One Hungry Panda: A Food and Travel Blog

The Hungry Panda Guide to Santa Fe

2010-08-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

The Hungry Panda & Co. recently spent a lovely long weekend re-discovering Santa Fe after a family trip to the artistic enclave over 15 years ago. The trip was planned around The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, which is a fantastic venue that brings handicraft artisans from all over the globe to sell their wares and meet their customers every summer in Santa Fe. There are over 120 artisans from 45 countries, which makes it an incredible opportunity for cultural and artistic exchange. It also provides the artisans with a source of income that makes the continued existence of folk art techniques sustainable in the modern world. Check out their website to find out about attending the festival in 2011!

Of course, all that art makes a panda hungry. New Mexican fare, being both unique and delicious, did not disappoint. We re-visited the famous Cafe Pasqual's in downtown Santa Fe that focuses on local and organic ingredients to create fresh versions of New Mexican favorites. I had the green chile cheeseburger (I just couldn't get enough of those sweet green chiles the whole time I was there) while other members of the panda posse had enchiladas, chiles rellenos, and tamales. We visited the Pasqual's gallery upstairs from the restaurant and had the pleasure of meeting the founder and chef Katherine Kagel (you can check out her writing here if you're interested). The gallery sells beautiful clay cooking pots made by a local artists that Ms. Kagel recommended highly.

I had wisely purchase Jane and Michael Stern's Road Food Guide for my Kindle and had brought it with me to Santa Fe, which led to one thwarted attempt to find an espresso milkshake at the Model Pharmacy in Albequerque but also led to a hearty encounter with breakfast burritos at Tia Soph ia's in downtown Santa Fe. We slid into the booth at Tia Sophia's at 11 am, which is when breakfast was technically over but what I like to think of as sweet talk but might have been plain old pitiful begging convinced our waitress to serve us the last breakfast burritos of the morning. The hearty burritos consist of potatoes, cheese, and your choice of breakfast meat (I recommend the sausage although the waitress endorsed the bacon), which is smothered in your choice of red or green chile sauce or "Christmas" (aka both red and green - seen to the right).

The farmer's market in Santa Fe is also a great place to stroll around. The produce is beautiful plus there are a number of local artisans selling beeswax candles, dried sage sticks, and bath products made from local herbs. You can pick up a pastry and a coffee from one of the stands at the market or head over to the nearby Sage Bakehouse. Sage gets my vote for best baked goods in town plus they make strong black iced coffee, which is key in a hot, sunny climate. Sage distributes its fresh bread to restaurants and stores not only in Santa Fe but all over the region.

To the right are the savory and sweet pineapple pork tacos from Coyote Cafe's rooftop cantina. The rooftop offers a menu of delicious cocktails (I recommend the agave margarita), great food, and a great view of the downtown. Overall, Santa Fe is a great vacation destination. There tons of great galleries, design stores, as well as great hiking in the Sangre de Cristos mountains. If you're also a yogini, I highly recommend the Anusara studio Spandarama. For more info on what to see and do in Santa Fe, I suggest checking out Design*Sponge's great guide to Santa Fe.

Portland Bound

2010-07-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

Despite living in Seattle for almost two years, the Hungry Panda has never made it Portland. Portland is notorious as a mecca for foodies of all stripes but especially for lovers of street food like myself because of its prolific food cart scene. I promise full coverage of my culinary exploits upon return. It so happens that I picked up a quart of raspberries at the UDistrict Farmer's Market last weekend and decided to use a recipe from Corey Schreiber and Julie Richardson's fabulous Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook. Julie Richardson is the owner of the bakery Baker & Spice in Portland, which I'll have a chance to visit this weekend. In honor of that happy coincidence I'm posing the recipe below.

Raspberry Fool

Serves 8

1 dry quart (approx. 4 cups) raspberries
1/2 c + 3 T sugar
Pinch of sea salt
1 T vanilla extract
1 T orange extract
1 c cold mascarpone
2 c cold heavy cream
1/2 t ground cinnamon

1. Mix 3 1/2 c of the raspberries, 1/2 c sugar, the salt, and extracts together in a bowl and use a pastry blender or fork to mash the berries. Let sit for 20 minutes to draw out some of the juices.
Note: the original recipe calls for 1/4 c raspberry or orange liquer in place of the extracts but I didn't have those on hand and my recipe was quite tasty. It also calls for a straining of the berries through a sieve to discard seeds but I skipped that as I found it unnecessary.

2. Place a medium-sized mixing bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes. Then put the mascarpone, cream, cinnamon, and 3 T sugar in the bowl and mix on low speed until soft peaks form.

3. Fold in the raspberry mixture just until combined. Don't worry about incorporating completely - streaks of cream are just fine. Distribute the fool between individual serving cups for presentation and chill for 30 minutes or more. Garnish with remaining raspberries when serving. Note: the fool is best the day it is made but will keep for an additional day.

Spicy and Meaty: Korean in Seattle

2010-06-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite weekend activities is karaoke and the best thing to eat before karaoke is either Chinse hot pot or Korean barbecue. My karaoke joint of choice in Seattle is in the Shoreline/Lynnwood area (it's called Xanadu in case anyone is interested) and what better place than Lynnwood to find some good Korean food. My two favorite places are Kaya and Old Village. Kaya is a recent addition to Seattle restaurant scene having just opened up last year. Both Kaya and Old Village have at-table grills that are great to sit around with a big group of friends. You'll want to go with a group of friends between 4-10 in size since each order of barbecue is pretty large and can be pricey for a smaller group of people. The barbecue orders come with a plethora of small dishes called banchan in Korean. Although Kaya and Old Village are similar in many ways, the decor and the banchan are both better at Kaya in my opinion. You can also add dishes like cold spicy noodles (bibim nengmyun) or seafood pancake (jeon) to round out the festival of meat that is the focus of the meal. My favorite type of meat is the marinated beef short ribs (galbi, which are pictured above on the grill) but you can also get other cuts of beef and pork. We even ordered a good spicy octopus stew at Old Village (pictured below). The meats come with a selection of dipping sauces that usually include sesame oil with salt, a sweet spicy sauce chili sauce (similar to sriracha), soy sauce, and a fermented bean paste dip (the bean paste is my personal favorite). Both restaurants have a selection of Korean beers (very light and complimentary to the heavy meat) and Korean rice liquor (soju) if you're looking for a wilder night out. I've only been to Kaya and Old Village for dinner, but I've heard that Kaya's lunch is also good and that the bibimbap is ridiculously large (one order is enough for two people). My only piece of advice other than that you should plan on eating Korean food more often is that if you go to Kaya on the weekend, you may want to call ahead to make a reservation since it's a pretty popular place.

Special thanks to my Korean classmates for finding these great restaurants and sharing their tips with the Hungry Panda!!

A Touch of Paris in Seattle

2010-06-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Let's face it. We all wish we had a little more French glamour in our lives. From across the pond, it seems that those lucky Frenchies have everything: chic wardrobes, delicate flaky pastries, highbrow cinema, and a certain je ne sais quoi that we wish we could get our hands on. Even if we can't have it all, we can at least eat some great French food here in Seattle. You can find lovely crusty French baguettes at Tall Grass Bakery and delightful macarons at Honore Artisan Bakery. There are also wonderful croissants and danishes at Cafe Besalu in Ballard as well as Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle.

One of the things I think people love about eating in France is not just sophisticated haute cuisine but the more casual dining experience in French bistros and cafes. The best places to find that kind of experience in Seattle are Cafe Presse in Capitol Hill, Le Pichet in Belltown, and Bastille in Ballard. Cafe Presse is the most casual of the three restaurants. I like Cafe Presse for brunch or lunch when I get a tasty croque madame to fill you for the rest of the afternoon. Le Pichet is a wonderful dinner spot near Pike's Place Market. It's intimate, always busy but somehow still seems laid back, and has a great traditional French menu. I love the pate albigeois (country style pork pate with honey and walnuts) to start with. The last time I visited, I had the poisson a la piperade, which was OK but frankly I thought was a tiny bit bland. I've heard the roast chicken is fantastic but haven't had a chance to order it yet (you must allow an hour for its preparation). Bastille is a relatively new restaurant in the heart of Ballard. It's beautifully decorated to look just like what a fabulous French bistro looks like in your dreams of early 20th century Paris with the addition of a cool open fireplace at a round table you can share with friends (the bar is pictured at right). I found the brunch menu somewhat underwhelming in terms of creativity but the dinner menu is quite nice. I was feeling indulgent that evening so I had a nice glass of red wine and the steak frites au poivre and really nothing can be wrong about that.

If you're looking for some easy French recipes and great beach read, check out Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard. It has some wonderful recipes to keep and use and it's a fun story about an American woman adjusting to life in France.

Lentils au Vin Blanc
Serves 6

2 T EVOO
1 carrot, roughly chopped
4-5 small shallots or 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 1/2 c dried Puy lentils
6 c chicken broth
One 16 oz. can of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 c dry white wine
A handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream or creme fraiche to garnish

1. In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and carrots and saute for 5-10 minutes until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the lentils and stir to coat with oil. Add the broth, tomatoes, wine, parsley, bay leaf, and a good grinding of pepper. Leave to simmer over a low heat with the cover ajar until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 1 hour.
3. Serve in shallow bowls with a dollop of creme fraiche. Garnish with chopped cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lime juice if you like.

Back in Business!

2010-06-14T14:04:00.001-07:00

One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.

-from Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin

May was a great month for eating but a bad month for writing anything non-academic. On the upside, I have a ton of restaurants, recipes, and anecdotes to share with you this month starting now. In my opinion, summer is the glory season for eating. Picnics, barbecues, cafes with sidewalk seating, veggies fresh from the garden, and crowded, happy farmer's markets. To take advantage of the summer bounty, check out the July issues of Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Savuer, O Magazine, and Martha Stewart Living. O Magazine actually has a wonderful series of articles on food and cooking. There's an interview with a vegan chef, a hilarious first-person article on anxiety eating, the enivronmental politics of seafood, a modern day hunger-gatherer, and the manifesta of a devoted omnivore. Martha Stewart Living has some of the most gorgeously decorated Fourth of July fruit pies on its cover and a great spread about David Mas Masumoto, a peach farmer and the author of Wisdom of the Last Farmer. His tasty looking and extremely easy recipe for Peach Gazpacho is reproduced below.

Peach Gazpacho
Serves 4-6

1/2-3/4 c water
6 ripe peaches (approx. 2.5 lbs)
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 T champagne vinegar (or more to taste)
2 T EVOO
2 T chopped flat leaf parsley or cilantro
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
Garnish with finely chopped red bell pepper and avocado

1. Pulse 1/2 c water, the peaches, cucumber, garlic, vinegar, oil, 1/2 t salt, and 1/4 t pepper in a food processor until coarsely pureed. Thin with more water if desired. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
2. Season with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Stir in herbs. Garnish, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, and serve.

Exciting News of the Week: Din Tai Fung will be opening a restaurant in Bellevue this fall. The only other Din Tai Fung location in the U.S. is in L.A. I've the L.A. location isn't nearly as good as the locations in Asia but here's hoping that the Seattle location proves that wrong.

Pasta Primavera

2010-05-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

The weeknight kitchen deserves a recipe that's relatively easy, tasty, and chock full of whatever veggies are in season. Personally I adore asparagus. I've been waiting for it to come in season for a while now and am extra happy to finally be cooking with it. So when the May issue of Bon Appetit landed in my mailbox and an asparagus-filled pasta dish was on the cover, I knew I had to try it. The Bon Appetit recipe calls for pancetta but in the spirit of being a little more healthy, I eliminated that from my recipe. For a special occasion, I'm sure the pancetta is delicious but it's also unnecessary. The dish is perfectly tasty without it. I liked this recipe so much I made it twice this week. Enjoy.

Fettucine with Peas and Asparagus
from Bon Appetit Magazine May 2010

12 oz. fettucine
1 1/4 lb. asparagus cut on diagonal into 1 in. pieces
2 cups fresh green peas blanched 1 min in boiling water or frozen peas (do not thaw)
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced, white and pale green parts separated from dark green parts
2 garlic cloves, pressed or smushed
1/2 c finely grated Parmesan plus additional for serving
1/3 c heavy whipping cream
3 T olive oil
3 T lemon juice
1 T grated lemon peel
1/4 c thinly sliced fresh basil

1. Cook pasta in pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite. Drain, reserving 1/4 cc pasta cooking liquid. Return pasta to the pot.
2. Meanwhile, heat a bit of olive oil in a saute pan on medium-high head. Add the asparagus when the oil is warm and cook for 3 min. Then add the garlic, green onions, and peas. Saute until the vegetables are just tender, about 2-3 more minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Add veggies, 1/4 c pasta water, the dark green parts of the onions, Parmesan, cream, olive oil, lemon juice, lemon peel, and basil to the pasta. Toss, adding more pasta water if needed.
4. Season with salt and black pepper. Plate and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Enjoy.

What Does a Panda Eat on Her Birthday?

2010-04-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Why cake of course. Two of them. Cake number one was store bought. I happened to be in a Baskin Robbins a couple of months ago and spotted in the ice cream cakes in the freezer. I remembered from when I was little how much I loved the tiny "turtle" (caramel, fudge, and praline) ice cream cakes that were shaped to look like clowns complete with a sugar cone serving as the clown's hat. Every once in a while, my health-conscious mom would buy me one and oh I have never forgotten. This time I skipped the mini clown-shaped version and when straight for the big kahuna (and by that I mean a regular sized ice cream cake in a shape that will not freak people out). While my lovely boyfriend acquired the ice cream cake, I decided that we might be short of cake and thus I needed to bake another. Truly the reason is that, as you can see from the lack of recent posts, my free time has been in short supply and thus I haven't baked anything in a while. Thankfully it hasn't all been work - I had a fun food-filled visit from my sister (shall I call her The Red Panda?) and a report on our activities is forthcoming. So with a little extra free time this past Friday, I slipped on my apron and went to work. I had a hard time deciding between a gooey looking mint chocolate cake and the double chocolate orange passion but orange chocolate won out because I had an orange in my fridge. This cake actually turned out a bit dry for me but it may be because I left it in the oven too long. You may want to check your cake at 13 min and again at 15 min. However, the icing with the orange extract was divine. The cake probably would have looked even prettier with the chocolate-dipped orange slices that are recommended for decoration but I was distracted and dipped the slices in unsweetened instead of bittersweet chocolate, making them utterly inedible. All in all, still a success. Melissa's book really does have great cake-making tips and I can feel my technique improving as I try my hand at more fancy cakes.

Double Chocolate Orange Passion Cake
from All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray

For the Cake:
2 large eggs
2 1 oz. squares unsweetened chocolate
2 c cake flour
2 c sugar
1/2 c Dutch process unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t milk
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 t vanilla extract
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange

For the frosting:
6 T unsalted butter at room temperature
1 16 oz. box confectioners' sugar
1/2 c heavy whipping cream
1/4 t salt
1/4 t orange extract

For the decoration:
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate
Some orange or clementine slice

1. Center an oven rack and preheat oven to 400 F. Prepare two 8 or 9 in. round cake pans with parchment paper and butter.
2. Put the eggs, still in their shells, in a bowl filled with hot tap water.
3. Bring 2 cups of water to boil on stove.
4. In the mean time, use a microwave-safe bowl to melt the unsweetened chocolate in the microwave.
5. In a mixing bow, dry whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt together. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then, while beating continuously, add the milk, oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest one at a time. Stop beating, scrape down sides of bowl, then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed.
6. In a heat-proof measuring cup, measure your orange juice and add enough of the boiling water to make 1 cup of liquid. Add the melted chocolate and stir together. Add this mixture to the batter. Stir the batter with wooden spoon till just blended.
7. Divide the batter between the two pans and bake 15-20 minutes until the cake layers test done.
8. Cool the cake layers in the pans for 5 minutes and then unmold onto a cake rack and cool to room temperature.
9. Now begin the frosting. Cream the butter in the mixer on medium speed, gradually adding half of the confectioners' sugar. Add the cream, the rest of the confectioners' sugar, the salt, and the orange extract.
Note: if you want to make the cake triple chocolate (making the frosting chocolate too), you can add a step here where you melt 2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate in the microwave and then incorporate it into the frosting.
10. Construct the cake, frosting in the usual manner (crown first, then the sides).
11. To decorate, melt 2 oz bittersweet chocolate in the microwave and then dip the orange slices into the chocolate. Set aside on wax paper to let cool.
12. Last, arrange the chocolate orange slices on top of the cake. Enjoy.

This Week in the News

2010-04-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

Don't miss Seattle Restaurant Week April 18-29! Get a 3-course meal at one of the many fantastic participating restaurants for $25. I'll be heading to Union on Wednesday for the first time (given my good experiences at How to Cook a Wolf and Tavolata, I'm pretty excited).

Also: overheard on Lynne Rosetto Kasper's The Splendid Table podcast were Jane and Michele Stern proclaiming Cupcake Royale to have the best cupcakes in Seattle. Here here! Jane cited the salty caramel cupcake as her favorite and I totally agree. Salt and caramel is a wonderful combination but too many desserts trying to utilize the combo go overboard on the salt and kill it (ahem...Molly Moon's I'm sorry but I'm talking to you here).

Enjoy yourself this week and take advantage of the beautiful weather of late by planning a picnic with your friends or locating that perfect neighborhood bar with an outdoor patio to enjoy a cocktail on.

What to Eat in April

2010-04-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

The end of March until mid-April are a funny in-between for seasonal eating. Gone are the days when hearty stews and roasted root vegetables sound like an ideal antidote to winter chills but the farmer's market still doesn't offer much in the way of spring produce. I'm anxiously awaiting the first round of asparagus but at least rhubarb is starting to appear. I adore sour flavors in general and rhubarb is dead simple to make into all sorts of delicious desserts. So when I was planning the menu for a recent dinner party, I took my friend Abby's cucumber soup as the starter and my rhubarb crumble as the finish and pondered what to do for the main course. My inspiration came as I flipped through my cookbooks and spotted a lamb recipe from Jamie Oliver. Lamb seems like an appropriate spring food and the photo made the recipe look really tasty so I decided to give it a shot and serve the dish with Persian-style rice. The rice recipe comes from one of my coolest cookbooks: Seductions of Rice by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. The couple has produced a number of absolutely gorgeous, detailed cookbooks from regions of the world that are often underrepresented in the American food scene. This particular book features rice and dishes that are meant to accompany rice from all over the world. It's the kind of cookbook that you can curl up in bed and read like a novel because it's packed with detailed information not only about food but the world of people that prepare and consume food. Their books are a sort of never leave home round-the-world plane ticket for the culinarily and culturally curious. Altogether, this set of recipes made for a wonderful springtime dinner party. Just don't forget a bottle or two of good red wine.

Cream of Cucumber Soup
"Sophisticated, delicately flavored...to help make your reputation as a hostess."
from Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook (1st Ed.)

Makes 8 first course servings

1. Pare 3 large cucumbers, cut in lengthwise strips, and scrape out seeds. Dice the cucumbers. 2. Saute cucumber gently for 10 minutes with 1/2 diced small onion, 4 T butter. Add 3 1/2 cups chicken stock. Cover and simmer 25 minutes.
3. Rub mixture through sieve (Abby just puree it in a the blender, and then refrigerated overnight for the next day's dinner party). Add 1 cup cream. Beat together and bring to boil.
4. Just before serving, blend in slowly 2 egg yolks and 1/4 cup cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with thinly sliced radishes, fresh dill, or basil.

Roast Leg of Lamb with Eggplant and Onions
from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie

Serves 6

Ingredients:
4 1/2 lb. leg of lamb (preferably free range and/or organic)
EVOO
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-3 Italian eggplants
2 red onions peeled and cut into six rough wedges
1 T dried oregano
A bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
A large bunch of parsley leaves picked, stalks chopped
28 oz. of good-quality canned tomatoes
Red wine vinegar
1-3 dried red chillies, crumbled

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F. Rub your leg of lamb all over with EVOO, sea salt, and pepper and place in a roasting pan. Roast for 30 minutes.
2. While it's cooking, cut the eggplants into roughly 2 in. pieces and cut the onions into wedges. Toss the eggplants and onions together with a little EVOO, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and the dried oregano.
3. When the lamb comes out of the oven, pour away most of the fat and sprinkle the chopped rosemary on to the lamb. Scatter the eggplant and onion around the lamb and put it back in the oven for an hour.
4. Meanwhile make your tomato sauce. In a saucepan, fry the garlic and parsley stalks in EVOO for a minutes, then add the tomatoes, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a good swig of the red wine vinegar. Add the chillies and then simmer for 30 minutes.
5. Check the lamb and veg after 20 minutes. If they look dry, add a splash of water.
6. When the lamb is cooked, remove the pan from the oven and put it on a separate platter and cover with foil to keep warm. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.
7. Pour away any excess fat from the roasting pan and then smother your eggplants and onions with tomato sauce. If necessary, heat it back up to combine the ingredients (I skipped this step and it was just fine).
8. Garnish with some parsley leaves, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, and serve over the Persian-Style rice or with warm bread and a salad. Enjoy!

Persian-Style Rice (Chelo)
from Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Duguid's Seductions of Rice

Serves 6

Ingredients:
2 1/2 c basmati rice
1/4 c salt
Water
1/4 c vegetable oil or 4 T butter
2 T plain yogurt (whole milk or 2%)
1 large egg
1 t saffron threads (optional)

1. Wash the rice if necessary and then place in a large pot with 3 T salt and enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Let soak for 2-3 hours.
2. Drain. In the same pot, bring 4 QT of water to a boil. Add the remaining 1 T salt then put in the rice. Stir gently to prevent sticking and bring back to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes. Check for doneness. Will take about 4 minutes of boiling then drain in a sieve and rinse with cool water.
3. Place the pot back over high heat and add the butter and 1 T of water. In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt and egg and then add it to the melted butter in the pot. Add about a 1/2 c of the rice over the butter/yogurt/egg mixture to cover the bottom of the pot. This will form a lovely crust around the rice. Then add the remaining rice over the it and cover the pot. Let it steam on high for 2 minutes then lower to medium-low heat and let steam for 20-30 minutes.
4. If you use saffron, crumble it into a powder and dissolve it in 3 T warm water. After the rice is done, take a cup of the rice and add it to the saffron water. Then sprinkle the saffron rice back into the white rice to make it pretty.

Rhubarb Crumble
from Orangette

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup rolled oats
12-14 T canola oil
2 lbs rhubarb, cut into ¾-inch pieces
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Zest of an orange
1 t ground cinnamon

1. In a medium bowl, combine 2 cups flour, brown sugar, oats, and oil, mixing well with a spoon or your hands until the mixture holds together in clumps and all the flour is incorporated. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
3. In another bowl, combine the rhubarb with the granulated sugar, the remaining 1/2 cup flour, orange zest, and cinnamon. Transfer the rhubarb mixture to an ovenproof baking dish, and distribute the oat topping evenly over the rhubarb. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden and bubbly. Serve warm and enjoy.

Oh Canada!

2010-04-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to stay long on my first trip to our friendly neighbor nation to the North but I did manage to make time to check out a couple of restaurants. The first stop was planned: Ping's Cafe For all the press that Ping's has gotten, it's a small, unpretentious but very cool restaurant (check out the decor to the right). It's the kind of place I would make me regular hangout if I lived in Vancouver. Ping's, despite it's Chinese name, serves Japanese comfort food both small and big plates but mostly small so that you can share with your dining companions, which in my opinion is awfully fun. We ordered an appetizer of edamame, which sounds boring but it wasn't at all because it the edamame was flavored with lemon juice and shimichi red chili pepper. The gyoza was perfectly pan fried and not at all greasy, the agedashi tofu was subtly flavorful and with sublime contrast of textures, the calamari was perfectly fried and served with wasabi tzatziki...I could go on but I will finish by mentioning the poutine, which we had to try since it's a dish special to Canada. Ping's poutine is fries with tiny cubes of paneer and smothered in curry sauce and I recommend it. Overall Ping's gets an A+ from me - if you're in Vancouver, stop there.

