Mr. Clean?

As I sit here, the dishwasher is humming away, cleaning up the mess I made from dinner. Some people desire a quiet dishwasher. Not I. I like to know that those dishes are being cleaned, and that I'm not doing the cleaning. When I can hear it in the living room, all the better.

With the warm weather, I get a hankering for stir fry, since I only do stir fry cooking outside. I detest the smell it leaves in the house, so last year, I bought a high powered outdoor burner. It's been sitting at Alison and Paul's house all through the winter, left there after I hauled it to their house for a Thai cookfest last summer.

I rang in spring with a chicken cashew stir fry recipe that showed up Saturday in Gourmet magazine. I love the fresh taste of Asian food, and the exciting flavors of fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and hot peppers. It was just a tad bland though, so I added a little more soy sauce, as well as rice vinegar to give it a nice ring. The rice vinegar was exactly what it needed to take it from so-so to great. It's all about the balance, I think. Lime juice would have been even better.

The big news, however, is that the kitchen is clean, directly and immediately on the heels of cooking a rather involved meal. For some, that's commonplace. Not for this cat.

There's change in the air.