News Trend Naptime|Actual

With gorgeous blooms like this just outside my car window, you know I'm having sweet dreams.

On the average weekday, after several hours of teaching algebra to my brilliant homeschooled high school students, I often swing by the store to grab some groceries on my way back home.

Not uncommonly, I'm worn out at this stage of the day, and sometimes I'll take a moment to regroup. Tilting the seat back, I give myself permission to close my eyes... But of course, only for a minute or two.

And you know, some days, my brain cooperates with that plan. My eyeballs snap back open in a matter of moments and I'm re-energized and ready to jet off into the store.

However. There are also days, like today, when I wake up forty-five minutes later from a dead sleep, blissfully unaware of the cars and shoppers coming and going all around me, and feel like I've enjoyed an entire night's sleep in the Target parking lot.

That's completely normal, right?

News Trend Sunset Over Walla Walla|Actual

"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers." -Henry Adams

We were all brought here for a reason.

I was brought here for a reason.

You were brought here for a reason.

And when we discover even just a tiny piece of what that reason might be, in our hearts we feel all the heavens explode in glory.

We were all brought here for a reason.

News Trend My Homemade Pad Thai|Actual

Ok, I'll be honest. When it comes to Pad Thai, I'm utterly, hopelessly, desperately spoiled.

First of all, I learned to love this Southeast Asian delight at the dining tables and food stalls of my friends in Malaysia. What reads as exotic fare to me is simply home-cooking to them, and their love for and familiarity of the dish shone through in their handiwork.

And following up my fantastical foreign feasts, I found a local Seattle joint that serves up an equally legitimate plate of the good stuff. Thai Tom's on the Ave is not known for its comfortable surroundings or courteous staff, but they can cook like the proper Thais that they are, and their food definitely rings true to my Asian experiences.

So it was with very high expectations and a shocking lack of experience with these flavors that I set about perfecting my own version of Pad Thai. And I readily confess that my early experiments were disappointing.

Dry

Sticky

Flavorless

Bland

Oh sure, I was still clearing the bar set by the typical American suburban interpretation of Pad Thai, as served up in styrofoam clamshells for convenient takeaway at the local strip mall Asian fusion joints. But my goals were loftier than that.

Behold the beauty of my latest attempt:

The proportions of veggies to proteins to noodles to sauce are perfect.

The flavors are spot on.

And every bite is a tiny explosion of Asian deliciousness that takes me right back to my first flirtations with this dish.

* * * * *

Here's the recipe that finally led me to this flavorful Nirvana:

For the noodles:

• 8 ounces dried rice sticks

For the sauce:

• a big, fat tablespoon of tamarind pulp, soaked in 4 T of hot water
• 4 T brown sugar
• 4 T fish sauce

To chop up and then saute together:

• 2 shallots
• an onion
• 4 or 5 cloves of garlic
• a box of extra firm tofu
• 1 pound of large raw shrimp, cleaned
• 3 eggs
• 6 green onions
• 2 cups bean sprouts

To garnish:

• lime wedges
• red chili flakes
• peanuts, chopped

1. Set the noodles to soak.

Dua. Set the tamarind pulp to soak.

HINT: If you do not have a sweet friend named Rungfa who literally delivers this exotic spice from her own kitchen to your door, you can easily order it off Amazon.

3., Chop everything up.

4. Stir the brown sugar and fish sauce into the tamarind and water. Set aside.

Lima. Add a nice splash of cooking oil to a wok over medium high heat. Add shallot, onion, garlic, tofu, and shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are white and curly. Set all that aside in a big bowl.

HINT: I should probably own a wok. But I don't. So when I need to stir fry, I haul out my big black cast iron beast and make no apology for it. Feel free to improvise.

6. Heat more oil into the now-empty wok, drain the noodles and cook them in the oil for a minute or two. Push then to one side of the wok.

7. Crack the eggs directly into the wok alongside the noodles, and scramble them. Cook until set.

8. Add the sauteed veggies, shrimp and tofu into the wok.

9. Fold in the sauce, and then the green onions and bean sprouts.

HINT: My mainstream grocery stores are afraid of salmonella poisonings, so they no longer carry fresh sprouts. I have to settle for the canned version, found in the Asian aisle. However, if I take the time to go to an Asian market, I can usually find fresh.