I also loved Cafe Medina, a French-Moroccan restaurant in the hip Gastown neighborhood. I had brunch there and found the brunch wonderfully savory and full of options that were meatier and spicier than typical American brunch food. I had a tagine with merguez sausage, chickpeas, red peppers, tomatoes, and two poached eggs - totally delicious. My partner-in-brunch had the fricasse, which is two fried eggs over braised short ribs served with roasted potatoes, carmelized onions, arugula, and cheddar. Both were awesome. I only wish we'd had room to try their delicious looking Belgian waffles.

Fried Chicken but Healthier

2010-04-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

As far as life's little luxuries, fried chicken is a rare indulgence for me. Not because I don't believe in treats (oh do I) but because I rarely think of it although it is undeniably delicious. Rolling through the aisles of Trader Joe's on a Monday morning when it's quiet and I can actually browse, I'm prone to pick up a couple of interesting looking ingredients to play with that I'm not entirely sure how I'll use. Sometimes that's a disaster and the ingredients sit in the back of my cupboard but other times the news ingredients turn into regulars. This week it was panko bread crumbs. I scrolled through a host of recipes that include panko crumbs on the Food Network site and my eyes landed on Paula Deen's recipe for oven fried chicken. The recipe turned out wonderfully - I pounded the chicken to about 3/4 in. thick and baked it for about 22-25 minutes and the meat was tender, white, and juicy. Typically I grill my chicken, which can make the outside a bit tough so this recipe was a revelation. The chicken was served with haricots verts that were cooked quickly and then blanched, drizzled with a little sesame oil, and seasoned with salt. Yum.

Oven Fried Chicken
Recipe by Paula Deen

2 cups panko bread crumbs
1 cup grated Parmesan
4 T EVOO
2 T fresh minced thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 c Dijon mustard
2 T water
2 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts pounded to 1/4-1/2 in. thick (Paula Deen recommends 1/4 in. but I left mine at about 3/4 in. and it was perfectly cooked at that size)

1. Heat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with foil. Place a cooling rack over the sheet and spray the rack with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a bowl combine the panko crumbs, parmesan, salt, pepper, 2 T of EVOO, and the thyme. In another shallow bowl combine the mustard, water, salt, pepper, and 2 T of EVOO.
3. Coat each of the breasts with the mustard mixture and then dredge each breast through the dry crumb mixture. Place the breasts on the rack and bake for approximately 25 minutes.

SEA>NYC>VANCOVER

2010-04-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

There's so much to catch up on. I've been eating and drinking deliciousness in the Seattle area but got caught up in my finals work before I headed off to New York for my reunion with girlfriends and some serious eating and now I'm off to Vancouver for a conference on Asian studies this weekend. I'm going to try to get some new posts up soon but in the mean time, I'd like to say that I've seen the first two episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution it is fantastic. I really hope people watch this and decide to get involved. Jamie has also started a petition online to advocate for better food, particularly in the schools. It is a very simple statement:

I support Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. America's kids need better food at school and better health prospects. We need to keep cooking skills alive.

Jamie wants to take his petition to the White House after the TV series airs, to show President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (a big advocate of healthy eating) how many people across the country really care about this and ask for their support. If this sounds like something you'd support, please sign the petition here.

If you're interested in learning more, here's a concise and informative interview of Jamie done by Gwyneth Paltrow: http://goop.com/newsletter/77/en/

Healthy Chinese Style Food in a Flash

2010-03-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Before I leave the Emerald City for the Other Coast tomorrow morning to enjoy the company of old friends during my spring break, I leave you with these two brilliant recipes. The last couple of weeks has been filled with the panic of the end of a quarter (quarters are hell people - stick with semesters), which means that I don't really have time to cook but also means that I'm stressed out and if I don't cook something healthy and satisfying for myself, I'll just feel worse. So here are two recipes that are easy to prepare, delicious, and will leave you satisfied but ready to hit the books again after dinner. More to come soon....I've just finished a good book about coffee and will be posting on good coffee shops in Seattle as well as on my culinary tour of the Big Apple.

Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp
from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper

Serves 4
20 mins. prep, 5 min. stove time
Brine
1/2 c kosher or sea salt
1/3 c sugar
1/3 c medium-hot chile powder
2 quarts warm water
1 1/2 lb. large frozen shrimp (in or out of shells)

Saute
4 large garlic cloves
1 4 in. piece of freshly peeled ginger (use spoon to peel easily)
4 T canola oil
1/4-1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
4 t sugar

1. In a medium stainless steel or glass bowl, blend the salt, sugar, and chile powder in the warm water. Drop in the shrimp and let stand at room temperature for 20 min. while you set up the rest of the meal.
2. Drain the shrimp, peel off their shells if necessary, and pat shrimp dry.
3. Chop the garlic and ginger together into 1/8 in. pieces. Heat the oil in the straight-sided 12 in. saute pan (or similar) or medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic-ginger mixture, the pepper, and a sprinkle of salt. Cook for one minute, stirring with wooden spatula. Blend in the sugar and keep stirring until the garlic is pale gold. Do not let the pieces get dark brown.
4. Immediately drop in shrimp and stir for another 1-2 minutes or until the shrimp are turning pink and are barely firm. Turn shrimp into a serving bowl, taste for seasoning, adjust and necessary, and serve hot over brown rice with stir-fried broccoli or other veggie of choice.

The Best Stir Fried Broccoli
Inspired by the article in this month's issue of Cooks Illustrated

1. Cut your broccoli into small and even pieces. This is really important so that the broccoli can cook thoroughly and each piece cooks at a similar speed. Otherwise you'll end up with some pieces too crunchy and others overcooked.
2. Start off just with a little oil heated over medium heat. Broccoli can't really be "flash" stir-fried so unlike many stir fries, you don't want to crank the heat up all the way. Put in the broccoli and a sprinkle it with a teaspoon of sugar. This will help the broccoli caramelize. Set your timer for 8 minutes (test it at 8 minutes to see if it's mostly done - if not, add two minutes).
3. While the broccoli cooks, make a nice sauce for it. I used 2 t soy sauce, 1 t corn starch, 1 t sesame oil, hot chile pepper flakes, 3 cloves of garlic minced, and 1/4 c vegetable broth.
4. Pour the sauce over the broccoli and let it soak in for about a minute. Serve hot with the shrimp recipe above and enjoy.

Farmer's Tortellini in Wine Broth

2010-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before how much I love The Splendid Table podcast/radio show. One of the most recent episodes was a special on the cuisines of Mexico recorded on location by Lynne and her crew. The interviews were absolutely amazingly interesting and will inspire you to take a serious culinary adventure in Mexico to discover the many delicious cuisines that await you. You'd think that listening to someone walk through a market would be boring but with Lynne it's a pleasure. The only problem was my jealousy when she tasted the lovely flavored aguas frescas at the market (oh for a tamarindo agua fresca...). I also happened to spy The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper cookbook at my local library and picked it up to take home with me. It is one of the best cookbooks I've looked at lately and given my passion for cookbooks, I've been looking at a few. The cookbook is chock full of the kinds of background for home cooks with intermediate level skills that make cooking so fun and interesting as well as the genius tips that Lynne is always doling out on her radio show plus the book layout is easy to read and aesthetically pleasing (this last part being as important to me as some of the other criteria). Although the library usually saves me money, in this case it's making me spend it - I'm going to need this cookbook in my personal collection. Check it out for yourself at your local bookstore. The first recipe I made is the Farmer's Tortellini in Wine Broth, which was a delicious cheater's version of the luxurious Christmas meal of handamde, from-scratch tortellini en brodo that my mother has made. Yes you just buy frozen tortellini. Sacrilege? Maybe but really I prefer a 3:1 broth to tortellini ratio. For me it's all about the flavorful, hot, comforting broth and a little bit of pasta/cheese filler to round it out. Don't skip the red wine if you have a bottle in the house - it sounded like an odd idea to me but it tasted wonderful.

Farmer's Tortellini in Wine Broth

Bring to simmer 1 recipe Cheater's Broth (see below) and add 2 cups frozen tortellini and boil, covered, until the tortellini are tender. Ladle the soup into bowls. At the table pour 2-4 T red wine into each serving and sprinkle with generous spoonfuls of fresh-grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Cheater's Homemade Broth

Makes about 4 cups; doubles and triples easily
5 minutes prep, 30 minutes stove time
The both keeps for 4 days in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer

1/2 c dry white wine
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
2 whole cloves
1 canned tomato
1 bay leaf, broken
1/2 t dried basil
3 14 oz. cans chicken or vegetable broth
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 celery stalk with leaves, coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot, coarse chopped

1. In a 4 quart pot, combine all the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and cook for 30 minutes.
2. Strain the broth into a bowl or a storage container. Either use it right away, refrigerate it, or freeze it.

Feminism and Food Politics

2010-03-03T16:41:00.000-08:00

There's a ton going on in the world of food politics these days. I tend to stay away from those topics since I'm a political scientist and politics is what I do for work and cooking and eating is what I do for fun. But I think it's time to dip my toes into the proverbial water after listening to Jamie Oliver's incredibly passionate TED Prize speech. First of all, I have tons of respect and enthusiasm for Jamie and his project. His speech however prompted me to think about food politics and feminism. Although I could be wrong (and if I am, please link me to sources in the comments), I have heard next to nothing about the connection between food politics and feminism in the whole healthy eating/locavore/sustainable enviornmentally friendly spectrum of food politics. This concerns me.

Why is it that so many families eat fast food on a regular basis? Why is it that many families don't cook fresh food? The class issues have been discussed extensively - whether or not healthy food is, in fact, more expensive (conclusion: it doesn't have to be). But the issue of convenience and unhealthy eating hasn't really been connected to the idea of the second shift (see sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild's book on this for further explanation) and the uneven division of household labor in most families in the U.S. and worldwide (with obvious variation in different societies). It seems obvious that one of the primary causes of unhealthy convenience eating is the result of women's extensive participation in the labor force as well as the feminist movement's impact on the normative expectations women have for themselves and bring to their ideas about family. This is not to say either one of these are bad things - they certainly are not! I am incredibly grateful that in addition to my full time work, no one has ever demanded that I cook every night for them simply because of my gender. But in essence this has left us with no cooking knowledge and cooks at all in many families. I suspect that survey data would reveal that families who eat healthy do so because one member of the family, which would overwhelmingly be the mother, uses her leisure time to do the unpaid labor of food preparation in the home thus creating extra-work burdens for working women. The real solution here isn't to force women back into the kitchen but rather to ask why we can't work out more equitable solutions in the family to share the household work? What is the barrier here to men learning how to cook? What might incentivize men to take part in this essential aspect of maintaining good health? I would suggest that a level of consciousness has to be raised amongst both men and women to realize that cooking is, in fact, an essential activity that cannot be totally outsourced without a huge loss of well-being for the entire family.

Then we need to emphasize educational activities from a young age to change the gender norms associated with cooking (a.k.a. boys need to know how to cook too - it's not just what mothers do). I would suggest also that part of the reason that good folks like Jamie Oliver have found that it's challenging to raise money to support these kind of important educational activities in schools is that education is, in fact, a feminized portion of the labor force and historically been underfunded for a number of reasons but in part for that very reason. This extends to the support staff at schools involved in food preparation - Jamie's mention of the "lunch ladies" and saying that food needs to be made "by local girls on site" is a strong reminder that despite all the superstar male chefs on TV, the serious daily work of food preparation is still a feminine and, therefore, an underpaid and undervalued field of work.

Thoughts? Comments?

An incredibly passionate and important speech

2010-03-03T16:40:00.001-08:00

Dark Chocolate Red Velvet Cake

2010-02-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

This recipe comes from the book All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray. I just love this book - the photography, the layout, the progression of cakes in order of difficulty, the tips, and Melissa's pithy commentary. Melissa advises the reader to try the recipes in the order of the book because the skills needed to bake each cake build on the skills from the previous cake, which makes total sense but I just couldn't help myself and skipped directly to the end of the book because I had red velvet cake on the brain. Melissa quotes Angie Mosier as saying that red velvet is "the Dolly Parton of cakes: a little bit tacky, but you love her" and I couldn't agree more. Who doesn't like a pretty cake?? So I went ahead and tried this cake, which is the first layer cake I've ever attempted. God knows that Martha would not approve of my half-assed frosting job but in my defense, I was in a hurry to serve the cake and couldn't wait long enough for the cake to completely cool. As Melissa warns in the book, layer cakes like this are time consuming to make, typically taking between 4-6 hours counting the time it takes to make the batter, frost the cake, and construct the cake. But if you're celebrating a special occasion or just need to make something pretty for yourself, this delicious cake will not disappoint.

Dark Chocolate Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients for the Cake Batter:
2 sticks/1 c unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 c sugar
1 1/4 c light brown sugar
6 large eggs
2 t vanilla extract
3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 c Dutch process cocoa
1/2 t baking powder
1 c sour cream
1/2 oz. red food colouring

Ingredients for the Frosting:
1 stick (1/2 c) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 8 oz. pacakges of cream cheese at room temperature
2 16 oz. boxes of confectioners' sugar (about 3 3/4 c each)
1 t vanilla extract

1. Position a rack in lower third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Prepare the cake pans.
2. Cream the butter in a mixer on medium speed, then gradually add the sugars, beating well. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and beat until blended.
3. In a separate bowl, dry whisk the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and baking powder together.
4. Add 1 c of the floured cocoa mixture and 1/3 c of the sour cream alternately, beating well after each addition. Repeat until all the sour cream has been blended in and then start adding the wet ingredients (the butter/egg mixture) to the flour mixture slowly until it has all been blended together.
5. Add the food coloring and beat well. Use the spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir up the batter at the bottom (this ensures that your cake is a uniform colored rather than marbled). Beat again to mix well.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and place pans close to the center of the oven rack, but not touching. Bake for 45 minutes or until the cake layers test done.
7. Cool the layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then unmold onto cake racks to cool to room temperature. Don't cheat on this step! Let the cakes cool completely.
8. To make the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese together at medium speed. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and mix until just incorporated.
9. Assemble and frost the layers in the usual way, frosting the sides last, after the crown. To maximize frosting enjoyment, I sliced my cakes in half resulting in a four layer red velvet chocolate extravaganza.

Minty Freshness

2010-02-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

In the middle of winter, there's nothing better than food that makes you dream about spring. Mint is one of those fresh tasting ingredients that screams spring and summer. Putting mint your double chocolate chip cookies gives it that unexpected cool burst in your mouth - a taste that recalls girl scout cookies and mojitos by the pool (I don't think I've ever actually had mojitos by a pool but that's not the point...). Here's a recipe I just used to bake cookies to bring to a meeting. It's really simple and tastes delicious. Enjoy.

Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
Modified from the recipe in Buttercup Bakes at Home by Jennifer Appel

Ingredients:
2 c all purpose flour
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 t peppermint extract
2 c semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and both sugars on the medium speed of an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes (time this - it's longer than you think!). Add eggs one at a time, mixing well. Then add in the vanilla and peppermint extracts.
4. Add the dry ingredients in thirds and beat thoroughly after each addition. Then stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls (this will get you 5-6 dozen cookies - I prefer to use tablespoonfuls, which results in larger but fewer cookies) onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving 3-4 in. between for spreading.
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until slightly cracked on the surface. Cool the cookies on the sheet for at least a minute and then remove to a rack to cool completely.

The original recipe calls for a peppermint glaze instead of adding peppermint to the cookie batter. It sounds great but I was short on time and I think the way I made them was really tasty but if you're interested check out the cookbook - the recipe is on pg. 17.

Dining Alone

2010-02-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

As Valentine's Day has come and gone, it's got me thinking about love. Not just romantic love but self-love and for me, that means celebrating cooking and eating alone. I know that some people find eating alone depressing but I recommend re-framing your attitude and giving it another shot. Personally I relish the opportunity to focus on the sensual enjoyment of my food, to pick my dishes without regard to anyone else's palate, and to clean the dishes whenever I see fit. When I'm alone and hungry, I can eat at 2 pm or 10 pm and no one will be the wiser. I can eat my kimchi peanut butter sandwiches without looks of disbelief from my dining companions and roast whole heads of garlic to consume without worrying about my breath. Alone in the Kitchen with An Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler is one of the most enjoyable foodie books I've read in a while. The book is a collection of essays from both well-known authors, such as M.F.K. Fisher, Amanda Hesser, Marcella Hazan, Haruki Murakami, and Nora Ephron but also lesser known but equally charming essayists all on the topic of cooking and/or eating alone. One of my favorite essays is the one by M.F.K. Fisher who shares that learning to love her solitude was a process:

"It took me several years of such periods of being alone to learn how to care for myself, at least at table. I came to believe that since nobody else dared feed me as I wished to be fed, I must do it myself, and with as much aplomb as I could muster. Enough of hit-or-miss suppers of tinned soup and boxed biscuits and an occasional egg just because I had failed once more to rate an invitation!"

Some essayists admit that they hate eating alone because they find it lonely, some love it for the freedom and sense of independence, some see it as an opportunity to eat the weirder things that might gross out their friends. All of the essays with touch you - either making you laugh out loud or ache with a tinge of empathy for the solitary diner.

What is it that I cook when I cook alone? Anything I want! But some of the recurring meals include: cheesy polenta, scrambled eggs with toast and avocado, dumplings, scallion pancakes topped with a fried egg and chili sauce, cereal (especially late at night), cacio e pepe, chickpea salad, omelette with chevre, mixed greens salad with walnuts and dried cranberries, and vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.

What will you eat the next time you have the kitchen all to yourself?

Here Piggie Piggie...

2010-02-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to meat. I've been watching Season 3 of No Reservations on Netflix lately and Bourdain's unashamed dedication to feasting on animal flesh has inspired me to talk about a few things meat-related today. First up is The Swinery. When I headed over to West Seattle to check on Bakery Nouveau, I spotted The Swinery, which I had seen a blurb about on the Seattlest when it first opened last spring. Unable to pass by a foodie destination without a peek inside, I popped my head in to ogle the selection. The Swinery is the only sustainable butcher shop in the Seattle area, which means that they source their meat within a 300 mile radius of Seattle. They offer fantastic products like gorgeously Frenched pork chops, pate, bacon, and even foie gras (The picture to the left is from their website). Since I went into the store without a meal in mind, I just started chatting with the shopkeeper who was incredibly helpful and friendly. He recommended the Toulouse sausages to be served with roasted root vegetables and pumpernickel bread. The Toulouse sausage can be used in any recipe that calls for sweet Italian sausage and it will give your recipe a unique and subtle flavor. The Toulouse filling is flavored with garlic and white wine apparently but I don't really care what's in it because it was by far the best sausage I've ever had. Check this place out - they have great principles, a helpful and informative staff, and wonderful products. Unfortunately the shop will be closing temporarily for renovation starting February 22nd so please go check it out now and help them clean out their freezers.

The delicious meat from The Swinery inspired me to pick up Julie Powell's second book, Cleaving, which is about her apprenticeship at a butcher shop in upstate New York. Somewhat unfortunately, I found out once I had started the book that it was as much, if not more, about her troubled marriage than it was about meat and the art of butchery. I really enjoyed Julie & Julia, both the book and the movie, and was troubled by some of the mean-spirited commentary from foodies directed at Julie Powell around the time the movie came out. I have to say though that her second book isn't doing her any favors and certainly won't win her a popularity contest. The dirty details of her obsessive love affair coupled with what is obviously a deep sense of sadness and feeling lost makes the book a little painful to read. If you're particularly interested in butchery or happen to be in a really crappy relationship and want to feel better about your troubles, this book is for you. Here's hoping that Julie gets her mojo back on track and writes a third book with broader appeal.

Last but not least, I finally made it to Salumi to get a sandwich. Salumi is a tiny Italian deli near Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, which happens to be the venture of Mario Batali's father, Armandino Batali. Salumi is hands down the hardest place to eat in Seattle. The storefront is tiny, there is always a line and in Seattle that means you will almost certainly have to stand in the rain, plus it's only open 11 am - 4 pm Tuesday through Friday. Moreover, the store will close when it's run out of product, which means that it often closes before 4 pm. The family wants the business to stay small and I respect that but it makes it awfully hard for most Seattleites to eat there. I had strategized that the line might be shorter towards the end of the day so the first time I went I got there around 3:30 pm and they were closed because they were sold out. I tried again the next week showing up a bit earlier - closed again. Finally, I got there around noon where the line was apparently relatively short (according to regulars) but that meant standing in line for a half an hour nonetheless. Shockingly, the shop was ALREADY sold out of salami by 12:30 pm. Good thing I wasn't going to get salami anyway. I ordered a meatball sandwich for myself and a porchetta sandwich for my boyfriend so I could sample a little of both. First of all, the sandwiches are absolutely huge - they are two meal sandwiches for me. Second, they are indeed delicious. Best meatball sub I've ever had. Here's my advice: make the effort to try Salumi at least once. If you work downtown and can get a sandwich at lunch, even better. But I doubt I'll become a regular. It's just too hard.

Fruit for Thought

2010-02-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

After spotting Rustic Fruit Desserts at the Trail's End Bookstore in Winthrop, Washington, I knew I would have to acquire it. I didn't get it that day (although the cowboy-rustic atmosphere of Winthrop made rustic desserts sound twice as good) because I was in the middle of Jam Today but I did get it last month with a Christmas gift certificate. There is something uplifting about eating fruit desserts in the middle of winter even if those desserts are made with winter fruits like apples or pears. It helps me look forward to making desserts with my beloved wild strawberries, tart rhubarb, and juicy blackberries. I had little extra time on Monday evening and thought the most relaxing idea would be to make a cup of tea, put on The Splendid Table podcast, and break out my baking supplies. I thumbed through the Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook and picked out an apple crisp that included apple brandy because I happened to have a bottle of Applejack on hand (I bought some to make a Martha Stewart cocktail recipe that called for apple brandy mixed with apple cider). The recipe is below and the damage done to the finished product is pictured above.

This time of winter is also the time to make jams from citrus if you're into that. I imagine that the scent of a kitchen full of citrus is a great mood booster on a gray and dreary day. I've never canned or jammed anything but if you're interested, the Neighborhood Fruit website offers great ideas on all topics fruit-related including great recipes and instructions on fruit handling. Also: if you have an iPhone, check out their new iPhone app.

Apple Crisp with Brandy-Soaked Raisins
from Rustic Fruit Desserts by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson

Baking Time: 50 minutes
Serves 6-8

1/2 c raisins (the original recipe calls for currants but I had raisins on hand)
1/4 c apple brandy
1 T unsalted butter to grease the pan with

Crisp Topping:
3/4 c packed brown sugar
1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t fine sea salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 c unsalted butter, melted

Fruit Filling:
8 large apples peeled, cored, and sliced 1/2 in. thick (3 lbs. prepped)
The authors recommend Golden Delicious, Galas, or Jonagolds. I used Galas.
1/4 c granulated sugar
2 T all-purpose flour

1. Soak the raisins/currants in brand for between 2-24 hours.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Butter a 9-inch square baking pan.
3. To make the crisp topping, mix the brown sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Stir in the butter, then press the topping together with your hands to form small clumps. The authors suggest putting the topping in the freezer while you prep the filling but I found this made the topping much, much too hard so I would recommend just putting it in the fridge.
4. Toss the apples, sugar, flour together in a bowl to combine evenly and transfer to greased baking pan.
5. Scatter the currants/raisins and any residual brandy over the apples and then sprinkle the crisp topping evenly over the fruit.
6. Bake for 50 minutes or until the crisp is golden and the filling is bubbling. Cool for 20 minutes before serving with a drizzle of heavy cream.

Dumplings of All Kinds

2010-01-30T21:34:00.000-08:00

Dumplings are one of the great universal foods. I've been listening to back episodes of my beloved "Splendid Table" podcast and heard a recording of a mother teaching her son how to make Czech dumplings. It was touching and hungry-making. Luckily I made a trip to Uwajimaya last weekend, which I haven't previously mentioned on this blog, and stocked up on my favorite frozen pork & napa cabbage dumplings (I am not ashamed to admit I eat frozen dumplings. Yes I know they are not as good as fresh ones. Do you know how often I like to eat dumplings? Well then you know I wouldn't have time to make them from scratch each and every time).

