Lemongrass and Mirin!!

So apparently no one in Abilene uses lemongrass. While unemployed I've been having fun cooking in the kitchen. I figure while embracing my domestic-ness (I'm making up my own words too) I should have some fun with my cookbooks. It also has an added bonus of saving us money because it's always cheaper to cook at home rather than eating out. Well last Christmas my sister in law Connie gave me a cookbook called Cook Yourself Thin and I'm loving cooking out of it. Last night I made a healthy chicken parmesan with thin zucchini strips as 'pappardelle' pasta rather than eating it with regular pasta. All I can say is amazing! Well another dish I choose to make from this book is a dinner of fresh homemade spring rolls and sesame peanut noodles. This is actually what I'm making tonight. Well, for this dish I needed some fun ingredients like rice paper, lemongrass and fresh ginger. I don't think that lots of people know how to use fresh ginger and having only worked with it once before I'm one of those people. I do have to say though that I think it sounds cool that I'm cooking with it! Well to make this dish I also needed something call mirin and lemongrass. So after not finding it at my local Albertson's I set out on a mission to find them (I also needed to find the rice paper). After 3 more grocery stores around town I did find the rice paper but apparently no one sells lemongrass or mirin. I guess this is just going to be part of living in a smaller town. In Houston I think I would be able to find most of the ingredients at the local stores but here, not so much! Oh well, I do need to say thanks to Connie though for the fun dinners we've been having thanks to her getting us this cookbook. Love you!