Dinner: Saturday, August 21, 2010

• Black cod with miso / mirin glaze
• Kristin's "Pad Thai Improv"

Ever since I got the sore throat / coldish bug in London, I've been having ups and downs related to my sinuses, or more specifically, my left sinuses. My right sinuses have been just hunky dory, my left sinuses have ranged from mildly stuffy / tolerable to keeping me in bed going through 1+ boxes of tissue per day plus chills, aches, exhaustion, with a middle ground of sore upper teeth, pounding headaches and other unpleasantness I will not describe since this is supposed to be an appetizing, food-related blog.

I share this here only because as we sat down to dinner, I found myself musing on how difficult it must be to be a noted chef with a head cold / sinus issues.

Here's the story: When we picked up a lovely piece of black cod at the Farmer's market today, I naturally bee-lined to the stand run by a Vietnamese family that has a wonderful assortment of Asian produce (green beans, snow peas, various forms of "chinese broccoli", shallots, cilantro, mint, Thai basil, bitter gourds, yada yada) for some baby bok choi for my standard menu of roasted black cod on brown rice and stir-fried bok choi with my ginger garlic sizzle. Simple as a pimple.

But it turns out that our 10 lb. bag of short grain brown rice from Costco (subdivided, vacuum-sealed and frozen) had been exhausted. My search for a replacement starch identified some rice stick noodles with a very rudimentary Pad Thai recipe on the package. Hmmmmm......

Peanuts, check; green onions, check; fish sauce, natch--but I have about 1/2 c leftover nuoc mam cham which might enhance as a substitute; add a little sesame oil when scrambling the egg...and we have some Thai basil in our garden.

Seem credible so far? I'm thinking a Pad Thai-ish thing, with the roasted cod on top, enhanced with a miso / mirin glaze (forgot my usual pinch of sugar...remember bad sinuses make you stoopid).

All is proceeding according to plan--skillet, oil, garlic, egg, soaked rice sticks...nuoc mam cham...quick stir-fried bok choy...tasting it... nothing. I taste NOTHING. So far it is just pallid, bland, wet noodles. Crap. Green onions and peanuts? NOTHING. A little thick soy sauce for color and a spoonful of fresh chili sauce....NOTHING. But my frontal lobe is telling me that this can't be tasteless. I know what I'm doing--there is an adequate amount of seasoning on the noodles and since I'm not perceiving any difference as I add things, I'd better stop before I render them inedibly over-seasoned.

Imagine my relief when Rachel and Mario deemed the whole concoction delicious. But it still tasted like nothing to me...