Uwajimaya is a Japanese-run supermarket with several locations around Seattle including the original location downtown in the International District. It is a Seattle landmark in my opinion, should be a tourist destination, and quite possibly a national treasure. I have to admit that at first I resisted Uwajimaya, sniffing silently to myself that the grocery was more expensive than my normal Asian grocery store and didn't have some of the specialized Chinese products that I like to cook with. But this time I went for fun - to check out cheap cooking utensils at Daiso across the street (I now own a cherry-blossom onigiri (rice ball) mold for a mere $1.50!), knitting books I can't actually read because they're written in Japanese at Kinokuniya Bookstore, and chow down on some really satisfying dol sot bibimbap at Shilla in the Uwajimaya Village food court. Without the desperate need to find a source of Chinese ingredients, Uwajimaya became the paradisaical play land that it should have been all along for a foodie like me.

First of all, the place is huge. HUGE. It carries many Japanese specialty ingredients, sells pre-prepared Japanese food to-go, has a stunning fresh seafood and meat selection, and is basically overwhelming to the senses if you like Asian food even a little. Uwajimaya also carries many ingredients used for cooking other Asian cuisines, including Korean, Chinese, and Southeast Asian. I stocked up on a number of things but some of my more exciting finds are pictured below. They include: white miso paste, unagi sauce, Japanese "Vermont" curry powder, ginger syrup, and ginger-flavored sugar packets to make tea with when you get a cold. Also pictured is a cooking brush I got from Daiso for $1.50.

Not pictured is the delicious unagi (eel) I ate and the mackerel that I plan to use my white miso paste on. Which brings me to the point: I've ignored Uwajimaya for far too long. Why my reconciliation with this bastion of vibrant Asian flavors? The answer, friends, is quite simple. Some one made me hungry. Again. This time it was Seattle food blogger and author Matthew Amster-Burton. I picked up his book Hungry Monkey on a whim and enjoyed it approximately 100 times more than I had expected. It was laugh out loud funny, full of good simple recipes, and actually made having and feeding a kid sound like a do-able and even fun proposition. I highly recommend this fun book to any foodie. In the book, Amster-Burton describes Uwajimaya with an aptly put GRE parallelism: "Uwajimaya is to ordinary Asian supermarkets as the giant Mekong catfish is to a pet goldfish." He goes on to explain that his young daughter decided that she would like mackerel so they bought some and decided to broil it. The recipe for the mackerel is below - buy the book and read the rest!

Broiled Teriyaki Mackerel

15 mins.
Feeds two adults
2 mackerel fillets (6-8 oz each)
1 T soy sauce
1 t mirin

Preheat the broiler. Stir the soy sauce and mirin together and brush onto both sides of the fillets. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and broil, skin side down, for five minutes. Carefully flip the fillets (use two spatulas) and broil on the other side for 3-5 minutes (until skin is charred and the fish is cooked through). Serve hot over rice.

I also had Italian dumplings last night at a restaurant in Wallingford that serves Northern Italian cuisine called Catinetta. It is a lovely restaurant in a quiet neighborhood with a warm and cozy feel, great service, and a solid menu. The meal started out with an antipasti of lovely cured meat sliced thinly and served with olives and rosemary-olive oil breadsticks (the crunchy kind not the soft mushy kind) and was followed by a contorni of spinach, chickpeas, and grated ricotta salata (I have to say that the contorni was the only underwhelming part of the meal simply because it felt like something I would normally make at home). I ordered the Italian dumplings made of too many meats mixed together to remember what they all were bathed in a sage and brown butter sauce with tiny bits of pancetta and sprinkled with crushed ameretti cookies. I was suspicious of how the ameretti would contribute to the dish but the cookies primarily lent a slightly crunchy texture to the sauce and were not overwhelmingly sweet at all. My date ordered gnocchi with duck confit and squash, which I tried and was also delicious. There was simply no room for dessert but the menu looked promising. I highly recommend the restaurant if you live in the area.

The Sweetest Spots in Seattle

2010-01-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

I am, at heart, a baker. I love the art of both eating and making desserts and as it turns out, Seattle is great at providing me with quality desserts. I find nothing more disappointing than the mealy doughnut, the stale croissant, the weakly flavored ice cream. Desserts are luxury items - to be consumed sparingly but with great pleasure. Therefore, I've put together a little guide to help you find some of the best sweets in Seattle.

First of all, the cupcake craze cannot be ignored. My favorite cupcakes thus far in Seattle are from Cupcake Royale. When I first moved to Seattle, I felt that their cupcakes were too dry and I was not impressed but they have since changed their recipe to make their cake "moist-ier" and now I think they're the best cupcakes in town (especially the Red Velvet cupcakes). I also like Yellow Leaf Cupcakes downtown although I don't make it there very often. I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of Trophy Cupcakes even though their interior decor is really cute.

Hands down my favorite ice cream is Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream. The first few times I went there I didn't order well - I found the salted caramel overly salty and the balsamic strawberry weird but since then I've found that I adore most of their other flavors. The Theo's chocolate is a classic done right and in the summer their berry ice creams made with the real deal are delicious. My favorite flavor ever was the candy cane flavor they did for the Christmas season.

As far as true French patisseries go, Seattleites should thank their lucky stars they have so many good options. Cafe Besalu, Honore Artisan Bakery, and Bakery Nouveau are all top-notch stores. In my opinion, Besalu makes the best croissants. Honore and Nouveau both offer macarons but I like Honore's better (they are pictured in the photo at the top of this post). Nouveau offers bread and sandwiches in addition to pastries, which makes it convenient but Besalu is also right next door to Tall Grass Bakery (my favorite bread store in town). In terms of the products, all three are amazing but I find that I like Besalu best in terms of atmosphere. Bakery Nouveau is constantly packed and there isn't enough seating. Besalu is often quite busy but people tend to consume their snacks and coffee and move on when they finish. Please note that the Russian tea cake cookies at Besalu are amazing. You should eat some. I am still, however, on the hunt for my all time favorite pastry: the apricot danish. Nouveau offers a perfectly decent version but it doesn't have the apricot half bedded on a thin layer of cream so it's not the perfect apricot danish of my memories. I also have to say that I didn't really enjoy Bakery Nouveau's "specialty," the twice-baked chocolate croissant. It is a chocolate croissant that is baked, split in half, filled with almond paste, and re-baked with even more chocolate on top. I am the woman who once had a dinner that consisted in large part of pure pork fat soaked in anise (in Chengdu in case you were wondering) but I found the twice-baked croissant too rich - I only ate half and then ate the other half the next morning. On the other hand, I thought the regular chocolate croissant was just right.

If when you wake up in the morning you feel more like taking a road trip across America as opposed to strolling the streets of Paris, head to a location of Top Pot Doughnuts. I am a huge fun of the properly made doughnut and I think that the old-fashioned doughnuts in particular at Top Pot are fantastic (I recommend the chocolate old-fashioned). The coffee is good and each location has more than adequate seating so you can hang out and enjoy yourself. I also love that the stores are decorated with built in bookshelves that are filled with vintage books you can actually pull of the shelf and read. Doughnuts plus books? Yes please.

Last but not least is America's finest chocolate factory, which just happens to be local to Seattle: Theo Chocolate. I wrote this post previously about going on a tour of the factory and I again suggest you do the same. If you haven't gone to Fremont and taken the tour or just purchased some of their incredibly tasty chocolate, do so now.

Any great places I left out? Let me know in the comments!

The Hungry Panda Guide to Chicago

2010-01-11T23:40:00.001-08:00

Unlike New York, D.C., and Seattle, I've never actually lived in Chicago so I hadn't planned on writing an official Hungry Panda Guide to the city. However, Chicago is the closest urban area to my hometown and, thus, I have visited it frequently and slowly come to love it. Despite the blindingly harsh winter weather, it remains one of my favorite cities, at least during the summer months. Without further ado, here are some of my recommendations.

First, you should go to the Seminary Co-op Bookstore located in the theological seminary at the University of Chicago because it is hands down the best bookstore for finding academic texts in the U.S. Down in the basement of the seminary, the store feels like a secret hideout for serious bibliophiles and nerds like myself that just can't get enough books. I like to stalk the staff recommendations and check out what the reading lists are for UChicago classes. Don't miss their sister bookstore nearby, 57th Street Books, which carries a more mainstream but nevertheless just as interesting a selection. If you have time to spare, stop by the Smart Museum of Art and the Oriental Institute Museum both on campus. Also stop by the Robie House to see some of the genius architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. If you have time, head to Oak Park to tour Wright's long time home and studio and take a walking tour of the Oak Park neighborhood where a number of his creations, including the stunning Unity Temple, are located. If after your exciting time in the intellectual vortex of UChicago you're in need of a coffee to sit and brood with, head to Cafe Medici on 57th St. for the ambience (not the food).

Next head downtown to the Magnificent Mile. Shop, stroll, and then head to some of the great museums. The Natural History Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Shedd Aquarium are all fantastic places I've been to numerous times. However, if I had to pick I'd say head to the Natural History Museum. Be sure to also check out the Museum of Contemporary Art as well as the Chicago Art Institute. You can spend the better part of a day hanging out and soaking in the beauty at the art institute and you're likely to get hungry. Be sure to make a reservation for lunch at the restaurant Terzo Piano, located in the brand new modern wing of the institute overlooking Millenium Park. I had a great lunch at Terzo Piano that included a delicious butternut squash ravioli topped with a sage sausage and carmelized cipollini onion for the main and an inventive apple and cheddar crostata accompanied by an apple cider reduction and sage ice cream (dessert pictured below).

If the weather is mild and you've had your fill of museums, either take a walk along the lake front or head to the gorgeous Chicago Botanic Gardens in the suburb of Glencoe. The gardens are home to one of the best Japanese gardens in the U.S. and has a stunning rose garden during the summer months. If the weather is terrible (in other words, any time between November and April), but you're feeling brave and it's between Thanksgiving and Christmas, don't miss the outdoor Christkindlmarket where vendors from Germany set up their stalls and offer tasty treats like bratwurst, potato pancakes, schnitzl, stollen, strudels, mulled wine, and (of course) beer.

The shining culinary star of Chicago cannot be left out: go to a Rick Bayless restaurant. I don't care which one. They're all good. I've had excellent meals at Frontera Grill but this time I stopped by his new cafe called Xoco. It's a great place to get a breakfast torta, churros, and chocolate to kick off a morning of sightseeing. Personally I found the almendrado chocolate sickeningly sweet so I'd recommend the Barcelona or the Aztec instead (the Barcelona is made with milk and the Aztec is made with water, which is the traditional Mexican way so they had very different consistencies but both are good). The churros are crispy but that can be solved by dunking them in the chocolate. I highly recommend any of the tortas that involve spicy chorizo and/or fried eggs. Yum.

Be sure to check out Devon Street if you're in the market for Bollywood DVDs, cheap crates of mangoes, eyebrow threading, or just an excellent lunch. Devon Street is home to Chicago's large South Asian community. Lucky for me, my favorite Indian restaurant in Maryland has a sister restaurant in Chicago by the same name: Udupi Palace. Udupi Palace is a vegetarian establishment but if you prefer meat dishes, you can go across the street to Tiffin but I don't recommend it. The vegetarian dishes at Udupi speak for themselves - no meat necessary.

As I headed home to Iowa for Christmas this year I first stopped in the Windy City and one of the new restaurants I tried was Cafe des Architectes located at the Sofitel Chicago. I went with my parents on a Sunday evening when the restaurant offers a $30 price fixe menu. First of all, the interior design of the restaurant was beautiful and the service was impeccable, if slightly over eager. Each dish was thoughtfully and creatively plated. The servingware was playful and interesting minus the fact that I felt the utensils were unusually and somewhat awkwardly large. The dinner began with an amuse bouche of chesnut soup served in espresso cups, which was extraordinarily rich and dense in flavor. I particularly liked the vintage glass canning jar that the raw salmon and fingerling potato salad appetizer my mom ordered was served in. Plus it was the most delicious appetizer any of us tried. I had the butternut squash soup served with strip of toasted brioche and butter with bits of black truffle. If I had known the amouse bouche was such a rich soup I wouldn't have ordered the squash soup to follow it but the soup was excellent nonetheless. My main dish is pictured above - it was a piece of escolar served with a basil puree, white beans, shaved fennel, and micro greens. Frankly I felt that the piece of escolar was too large a portion but otherwise it was very good. Desserts included a cherry clafoutis with toasted almond slivers and a canelle of almond cream as well as a chocolate hazlenut pastry served with a mocha sauce that is pictured to the left. All in all it was an excellent dining experience and I highly recommend it.

Best of 2009

2010-01-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

Ok folks I'm a little late with my end of the year list but I've never met a list I didn't like so I'm posting it anyways. Better late than never. Please post your own 2009 favorites in the comments!

Best Food Writing:

Jam Today by Tod Davies
A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Best Savory Cookbook:

A Platter of Figs by David Tanis
Runners Up: Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros and The Scandinavian Cookboo k by Trina Hahnemann

Best Sweet Cookbook:

Tartine by Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson
Runners Up: Rustic Fruit Desserts by Julie Richardson and Cory Schreiber and All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray

Best Food Blog:

Tea and Cookies
Runners Up: Orangette, Mixed Greens, The Wednesday Chef

Best Idea for a Food Business:

Neighborhood Fruit

Best Bakery in Seattle:

Cafe Besalu ties with Bakery Nouveau

Best Restaurant in Seattle (Inexpensive):

Top Gun Seafood Restaurant (Authentic Hong Kong style dim sum)
Runner Up: La Carta de Oaxaca and Homegrown Sustainable Sandwich Shop and Macrina Bakery and Cafe

Best Restaurant in Seattle (Expensive):

How to Cook a Wolf

Best Recipe Found This Year:

Butternut Squash and Kale Bread Pudding (Savory)
Soft Gingerbread Cookies (Sweet)

The Best Food Writing 2009

2009-12-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

This was a year of reading for me and although most of it was academic, my guilty pleasure reading was dominated by some very fine food writing so I thought I would share a year end list of the food related books I've read this year (excluding cookbooks). In rough order of how much I liked the books, I've listed them below with links to the ones I've reviewed previously and short reviews of the ones that I haven't covered before. Note: many of these books were published before 2009 - these are just the books that I read during 2009. Looking forward to more good reads in 2010 so please leave your recommendations in the comments below. Enjoy!

1. (Tie) Jam Today by Tod Davies and A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

3. Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
I enjoyed this book tremendously. I wish that I had read it before Garlic and Sapphires, which I didn't enjoy as much. I'm looking forward to reading Comfort Me with Apples once I'm back in Seattle.

4. My Life in France by Julia Child
This is Julia's autobiography. Although I really don't have to say anything else, I will. It is wonderfully enjoyable and so inspirational to anyone who has or wants to take up a new career or passion midlife. The joie-de-vivre that Julia represents comes through in all the pages.

5. Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch
A brilliant and quick read by a fellow Barnard alumna who decides to become a waitress at Thomas Keller's exclusive restaurant Per Se in New York. She's witty and observant and moreover the point of view of the staff that keeps restaurants going is woefully underrepresented in food writing. Warning: the book may cause you to re-consider your day job and start trolling the Help Wanted ads under the restaurant section. Best of all, the book is a bargain on Amazon.com where it currently only costs $5.58.

6. Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

7. The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten
I read Steingarten's hilarious essays while I was studying in Chengdu over the summer and then passed on the book to my roommate. He made both of us laugh out loud. The essay about procuring horse fat to fry french fries was perhaps my favorite. Just read this one - you won't regret it.

8. Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuschia Dunlop
A wonderful book by a young British woman who went to culinary school in Chengdu, Sichuan, China (aka my summer home!). Dunlop shows her love for China and Chinese food without shying away from the challenging issues that surround living and working in the PRC (for example, issues of food safety and the consumption of endangered animals). I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Chinese food but even more highly recommend her cookbooks (one on Sichuanese and one on Hunanese food). I really liked the book but wished it had focused exclusively on her time in Sichuan instead of hopping all around China but I think that method gives a better general introduction for the newcomer to authentic Chinese cuisine.

9. Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life by Mimi Sheraton
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

10. Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Love by Kim Sunee
This book was another pleasingly fast and juicy read in the realm of food writing. The focus of the book is Kim's life and her introspection and search for self, which happens to be intertwined with some very delicious sounding French food. Like Reichl's Tender at the Bone, Sunee's book lays bare her search for self, her struggles with romance, and her way of making sense of the world through food.

11. The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone
If you ever get the urge to make ravioli, read this book! Schenone tangles with her family history, her desire to learn something special, ancient, and new all at once, and the hands on process of actually making ravioli from scratch in her enjoyable book. This book will strike a chord with anyone who has hit a point in their life when they start searching for roots and wanting to patch and re-create family relationships.

12. Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes
In the tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany is travel writing at its best. Reading Mayes is like taking an unexpected Mediterranean vacation in the middle of winter. Again, this isn't strictly food writing but she clearly loves to cook, eat, and entertain so I've included it anyway.

13. The Sweet Life in Paris by David Leibovtiz
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

14. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl
Previously reviewed. Please click the title to see the review.

15. A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler by Frances Mayes
I wasn't sure whether or not to include this book because the focus isn't food but Mayes so lovingly takes in all the details of her travel destinations that she would never leave the local food out. I would especially recommend this book to anyone who plans on traveling in Europe in the next year. The book is divded up into essays about the different countries she visits and can be savored slowly as curiousity about one place or another grips you to read something about that country. I especially enjoyed the chapter on Portugal.

The Best Gingerbread You've Ever Had

2009-12-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

The recipe in this post comes from Tartine, a completely gorgeous cookbook I picked up at Barnes and Noble while my mother was visiting at Thanksgiving. The book is written by a husband and wife team of Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson who co-own the Tartine cafe and bakery in San Francisco. The photographs in the book were done by France Ruffenach who has worked for a number of wonderful publications, including Martha Stewart Living, Bon Appetit, and Travel & Leisure. The collaboration turned out beautifully and the book won a well-deserved James Beard Foundation Book Award. There's nothing like gingerbread to make your home feel like Christmas and this is the best recipe I've ever used or tasted because it's so soft and spicy. Don't skip the black pepper - it's the secret key making the other spices really pop. If you want to make your cookies extra pretty use a nice mold. I found a lovely shortbread pan with snowflake decorations at the Cookies store in Ballard but there are others available like these beautiful ones from Sur La Table. Although the glaze is optional, as my friend Hyo said it looks like snow and makes the cookies look extra pretty so I recommend using it.

Soft Glazed Gingerbread

Yield 12-20 cookies depending on size of cutters or mold

Ingredients for the Dough

All-purpose flour 3 3/4 c
Cocoa powder 1 T
Ground ginger 4 t
Ground cloves 1 1/2 t
Ground cinnamon 2 t
Baking soda 1/2 t
Salt 1 t
Black pepper freshly ground 1 1/4 t
Unsalted butter at room temperature 1 c
Granulated sugar 3/4 c + 2 T
Large egg 1
Blackstrap or other dark molasses 1/2 c
Light corn syrup 2 T

Ingredients for the Glaze

Confectioners' sugar 1 c
Water 2 T

1. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer, beat the butter until creamy and then start adding the granulated sugar on medium speed until the mix is smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the egg and mix well.

3. Add the molasses and corn syrup and beat until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and beat on low until a dough forms that pulls away from the sides of the bowl and all the ingredients are mixed. Remove the dough from the bowl and flatten in on a large piece of plastic wrap into a rectangle about 1 in. thick. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Unwrap the dough and plce on a floured work surface.

5. If using a plaque with a design, roll out the dough 1/3 in. thick, lightly dust the top with flour, press the cookie molds over the dough, and then cut out the shapes with a small knife and place on baking sheet. Or you can use a patterned rolling pin. If you do that, lightly dust the baking sheet and place the dough onto the sheet. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour and roll into a rectangle about 1/3 in. thick with a plain pin. Then using the patterned pin, roll over the dough with enough pressure to create the design. Trim the side with a small knife.

6. Bake the cookies until lightly golden 7-15 minutes.

7. While the cookies are baking, prepare the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners' sugar and water until smooth.

8. When the cookies are ready, remove from the oven and let cool on the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then, while the cookies are still warm, use a small pastry brush to brush a light coat of glaze on top of each cookie. Let the cookies cool completely. The cookies can keep for up to 2 weeks if stored in an airtight container.

A Baker's Christmas

2009-12-02T23:20:00.001-08:00

Now that Christmas immediately follows Thanksgiving in the consumer season, the winter holidays are in full swing. I've always loved Christmas but I've never done the Christmas cookie packages by myself. I've been so busy this quarter with the mostly solitary work of reading and writing to get through my academic program that I wanted to do something to re-connect with people and let them know that I'm thinking about them even if I don't always have as much time to spend with them as I'd like. Although I picked up some cute Christmas-themed cookie cutters at Target, I decided to go with a simpler theme - chocolate. Because who doesn't want to be gifted chocolate? (Right Mom??) So I whipped out the gorgeous Tartine cookbook and settled on the following recipe. I doubled the recipe with delicious results in order to get all my cookie baking done in one night. Even if you're not doing cookie packages this year, I recommend gifting these to yourself.

Deluxe Double-Chocolate Cookies

Yield: About 36 cookies

Ingredients:

High quality bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped 8 oz.
All-purpose flour 1 c + 1 T
Cocoa powder 1/2 c + 2 T
Baking powder 2 t
Unsalted butter at room temperature 1/2 c
Sugar 1 c + 2 T
Large eggs 2
Salt 1/4 t
Vanilla extract 1 t
Whole milk 1/3 c

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter a baking sheet or better yet line with parchment paper.

2. Pour water to about 2 in. high in a saucepan, place over medium heat, and bring to a simmer. Put the chocolate into a stainless-steel bowl that will rest securely in the rim of the pan and place it over, not touching, the water. Make sure that the bowl is completely dry before you add chocolate and that no moisture gets into the chocolate. Moisture will cause the chocolate to seize, or develop lumps. Heat, stirring occasionally, just until the chocolate melts and is smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool.

3. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.

4. Using another bowl (a large one), beat the butter with a mixer until creamy. Slowly add the sugar and mix until it is completely smooth and soft. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

5. Beat in the salt and vanilla, and then add the melted chocolate and beat until incorporated. Add the milk and beat until combined. Finally, add the flour on low speed until incorporated.

6. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1 in. apart. Bake the cookies till just barely firm but still very soft, about 7 minutes (they will firm as they cool). Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool. Enjoy!

A Northwest Harvest

2009-11-26T22:16:00.000-08:00

I was lucky this Thanksgiving to host my parents here in Seattle. To celebrate the bounty of the Pacific Northwest, we decided to forgo the traditional turkey for a lovely, fresh wild Coho salmon. We slowly baked and steamed the salmon over alder chips in the oven and served it with a spicy honey mustard sauce. For side dishes, we used Mixed Greens' wonderful recipe to make brussels sprouts with a warm balsamic vinegar dressing. We also made delicious jalapeno cornbread sticks as well as Tea and Cookies' recipe for Cranberry Tangerine Conserve, which we served in tiny dessert glasses (seen on the top right hand side - looks like a little shot glass of red jelly). The coup de grace was the tarte tatin for dessert made from local Washington apples according to Martha Stewart's recipe from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. All in all, it was a wonderful meal shared with my favorite people. Hope you all had an equally wonderful holiday.

Wild Rice and Chanterelle Salad with Dried Fruit, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts
Recipe by Cory Schreiber with Revisions by Me

Cook Time: Approx. 1 hour
Serves 4

Ingredients

3 1/2 c water
2 cups brown rice mixed with wild rice
1 t salt
1 bay leaf
12 sprigs fresh thyme
4 t canola oil
2 lbs. chanterelle or portobello mushrooms, wiped clean and chopped
1 c mixed dried fruits (cherries, cranberries, raisins, figs, apricots, lemons, etc.)
1 c chopped walnuts
8 oz. fresh chevre (optional)

Ingredients for the Dressing

1/2 c EVOO
6 T balsamic vinegar
4 large shallots, thinly sliced
1 t black pepper
2 t fresh thyme leaves

Directions

1. Put the water and rice, bay leaf, fresh thyme, and salt in a rice maker or large pot. Simmer for about 40 minutes or until tender. Drain the tender if there is any excess water and remove the bay and thyme sprigs. Let cool.

