a splash of red [person|place|picasso]

Hey, and welcome back with a little bit of every day wisdom from yours truly.

You may find the format familiar, which happens to be inspired by something seen on one my own favourite blogs design*sponge, but transformed into something more meaningful to my own interests. This format will take a single theme realized for something personal, then expounded to apply to a location or home design, and again to a cultural or artistic application.  Person. Place. Picasso.
If you can't be completely original at least be cleverly derivative. N'est-ce pas?

So without further ado, here we go with our first installment: A Splash of RED

PERSON  Want an instant confidence boost? Try wearing red shoes. I mean beyond the instant gratification of admiring one's own strut painted red as you keep pace through the day, your approval ratings will also instantly go up. You may doubt me, but try it yourself. It's hard not to feel right chuffed when even total strangers keep paying you spontaneous compliments.  

Mind you this same trick can be applied to myriad accessories: bag, bangles, bouche. Why do you think people wearing red lipstick always look so pleased with themselves?

PLACE  See above advice now apply to a room. Insert single red throw pillow, vase, lamp, and TaDa!  An instant makeover to a doldrums space, or facelift to your entryway when you decide to repaint the front door.  

Red is the ultimate neutral accent, in my books. Contradictions in that proposal aside, my point is that red looks good within virtually any existing colour scheme, either through contrast or concentration of similar hues into ultimate vivacity. Nothing compares to red for punch.

PICASSO  Hey artists: Want to instantly increase the worth of a painting? My main takeway from a keynote address on collecting art featuring the head of the Canadian branch of one of North America's largest auction houses was that a piece of art's final price and overall saleability is frequently affected by one tiny detail: a spot of red.  

He told a few stories in support of this point, but the one I remember went something like this:  

"I have this painting I'd like to auction."  
"Groan, we just got a bunch in by that artist, but describe it to me."  
"Well, it's a landscape of a snow scene."  
"Okay, go on." (snowy landscapes are big sellers apparently)  
"And in it is a sled being drawn by a horse."  
"Well that is interesting!"(add a horse in a landscape and the value ups again)  
"And I forgot the mention, the sleigh is red." 
"Snow scene. Horse? Spot of red!? What are you waiting for, bring it in!!" 

This is of course my crude recall of what may (or may not) have actually occurred, in fact I think he quoted an actual amount that each check on the list typically increased the final sale price, but you catch my drift.  The painting in question sold for a pretty penny.  It may sound like a cheap trick but momma's gotta get paid sometimes, right?


Well there you have it.  I'm sure you could go on and on about chromatic associations, the psychology of hue, and the fact that I am running contrary to the Pantone Institute's advice for the year, but you don't need a bunch of analysis to tell you that red is simply a money colour.


***
CRED: PERSON Photo by yours truly. PLACE Photo via thefeteblog. PICASSO Detail of painting by Cornelius Krieghoff, Winter Scene with Horse and Sleigh, 1855 --- a Canadian painter most known for his winter landscapes of our fair country.

pad thai like a pro

Yep.  In my inaugural post to CookCulture I am going to use Pad Thai as a verb.  Because tonight, I am ever so proud to say, I pad thai'd like a pro (as certified by my expert taster: my Beau).

BUT WAIT! I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me introduce myself.  I'm Jennifer Cook.  I live in Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia, which happens to be on an island (an important detail) off the western coast of Canada.  I have a Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from the University of Victoria, and I now work in an art gallery doing marketing and events.  My Beau and I live in an amazing heritage suite on the park that we love so much that we spend half of our time away at work, a quarter of our time watching brightly lit screens in the dark with the blinds drawn, and the other quarter of our time with our eyes closed watching the screens of our eyelids, asleep.  But in the fringes of some tiny fractional fractions in between, we like to find some delicious things to put into our bellies and some interesting things to put into our brains.  Some of these things might just interest you too so I thought I would share them.  Some folks have classified me as a foodie and others as an arts nerd --- this little blog-like thing here will try to satisfy these two preoccupations and a number of other fancies in between.

