Category Archives: Cooking

Homemade milk bread rolls

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Several months ago, I successfully made a loaf of Japanese milk bread. I originally attempted this during the pandemic, but I didn’t have bread flour and only had all-purpose, and the bread was completely wrong — not the fluffy, airy, super moist bread that you think of when you hear of Japanese milk bread. When I finally attempted it again last year and succeeded, I knew I had to make this bread more often. It’s so satisfying to make, and as long as you have the right ingredients (as in, bread flour for higher gluten development, dry milk powder, and instant yeast as opposed to dry active yeast), then it’s pretty much fool-proof. While cooking and baking (desserts) have always been fun and satisfying for me, baking yeast breads has a whole different level of satisfaction for me. I love every part of the process — measuring out the ingredients, mixing and kneading the dough, watching the two rises, and baking. I look at every bread I’ve made as though it were my little baby — being made, grown, and developed. Tonight, I baked up the milk bread rolls after mixing and kneading the dough last night. I started mixing after I put Kaia to bed last night. She knew I was in the kitchen and kept calling out to me.

“Whatcha doing, mama?” she called out from her bed. “Are you cooking?”

I went back to her bed to settle her down and try to get her to close her eyes. “Mama is making bread, baby!” I said to her. “If you’re good, then maybe you can have some when it’s ready!”

Kaia loves “soft bread.” She loves to remind me of this. When she says this, she means that she loves soft, fluffy bread with a tender crumb — brioche, challah, and milk bread are all in this category. She also does not like a crunchy toast the way I do. Are these the most nutritious breads? No. But they are deeply satisfying to make and eat. And I always get excited whenever my baby enjoys anything I make with my own hands.

Speaking of nutrition, though, I was thinking about this recipe developer/cookbook author I follow and love, who is currently pregnant and was diagnosed early on with gestational diabetes. While I’m sure this was frustrating for her as someone who loves food, one interesting thing she shared was that when she bakes her own bread from scratch, her blood sugar levels do not spike. But when she eats bread not made by her (so bought outside), her blood sugar goes crazy. If you know of anyone or have yourself had gestational diabetes, you’ll know that in dealing with this during pregnancy, you have to prick yourself at least once or twice every day and carefully monitor your blood sugar level to ensure it doesn’t go over a certain amount. So when I heard that homemade bread didn’t spike her blood sugar, I felt a bit better about my love of making these “soft breads” that are not made from whole wheat or whole grain flours. Though i will say openly that I do do slightly sacrilegious things and add whole wheat flour to my brioche and challah to increase the nutritional profile.

Georgian cooking class at Red Inside Culinary

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Last night, I attended a Georgian cooking class at Red Inside Culinary, a cozy little cooking school kitchen in the West Village. Chris had gifted me the class as a Christmas gift, so this was already scheduled long in advance. I was really looking forward to it since I’d never before made anything Georgian or from that region of the world, so this would definitely be new territory for me.

As soon as I walked in, I was already liking this far better than the cooking class/school he gifted me last year: there was a large kitchen with ample counter space, a separate food prep area, and a beautifully appointed dining table that felt super cozy, like it could be someone’s real and quaint dining room in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the West Village. The chef/teacher, Dona, who was born and raised in Georgia, had done her due diligence with food prep and arrangement. She emphasized constantly that food prep and “mise en place” were integral in making sure you were managing time well and had food ready by a certain time; you can’t really afford to not be on time if you were serving a meal at a set time, whether that’s to guests at home or to paying guests in a restaurant. She was also just very friendly, bubbly, and energetic, which is what everyone wants in a cooking instructor. I also loved that this class had just six people in it, so it was easy for everyone to talk openly and get to know each other. Everyone got to participate in making all components of the planned dishes, and we also ate and left in a timely manner (we were all out of there just after 9pm and finished eating by 8:30pm!).

