Skip to main content

Kung Pao Chicken

Recently (read: the last 5 years) I've been the main chef in our little household. My idea of dinner before I met The Prince was frozen ravioli, decorated with a dusting of parmesan cheese consumed over the sink. (I still think this counts as dinner. And a milk side? A carton of coffee non-fat frozen yogurt. Mmmm.)

But The Prince (likely reacting to other stress in his life) has been actively interested in cooking again.

Now, The Prince is not what I would call a gourmet chef. His specialties basically are chili, chili and chili. (REALLY good chili though.) I can cook about 5-6 things very well, and tend to supplement those with a lot of chicken breasts broiled until just this side of rubber. I do however bake very well -- extremely well -- and given how prone I am to complimenting myself (read: never.) I'm telling you, I'm pretty wicked with the butter, chocolate, sugar and flour. (and lemon, eggs..come over one day and I'll whip up some cardamom madeline's that will knock you numb.)

Tonight The Prince broke open the Time-Life cooking book that offers recipes in both lasagna and pork buns with scallion sauce. At about 10 am he announced he was making King Pao Chicken and made himself a shopping list. At Whole Foods he tossed into the cart some sesame oil, ginger, unsalted peanuts, organic chicken. (I tossed in some pork chops -- insurance items....)

At 6 pm he had three burners going and I took The Rabbit out for a visit with friends, and to pick up some ice cream bars for dessert. 45 minutes later I walked home to this:



My own naked chef....

Comments

Kate B. said…
euww. I have to say MM that I am not coming over for dinner any time soon....

(But don't tell the Prince I said that).

I'm up for the madeleines though!

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

Environment

Being an expat, a favorite topic of conversation is 'where I/you want to go next?' or 'When do you plan to go home?' It's a good question. I'm not sure I want to stay in Dubai for ever, but I'm also not sure about how long I want to be here for or where else I would like to live. For almost the first time ever, I have no fixed plans apart from keeping my eyes and mind open to interesting opportunities. And as to going 'home', I have no idea where that is. Constantly moving around as a child left me with the feeling that 'home' is wherever I am right now, so in effect 'home' could be anywhere. The longest I've ever lived in one fixed place was 18 years in London, on and off, but that doesn't feel like 'home' either - I love going back to see family and friends, and it's a great place to shop, but that's about it. I have a great love for California, which is where my extended family is from (and where most of the