Shall we get on with it then?  Tonight's post will focus on the prior preoccupation.  And will focus on something you may pick up on as an ongoing theme within the area of food focus: I occasionally obsess over recreating my favourite restaurant meals at home.  And so we return to pad thai-ing...

For anyone who has made pad thai at home you probably know the disappointment of that electric red gelatinous goop sold by your neighbourhood grocer in jars labelled "Pad Thai Sauce".  While sending signals of sweet & sour to your brain your taste buds can't help but also conveying their mistrust of the substance actually being real food.

But behold!  Your deliverance.  Pad Thai is... actually as simple as it looks!  For the sauce: five ingredients, baby: tamarind, palm sugar, fish sauce, garlic and chili.  Done.  Okay so those two first ingredients may raise a couple eyebrows but big bonus points for my island home that there are a number of Asian grocers in the area who carry these products (and the pork bun with which to fortify yourself before you start cooking).  The rest I already had in the pantry.  To note: the finished product will look NOTHING like that red goop we talked about, and instead you will be blown away by how fresh & real sweet & sour sauce can taste.  In fact it looks a little like tar ...only more delicious. And as for the rest of the dish, you may just find that you have everything you need at home already.

Are you ready?  Then let's get busy:
as adapted from savourysweetlife

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup fish sauce
• 1/2 cup palm sugar
• 1/2 cup tamarind juice concentrate*
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Chili paste, to taste
• 4 ounces dried rice stick noodles
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 ½ cups thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or tofu**
• 1 egg
• 1 cup carrots, match sticks***
• 1/2 cup of celery match sticks***
• cup green onion cut diagonal in ½ inch segments
• 1 cup mung bean sprouts
• cup cilantro
• cup toasted peanuts chopped
• Lime wedge

*the product i picked up was called wet tamarind seedless which was more of a puree but seemed to do the trick
**I used prawns but any combination of protein is delicious in my books
***I chronically add extra vegetables.  The other thing I would normally add here would be sweet bell pepper (yellow, orange or red).  Instead of spending a lot of time cutting match sticks or julienning the vedge, I just ran it all through my mandolin and was done in minutes.

Instructions

1. THE SAUCE  heat a small pan on medium low and add fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind concentrate, and garlic. Cook sauce until palm sugar has completely dissolved. At this point, you will want to taste the sauce and tweek the sweetness or hotness (be careful, the sauce will be hot). To make it more spicy add a little Thai chili powder. Remove from heat and allow to cool 10 minutes before storing it in a jar or plastic container.
2. THE NOODLES  Boil noodles for 4-5 minutes and drain immediately rinsing with cold water for a few seconds. Noodles should still be firmer than Al Dente because they continue to cook later in the pan.  Run some kitchen shears through your noodles a couple times to make them smaller and easier to fry and eat later.
3. THE MEAL  Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok or frying pan on high and cook your chosen protein for 3-4 minutes. Remove cooked protein to a small bowl. Next, heat the remaining oil and add garlic and red onions to the hot pan and stir fry for 1 minute stirring to prevent from burning. Add noodles and toss for 1 minute. Add 3-4 tablespoons Pad Thai sauce continually tossing noodle mixture until well coated. Add the reserved protein of choice back and fry for 2-3 minutes. Move your noodle mixture to one side of the pan and crack an egg on the other side. Scramble the egg and cook for 30 seconds. Add carrots, green onions, and sprouts and cook for one more minute frying everything together. Test the firmness of the noodle. If the noodle is too firm, fry for an additional minute. If your noodles need more flavor, add another tablespoon of sauce and fry another half minute. Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with remaining raw carrot match sticks, spouts, cilantro, toasted peanuts, and a wedge of lime.
4. DEVOUR  and enjoy both the fruits of your labour and the copious praise dealt out by those dining with you. And for good reason: check it out! You just pad thai'd like a pro:

Save any leftover sauce for your next pad thai craving.  It will keep for several days in a sealed jar in the fridge, but I chose to slap a label on my leftovers and toss them in the freezer.


Until next time pad thai.