I officially learned a few things about Georgian cooking that I’d guessed before based on the many Georgian meals I’d previously enjoyed, but now it was coming straight from a Georgian: the three key ingredients in Georgian cooking are 1) pomegranates, 2) walnuts, and 3) grapes. Though I would also argue that what really *made* our spinach balls (pkhali) and walnut pesto stuffed eggplant rolls (nigvziani badrijani) were the spices we used, which included an interesting spicy red salt mix I’d never heard of, blue fenugreek (which, Dona was quick to point out, is not the same as Indian fenugreek; it smells nothing like it, either!), plus a Georgian spice blend called khmeli suneli that she typically just picks up when she goes back to Georgia (she said we could now find them in Kalustyan’s, just that it would be far more expensive). The eggplant rolls and spinach balls we made were so delicious; I ate way more of them than I thought I would and easily could have just eaten those and been fully satisfied. They were also extremely easy to make — as long as you had the right ingredients. I may need to go on a search for this khmeli suneli spice blend and add it to my endless spices just to get the pleasure of making this myself at home.

We also made khachapuri (Georgian open cheese bread, often times called boat bread), imeruli (the “closed” version of Georgian cheese bread), roasted cornish hens with a silky, luxurious garlic sauce, and a concord grape granita topped with crushed, salted, and toasted pistachios. It was all so simple, but so delicious. And it tasted even better with two different Georgian red wines, one sweet and one dry. All of these dishes would be easy for me to replicate at home. Now, I just need the recipes and that khmeli suneli spice blend to make this all happen!

The necessity of soup at the Chinese dining table: an ode to my paternal grandma

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Growing up, I remember there was almost always a massive stockpot full of some kind of broth or soup on the stove. Sometimes, it was a gentle herbal chicken soup. Occasionally, it was a thick and packed jook/congee with lots of different proteins, like chicken, pork, tofu skins, shredded dried and rehydrated scallops. Other times, it was a ginseng-based tonic meant to “cool” our bodies from eating too many rich foods. Regardless of what was in the big pot, I grew up knowing that soup was an integral part of our diet at home. It was rare to have a day when there was no full stockpot on the stove. It was an everyday occurrence to hear my grandma, mom, or aunt insist that Ed and I “drink soup.”

Soup was the antidote to everything. You ate too much fried food? Drink soup. You aren’t feeling well? Drink soup. You’re feeling sluggish or tired? Drink soup. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a soup or tonic for pretty much anything you can complain about.

I started getting back into thinking about soup more regularly after I gave birth to Kaia in December 2021. My aunt had lovingly sent me ingredients to make a specific Chinese chicken wine soup (雞酒湯 ji jiu tang), which she insisted would nourish my body to recover quickly from childbirth, while also simultaneously helping my body to produce more milk for my baby (debatable, but it was still tasty). Two years ago, I started being more intentional about making soup. And this year, I am trying to make soup even more often. It’s delicious, nourishing, tasty, and given it’s been so cold this winter, who could say no to a hot bowl of soup? Soup rounds out any meal. In China, there is a saying called san cai yi tang (三菜一汤), meaning “three dishes and one soup,” which is a foundational principle of a balanced, home-cooked Chinese meal that is meant to be shared. It’s typically a meat/protein, one vegetable, one tofu/egg/seafood dish, alongside a nutritious soup. The soup type can vary depending on how it complements the other dishes at the table, but more often than not at home, the soup is a very simple broth that is lightly flavored and seasoned.

I made a simple home-style soup today called yuanzi tang (圆子汤), or pork meatball soup. I was inspired to make it because this blog post by Xueci Cheng, a recipe developer I follow, talked about how integral soup was to her family’s meals in Sichuan growing up. It reminded me of how I ate with my family growing up. And similar to me, she also had forgotten how soup was always at the dinner table at home, as she had moved away to Germany, and soup had mostly been forgotten as a thing to have at a meal. So she made this same soup, and she said when her parents made it for them all during their visit to see her in Germany, they immediately said at the first sip once it was finished cooking that it “tasted like home 家的味道.” This soup is really simple. There’s no required broth base, as it’s mostly flavored by the fat and flavor from the pork meatballs you make (though I did use a cup of dashi I happened to have in my fridge). But after I seasoned it, it really did remind me of the simpler, light home-style soups my grandma used to make when I was little.

My paternal grandma passed in 1995. If she were alive today, she’d be 109 going on 110 this September. Her only granddaughter just turned 40 last month — that’s me. I wonder how she’d feel knowing that even 31 years after her death that I still think about her and her cooking often. I wonder if she’d be pleased to know how much of an impact she’s had on my life and the way I view food, cooking, and our shared culture. She never thought cooking was that great of a skill; for her, it was just something she knew and did. It fed her family (and around Lunar New Year, it fed her friends), and that was enough for her. But in these moments when I taste things that remind me of her and her cooking, I do find myself missing her and wishing we could share that same taste together.

