Interactive Blogging: Two Questions for You!

[lagilman]

Note to self: no matter how nice a night it may be, walking from 4t St & 2nd avenue to 35th & 6th avenue to catch the express bus home is really not a good idea. Even if you were wearing your comfy walking heels.

It really was a lovely night, though. Summer in the city can be hellish, but once the sun goes down and the wind picks up, it's party-town in the street cafes and bars and just generally Hanging Out. It's not just in warm weather, either: one of my favorite memories of NYC is walking with a group of people, Winter 2001, through snow-coated streets from one bar to another, just generally feeling good to be alive and out and enjoying the relative peace and quiet of the snowfall... (those of you who've read FREE FALL have read a description of one such night -- minus the supernatural stuff, thankfully)

Question 1: What's your favorite weather-related night out memory?

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One of my favorite cooking terms is "wok hei," which I was taught (and I may be wrong) means "flavor or spirit from the wok." In other words, the resulting taste you get from food cooked in a wok.

Stir-fry is one of my favorite styles of cooking, because it gives you so much opportunity to mix and match flavors, from the traditional Chinese elements (scallions, garlic, ginger, celery, string beans) to more unusual (potato, cabbage, apples, pineapple, etc). It also lets me use up whatever's in the fridge in a healthy and cost-effective manner.

One of my favorite 'easy, feed-the-writer-on-deadline' meals is chicken thigh meat, sliced, with dried pineapple chunks, string beans, shredded carrots and cashews, with garlic and soy sauce. Scallions optional.

Question 2: What's your favorite stir-fry?

Comments

[eeknight.livejournal.com]

I stir fry a lot too. My favorite starts with the holy trinity of garlic, onion, and ginger -- my kitchen is never without those -- in wok oil. Then I fry up some Thai baked tofu (Trader Joe's) in it, set aside. Do the veggies (usually an Asian assortment, or just broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, depending on what the store had fresh) in some sesame sauce. Some mushrooms if I happened to pick some up. Chuck the tofu back in and you have a nice meal with lots of fiber with only about fifteen or twenty minutes real work, thanks to the rice cooker. By varying the sauces between General Tso's or a spicy Szechuan or yellow/red curry you can get a lot of vegetarian-friendly tastes out of the same ingredients.

[kradical.livejournal.com]

#1: Driving up the FDR Drive in my 1977 Ford Pinto, the window down, the sun shining brightly on the water of the East River and the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" on the radio. It was just a perfect day, that. The only thing that would've made it more perfect would've been if I had a convertible.

#2: My parents' Chinese food mélange that they made when I was a kid.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite 'easy, feed-the-writer-on-deadline' meals is chicken thigh meat, sliced, with dried pineapple chunks, string beans, shredded carrots and cashews, with garlic and soy sauce.

That sounds fabulous. When I get stir fry at the deli for lunch, it's usually lo mein noodles with shrimp, chicken, broccoli, carrots, water chestnuts, and pineapple. With a teriyaki garlic sauce. Yum.

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

#1 - walking along 5th Avenue one very rainy evening with my friend Beth. The rain was really coming down and we - despite umbrellas and raingear - were getting pretty damp. Beth sighed, paused and said "At least it can't rain any harder"

"Oh Beth, NO!" I said. And right on cue, the rain which had been coming down steadily, poured on the juice and started coming down in SHEETS.

"Beth, don't talk anymore. Not about anything." She nodded and we sloshed the rest of the way home in silence.

[safewrite.livejournal.com]

1. Fave weather-related memory? Driving to Watkin's Glen in the middle of a summer night, near 1 AM, and driving next to am unexpected valley magically filled with a river of sparkling mist under a rising full moon.

2. Favorite stir-fry? Anything with Kikoman's teriyaki grilling sauce. This is not the watery regular Kikoman teriyaki, oh no. I usually stretch the sauce with a bit of water and corn starch, and always add garlic.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Favorite weather memory: Slogging home through 2 feet of snow while in law school, finding garbage bags in the apartment, and "sledding" down the steep hill outside the building - all while I was supposed to be in contracts class.

