Thoughts on Instagram Video

Hi Friends. Are you all on Instagram? If not, you’re missing out on really simple, yet fun community of friends catching up with one another via pictures. We enjoy it and it’s always been a serene place to browse though our friends day from their mobile photographs. But now video is a new 15 second feature on our once simple feed of quiet images.

We’ve heard so many different thoughts about Instagram video, but are curious to read what you think? Are you loving it? Liking it?

The feature itself is great to be able to give folks the option to share moving images. We’re big fans of video if you already didn’t know. The feature to choose your lead photo for video is great and being able to customize that give us more creative liberty and choice. But what was hard for us to appreciate right away was how intrusive the sound and audio can be.

When scrolling through our feed, it can be awfully disruptive to get a jolt of audio from the video. We love seeing the videos, but just wish there was an option to click play when we choose to, rather than have the video auto-play.

So we really wanted to share some video and figured that the only way for us to not scare our followers with a sudden rush of loud sound, was to first share a quiet video with music playing in the background. That way, we don’t shock the heck out of our followers.

Here’s our first Instagram video we worked on together called “Morning Ritual”.

We’re on Instagram as @ToddPorter and @DianeCu

And we’re overloaded with garden heirloom tomatoes now. So here’s an Instagam video about…..tomatoes!

Have you tried instagram video? We want to learn more about it and understand what folks like to see?

hugs,

diane and todd

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Japanese Cooking 101: Final thoughts, or what was the point?

I’m still getting reactions to the recently completed Japanese Cooking 101 course (if you missed it, here’s the complete list of lessons.) While the reactions have been overwhelming positive, I’ve gotten a couple of negative comments too.

One I wanted to address in particular is the accusation, if you will, that the lessons do not represent that way most people cook in Japan anymore. One person even opined that I was not a ‘real Japanese’ because I didn’t cook like ‘the Japanese people I know in Tokyo’ or something like that.

Well you know what, that person is right one one thing: Many (not all!) people in Japan don’t take the time to make their own dashi from scratch, or grow their own shiso or other herbs. Some rely on prewashed rice called musenmai (???) so they don’t have to bother with rinsing rice either. A lot of recipes on various Japanese cooking sites call for the use of mentsuyu (????), bottled noodle sauce concentrate, a readymade combination of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and dashi. It saves time having to pull out each individual ingredient and adding it one by one, for sure. There are just as many convenience foods and ready-made foods in Japan as there are anywhere else - not to mention tons of restaurants, fast food places, and the like. You can easily avoid having to cook, ever. And sadly, a lot of people are like that. Japan is after all one of those so-called developed countries where such a thing is possible.

I have plenty of quick and easy recipes on JustHungry, and many more on JustBento - although I do try to stick as much as possible to real ingredients. (Some of my Japanese recipes call for the use of dashi stock granules, especially when they’re used as an underlying flavor rather than the main flavor. They’re too convenient, plus I’ve heard from many readers that they’re easier to get a hold of than bonito flakes and konbu seaweed.)

The whole point of the Japanese Cooking 101 course was to show how things are done for the best possible results, using traditional methods.

Most of the readers of my sites do not live in Japan. I’m not writing for a Japanese audience obviously, since I’m writing in English. I’m not even writing for an audience of English speaking residents of Japan - although I know there are some who’ve been following along for years (hi guys!). (My column in The Japan Times on the other hand is aimed at English speakers in Japan, so has a rather different focus.) Unless you live in a city with proper Japanese groceries, it can be very hard to get a hold of the right ingredients. Things like mentsuyu are often too expensive to rely on all the time.

Let’s face it, most Japanese ingredients are expensive outside of Japan, if you can even get a hold of them. If you’re going to try to make proper tasting Japanese food under those circumstances, I would much rather you spend your precious money on basic, fundamental, real ingredients rather than manufactured convenience products. If you have access to a Japanese grocery store you can get things like mentsuyu, or the Japanese equivalents of Hamburger Helper and the like. But they’re expensive - too expensive for everday use. On the other hand, although soy sauce, mirin, sake, konbu seaweed and bonito flakes to make dashi, plain old miso and so on are not cheap either, they’re a much better investment of your money if you want to create many authentic tasting dishes.

The point is, I want to be able to teach a little bit about how to cook Japanese food the proper way, through my sites, my book and my other writings. Cooking from scratch is, in my opinion, a fundamental skill, and I’m fighting the battle to keep that skill alive. Even if that notion is laughably old fashioned for some people.