2. In a large skillet, heat the canola oil over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 6 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from heat, drain well, and set aside.

3. To make the dressing, in a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, shallots, thyme, pepper, and season with salt. Add the dried fruits.

4. Combine the rice, mushrooms, walnuts, fruit and toss with dressing. Serving options include serving the salad on top of greens and sprinkle with goat cheese.

The Tarte Tatin

Thanksgiving Come Early

2009-11-14T20:34:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a special holiday for foodies; drooling over Thanksgiving menu suggestions in the November issues of cooking magazines, e-mailing around recipe ideas to seek approval from family members, coordinating to see who'll bring what, and then eventually getting together with your family and friends and making it happen in the kitchen. I enjoy it so much I decided to do it twice this year! Since my family voted against a traditional Thanksgiving menu, I decided to cook a pared down version of Thanksgiving dinner for two friends who came over earlier in the week. One of the guests is vegetarian, which made me think of the Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding recipe from Molly Wizenberg's Cooking Life article from the November issue of Bon Appetit. Although the recipe took quite a long time to put together (read: do not attempt to make this when you are hungry on a weeknight just after you've gotten home from work), the result was delicious. To complement the bread pudding and give the meal a more traditional Thanksgiving touch I made Pumpkin Pie with Brown Sugar-Walnut Topping for dessert. Instead of the regular pie crust, I used a graham cracker crust. I also recommend doubling the amount of topping that is recommended in the recipe because I found the amount specified didn't cover the entire pie.

Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding

Serves 6-8

2 lbs. peeled, seeded, butternut squash cut into 1 in. cubes (about 6 cups total)
3 T EVOO
1 1/2 t kosher salt
7 large eggs
2 1/4 c half and half
6 T dry white wine
1 1/2 t Dijon mustard
1 day old bagette torn into 1 in. pieces (about 10 cups total)
1 c chopped shallots
2 bunches kale (Molly recommends Tuscan kale but I just used regular kale)
8 oz. extra sharp cheddar cheese coarsely grated

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F
2. Toss the squash cubes with 1 T EVOO on rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt; bake until squash is tender. Turn with spatula occasionally to get an even roast. Takes about 20-25 minutes.
3. Whisk eggs in a large bowl. Add the half and half, wine, mustard, and 1 1/2 t salt. Whisk to blend. Add baguette pieces and fold gently into egg mixture. Let soak for 30 min. (Note: I didn't have time to let my bread soak for 3o minutes and it turned out just fine. Skip this step if you're in a hurry).
4. Meanwhile heat 2 T EVOO in a large pot over medium heat. Add shallots and saute until soft (about 5 minutes). Add kale; cover and cook for 2 min. Uncover and stir until kale is wilted but still bright green (about 5 minutes).
5. Reduce oven temperature to 350 F
6. Butter a 13x9x2 in. baking dish. Using slotted spoon, transfer half of bread from egg mixture to prepared baking dish, arranging to cover most of dish. Spoon half of kale over bread. Spoon half of squash over bread and kale; sprinkle with half of the cheese. Repeat with remaining kale, bread, and cheese to create another layer.
7. Pour remaining egg mixture over bread pudding. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
8. Remove foil; bake uncovered until custard is set (about 20 more minutes).
9. Broil pudding until cheese browns (about 2 minutes). Cool 5 minutes and then serve. Enjoy!

Neighborhood Fruit

2009-11-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

My friend Kaytea and her friend Oriana started a very cool food related business last year called Neighborhood Fruit. If you're in the Bay Area and you don't already know about it, you're seriously missing out and if you're anywhere else, you should jump on the bandwagon now and help spread the word. The Neighborhood Fruit girls have mapped 5,000 fruit trees on public land in San Francisco and show you on their website which trees are bearing fruit so you can enjoy fresh, free fruit....it doesn't get better than that! They also arrange a fruit exchange so if fruit trees on your private property are bearing extra fruit and you'd like to share or swap, you can arrange that via the Neighborhood Fruit website.

San Francisco was the starting point for the Neighborhood Fruit ladies but they're taking it nationwide so check out the map on their website to see if there are some fruit trees near you. They are trees mapped in L.A., Austin, Dallas-Ft. Worth, D.C., Philly, New York, and Albuquerque.

Even if there isn't currently any fruit near you at the moment, check out the Community Page where Kaytea offers awesome recipes, original and super cute art to use as labels for your canning or fruit boxes o, instructions on how to make cool fruit related stuff, and even gardening tips.

Japanese Comfort Curry

2009-11-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I was doing research in a cute, touristy town in the foothill of the Himalayas in Southwest China. Due to my research schedule, I ended up doing my fieldwork in that city during the chilly month of February. The old town had been turned into a tourist area where tiny cafes run by young Chinese hipsters offered respite from the stinging cold as well as both foreign and Chinese menus. While I typically stick to Chinese food in China, I decided to take a chance on the curry. The first time I ordered the curry I was puzzled - it certainly wasn't Indian style curry. So where did it come from? Turns out that the curry was Japanese style and I've been attached to it ever since.

It's a fantastic winter comfort food and it's basically impossible to mess it up. You can add whatever veggies you like (it's a great way to clean out your fridge). Just start some white rice about a half an hour before you start the curry so it's ready at the end. I've included a picture of the box of curry flavor that I buy so you can see the brand - it's a Japanese brand produced by S&B Foods called Golden Curry Sauce Mix (I use the Hot variety but Mild is also available). You can find this brand or a similar one at most Asian grocery stores.

The other revelation of the cute-Chinese-hipster cafes was hot ginger coke. I highly recommend this if you're getting sick or if you're just sick of the cold. Slice up a knob of fresh ginger, pour a can of coke into a small saucepan, stick the ginger in the coke and heat. The result is a spicy sweet drink that does wonders for your throat.

Japanese Comfort Curry

To make 6 servings use the following proportions but this recipe can easily be doubled to feed a crowd or cut in half to make a couple of servings for a single gal. Add whatever amount of veggies you'd like. Just cut them up so that pieces are roughly the same size in order to have them cook at a similar rate.

Ingredients:

4.2 oz of curry powder
20 oz. yellow onion
1-1.5 lbs. chicken (beef or pork is also fine)
Carrots (optional)
Potatoes (optional)
Mushrooms (optional)

Directions:

1. Cut meat into cubes and dice the onion. Stir fry the meat and onions in 2 T cooking oil in a large skillet until the onions are lightly browned (approximately 3 minutes).
2. Add the carrots, potatoes, mushrooms if you wish to.
3. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until all the ingredients are cooked but tender (approximately 15 minutes).
4. Remove from heat, break the curry powder blocks into pieces and add them to the skillet. Stir until completely melted. Simmer for 5 more minutes, stirring constantly to let the flavors meld.
5. Serve over rice and enjoy.

Book Review: Jam Today

2009-10-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Tod Davies' book "Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With What You've Got" is pure genius. It is the most enjoyable book, fiction or non-fiction, that I read over the summer (as you can tell, this post is long overdue since it is now verging on Thanksgiving but I wanted to do this gem justice). "Jam Today" is not a cookbook and yet is not not a cookbook. "Jam Today" is written like a stream-of-consciousness conversation with Davies' imaginary best friend or daughter who wants to recapture the pleasures of cooking. Davies does this by asking her readers to forget about kitchen dogma and just play with what is in the pantry. Not only does this let the at-home cook relax, it's a way of thinking about food that prevents waste and helps keep costs down. Davies style conveys all the joy of cooking and relishing everyday life. Her introduction is the loveliest home cook manifesto and so I'll share a portion of it here:

"I love food. Food is part of my everyday life- and I love my everyday life. I firmly believe that you have to be the change you want to see happen in the world. And when I look at the world around me, I think: we've forgotten how important everyday life is. Just sitting and thinking's good. Then acting after you've had a think. Going for a walk with the dog. Sitting with a glass of wine and a friend, or a love one, at the end of the day, talking over the events of the day, that's good too. Those are the best times I know."

You can just imagine Davies as the friendly Virgina Woolf of food writing. She makes you wish that you were hiding out in her Oregon cabin, peeking into the pantry to see what's for dinner and instead of thinking "AH OH MY GOD I'M STARVING AND THERE'S NOTHING TO EAT!" seeing all the delicious possibilities for improvisation.

I found "Jam Today" at a small bookstore in Seattle that specializes in books printed by small presses. These kind of bookstores are few and far between so if you'd like to buy "Jam Today," I encourage you to buy it from Pilot Books but you can also find it through more conventional sources like Amazon.

Elegant Simplicity

2009-10-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

I love goats because they're ridiculously cute, especially the tiny angora goats I saw at the Puyallap Fair. I also love goats because they produce goat cheese. Some nights I just pour honey on goat cheese and eat a little bit for dessert (which kinda makes me feel like Tina Fey with her night cheese but less sad). Lucky for me I have a local source for fresh goat cheese at the farmer's market. The good people at Port Madison Goat Farm and Dairy make fine cheeses and, therefore, I'm always looking for new ways to use it. This Mario Batali recipe is simple and fast - you can make the pesto in the time it takes to boil the water for the pasta. Make sure to set the goat cheese out on the counter while you work on the pesto so it will soften, which makes it easier to whisk into the pesto. The final result tastes unique, fancy, and would be great to serve for an impromptu dinner party.

Penne with Spicy Goat Cheese and Hazelnut Pesto
from Mario Batali's Simple Italian Food

Ingredients

2 c fresh basil leaves (lightly packed, washed and dried)
2 garlic cloves
1 t hot red pepper flakes
1/4 c hazelnuts
1/2 c EVOO
salt
8 oz penne
4 oz soft goat cheese

To make the Hazelnut Pesto:

Place the basil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and hazelnut in a food processor and pulse 3 times to start the chopping process. Turn the machine on and drizzle in the olive oil in a thin stream. Season with salt. Makes 1 cup.

To make the pasta:

Bring 6 quarts water to a boil and add 2 T salt. Cook the penne according to package instructions until tender but al dente and drain well. Transfer the pesto to a saute pan and whisk in the goat cheese until smooth. Toss the penne into the pesto mixture and stir together over very low heat for a minute until the pasta is thoroughly coated. Serve and enjoy.

An Autumn Table

2009-10-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Despite the onslaught of school work and hence the decline of my free time to make a happy mess in my kitchen, all of the beautiful fall spreads in the magazines this month have inspired me to create a few simple but delicious dishes with the bounty of fall produce availabe at the farmer's market. I've made pumpkin bread (Betty Crocker recipe, natch), baked apples, plum clafoutis, plum crumble, polenta with wild mushrooms, and a nifty apple cocktail copied out of the October Martha Stewart Living (1/2 c apple brandy + 1/2 c apple cider + 2 T vermouth). This recipe is my all-time favorite fall soup and the recipe was given to me by my mother who has been trying to make me love soups as much as she does. This one almost did it.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

2 large butternut squash (1.5-2 lbs each
1/3 c hazlenuts
6 T butter
2 yellow onions, chopped
8 fresh sage leaves
6 c vegetable broth
salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F
2. Prick the squash with a knife so it won't explode when you bake it. Put the squash on a baking sheet and roast until they feel soft to the touch and a knife can easily penetrate the skin (about 1 hour but depends on the size of your squash). Remove from oven and let cool.
3. While the squash cool, set the oven to 350 F. Spread the hazlenuts on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant (about 10 minutes). Chop and set aside.
4. Now that the squash are cool enough to handle, cut in half lengthwise and remove the seeds and fibers (discard these). Scoop out the pulp and set aside.
5. In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the onions and half of the sage and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are tender and translucent, 8-10 minutes. Add the stock and squash pulp and raise the heat to high. Bring the mixture to a boil. After it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes.
6. Puree the soup in a blender, food processor, or using an immersion blender. Returnthe soup to the saucepan after you have finished and gently reheat. Season with salt, pepper, and freshly ground nutmeg.
7. Serve while warm and garnish with the chopped hazelnuts and remaining sage. Enjoy.

Book Review: Eating My Words

2009-10-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

Although decidedly non-linear in its storytelling, Mimi Sheraton's memoir Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life is chock full of interesting anecdotes about her life from her childhood in Brooklyn to her coming-of-age in Manhattan in the 1940s through her stint as a food writer and restaurant critic for The New York Times. One of the most interesting parts of the book and an anecdote typical of the humor and insight in Sheraton's writing is about her gig consulting for the Four Seasons Restaurant owner Joe Baum. My favorite exchange between the two was during a soft opening dinner where Baum walks through the dining room and asks Mimi what she ordered. She replies, "Goat."
"You must be crazy eating goat," says Baum.
"Then why is it on the menu?"
"Because people are willing to pay more for steak in a place where they could have had goat."

I was delighted to find the better part of a chapter ("I Eat Hot!") recounting her travels in China including to Chengdu. Sheraton writes: "There was no country that I wanted to roam around in more than China...I had long considered the Chinese cuisine to be the world's most intricate, ingenious, varied, and dramatic - even though we cannot sample the full depth and breadth of it [in America]." She notes that one of her favorite dishes is mapo tofu and that her favorite version of the dish was served at the Jinjiang Hotel in Shanghai. She also reports that her favorite fresh market other than the Qingping market in Guangzhou was in Chengdu because of the traditional Chinese medicine ingredients for sale (including but not limited to dried snakes, turtle shells and mysteroius spices). The best part of Sheraton's writing about Chinese cuisine is her open-minded approach and enthusiasm. She recounts sending a postcard to a friend who said he had never had a good meal in China saying: "Who says there's no good food in China? Only today I had camel's lips, snake soup, and sea slugs. Wish you were here."

The only part of the memoir I found forgettable was the industry gossip - who fought with who at the Times, what critics from other papers had a vendetta against her, etc. I find it unfortunate that critics want to include this unprofessional and frankly not very gracious gossip in their books (the exception being Amanda Hesser's book Cooking for Mr. Latte, which keeps it classy) but I suppose that some readers enjoy the human drama.

Overall, I enjoyed Ms. Sheraton's memoir and would recommend curling up with it one of these chilly fall weekends with a hot toddy and a warm blanket. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better by reading some of her other works including "The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World."

Theo's Chocolate Factory Tour

2009-09-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

Theo's may be the coolest company in Seattle. Only 3 1/2 years old, Theo's has grown exponentially. Its successes are even more exciting when you consider the principled approach that Theo's has taken towards making chocolate. The company is committed to using organic ingredients and purchasing cacao (cocoa beans) through a Fair Trade organization. As Theo's employees like to say, their chocolate is truly guilt free and that, my friends, is something I can support. By eating tons and tons of their incredibly delicious chocolate. It's often difficult to commit to using organic and fair trade products when you feel like the quality of the product you're purchasing is either entirely out of your price range or is simply not a quality product. Theo, however, makes the best chocolate in America. I can tell you this with some confidence since I've eaten A LOT of chocolate.

If you have the pleasure of visiting Seattle, I highly recommend the Theo's Chocolate Factory Tour, which lasts a little over an hour and is given several times per day. It costs a meager $6 per person - call ahead to make reservations since tours fill up (Click here for more information). The tours are fun and informative. You get to sample tons of Theo's chocolates while you hear about the history of chocolate, where cacao is grown in the world, and Theo's unique organic, fair-trade, bean-to-bar business. You also get to go inside the factory to see all of the machines, like the antique German cocoa bean roaster, and sample cocoa nibs as well as go inside the confection making room, where you get to see Theo's chocolatiers at work making the truffles and caramels that are sold in the Theo's shop. Best part? You get to sample a truffle (I had raspberry). Theo's chocolate bars are sold at a variety of locations across the U.S. but their special confections (truffles and artisan caramels as well as several limited edition chocolate bars) are only available locally in Seattle or online at Theo's website. My personal favorites are the Bread & Chocolate dark chocolate bar, the Nib Brittle dark chocolate bar, the Ivory Coast dark chocolate bar, as well as the dark chocolate with orange bar and the dark chocolate with spicy chile bar. All of the artisanal caramels and truffles are exquisite and the sipping chocolate is the winter treat you should buy for yourself.

Also: if you are reading this, please remember to subscribe to my blog!

Book Review: The Sweet Life in Paris

2009-09-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

"The Sweet Life in Paris" is David Lebovtiz's memoir of life in the world's sweetest city: Paris. Lebovitz isn't just any American in Paris, he's an experienced pastry chef with over twenty years in the business, working at the famous Chez Panisse among other establishments, and he is also the author of several cookbooks, including the much acclaimed "Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments." "The Sweet Life in Paris" focuses on Lebovitz's culture shock when he moves to Paris and his observations about the pitfalls and endearing qualities of both French and American culture. Lebovitz mixes his anecdotes about life in Paris with recipes both sweet and savory. To be honest, I didn't find the anecdotes in the book paritcularly compelling although the recipes look promising. I would recommend checking this one out from the library or borrowing it from a friend unless you're moving to Paris yourself and curious about the details of Parisian life. However, I do enjoy his blog at www.davidlebovitz.com, which is very helpful if you're planning a trip to Paris and want to plan your vacation around food (doesn't everybody do that??). After spotting some lovely Italian prune plums at the market, I made a plum and raspberry clafoutis recipe from his book, which turned out fabulously. The raspberries are essential because they give a little bite to the lush, dark plums and the creaminess of the custard mixture.

Clafoutis aux Pruneaux-Framboises

4 T unsalted butter, melted
1 lb. firm ripe plums
1 c raspberries
3 large eggs
1/2 c flour
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 c plus 2 T sugar
1 1/3 c whole milk

1. Position the rack in the top third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a 2 quart shallow baking dish. Halve the plums, remove the pits, and place them cut side down over the bottom of the baking dish. If the plums are quite large, cut them into quarters. Scatter the raspberries over the plums.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until smooth. Whisk the butter and flour into the eggs until completely smooth, then add the vanilla. Whisk in 1/2 c of the sugar, then the milk.
4. Pour the custard mixture over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes, slide out the rack that the clafoutis is resting on (rather than lifting the clafoutis and breaking the tenuous crust that's starting to form on top) and sprinkle 2 T sugar over the top.
6. Continue baking the clafoutis for about 30 more minutes, until the custard feels slightly firm in the center and the top is a nice golden brown.

The Taste of Sunshine

2009-09-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

As summer comes to a close and the gray skies close in on Seattle, I'm holding onto summer by eating the taste of sunshine: tomatoes. I've tried a few new recipes this month that feature tomatoes and all of them were delicious so this post features three recipes. The first two recipes are from the September issue of Gourmet, which I thought was a particularly fantastic issue. Initially the A to Z concept seemed a little cheesy but it turned out to be lighthearted, a welcome change, and chock full of good recipes. I recommend trying to pick this issue up before it's off the stands and the October issue is out. Actually, I recommend subscribing to the magazine because it's always a visual treat and it's much cheaper to subscribe than to pick it up at a newsstand. The last recipe is from Everyday Mexican by Rick Bayless. This cookbook is superb and merits its own post, which will be forthcoming.

Dill Chicken Paillards with Tomato-Dill Relish
(Pictured above)

4 (6 oz.) skinless boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c chopped dill
3 T finely chopped shallot
1 T grainy mustard
1 T white wine vinegar
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

Prepare grill.
Pound chicken until 1/4 inch thin. To do this, put the chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap and whack with the flat side of a meat pounder or a rolling pin (This part is fun people!).
Whisk together the oil, dill, shallot, mustard, and vinegar in a bowl. Set aside 1/4 cup.
Sprinkle the chicken evenly with 1 t salt and 1/2 t pepper, then coat the chicken with the dill mixture.
Grill chicken turning once until just cooked (3 to 4 minutes since it's so thin after you beat the hell out of it).
Served topped with relish.

*My notes: Don't worry if you don't have a fancy outdoor grilling system - I used my little George Foreman grill and it turned out just fine. Also, the sauce is delish on good cherry tomatoes so if you've found good ones at the market, I recommend making extra of the tomato salad and serving it as the side instead of making it a relish.

Heirloom Tomato and Herb Pasta Salad

Serves 6-8

1/4 c EVOO
1/3 c creme fraiche
1 T white wine vinegar
1 t sugar (optional)
2 lb. mixed heirloom tomatoes
2 T finely chopped shallot
1 lb. fusilli
3/4 c chopped mixed herbs (basil, parsley, thyme, oregano, or tarragon)

Whisk together the oil, creme fraiche, vinegar, sugar, 1 t salt, 1/2 t pepper in a large bowl. Coarsely chop the tomatoes and otss with shallot and dressing. Marinate until ready to use (at least 10 minutes).
While tomatoes stand, cook fusilli in a pasta pot of well-salted boiling water until al dente. Drain in a colander and immediately add to tomato mixture, tossing to combine. Cool to warm or room temperature, tossing occasionally, then stir in herbs.

My notes: This recipe was ridiculously good as in I could not stop eating it. Plus it's quick and simple. Don't worry about running around looking for extra fresh herbs if they're not on hand - as long as you have at least one, I think the recipe will come out fine. The only herb I had on hand was basil and it was still delicious.

Seafood Salad Tacos with Tomato, Radish, and Habanero
from Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless

Serves 4

1 1/4 lb. medium shrimp (cooked and peeled if they have it at the store)
1/4 c fresh lime juice
1 small white onion, finely chopped
6 radishes, thinly sliced
1 fresh habanero or jalapeño chile, stemmed and finely chopped
2 large ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped into 1/4 in. pieces
1/2 c chopped cilantro
Salt to taste
Warm corn tortillas

Put shrimp in a medium bowl and add the lime juice, onion, radishes, chile, tomatoes, and cilantro. Stir, taste, season with salt (recommended: 1 t salt). Serve with warm tortillas for making soft tacos.

My notes: I ate this as a salad without the tortillas and it was so good I actually had it for breakfast the next day. Let me tell you, the hot breath of the jalapeño is all over your sweet little shrimp after it has soaked in overnight - delicious. This is also the simplest recipe of any I've made lately but still one of the most satisfying. If you're busy, this one's for you.

Review: Ka Won Restaurant

2009-09-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

I've always loved Korean food. While living in D.C., I had a regular Korean restaurant that I visited in Annandale, Virginia, and since I've moved to Seattle I've been looking for a place to fill my cravings for Korean short-ribs. Ka Won is a restaurant in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, which is home to a large Korean-American community. Ka Won offers both Korean barbeque, where you get to grill your meat at your table, as well as other traditional Korean dishes. I opted for barbeque although a number of the other customers had ordered non-BBQ dishes that looked very tasty. I ordered two types of beef - short ribs marinated in a special house sauce and another type of beef. The meat orders come with myriad tiny side dishes that I love as well as rice, a big green salad, and a complimentary spicy tofu soup. Everything was delicious. There is nothing more to say about this. If you want good Korean food, try this place out. The BBQ portions are somewhat pricey ($20-25) but totally worth it since it turns out to be a lot of food. BBQ is great any time but is really nice during the winter with a group of friends since the table grill warms up the restaurant and makes the dinner feel cozy.

Ka Won is located at 15004 Highway 99 in Lynnwood, WA 98087
It is open 9 am-9 pm Monday through Saturday. Noon to 9 pm on Sundays.

