With a Little Help From Our Friend – What Would You Cook?

At this point you probably all know that we love to cook – and to eat. You probably also all know that we have spent the past month camping in our new Brooklyn apartment, still waiting for our stuff to arrive from London (it was due in early December).

Photo from Kirey on Flickr

What you may not know is that we know some pretty cool people. And by cool, I mean generous. Take Maggie for example. She loves food too. And she is meant to be an amazing cook – I mean anyone who has a meat smoker in their backyard gets our respect but Maggie and her husband actually spend weekends sleeping on shifts when they smoke meat, to make sure they can keep an eye on it. She also has a great food blog and is even on Mashable’s list of Foodies one should follow on Twitter. How about that?

Well Maggie heard about our current cooking plight and decided to help us. Christmas is all about helping people in need, after all.

Read Maggie suggestions in her aptly named post, Dennis and Chloe Need YOUR Help on her blog, Eat Boutique.

Food We Miss – Pho Ba

It’s cold out. I work from home and spend most of my days sitting at our new kitchen table, in our empty apartment (remember how we do not have our stuff from London yet?), typing. The shock of coming back combined with the cold of the New York City winter – and it’s a cold one this year, believe me – makes me really miss what had become a daily occurrence when we were in Vietnam and Laos: Pho Ba.

Pho Ba is a fancy way to say Vietnamese beef noodle soup. While it’s readily available all over the world, we believe that this 13 year-old girl in Hanoi made the best version on earth.

It may have been the ridiculous heat , her smile when I got up and ran to the ice-bucket to show her that we did not need ice cubes in our beer, or simply the contrast between this seemingly dirty hangar/restaurant and the intricate, bold yet smooth flavour of the soup, but I swear this girl makes the best soup in the world.

We recently hung out with Jodi of Legal Nomads and agreed that pho could easily fall in the mysterious category of food that is usually better when someone else cooks it for you. We also included dumplings, empanadas, roti canai and the bacon cheeseburger we were devouring in that category. The next morning, I was up at 7, desperately trying to find the best recipe for all of the above listed items.

Does Pho really belong in that category? Well, I am not sure yet, but finding out definitely is on our list for 2010.

Want to help us figure it out? Try this detailed recipe from Jade’s Steamy Kitchen and then move on to this tempting list of the most authentic Pho recipes on the web, on aptly named LovingPho.com.

Oh and let us know what you think!

Farewell, dear friend

Hey… You sitting there!

I normally don’t just strike up a conversation with a stranger and introduce myself, but you must have noticed it too – we bear a startling resemblance to one another!

Except, you seem so much more relaxed… so much more laid back than me.  How do you stay so stress-free and careless?  Your biggest worry appears to be making sure that fantastically even, bronze tan doesn’t turn into an itchy peely burn.

And that BEARD – I’ve always wanted to grow one like that but just haven’t had the opportunity.  You know how it is… work and stuff.  Or maybe you don’t.  Maybe you just go where the tides take you, travel with the wind at your back and the sun in your face.  Never really thinking about anything more than one simple thing – enjoying life.

Well, anyway, I must be going.  People to see, things to do… But it was really nice to meet you.  Maybe someday, somewhere we’ll bump into each other again.  Stranger things have happened, you know.  So, farewell dear friend… at least for now.  I’ll miss you.

…

By the way, what does your shirt mean?

The Holiday Card That Could Have Been

See more great pictures by Robert Kittilson on his Flickr page and on KnKExplore.

Happy holidays!

How Long Will This Plastic Forks and Knives Resolution Last?

Last night, we found out that our stuff will not be delivered before January. And when I say stuff, I mean it in its most general use: our kitchen wares, our furniture (thank God we bought a bed here), our clothes, our shoes, our bathroom…things, everything. And when I say January I mean the New Year . So just when we thought it was all over – they were originally supposed to deliver everything yesterday – we find out that we have 5 more weeks of camping ahead of us. Thank God we bought a computer: that gives us something to do while we wash our one set of warm clothes every other day.

We thought we’d only have one week to wait so we were perfectly happy with the current situation. Yes, our clothes look funny and tourists stare at us like we are some crazy New York eccentrics, but we thought it was only for a few days so it was kind of fun although I am afraid D enjoys it a bit too much and may never come back to his old look again, but that’s another story. Yes, eating out all the time is a bit pricy and definitely not healthy but again, why go out and buy a second set of cooking wares? And yes, sleeping under an Argentinean cow skin, albeit warm (-ish), is kind of uncomfortable and makes me sneeze (allergies) but hey, we’re not going to buy yet another duvet, we already have 3 on their way!

Well this is all about to change. We finally gave in yesterday and bought plastic forks and knives. It’s bad for the environment and I feel like it’s money thrown out the window but it is only $0,79. I may also give in some more and buy a French press since we did need one but really, I would hate to have to buy new silverware – we already have a set!

So let’s see: we have 5 more weeks to go. We already gave in and bought a laptop 2 days ago (Macbook Pro, I love you). How long until we get sick of plastic silverware and buy a set?