jazzing up a plain bánh mì

I don't know why so often Asian food in North America have a tendency to suffer from chasing for low prices. Inevitably with low prices the products suffer. Corners are cut and bad ingredients become the approximation. Portland has a large population of Vietnamese. While I haven't try to find a good bánh mì lately, with the years I live here I have not experience one that worth getting excited. All too often there is very little inside the sandwich. In my recent month long road trip, I made a point to stop by the Vietnamese area in San Jose. The bánh mì that I had from this shop that specialized in the Vietnamese sandwich had to be the worst I'd ever tasted. Later I have a bowl of pho and I could not eat it because it was that bad.

yakitory 焼鳥 grill for brunnhilde

I first saw this butane fueled compact yakitory 焼鳥 or 串焼 (skewer) grill on Cooking with Dog a few years ago. I immediately wanted one. I watched and rewatched the video to get a better mental picture of what the grill look like. In my ensuring trips to Japan I looked high and low and could not find it.

home made fresh pasta

  

With an abundance of andouille sausage and tasso I made yesterday I was very eager to cook with them. I put my mind in gear to decide what best dish to make with what I have at home. Home made pasta was what I came up. I have a bit of cuttlefish left in the refrigerator and I would use it to accent the smoked meat.

brunnhilde's bluetooth head unit firmware update

I installed the Alpine CDE-133BT head unit in Brunnhilde nearly 2 years ago. After market automobile sound systems came a long way compared to even the top of the range systems 2 decades ago. The irony is today the after market automobile market is a lot smaller and most companies are making just meager profit due to nearly collapse of the demand. Most vehicles comes with not so bad sound system as most buyers perceive. Many vehicles have built in system that is very difficult to switch to standard DIN dimension after market systems. For me I seldom find factory sound system acceptable especially when I know how cost-reduce they are.

home made andouille and tasso

This is my second attempt in making andouille sausages. It is also my second attempt in sausage making endeavor. I did a batch before my first taste of the real thing in Louisiana in my recent road trip.

lobster thermidor - part 2

This is my third time making lobster thermidor now in only a short span of 2 weeks. I want to get the technique down so it would stay with me. I am quite happy with the result of the third attempt.

gnocchi with prawns in cheese sauce

I have been wanting to make gnocchi for a long time. I am not much of a potato eater so rarely there are potato in this household. Today there are these few russet potato sitting in my garage taunting me to do something good with them.