Sriracha!

I made a quasi-Thai stir fry last night from Ruth Reichl's recent memoir "Garlic and Sapphires." My wife read the book (I'm next) and suggested I make the recipe on page 70. It was excellent.

The recipe recommended adding a dash or more of Sriracha hot sauce at the end. Anyone who's been to a fair number of Asian restaurants has seen it on tables with salt, pepper and other condiments. It's the red stuff in the plastic squirt bottle with the roaster on the front, sort of an Asian hot ketchup.

I'd never tried it, although I love the bottle's design and melange of languages (Vietnamese, Chinese, English).

I'm not a huge chili head, but I decided to give it a try. It was outstanding, really bringing the somewhat vinegary dish together, a very nice balance of hot and sweet.

So if you like a little heat, the next time you see Sriracha on the table, put a squirt or two on your food. Really, really good.

Limeade to the Rescue

I was out of lemonade this morning. Lately, I've been breaking down and buying a Diet Coke for lunch when I run out of homemade lemonade or oolong tea (I know, Eleanor, I know).

Then I recalled that I had three limes left over from the Ruth Reichl Asian stir fry I made last weekend. Why not make limeade?

Unfortunately, two of my three limes were hard as stones and produced little juice. I still managed to coax out a quarter cup. I added about a quarter cup of syrup and a cup of water. The result was tart and refreshing.

Take that Coca-Cola.

Fight the Power, Cook at Home: On a different subject, here is a link to a great article by chef and food critic Micheal Ruhlman. His message: Cooking with crappy products, like powdered whatchamacallit, is better than not cooking at all.

I especially like his point about giant food companies discouraging people from cooking. It's too hard. You have no time. Untrue, he rightly says.

Want to hit back at corporate America? Cook your own meals. There's nothing that Big Food fears more.