on north Glenstone. We've never had anything but great food and the room is so pretty we all love going there.  That's the restaurant where we were excited to find David Leong's son Wing Yee executive cheffing and using his father's cashew and sweet/sour chicken recipes as the Wednesday special.

We've all settled into our favorites.  Aunt Miranda and the roasted Chicken with lemon tarragon sauce:

Ann loves the cashew chicken:

And I'm partial to the Phad Thai:

Wonderful food and friends. What could make a better Wednesday?

Hemingway Writing Tour

Were you a "silencer" or a "stereo blaster" study-er in high school and college? I was a stereo blaster.  I never could study at the library as well as I could at home with the stereo blasting. For some reason, I like a lot of ambient noise in the background to be able to focus on whatever I'm studying or writing.  I don't know. Maybe it's drowns out the "I need to do this and this and this" voices in my head but whatever the reason, music and noise keep me quiet and centered on the subject in my hands so now my favorite and most productive writing days are those where I go sit in a restaurant or pub with music, the more crowded the better, and write. I lose myself in my story.  Myabe the outside noise is symbolic of the inside noise of my characters. I'm not sure. I just know that it works for me and I refer to it as "the Hemingway Writing Tour" because supposedly Hemingway wrote most of his novels sitting in outdoor cafes in The Keys sipping wine all afternoon. Sounds like a dream day to me.

Today I'm wishing with all my heart I could go on "the writing tour" but it's not in my cards. I'll be going to work tonight, have one day off, and then work another four.  Last night was not my most fun night at work ever so I'm extra tired this morning and not exactly skip-deely-ooo excited, as Ned Flanders would say, about going in tonight but I do have tomorrow off. Too many things to do around the house to go write but it's a little dessert daydream in the back of my head today if I have another night tonight at work like last night where everything I touched seemed to turn to crap in my hands.  I'm whining but not complaining. We all have bad days and we all get through them and I did too. It just wears me out emotionally as much as it does physically, if you know what I mean. 

Soooooooo.....I'm singing Margaritaville in my head while I tromp off to work today but am looking forward to tomorrow so that I can cook a real meal for the first time this week.  Cooking relaxes me and puts my head back in the straight and narrow.

In the meantime, here are a couple of shots from dinner out the other night.  Gene took me to a new-to-us place called Valentine's that we'd heard of but never been to.  Nice place, great food, and the night we went there was a guy playing acoustic (Ithink that's what it's called) guitar. There was one funny moment with the musician.  His song (instrumental only, no voice)  choices were a little bit of everything but I laughed when i realized I'd been singing one of them in my head, asked Gene if he recognized it, which he didn't. It was a song from the church of my youth, I think called "Come Home". I just remember it was usually an altar call song "...calling for you and for me, oh sinner, come home..."  Interesting music choice for a busy Saturday night crowd.  Made me smile.

Gene had an uptown carbonara with smoky mozzarella, parmesan, and grilled chicken:

And I had a wonderful chicken breast coated in crispy parmesan and bread crumbs, along with a loaded baked potato, and perfectly steamed fresh vegetables.  The even better part was I could only eat less than half because the serving was so large so the rest of the potato and veggies made lunch for me and the other half of the chicken breast made a great sandwich for Gene. Nothing like recycling leftover restaurant meals.

Gene's Getting Hooked on Sushi

Top was the Hard Rock Roll with eel, cream cheese, and avocado.  Bottom is the Kissy Kissy roll with salmon, cream cheese, avocado, and crab.

Starting 12 o'clock and going clockwise:  Tuna roll, Spicy crab roll, Rock shrimp tempura roll, California roll.

So when the pot roast thing didn't work out the way I'd planned Sunday night and Corbin and Jennifer called to see if we wanted to go to Umi real quick before the Soprano's finale--we jumped. It was good to see them.  They're talking about getting married sometime in the nearish future and are starting to look at houses, somewhere they can be comfortable and have plenty of room for her daughter and Corbin's two daughters from his marriage to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  We're very excited for them. They both deserve love and happiness and a partner they can depend on.