Autumn Harvest

2009-09-13T16:49:00.001-07:00

As the leaves start turning golden around the neighborhood, I have to accept the encroachment of autumn. Autumn is my favorite seasonal transition but taking classes over the summer this year makes me loathe to embrace the end of summer particularly from a culinary standpoint since I missed a number of my favorite summer treats (like wild strawberries) while I was in China. I decided to make a list of some of favorite fall things to cheer myself:

*seeing my classmates again
*mulled apple cider
*delicious tart Washington apples
*poached pears
*cashmere sweaters
*buying textbooks
*knee-high boots
*hot cocoa
*brightly colored tights
*the approach of Thanksgiving a.k.a. my favorite holiday
*stovetop oatmeal with a spoonful of peanut butter mixed in
*stomping through leaf piles
*the smells of cinnamon, wood burning, and pinecones
*seeing the little ones all dressed up for Halloween

The best way to convince myself of autumnal glory is to dive in to the fruits of the fall season. What better way to welcome fall than an apple pie? I was lucky to find a recipe in my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook that didn't require a food processor (although turning whole almonds into a finely ground consistency by chopping was a little time consuming). The finished product was truly delicious and may become my go-to alternative to apple crisp. Apple crisp was always my favorite fall treat that my mom would make after we went to pick our own apples at Wilson's Orchard. The crisp will always hold a special place in my heart but the almonds in the crust give a great flavor and texture to this pie. Since I chopped the almonds by hand, they may have been coarser than Martha intended but I think that adds to finished product.

Apple Crumb Pie

Makes one 9 inch pie

Almond Crumb Crust (recipe below)
3.5 lbs baking apples
2 T lemon juice
1/3 c sugar
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t salt
2 T unsalted butter cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Evenly and firmly press about a half an inch of the crumbs (approx. 2.5 cups) into the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. Press firmly into the edges and freeze the shell until firm (about 15 minutes).

In a large bowl, toss together the apples, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Pour mixture into the chilled pie shell, mounding apples slightly in the center. Dot with butter. Sprinkle the remaining crumbs in clumps over the apples to cover completely.

Bake, rotating halfway through, until the crust turns golden and the juices begin to bubble, about one hour. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Almond Crumb Crust

1.5 c flour
1 c + 2 T almonds, finely ground
1/2 c + 2 T sugar
1/4 t salt
3/4 c unsalted butter cut into small pieces

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, almonds, sugar, and salt. Using a blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining (My note: you can do this by hand if, like me, you don't own a food processor). Using your fingers, squeeze the mixture together to create pea-size pieces. If not using right away, cover and chill until ready to proceed.

Review: Delancey

2009-09-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

The first place I went out to eat upon return to Seattle was Delancey. Only opened for a week and a half before I showed up, the brand new pizza place in Ballard is the creation of Molly Wizenberg, the author of A Homemade Life, and her husband, Brandon Pettit. As I've mentioned before on the blog, I adored Molly's book and then went back and read her entire blog from start to finish. She inspired me to start a blog of my own so I was naturally eager to check the place out. The restaurant occupies a lovely small space next to Honore Artisan Bakery in one of my favorite Seattle neighborhoods. I was pleasantly surprised to see the restaurant was packed when I arrived. My boyfriend and I happily waited around for a table just watching the bustle and flow and smelling the temptingly nearby pizza. J. ordered the Padron, which is currently pictured on Molly's blog here. It has Padron chiles, tomato sauce, fresh and aged mozzarella, and Grana Padano cheese. I ordered the special of the night, which had guanciale, chanterelle mushrooms, Walla Walla onions, and a farm egg. Both were delicious - it turned out we should have switched pizzas as he liked the special better and I preferred the Padron. The best part, however, was the crust. As a former New Yorker, when I order pizza in other cities I don't even anticipate that the crust will have that special New York taste but hello Brandon nailed it. I was so excited I almost spit out my first bite to explain to my dinner companion how truly rare it is to find such an exceptionally delicious pizza crust. We had the peaches chilled in white wine for dessert, a perfectly light and bright follow up to the pizza.

Overall, great food, great service, laid back atmosphere. Go check it out if you are in the Seattle area.

Twenty Four Hours in Shanghai

2009-09-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

This post is a little out of order but I can't skip my quick stop in China's most notorious city. I spent just shy of 24 hours in Shanghai between Chengdu and Seattle and had a lot of sites that I could and should have packed in but only one priority - a dream, really. The dream of the perfect, tiny juicy dumpling (小笼包）. After arriving in Shanghai, I took the Maglev train from the airport to the beginning of the subway line. The trip is speedy since the Maglev runs at between 220-268 mph and the subway is quite efficient as well. I made good time to my hotel, the infamous Astor House. Established in 1846, the Astor House was the first foreign operated hotel in China with celebrities such as Zhou Enlai, Bertrand Russell, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Edgar Snow, and even former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant staying there at one point or another during its history. The hotel was a meeting place for the movers and shakers of Shanghai during the roaring '20s and the turbulent '30s. It was said to be the preferred meeting place of foreign arms dealers. It is just next to Soochow Creek (Suzhou) across the Garden Bridge, which has been re-opened and offers a good view of the Shanghai skyline in the evening (that was where the photograph above was taken). The Russian, German, American, and Japanese consulates were historically located just across from the Astor House and after the Bolshevik revolution and the defeat of the Czarists, the Russian consulate would face frequent protests and an occasional storming attempt by Shanghai's sizeable community of displaced Whtie Russians.

But enough about history - I was starving for lunch by the time I checked in but wanted to make sure I had enough time to go to the Shanghai Museum before it closed. However, one cannot properly enjoy ancient artifacts on an empty stomach. Luckily, I spotted this tiny booth on a side street next to the museum making one of my favorite snacks that I hadn't seen in Chengdu at all (the sign indicates that the snack is Taiwanese, which may be why it hasn't been popularized in Sichuan yet). The snack is a scallion pancake heated up with an egg broken over it and mixed in and rolled up like a tasty Chinese breakfast burrito. They offer hot chili sauce, ketchup, as well as salt, pepper, and some other mysterious powdery tastiness as toppings.

With a little tasty something in my stomach, I could enjoy the museum, which by the way was PACKED with tourists. I had expected the museum to be enormous but in actuality, the museum wasn't that big and I rather enjoyed the Sichuan Museum better. While I was in the museum, a monsoon-like rainstorm overtook Shanghai but luckily I had an umbrella and an unbreakable dedication to finding my juicy dumplings. I had done my online research and concluded that I needed to visit the Xintiandi location of Din Tai Fung for the best juicy dumplings. Now, this is cheating a little bit because Din Tai Fung is actually a Taiwanese chain but juicy dumplings are a Shanghaiese specialty. For all you Americans who have been to the Din Tai Fung in L.A., hold your judgment: I've heard the L.A. location is sub-par but these dumplings were truly divine. Please check the Din Tai Fung website for their other locations, as they have a number in Taiwan, Japan, China, and a couple in Southeast Asia.

I relished my little table for one and sipped on oolong tea while I faced the giant glass-walled kitchen where the dumplings are steamed. The steamers are stacked practically to the ceiling and wall-to-wall, which perfumes the air with a sweet smell of juicy pork. I loved the murals of fellow juicy dumpling-loving celebrities on the wall:
Holler. Even celebs need their juicy dumplings. My dumplings arrived looking appropriately juicy and tempting. Not two minutes after I started to work on my little steamer, the power blew. Folks, this was A NEAR DISASTER. There were no more juicy dumplings for anyone for the rest of the afternoon. Disappointed patrons looked dumbfounded as the sweet waitresses had to come over and try to gently break the news that there were, in fact, no more dumplings. Can you imagine if I had dawdled minutes longer and been denied my precious juicy dumplings or forced to cab it to some other far-flung Din Tai Fung location??? Fortunately, the culinary gods were watching over me (perhaps that Kitchen God that I bowed to at the Sichuan Culinary Museum?). I polished off the rest of the dumplings in my steamer in the peaceful calm of the dark restaurant and headed out into the Shanghai drizzle, stomach fully happy and satisfied with life. With my mission accomplished, I could say "zaijian" to China until next year.

Note: If you have any interest at all in the history of Shanghai or of modern China or just want to read a really good book, check out Stella Dong's Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City. And please, if you are in Shanghai, eat some juicy dumplings for me.

Back in the U.S. of A.

2009-09-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've taken a couple weeks off of blogging but I haven't taken time off of eating or cooking so I have lots to report. Although I'm back in the Seattle area for the duration of the academic year, I'll still be writing about Sichuanese food since there were lots of things that I ate in Chengdu that I simply didn't have time to write about. This post, however, is dedicated to all the delicious late summer foods that I've been devouring since I got back to Seattle. Even Chinese food devotees such as myself make mental lists of things that they'll eat when they get back home. For me, this primarily involved me dreaming about my own kitchen and about the amazing and abundant Washington farmer's markets. I practically swooned at the diversity of summer fruits and veggies upon return to the UDistrict Farmer's Market. Here's what my grocery shopping turned into:

All of these are delicious and easy summer dishes - fresh whipped cream with strawberries, a heirloom tomato caprese salad, beet and fennel salad, and a slab peach pie. The stawberries and tomatoes are easy to compile but so is the beet and fennel salad so I'm including that recipe with this post. My advice is to make sure your fennel is fresh as the quality of the finished product depends on having crunchy and flavorful fennel to complement the beets. The recipe is from the most used cookbook I own: How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Whenever I'm not sure how to use a particular ingredient, I just look it up in the index and there are a handful of uncomplicated but sophisticated tasting recipes along with clear explanations on cooking techniques. This cookbook makes an excellent present for a college student who is learning to cook for themselves for the first time or any beginning cook.

Beet and Fennel Salad

Makes 4-6 servings

4 medium beets (about 1 pound)
1 fennel bulb
2 T EVOO
1 T lemon juice
1 T minced basil laves
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Wash the beets. Wrap them individually in foil and place them on a baking sheet.

2. Cook for 45-90 minutes (depends on the size of the beets) until a thin-bladed knife pierces the beet with little resistance. While the beets are cooking, trim the fennel and chop into 1 inch dice (note: I sliced my fennel to be like thin slices of red onion for salad and liked it that way as well).

3. Remove the beets and plunge into ice water until cool. Peel them (I use a spoon to peel the skin off) and dice.

4. Toss the beets and fennel and remaining ingredients together and serve immediately. Garnish with fresh herbs.

Into the West

2009-08-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the long wait between posts - I've had the good luck to be traveling in the Amdo Tibetan part of Sichuan province. Specifically, I went to Jiuzhaigou (Nine Villages Valley), a famous scenic area, and to Songpan. I stayed for a week in the countryside outside of Jiuzhaigou doing a homestay with a Tibetan family that a friend of mine introduced to me. Luckily, the head of the household, Ke Zhu, is a trained chef who spent time cooking both traditional Tibetan and Chinese cuisine in Lhasa and Beijing. I had the wonderful opportunity of watching him cook and teach me about making both Sichuanese and Tibetan dishes. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to try Tibetan food, one of the hallmarks of the cuisine is the use of yak meat, which can be a bit tougher than beef but has good flavor. Another classic part of the Tibetan diet is yak butter tea (see photo below). Yak butter tea is made from black tea, a pat of yak butter dissolved into the black tea, yak milk whey bits, barley, and some fresh honey all mixed together. The tea is very hydrating and serves as good nourishment for those living at a high altitude. Sometimes this tea can be salty and a tad offputting to foreigners but I actually really like this tea and especially the tea served at Ke Zhu's house because he uses the honey from the hives outside so it is always fresh and sweet. Obviously, yaks are central to Tibetan life and culture. Since it's summer, very few yaks were to be seen because they are all being grazed at the highest altitudes in the mountains. What's that you say? Tibetans are devout Buddhists so what are they doing consuming all this meat? The yak has been central to the Tibetan people's nutrition and health and hence their ability to survive in an often harsh climate. Given the lack of vegetables, particularly during the winter, at high altitudes it has been necessary for people to eat meat and even now that vegetables are more readily available, the prevalence of meat in the Tibetan cuisine is already entrenched.

One of the most fun parts of my homestay with Ke Zhu and his family was the night we made momos (མོག་མོག་) together. Momos are like Chinese dumplings but a bit different. Many of the momos sold in western Tibet, India, and the U.S. are also a bit different from the momos made in eastern Tibet. First of all, the skins are a bit more thick than Chinese dumplings, the filling is made from beef (whereas Chinese dumplings are most commonly filled with pork), and the momo is flavored with a special wild mountain herb with a minty flavor. First, we had to hunt for the mysterious wild herb. Ke Zhu led the way with me trailing behind him trying to look like I was seriously scouring the landscape when, in fact, I had absolutely no idea what the plant we were searching for looked like. We looked for a solid half an hour without much luck, finding only nettles, thistles, and brambles, and horse dung, which led to some major under-the-breath mutterings from Ke Zhu. We eventually returned to the house empty handed. Good thing Ke Zhu's mom looked for the herb too - she found plenty (of course) and rightly laughed at our fruitless expedition.

With the herbs in hand, we made the stuffing. Ke Zhu minced the pork like a pro using a cleaver with one hand so he could smoke with the other (a delicate balance). Then he chopped scallions, added the wild herbs and some water, salted it, and mushed it all up by hand and let it sit while the dough was being prepared. Ke Zhu says that the amount of the water added is the key. Too much water and there is no flavor, too little water and the dumpling will not be juicy enough. After the dough was made, Mom and Ke Zhu started rolling out the bits for dumpling skins and since there was only one rolling pin, an empty beer bottle was cleverly enlisted as the second rolling pin. Ke Zhu showed me how to properly form the dumpling: first, lay the dumpling skin flat in the palm of your left hand, put a spoonful of filling in the middle, then pull up the skin closest to you with you right thumb and hold it in place while you gather and pinch the other side of the skin until the dumpling has been pulled together and sealed tightly. The finished product was enjoyed along with an interesting dish composed of a fistful of raw scallion greens rolled up in flat bread (hello HOT like hotter than hot pot hot).

Welcome to Tibet! More posts about my trip will follow. For now, I leave you with this link to a Nepalese recipe for momos.

The Great Southwest Tea Market 茶店子旧家具市场

2009-08-12T10:48:00.001-07:00

Although there are teashops all over the city of Chengdu, the primary tea market is on the north side of the city near the north train station in the district of Wukuaishi. You'll know you've arrived when you see the gate with a giant golden gaiwan (teacup) on top of it. The market is pretty huge with teashop after teashop creating a maze of tea. As soon as you walk in the gate, the shopkeepers start inviting you to come in and take a look (particularly if you are foreign). I had done some research online and thus went directly to a shop that's English name is Tea Joy (it also happens to be at the very entrance to the market). The shop is huge. It's literally has 8 rooms of tea equipment and tea. The company is based out of Yunnan and only sells puer and tie guan yin (iron buddha) tea. There is an entire room of puer tea that is a sight to behold. They also have a huge selection of porcelain and zisha (clay) tea sets as well as tea tools, tea trays, etc. I was searching for a zisha tea pot for my mother that wasn't outrageously expensive. The teapots created by masters are very pricey - Tea Joy has entire walls dedicated to the work of different artists with their photo and biography to inform you about their style. I ended up deciding on the one below:

I also sat down with the shopkeepers to try some teas. After seeing the room of puer tea that included a massive stack of puer tea balls that looked like a puer Christmas tree, I just couldn't resist trying some. They suggested that I try "raw" or immature (sheng) puer tea, since it is what most young people prefer. Apparently older people perfer to drink mature (shu) puer tea although I also enjoy the taste of mature puer. The tea they brewed was a 2007 puer with a very light and clear taste. I was surprised at how much I liked it since I had initially planned on purchasing shu puer tea. I have typically associated all puer with the strong red color and earthy taste of shu puer since it is what I usually drank when I was living in Yunnan. I ended up selecting a cake (bing) of the sheng puer tea to take home with me (a little splurge for myself!). I will work on better describing the flavor of the tea when I test it at home in Seattle. I also picked up some pre-packaged chrysanthemum tea (the kind that already has little sugar cubes and goji berries mixed in) to gift to people and a few very inexpensive items, such as a tiny gaiwan, a tea tool set, and a porcelain strainer/strainer holder at a small shop run by some folks from Chaozhou, Guangdong. Part of the fun of the tea market was walking around and just looking at everything. Although I highly recommend a trip to the market, especially if you're planning on buying tea to gift to folks back home, I would strongly suggest you don't miss the experience of going to a fancier teahouse with a tranquil tasting environment where you can experience the full tea ceremony since you most likely won't find that kind of ritual at the bustling tea market. Please click on the my Flickr link on the upper right sidebar to see more pictures of the tea market.

Tip: Many people are not used to bargaining for their purchases but it is standard in China to do so outside of fancy department stores and upscale boutiques. Even in stores where prices are marked, you should not be afraid to ask for a discount. For example, all the goods at Tea Joy have marked prices but you can still negotiate. Although I usually wouldn't reveal the price of a present, I feel that it might be helpful to others to know that the teapot was originally marked as 170 RMB and I purchased it for 110 RMB. If you want a good discount, it helps to speak Chinese (even better if you can speak some Sichuanese) but other than that, just be patient. Sit down and drink several cups of tea, show an interest in the product, but be firm about the amount of money you are willing to spend. You can even ask the salesperson to check with their boss to see if they can give you the best price. If you are unsatisfied, you can always walk away. That is when the best price is often offered to you. Remember you can always turn around and come back if you really want it. Moreover, remember that the market is big and slightly overwhelming so set aside a considerable amount of time so that you don't feel rushed and can really enjoy the experience.

The Sichuan Culinary Museum

2009-08-08T13:12:00.001-07:00

The Sichuan Culinary Museum deserves a lot more visitors than it's getting. On Thursday, my friend Amelia and I made the trek out to the old town of Pixian County (west of Chengdu proper) to see the Sichuan Culinary Museum. The museum opened up in its current form three years ago and is not just a museum but actually an entire complex (40 mu to be exact) that cost over 100 million RMB to build. Since Amelia and I were the only visitors that afternoon, we had a lovely young woman give us a personal tour through the "classic collection" hall, which is where the history of Sichuanese cuisine is recorded and displayed, including artifacts that date back to the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). The collection hall is the only part of the museum with an entrance fee but don't skip it - it only costs 20 RMB and I thought it was the most interesting part of the visit. The artifacts include cooking utensils and dishware from each dynasty in progression. It's truly impressive to see the continuity of a cuisine that's been evolving yet maintaining its distinct traditions for over 4,000 years. One of the coolest artifacts in the collection were the hot pots used in the previous century because the hot pot used to be heated using a charcoal brazier (now the hot pot is heated with gas).

I also really liked the following scultpures of one female and one male chef from the Han Dynasty pictured below. The tour guide explained that the sculpture on the left is a women and on the right is a man and you can tell because of the type of hat they are each wearing.

The collection hall also included illustrations of famous stories about food in China (like about Li Bai's drinking habit and how luo style cooking came about) and a lot of placards about philosophy of Chinese cooking that I had trouble fully understanding since I'm still working on my Chinese. The hall also has a replica of a traditional kitchen and a dining room that is replicated to represent the Qing Dynasty-era. After the classic collection, we ventured over to the demonstration garden. The garden includes a pen for chicken, geese, ducks, a pig, hot peppers, eggplants, longbeans, corn, etc. Although not terribly exciting, it gives you an idea of what kind of ingredients chefs are using here. Then we went over to Temple of Kitchen God to pay our respects and took a stroll through the restaurant.

Unfortunately, since there were no other visitors we didn't actually have any food (all the chefs were hanging out playing cards when we walked through). No big loss since we were already stuffed from our lunch of Lanzhou noodles and meat kebabs (we didn't know the musem had a restaurants). The restaurant is unique because the kitchen is glass-walled so you can watch the chefs prepare your food. There is also a teahouse in the tea complex where we rested our feet for a few minutes but to be frank, it's nothing special (no tea ceremony is performed there and the teas offered are unexceptional). Overall, it was a great experience and I highly encourage any visitors to Chengdu to head over to Pixian to check it out.

Visitor Information:

The trip out to Pixian from Chengdu takes about an hour to an hour and a half depending on where you are in Chengdu and how bad the traffic is. You can either hire a taxi (80 RMB one way is a fair price) or take a taxi to a public bus station for about 20 RMB and then take a public bus for 3 RMB. You can take the 305, 320, 265, 363, or 88. However, if you take the bus you better understand some Chinese and be able to get off at the right place since it basically looks like you're getting off in a field in the middle of nowhere. After you get off the bus, you have to turn right at the intersection and walk about 500 meters down the road to find the museum. The entrance fee for artifact collection is 20 RMB and is well worth it. Plan on going during meal time so you can eat at their restaurant. Although the staff is very, very friendly and more than happy to give you a tour, you need to be able to understand Mandarin since the staff does not speak English. The website is in Chinese but check it out anyways for the pictures.

Tel: +86-87919398 or +86-878918008
E-Mail: fls66@163.com
http://www.mycb.cc

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2009-08-04T11:22:00.001-07:00

In celebration of taking my Chinese final today and of all the friends I've made during my program who are leaving Chengdu this weekend, I'm posting a list of things that make me happy many but not all of which are food related along with some visuals. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

bubble tea from sweet brown
street style blogs
joanna wang's music (王若琳）
the sound of cicadas humming
the cute korean tv show “cinderella man”
my new hello kitty tea canister
spicy sichuanese noodles (担担面）
new sneakers that don't cut off my circulation like my last pair of shoes
crispy-skinned roast goose eaten in good company

All the Tea in China: Part II

2009-08-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

The last time my friend Amelia and I were at the Green Teahouse she picked out a lovely porcelain tea set and we had to go back last week to pick it up. The cordial staff suggested we have a seat while they packaged it up and that inevitably led to us tasting more teas and purchasing more presents including a small present for myself. This time we had a shy young woman whose delicate mannerisms were perfect for performing the tea ceremony. She very carefully held up the clear teapot so that we could see how pretty the tea leaves looked as they dropped from the surface of the water to the bottom of the glass. She preformed the tea ceremony in the traditional way, which is detailed as follows. The basics were modified and simplified from this wikipedia entry - if you want to know more, please check it out.

The first stage of preparation is known as 温壶烫杯 (wēn hú tàng bēi) literally "warming the pot and heating the cups." At this point the cups and pot are laid on the table. They are then warmed and sterilized with hot water, the excess is then poured away.
The second stage of the perparation is known as鉴赏佳茗 (jiàn shǎng jiā míng), literally "appreciate excellent tea." At this point she passed around the dry tea leaves for us to sniff.
The third stage of the preparation is known as 乌龙入宫 (wū lóng rù gōng), "The black dragon enters the palace" (this term in particular is used when Oolong tea is used for the ceremony). The teapot is filled with with tea. For a 150 ml tea pot at least 15 grams of tea leaves are used, however depending on the size of the pot and the strength of the tea the pot may be filled between 1/2 and 2/3 full.
The leaves are then rinsed using hot water poured from some height above the pot.
Customarily the first brew is poured into the cups but is not drunk. She explained that this was because the water has absorbed the tea flavor yet.
The pot is then refilled with fresh hot water until the water reaches the mouth of the pot. The bubbles which may have formed on the surface are removed using the lid, and the pot is closed. The hot tea from the first brew is then emptied over the teapot's outside, this is known as 刮沫淋盖 (guā mò lín gài). Wait for 20 to 50 seconds, depending on the type and quantity of the tea used before beginning to serve the tea.
The tea is poured evenly into the teacups, in a circular manner around the guests. A quality oolong tea is good for anywhere from 4 to 8 brewings. Each subsequent pot follows the same procedure, but requires a slightly longer infusion time.

She was also very helpful in terms of helping understand how we ought to enjoy the tea. First, she told us how to properly taste the tea. On the first sip, you should breathe in and enjoy the aftertaste that is left on the tip of your tongue and on your lips. This is the part of the mouth where tea will taste the sweetest. On the second sip, you should breathe in and enjoy the aftertaste that is left at the back of the throat. The third sip should be swished around the mouth so that the tea taste is left on the inside of both cheeks and you should take a breath to enjoy the taste of the tea in your mouth as a whole. The first few brews of the tea are considered the best because the taste of the tea tends to become more astringent as it is brewed more times (except with puer tea). Therefore, they typically only serve the first 3-4 brews to customers at the teahouse.

