The Gravy Train

domi arigato, mr. bento

The Gravy Baby's bento box, which you can own here; I have no idea why this frog is smiling through his tears

I have a new obsession: packing the Gravy Baby's lunches for school.

Left: the Gravy Baby's lunch one day consisted of white flesh peaches, strawberries and yogurt melts for snack and Israeli couscous, broccoli, lightly pickled cucumbers, and roasted salmon; top right: another day's snack of poached apple pears, strawberries and blueberries; bottom right: roasted golden acorn squash and fresh peas

It started out innocently enough.  I bought two adorable bento boxes, thinking that they'd be a fun and easy way for the Gravy Baby to contain all of his food for the day.  It didn't even dawn on me that packing bentos would appeal not only to my love of food, but -- oh my -- the organizational possibilities!

Within a couple of days I'd acquired some accoutrements to keep things separated inside the Gravy Baby's bento.   I wasn't trying to be that obsessive at first, but then I realized that separating things inside the Gravy Baby's bento helps with being able to tell his teachers what's for lunch and what's meant to be his snack.  Plus, I can nestle in some of his dry foods, like Cheerios, right next to his fruit without worrying that the Cheerios will become a soggy mess.  (As a side note -- seriously, the man who invented Cheerios should've been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, so powerful are they in restoring calm and order in our house.)

 The Gravy Baby's bento, all laid out

I also like how packing bentos for the Gravy Baby challenges me to always think of varied, interesting meals for the Gravy Baby that are full of flavor and color.  It's actually changed the way I pack my lunch, too (the hubby does his own, for various reasons, but mainly because he's a good egg who doesn't want me to spend hours in the kitchen every night transferring blueberries one by one into his lunch box as well).  I think for the grownups, bentos make a lot of sense because you can control portion sizes and see all of your food options laid out for the day.  

It does leave me to wonder, however, what the Gravy Baby's teachers must think of me.  As I lightly pickled his freshly sliced, locally grown cucumber slices the other day to give him a little bit of acid to go with his Israeli couscous and roasted salmon, a brief thought crossed my mind: is it possible that I could be going just the teeniest, tiniest bit overboard?

 Nah.

For more information on packing bento boxes, check out:

This excellent blog on bento'ing

What better way to pack your bento than in a ninja panda?  Or a weepy frog?  Or a squinty duck?    

For grownups, the hubby and I have used the Classic Bento and Ms. Bento for years

Silicon muffin cups in different sizes are great for separating items, and are dishwasher safe

Alternatively, insert a food-safe  grass divider

I just bought these cutters to make vegetables into adorable shapes 

man make fire

One of the best things about our new digs is that we have outdoor space again.  What that means is that pretty much the day we moved in, the hubby raced out to buy a new grill (after some very thoughtful and deliberative online research weighing the pros and cons of the best-selling models, of course).

After a quick jaunt to the Charleston Farmer's Market to pick up some supplies over the weekend, I busied myself one evening by making skewers of zucchini, squash, red bell peppers and onions.  The hubby lovingly grilled a pork tenderloin I'd marinated the night before (with an impromptu mixture of light brown sugar, minced garlic, minced onions, sherry, soy sauce and ... drum roll please ... cinnamon.  Do you like that move there?  I did).

Right after the hubby grilled the veggies, I tossed them with a heavy sprinkle of sesame seeds and a dash of ponzu sauce.   To accompany the pork tenderloin, which caramelized beautifully on the grill on account of the brown sugar in my marinade, I mixed up a quick spicy aioli.  With some steamed rice, it made for a tasty weeknight meal.

What are you cooking up this week?

PS -- Last day to enter the giveaway!  Enter here.  

at bayan indah, cooking up bliss

Bayan Indah, a cooking school and retreat within the city limits of Kuala Lumpur

Last week my friends and I visited a lovely little retreat, Bayan Indah, hidden away in a little kampung (village), for a cooking class.  The house was lovely, and even though we were just a few miles away from IKEA and one of the biggest malls in Kuala Lumpur, you'd never know it from stepping onto this calm little pied-a-terre.