Bonding over the mental load of deciding what to cook

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My friend who loves to cook and experiment in the kitchen messaged me yesterday, telling me that she was inspired to finally browse Mala Market’s website after reading about this chili garlic noodle recipe she wanted to make. The special Sichuan chili flakes needed for the specific flavor of these noodles had to be from this website, the recipe insisted, so she said she would have no choice but to finally make the leap and buy from here. She remembered I originally told her about the website around this time last year, right before the stupid President Dipshit tariffs got announced. I told her I made a big order from the site right before the tariffs would be official to avoid any tariff hikes. I had zero regrets because everything I got was extremely high quality and made all of our stomachs happier.

She said she felt like she had fallen into a rabbit hole with Mala Market. She would browse a page looking for one thing and then eventually want to buy five other things that were linked to that page. “There’s too many things I want to make!” my friend told me, laughing. “How do you decide what to make and when? And then so there are many MORE things to try out and make!”

“The mental load of deciding what to make, when, is real,” I lamented to her, also laughing. “This is a real struggle every day!”

“I think you’re the only person I know who understands this who I can talk about it with,” she confessed. “Whenever I tell this to other people, they look at me like I’m crazy.”

“And that’s why we were meant to be,” I responded back.

I still don’t know how or why it took me until November 2023 to find a friend like this, but these types of conversations always make my heart feel warm. She’s like my kitchen sister, if something like that even exists.

The new year: A time to declutter — starting with the kitchen

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After acquiring several new kitchen items, I realized that it was time to take a long, hard look at everything my kitchen had and see where I could start culling items. Given I have new baking pieces, I decided to give away one of my rectangular glass baking pans. I stared at it for a little bit: I bought this in a set with a larger glass baking pan from Kmart at Astor Place (RIP to that Kmart!); it was one of the very first kitchen items I had purchased when I moved into my Elmhurst, Queens, apartment during the summer of 2008. That summer, I also purchased two cheap but sturdy metal loaf pans and a nine-inch shallow cake pan from Kmart, as well. One of the loaf pans and the cake pan have been wearing; I knew the time had come to finally recycle them. I got 17.5 years of use out of these items, so they had lived a good life.

I posted the glass pan on my local Buy-Nothing group, as well as several like-new knives with knife guards. I didn’t realize how popular these items would be. So many people were in need of baking pans and knives! Or maybe it’s just so cold right now in New York that all people can do to keep warm in their apartments is to cook! I was able to get rid of them all quite quickly – far quicker than I had imagined.

I hope they go to good homes and get used often. It’s in these moments that I really embrace Buy-Nothing, our circular economy: One woman’s trash is another man’s riches. There’s no reason for me to hoard things that I will be unlikely to ever use again. So I’m happy to get these items put to use!

The growing Le Creuset collection

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I am now 40 years, two weeks old. For most of my life, I’ve looked longingly and with a bit of foam at the corner of my mouth at Le Creuset and Staub bake and cookware — you know, those glorious enameled cast iron dutch ovens, pots, and stone bakeware, all handmade in France, that you always see in fancy kitchenware sections and shops. Just the variety of bright colors would get to even the most indifferent-to-cookware people. Although I always admired them, I could never bring myself to buy even a single piece for myself. It felt like too much of an indulgence for me. I tend to be a lot more practical with kitchen items. So instead, I accepted a $35 Amazon Basics five-quart dutch oven from Chris’s aunt and uncle as an early Christmas gift in 2018 when they visited us, and I insisted to myself that I never needed Le Creuset or Staub anything. For comparison sake, a 5.5-quart Le Creuset round dutch oven currently goes for a whooping $435! So there’s clearly a massive markup there. So until this past December, I owned zero Le Creuset or Staub pieces. Hell, I bought a five-quart Staub dutch oven for our ex-nanny and never even bought myself so much as a single Le Creuset ramekin!