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Mai Tais & Thoughts on Turning 30

I turn 30 tomorrow. It feels funny to say this. For the past month or so, I’ve been trying to shrug it off whenever someone mentions what a milestone birthday it’s going to be. “Oh, um, it’s just a number…” I say. “I’m sure it’s not going to feel much different than 29.” And it’s partly true. I’m pretty certain I’m not going to wake up tomorrow with a head of gray hair, 25 extra pounds, and a sudden urge to shake my fist at all the young’uns playing music loudly in my neighborhood.

But I’m actually kind of excited to be exiting my 20s. Sure, there’s always that feeling of “well, there goes another year…”, compounded with “well, there goes another decade” for this particular birthday. But the later part of my 20s were pretty challenging, particularly the last year, and I’m happy to have moved beyond that.

I have quite a bit to be excited for. My book comes out this December. I have a new blog I’m eager to work more on. I’m collaborating with good friends on an exciting food-related venture. I have a brand new passport with blank pages just waiting to be stamped, as well as two old passports with reminders of all the places I’ve been.

More reasons your 30s might be better than your 20s:

You have a better idea of what you want out of life and how to get it.You have an apartment you’re actually proud of.You don’t have to apologize for being tired at 10pm and wanting hit the hay.You’ve learned to not sweat the small stuff.You’re older, wiser, and thus naturally more interesting to talk to.You can pull off a dinner party with grace (more or less).Your clothes from high school and college are now vintage.You can remember the awkward years and laugh about them.You’ve been there and lived to tell the tale.

I starting making mai tais at home while researching tiki culture for my cookbook. You see, tiki culture and Chinese food have quite a history together. In the 1940s and 1950s, restaurants like Trader Vic’s and Don the Beachcomber brought Chinese food to a bigger, mainstream dining audience by serving it with tiki drinks in a fun, festive environment. You could have eggrolls, spareribs, chow mein, and more with your mai tais, Singapore Slings, Scorpions, and other tropical-themed cocktails. And so I had an excuse to recipe-test mai tais again and again for tiki parties.

The original Mai Tai was actually a simple and well-balanced cocktail, in contrast to all the overly sugary and unnaturally colored drinks you see today. Victor Bergeron, the founder of Trader Vic’s, is widely acknowledged as the drink’s creator. As the story goes, he whipped up the drink one evening at his bar for friends visiting from Tahiti, one of whom praised it as “Maita’i roa a’e!”, Tahitian for “Very Good!”, which is how the drink got its name.

The Mai Tai I make for parties was inspired by the Trader’s recipe. As far as tiki drinks go, it has few ingredients, perfect for making a well-balanced tropical cocktail without spending a lot to stock your home bar. Orgeat, an almond syrup with a little rose water or orange flower water, may be a little tricky to find, but is available in many gourmet grocery stores and shops specializing in Italian-American groceries. You can also substitute regular almond syrup.

It’s a fairly sophisticated drink, or as sophisticated as a cocktail sometimes served in coconuts and tiki mugs can be. I like to think if you can still enjoy a mai tai in your 30s, you’re doing perfectly fine. And that your next decade is going to be a good one.

___________________________

Mai Tai

Makes 1 drink

1 ounce dark rum (or 1 ounce dark rum and 1 ounce gold rum)1 ounce lime juice½ ounce Orange Curaçao½ ounce orgeat, or substitute regular almond syrup½ ounce simple syrupPineapple wedge or paper umbrella for garnish (I like to snack while I sip this, so I throw a few extra wedges in the glass)Fill a shaker with ice. Add the rum, lime juice, Orange Curaçao, orgeat, and simple syrup. Shake well and strain into a glass over ice. Garnish with a pineapple wedge(s) or umbrella.More cocktails for celebrating:Tagged as: Cocktails, Drinks

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Brown Butter and Oat Scones & Thoughts on Egypt

Thursday night I went to bed determined to wake up in the morning and rhapsodize about brown butter and teff flour. Culinary alchemy. A magical Ethiopian grass seed. Then that morning came and something extraordinary happened.

Diane asked to put on the news. “Something’s happened in Eygpt.”