I was a little worried about Gene at Umi because he's not a big sushi eater but I knew he could order Teppan and be fine. He loves the hibachi style seafood.  But he was game and threw in with us on the sushi. They were all game in that they trusted me with the sushi pencil and let me order for everyone. I'm the only one who'd been to Umi before and Auntie Miranda and I have pretty much covered the menu and found our favorites.

I was so proud of Gene. I know that sounds sort of patronizing but I don't mean it that way.  It's just sushi is not his normal food milieu.  Sushi is one of those things that before you eat it, you're either grossed out or intrigued.  Then after you have it a few times it seems almost addictive. Seriously.  Gene was game to try everything, EVERYTHING, except the spicy crab and that's only because he doesn't like hot food.  He decided his favorites were the eel roll, the tuna roll (raw!), the shrimp tempura roll (told him he'd like that one), and the basic California roll.  To be honest, I thought he'd only like the California and Shrimp Tempura rolls but he chowed down on it all including the salmon and tuna rolls knowing there was raw fish in them and the eel roll knowing it was eel.  He said he liked everything, especially with the seafood sauce but not so much with the soy/wasabi mix. Fair enough.

I have got to learn to make this stuff. I really need to have a party, have all the ingredients prepared and let eveyone help roll whatever they're in the mood to eat.

Dreaming of Umi

I'm starting to think I should call this the Umi Blog.  It's my go to restaurant these day.  Sushi is addictive. I even dreamed about it last night. How weird is that?  This is from a trip a few weeks ago but I'm thinking I need to repeat it soon.  I can't remember what all we had. One was the Dynamite Mussels that were good, but much soupier than usual. They're usually chunky chopped mussels with the hot sauce, not hot sauce with a few mussels but the rest was very good. We had spicy tuna roll, spicy crap roll, tempura shrimp roll, and I don't reember what the one in the very center was called. But it was delicious and it was nice girls night out.

In Vegas, I'm not sure what was more Alien: the Klingons or Emeril serving me Yankee cornbread

Geeky, I know but I loved it!  So much I bought it for myself.  Am home from Vegas with a handful of pictures and a lot of good memories. Also with several thousand words towards completing my novel but I don't have an exact count until I get it all put in the ocmputer.

Let's take a little scenic food tour of Vegas, shall we?

I admit I spent several meal times in the Star Trek restaurant at the Hilton. One, because I love Trek in all it's forms, two, because I was hanging out writing and it had the most conducive space, and three, it's the only good food inside the Las Vegas Hilton these days.  I found out my second day or so that the Qark's is leased space. Ahh, the mystery is explained.  Their management, chefs, and everything else is completely separate from the Hilton.  Makes sense now.  Quark's=good food; Hilton=expensive terrible food.

Maybe this isn't food but let's start with my favorite Klingon. This guy said to me during one of my afternoon Hemingway Writing Tours "Female, what are you constantly taking notes about?"  I said "I'm working on my novel. I'm channeling the spirit of the great creator, Gene Roddenberry."  He said "Seeking inspiration from the Creator is a good thing. What have you written?"  I said "I haven't published any books before, only magazines.  He said "What magazines are you in?"  I said "My most recent will be Chicken Soup for the Soul."  He said "Earther, you must slit your wrists now."  I said "Embarrassing, I know, but their check cashes just the same as everyone else's."  He said "Excellent. Spoken like a true Ferengi."

When told to smile for the photo, he said "I am smiling."

The Star Trek food tour goes a little like this:

    Chili (forget the Star Trek name) and chips, with a Shuttle Salad and bleu cheese dressing. Simple but very well done, nice and crisp.  And to wash it down, a Warp Core Breach.  Lots of dry ice to make it flow over into the exotic.  Great drink too. Several kinds of rum and...after several kinds of rum I've forgotten what else.

         

Again, can't remember the special name, cardassian something, I think but to us Earthers: apple crisp:

I thought I had more Star Trek food photos than I actually ended up with. Amazing what you forget to photograph when you're having fun.

And then there was Emeril's in the MGM Grand. It was the best meal of the trip.

Let Me Introduce Wing Yee Leong

Wing Yee is the son of David Leong, the creator of Springfield-style Cashew Chicken. 

