Good Lord, Asparagus

Every spring I get so excited about the arrival of new seasonal produce that I tend to overdose on the first ones to sprout up. Last week I found a way to incorporate asparagus into five different dishes, and in addition to being initially alarmed by my toxic smelling pee every single time (too much information?), I had a couple of bad bundles, and was ready to take a break from the Gumby-esque veggies and move on to the next green thing to show up at the farmer's market. That was until I made this recipe for asparagus with brown butter and pine nuts from the new cookbook I'm currently smitten with, Fast, Fresh & Green. Looks like I'll be putting brown butter on everything I eat from now on. Even cereal. Maybe ice cream. My new go-to asparagus recipe:

Asparagus with Brown Butter & Pine Nuts

2 1/2 t kosher salt
1 bunch asparagus (cut into sharply angled 2-inch pieces)
2 T unsalted butter
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 t fresh lemon juice
fresh ground black pepper

Bring a salted pot of water to boil, toss in asparagus pieces and let them cook for 3 minutes. Drain, and spread pieces on a towel in an effort to lose excess water. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over low heat, add the pine nuts and 1/4 t salt, stirring constantly until the butter turns a nutty brown color. The butter turns quickly, abort the mission and start over if it turns black.

Remove the pan from the heat, and add the asparagus and 1/4 t salt. Toss, sprinkle with lemon juice, and season with the fresh pepper. Prepare to begin a love affair with asparagus that could last through July. Green beans, you'll have to wait your turn.

Goodbye, You Magnificent Beast.

Tomorrow morning a tow truck is scheduled to come take away the '93 Chevy Corsica that I've driven for 12 years, that up until a week ago, was the only car I'd ever owned. My parents bought it as a "third family vehicle" shortly after I got my driver's license. It would later come with me to college, then move with me out West, where it's been my whip here in Portland for the last five years.

Honestly, I never really drove it all that much, especially recently. I'm a fairly avid cyclist and only put 60K miles on the car that whole time, and it has less than 90K on it now. Even so, the old bird is starting to show her age. Idiosyncrasies that were tolerable for years, like the puddles that accumulate on the floorboards every winter, those reservoirs that swish around with every turn and require me to roll up my pants before entering, are no longer cute. Having the attendant at the gas station tell me that my gas tank cover is flapping in the wind every_single_time I go to fill up got kind of old. Plus it leaks oil, hasn't had a radio in four years, and every six months some part of the undercarriage has to be replaced because the car's tenure in the Midwest left behind a formidable layer of rust that eats through everything in its path. It simply was the CorsiCar's time, not that it hasn't faced its mortality before. Twice someone took off the driver's side mirror. Once the turn signal snapped off, with my lights stuck on bright, late at night when I had 50 miles to go to get back to my college dorm after a weekend back home. I didn't make any friends that evening. Another time some wires shorted out in my steering column, which caused smoke to billow out of it, unless I was trying to show someone, in which case it failed to occur.

I know that it's not realistic to expect to drive your early 90's GM sedan for your entire life, nor is it optimal. But nonetheless, I find myself sitting here, getting sentimental, unable to shake the feeling that I just put Old Yeller down. I have an arsenal of memories associated with that car, and in some instances, it was even a minor character in the stories that unfolded around it. I clearly remember driving through purple mountains in southwestern Montana at dusk, alone, headed to live in Oregon, a place I'd never been and where I didn't really know anyone. It seems kind of silly to say, but it was almost comforting to have that car along with me - I think it made a big change seem less terrifying. Or maybe it just aided an unhealthy case of denial. Either way - thanks, old girl. Things worked out OK, you must have known what you were doing.

But nothing gold can stay, Bluey, and our time together must come to a close. (Can you tell I've been watching a lot of Six Feet Under?) I decided to donate the car to Oregon Public Broadcasting, as an alternative to lying awake at night, wondering if whoever paid me $300 for it survived their trip to the grocery store without the rusted brake lines snapping. A couple weeks ago Beard and I found a 2002 Impreza Sport wagon in great shape, and welcomed it into our little Subaru fleet, now two strong.

Don't get cocky, new car. Even though you're shiny and zippy and impeccably clean, you've got big moldy shoes to fill. I'll start taking you seriously around the six-year mark.

I encourage anyone who has a CorsiCar memory to share it in the comments below. Godspeed, blue bomber. You made us all proud.

Martha-made Marketplace

Martha Zinger Etsy shop, even though you currently only exist in the winding portals of my mind, consider yourself stocked. With... one bag. I'm aiming to start peddling my wares sometime this summer, which means I should probably kick my production schedule into high gear. Something tells me that my one-item-every-six-weeks average isn't conducive to achieving the sort of DIY domination I dream of.

Bag number one was adapted from a project included in this dandy book.

Food. Asian Food.

Hey, have I mentioned that I recently went on a trip to Southeast Asia? Yes? Many times? OK. Just let me tell you about what I put in my face while I was there. Then I'll stop. Maybe.

I know it will make me sound like a silly Westerner, but I think the most satisfying meal I had on the trip was Pad Thai that I bought from a street vendor on Khao San Road in Bangkok. I picked out the variety of noodle and ingredients I wanted (chicken, eggs, and shrimp were the options, I went with the first two) and then watched as the street chef tossed it all together over the skillet with some mystery sauce. I grinned like a shithead while she handed it to me, seasoned it to my liking with crushed peanuts and red pepper flakes, then I plopped down on a curb behind her cart, and commenced shoving it into my face, until it was gone. I wake up in the night, thinking about that meal.

It's probably no surprise that the pho in Vietnam ruined me for all future stateside beef noodle soup encounters. And what's sad is I think even Vietnam's fast pho beat out my hometown standby. But the version that all others will from now on fall short of came from a little place called Pho Gia, just a couple blocks away from where we were staying. The broth was fragrant, the noodles were wide and homemade, the beef tender, the veggies fresh... OH MY GOD I WANT SOME NOW. Pho is actually breakfast in Vietnam, which meant that I usually accompanied it with a Cafe Sua da - some high-octane French coffee cut with sweetened condensed milk, over ice. After the first one I was convinced I'd left my body. (There was some jet lag involved, too.)

In Vietnam, the pho certainly stole the show in my eyes, but I can't write a post about food and not mention the elephant ear fish that I had at a home stay in the Mekong Delta. Extra points for presentation.

So. Confession time. I didn't give Malaysia a fair shake when it came to their native cuisine. I ate at Pizza Hut. Twice. In my defense, I also climbed a mountain there. Which is my default excuse for a lot of questionable Borneo behavior. Like mixing Chinese cooking liquor with Coke, referring to it as "shandy" and drinking it almost every evening because we didn't realize it was... Chinese cooking liquor. Did I mention I climbed a mountain? Yep, totally playing the mountain card.

But as hard as I tried to evade any hint of culture, I managed to stumble upon a traditional Malaysian breakfast: Laksa. Not to be outdone by the Vietnamese in the breakfast department, the fine people of Borneo start the day with this spicy peanut soup with chicken, shrimp, and rice noodles. And that black thing in the background is iced coffee, sans condensed milk. Get it with milk.

OK, here I am, still talking - but there's so much more I haven't even touched on! Like the inch-think pancake in Koh Lanta with the bananas inside, and the smoothies! The pomelo and jackfruit, the red bean ice cream! Not to mention the fantastic Indian food I had in Saigon, and the curries in Thailand! I could go on and on. But I'll do my best to stop. Or at least mix it up a bit. No promises.