She shared with us that Sichuanese men tend to enjoy flower teas whereas women prefer green teas that have a clear and springlike flavor. Many women believe the drinking green tea improves the quality of their skin （美容养颜）. Men and women also should hold their tea cups differently. Men should grasp the tea cup with the thumb and index finger of their right hand with their other fingers supporting the cup. Women should grasp the tea cup with their thumb and middle finger with their ring finger delicately supporting the bottom of the cup. Try not to let your pinky finger stick out or curl under ungracefully (I had a hard time with this...). The way women are supposed to hold the cup means that you have to rotate the cup counter-clockwise to drink the tea. If done properly, it's very graceful. We tried two teas - a high grade jasmine tea and lan gui ren (兰贵人）, an oolong tea. The jasmine tea was good but the lan gui ren was delicious. It's a tea that leaves a very sweet aftertaste in the mouth (a sweetness, she pointed out, that is different in different parts of the mouth). The tea supposedly got its name, which translates into English as "lazy rich person's tea," because it was favored by the emperor's most beautiful concubines. Amelia and I both decided that such a legend necessitated a small purchase for our personal stashes. Interestingly, when Amelia mentioned that she had purchased some puer tea for her grandmother, the young woman suggested mixing puer with a little milk and honey, which I have never tried. I can't quite imagine what it would taste like but I intend to dive into my tea stash when I return home and try it.

Note: the photo for this post is not the Green Teahouse but rather a more traditional small-town teahouse in the old town of Xilai.

After enjoying my tea tasting experiences so much, I looked up some tea-related blogs and found some fantastic ones so if you're interested in learning more please check these out:

Gongfu Girl (my favorite and based out of Seattle!)

Teatrekker

China Tea Travels

2009-07-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

- from Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Why no Sir Toby! Cakes and ale it is. I had to share this lovely piece of cake that my friend A. bought for me as a congratulatory gesture for an academic achievement. It was almost too pretty to eat but the sweet sentiment combined with one bite of the delicate green tea flavored sponge cake and that was all she wrote. Thanks A.!

All the Tea in China

2009-07-26T14:45:00.001-07:00

Hungry pandas not only need food but also beverages to survive. This Hungry Panda's choice of beverage also happens to be the national drink of China, the most popular beverage in the world, and the subject of many legends. One popular story claims that the Chinese Emperor Shennong was drinking a bowl of boiling water when a few leaves were blow form a nearby tree into his cup. The emperor took a sip and was pleased with the flavor and its restorative properties. This legendary coincidence supposedly took place around 2737 BC, making tea one of the oldest beverages in the world. Laozi (the author of the Tao Te Ching - as it known in the West) referred to tea as "the froth of liquid jade" and "the elixir of life."

There are many types of tea - green, black, red, herbal, and more. Herbal teas and red teas are wonderful but are not really tea since they aren't made with tea leaves so I won't spend time on them in this post except for flower teas, which are popular in China (Note: this can be confusing since black tea is actually called "red tea" in Chinese 红茶 but red tea made with roobios from Africa is not actually made with tea leaves). Black and green teas are all made from the tea plant but the type of tea bush it comes from and the method by which the tea leaves are treated are the main differentiators between green and black teas. The simple explanation of how black and green teas are different is that the tea leaves in black tea have been wilted and oxidized whereas the leaves in green tea have been wilted but not oxidized. Oolong tea is often classified as a type of black tea but is actually between green and black since the leaves are only partially oxidized. Puer tea, a special tea from Yunnan Province in China, is a double-fermented black tea and its taste matures with age like fine wines. Teas are also divided by the time of year the leaves are picked. The Chinese refer to teas as being either Spring teas (picked in May) or Fall teas (picked in September). As you can imagine, the spring teas are supposed to have a lighter more subtle flavor while fall teas possess more depth and color.

Going to China without buying tea is like going to Paris and refusing to see the Eiffel Tower yet many tourists don't approach tea with the proper attitude. Buying tea in China is not the rushed act of simply going into a store and picking out boxes of pre-packaged tea (although you can do that if you like). Buying tea should include tasting the tea first, using the tools of the Chinese tea ceremony. Even the smallest tea shops should offer you a seat and brew you a small pot of the teas that you are interested in. First, they will boil fresh water and wash the items used in the tea preparation over a wooden tea ceremony board (it is wooden and has slots so that excess tea and water can filter down without making a mess on the table). Depending on whether you are sampling a green tea, a flower tea, or an oolong tea, they will use a small porcelain or clay pot to brew the tea. Clay teapots, know as Yixing teapots in China, are used for oolong tea because it is said that used over a long period of time, the teapot will be infused with the flavor of the tea and will brew better cups in the future, much like a well-seasoned cast iron skillet gives flavor to the food cooked in it after years of use.

The first steep of the tea is poured out. The second steep is then poured into tiny cups for you try. The shopkeeper should pour you at least three steeps of the tea so that you can taste how the tea develops (often lower grade teas become bitter as you steep them longer but aged puer teas should become more robust and delicious). When sampling the tea, you should savor the taste by first smelling the tea, tasting it, and then breathing in through you mouth so that you can feel how the tea tastes in the back of your throat. Don't be shy about asking to try as many different teas as you would like and try the same tea at different price points so you can get an idea of why some grades of your favorite tea cost an arm and a leg while others are sold in bulk at your local grocery store chain.

At fancy tea shops, they may offer not only tea and exquisite tea sets for purchase but they may also function as a teahouse. Although there are teahouses on every street in Chengdu, these teahouses offer tea ceremony primarily for gongfu oolong tea. They allow customers to try high quality teas (品茶) while they relax with their friends or family. Some people sit, chat, and enjoy snacking on traditional snacks (little crunchy green tea rice cakes, preserved fruits, etc.) and some people play go (围棋） or read books. If you are interested in this type of service, I highly recommend the Green Teahouse across from the Sichuan Museum and Songxianqiao Art Market. The interior is beautifully decorated and the service is excellent. You can also find a variety of teapots at the art market across the street.

My favorite teas are Dragonwell green tea （龙井茶）, Iron Guanyin oolong tea （铁观音）, Lazy Rich Man's green tea （兰贵人）, high quality osmanthus or jasmine scented teas （桂花茶或者茉莉花茶）, aged puer tea （普洱茶）, and Earl Grey tea. None of these, however, are local Sichaunese teas (Dragonwell comes from Hangzhou in Zhejiang, Tie Guanyin comes from Fujian, Puer comes from Yunnan, and Earl Grey is produced in India). The teas local to Sichuan are Emei Maofeng 峨嵋毛峰 and Bi Luo Chun 碧螺春, which both have a clear and slightly astringent flavor.

I've included a short photo essay below of the Chirping Crane Teahouse in People's Park to give you, my dear readers, a chance to see what goes on at a busy Chengdu teahouse. Enjoy!

Note: The Green Teahouse (斗茶) has four locations. Two are in Chengdu, one in Taipei, and one in West Hartford, CT. The location I went to is at 2 Qinghua Road, No. 5, Chengdu 成都市青花路2号附5号. They will have an English language website established in soon at www.thegreenteahouse.com. If you don't live near West Hartford, I recommend the Tianren Teashop, an international brand with stores in China, Taiwan, and a number of large U.S. cities, such as New York and San Francisco.

Modernization in the Leisure City

2009-07-20T21:36:00.001-07:00

Nowhere is the pace of modernization more evident than in modern China. Ex-pats living here often comment that when they leave on a business trip and return home a week later, they get lost because they don’t even recognize the street they live on. The Lanzhou noodle shop featured in my photos was closed for renovation last week and within 48 hours, the entire store had been gutted and new tiling on the floors and walls replaced. I was only mildly surprised to see construction workers tearing up the sidewalk in front of campus at 3 am last weekend after coming back from karaoke. Many people casually lament the fast pace of modern life, commenting that everyone is so busy nowadays. Along with modernization came longer hours at the office, cell phones that are left turned on at all hours, and a constant barrage of e-mail. To meet the demands of a fast paced life and a new middle class, fast food chains have made a swift entry into the Chinese market. First, there was Dicos (a Chinese chain that features fried chicken) but soon after were McDonalds and KFC and now Starbucks. These brands all hold a certain prestige since only the middle class can afford these establishments (particularly Starbucks, whose prices are the same as U.S. prices). As such, these establishments have become a hang-out for many well-to-do young people. When I went to try the egg custard tarts at KFC, I noticed college students camped out with their textbooks studying and well-heeled young women who had settled in for a long conversation over fries and a Coke.

The profusion of Western fast food chains in China has not, however, come even close to threatening the traditions associated with eating and cooking the Chinese way. Chengdu is known in China as a city of leisure, boasting more bars and teahouses per capita than the international metropolis of Shanghai. In fact, when you sit down to eat with a Chinese family in their home, they will most likely say to you “慢慢吃”, which literally means “eat slowly” and is a polite phrase that indicates you should eat slowly so you can enjoy yourself and eat until you’re full. Chengdu is also famous for its hot pot (see my previous post for more details), which is meant to be eaten slowly with friends or family.

Another modern phenomenon in China and Chinese culinary traditions has been the advent of the “rural entertainment home” (农家乐). In the past fifteen years, urbanization has attracted more and more people to China’s urban centers while the city itself has expanded its suburbs so that city and country meld into a strange semi-suburban realm on the outskirts of cities. The pollution as well as the noise and pace of the city made many people long for the “quiet country life” (romanticizing the bitter and difficult life of most rural Chinese) so a number of families in the new "semi-suburban" spaces capitalized on this new found nostalgia and opened up their homes to urban people on the weekends who wanted to eat simple, home cooking and relax. Some of these "rural entertainment spots" are not, in fact, at all rural. Some of them are newly-built luxury buildings that have their own fishing ponds, ma jiang rooms complete with AC and automated ma jiang tables, as well as a large number of staffers. My friends and I rented a spot like that for a 4th of July party and it was indeed a lot of fun. We even got the staff to roast a pig for us.

Although the luxury version of the "rural entertainment spot" is undoubtedly fun, much more authentic and with better food was the homestyle restaurant near Mt. Qingcheng (a famous Daoist mountain). Both of these spots featured real home cooking. The matriarch of the operation near Mt. Qingcheng proudly told us that she even makes her own chili sauces by hand (indeed there were fantastically good - I was very sorry I couldn't buy any from her to take home. I think she added some fermented black bean paste to one of her recipes. Yum.) The homestyle cooking included common dishes like stir-fried tomatoes and eggs (番茄鸡蛋), stir fried bitter melon, stir-fried hollow greens, and mapo tofu.

We also visited a rural entertainment spot near a famous lotus pond outside of Chengdu. The business was not only a restaurant but also a hang out where people sit playing ma jiang, playing cards, chatting, eating fresh fruit bought from the vendors that line the sidewalks along the pond, and just enjoying the relaxed atmosphere. The business was opened in 2005 by a family that previously supported itself solely through agriculture. One of the family members very graciously gave us a tour around the fields where they grow their own produce and chatted about the changes that the advent of weekend tourism has brought to the area. One of the best parts of the visit was just sitting on the veranda and waiting for the snack vendors to walk by selling their treats. First I tried a mysterious white substance that the vendor called mei ya tang. It was a lot like French nougat - very hard to chew but sweet with the flavor of honey and sesame seeds. The vendor is pictured below.

I also finally got to try Sichuanese dou hua. Dou hua is essentially just silky tofu with various toppings. I had tried some very famous dou hua in Tainan before but it was sweet as it was covered with a adzuki bean topping. Sichuanese silken tofu is a very famous snack and is sold by vendors who carry it in buckets on their shoulder or sometimes from a makeshift snack cart attached to a motor bike. One bucket contains the silken tofu and the other bucket contains the toppings. The toppings include scallions, dried soybeans for crunch, ma la powder, soy sauce, and copious amounts of chili oil (if you can't eat spicy, you can simply ask the vendor not to add the hot sauce but then it won't be Chengdu's famous snack anymore).

My conclusion? The pace of life in modern China may be picking up but at least in Sichuan, people are balancing work with play and the joy of eating slowly won't be pushed aside any time soon. Sichuanese cuisine may be the original Slow Food, no movement needed!

Sichuan Hot Pot

2009-07-06T22:13:00.001-07:00

Hot pot (火锅) is one of the most famous aspects of Sichuanese regional cuisine. Hot pot is basically a big bowl of stock over an open flame where diners select their own meats and vegetables and cook the ingredients themselves. There are many different types of hot pot from all over Asia and each has a unique quality. The Japanese, Koreans, Thai, and Vietnamese all have their own version of hot pot. Many claim that hot pot has its origins in Mongolia but in my opinion, it was Sichuan that perfected the art of hot pot. The characteristic that makes Sichuan's hot pot unique is the incredibly spicy broth wherein floats entire branches of numbing peppers and red chili peppers. The broth comes in three levels of spiciness from low to high (an informal poll reveals that most Chengdu people like the medium level of spiciness as do I). If you really cannot tolerate spiciness, you should try to build up a tolerance. If after that you still cannot eat spicy, you will not be allowed to join the revolution. On the other hand, you can go ahead and order the yuanyang hot pot, which is a bowl divided into two parts, one part with no spice and the other part with spice. Hot pot is a really fun experience because many people like to take their time adding the ingredients to cook them one by one. People typically add the meats first and follow with the vegetables. Although some people dump all the ingredients in at once, most add them slowly so hot pot dinners are perfect when you want to chat with your friends at a leisurely pace. Each restaurant has myriad different ingredients you can choose from. If you don't speak Chinese, just gesture towards the kitchen and they'll let you go pick out your ingredients by pointing. At some hot pot places, known as chuanchuanxiang (串串香 or fragrant sticks) the ingredients on skewered and you pay per stick, which the servers will count up at the end of your meal.

My favorite ingredients include frozen tofu, savory tofu, tofu skin, beef slices, pork balls with cilantro, needle mushrooms (known as enoki in the U.S.), fragrant mushrooms (known as shiitakes in the U.S.), lotus root, potato, and chicken feet. I also enjoy cabbage but beware that porous vegetables absorb the spice quickly and the little balls of numbing pepper often get wrapped up inside the cabbage leaves. There are always offal delicacies available as well although I must admit they are not my favorite ingredients. However, I did try a bit of pig brain on Friday (it is said that pigs are clever and, therefore, pig brain will make you smarter - we'll see if it works). It was creamy and a bit savory with the consistency of silky tofu.

The dipping sauce is of utmost importance. If you don't dip your ingredients in oil, you are likely to leave your meal with some serious heartburn. The dipping sauce is sesame oil and you can add raw garlic, as well as fresh cilantro, and MSG for flavor. As for beverages, I think that beer is the perfect accompaniment but many people in Chengdu really like to drink peanut milk with hot pot. If you're ever in Sichuan or if you can find Sichuanese hot pot in your hometown, don't miss it!

The Sweet Taste of Modern China

2009-06-30T23:01:00.001-07:00

One aspect of Chinese cuisine that is often overlooked is dessert. This is usually because Westerners and Chinese disagree about what tastes good in a dessert. Many Chinese people prefer desserts that are lightly sweetened or have a savory component. As in Japanese desserts, Chinese desserts often feature ingredients such as red bean paste (known by its Japanese name adzuki in the U.S. market, little red beans are known in China as hong dou). The one place where Chinese products tend to be heavily sweetened is in beverages (juices, milk teas, instant coffee, etc.). The bubble tea craze that started in Taiwan in the 1980s hit the U.S. market in the 1990s, starting on the West Coast and eventually making its way East. Many of you have probably tried bubble tea (milk tea that can be flavored, mostly with fruit flavors, and mixed with balls of tapioca) but have you tried shaved ice? Many bubble tea stores also sell shaved ice. Chinese shaved ice is like a much more robust and filling version of the snow cone. The basic concept is the same - finely shaved ice that topped with a sweet syrup that soaks into the ice, which is refreshing in the hot summer weather. However, shaved ice desserts come with a choice of toppings. My favorites include almond tofu jello, sweet red beans, sweet green beans, Taiwanese sweet beans, egg custard tofu jello, a tart jam substance made from an unidentified berry, and fresh mango cubes. In Taiwan, there are amazing little balls made from taro but I haven't found a tasty version of those here on the mainland. You can get different types of syrup as well as condensed milk to top your concoction off but I prefer to stick with the traditional brown sugar syrup. A picture of my lastest foray into the world of shaved ice with my friend A. is included above.

A more traditional Chinese dessert is a glutinous rice ball filled with red bean paste and suspended in a sweet "soup" (called tang yuan). These are related to the Japanese dessert of mochi, which are widely available at Asian supermarkets in the U.S. Japanese mochi tend to be much larger and are typically sold dry, not suspended in sweet liquid. Moreover, the glutinous rice that makes up the outside of the mochi tends to be thicker than the delicate tang yuan. The white balls of tang yuan can be seen on the left, just above the mini-pancake, in the set of dian xin (dian xin is the Mandarin pronunciation of the Cantonese phrase dim sum, which just means little snack-sized portions) that I ordered at a great restaurant across from the Songxianqiao art market.

Also included in the dian xin set that I ordered were some desserts that I hadn't tried before including mini-pancakes filled with raw sugar. I really like this dish because of the texture - the outside was pleasantly fluffy and chewy but the sugar crunched when you bit into it. There was also a portion of zhou, also known in the U.S. as congee, with its rice gruel base (the word gruel sounds gross in English but it's really not...) with dates and goji berries (seen above on the right just beside the plate of chicken feet). There was also a warm, sweet soup with strips of a clear jello-like substance floating in it that was tasty although the point of the dish was more for texture than for flavor (this soup is all the way at the top of the picture with the soup in it).

The final frontier in my search for the perfect Chinese dessert took me to KFC. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was that foreign girl who went all the way to China and ate at KFC. At first I was embarrased but I got over it since I was hot on the trail of the perfect egg custard tart (dan ta). When I was standing in line to buy bus tickets to Delicate Eyebrow Mountain last weekend, I was musing to my friend about how great the egg custard tarts were in Taiwan but hadn't really had an comaprable tarts here. Without hesitation, S. responded that KFC has the best egg custard tarts in China. Although I doubt that KFC actually has the best tarts, I can now confidently report that they are not half bad. The most attractive part of the KFC tart was that it was piping hot. However, I felt that it was too oily and that the crust, while flaky, was also a bit chewy. I still think that the best egg custard tarts are sold by the Sun Ma Li Bakery chain in Taibei (I think that the English name of the chain was Sunshine Bakery). Many major American cities (certainly any that have a Chinatown) have Chinese bakeries and you can probably find egg custard tarts there to try out.

I hope my plug for Chinese desserts has been persuasive. Beans for dessert anyone?

There’s Nothing Wrong With a Little Piggie...

2009-06-28T09:09:00.001-07:00

Today I share a guest blog written by the Mama Panda on her recent adventures in Spain. Enjoy!!

The title of my guest blog quotes the words of ardent pork enthusiast the Hungry Panda, who has long sung the praises of all parts of the four hooved trotter. I just returned from a trip to Madrid and Paris with my younger daughter, and while I am always ready to sing the praises of the patisseries of Paris, it was in Spain I had a culinary epiphany about the Hungry Panda's favorite protein product.

Our first lunch in Madrid was at a wonderful upscale open market (Mercado San Miguel) with various specialty vendors and tables and chairs to enjoy the repast in customary Spanish civility. We gravitated first (naturally) to gelato and chocolate, then worried that we might need some protein to tide us over until the next opportunity for torrone appeared. The sister panda spied a cheese vendor, and I saw enormous whole hams hanging from a shop ceiling with long lines in front of it. I’ve always been a believer in following the lines when choosing food stops. When I saw the simple fare of ham sandwiches, I wondered about the wisdom of my choice, until I took the first bite. As you’ll see from the picture, I didn’t even get the obligatory picture in before we began the feast. Of course, the incredible tasty sweet vermouth that Madrid is famous for (see picture below) didn’t hurt our enjoyment, but the ham, oh the ham. I knew Iberian ham was famous, but Iowa ham is highly regarded as well, and I’ve just never been interested. But this ham had the melt-on-your-tongue consistency of butter along with an intensity of flavor that I am at a loss to describe. When we were in Barcelona years ago we discovered the Spanish trick of softening the interior of a baguette for a sandwich by rubbing it with a tomato half, and that little acid served to heighten the sweetness and the saltiness of the ham. The intensity of flavor made me wonder how they cure the meat, so I did a little research.

I found out by visiting a web site, http://www.tienda.com/jamon/, where you can actually BUY the stuff, that Spain produces two types of ham (jamòn). First there is the famous Jamòn Serrano, made from normal pigs, which is featured at every bar and restaurant in Spain. And then there is the legendary Jamòn Iberico, made from black Iberico pigs native only to Spain.

As far as how it’s cured, I found some interesting information on another website. It seems there are 3 stages in curing the famous Jamòn Serrano:

The hams are first trimmed and cleaned, then stacked like cordwood and covered with salt. This typically lasts 2 weeks.
The salt is washed off and the hams hung to dry and start the first curing phase. This phase serves to initiate the curing process, here (among other things) the fat begins to breakdown. This takes about 6 months.
Air drying - it is during this phase that the hams are hung in a cool, dry place, and where the distinct, subtle flavors and aromas develop. The drying sheds ("secaderos") are usually built at higher elevations, thus the name "serrano", which means from the mountains.

I have a lot of admiration for this type of slow, careful, respectful treatment of food, and after tasting it, I can only say that the jamòn of Spain leaves prosciutto in the dust in my humble culinary opinion.

It was prophetic that our hotel just happened to be on the same street as the “Museo del Jamòn”, which is actually just a huge butcher shop dedicated to the pig.

After our pork-related exploits in Madrid, we took a day trip to Segovia. I was eager to try out the Mesòn Josè Marìa, a mecca for pork enthusiasts in a city that is famous for its cochinillo asado (roasted suckling pig). I was most interested in trying their broad white beans that were stewed in a chorizo pork sauce, but we went whole hog (pun intended!) and got the suckling pig as well. It’s such a big deal at this restaurant that the chef wears a medal, and appears table-side to explain the story of the pig, and demonstrates that the pork is so soft that he can cut it with a plate. I grew up with pork, but it was the fry-it-in-the-cast-iron-skillet-in-10-minutes pork chop variety, so this was a very enlightening experience for me. This was also the first time I’ve ever put animal skin in my mouth on purpose, and I did it repeatedly after the first tentative bite. It must take days of basting to produce the crisp succulent skin of wildly good flavor. It was like melt-in-your-mouth, really good candy. The moral of the story is, of course, that should you visit Spain, give the pork a try.

Good Morning Chengdu

2009-06-24T13:47:00.001-07:00

One of the major differences between Western fare and the grand culinary tradition of China is the plethora of savory breakfast options. Although some Americans enjoy sausage or bacon for breakfast, many of our traditional breakfast foods tend towards the sweet side of things - think of pancakes, waffles, quick breads, cereal, french toast, etc. There are several typical breakfast foods here in Chengdu that merit an introduction.

The first is fried bread sticks with sweetened soy milk. This is the sweetest of the breakfast options. Stalls all up and down the streets break out their woks in the morning, fill them with oil, and fry up some fresh dough. I personally like dunking the fried bread in the soymilk. Yummy.

My favorite breakfast food is a form of dumpling that has soft fluffy dough (like mantou texture) called baozi. The most common filling is juicy minced pork (absolutely #1 the best flavor) but there are plenty of other flavors like red bean paste (seen in the picture) or shredded green vegetables with diced mushrooms. You can buy pre-made frozen baozi at many Chinese grocery stores in the U.S. if you want to try this delicious snack.

Last but certainly not least is the option of having a hearty bowl of rice noodles for breakfast. A little spice in the morning should up your metabolism and clear your sinuses. Rice noodles were an especially popular breakfast food in Kunming. The non-spicy varieties of rice noodle soup are similar to Vietnamese pho.

I like to accompany all of the above options with a delicious tea-egg. Tea eggs are hard boiled eggs that have been soaked in a mixture of black tea, soy sauce, and spices. If you like boiled eggs like I do, I highly recommend making a batch of these eggs on Sunday for the coming week. If you store them in the fridge, then you have a convenient and healthy snack waiting for you whenever you get hungry. They're also easy to pack as part of a lunch or to eat while on a hike.

Chinese Tea Eggs:

Hard boil as many eggs as you want. Then lightly crack the shells.