AND THE BIGGEST HINT OF ALL:

Watch the proportions! Nothing is worse than a soggy ball of dry rice noodles pretending to be a delicious Asian feast. My end game is to always go low on noodles and high on sauce; it's easy enough to add another handful of noodles but devilishly complicated to fish out undesired noodles from the sauce.

(My recipe was inspired by this one. I owe its author a debt of gratitude. Or maybe a helping of Pad Thai)

* * * * *

I will admit, it took me a fair amount of perseverance and patience to get this dish right. I can only thank those who inspired me to keep trying:

To Baby Boy, who made me so many delicious dishes at his food stall in Shah Alam.

To Kama, who fed me untold plates of delicious food in Thai-inspired Kelantan.

To Nana, who bought me Pad Thai in Langkawi.

To Chris, who got chased down the street by the waitress at Thai Tom's which convinced me that there had to be a better way to eat delicious Pad Thai.

To Mr. David, my boss during my high school sous chef days, who taught me not to cook but to believe that I could learn to cook anything I wanted

And to Jurie, who fed me deliciously saucy noodles at his office and made my whole Southeast Asian experience possible.

* * * * *

Thai Tom's is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the Ave in Seattle, and if you ever have the chance, go there. In the meantime, I highly recommend you read all about it.

Life Of A Math Teacher: Number 15

My Homemade Pad Thai

Seattle > The U District > the Ave > Thai Tom"s > Nirvana

Rice Bowl Sauce: Spicy Sriracha Peanut

* * * * *

Ready for more stories about my most dearly beloved, tried-and-true homemade meals?

My Homemade Lasagna

My Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

My Homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs

My Homemade Grilled Cheese Sandwich

My Homemade Cold Tuna Noodle

My Homemade Beef Stir Fry

My Homemade Beef Stew

My Homemade Parmesan Chicken Nuggets

My Homemade Enchiladas

My Homemade Chicken Salad

My Homemade Cranberry Apple Crisp

My Homemade Pasta Primavera

My Homemade Pad Thai

My Homemade Quiche

My Homemade Potato Salad

My Homemade Cobb Salad

My Homemade French Toast

News Trend Asian Mangoes|Actual

Oops. If you look closely, you'll see that I crosshatched too aggressively and accidentally cut through the peel. The goal is to keep it in one succulently satisfying slice.

Of course, I'd eaten them several times at home, though to be honest, the American ones ripen poorly and often taste a bit sour.

Their Malaysian counterparts were properly tropically delectable but when peeled and sliced, I found them oh, so slippery to handle.

It wasn't until I ate fresh mango in the Vietnamese home of my friend, Song, that I fell completely, utterly and madly in love.

Her secret - which apparently to Asians is no secret at all - is to slice along the length of the mango with a cut that runs next to the long, flat pit. Repeat on the other side of the pit. Once the best bits of the fruit have been thus carved away, there's no need to peel it. Simply score the slices in a crosshatch pattern to create bite-size squares, leaving the fruit attached to the peel. Then pick up the whole luscious affair, pressing your fingers on the peel side of the slice to open the spaces between the squares, and bite off each delectable chunk.

Buttery soft.

Sunshiney sweet.

Refreshingly juicy.

Mmmm. Heaven on earth.

Once I got the hang of this presentation style, I went a bit wild. After snarfing down the two fleshy halves of my own mango, and gnawing around the remaining pit, Song couldn't help but notice my enthusiasm.

She offered me a second crosshatched mango, And then a third.

I kept eating until she ran out of fruit.

The next day, she stopped by the street market to buy more mangoes, and with a twinkle in her eye, sat me down in her kitchen for another session. This time, I sliced for myself.

And now, every time I eat a mango - as I did today - I cut it into proper Asian squares and give thanks for my generous and clever friend, Song.

News Trend Old Polaroids|Actual

Homeboy, circa 1980

No but what could make a weekend spent cleaning out the attic more worthwhile than finding old Polaroids of your better half?

