June 6, 2013 Lunch –Flying Star, Dinner-Garlic Eggplant with steamed snow and sugar snap peas

In the morning I went to Lowe’s and bought a lovely fresh large 1 ½ lb. eggplant ($1.99/lb.) and several tomatoes ($.99/lb.).

When I got home I saw that I had received a message from J.B. Bryan regarding assisting him with a family matter, so I called him and we agreed to meet at Flying Star’s downtown location for lunch at 1:00 p.m.   When we arrived, I looked at the menu and could not decide what to order because everything was over $10.00.  Finally when J.B. ordered a Cobb Salad with a side of blue cheese dressing, which is what I often order at Flying Star so I ordered that, because I do not trust their food or its preparation generally except for breakfasts and desserts.   The order was brought pretty soon and I saw that the entire salad had been sprinkled with black pepper.  I told the waiter that I could not eat black pepper and he suggested that the kitchen make me a fresh salad without any pepper.  So he took the salad back and it seemed like forever that we waited for the new salad to be brought to the table.  Finally I stood up and could not see our waiter, Josh, anywhere so I went back to the kitchen and saw that my salad was sitting on the counter at the kitchen, so the kitchen had done its job promptly.  I hailed a waiter and said that that was my salad and he said let me bring it to you and grabbed it and walked it and me back to the table.   What an odd experience!   Sort of team service that failed. 

Luckily, the salad included a diced freshly sautéed chicken breast and that was still warm, which turned the salad into a warm salad, which I loved.  So now I am back to my original position on Flying Star, I love their Cobb Salad and that is the only thing I order.

At 5:30 I began making the fish cake and shrimp salad with the imitation crab and small shrimp that I bought at Pro’s Ranch Market yesterday.  I heated a pot of water and added some Zatarain’s Crab and Seafood boil to the water and, when it came to a boil, I added about 1/3 lb. of shrimp and boiled them 5 minutes and then let them cool in the flavored water for25 minutes, as the instructions suggested.  I then I minced the 1 lb. crab cake and squeezed the juice of two limes onto the minced fish cake and then peeled and minced about 1/3 lb. of the shrimp and added two avocados diced into small pieces and some fresh celery from our garden and about ¼ cup of minced white onion and a dash of Worcesthire Sauce and about ½ cup of mayonnaise and a large spoonful of Mexican crema and one tomato diced and about three Tbsp. of fresh cilantro and stirred the bowl of ingredients to mix it thoroughly and put it in the fridge to cool and blend the flavors.     

I then made a cup of rice with the new short grain rice from Pro’s Ranch Market with a tsp. of dehydrated dashi.      

Suzette arrived from her day in Santa Rosa at around 6:30 p.m. and asked if I had bought the eggplant.   I told her we had a lovely eggplant.  She said, “Well then, let’s start dinner.” 

We went to the garden and picked a basket full of snow peas and sugar snap peas.

I sliced the eggplant into about three inch long by 1/3 inch square strips while Suzette de-stemmed the peas and shelled some of the tougher ones to yield about 1 cup of green peas.  Then while Suzette mixed the ingredients for the sauce and heated the wok with some peanut oil, I sliced and diced three or four stalks of green garlic from our garden (we had picked a few bags of young garlic before it had separated into cloves, thinking it was leek earlier in the spring).   

While I minced the PPI octopus and aji tuna and Suzette shelled the rest of the shrimp and put that in a bowl Suzette sautéed the eggplant strips and she started the peas in the steamer.

Then she added the sauce to the wok and then the seafood and stirred that for a minute and then added the eggplant strips and cooked the entire dish for a few minutes and then turned off the heat and I ran to the basement for two cold beers and we each served ourselves, rice and eggplant and peas and ate on our patio.

The rice had clumped into soft mounds that collapsed into grains when the oily dark eggplant and sauce was ladled over it.  The peas were deliciously crisp and had been cooked to perfection, not too little and not too much.   We love the garlic eggplant dish and make it often, so the recipe is provided in prior menu descriptions, it you want to see the Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking by Lei recipe and Cookbook.


I realize that the routine we have developed is that I prep and Suzette cooks and that that segmentation of duties cuts the cooking time almost in half.

Bon Appétit