Pad Thai Diary

I have cooked Pad Thai on so many occasions which were important to me, it serves as a sort of life diary. Some comments are related to the dish, even

01/13/95	1/2 cup Fish Sauce is too much!
03/12/95	Primal Scream Hotness!
03/28/95
04/02/95
04/08/95	(Fresh) Tofu not recommended, adds nothing.
04/15/95	With 10 pieces spongy bean curd, 1/2" cubes, totaling 5 oz. The 1/2" size is too small.
04/19/95	Tried Bean Curd Foams (Sponges)
04/21/95	Try cutting each sponge into 4 pieces. At Garth & Leslie's!
04/24/95	No Bean Sprouts - It sure needs them.
05/02/95	Don't use plain bean curd - Tasteless!
05/11/95
05/25/95	Hot! But not for the Hot-Off!
06/15/95
06/24/95	Best proportions for Fish Sauce/Vinegar/Sugar are 3/8 cup each, not 1/4 cup as in original recipe. (Tried 1/3 cup too). The larger quantities are soaked up nicely into the bean curd foams. 1/2 cup sugar is too much.
07/12/95
07/20/95	"T-Zero" for the first Millicarat Gate Array.
08/14/95	No scallions. Missed them, but not a huge loss.
08/30/95
10/22/95	Forgot the limes. What a mess.
11/15/95	No Lime, no shrimp, no peppers. Well ... sort-of a Pad Thai.
01/06/96
03/02/96	Without Bean Curd. Better with them.
03/26/96	First Post-Nose Pad Thai!
06/02/96	With Z
06/17/96	Robots-Ho! House-Ho!
09/10/96	Back from England, Yum!
12/07/96	Our last night (almost) at 97A.
04/08/97	Must have been my first in the new house at 22.
04/28/97	Leslie's 47th birthday. 7 Oz Chicken and 7 Oz Shrimp. Good for carnivores.
11/14/97	First Snow. Next time, try more chicken.
12/12/97	After the Trees were cut
12/21/97	Tom's Solstice Party
04/30/98	May Day, with Bruce on back porch. How complimentary!
04/20/98	Springtime! Our 2nd! Almost Italy!
05/16/98	Artaway #1
08/18/98	Fly Evening? Warm, lovely.
09/06/98	After 22 Millicarat scales ... very salty!
12/14/98	With Jamie
02/13/99	Millicarat Power down to 2.5 mA!
05/10/99	With Ashley. Lemons. (Limes are better)
08/22/99	Forgot Peanuts. Missed them.
01/23/00	One week to Tucson - with Lisa
02/25/00	M in Baltimore. All shrimp, no chicken. Yummy!
03/21/00	Chicken Thighs instead of breasts. Not so good.
05/23/00	M silent, I tried 15 oz Chicken, no Bean Curd. well, it was OK.
09/14/00	NIST Ahoy! Without Shrimp, Cilantro, or Bean Curd Foams. Boring!
02/19/01	With Timmy
05/12/01	Slava, Xenia. Yum!
07/04/01
08/15/01	For Marian & Annie
09/25/01	Depressed. No Comment.
10/25/01	Slava's closing!
12/24/01	Christmas Eve, with Slave & Xenia
05/10/02	With Slava, Xenia, Marian
06/22/02	With Yano
07/29/02	After HD died. S, X, M. 12 Oz Chicken + 12 Oz Shrimp. Good.
08/18/02	Bella on her mat - a hot summer.
08/31/02	Double Recipe made in 3 batches in a small wok out on the porch in Mendocino. Tasted just fine although it is easy to lose ones focus - I forgot the shrimps for batch #2 when someone moved them inside out of my view. Perhaps I had not consumed enough wine?
10/20/02	Xenia's first try. Courageous girl, she did a double recipe. Turned out much better than my first one! Good Work!
02/05/03	Slava? No, but Connie Kantor's site got started, off to a bang!
02/16/04	Our kitchen had been down since last July, I fixed PT for her and Ryan at their place. A kitchen rarely used. Felt great!
06/02/04	My first meal fixed in our new kitchen. Drawers still non-existent, with Slava & X. Felt great. Slava commented, Look ma, no smoke! And I just had the vent on low.
04/21/05	With Kathy LN, Upstairs just floored, giving her Quartersawn Oak kids blocks. Boiling water for noodles, way overdone, dry limes! Decent flavor anyway.
05/10/05	Marian's Send-off to her gallery opening in Taos. Tasted great!
06/04/05	Sat eve with John Lerner and Slava, Xenia in Mendocino, George died on Thu. Delish.
06/10/05	Fri eve with Slava and X. Plane "delivered" today, instructor jerk, warm evening, first bathroom cabinets in with wrong positions
10/09/05	Fri eve with Slava and X. Must have been old noodles, they just wouldn't rehydrate fully. And 12-oz of "13-15 count" shrimp which were too darned big. And new steel wok, which heated fast and was good.
02/04/06	Sat eve with S&M and Ellen. Recipe 1.5x, using a full pound each of mongo shrimp and chix. Really yummy!
03/24/06	Fri Nite with S&X. Doubled the garlic (fine) and a full pound of shrimp for Slava.
04/28/06	Fri Nite with S&X. A full pound of shrimp for Slava and a full pound of chix for Marian. Too much of each, we became totally lethargic!
06/09/06	Fri Nite with S&X for my first Half-Birthday! A full pound of shrimp for Slava (who had forgotten and eaten earlier, oops!) and a full pound of chix for Marian (who was feeling veggetarian, oops!) I had been losing weight and even this didn't make me too lethargic, Sake and all.
08/27/06	Steve, Susan (who loved the protein), JC & Christine, M. 1.3 recipies or so, used Soy sprouts (not as good as mung).
12/31/06	M, after Zena expired. S&X didn't appear, beware old noodles which won't rehydrate and don't put foams into liquid first!
04/21/07	Kazuyo & Matt, 1.2x recipe with 4 eggs, about 30% left over, mmm.
12/30/07	Penultimate Day of 2007. No foams (sigh), but pre-sautéed chicken with garlic (yum!)
03/09/08	Xenia while Slava was in Tucson. Separate chicken cooking was marvelous!
05/23/08	Barb & Ro, 1 week before Marian's Hudson Opening. Noodles were Al Dente, Chili Pepper needed toasting but otherwise yummy! Barb said much better than Bangkok Pad Thai, which just has a fried egg on top.
06/26/08	Xenia after "break-up" with Slava. Gotta admit, I miss him. A good batch, tender noodles after 30 minutes in (initial) 160F water.
06/08/09	Rick and Bev, 30 oz bean sprouts - great!