This Month’s Film: Indochine
Cuisine: Vietnamese

It was a beautiful summer day in my garden when I went out this morning to survey my crops. When I first planted them, I went out twice a day, morning and afternoon, to scrutinize the newly tilled soil for signs of life. And once they’d germinated, I had to run a tight patrol for the garden pests that can destroy a young sprout overnight. But I’ve been so busy with other things this week that I’ve only gone out there to turn on the sprinkler, not to mention that we had a couple of rainy days which fulfilled that task for me.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I discovered that my snow peas had matured and produced enough to make a generous serving for my ‘Indochine’ Vietnamese dinner. I got the scissors and snipped all the mature pea pods that I could find amid the tangle of thick stalks, broad leaves and tightly coiled tendrils. I can’t wait to add them to my Asian Vegetable Stir-Fry Medly tomorrow.

I also went shopping today for all the fresh ingredients for tonight’s soup and salad course, as well as for my main course dishes tomorrow evening. Among them is a recipe for stuffed crabs, however, the only crabs I could find still in the shell were huge Dungeness crabs, which when filled would probably serve six. I guess I was foolishly hoping to find some nice little blue crabs like the ones we used to get back home on the Gulf Coast.

So I had to settle for the next best thing. I bought a couple of halved snow crabs with the legs still attached, and on my way home, I stopped at Shackford’s, a quaint little kitchen and restaurant supply store downtown and found some unglazed ceramic dishes shaped like little crabs. I’m going to fill them with the stuffing mixture and save a couple of the leg sections to use as a garnish so they look like crabs. No doubt the effect won’t be quite the same, but sometimes we have to make do with what’s available. And all this talk of stuffed crabs has reminded me of the ones my Mom used to make when I was growing up in Alabama. If mine turn out half as good as hers, I will declare them a success.

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