Hawker Fare

Yesterday the sky glowed orange, the sun appeared either a faint yellow dot in the dark sky, and confused crickets chirped mid afternoon; at 2 in the afternoon it was as dark as late twilight. This was a result of lots of smoke blown high in the atmosphere above us and a lower marine layer or fog and haze...  Very eerie and emotionally draining...

Yet I'd marinated 2 lbs of pork chops according to a recipe in Hawker Fare for Septembers cookbook challenge. The cookbook is the story of a Lao refugee, now the chef at a well known SF restaurant of the same name.  There's more recipes than story, and many of them with ingredients that are not easy to get in a pandemic. I did manage to find some Lao fish sauce online, which is a nasty pungent thick version of the Thai fish sauce we're more familiar with; but mixed into a sauce or a marinade, it's pure salty umami. So in the early evening, I made some rice and cucumber salad using cukes from the garden, and we braved the apocalyptic skies, grilled the pork chops (moo ping) and served them with a spicy dipping sauce. I'd make this again, for company!

There's also a beef rib satay recipe that I'll expect to make before the month is out; I'll try to cook the egg salad and maybe another dish as well. Next time I'll try to get pictures.

Beef Satay from Hawker Fare; there was enough satay
sauce for chicken satay later in the week

For my birthday, DH bought me FIVE NEW COOKBOOKS! I'm sure we'll see some dishes from  these in the near future. We've been eating very well and I take this as a compliment to my recent cooking endeavors.