On Saturday, I went to Miriam and Rijard's housewarming party in Brooklyn. I actually thought it started at 6 pm, so I showed up at 7 pm (New York time, dontcha know) and of course, I was way early since the party actually started at 8. But that was probably a good thing because I got to chat more at length with the hosts, including their flatmate Anna.
As a housewarming gift, I gave them Sarah, one of my violins, and a new set of strings because Storm helped me cannibalize the G string for Midori last year. I'm trying to pare down some of my possessions in the event of an upcoming move; plus, I thought Rijard and Miriam would appreciate it the most, and I was right. Rijard used to play violin, so he was super-excited to have the opportunity to do so again.
As the night progressed, I ran into many of the old Papacookie crowd, including someone named Jill who has wanted my recipe for my peanut noodles for a long time, so for her, I'm posting it here. It's based on a recipe my father (who was the best cook in the house) used to make. He never actually showed me how it was made so I came up with this version through trial and error to make it as close as possible to how I remember it.
Mischa's Peanut Sesame Noodles
8 oz jar of peanut satay sauce
1/3 cup of creamy peanut butter
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup black rice vinegar (or Chinkiang vinegar)
2 tablespoons sambal oelek (southeast Asian chili sauce)
2 bunches of green onions, sliced diagonally
1 large red bell pepper, julienned
1 tablespoon minced garlic
12 oz can of sliced water chestnuts, chopped (optional)
1 jar of chili bamboo shoots
1 package of round white Chinese noodles (I use Kikkokan's U-Dong noodles)
Sesame oil to finish
Start boiling water for the noodles. Put the peanut butter, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and sambal in a metal mixing bowl. Using a pot holder, hold it in simmering water to heat the bowl and melt the peanut butter and mix it into a thick dressing.
Pour half the dressing over the raw vegetables (all except the bamboo shoots) and toss in a large bowl while noodles cook to a firm texture (5 minutes).
Drain noodles and mix with sauces and vegetables while still hot (to soften the vegetables), adding the remainder of the dressing and the bamboo shoots on top. The bamboo shoots already have oil, but you can add additional sesame oil at the end to taste. Serve room temperature or also tastes good as stir fried leftovers.
I also ran into Emily again and showed her the blog post of our first meeting on my Blackberry since she hadn't seen it ("Wedding preparations" - Jan. 18, 2014), plus met Chelsea's friend Lizzie for the first time (she lives in DC). I had a check-in with Kacey and Becker about the apartment hunting progress and we ended up leaving the party together relatively early since Puck was waiting for me at home and they've been on the go for the last couple days before the weekend.
Puck and I got bagels for breakfast on Sunday, and then in the evening K&B joined us to watch episodes from the new season of BBC Sherlock. Since we went rather late, I was pleasantly surprised that my office closed on Monday because of the snow, so I got to sleep in and work from home while watching the snow fall. It's a nice thought that future snow days might someday be spent in a place where I'm not alone. I haven't had a snow day at home with people I care about since 2010.
