Three Beautiful Things 02/09/17: A Day Inside, Wrestling with Curry, Good Talk with Lizzie

1. Temperatures plunged about forty degrees from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon and a fierce wind whipped up. It was a good day to stay inside, have a talk with Mom on the phone, do about five loads of laundry, and sort out the refrigerator. Mom sounded strong on the phone. She cooked a pot roast dinner for the family on Sunday and that is quite an achievement. I was glad she told me she got some help at the end with getting the roast out of the oven, making the gravy, setting the table, and other things, but she prepared the dinner herself.

2. I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon wrestling with a Thai curry.  I got out the Kaeng Pa (or Jungle Curry) paste. Normally, it's the foundation for a curry that does not use coconut milk.  I found a recipe that laid out the proportions between paste and chicken broth. I thought to myself that this seems like a lot of paste to go with this small amount of liquid, so I poured a quart of broth over the paste instead of two cups. After stir frying the paste, adding the broth, and boiling it, I couldn't bear the intensity of the pepper heat, so I got out three cans of coconut milk and cream and added them to the growing pot of curry. I baked tofu and eggplant, added them, and added green beans and spinach out of the freezer. I suddenly thought maybe some rice vermicelli noodles would taste good in this, so I boiled them and threw them in. All my efforts cooled off the spicy heat of the curry, and, sure enough, when the Deke and I got home for dinner, we agreed I'd done a pretty good job cooling off what had been a five alarm curry, leaving plenty of heat, but making it a spicy dish we could enjoy.  I'll have to try to make coconut milk-less Kaeng Pa another time.

3.  The Deke surprised me when, this afternoon, she texted me not only telling me to pick her up at 4:30, but also saying she'd like to go to DC Brau. We did just that. Things were quiet at DC Brau and we enjoyed some beer, but, most of all, we enjoyed having a great talk with Lizzie who was working the tasting room. She had recently returned from the West Coast and told us about her boyfriend starting the Master Brewing program at U. C. Davis and their trip out to Davis so he could get started. We've enjoyed talking with Lizzie before and, as happens so often at DC Brau, where youngsters are in charge, we had another great experience talking with and learning about the dreams and ambitions and experiences  of these youngsters known of as Millennials.  These young people at DC Brau really know how to work and are gracious and intelligent as well -- and, to top it off, they brew superb beer.