In December before we left for Australia, Chris presented me with an early Christmas gift: a Le Creuset 3.5-quart dual braiser and grill pan in a Marseille blue color; the grill pan also acts as a lid for the braiser. I was excited at the acquisition of this item, as it would be my very first and only Le Creuset item. I loved the color immediately. But I wasn’t sure how much I’d use it given I have most of the pots and pans that I use a lot. This braiser also seemed quite shallow at just 3.5 quarts, so other than pasta, I am still not sure what I will “braise” in it. But I knew I’d find ways to use it because after waiting almost 40 years, did you think I’d actually consider giving up my first and only Le Creuset…?!

Then we had the funny Shun knife debacle around my birthday. My friend kindly accepted the return of the eight-inch Shun knife. In its place, she got me a four-piece Le Creuset Heritage line stoneware baking set — one loaf pan, one fluted pie pan, one square baking dish, and one oval dish — all in Marseille blue to match my current braiser-grill pan duo. Of all these dishes, I will likely use the loaf pan the most since I make a decent number of loaf breads in a year. But all the dishes are sturdy, gorgeous, and heat evenly. They would all look beautiful simply as serving dishes. And they could easily reheat in different methods. I laid them all out on the dining table after opening them yesterday and just stared at them. I had the same feeling I do whenever we return from a Costco trip: I felt RICH. Once, I was poor and had no Le Creuset. And then, out of nowhere, I have (technically) six pieces! I am rich now!

The mental load of cooking and managing perishable and pantry ingredients, and food as a love language

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A few months ago, I told Chris that sometimes, despite the fact that I obviously enjoy cooking and food, it can feel like a burden to keep track of all my ingredients — what we have versus what we need, what we’re low on, and then figure out what we need to top up. For example, because I have food ingredients spread across several areas of the apartment due to limited space and no central pantry, I didn’t realize that I actually still had four pounds of dried Garofalo pasta in various shapes; these packages were hiding behind some of his Australian snacks in the side “pantry” we created by the laundry. So because of this, I went to Trader Joe’s and purchased two pounds of dried Italian pasta in other shapes. It wasn’t a big deal because these are dried pantry staples that don’t go bad, but it still annoyed me. So Chris politely told me in the nicest way possible (which is impressive for him given he can be very blunt and snarky) that maybe, I could consider “making simpler food.”

I stared at him as though he told me that I should “go back to China.” What the hell kind of a solution is that? I don’t want to eat blander food, and I love the fact that we have so much variety in this house. I relish that our pantry is well stocked enough so that I can make various types of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Italian, American-esque, and Middle Eastern dishes whenever I feel like it and just need to get some fresh produce to make it happen. There’s no way that I could possibly make “simpler” food because I just wouldn’t be as happy or satisfied. Nor would our gut biomes be as diverse.

Since we’ve got back, I scrolled through my camera roll of a few of the things I made (I don’t photograph the everyday things like roasted or sauteed vegetables most of the time because they’re so regular), and this is what it looks like: Sichuan-style stir-fried chicken, mushrooms, and vegetables; lobia masala (Punjabi black-eyed pea curry), Cantonese-style braised tofu and egg; Pork rib and lotus root soup; tahini granola, di san xian (Dongbei-style stir fried eggplant, potato, and bell peppers); kung pao style stir fried lotus root and peanuts; Cantonese-style beef stew with daikon and tofu skins; turkey chili (using my new gifted Burlap and Barrel ancho, pasilla, and guajillo chili powders). Tomorrow, I’ll be making vegan creamy mushroom pasta (with silken tofu as the secret “creamy” ingredient)! The food this month has leaned heavily Chinese, but it’s also because for whatever reason (maybe because I’m officially middle aged now?!), I’ve had cravings for food of my childhood, hence the beef stew and the lotus root/pork rib soup. But even if most of it is Chinese, it’s still a pretty eclectic variety. We don’t do “pasta Mondays” or “mashed potato Fridays” or whatever regular theme that a lot of families I hear about do where both parents are working (or leading a “life of service”) and need to minimize the mental load of daily family dinner. I like that it’s different, and it also exposes Kaia to endless variety to keep her palate guessing.

And at the end of the day, I love cooking for those I love, not just myself. I like knowing I nourish Chris and Kaia, plus any family and friends that come visit us. Food is one of my love languages. So while sometimes friends can make fun of me and tell me they never would guess I’d be such a traditional mom or wife, I’d like to look at it a different way: this is just how I show I care and love, and so I do it because I love.

