Vietnamese Stir-Fried Vegetables with Chicken or Shrimp

This is yummy and relatively cheap.  
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/recipe-of-the-day-vietnamese-stir-fried-vegetables-with-chicken-or-shrimp/
I don't currently have any dried hot chilies, so I use one med. sized fresh jalapeno pepper.  I also use canola oil.  Use a mixture of oyster sauce and soy sauce.  This is a great flavorful recipe and is worth the time.  I always cook brown rice, and while the rice is cooking you can prepare the fresh veggies.  It is so delicious that we only have enough left for one person's lunch.  


I may add a few drops of seseame oil and/or hot oil to give the dish a little more heat than the jalapeno provides.   The dish is nicely colorful, too, with green and orange from the veggies.  I have made the dish with both chicken and shrimp and like it both ways.



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I Knew Her When. . . Sort of

Meg Whitman of Ebay fame is running for governor of California. According to Tina Brown's blog, Meg is an arch conservative. Well, not my zebra, not my zoo.

I actually worked at the same company as Meg many moons ago. She was a divisional president and I was an IT dweeb, so we didn't interact. The company was forever trying to keep a human face (those days are gone forever) and one of the things it did was ask executives (maybe even the rank and file--I don't recall) to bring photos of themselves as a child. Meg's photo was her girlish self with a whopping big fish she had just landed. Cool kid. Cool photo.

One of my colleagues who did interact reported that she had a fantastic stragetic mind. Someone else reported that she was a revolving door for secretaries. Gee. Remember secretaries? How quaint. Maybe she was demanding, as one would expect.

Meg left to work for an internet florist, where she obviously learned a whole lot about net business. The next person to occupy her office had an Oriental rug and a white leather sofa which I promply put into a novel. This divisional president had a hissy fit when we cooked broccoli in the IT microwave. It did stink and we were on the same floor. I never cooked any, but some did. Actually fish in the microwave at lunch time is worse.

Speaking of food, and aren't we always, this week I made Chicken Piccata from Cook's Illustrated and it was a winner. The wonderful chocolate/mocca cookies are gone.

S.O. has a birthday and #2 son is arriving, so we're having a pork roast with creamed spinach, mashed potatoes and gravy, applesauce and for dessert- ta da! Chocolate panna cotta with portwine ice cream.

We ate tiny scoops of port wine ice cream in DC at Poste, and it was incredible. I found a recipe on the web. The ice cream tasted to divine with the dark chocolate. Haven't made panna cotta in ages. So we are in for a feast, and then the leftover pork will naturally be Roast Pork Fried Rice. We're doing all this in lieu of going out.

Have you seen the commercial that asks why spent $40 on a family dinner out when you can eat pizza on the cheap? My question is: where except a fast food establishment can you have a family dinner for $40? Certainly not with wine and tax and tip. Hell, you can barely eat lunch for that.

I submitted a memoir piece to an ezine and have one more submission to make, then everything I've written in the last five years will be out looking for a home. How cool is that?

Off to put the clothes in the dryer. The mundane always calls.

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