Scott, from work, and Aunt Miranda and I have all been chasing down rumors about the beginnings of cashew chicken for the last week. Aunt Miranda came across the final clue, an article from last year in 417 magazine that mentioned Wing Yee as being the Executive Chef for a newish restaurant called Fire & Ice. I tracked down the web site for the restaurant, he was still shown as the Executive Chef, and it mentioned that Chef Leong has a signature special every Wednesday of, you guessed it, Cashew Chicken from his father's recipe. 

Guess what yesterday was?  WEDNESDAY!!!! 

Aunt Miranda and I hotfooted it across town for a late lunch and our timing was perfect, later in the lunch hours so that there were still diners there but the restaurant was winding down for the slower afternoon shift.  When we asked our server if the Chef was really the son of David Leong, she confirmed it.  When we started firing the rumors at her to confirm she kept saying "I don't know" and then said "You know what?  Wing Yee is here today. Let me send him out to you if he's not busy."

Score!

First off, he's a very nice man, modest, charming, warm, and very easy to talk to.  As bored as you know he must be with telling the story, he did anyway.  He confirmed that there was a Dr. Tsang (not Wong or Fong, but pronounced "song", so it was a close rhyme) who was the first neurosurgeon here but he and David Leong were not related. Dr. Tsang frequented Leong's restaurant in Pensacola Florida and somehow convinced him to pack up his family and move to Springfield Missouri.  David worked at a couple of restaurants before opening his own restaurant, Leong's Tea House and hired his brother, Gee, who later opened Gee's East Wind.  The originator of the Cashew Chicken recipe was, indeed,David Leong himself while he worked at a restaurant called The Grove, before opening the Teah House. The Grove sold mostly American food with a little Asian cuisine thrown in here and there until Chef Leong put together his signature "Southern Fried Cashew Chicken", now known as "Springfield style Cashew Chicken".  The tables turned and The Grove began selling mostly Asian food, or hybrid in this case, and less American food.  It was so popular at The Grove that it was an instant hit at the Tea House. Later, Gee took the dish with him to also be on the menu at East Wind.

Now there is a proliferation of cashew chicken made Leong style everywhere in this city and the small surrounding towns but let me tell you something. We had the original cashew chicken today, as well as bringing the sweet and sour chicken home to Gene, and none of the other restaurants hold a candle next to the orginal.  The sweet and sour, with chicken made in the same battered and fried manner, will break me from ever ordering it from any other restaurant again. The sauce is killer.  Not too sweet, not too sour, and with a tiny bite of hot, it's the perfect accopaniment to the chicken and the fresh pineapple, sweet peppers, and carrots generously garnishing the top. As I said about the crepe torte, this dish is fab-oh-lust.

The restaurant where Wing Yee is Executive Chef, Fire & Ice, is also top notch. Cashew Chicken may be considered fast food in this town but the way Wing Yee prepares and presents it is not, and his entire menu is beautiful.  Aunt Miranda ordered the cashew chicken, I ordered Phad Thai, which was wonderful, and we switched halfway through the meal.  Yum!  Here's a link to the entire menu. I'm not even going to try to quote it back. I'll forget half of the good stuff.  Click here:  Fire & Ice menu.    Rachel, our waitress mentioned that they have a new menu starting next week, bringing out more specialties of the Chef. Most excellent. We can't wait. Aunt Miranda and I already have a date in two weeks to go back (on Wednesday, of course) to check out the new menu.  Chef Leong was also kind enough to say that he'd only told us a fraction of the story and that if we wanted to stop by sometime in the late afternoon he'd be happy to tell us more about his and his father's career. That's a date too. I'll be hanging out for a while on Wednesday in two weeks.  I'm fascinated by the story.

Here are some pics of the restaurant itself:

The entry:

The inside:

By the way, not only were there some sports TV's, Aunt Miranda and I laughed but were really pleased to see the Food Network on one of the TV's. Hey, a little something for everyone.

