I was craving a breaded chicken dish with pasta like chicken parm but I wanted it to be lighter. I was also craving Vietnamese bun vermicelli. I put the two cravings together to create this dish. I had been thinking of Vietnamese for a long time actually. The other day I finally was going to order some but I was having a lazy day and didn’t want to leave the house, so I found the only place that delivered. I had never been there and didn’t look at the reviews, but it turned out that it was more of a Chinese place that had some Vietnamese dishes on the menu. The bun vermicelli was almost embarrassingly bad and it made me crave the stuff even more! I’m not saying what I made here is super authentic or anything, but when I am craving it what I really need is the interplay of cucumber, mint, peanut, fish sauce, and rice noodles. The one that I ordered that day only had 3 out of 5 of these ingredients and for me that just doesn’t cut it!

Last week I went to an awesome burger event in Boston called Battle of the Burger. It was lots of fun and sponsored by Amstel, so as you can imagine I had a few. I tried as hard as I could to taste all 20 burgers there, but alas, I only made it to about 15. I almost had to crawl out of the event I was so full! I even had to pass on the make your own sundae booth, and throw away a few bites of a shake shack burger which might have been a low point of my life. I was really impressed with many of the burgers, especially the lamb and tzatziki burger from Cafeteria, but overall, I wished some of the restaurants lightened things up a bit. Every burger was an overindulgent savory bomb which was awesome at first, but after trying 10 or so, they all started to meld together. If I was there, I would have served these Vietnamese vermicelli topped burgers as a bit of a reprieve from the bacon-truffle-mushroom-aioli-cheese madness.

These noodles use hummus as a shortcut to making something that tastes like Thai takeout.

Last week I went to see Cayucas with some friends, and before we headed out to the show, I made this tasty ceviche as a light pre-concert meal. It was inspired by their song “Deep Sea Diver”, and it was summery, fresh, and reminiscent of the ocean, just like the band’s music!

I decided while I was away that when I came back I would make sure to stick to a more regular posting schedule. Instead of sometimes posting 4 or 5 times a week, then only posting twice some weeks, I would just always post 3 times, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I am going to try and stick to this for the time being, with Wednesdays usually featuring my most recent Tablespoon post, and see how it goes. Of course, there will still be theme weeks from time to time, where I post every day so I think the frequency will be pretty much the same as in the past.

Seems kinda weird to tell you all that info on a Tuesday post. But since I’ve been away so long, I figured I would give you guys a bonus recipe this week. It’s a good one too! I had some marinaded meat leftover from these burgers, and decided to cook it loose in a pan and serve it with a cous cous salad that was based on one of my favorite dishes, Vietnamese Bun Vermicelli. I ate this for lunch one day while getting some serious writing done and it really got me through the day! In fact I went back for more every hour or so…

A version of the classic Thai spicy noodle dish with fresh bay scallops.

A twist on pasta salad that uses pad thai flavors.

Thai flavors in a healthy twist on tuna salad