habemus salmon!

Today began with a “white tornado” of cleaning the house before the grandmothers arrived. We moved out of the guest room and into the study, cleaned, vacuumed, windexed, swept, and generally tried to fake everyone out. Mom has a Miele vacuum cleaner which is supposed to be the Mercedes-Benz of vacuum cleaners. It’s apparently still cheaper than the Dyson vacuums, which reeks of hucksterism to me. Bentley or Benz, the vacuum still weighed as much as a luxury sedan although it did do a good job of vacuuming. My solution for dealing with cat hair? Don’t have wall to wall carpeting. I’ve never really understood why we have carpeting, especially for a culture that (a) doesn’t sit or lay on the floor, and (b) doesn’t take off our shoes at the door. It just gets dirty and its difficult to clean and it stains easily.

Anyway, after the grandmothers arrived, we sat and visited for awhile, and then we split into three groups: Mom took the grandmothers to north Scottsdale, I went with Larry to the grocery store to shop for dinner, and Tay boldly volunteered to stake out a position on the couch and make sure that none of the cats somehow opened a door to escape.

I’d offered to make dinner tonight because since I’ve been here, I’ve been treated to nearly every meal outside at some really nice restaurants, and even thought I know mom and Larry are happy to have me here, I wanted to contribute a bit for myself. I wanted to cook the pan fried salmon Saori taught me to make with the glazed carrots. So, Larry took me to Fry’s and I bought a load of groceries including some wine and 3 pounds of Alaskan salmon fillet.


As the head chef, I deputized Tay as my sous chef and tasked him with preparing the asparagus in any way he saw fit. I threw a quick salad together, peeled and sliced up some carrots, and threw them in the microwave to get them cooking. I started heating the skillet with butter and oil, and sliced up the fillet. I salted the thing heavily, threw on some pepper and tossed them in the hot skillet. Unfortunately, electric ranges suck, so the oil/butter was not quite hot enough to really do a good job of searing/frying for that first batch.

The carrots came out ok- after softening in the microwave, I sauteed them in oil and butter with more salt until they carmelized a glaze. Tay’s roasted asperagus came out a bit crunchier than I think we was hoping for, and when I pulled the last of the fish fillets off the pan, the house was filled with thin smoke. The salmon was good. Not as good as Saori makes, but still not bad. I served it with lemon and soy sauce. Salad was good, helped myself to a double portion.

We opened all the doors and windows and the burning in my eyes went away. Mom bravely tackled the epic mess I’d left behind, and the rest of us retired to the living room to play with our various tablets and smartphones.