"Take as many bites of the world as you can. The rest, maybe in a next life." - Anthony Bourdain

So many of my memories growing up revolve around food.  I think this partly comes from the fact that we always ate dinner together as a family.  During the week, Mom would make dinner and we would wait for Dad to come home from work before eating.  On the weekends, they would always prepare dinners together for the family.  On our birthdays, we would give our menu requests to our parents to make for that evening - for years growing up mine was cornmeal-fried catfish and ice cream cake.  To this day my parents keep up that tradition.  My dad's birthday was yesterday and when I called him up, one of the first questions was "So what are you guys making for your birthday dinner tonight?"

Most of the family in the kitchen at Christmas

 For B's birthday last weekend, we got a group together for a fabulous dinner at Cut Beverly Hills, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

We got to try things like:

Bone Marrow Flan

Maryland Blue Crab and Louisiana Shrimp "Louie" Cocktail

Fantastic steaks at $15/ounce

Those memories created while surrounded by friends, family, and great food really stick with you.

And you never know when one will pop up.  Last night after arriving back home from a business trip to Wisconsin, I was relaxing on the couch watching Top Chef Masters.  One of the chefs, Floyd Cardoza, was asked to prepare a dish called "Rendang" for his final course.  This dish immediately took me back to my childhood and cooking in the kitchen with Mom and Dad.

If you don't know what Rendang is, it is a beef stir fry/stew from Indonesia.  It takes hours and hours to make and is incredibly spicy.  You can find the recipe under "Meat" on my "Recipes I Want To Try" page.

Looks gross, right?  But that's allllll flavor :)

I'm not 100% sure where my parents got the recipe, but I assume that they first tried it when my dad's older brother was in the Peace Corps in Malaysia.  They have always been adventuresome eaters and passed that down to us kids.  Seeing Floyd cook this dish immediately brought me back to my childhood and watching my dad diligently stir this on the stove top.  Even though I haven't eaten this in years, I can taste the flavors and relive memory.

I am now looking forward to making Rendang for B some night in our new cast iron dutch oven and opening him up to some new recipes and flavors.  You never know what is out there until you try it.  And if you can make a memory with those you love, then even better :)