This is my mom’s recipe, which I tweaked just a bit by using panko instead of breadcrumbs.

For the crab meat, ideally we would have picked the crabs on the back porch, steamed crabs, shells and guts piled high on newspaper, the smell of Old Bay in the air, snitching a bite or two and dipping it in apple cider vinegar. But alas, I’m land-locked in Missouri, so canned crab has to do. My preference would be Byrd International, harkening back to work I did for them in the late 90s with my friend Rick Maloof, but unfortunately Super-Schnucks only had Phillips.

The ingredients:
1 lb lump blue crab
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire
little bit of salt and pepper
panko
oil

Beat the egg. Stir in the mayo, mustard and Worcestershire. Add the crab, fold it in and stir it together. Add a little salt and pepper. Taste it and tweak the seasoning if you desire — but make sure it still tastes like crab! Make some patties, like small hamburgers, and coat them in panko. Heat the oil in a frying pan to medium heat and drop in some panko to gauge the temperature. When the panko sizzles, add the crab cakes and fry them, browning them on each side, maybe as much as 5 minutes depending on the temperature of the oil. Set them on a paper towel to drain the excess oil. Serve them as part of a meal with a vegetable, but don’t add a sauce or a garnish to the crab cakes themselves. They’re fine on their own!

One each:
Yellow Onion
Red Onion
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Bottle Pale Ale
Dried Chili Pepper
Large Tomato
Bunch Cilantro

2 Large Portobello Mushrooms
1 Pack Shiitake Mushrooms

Cumin seeds, 2 pieces garlic - minced, salt, pepper, cayenne, celery salt

On medium heat, soften the yellow and red onions in vegetable oil with the minced garlic, a small handful of cumin seeds and a small handful of salt. Once the onions are soft, add the sliced & quartered squash and zucchini.

Meanwhile, dump each of the cans into a large crockpot, including the liquid, which serves as a pseudo-vegetarian broth. Dice and add the fresh tomato. Scrub the portobellos, cut off the black gills, cut into bite-sized chunks and add. Scrub, de-stem, slice and add the shiitakes. Now that the squash and onions are soft, transfer to the crockpot. Add a couple shakes of black pepper, cayenne pepper and celery salt. Drop in the dried chili, and stir in the bottle of pale ale (I like Schlafly Pale). Rough chop a small handful of cilantro and add.

Cook on low until it is hot. Stir and taste occasionally for seasoning.

This serves 10 or is good for a couple of meals for 2.

The deep-fried double cheeseburger at Greenlake Bar and Grill.

Courtesy of Greenlake Bar and Grill in Seattle, this is my contribution to the This Is Why You’re Fat blog: The Deep-Fried Double Cheeseburger. Damn it was good.

Princess Leia Cake with R2D2 cupcakes for Lily’s 6th birthday.

Star Wars purple castle cake. Lily’s 5th birthday.

Phoebe’s 1st Birthday

Emma’s 7th birthday

Cinderella cake for Emma’s 3rd birthday.

As you can see in these pics, my wife Kate makes the coolest cakes in town. Star Wars, Cinderella, Funky… I haven’t seen her back down from a last-minute-cake-challenge yet. And I can’t wait to see the baking showdown between Kate and new friend Anne Sage.

The Ingredients

This is what it looks like when the spices are toasting.

Soften the onions by lightly frying them.

Cut up the tomatoes, salt them, and then cook them in the fry pan.

The lentils after sitting in a closed pot for 20 minutes.

With onions, tomatoes, amchoor and chopped cilantro - just before stirring.

Grilling a chapati.

All mixed up and served with yogurt and chapati. Big bowls American style!

This is my recipe for Dhal, which has been modified through trial and error, borrowing from recipes provided by Jai and Dipti, recipes listed in this Indian Home Cooking cookbook, as well as my experiences in India. If you’re not familiar with dhal, it is any dish made out of boiled beans or lentils, usually with spices added. If you had the dhal at Mark and Walter’s new year’s brunch, this is it!

Oftentimes dhal is prepared by boiling the beans (lentils, mung beans, etc) in turmeric and salt, and then once done adding a tempering oil or tadka to finish. In this case I do the spices beforehand and then boil the beans, which seems to work well. (Tip of the hat to the Empress Dhal recipe in the cookbook mentioned above.)

I highly recommend getting a jar of ghee to fry the spices, onions and tomatoes. The difference in flavor is considerable and it is healthier than cooked butter or vegetable oil, due to its high smoke point. Read more on Wikipedia if interested.

Another great ingredient is mango powder, also called Amchoor or Amchur. It adds a subtle sour taste to the Dhal without the juice.

You can get all the ingredients listed below at Global Foods in Kirkwood.

Ingredients:
2 TBSP ghee (or vegetable oil)
1 TBSP cumin seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mango powder
1/8 tsp garlic
1 cup split mung beans
salt
3 roma tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion
1 lime
1 bunch of cilantro
1 bag of chapati
Plain yogurt

Lightly fry the cumin seed and turmeric in the ghee. Use medium low or low heat, you don’t want to brown the cumin seeds. Just heat them enough until you smell them. Then add the garlic and the mango powder and stir, to get the flavors activated.

Next add 1 cup of mung beans and 2.5 cups of water. Add 1tsp salt and bring to a boil. Then lower heat to low, put a lid on it, and let it sit undisturbed for 20 minutes.

