My Role Models

Fresh Apple Tart ~ Homage to Julia Child

My cousin Francoise

Julia Child

Hillary Clinton

What do you miss?

Tags

postaday2011

One of the first things that popped up in my head was the Thai dish Crabs with Special Sauce. I have only found this particular dish in one Thai restaurant called Jaiya in New York. The restaurant used to be located in Elmhurst Queens, my parents, my sister and I were introduced to this Thai restaurant 30 years ago by my parents French friend Elizabeth. She happened upon it one evening and had this incredible crab dish called very simply Crab with Special Sauce. The first time that we as a family tried it, we were hooked. The marriage of flavors between the crab and the sauce is incredible, the flavors themselves become so harmonious that you don’t quite know where the crab flavor begins and where the garlic or the tamarind paste come in. There were other dishes that we loved as well, my father’s particularly enjoyed their appetizer called Naked Shrimp. The shrimp was sautéed and served with a spicy citrus vinaigrette over a salad of greens, my father ordered it so often that he was able to replicate the dish at home. My father was very talented in the kitchen as well, we were lucky because normally my father was able to recreate any dish that he had enjoyed elsewhere except for one. You have probably guessed the one that eluded him. He could not quite figure out the components of the Special Sauce. We knew what type of crabs to get, female blue crabs which were not hard to find, that was the easy part. The flavor components were so well intertwined which was the beauty of the dish as well as the frustration.

So why do I miss it so? Jaiya closed its doors in Elmhurst 9 years ago. They still have a restaurant under the same name in New York City but that restaurant does not carry Crab with Special Sauce and I don’t know why and it is not for lack of asking. But after asking for the 100th time, I have resigned myself to simply enjoy their other dishes and mourn the loss of my Crabs with Special Sauce in silence.

When is it a good time to quit?

Tags

postaday2011

What is amusing is that I have an example for the question. A good time to quit a project, any kind of project, is when continuing is harmful or counterproductive. I was writing on my nanowri2011 novel and trying to pound out more words. I had already written a fair share during the morning and I figured that I could get further along the story tonight. I was starting to spout gibberish and I said to myself, “you need to stop, you are not making sense. Put it down, quit for now and start again tomorrow” I actually listen to myself, I make sure to save and back everything up and then I remember that I didn’t take the time to answer my Plinky.com prompt of the day. Afterwards I realized that I forgot my daily post prompt as well, so here I am answering a prompt about when to quit. Well that is my cue, I am quitting for tonight because my brain is starting to feel fuzzy inside and I think it is trying to tell me GO TO SLEEP!

City or Country?

Greenwich Village

I grew up in Astoria Queens so New York was a very big part of my background. As an adult I have since moved up north to western Massachusetts and I admit that I still like to visit New York but I love living in the country. I like the quiet and the slower pace of driving and being.