Soak the eggs in a mixture of black tea, soy sauce, five-spice powder, and salt (proportions are to taste).

My "secret ingredient" is star anise (a very common flavor in Yunnanese cooking).

After soaking, bring the eggs to a boil again to allow the flavor to penetrate the egg.

You can simmer the eggs for 1-3 hours. The longer you allow them to simmer, the better the flavour.

The eggs should be brown at the end.

Peel and enjoy.

The Cucumber and the Pig Should be Friends

2009-06-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the photos I've posted on Flickr, I am on a mission. I have a slash-and-burn, take no prisoners policy towards eating everything in sight. I'm only going to eat about 225 meals during my short stay here in the Motherland and I've got to make the most of it. Over the weekend, I had old favorites like pork filled baozi, spicy beef rice noddle soup, spicy lamb kebabs, as well as some new dishes destined for repeat such as fish fragrant pork and five spice quail on a stick. Now that my intensive language classes have begun, the pace of my weekday adventures has slowed the tiniest bit but never fear, the weekends shall be filled with gastronomic delights. I picked up a Sichuanese cookbook at a bookstore downtown by Tianfu Square and translated the recipe for fish fragrant pork, which I had at a very good restaurant next to Sichuan University's Huaxi Campus (at a place called 子香引 for those who might try to find it). There really is no story to go with this dish except that it tasted really good. Who knew that stir fried cucumber was so good and especially when mixed with pork? They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll let my Flickr pics do the talking for now. More soon!

Fish Fragrant Pork
Ingredients:

14 oz. lean pork
7 oz. cucumber
2 oz. wooden ear mushrooms soaked in water (can substitute if not available)
Pickled red chilis
Ginger
Scallions
Garlic
Salt and/or MSG
Cooking wine
Black pepper
Chicken stock
Sugar
Chinese vinegar
Soy sauce
Peanut oil
Water mixed with starch

Instructions:

1. Cut pork into thin strips (6 cm long 2 mm thick). Put in bowl with salt, soy sauce, cooking wine, starch water, and marinate to give the pork flavor.
2. Next mix the sugar, MSG, stock, vinegar, pepper, and more starch water to become the "fish fragrant" sauce (see previous post for proportions).
3. Chop the red chilis and finely slice the ginger, mince the garlic, cut the scallions into rounds, and mushrooms into strips.
4. Peel the cucumber and slice into strips (6 cm long 2 mm thick to mimic the pork).
5. Add oil to wok and heat. First put in pork and stir fry then add all the other ingredients. Toss quickly to disperse the fish fragrant sauce and cook evenly.
6. Let the sauce thicken (add starch water if necessary) then dress and serve. Enjoy!

Welcome to Chengdu!

2009-06-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

The Hungry Panda arrived on Thursday evening and has been settling herself into the rhythm of a new city. Apologies on delayed posting but I have not been able to log on Blogger myself due to certain restrictions that I shall not discuss here but never fear, I've enlisted assistance and thus the blogging will go on.

First I should introduce you to the basics of Sichuan and Sichuanese cuisine. Starting in AD 221, Sichuan was the site of the ancient Shu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history. It was during this time that Chengdu became the center of Sichuanese culture and Sichuanese cuisine began to develop its distinctive traditions. Many people associate Sichuanese food with its use of chilis to create spicy dishes. However, this is not quite historically accurate. The native pepper of China is not the red chili pepper but the flower pepper (花椒). The flower pepper is not hot but rather makes the mouth tingle and numbs the tongue temporarily. Over time, the cuisine combined the red chilis and the flower chilis to create a unique flavor. There is a saying about Sichuan cuisine "一菜一格，白菜百味" - one dish, one flavor, one hundred dishes, one hundred flavors. This conveys the cohesive flavor of each dish within the cuisine but also the breadth of flavors that can be found here. Another important aspect of Sichuanese cuisine is the plethora of cooking techniques used to produce various dishes. The number of different cutting techniques (for both meat and vegetables) are innumerable as are the various methods of cooking (different types of stir fry at different levels of heat, pan-frying, baking, pickling, smoking, simmering, steeping, steaming, etc.). The most important flavors in the cuisine are numbing flavors (麻), spicy flavors (辣), pickled flavors (咸), sour flavors (酸),sweetness (甜), and bitterness (苦).

Above I've included a picture of the traffic in downtown Chengdu to give you a sense of what a bustling, large city this is. There are about 10 million registered residents of Chengdu but including migrants, the total population is more like 13 million. The city is in a state of constant change as old neighborhoods are demolished to make way for skyscrapers at an astounding pace. The downtown now features shops like Starbucks, KFC, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and even luxury brands like Gucci and Chanel. The change from even five years ago when I lived in Yunnan is astounding.

I leave you with a recipe for one of the basic sauces of Sichuanese cuisine: Fish Fragrant Sauce. The sauce is so named not because it contains any fish-based ingredients but rather because the same ingredients are often used to prepare fish. More posts to follow soon so keep checking!

Fish Fragrant Sauce

Ingredients:

Soy sauce
Chinese cooking wine
Chinese vinegar
Water mixed with cornstarch
Chicken stock
Pickled Sichuanese chili peppers - can substitute Sichuanese chili pepper sauce if not available
Scallions (thinly sliced)
Ginger (thinly sliced)

Instructions:

Mix together the cooking wine, vinegar, chicken stock, water with cornstarch and soy sauce. Then add the chilis, scallions, ginger　and mix well. Heat and the sauce is ready.

Pre Test/Post Test

2009-06-08T12:55:00.001-07:00

In honor of my impending departure to the Motherland (tomorrow people! tomorrow!), I decided to test out my Sichuanese cooking skills and make dinner for a few good friends on Saturday. On Saturday morning, I headed out to Ranch 99, a Chinese supermarket that I had heard about from some Chinese friends of mine. Let me tell you, Ranch 99 was a revelation. I've enjoyed shopping at VietWah but in the end, it's a Vietnamese store and I just can't find all the stuff I want there. Ranch 99 is massive and jampacked full of Chinese goodies. If you need any Chinese cooking utensils or just inexpensive dishes, Ranch 99 is the place to go.

I had just finished reading Fuschia Dunlop's book "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper," which was fantastic (review forthcoming) and also bought her Sichuanese cookbook called "Land of Plenty", which had recipes for some of my favorite dishes from when I lived in Kunming. I decided to try out a few recipes to see if I could actually replicate them. I made stir-fried green beans with ground pork (干编四季豆）， fish-fragrant eggplant (鱼香茄子），Grandmother's Tofu (麻婆豆腐), and cold chiken in chili oil sauce (红油鸡片）. With a little cooking assistance, cold Qingdao beer, and a delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie waiting for dessert, the meal came together rather well. I was really surprised when I lifted the first pieces of the tofu to my lips and found it actually tasted just like I remembered. Everyone ate heartily so they can compare my Chinese cooking now to when I get back to Seattle in the fall, hopefully with some new skills in tow. The tofu was unanimously voted the favorite dish of the bunch so I'm including that recipe below.

Thank you to my guests for being my guinea pigs!

Pockmarked Grandmother Chen's Tofu
Adapted from Fuschia Dunlop's Land of Plenty

1 block tofu (firm but not extra firm)
4 baby leeks or 2 regular leeks
1/2 peanut oil
6 oz. ground pork
2 1/2 T Sichuanese chili bean paste
1 T fermented black beans
2 t ground Sichuanese chilis
1 cup chicken stock
1 t white sugar
2 t soy sauce
4 T cornstarch mixed with 6 T water
1 t ground roasted Sichuan pepper

1. Cut the tofu into 1 in. cubes. Slice the leeks at a steep angle ("horse ear slices").

2. Season wok, add peanut oil and heat over high heat until smoking. Add the minced pork and stir fry until crispy and a little borwn but not dry.

3. Turn down the heat to medium, add chili bean paste, stir fry for 30 second until oil is red. Add the fermented black beans and ground chiles and stir fry for another 30 seconds until fragrant.

4. Pour in stock, stir well, and add bean curd. Mix in gently. Season with sugar, soy sauce, salt. Simmer for 5 minutes until the tofu picks up flavor.

5. Add leeks and gently stir in. When just cooked, add cornstarch mixture. Add just enough to thicken up the sauce a bit - you don't have to add it all.

6. Pour into a bowl, scatter with Sichuan pepper, warn your guests about the numbing properties of Sichuan pepper, and serve.

The Hungry Panda Guide to New York City

2009-06-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

Folks I've got a lot of love for the Big Apple. When I was picking between colleges in my small hometown in Iowa, I picked my college based on its location smack dab in the heart of New York City. I proceeded to eat my way through college. I started studying Chinese language and politics as soon as I started school and my interests motivated me to explore the backstreets of Manhattan's crowded, historic Chinatown as well as the diverse and exciting streets of Flushing, Queens. Not only did I find excellent food, I found whole other worlds and cultures that continue to fascinate and challenge me. Anyways, the guide here is an eclectic one of some of my favorite spots in the five boroughs. It is not meant to be a comprehensive guide. I lived in NYC as a college student and, therefore, many of the places on my list are specialty snack shops, inexpensive restaurants, etc., that can be enjoyed by those on a budget. If you're interested in finding recommendations for fancy restaurants, there are myriad other writers and reviewers who have covered that topic far better than I can. Additionally, a number of you, my dear readers, are New Yorkers so please leave your favorite spots in the comments.

I will begin in Chinatown. The restaurants in Manhattan's Chinatown are pretty hit or miss. Many serve the crap that gets passed off as real Chinese food here in the U.S. but some stores are serving up the real deal. Due to a quorum of vegetarian/vegan friends during my college years, I often hit up the now defunct Vegetarian Paradise 3 (and, no, it's not related to VP1 or VP2). Sadly the restaurant closed some time ago but just down the street is where I always got my dessert - The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The little ice cream store is always packed and rightly so. The store carries a number of prosaic flavors like chocolate chip but the real reason people come is for the Chinese flavors, which include things like fortune cookie ice cream, dragonfruit sorbet, lychee sorbet, red bean/green bean ice cream, etc. (you can check out their website for a full listing). My very favorite flavor of all time is taro but the chocolate pandan is great too. They also have durian flavor if you dare.*

*Note: I went to a Vietnamese bubble tea shop in Virginia once with a friend who bought what was basically a durian slushy. He seemed to be really enjoying it so I thought "How bad can durian really be???" So I took a small sip. Despite every instinct to stay neutral for the sake of politeness, I seriously could not help the horrified look that came over my face. In my mind, durian tastes like stinky feet. You have been warned. Try it because trying new things is fun and there is some slim chance you may actually like it - just don't say I didn't tell you so.

So after you buy ice cream in Chinatown you should wander over to the Lower East Side for more sweets (duh). You cannot miss The Doughnut Plant. The place has gotten a ton of press over the last couple of years and for good reason - they are hands down the best doughnuts I have ever eaten. There's always a couple of conservative but nonetheless amazing flavors (like chocolate except made with Valhrona) and a few interesting ones (like rose petal glaze or creme brulee). The flavors change frequently so you can justify going back daily. After doughnuts and ice cream, you should be ready for a savory treat like a pickle. There are a number of great pickle shops on the Lower East Side, the most well-known of which is probably Guss' Pickles. You might be getting full but you should just do some people watching and walk it off. If you prefer to sit it off, stop for a relaxing cup of tea at a tea shop formerly owned by Moby called Teany. The place is tiny but cute and has a great tea list. Down the street from Teany is a trip down memory lane. Economy Candy is a bulk candy store that specializes in the hard-to-find candies of yesteryear. In my experience, the store tends to delight people of my parent's generation (I'm in my late 20s - you do the math) because they can find all the candies they used to save their nickels and dimes for (too bad the prices haven't stayed the same!). Even if you don't have an opportunity to visit their B&M location, check out their website to find a fun present for your favorite relative.

If you have some time, you should take a tour of the Tenement Museum, which will give you a window into the rich history of the Lower East Side. It is also conveniently located just across the street from Il Laboratorio del Gelato, which you are not allowed to miss (I really don't care if you're not hungry). Il Laboratorio is owned by the guy who started the Ciao Bella gelato brand, which is sold at Whole Foods all across the country now. After he sold Ciao Bella, he opened Il Laboratorio to show off his mad gelato skillz. And show off he does. Again, the flavors are a mix of safe but amazing (hazlenut, chocolate) and edgy (olive oil, wasabi, creme fraiche). My favorite flavor is honey lavender but I've also enjoyed the basil and the Thai chili chocolate flavors.

If it's a nice day out, you'll want to walk from the Lower East Side on over to the West Village to take in the sights and sounds of Lower Manhattan. Why not stop in at Magnolia Bakery? The hype has gotten a little ridiculous after its notoriously delicious cupcakes were featured on an episode of Sex and the City but I still think they're the best damn cupcakes I've ever had. I have a bit of nostalgia for them too since the first time I went there was my freshman year when I was new to the city and out late at night with a couple of older girlfriends. After one cocktail too many, someone mentioned cupcakes and off they went, dragging me behind them. All the sudden, we stopped at a tiny glowing paradise where the air smelled like vanilla and people were lined up around the block waiting to get in. The next day I woke up wondering where in the hell that magical place was??! I did some quick sleuthing and over the years, I've returned many a time to eat a Magnolia cupcake while chattering with a girlfriend on a bench at the park across the street. If you and your girlfriends happen to do some shoping in Soho, you'll obviously need a cute cafe in which to rest your weary feet and stash those hefty shopping bags. Gab over a serious cup of European-style chocolat chaud in the tiny tea salon in the back of MarieBelle on Broome St. The decor is so charming you may not want to leave.

When people move to New York, they tend to get caught up in the glories of Manahttan but an exploration of the outer boroughs is more than warranted. Many of my favorite places are in Brooklyn or Queens. Queens is like the Epcot World Showcase but way, way better. Recent immigrants from every country in the world live in Queens and the borough has the food to prove it. I used to take the 7 train out to Jackson Heights for dinner at Jackson Diner followed by a Bollywood movie at the Eagle Theatre. I would slowly walk down the streets munching on a hot samosa trying not to stare too long at the pretty saris and fancy wedding jewelry displayed in the shop windows. More than anything, I loved how crowded the sidewalks were on the weekend, how alive the city feels when you're elbow-to-elbow with a little granny haggling over vegetables on one side and some guy trying to sell you illegal DVDs on the other. Something about it just makes you smile at the pluckiness of the people who come to the city from so far away and make it work.

If you take the 7 train to the very last stop you'll end up in Flushing. Flushing is primarily a Chinese neighborhood but the farther away you get from the subway station, the more of a melting pot it becomes. There's a significant South Asian population as well. The upside of Flushing is that it has the most authentic Chinese food in the city. There are even Uyghur kebab vendors that sell their tasty wares on the sidewalks. Because of the diversity of the immigrants, all the different regional cuisines of China can be found here. Taiwanese bakeries are across the street from Cantonese banquet halls and down the road from tiny Sichaunese hole-in-the-wall restaurants. I wish I could give you a better guide but the downside to Flushing is that it is constantly changing. Flushing used to be the home to the only Gou Bu Li Baozi （狗不理包子） restaurant outside of China/Taiwan. In China, the chain is very famous and started in Tianjin. The chain got its name because the original shopkeeper was nicknamed "Dog" (狗子）and when he worked, he concentrated so hard that he wouldn't speak to anyone (hence, the name, which translates something like "dog not pay attention") Although famous in China, in Flushing it was just another restaurant except it had the best baozi ever. Sadly, it is now closed. My only advice is to just go to Flushing and try whatever looks good. If you can, go with a friend who reads Chinese. Many restaurants keep two very different menus - one in English, the other in Chinese (for more insight on how tricky it can be to find what you're looking for in Flushing as an outsider, read the chapter "Dinner with Chairman Punch" in Ruth Reichl's book Garlic and Sapphires).

If you're all tuckered out after your adventure in Queens, head to Brooklyn for some real New York pizza. I suggest Grimaldi's, which is right on the water and around the corner from Jacques Torres' chocolate shop. Pick up some truffles at the chocolate shop while you wait for a table at Grimaldi's and contemplate how old school a pizza joint can be. The checkered tablecloths, the Frank Sinatra pictures on the wall, the place so crowded the waiters are constantly body-checking each other and old fashioned espresso soda pop. And for your patience, you'll be rewarded with some pretty divine pizza. You can walk off all those extra slices of pie by heading over the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, which is one thing you absolutely must do when you visit New York. You'll probably be tired once you reach the other side, so hop a cab and head up to MoMA for an afternoon of art. Enjoy the city - it is an amazing place.

I'll be periodically updating this guide since I'll probably think of places I meant to include but forgot as soon as I post this. Hope this helps someone find good eats in the Big Apple.

Till next time,

The Hungry Panda

A Dose of Inspiration and Gingerbread

2009-06-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

In the downtime between finishing my research design and waiting for my statistics final exam, I read Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit. I really enjoyed this book, which challenges the reader to a level of creative discipline that is both incredibly difficult to sustain and incredibly rewarding. Tharp talks about the importance of "scratching" as part of the creative process. Scratching is the process by which the artist finds a tangible idea to work with (as Tharp says, "digging through everything to find something"). For different creative types, scratching takes different forms. For the architect, scratching could be walking through a quarry to get new ideas about texture and space or for a painter taking a walk outside to think about color and shape. I've found myself doing a lot of scratching lately in the form of reading cookbooks and food blogs and was delighted to find that Tharp mentions cooking specifically in her book. She writes:

"You can scratch through books. I once walked into the office of a four-star Manhattan chef and his assistant as they were scouring through an enormous pile of international cookbooks, none of them in English as far as I could tell, obviously looking for menu ideas. They had a dazed, sheepish look in their eyes-dazed because I had interrupted them as they were zoning out in their pursuit of a good idea..."

As soon as I decided to start this blog, I found as many food blogs as I could and started reading their archives. It was an indulgent and completely delightful process since they are so many wonderful blogs out there. I've compiled a number of those blogs in my blog roll on the right hand side of this page so please check them out if you're so inclined. Today's recipe is for dark molasses gingerbread, which I made for my friend M.'s birthday yesterday. It turned out scrumptious and smelled heavenly while it was baking. I was inspired to try the recipe by the beautiful blog The Wednesday Chef.

More to come soon, folks. I'll be reviewing a fantastic foodie memoir and Sichuanese cooking book shortly.

Dark Molasses Gingerbread
From The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock via The Wednesday Chef
Serves 8

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, more for pan
2 cups cake flour, more for pan
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups dark molasses
Freshly whipped cream, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 8-inch round baking pan. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Blend in spices and salt with a wire whisk.

2. In a small pan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. Melt 1/2 cup butter in it, then whisk water into flour mixture. Beat eggs and add to mixture, along with molasses. Whisk until well blended. Pour into pan.

3. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer plunged into center comes out with no trace of raw batter. Interior will be moist. Serve warm with freshly whipped cream.

I Like to Have a Martini, Two at the Very Most...

2009-05-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Please forgive my long delay and lack of a recipe today. The Hungry Panda is now in full finals exam mode and is also preparing for her departure to the Motherland in approximately a week. In lieu of a recipe, I bring you instead a review. I headed to Belltown to meet my dear friend J. for a couple of cocktails and tapas at a Basque restaurant called Txori Bar. Besides the unpronounceable name, the place was charming. The patio is perfect for summer evenings. We ordered the olive plate, a piece of bruschetta with olive tapenade and anchovy, an eggplant topped with laxta sheep cheese and tomatoes, as well as a chickpea/tomato number. All of the tapas were tasty but be warned that except for the eggplant, all were truly tapas-sized. My personal favorite was the bruschetta with olive tapenade and anchovies. The excursion was a birthday treat for me from J. (mwah! thank you!!!) and the real point was treat ourselves to a couple of well deserved cocktails. As Dorothy Parker (seen above at her typewriter) wrote:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.

So J. and I wisely stopped at two cocktails apiece but thoroughly enjoyed our allotted drink quota. I had a sweet cava concoction for my first drink, which our waiter appropriately described as "festive" while J. took on the role of the gentlemen and ordered a particularly good gin drink. I wish I could tell you what was in both but many of Txori's offerings (both tapas and drinks) aren't listed on Txori's website. What made the evening was my next cocktail: The Maria Christina Sidecar. With brandy and freshly grated nutmeg on top it was like Christmas was getting me drunk and I liked it. Below is my estimation of how one might be able to recreate this drink at home.

The Maria Christina Sidecar

1 1/2 oz. quality brandy
1/2 oz. cointreau
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. Liquor 43 - a Spanish vanilla liqueur
Freshly grated nutmeg to top

Shake, serve in chilled glass, enjoy.

Embracing My Coastal Life

2009-05-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

So I grew up in Iowa. As you all well know, Iowa does not offer much in the way of salt water. In fact, nothing. As such, fresh seafood is both relatively expensive and difficult to procure. I myself have never really cooked any type of seafood other than fish. I remember going to San Francisco for the first time when I was in junior high. My family went to the wharf to have seafood for lunch and my mother urged me to try the seafood since it was our rare opportunity to try something fresh. I was hesitant but she convinced me to try something - I went with a crab sandwich, the most innocuous, familiar item of seafood I could find on the menu (hey, I got more adventurous with my food later on in life).

Even after I moved to the East Coast, where I lived for about six years, I never really got into the wonderful world of mollusks and crustaceans. Their allure has eluded me until now. As you'll note a couple of posts back, I was sick with a vicious cold over the weekend but drug myself to the farmer's market anyways where I stood across from the seafood stand staring at it. The proprietors of the stall probably thought I was nuts as I just stood there trying to decide if I should make myself face my fear of cooking seafood. I sized up the goods and selected a 2 lb. bag of fresh Manila clams.

I've been itching to use my "Simple Italian Food" by Mario Batali cookbook that I got for a steal at the Seattle Friend's of Public Library booksale. As I flipped through I noticed a recipe for Linguine with Manila Clams, Pancetta, and Chiles so on Monday I marched over to Whole Foods, bought some pancetta, and took out my bag of clams from the fridge and put them on the counter like I meant business. I'm not going to lie - I was totally freaked out by the weird sucking noises the clams started to make after they warmed up a little and how when I tapped the shells they actually moved. It was probably a funny sight - The Hungry Panda v. the Manila Molluscs in a twisted culinary showdown. It was kind of like this YouTube clip where the tiny baby panda sneezes and scares the crap out of a fully grown mother panda. Sad but true-when it comes to seafood, I am easily alarmed. But all's well that ends well - check out the pretty finished product below along with the recipe.

Mario Batali's Linguine with Manila Clams, Pancetta, and Chiles

6 T EVOO
1/2 medium red onion, minced
4 oz. pancetta, diced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 t hot red pepper flakes
1 lb. Manila clams, scrubbed and rinsed
2 c dry white wine
4 T butter
10 oz. linguine
1/4 c Italian parsley

Bring a pot of water to boil and add 2 T salt.
Meanwhile, in a large saute pan, heat the EVOO and saute the onion/garlic/pancetta over medium heat until the onion is soft and the pancetta transluscent (about 10 min).
Add the red pepper flakes, clams, wine, and butter, and bring to a boil.
Cook until all the clams have opened (5-7 minutes) and set aside.
Throw out any clams that didn't open.
Boil the linguine according to package directions.
Drain the pasta then toss with the pan containing the clam mixture. Stir gently.
The mixture should still be brothlike.
Add parsley, pour and serve. Will serve about 4 people.

The Hungry Panda Guide to Washington, D.C.

2009-05-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

New York and Seattle are fantastic destinations for foodies of all stripes. D.C. not so much. Of all my former homes, D.C. was the most gastronomically challenging. I spent the whole three years I was in D.C. on the quest for the best restaurants and best grocery shopping spots in the metro region. Barring a few excellent restaurants downtown (such as Zaytinya and Ceiba), I found more culinary satisfaction by exploring D.C.'s suburbs than D.C. proper. The key here is a car since many of my favorite places can’t be reached by metro. It's my hope that this guide will save the next foodie who moves to D.C. a little time and frustration. Enjoy.

