weeknight dinners, and other culinary adventures
The other day my friend Nick asked me if my blog was good for the “extreme-budget-conscious” (he’s a tiny bit prone to hyperbole). I exclaimed, “Yes! Of cou—” and then remembered that I had just spent $45 on one pound of canned crab meat (canned, no less), because I became obsessed with this recipe from … Read more
So, the bad thing about being a blogging hobbyist newbie is that I take foreeeeeeeevver between when I make the thing and when the recipe is up on the website. This is usually okay, as most of the ingredients I use are fairly available year-round, and I have a whole three months to get my … Read more
James is obsessed with katsu curry. When we lived in Boston and he was a postdoc and I was a grad student, both with infinitely flexible schedules and excellent procrastination techniques, we would go for lunch all the time at his favorite place, Fin’s Sushi & Grill. Despite the name, we would both invariably order … Read more
Introducing for your spicy, numbing food pleasure, Szechuan peppercorns! I love spicy food, and I love Szechuan food in particular. Chili fish, chili green beans, spicy chili peanut noodles all get my mouth watering! Besides chili, an incredibly underrated staple spice that gives Szechuan food its distinctive, tongue-tingling, numbing flavor is the almighty Szechuan (also … Read more
Okay – REAL TALK. Developing recipes is HARD. Developing recipes for desserts is REAL HARD. You can’t just throw things in a pan, always with garlic, salt to taste, and then add more hot sauce. You have to think about proportions and structure and gluten formation and temperature and consistency and timing and…my eyes are … Read more
I present to you, the humble but delicious taro! Or, the humble malanga! Folks, I must be honest – I don’t actually know what this thing is called. I’ve always been told growing up that it was taro. However, I’ve since seen it labeled as both taro and malanga in supermarkets, and what I’ve found … Read more
My dad’s family is originally from Northern China, where wheat is the staple crop and reigns supreme. The food there is dominated by wheat-flour products such as noodles, dumplings, and steamed buns stuffed with salty pork and cabbage or sweet red bean paste. My mom’s family is from the south of China, in Guandong, where … Read more