Sometimes you just have to do a little something for yourself. My birthday was on a Monday this year, so I didn't take it as a day off. Instead, I thought about getting myself cupcakes or a dozen donuts, but then decided to make myself an apple galette with the Arkansas Black apples I had rolling around the produce drawer. Is that the practical side of adulthood?
It's the day after Thanksgiving. You just had a turkey sandwich with a few slices of apple and a schmear of cranberry, but there's still a lot left. Why is it that of all the Thanksgiving side dishes, it's the cranberry that hangs around for days? Whether it's brandied cranberries, a basic homemade cranberry sauce or the one from a can, it's always the last to go. This year, I've got an idea for you. Cranberry Black Pepper Sweet Rolls.
Growing up not far from Little Saigon, pho shops all had numbers -- Pho 79, Pho 84, but somewhere along the line pho went mainstream and so did the names of the shops. So let's get the jokes and gimmicky names out of the way upfront.
"What the Pho?" -- Kids in my class were using this one as far back as junior high -- in the late '80s. Now, it's a noodle shop in Bellevue, WA.
"9-0-2-1-Pho" -- This is real. And yes, it's in Beverly Hills.
"Jenny Pho" -- Also real. In Issaquah, WA.
And of course, the king of all Pho shops...well, there's an, um, king and he don't serve burgers.
Creating a good pho broth takes hours, but there's no reason you can't do it. Put aside your worries about leaving a pot simmering on the stove unattended overnight, because you can make a good traditional pho broth in the slow cooker. I never would have thought of it, and then a lightbulb flicked on over my head when I saw the recipe on Serious Eats.
We were on our way out the door to see Gravity around 11 am yesterday and Wolf went to open the garage door. Nothing. It had been a gusty morning, with acorns and pine cones plonking on the roof and leaves blowing out of the trees, but it was otherwise uneventful. Then, literally the moment we went to leave, the power went out. With my car trapped in the garage.
Having the power out on a not-a-work-day Saturday should have been a liberating experience. No power means no doing laundry, no puttering around all day on the Internet, no TV. It also means, for the most part, no cooking. No access to my car also meant not going anywhere. It meant sitting around and reading. It should have been a good thing, right?
