This post is just for fun. Have you got a few minutes?
A delicious meal and a great talk on cars
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my car spying on me. And I never forgot the famous reporter, Michael Hastings, who outed the top General in Afghanistan. Then said reporter came back to the US and some months later his car acted funny—he tried to borrow another car but couldn’t, and then his Mercedes started traveling 100 miles an hour, hit something and the young reporter died in a ball of flames in the middle of the night in the middle of Los Angeles. Long before the fires. It seemed obvious the car was being controlled wirelessly from elsewhere. Which raises the issue: can this be done to anyone?
Well, I just listened to James Corbett and Eric Peters and I learned a lot about cars, the info they collect on you, and about my options for limiting the information transfer when it comes to my next vehicle. (I am driving a 2011 Saab and my mechanic just retired, so I may need one sooner than I like.)
While I listened I made dinner. Tempeh Banh Mi. If you have not had one yet, it’s time. And so simple to make, yet it’s a true crowd pleaser.
It must be on baguette, as it is a French-Vietnamese chimera. If someone tries to sell you one on a Subway-type roll, leave immediately.
Yesterday I went to the health food store to get something and they had fresh baguette and fresh cilantro near the door, so I grabbed them instead and said to myself that it was a BANH MI day. BTW in Vietnam the pork version is most popular, but there are many versions with different meats. Toast the bread in the oven if it isn’t fresh.
Today I used the veggies below, but it is good with +/- red bell pepper or Japanese radish (daikon) and I like to add a little fresh jalapeño. It is a forgiving recipe.
While I previously made up my own recipe for this sandwich, this time I tried one on the net, which was also totally delicious. You will have to get ingredients like soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil if you don’t have them, but since this tastes so good you will no doubt want to use them over and over. Sugar works instead of maple syrup, and any vinegar can substitute for rice vinegar if you don’t have it. You can omit the sesame oil.
The basic idea is you make 2 very simple marinades, and you marinate some thinly-sliced veggies in one and strips of tempeh in the other. After 15-30 minutes or so you fry the tempeh in a small amount of oil, and when browned, pour the marinade over it. Then simply assemble the sandwich with veggies, tempeh, cilantro and some mayo. For something this good it takes almost no time to prepared.
Here is the recipe, very simple but delectable, and enough for about 3 sandwiches, depending how much you like to stuff the bread. Some people remove part of the bread’s center to make more room for the other ingredients.