Favorite stir-fry: Fresh green beans, carrots, and onion, with chicken, and a sauce made of soy sauce cut with chicken broth, fresh garlic, and a handful of dried red pepper flakes, thickened with a little cornstarch - all served over sticky white rice. But really? Just about anything pulled from the fridge, served with that sauce...

[lotuseyes.livejournal.com]

Question 1
When my cousins were teaching me to drive out in the hills of Ireland there came to be a rainstorm. Mind you we were in an open jeep (no doors, windows, top...) and at that particular moment in time on a dirt track running through a valley. There were 5 of us--Kurt, Kellie, Me, Martha and Chris--bouncing and bumbling our way through an increasingly worse muddy road. I remember when Kurt was driving (we were all taking turns at this point) he hit a rock at a very fast speed and the jeep nearly tip over. We drove sideways for what seemed like forever despeartely laughing and shoving at each other to tip it back the other way. By the time we got back to Aunt Maureen's cottage there wasn't an inch of us that wasn't mud splattered plus most of us had scraps all over from the fact the jeep finally got stuck in a rut and we stopped so fast we all flew out of it. Best night ever.

Question 2
My boyfriend makes me chicken stir fry whenever I am really depressed. In theory I know what's in it--snow peas, bamboo shoots, peppers, potatoes and chicken, sometimes broccoli--but he makes his own sauce. I love it to pieces. I have never had a better stir fry in my life. That stir fry has saved him many a time from me stomping out in frustration with his World of Warcraft antics XD

[autojim.livejournal.com]

Q1: Toss-up: A) Though it wasn't quite night yet, the evening out doing Skywarn where the tornado was forming itself Right. On. Top. Of. Us. and after calling it in, skedaddling down a section-line road at a buck-40 to put distance between us and it. Total adrenaline rush, and our call lead to about 20 minutes of warning before the cell actually spun the funnel out.

B) Total opposite: calm, clear night, convertible test car from work, pretty girl next to me, no particular place to go and no particular time to be there, a moderately twisty rural road, no bumps, no traffic, (almost) no light pollution, top down, and good tunes at moderate volume. Hoping for a chance to do that again soon, 14 years after the first time, with the same pretty girl, who believes in second chances.

Q2: Shrimp, green pepper, water chestnut, bean sprouts, garlic (minced or, in a pinch, powder), lemon pepper, powdered ginger, dill seed, all stir-fried in garlic oil and deglazed with dilute lemon juice. My BD's Mongolian BBQ weapon-of-choice before they changed to some weird thick lemon stuff; now I drop the dill seed and lemon pepper and use a peanut sauce, which is excellent as well.

[egret17.livejournal.com]

Hmm, strangely, my weather memories I have are memorable because of the drama of bad weather. Being four and hiding in the basement under my dad's workbench while a tornado took down trees on our street. Being 12 and listening to our creek roaring by less than 100 feet from the house after the road/dam gave way. Sitting in my car under a tree in the Black Hills during a hailstorm, hoping my car didn't look like a golf ball. Oh, wait, this one's not so bad - being in college during the Halloween Blizzard and walking about 15 blocks through knee deep snow to buy cases of beer... and wishing we had a sled like the really smart students ahead of us!

Favorite stir fry is the garlic pepper stir fry (chicken and veggies and the perfect amount of peppery, salty seasoning) at Chiang Mai Thai, Uptown, Minneapolis.

[severedscythe.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge fan of stir fry, hey xD <3 I freaking adore it. I'm pretty easy about it. My favourite stir fry has to be lamb strips, bok choy, capsicum, snow peas, carrot, shallots, celery, teriyaki sauce and a good dash of pine nuts.

The weather thing, well. I went out with a bunch of friends to a themed bar after a good, hard rain. We slipped and slid all over the sidewalk, happily drunk and when the skies opened again, we just stayed out and danced like idiots in it for fun.