Food Stuff

My friend Susan and I made plans to lunch at a local Chinese place this afternoon, but when we got there we were surprised to find that it is no longer a Chinese restaurant but a Japanese sushi/sashimi restaurant. And that was fine; we went in and had a very nice lunch!

Now I am looking in my cupboard to see if I still have sticky rice, nori, and all the fixin's for Japanese fare. This is why it is nice to go out periodically and expand one's horizons on any subject - now I have cause to step into my own kitchen and whip up some really good Japanese cuisine! I am fairly adept at Thai, somewhat good at Korean, have a little trouble with Chinese cuisine. Maybe February will be Japanese Food Month at the Armstrongs...

Tonight the menu options were seafood gumbo or seafood chowder, and that Spouse o' Mine opted for the latter, so we can be called Chowderheads tonight. The tomato offerings at the local grocery were A) big ol' colorless greenhouse things from Canada, B) big ol' red-yet-rock-hard things from the U.S. - I suspect AZ or CA, but I could be wrong, or C) really nice red things from our neighbor down south, Mexico. I picked C. And was not sorry. I will slice up Choice C and top my homemade bread with such, and set under the broiler to have with our chowder.

Other food thoughts which popped into my mind today were that I have quite a few bags of peaches in our freezer downstairs, part of the peach harvest that I specifically froze for February. And here we are, nearly there. Homegrown (albeit frozen) peaches in mid-winter are very nice little celebrations of Spring-to-come.

Ditto my inventory of tomatoes still in the freezer: close to nil. That Spouse o' Mine and I have enjoyed a plethora of soups and stews this winter, and I have nearly emptied my tomato reserve. But that's OK; some years, I find some frozen tomatoes left in the freezer from nine months ago, and that is just not right. (By the way, I freeze my tomatoes whole - I wash them, de-stem them, and put them into freezer bags whole. Saves time and energy in the food-processing.)

And that is all the foodstuff I have to write about tonight. The bread is ready to hit the broiler.