food freaks

Okay, to all 8 of you that read, I blog on.  Even though I am totally addicted to the instant gratification of face book.  I do like that this blog holds my family history for the last 17 months.

I thought everyone loved food.  But I am learning that there are people out there that don't really care so much.  That makes me feel even more obsessed.  I will tell you now that I do know people that are more into food than I am.  Granted, they are called chefs or restauranteurs.  But, whatever. 

   

Karl and I took a sushi class at Orson Gygi a while back.  I love that place.  I like to go and just look around.  They have so many great cooking things that I never knew I needed (and always the things that I need). 

The teacher was Jonas Otsuji and he was awesome.  He had some serious sushi skills and he was funny and nice.  

-He showed us how to cut up a salmon (just in case we need to make sushi for, like 40 people one day) and the tastiest part of the fish.

-He showed us to use "extra fancy" rice.  Hah!  First time in my life I have ever needed anything extra fancy.

-My first roll.  Not beautiful.  But tasty.  

-He broiled up that extra tasty part of the salmon with some amazing sauce.

Not shown but definitely remembered:  the fresh crab, the spicy tuna, the tempura rolls... oh man, I want some sushi now. 

So, posting about the sushi class reminded me of the dumpling class we took in Beijing.  I never got to blogging about it because I got sick of posting about the trip.

Me, being me, making one of the foods that I crave so much, dumplings, at a place called Black Sesame.  It was in this trendy historical shopping district and I loved everything about it.  Our teacher was Chairman Wang and she was so cute and jolly.  

  

-Stirring the meat.  For whatever reason, you have choose a direction to stir and stick with it.  They were delicious, so I won't argue.  

-Before you add the Chinese cabbage you have to squeeze the excess liquid out.  It takes muscles.  We also made some with pumpkin.  Yum.

-She showed us how to snap each piece off the long snake of dough to make the skin for the dumpling.

 

-Roll it and smash it and it should look like this.  It took her two seconds.  It took me two minutes.

 

-You can pan fry then or boil them.  

 

-Dip them in vinegar and enjoy.

-Pan fried and boiled.  I prefer pan fried.  That is what I grew up with.  

I want to eat a few or fifty of these right now.  We have made these once since we have been home.  It was a lot of work.  Tasty but we still need practice.  

I want to go to Italy.  I want to go on a food tour of Italy.  Really.  I will be able to say, "I am just here for the food."  Like my mom says, "Dreams free."