Larb Gai

Our kitchen is finally all put away (well, almost all put away), which was our first big obstacle to getting into a more normal pattern here in our new house.

I picked up a copy of Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater at work, and have burned through it really fast. It's a quick, easy read, that I would recommend highly - particularly to Seattleite foodies with kids. I don't have kids, but do have enough kids in my life to appreciate Amstur-Burton's musings about his experiences as a stay-at-home Dad raising a sometimes picky eater, while still keeping up the quality of their meals. Although he has a little more time for cooking than many parents these days, the book still has some great tips - even for those of us without little ones to feed. And the author and his daughter and wife live on Capitol Hill, and he talks a lot about restaurants, farmers markets, and other local spots that give the book familiarity to readers here in the Emerald City.

My first recipe attempt from the book is a simple Thai salad called Larb Gai - a mix of ground chicken, fish sauce, lime juice, shallots, scallions, and chilies, served with cabbage (and some jasmine rice, in our case). I've often suggested larb when we're out at Thai food, but I think the name has always turned Dan off to the idea, so he'd never tried it. He liked this version, so I think we might be sampling some larb while eating out in the future.