Saturday Was a Full Day
Jul. 27th, 2011 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdStarted the day driving to Fremont and Pi Pannee's house for another Thai cooking class. Took a lot of photos, did not do any food prep because Pannee and the two others attending were all gung ho and doing a much better job than I would have. Photos will be on Flickr Real Soon Now. We made noodle-wrapped mackerel, stuffed chicken wings and beef salad. I don't think I saw any of these in Thailand, but I didn't go to many catered events there.
The mackerel was not actually wrapped in noodles, it was cleaned, rubbed with fresh lime and the lime was stuffed into it to keep the fish from collapsing. Then it was scored and baked. K'nom Chin noodles (aka vermicelli) were boiled, drained, cooled, and curled into bite-sized lumps. The fish was eaten by making a sandwich of a lettuce leaf, the noodles and the fish. There was a sauce of some kind for it too.
The chicken wings were a yummy variation on egg rolls. We made egg roll filling from various shredded things, and then chicken wings were de-boned and the meat removed from the big part above the joint, so all we had left was skin with a bone "handle". The skin is stuffed with the egg roll stuffing, the whole thing is dipped in watered-down tempura batter and deep fried. Nom nom.
Beef salad was a variety of Thai-friendly greens (basil, mint, cilantro, etc.) topped with a huge slab of grilled London broil cut into bite-sized strips. Delicious. Pannee's husband Warren made the steak - he's somewhat familiar with such things, bring head of dining services at Berkeley's I-House.
After we ate, Pannee showed us how to make flowers by carving salad onions and carrots, and she demonstrated how to make a butterfly from a piece of carrot. Amazing stuff.
Much fun, great company, excellent food, what more could one want?
Entertainment, that's what. So I got home just in time to put my leftovers in the fridge, and get to the train station. Took the express to Redwood City - I didn't know there was one, I expected to wait 20 minutes more for the milk run.
Redwood City was in the throes of a blues festival, which was very loud, and aimed right at the Fox theater across the street. I am not a blues fan, or a too-loud-music fan, so I found my favorite cafe down the block, had dinner and then picked up my ticket and saw Broadway By The Bay's Music Man. I had two friends in the cast, they were terrific.
Nutshell review:
Everyone in the cast fit their parts, except for the fellow playing Professor Hill (the role Robert Preston was uninspiring in in the movie). He played it like Jimmy Cagney, which is not so bad when I come to think about it. But the role needs someone more suave, someone we can fall in love with. The cast was superb at falling for him, but I felt is was more because that was what the script said to do rather than because they were inspired. The barbershop quartet is superb, and stole the show each time they were singing. My other complaint is the dance numbers were way too long. I'd have cut about half of the non-singing all-dancing sections. The ensemble was more than up to the task, but it made me tired watching them. The set was an enigma for me. It was beautifully constructed, and the art work on it was excellent but the color scheme was beige on tan, and did far too good a job of not distracting from the play. Colors would have been nice.
Took the train back to MV, at home I uploaded the pix from the camera, and did the initial plucking out of blurred and embarrassing photos. Bed too late.
The mackerel was not actually wrapped in noodles, it was cleaned, rubbed with fresh lime and the lime was stuffed into it to keep the fish from collapsing. Then it was scored and baked. K'nom Chin noodles (aka vermicelli) were boiled, drained, cooled, and curled into bite-sized lumps. The fish was eaten by making a sandwich of a lettuce leaf, the noodles and the fish. There was a sauce of some kind for it too.
The chicken wings were a yummy variation on egg rolls. We made egg roll filling from various shredded things, and then chicken wings were de-boned and the meat removed from the big part above the joint, so all we had left was skin with a bone "handle". The skin is stuffed with the egg roll stuffing, the whole thing is dipped in watered-down tempura batter and deep fried. Nom nom.
Beef salad was a variety of Thai-friendly greens (basil, mint, cilantro, etc.) topped with a huge slab of grilled London broil cut into bite-sized strips. Delicious. Pannee's husband Warren made the steak - he's somewhat familiar with such things, bring head of dining services at Berkeley's I-House.
After we ate, Pannee showed us how to make flowers by carving salad onions and carrots, and she demonstrated how to make a butterfly from a piece of carrot. Amazing stuff.
Much fun, great company, excellent food, what more could one want?
Entertainment, that's what. So I got home just in time to put my leftovers in the fridge, and get to the train station. Took the express to Redwood City - I didn't know there was one, I expected to wait 20 minutes more for the milk run.
Redwood City was in the throes of a blues festival, which was very loud, and aimed right at the Fox theater across the street. I am not a blues fan, or a too-loud-music fan, so I found my favorite cafe down the block, had dinner and then picked up my ticket and saw Broadway By The Bay's Music Man. I had two friends in the cast, they were terrific.
Nutshell review:
Everyone in the cast fit their parts, except for the fellow playing Professor Hill (the role Robert Preston was uninspiring in in the movie). He played it like Jimmy Cagney, which is not so bad when I come to think about it. But the role needs someone more suave, someone we can fall in love with. The cast was superb at falling for him, but I felt is was more because that was what the script said to do rather than because they were inspired. The barbershop quartet is superb, and stole the show each time they were singing. My other complaint is the dance numbers were way too long. I'd have cut about half of the non-singing all-dancing sections. The ensemble was more than up to the task, but it made me tired watching them. The set was an enigma for me. It was beautifully constructed, and the art work on it was excellent but the color scheme was beige on tan, and did far too good a job of not distracting from the play. Colors would have been nice.
Took the train back to MV, at home I uploaded the pix from the camera, and did the initial plucking out of blurred and embarrassing photos. Bed too late.
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