During that 20 minutes, roughly chop the onion and soften it in the ghee, careful not to brown or fry the onion. You just want to sweeten it. Once it is sweet and soft, turn up the heat to brown it slightly. Then set it aside. Chop up the tomatoes, sprinkle some salt on them, let them sit for a bit, then toss them in the fry pan with a little more ghee. Put a lid over the tomatoes so they cook down. While the tomatoes are going, chop up 1/3 of the cilantro bunch.

After 20 minutes, take the lid off the beans. Add a little water if it is too dry. Now add the onions, tomatoes and chopped cilantro. Stir, taste for salt, and add some if it needs it. Finally twist a quarter of a lime over the dhal to add the juice.

Let it simmer on low heat so the flavors meld. Now heat up a skillet with no butter or oil, and heat the chapattis. I usually make 4 for 2 people - but that’s because we eat big bowls with a little bread, instead of little bowls with lots of bread like they do in India. Oh, the land of big screen TVs and monster trucks.

Finally dish out the dhal into some bowls, add a dollup of plain yogurt and sprinkle on some cilantro. You’re all set!

You’ll need the following:

• Babysitter and/or wife’s goodwill
• Missouri fishing license and trout tag
• Set of gear (waders, vest, net, stringer, fly rod, reel, line/tippet/leader, indicators and flies)
• Pocket knife
• Cooler and ice

1. Stop at Wal-Mart and get a Missouri fishing license.
2. Drive 2.5 hours to Bennett Springs State Park.
3. Stay up until 4am playing rummy.
4. Wake up at 8am, make espresso in the stove top coffee espresso maker and eat 2 of Dick Widman’s pancakes.
5. Drive to the lodge and buy a daily trout tag and extra flies.
6. Hit the stream!
7. Enjoy the cool water, the smell of fall in the air, the sound of riffles in the stream and crickets on the bank, the challenge of determining the right combination of variables to catch a fish and the pleasure of being far away from work and worry. Ahhhhh.
8. Catch 3 trout. Clean them.
9. Hold the trout around the middle with its underbelly facing towards you.
10. Insert a sharp knife into the arse, moving knife point upward slit the trout to the gill cavity.
11. Looking at the bottom jaw of the trout, there is an upside horseshoe like tab. Slide the knife under the tab to loosen it.
12. Put your thumb under the horseshoe shaped tab and push it into the gill cavity.
13. Gripping the head with the other hand, remove gill cavity along with entrails in one downward motion.
14. Along the inside of the back bone is a blood vein that must be removed.
15. Slice the thin membrane that run along the top of it.
16. Using your thumbnail, scrape the blood away from the flesh.
17. Repeat for the remaining fish and put them on ice.
18. Go back to the cabin for chili and play some cards.
19. Drive home.

Bake the Fish:

• 4 rainbow trout (your daily limit)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 diced celery stalk
• 1 cup fresh bread cubes
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 8 pieces of bacon

1. Stop at the grocery store for bacon, celery and onion.
2. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
3. Chop up a celery stalk and one onion.
4. Have the kids chop some bread slices into cubes. Lily likes to use scissors.
5. Fry the celery and onion in butter until it is soft, about 5 minutes.
6. Mix the celery and onion with the bread cubes and add salt, pepper and thyme.
7. Rip the heads off the trout, season the stomach cavities with salt and pepper, and fill with stuffing.
8. Place the trout in a lightly buttered pyrex baking dish. Put a piece of tin foil under each tailfin so it doesn’t stick to the pyrex.
9. Briefly fry the bacon, removing from the heat while it is still soft. This way there isn’t too much bacon grease with the fish, and the bacon will be crisper.
10. Wrap 2 bacon strips around each trout and drizzle with a small amount of bacon grease.
11. Bake at 450° for 30 to 40 minutes. Check periodically by poking periodically with a fork. It will be done when it flakes effortlessly. Remember when the samurai master drops a piece of silk on to his sword’s edge and it is cut effortlessly? Like that.
12. Yum.

The result.

I found the recipe in my favorite cookbook, The Best Recipes in the World. The Amchoor powder is a souring agent that doesn’t lose its bite when cooked. I buy it at the Indian section at Global Foods in Kirkwood, my favorite grocery store when I want something ethnic.

• cut up 3 baking potatoes into ~1 inch cubes
• chop up a medium onion
• boil the potatoes
• melt 2 tbsp butter in a fry man, medium hate
• jack up the heat to medium high and add the potatoes
• leave ‘em still for awhile so they brown, then carefully turn them over
• after both sides are brown, add the chopped onion
• cover with a lid or some aluminum foil to soften the onions
• once the onions are soft, add 2 teaspoons of amchoor, 1 teaspon of garam masala and a bit of cayenne pepper
• carefully stir to coat the potatoes and onions with the spices
• you’re all done!

I found the recipe in my favorite cookbook, The Best Recipes in the World. The Amchoor powder is a souring agent that doesn’t lose its bite when cooked. I got mine from the Indian section at Global Foods in Kirkwood, my favorite grocery store when I want something ethnic.

• cut up 3 baking potatoes into ~1 inch cubes
• chop up a medium onion
• boil the potatoes
• melt 2 tbsp butter in a fry man, medium hate
• jack up the heat to medium high and add the potatoes
• leave ‘em still for awhile so they brown, then carefully turn them over
• after both sides are brown, add the chopped onion
• cover with a lid or some aluminum foil to soften the onions
• once the onions are soft, add 2 teaspoons of amchoor, 1 teaspon of garam masala and a bit of cayenne pepper
• carefully stir to coat the potatoes and onions with the spices
• you’re all done!