Top, left: an outer petal of the banana flower, peeled away, reveals undeveloped tiny bananas inside; top right: I'm holding a banana flower to show you just how huge they are; bottom right: an onde-onde (Malaysian-style mochi) with gula melaka (palm sugar); bottom right: toasting freshly grated coconut in a wok

Our focus on the day was local Malay food (not to be confused with Malaysian Chinese or Malaysian Indian, which are totally different and also have subcategories of cuisine with each).  I was the most excited about learning how to break down and cook a banana flower, which are gargantuan.  I've always wanted to buy one from my local wet market, but I chicken out at the last minute because it's such a beast of a plant to work with, and up until last week I didn't have the foggiest idea what to do with it.

The fruits of our labor: nasi kerabu (rice salad); chicken and pineapple simmered in coconut milk; and ayam percik (a delightful, saucy barbecued chicken)

It turns out the banana flower, when simmered gently, peels away to reveal a mild, pleasing flesh not unlike an artichoke.  It's delicious this way as a salad, which our class prepared both with spicy hot chillies, grated coconut and shallots and with a steamed fish. 

Top left: an assembled banana flower salad; top right: black rice, lychee and swirls of coconut milk; bottom right: one of my favorite fruits here, the rambutan

The best part of the day's class was that we incorporated fresh herbs growing right outside Bayan Indah's front door, and we were able to learn about how they're incorporated into a variety of local dishes.  But, as always, the best part was eating the fruits of our labor.  That's always the best part, isn't it?

Don't forget to enter the giveaway here!

Bayan Indah | Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia

hot, by any name

When Asians say it's a steamboat party, they mean it.

Despite my relative silence over the past month or so, it's actually been a very busy time for food for us here at Gravy Central.  I feel like every day I'm assembling some sort of dish to take to one party or another, and with a Gravy Baby who grows seemingly by the second and demands more and more of my time, it's getting increasingly harder to photograph every dish that I'm cranking out.

I made an exception a few weeks ago, when we were invited to a friend's house for what the Malaysians call steamboat.  It's called huo guo in Mandarin Chinese, or literally, "fire pot," and the Japanese call it shabu shabu.  The Swiss might also call this fondue on steroids, but I'm not sure, because the only Swiss person that I can verify this information with moved to Australia a few months ago, thus reducing my Swiss friend count to exactly zero.  But that's another project for another time.

lady of leisure bucket list: debunking deboned chicken

Last week, my friends and I made chicken ballotine, just for giggles

This photo of a deboned, stuffed chicken (a chicken ballotine) my friends and I delicately roasted makes me so happy.  It reminds me of fall dinners, of intimate gatherings with friends involving bottles of wine, and of the types of dinners that leaving you feeling special, just because of the effort preparing it required.

And, after the events that transpired last week in order for us to accomplish such a beautiful, happy sight, this photo will always remind me of mangled chicken parts strewn across my kitchen and sweating our little hearts out as we tried to separate poultry from bone.

rendang the new year

Above: my little pot of beef rendang simmering at a consistency I prefer; below: the finished product, along with one of my curry puffs

For a food lover in Kuala Lumpur, it's the most wonderful time of year.

The monthlong celebration of Hari Raya, the Malaysian Ramadan, is for Malaysian Muslims a month of religious observance involving fasting from sunrise to sunset.  For the rest of us, it means a cornucopia of bazaars and buffets brimming with food choices as soon as the sun comes down.

I can't believe it's been a full year since the hubby and I moved here, but we arrived here last fall right before the start of Ramadan.  Eager to take part in the local holiday, we wandered the streets of KL almost every night, aimlessly stuffing our faces with foods we couldn't identify at the time other than "that eggy crepe curry potato sandwich thingy" (a murtabak) or that "delicious flatbread pancake doohicky".