For a while I’ve had a box of [Vermont Curry](http://importfood.com/rtvc4401.html) sitting on the shelf. “I thought it was a decoration,” said Laurie.

What is Vermont Curry? It’s Japanese curry in a box. I assume they call it Vermont Curry because Phish and Ben & Jerry’s are really big in Japan. (Okay, it probably predates that.)

I’ve been fond of Japanese curry ever since I was a kid and my mom used to buy S&B Golden Curry and serve it with chicken and noodles. Sometimes I go to [Hana Sushi](http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/1/1305/restaurant/Capitol-Hill/Hana-Restaurant-Seattle) on Broadway and get the katsu curry rice, which consists of a bowl of rice topped with a sliced fried pork cutlet and a sea of spicy brown curry sauce.

Anyway, this week I finally cracked the box open and used it to make curry udon from the new book [Takashi’s Noodles](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1580089658/?tag=mamstesgrubshack), a spectacular Japanese noodle cookbook by a Chicago chef whose restaurant I’d never heard of but which I’m now dying to try. His curry udon recipe calls for boxed curry, plus a bit of curry powder, dashi, soy sauce, beef, onions, and, uh, salsify.

For some reason I didn’t have a pound of salsify lying around, so I substituted carrots. And I went with pork instead of beef because it was on sale (I used Takashi’s braised pork belly recipe, streamlined and with pork shoulder instead of belly.) Despite my tinkering, this was a fabulously warming and slippery bowl of noodles, especially nice since spring is not really interested in Seattle this year.

Now I’m looking forward to making Takashi’s soba, his ramen, his rice noodles with corned beef (really!).

Oh, one other thing you should know about Vermont Curry: the spiciness scale ranges from mild to hot, but “hot” by Japanese standards is the same as, well, Vermont standards. I used the Hot, and Laurie and I could not detect the slightest hint of chile heat. Really, nada.

*I got my copy of Takashi’s Noodles free from Ten Speed Press.*

Tillamook sent me a wheel of their [100th anniversary cheddar](http://store.tillamookcheese.com/100th-Anniversary-Wheel-limited-edition-P153.aspx), which I cannot stop referring to as “100-year-old cheese.” This is not entirely accurate: it’s aged for three years.

This is really good stuff. It the only Tillamook cheese I’ve tried that has a crumbly cheddar texture, with amino acid crystals like in Parmesan. The only reason I hesitate to recommend it is that Laurie pointed out that it is very similar to [Cougar Gold](http://www.wsu.edu/creamery/), another local cheese which costs less. That said, if you see the 100-year-old cheese, which has limited retail availability, and are in the mood for an impulse buy, grab one. You won’t be disappointed, and it comes in a cute wooden crate which can be reused to hold toys.

Iris is old enough now to have chores, so I assigned her to be in charge of setting the table. This is my least-favorite job, because it has to be done right when I’m in the middle of making dinner, so I was delighted to outsource it.

Not that Iris likes it any better. She was proud to be able to do it herself the first one-and-a-half times and now sees it for what it is: a chore. So in the spirit of disgruntled workers everywhere, she elected to follow the letter of the law (“set the plates, forks, napkins, and glasses”) in a defiant, in-your-face style.

The result, you’ll agree, is fabulous:

I went to Uwajimaya today and didn’t notice until I got home what was attached to my bottle of Lion & Globe peanut oil:

This is so cool. I’m about to make use of it, because I need some napa cabbage for dinner and all they had at Uwajimaya was giant sumo wrestler cabbage.

A Thai restaurant near me has opened a sidewalk window selling individual skewers of chicken satay for $1 and red curry chicken for $3.

This was an offer I could not refuse. So I ponied up $3 and got a surprisingly large serving of rice, red curry, a few pieces of chicken…and, oh, *about a pound of canned bamboo shoots.*

Does anybody out there just love canned bamboo shoots? I didn’t think so. Would this dish have felt like it was worth $3 if they’d just left out the bamboo shoots? Yep.