The next four hours I watched. Images, jubilation, dreams. Hardened reporters used to journalizing terrors, suffering, and troubles surrounded by celebration. Exhilaration.  Even though the embedded reporters maintained a professional documentation of everything happening around them, I could feel their watcher’s souls glowing. The day was extraordinary.

In this moment, the importance of writing about food seemed trivial. Not that food isn’t important, or our sharing of recipes and stories isn’t something precious to wrap our hearts around.  But this moment of what had just happened in Egypt superseded all of that.

A peaceful revolution.  Peaceful.  In a land torn and surrounded by violence. Where wills are imposed down the barrel of a gun or through fear of a bombing. The people had the courage to stand up for hope and humanity and demand it be given to them.

The were attacked.  Provocations thrown at them. Fear dangled in front of them.  Over the last 18 days, their courage, heart, and hopes were tested to the limits, but they stood strong. Reporters commented on seeing secret police questioning and opening noting those participating.  If the revolution failed, payback would be a bitch.

Reporters themselves were tossed in jail, only to be later freed due to protestors standing up for the media’s sake and helping protecting them.  The military rolled in on their vehicles of destruction, but instead of imposing terror, remained passive.  Refusing to fire on the people they were supposed to be serving.

Volunteers checked people joining the demonstrations for weapons, helping maintain a revolution that would have brought joy to Ghandi’s heart. At night streets were patrolled by vigilante protectors, keeping ill-meaning scavengers from preying on the chaotic and emotional happenings.

All of this happening was virtually unimaginable a short time ago. Who would have thought in land of one of the oldest societies, facebook, twitter, and the internet would be instrumental in enabling a revolution. Youth who have grown up not even know what hope is, have given it to millions around the world.

We have no personal ties with anyone Egyptian. No connection other than we are all human. And I was struck to the core by what I witnessed. The future is still to be determined. There will be many more struggles and time will determine the significance of the revolution.  But at least for now, hope and joy is spreading through the world.

Since the recipe for Brown Butter and Oat Scones is ready, and it is a damn good recipe, we are still ending this post it. There will be those readers whose care is for the recipes, not our ramblings. And we are cool with that.  Thank you to those have the time and interest in our chatter. Today this just seemed too important not to share.

- Todd

 Print This Recipe

Brown Butter and Oat Scone Recipe
Adapted from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce and Amy Scattergood. The teff flour and brown butter  compliment each other so well with their nutty nuances. It is easiest to do the brown butter ahead of time, usually the night before, since it needs to harden up before using in the recipe. Makes 8 scones.

4 oz (115g) unsalted Butter

1/2 c (85g) Teff Flour
1 c (150g) All-Purpose Flour
1  c (100g) whole Rolled Oats
1/4 c (50g) Brown Sugar
1/4 c (60g) Sugar
2 t (10g) Baking Powder
1 1/4 t (6 g) Sea Salt or Kosher Salt

1/2 c (60ml) Heavy Cream
1 Egg
1 t (5ml) pure Vanilla Extract

heavy cream for brushing
sugar, granulated or superfine sugar

at least a couple hours before making dough

Make Brown Butter
1. Melt butter in a tall saucepan over  medium heat. Swirl butter occasionally to promote even melting and browning.

2. Cook until butter is a light caramel color and bottom of pan is covered in dark brown flecks. Butter will have a toasty smell. (Butter will first bubble up and sizzle, then settle down with the solids floating on the surface. Keep cooking until nice and toasty, without burning the solids.)

3. Pour butter into a wide, shallow dish, scraping the flecks on the bottom of the pan into the butter, and freeze until solid. This can be done a day or more ahead of time.

preheat oven to 350° F. line a baking sheet with parchment paper or rub with butter

Make Scones
1.  Combine flours, oats, sugars, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut the chilled brown butter into pea-sized pieces, then add to dry mix. Using your fingers, pinch butter into dry mix until it resembles a coarse meal. (This can all be combined in a food processor as alternative method)

2. In a small bowl, whisk together heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract until well combined. Add wet mix into dry mix and stir until just incorporated.

3. Put dough ball on a well floured surface and pat into a 7? wide by 1? thick disk.   Cut into 8 wedges.

4. Place wedges on baking sheet, spacing a few inches apart. Brush with a couple light coats of heavy cream, then sprinkle sugar over wedges. Bake for until the edges of the scones have browned nicely, about 28-34 minutes.  The scones are better slightly over-baked than under-baked.

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