Since my big bowl epiphany the other day, I’ve been shopping around. I struck out at City Kitchens and Pottery Barn. I did find what I was looking for at Williams-Sonoma. For $39 per bowl. Not quite the price range I was envisioning.

This item at Target is close to what I’m after. However, they’re out of stock (although they have it in various cutesy colors like Banana Sunset), and ideally I want something a little deeper and more spherical. The carp bowl I have is 8 inches by 4 inches, which means it holds about eight cups. (I knocked off some volume because the foot takes up some space.) I definitely want white. Slightly off-white would be acceptable. Banana Sunset would be awesome. Not!!!

I haven’t been to IKEA yet, nor am I likely to make a special trip there just for bowls unless someone tells me they have what I’m looking for. Also, the bowls I’ve bought at IKEA in the past have chipped like crazy. Anyone have tips for where else to look? I will not rest until I have big bowls aplenty. Unless you count naps.

Were anyone to break into my house right now and raid the refrigerator, he would come across something on the bottom shelf that might send him fleeing. It’s a four-pound pork roast soaking in a brine consisting of two liters of Coca-Cola, a large handful of kosher salt, and a head of garlic.

This saga (which may still end in tears) began a couple weeks ago when I was meat shopping at the farmers market. I stopped at the Samish Bay Cheese stand. Cheesemaking begins with separating the curds from the whey and ends with a wheel of cheese and a bunch of excess whey. One of the best ways to dispose of the whey is to feed it to pigs, which is why Samish Bay Cheese sells pork as well as cheese. (One of the best ways to dispose of cheese is to feed it to me.)

I buy Samish Bay’s ground pork regularly, and it’s excellent, so I wanted to try some of their other products. I’m most comfortable working with pork shoulder, which I braise in so many ways. Naturally, they didn’t have any with them. So I walked away with a pork leg roast, also known as fresh ham, and a head full of questions.

It’s not just that I’ve never roasted a fresh ham before. It’s that I’ve never roasted much of anything. “We can learn to be cooks, but we must be born knowing how to roast,” said Brillat-Savarin. Even though this is obviously false, it doesn’t inspire confidence. Although I am feeling better imagining the person who *was* born knowing how to roast, sitting in her bouncy seat and reaching up ever so often to turn the whole pig on a spit, then offering a tiny thumbs-up.

So I wanted to minimize my chances of ruining this lovely, well-marbled piece of meat. Some Googling turned up this blog post, which led me back to the March/April 2001 issue of Cook’s Illustrated and the Coke Pork recipe. Apparently the acidity and sweetness of the Coke produces a spectacularly tender and juicy end result. Plus, after you take the pork out of the brine, you can drink it.

All I have to do now is not overcook it. I’ll be hanging around the oven door with a sharpened Thermapen, stabbing regularly.

The other day Iris and I had some leftover noodles for lunch. This was something I cooked up in a last-minute “what’s for dinner?” panic that turned out pretty well: Chinese wheat noodles with a sauce of ground pork, hot bean paste, hoisin sauce, and baby bok choy from the farmers market.

We had plenty of leftovers, so I plunked a big portion of noodles into a bowl and popped it in the microwave. When it came out, I realized the bowl was too full to stir. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll just dump these noodles into a bigger bowl, and when I’m done heating them, I’ll put them back into the smaller bowl.” So I dumped the noodles into the large bowl with a carp printed on it, the one Iris calls the Fishbowl.

Of course, by the time the noodles were hot, I realized that there was no reason to transfer them back, so I just ate them out of the big bowl. And I think I enjoyed them a lot more than I would have from the small bowl. Iris had her usual small bowl and plate, but she did request some bites out of my bowl.

I’m not among the first billion people to figure this out, of course. Ramen and pho are served in large bowls, and there’s a restaurant chain called [Big Bowl](http://www.bigbowl.com/) which has spawned an excellent cookbook.

Now that I’ve made this stunningly obvious leap, I want big bowls for the whole family, big white ones that could work equally well for Italian and Asian noodles. The way this is going, we may need a bigger table.

I had an errand to run at Pike Place Market while Iris was at the babysitter this morning. I told Iris I was going downtown and asked if she wanted anything. She said, “Bring Iris some donuts!” I said the donuts wouldn’t travel well, so how about a sticky buns. “With sticky goo!” she said. (This is from a book, The Fat Cats at Sea, where a bunch of cats sail around looking for the Island of Goo, where buns grown on trees.)

So I stopped at the [bun bakery](http://www.belleepicurean.com/) and chose a green apple bun. I unzipped my backpack and went to put the bagged bun in, when I realized the bag was warm. Nearly hot. This was a freshly-baked bun. I decided to take a bite. Iris didn’t need an entire bun. The bite was yeasty and hot, and my fingers got sticky with sliced apple. I took another bite. *I will save her half,* I thought. Then I ate the whole bun.

I’m picking her up in half an hour, and I’m not sure what to say.

The other night I made chicken strips for dinner. Not any kind of fancy recipe, just chicken breasts cut into strips, breaded, and fried (in half lard, half canola). Because I can’t resist messing with stuff, I did brine half of the chicken and left the other half unbrined, to see if we could tell the difference. Then I lost track of which strips were brined, and they all ended up tasting great anyway. I think Iris ate as many strips as I did.

I love commercial barbecue sauce, but it got me thinking that chicken strips would be excellent served with the dipping sauces that typically accompany *gai yang,* Thai grilled chicken. There’s a thin and spicy sauce, a thick and spicy sauce (thickened with tamarind), and sometimes a third sauce that I can’t remember. Something like the Vietnamese *nuoc cham*, which fish sauce, vinegar or lime juice, sugar, and chiles, would be good. I’ll try this next time.