This little gem dates back to the days before me and although he looks about fourteen years old, my husband insists he was thirty.

In any case, his bomber jacket is currently on trend and my in-laws' front lawn never looked better.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty solid weekend.

News Trend My Lilacs Are Blooming|Actual

Eventually, my mom planted some lilacs that came from my grandmother's garden. And now this bush, which came from my mother's lilac, lives at my house.

My lilacs are blooming.

Every year, when my lilacs bloom, my mind flies back through the decades to a precise instant in time.

I can't put a date to this moment, but most likely it was spring of my first grade year. As the Michigan snows faded into memory and warm winds dried the last puddles of melt, my whole world filled with wonder at the newness of spring.

Bare legs flashed pale in the sunshine

Breezes stirred through the classroom.

Grass grew green on our school yards.

And as if by the same mysterious script, students began to show up in the mornings with bouquets of fresh lilacs for my teacher.

Glorious handfuls of lush pink-purple blossoms

Twiggy stems wrapped in wet paper towels and plastic bags

Sweet scents filled the warm classroom for days on end.

At home, we did not have any lilac bushes in our yard so this creation was new for me. Anyway, I would have been too shy to bring gifts for my teacher. But as lilac season unfolded and each new bouquet joined the others lined up on Mrs. Newheart's desk (where did she get all those vases??) I was drawn deeper and deeper into their mystically fragrant and fantastically floral spell.

And this is what I think about each and every year when my lilacs are blooming.

News Trend A True Story|Actual

"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." -Mark Twain

Fact. I'd kept the check safe and secure for weeks, carefully placed between my keyboard and desktop monitor, waiting for a trip to the bank. Finally, the right errand day arrived and I gathered up this one hundred dollar beauty, tucked it into the depths of my bag, and headed out the door.

Fact. I always run my errands in a certain order: I head to the farthest destination first, and then slowly work my way back towards home. Sometimes I'll make an exception to that rule, and take care of a few right-handed stops on my outbound journey. Because logic trumps order. But on this particular day, I honored my process which called for the bank to be my last stop.

Fact. As I pulled up to the ATM, my right hand confidentlally dug into my bag to grab that oversize check.

Fact. It wasn't there.

Fact. "Whatttt. No. Of course it's there. You just need to look more methodically." This is the conversation my frontal lobe had with my freaked out limbic system. I'm a fan of self-talk.

Fact. After turning my bag inside out, emptying my wallet, and checking under all the floor mats, I reached a conclusion. The check was most certainly gone.

Fact. "Where did you last see it?" This is my husband's favorite question to ask me when I'm looking for something. Wait. That's not true. Usually he's the one searching for what I've misplaced because I hate to chase after missing things and he quite enjoys it. But in this case, I didn't mind the question because for once, I knew the answer. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I remembered feeling the check in my bag as I was fumbling for the key to look up my storage unit, which had been my second-to-last stop.

Fact. After almost a decade of putting up with an overcrowded garage, we recently rented a small storage unit to stash our collection of furniture that will someday go to live in our daughters' future homes. Best decision I've made in a long time.

Fact. Storage warehouses are busy places. And they are full of strangers. If I had indeed dropped my check on the floor in that building, that baby would be gone, long gone. Weighing my options in the bank parking lot, my first instinct was to drive back to the warehouse with a lead foot. But, my internal conversation continued, let's be realistic. The check had almost certainly disappeared. Maybe it was worth a call to the warehouse office to see if a kind soul had turned it in, but the best investment of my time would probably to call the person who wrote the check and arrange to have her stop payment and then cut me a new check net of the fees.

Fact. Ugh.

Fact. In  a sudden surge of optimism, I decided to go look for my check.

So. I reversed my route and drove back a mile,

parked my car,

walked into the lobby,

climbed into the elevator,

punched in my codes,

ascended to the third floor,

exited the lift,

found the proper hallway,

then turned round the corner to look down the aisle toward my very own unit.

This I did not expect to see.

Fact. And, miracle of miracles, there was my check, just where I had apparently left it.