The bar, separating the dining room from the open kitchen is the first "ice" bar in Springfield.  Curved, it literally has a strip of ice along the back to keep the drinks chilled.  This photo isn't great but you get the idea:

Don't laugh but I forgot to photograph the food! Well, I remembered but not until we'd already tucked in so keep that in mind when you see these pics.  The food WAS very nicely plated:

Miranda's Cashew Chicken and egg roll:

My Phad Thai after I had demolished all the prettiness.  It was attractively arranged with egg in strips across the top:

What a great afternoon spending time with Aunt Miranda and getting to meet Wing Yee.  Some days are just golden.

Fire & Ice is located inside the Oasis Hotel on North Glenstone. Their hours are 11am-10pm Monday thru Thursday, 11am-11pm Fri & Sat.  They are not open on Sunday.  Click HERE for their website.

For more information about David Leong, click HERE for a Springfield News-Leader article from last year.

For a vegan (seriously!) version of Springfield cashew chicken, click HERE, from Noel Green.com blog.

Girls' Night (Afternoon) at Fox & Hound

Shared a wonderful afternoon yesterday with three of my favorite gal friends:  (from the left) Kristina, Carrianne, (Me), and Mechelle.  Carrianne and Mechelle went to respiratory school with me and Kristina we stole from one of the guys we went to respiratory school with (the infamous Chris, Sir Apron).  Here's  the deal with our guy friends' girlfriends. If we like 'em, even if they break up, we keep the girl for girls' night.  Hey, you can't bring someone into our lives and make us love her and then expect us to break up with her too.  You know?

There's no huge food tie-in here. As I told Anna of Morsels and Musings when I sent her card for the postcard blogging event,  there is no better symbol of girl friendships than food, especially junk food.  So to that end, we ordered...umm...mostly junk. Well, except that Carrianne who just had to have the beautiful spinach and strawberry salad that looked divine.  Mechelle and I both said so as we crammed fries and nachos in our mouths.  But have no fear, Carrianne came around to the dark side eventually and dug into the cheese fries.  Who can resist cheese fries?

Carrianne and Mechelle got tired of ordering single drinks and got the fishbowl martinis (hey, it's my story, I'll make it up as I go along).  They're the ones with gigantico drinks in front of them. I'm allowed to poke fun.  They were called Kryptonite Margaritas. They said they were okay and when I tried it, I agreed. Not fabulous, just okay.  I can't remember what at was in them beside tequila. I remember midori, pineapple juice, and sweet/sour.  I had an Orange Crush which was orange vodka, cointreau, and a splash of orange juice, like Kool-Aid for adults.  Kristina was a good girl and only tasted our drinks since she had to go back to school for a chemistry (I think) lab.

Enough about food.  The afternoon was great. You know those really great moments with your gal friends where you talk about everything and nothing important all at the same time, there's never a moment of silence, and even when you leave you still think of three more things you forgot to say, even though you just spent four hours together?  It was that kind of wonderful.

We used to see each other every day at school and our class was really special. I hate using that word because it makes us sound retarded...well...in some ways...but really, we were all very lucky.  We had twenty people of completely different ages and backgrounds and we all loved each other and loved being around each other.  I miss seeing them every day.  I like being with them. They make me happy and want to be a better person.

Rodizio & Chimichurri for Valentine's Day

First I have to say it:  Valentine's Day was so much fun!  We went out to dinner with two other couples and it doesn't even matter where. It was a good table. You know what I mean. Everyone talked (okay, as usual I talked too much) and laughed and had a great time.  Two of the folks were newcomers to our group.  Quick, guess which ones!  Okay, if you really want to know who they are, click over to my personal blog, G's-Spot, where I talk more about the folks and some of the interesting events of the day that made our celebration even more celebratory.

From left to right: Gene (hiding, but smiling), Me, Greg, Laura (her little face just peeking out from behind Corbin), Corbin, Jennifer.

Corbin suggested the Rodizio Brazilian Grill, an independent restaurant owned by the same family who own another Springfield independent restaurant, The Argentina Steakhouse.  Rodizio doesn't have it's web site up yet but there's more information about the owners here.  Very nicely done. We'll be going back to Rodizio, and we already really enjoy dining at the Steakhouse.

We took tons and tons of photos....