I got one of these pasta drying racks for Christmas. It’s the kind of large, single-use gadget that as a professional food geek I’m supposed to turn up my nose at, but this thing is so cool. You can hang a huge amount of pasta on it instead of having to round up all your chairs and draping the pasta over the chair backs. Iris helped me roll out a small batch of tagliatelle and hang it on the rack. Then when Laurie got home, we boiled some up and gave it a try.

> **Me:** Iris, did you like the noodles?

> **Iris:** Yes. They’re too darn good for me.

> **Me:** Too darn good? Who says that?

> **Iris:** I do.

Iris put some bath suds into a cup and handed it to me.

**Iris:** Here’s your mashed potatoes.

**Me:** Wow, these are the best mashed potatoes ever. What makes them so rich and creamy?

**Iris:** Um. There’s a toy under it?

**Laurie:** When I was a kid, on my birthday, I could choose anything I wanted for dinner.

**Iris:** You mean like pancakes?

**Laurie:** Yes. If you could choose anything you wanted for dinner on your birthday, what would it be?

**Iris:** Pancakes.

I was planning to make ants on a tree last night, but there seems to be some kind of cellophane noodle shortage afoot. I checked Safeway and both QFCs and came up empty-handed. But the pork was already thawed.

Last time I had extra ground pork, I made little meatballs. But my taste buds were already vibrating in an Asian direction. Okay, that sounds wrong, you know what I mean.

So I made meat patties in the style of northeastern Thai sausage (*sai krok*). I mixed a pound of ground pork with garlic, shallots, scallions, ginger, cilantro, fish sauce, minced chiles, and a pinch of sugar. While I was chopping, I made some rice. Authentically, it would have been Thai sticky rice, but all I had was medium-grain calrose rice, so I made that. I cooled some rice by sticking it on a plate in the freezer for a few minutes, then mixed it in with the pork. I formed the meat mixture into two-inch patties and fried them in a pan, then served them with cucumber salad and a squeeze of lime.

I thought they were great–I love the springy texture you get from rice as a sausage filler. Iris wasn’t terribly impressed that I had wasted the rice by putting it in the sausage. “Why’d you only make a little rice?” she asked. “I love rice.” I have a feeling that when we take Iris to Asia, she will eat rice three meals a day and little else. She won’t want to go home until beriberi sets in.

We were just finishing our hot dogs.

> **Laurie:** I’m going to have some pumpkin ice cream. Would you like some?

> **Iris:** Yes.

> **Me:** No thanks.

> **Iris:** Yeah, you just had a big hearty lunch.