P.S. The picture included with this post is one I took of Julia Child's kitchen, which you can see for free at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The kitchen was transported from her home in Massachussetts after her death and reconstructed just as it was when she used to tape her shows.

Here’s where I shopped:

The Tacoma Park Farmer’s Market. This is accessible by metro on the red line. It’s the best market in the area for produce (DuPont’s market pales in comparison). Get there early if you plan on buying eggs as the lovely man who sometimes wears a chicken hat sells out every week.
H Mart (Any location. I went to Wheaton, MD, although the superstore is in Virginia). This is a chain of Korean grocery stores that has an excellent variety of ingredients for cooking all types of Asian food. The prices are fantastic, the meat cuts varied and exciting, and there’s even a small deli that sells tasty Korean food to take home. There’s plenty of Korean specialty ingredients as well as Vietnamese ingredients (to cater to the community) but if you need specialty Chinese ingredients you need to head out to Mei Xin (known as "Maxim" for English speakers) Grocery Store in Rockville, MD. It’s a longer drive than to H Mart and the produce selection isn’t nearly as good but if you need Chinese ingredients, it’s the place to go.

Depending on your culinary interests, other grocery stores of interest: Subzi Mandi is a small Indian grocery store in Langley Park and is only a block away from Udupi Palace. Udupi Palace is a vegetarian Indian restaurant is hands down the best Indian place in the D.C. metro region - don't even bother going anywhere else. Try to hit the buffet on the weekends so you can sample a little of everything.

There’s also a Cambodian grocery near Subzi Mandi on University Ave and a number of grocery stores along University Ave. carry ingredients for Latin American, African, and Vietnamese cuisines as well.

Here's where I went out to eat:

My absolute favorite place in the D.C. metro region is Pho 75 (a local chain -I went to the Langle Park, MD, location). I ate there nearly every Saturday morning for three straight years - pho and Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk. The proprietors knew me by name and noticed when I got haircuts. I love that place.

My old neighborhood was Columbia Heights. The only place I liked to eat there was El Rinconcito, a tiny Salvadorean place across the street from the Giant grocery store. El Rinconcito makes awesome bean and cheese pupusas for a ridiculously low price. My love for the pupusas was verified by my friend Cris who is Salvadorean and approves of said pupusas. Don't waste your money on other neighborhood joints like The Heights or Redrocks Pizzeria.

One of the largest Korean populations outside of Seoul and Los Angeles happens to be in Virginia. Annandale, Virginia, to be exact. My favorite place in Annandale is a tiny smoked-filled joint called Gaboja in a strip mall off Columbia Pike. Get the braised short ribs - you will not regret it.

If you're looking for good Chinese food, the only decent place I found was A&J's Restaurant, which has two locations (one in Rockville, MD, near Mei Xin Grocery Store and the other in Virginia. I only ever went to the Rockville location). A&J's has a great Northern style dian xin menu. This is authentic Chinese food that your less adventerous friends can still really enjoy.

Despite my many non-D.C. recommendations, there are a couple of places in D.C. that I actually enjoy such as Bistro du Coin, a French restuarant in Dupont Circle. The bistro has a great atmosphere and serves food much later than many other D.C. restaurants making it a natural pick if you want food after the symphony or a late foreign film. A nearby spot called The Restaurant at the Tabbard Inn is a romantic place for brunch. Just make sure you call ahead for a reservation (like at least a week ahead) since it's usually packed on the weekends. Colorado Kitchen used to be the best brunch place in D.C. but sadly it closed after I moved to Seattle.

To Market, To Market to Buy a....

2009-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

OK no fat pig for me today but I did get a few delicious items at the U District Farmer's Market this morning that I'll be using in my meals all week. The morning venture to the market made my untimely cold (it's almost finals week here) a little more bearable. Here's a list of some of the great finds I picked up:

*2 lbs. of fresh Manila clams
*rhubarb (to make compote with)
*french radishes
*spicy spring green salad mix
*fresh asparagus
*a small bag of mixed-variety potatoes
*a loaf of honey-whole wheat bread from Tall Grass Bakery
*a small, precious bag of morel mushrooms

You can see that my asparagus is leaning on a stock of new cookbooks that arrived as a surprise in the mail today. My fairy godmother, Foof, sent me America's Test Kitchen Cookbook for my birthday and my mom procured a stack of dessert-related books from family friends David & Bill. Thank you all so much!

Also note: I've updated my blog list on the right hand side of the page. All the blogs I've linked to are amazing food blogs with mouthwatering visuals and great recipes that I enjoy reading in my spare time. They all come highly recommended by the Hungry Panda.

More posts will be forthcoming as soon as I can taste things again and start digging into my market purchases.

Review: How to Cook a Wolf

2009-05-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

My dinner at How to Cook a Wolf was the best dinner out I've had yet in Seattle. My dining companion and I went to HTCAW on a rainy Monday night around 8 pm so we got a seat right away even though I've heard that the small venue can get crowded during popular dinner seating times. The service was friendly and unpretentious. The decor is cozy - the ceiling is paneled with wood and the kitchen is open. With only about 10 tables (I'm guesstimating here), the dining room isn't too loud and feels like a really fancy cabin in the woods where you and your sweetie can hide from the drizzly Seattle weather.

We ordered three dishes to share. The first was a seared piece of escolar with a chickpea puree, English peas, and morels. The fish was buttery with a slight crunch on the outside, the morel and pea mix was so good I could have cried. It was the best food I've put in my mouth in a long time. Five stars.

The next dish was a piece of pork belly with braised endive and white beans drizzled with parsley & olive oil. Really pork belly can never be wrong because it contains pork fat and that's just downright delicious. I found the braised endive still a tad too bitter and the beans were just so-so. The last dish was a simple spaghetti dish with chili, garlic, and anchovies. This is quite tasty but it was competing for glory with the stellar seared escolar dish so in comparison it wasn't quite amazing.

Overall, it was a stellar dining experience and I'll be going back as often as I can since HTCAW changes the menu daily to use the freshest seasonal ingredients.

Spring Eats

2009-05-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

The weather in Seattle was amazing, sunny, and beautiful this weekend in Seattle. I had a lot of fun trying out some new recipes, repeating some old ones, and even checking out a couple new restaurants. The first new recipe I tried was the lemony risotto recipe from this month's Gourmet magazine. It was very nice but lacked a little pizazz - I think I might not have put in enough lemon zest so be sure to follow the recipe on that point if you decide to make it. On Friday, I made pizza and paired it with some Leffe blonde beer (my favorite find during my Christmas trip to Brussels) to celebrate the end of the week. On Saturday, I made a trip to the UDistrict Farmer's Market and got an amazing bag of mixed salad greens. I whipped up my favorite salad: mixed greens, feta, dried cranberries, walnuts, chickpeas, thinly sliced red onions topped with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

For Saturday dinner, I went to Oddfellows Cafe, which is right around the corner from the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill. I had a good pulled pork sandwich followed by a strawberry-rhubarb crumble. My dining companions both got salads, which looked tasty. I really liked the decor inside and the service was friendly.

For Sunday brunch, I returned to Portage Bay Cafe. Second time must be a charm because the first time I went I had the Swedish Pancakes and didn't think they were anything special. This time I ordered the Dungeness Crab Cakes Benedict, which were really very tasty (warning: they are also extremely filling). Portage Bay also emphasizes using local and seasonal ingredients, which is great (for more on their philosophy click here). They list the sources of the ingredients for their specials right on the menu so if you like a particular chevre that's part of their omelet special, you can head out to the farmer's market next week and track down the seller.

Sunday ended with a simple cold chickpea salad, broiled asparagus, and Winning Hearts and Minds Cake topped with fresh whipped cream. A delicious end to a lovely weekend and fortification for a busy week ahead.

Lemony Risotto with Asparagus and Shrimp from Gourmet

3 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
3/4 lb. asparagus (trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces)
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 T butter
1 1/4 cups Arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 T grated lemon zest
3/4 lb. shrimp (peeled and deveined)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
2 T flat leaf parsley (optional)

Bring broth and water to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Add asparagus and simmer, uncovered, until just tender, about 4 mins. Transfer asparagus with slotted spoon to ice bath to stop cooking, then drain. Keep broth at bare simmer, covered.

Cook onion in 2 T butter with 1/4 t salt in a 4 qt. saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add rice and cook, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add wine and simmer, stirring constantly, until absorbed.
Stir in 1/2 cup broth mixture and briskly simmer, stirring frequently and letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is creamy and tender but still al dente. About 18 minutes. (Note: took me a little longer - more like 25 minutes. Gourmet also says you'll have broth mixture left over but I used most of mine).

Stir in shrimp and cook until just cooked through, 2-3 minutes. Stir in asparagus, lemon zest, remaining 2 T butter, parmesan, parsley, and pepper to taste. Thin risotto with remaining broth if necessary.

"Homemade" Veggie Pizza
inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Ruhlman's Blog

Ok so I cheated on this one. I know it's sacrilege to some but I used a pre-made Boboli pizza crust from the grocery store. A big part of the attraction of pizza for me is the ease of making it so I'm cutting myself some slack on this one. I'm just including a pretty picture and a list of my toppings. This turned out really, really good primarily because of the roasted eggplants which had an awesome smokey flavor that really stood out.

My toppings:

Canned tomatoes (roughly chopped)
Turkish roasted eggplant (közlenmiş patlican)
Carmelized onions
Shredded mozzarella
Mushrooms (thinly sliced)
Fresh basil

Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2009-05-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver is a book you should read. Many of you may have read Kingsolver's novels (I loved "The Poisonwood Bible") and, therefore, already know that Kingsolver is an excellent writer. Her skill with fiction carries over to the non-fiction format where her storytelling weaves twelve months of eating locally with her family into both a personal narrative and a manifesto for "locavores" (local eaters) complete with all the necessary facts and background information to convince the most skeptical among us. Kingsolver and her family move from the arid Southwest to a farm in Appalachia where they pledge to only eat locally available foods for a year. I won't try to recap the whole book for you but rather highlight a couple of points.

One of the best chapters in my opinion was "Life in a Red State." Kingsolver writes, "Symptomatic of [the] rural-urban identity crisis is our eager embrace of a recently imposed divide: the Red States and the States. That color map comes to us with the suggestions that both coasts are populated by educated civil libertarians, while the vast middle and south are crisscrossed with the studded tracks of ATVs leaving a trail of flying beer cans and rebel yells. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. But I certainly sense a bit of that when urban friends ask me how I can stand link here, "so far from everything?"

After growing up in the Midwest and attending college in the Big Apple, I've gotten some pretty hearty laughs out of all the misconceptions about what Iowa is like. Most of the time it's funny (like when I convinced one particularly gullible lifelong New Yorker that chocolate milk comes from brown cows). On the other hand, as a political scientist I take this issue quite seriously since it was ideas from academia that spilled over into the media that turned into this whole "Red State Blue State" thing. If you look at any map of American voting patterns broken down by party, you'll see the country is actually complex and purple rather than simply blue and red. As a native Midwesterner that has been a coastal dweller for almost a decade, I can safely say that cultural exchange is a good thing.

The most intriguing part of the book was probably the last couple of chapters ("Hungry Month" and "Time Begins") because she addresses how the family continued to eat local foods during the winter. During the summer months, I thought, "Yeah of course - I could eat heirloom tomatoes all day long and never get sick of it. But what about February? Is she crazy? Will her kids revolt?" Acutally, no. Kingsolver explains that she basically did all her work in the summer and early fall when she canned and froze like a madwoman but then is able to enjoy the fruits of her hard labor during the winter.

A couple of other points about the book:
1) It will probably make you want to plant asparagus in your yard
2) It may cause a wild desire to order a cheese-making kit (consider yourself warned)
3) You may want to do some serious canning next tomato season
4) You'll also probably renew your commitment to your local farmer's market.

The last one is the most important point and the take-away of Kingsolver's book. She urges the reader to consider our relationship to our food and how our food is connected not only to the environment but to our communities. I'm lucky enough to live in Seattle where the local foods are amazing and the farmer's markets are legendary and, therefore, am pledging now to join a CSA (community supported agriculture) program when I return to Seattle from China in the fall. For more information on the local food movment check the book's website: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and for more information on farmer's markets in Seattle click here and for more information on CSA programs in Seattle click here.

Below is a recipe from the book that I made this week. I love zucchini, zucchini bread, and chocolate chip cookies so bascially this couldn't go wrong and it didn't. Tip: Do not forget the honey. It holds the cookies together. I may or may not have made this mistake (but they turned out tasty nonetheless).

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350

1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 T vanilla extract

Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl.

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.

1 cup shredded zucchini
12 oz. chocolate chips

Mix dry and wet ingredients then the zucchini/chocolate chip mixture. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

The Weekend in Review

2009-05-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

It was a good weekend in food. Friday came with a surprise invitation to a friend's house for dinner, which is always delightful at the end of the week when one is too tired to cook something fancy for themselves but wishes to have a little treat. Abby delivers on the treats front. First off, she taught me how to eat an artichoke. Admitting you really don't understand artichokes is something you can only cop to amongst friends. My last encounter with an artichoke involved baking the poor thing until it shriveled up and got rubbery because I couldn't figure out how to eat leaves that were so tough. Oops. Abby's artichokes got dipped in aioli, which is never wrong. Next up was steak and potatoes fresh off the grill courtesy of her husband, Will. The treat part was the bearnaise butter that went on top of the steak. I believe this is what is referred to as "gilding the lily." And I liked it.

For my part, I briefly considered rhubarb pie but pie crust on a Friday afternoon seemed too daunting so I put together a rhubarb crumble, which was pretty damn good if I do say so myself. The Romeo to my crumble's Juliet was supplied by Laura in the form of vanilla ice cream.

Saturday morning came with sunny weather and the realization that I needed to use up a bunch of roma tomatoes that were sitting in my fridge. I also realized that I should not be left alone with the rest of the rhubarb crumble that was sitting on the kitchen counter making eyes at me. To remedy this situation, I decided to make a simple tomato sauce to put over fusilli (I got a massive bag of fusilli at Big John's for under $5). Friends brought bread, asparagus (to broil with olive oil and sea salt), wine, and more vanilla ice cream. I may have slightly overcooked the fusilli (my selection of a kitchen timer on the basis of cuteness has led to many a near-disaster in my kitchen) and I found the tomato sauce recipe too sweet for my taste but the company is what counts and having dinner partners two nights in a row seemed like wonderful luck.

Bearnaise Butter from The Gourmet Cookbook

3 Tbs unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp finely chopped fresh tarragon
2 tsp minced shallot
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice, or to taste
1/8 tsp salt

Blend together all ingredients on a small plate with a fork. Transfer to a sheet of wax paper and, using wax paper as an aid, shape butter into a 3-inch-long log; wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

Abby's Note: Perfect for garnishing grilled rib-eye steak.

On Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:50:00.001-07:00

Dear Mom,

People say that the best time to learn about cooking is when the apron strings can still wrap around you twice. Well, you tried. You offered to teach me to cook many a time and I declined in favor of eating. I've conservatively estimated that I've eaten your cooking 77,745 times. It's likely that I was not adequately grateful approximately 77,000 times. So today, on Mother's Day, I'd like to say that you are a damn fine cook and mother.

When I was little, I benefited from your vigilance against unhealthy foods. Try as I might have to trade Audrey Chang for every last candy bar in her lunch bag, I remained a healthy youngster due to your mandated once weekly trips to the Coralville Fruit Market for our "splurge", which was yogurt-covered raisins. I begged you for Wonder Bread and you insisted on whole wheat. I longed for pop (yeah you heard me East Coasters, it's pop not soda - get it right already) but I only managed to drink the obesity-inducing high fructose corn syrup beverage when I could sneak it at Dad's office on the weekend. Your sensible eating habits kept me healthly and it's high time I said thank you.

When I was in high school, I was a PITA. I know it, you know it, let's blame it on hormones and move on. But we had some great times when I wasn't brooding about how wildly unfair the world was and how surely nobody could possibly understand me. A number of those happy memories included food. I loved going to picnics out at Kent Park to watch sun set over the "lake" while eating cheese, olives, and muching on a crusty baguette from the Co-Op. I loved eating your delicate Victorias on Christmas Eve while sitting around the Christmas tree, warmed by the fire. I now have the good sense to realize that you were, indeed, not trying to torture me by requiring me to come home for family dinner but rather showing me you loved me by wanting to know what was going on in my life.

In college I struggled to morph from a small town Midwestern girl into a big city butterfly and just when I thought I was an anonymous face lost in a too big crowd, I got your packages of cookies in the mail. When you came to visit me, you let me drag you all the way to Flushing, Queens, to eat authentic Chinese food even though it's not really what you like to eat the most and you were tired from traveling. We reveled in the glories of New York's culinary offerings, stalking real New York pizza at Grimaldi's and sipping the glorious sludge of real hot cocoa at Jacques Torres. You let me order the massive chocolate mousse dessert at Fiorello's even when you knew I wouldn't be able to finish it. You took me to Lupa for dinner after my college graduation and it's hard not to feel accomplished when you celebrate by eating duck fat. You may think I didn't notice all these times when you were so nice to me but I did.

Finally I've come around to cooking instead of just eating. I wish we could cook together more often because I know you have a lot to teach me. I miss living in the same city with you, I love you, but most of all: thank you.

Love,

Your Daughter
a.k.a. The Hungry Panda

Simple Luxuries

2009-05-08T16:27:00.000-07:00

Like most people, I love the idea of adding some element of glamour and sophistication into everyday activities. Recognizing the luxury of simplicity, I decided to channel my inner European and have cheese for dessert. This is not a usual habit of mine but it's high time some of my habits changed.

My lovely mother purchased a piece of Tillamook Chevre for me at Whole Foods last weekend. The Cheese Girl at Whole Foods, by the way, is incredibly sweet - the enthusiasm for cheese basically radiated from her face when we asked her some questions about local chevres (I love people that manage to glow at work - how do they do that?). The Cheese Girl described the Tillamook chevre as "grassy and fresh," which sounded really delicious but not very appropriate for dessert. I was wrong. The Tillamook is indeed a little grassy but not in a way that makes the cheese at all astringent - just fresh tasting. I took a little hunk of chevre, sprinkled some walnuts on top, and drizzled it with High Country brand fireweed honey. The result was a dessert that incredibly simple and totally satisfying.

The dessert reminded me of the yogurt that I had with my friend Jon at Le Pichet. The yogurt came with honey and walnuts, which seemed kind of boring. Until we bit into the walnuts. Wow. I think Le Pichet must have soaked the walnuts in honey because the flavor was incredible.

The cheese dessert and the yogurt were both excellent reminders that the key to good food isn't the time you slave over a dish in the kitchen (although sometimes that's fun), the key is quality ingredients treated simply and paired with the rights things.

Weeknight Comfort Food

2009-05-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

A delicious warm lentil salad is a wonderful and easy dish for a weeknight. A slice of baguette spread with chevre and dinner is complete. Even better is making the warm lentil salad and then having four more portions left to eat for the rest of the week as you get progressively more burnt out with school/work and think "Do I really have the energy to whip up something delicious and healthy tonight?" Even better is having extras when a girlfriend stops by for a chat and dinner just happens impromptu. Even more lovely is when your friend brings you English teas and Twin Peaks DVDs (Thanks Milli!). The dinner was capped off with a dessert of stewed prunes spooned over vanilla ice cream using a (yet another) recipe from Orangette. The warm lentil salad is also her recipe minus the celery (I was too cheap to buy it since I knew I'd probably only use one stalk of the whole bunch for the recipe and then not know what to do with the rest of it).

French-Style Warm Lentil Salad
Adapted from Epicurious.com and Orangette

1 cup French green lentils, picked over and rinsed
3 cups water
1 Turkish bay leaf
½ tsp. salt, divided
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme
5 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 Tbsp. plus ½ tsp. red wine vinegar
½ Tbsp. Dijon mustard
Crunchy sea salt, for serving
2 Tbsp. finely chopped Italian parsley, for serving (optional)

In a medium saucepan, bring the lentils, water, and bay leaf to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until almost tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in ¼ teaspoon salt, and then simmer, covered, for another 3 to 5 minutes, until tender but not falling apart.

While the lentils simmer, warm 1 tablespoon of the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme, and 1/8 teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are just softened, about 7 to 9 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons vinegar, mustard, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil, and whisk to emulsify.

When the lentils are ready, drain them in a colander or sieve, and discard the bay leaf. Dump them into the skillet with the vegetables, and add the vinaigrette. Cook over low heat, stirring gently, until heated through. Stir in the remaining ½ tsp. vinegar, and serve warm, with crunchy salt and parsley for sprinkling.

Yield: 4 servings

*Note: I swear I do read other food blogs besides Orangette/own other cookbooks/read other magazines, it's just that I love her site and the ease of her recipes. If you haven't checked out her site already here it is again: Orangette.

Tangy Sweet

2009-05-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

I love sour. I could drink vinegar by the gallon. The advent of Pinkberry (the slightly tart frozen yogurt that has taken the coasts by storm) made me positively giddy. But if more people could taste pomegranate molasses, I'm sure that it would be a new trend. I poured a little over some vanilla ice cream yesterday to try it out and I am smitten. I bought the pomegranate molasses because it was mentioned in an article on Turkey in this month's issue of Saveur on page 72. Saveur describes the molasses as having the "jammy sweetness of ripe fruit and the tangy bite of an aged balsamic vinegar." The article has a recipe for gavurdagi salatasi (tomato salad with herbs and pomengranate) that calls for the pomegranate molasses and mentions that the molasses can also be used in cakes, candies, and cocktails. I predict a future pomegranate molasses-tini craze. The brand I bought is Lebanese and can be found at Big John's PFI in Seattle or Sahadis Fine Foods in Brooklyn, NYC.

Recommendation: Big John's PFI

2009-05-06T13:56:00.001-07:00

I love grocery shopping. Sometimes on rainy days when I'm sick of studying, I roam the aisles of Whole Foods with no intent of buying anything. I consider my Saturday morning trips to the Farmer's Market a weekly treat for the senses. Every time I move to a new city, one of the first things I do is ferret out all the best places to buy food. I've found a number of great places in Seattle but my absolute favorite place is Big John's PFI. This hidden gem is just south of the International District downtown in an unassuming concrete building but don't be fooled - the products inside are delightful and the prices are competitive (I won't buy my olive oil anywhere else - it is much much cheaper at Big John's). Big John's specializes in Italian food but also carries a lot of Middle Eastern food products (side note: I was delighted to see that a number of these products come to the West Coast via Sahadis a Middle Eastern food shop on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn that I used to frequent when I lived in New York). Big John's has cheese and olive lists so long that you may find yourself stupefied by the choices. There is a minimum 1 lb. purchase for cheese and olives but it's absolutely worth it - I discovered that it takes me a shamefully short amount of time to do away with a pound of lemony Sicilian olive mix. Moreover, if you're having trouble deciding what you want, the folks behind the counter know their stuff and are happy to answer your questions. Another great aspect of Big John's is that they sell a huge variety of spices at reasonable prices. I picked up some ground ginger last time so I could make my delicious Chocolate Chip Ginger Molasses Cookies again.

Since my parents were in town, I was lucky enough to have them purchase some groceries for me so I picked out some lovely items that I might not otherwise have tried. Like any curious foodie, I can't resist the lure of new ingredients. I spotted some Syrian Apricot Paste, which looked too delicious not to buy although I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with it yet (suggestions welcome in the comments). I also snagged a bottle of pomengranate molasses, which was mentioned in this month's issue of Saveur in the article on Turkey (if you haven't read this issue, check it out - this is a really good one). On the recommendation of one of the staffers, I picked up a jar of hot ajvar, which is an Armenian spread made from peppers, eggplant, garlic, and hot peppers. I also snagged a 2 lb. bag of Guittard baking chocolate for $10 and a bag of Lazzaroni Amaretti Cookie Snaps to snack on at tea time. I picked up some other ingredients that will undoubtedly show up in later posts as well but I won't bore you with the details.

Suffice it to say, whether you're a foodie looking for fun new ingredients to try out or just a lover of fairly priced, high quality Mediterranean ingredients, Big John's is a great place to shop.