Cantonese style beef stew with daikon and tofu skin 萝卜腐竹牛腩

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Growing up in a Cantonese household and with a Cantonese paternal grandma, I was exposed to endless Cantonese delicacies and dishes that I am sad to say, I oftentimes have forgotten about. Some dishes, like Cantonese dim sum, zongzi, or wonton mein have stayed with me as staples in my current eating life. Others have completely disappeared from my consciousness. But then I occasionally get reminded of dishes my grandma either used to make herself or would order out when we went to restaurants, whether that is through seeing pictures and videos on social media or by looking at restaurant menus, and then I am taken back to those delicious moments of food discovery and appreciation.

One of the dishes my grandma never made at home, but my dad always loved ordering for lunch at casual Cantonese restaurants, was Cantonese style beef stew, usually served in a claypot with rice, and almost always with braised daikon. Occasionally, some restaurants would add tofu skins to their stew, but many just had different cuts of beef stew and tendon with a generous sprinkling of bok choy, and always with copious amounts of steamed rice to sop up all the delicious, umami beef stew juices. The stew was always extremely fragrant of five spice powder and star anise. It was comfort food for my dad, and then eventually it became comfort food for me. I rarely order it as an adult, as when I go to Cantonese restaurants, it really hasn’t been top of mind. But occasionally, I will get beef stew as a topping on my wonton mein, or as a small side when ordering takeout. Most places I tried were a bit disappointing — something was lacking, or the quantity of food I got was just too tiny. So I was really happy to find some recipes for this dish developed by recipe developers I follow that made me realize how easy it is to make at home with a little time. Other than the beef stew meat and daikon, I usually have all the other ingredients ready in my pantry, so this recipe was beckoning me to make it! So I “gave it a go” yesterday, and the result far exceeded any version I’ve had in New York to date! Variations of this will be on rotation in our home moving forward. Chris ate some and declared it “not bad, pretty good,” which is his version of a glowing compliment. Kaia did not say anything about the stew, but she did quickly and eagerly eat all the beef stew pieces from her plate during dinner time tonight!

The odds of getting the exact same birthday gift from two different people

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As the years go on, gift receiving isn’t as exciting as it once was when you were a child. As a child, getting gifts was what made Christmases and birthdays so sparkly and exciting. You’d always wonder if your parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and other family friends would give you things you actually wanted (or never even realized you wanted!). There’s the excitement in the anticipation, then even more excitement in the unwrapping or unveiling of gifts from fancy gift boxes and bags. And then, you’d finally get to enjoy your presents!

As I’ve gotten older, I also have gained more power and control over what I have and own, as well as what I can afford to buy for myself — whether that’s everyday essentials, the occasional indulges through experiences, or true splurge/indulgent items (the latter of which I pretty much never do because… well, Asian guilt/practicality). If I really want something, I can just buy it now. I don’t need to wait for a special occasion or nudge a good friend or Chris to buy it for me. That’s the beauty of earning your own money! Plus, as I’ve gotten older, naturally I’ve just gotten fewer and fewer gifts. I no longer exchange Christmas gifts with almost any friend; I give some very close friends (and their kids) birthday gifts, or treat them to special (higher priced) birthday meals. We don’t really “need” as much stuff as we get older.

So when I decided to have this 40th birthday party for myself, I wasn’t sure what anyone would get me, if anything. I figured some close friends would give me some splurge-worthy items, but I wasn’t sure what. One friend got me a very expensive ticket to see Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway, which I very much appreciated. Another friend got me my favorite Burlap & Barrel spices and Rancho Gordo beans (how could I not have appreciated these?!). But then something unexpected happened: a best friend and Chris’s friend got me the same high-end Shun knife: my friend got me the 8-inch, and Chris’s friend got me the 6-inch. I was floored not only at the generosity of the gifts, but also: how the heck did two people totally unrelated to and unaware of the other get me the same fancy gift…?!

They are technically not the same knife because one is two inches longer than the other, but for me, they are essentially the same. Given my hand size, I am more comfortable using a 6-inch santoku-style knife for everyday cutting and chopping needs. So I felt bad, but I think I will have to ask my friend if she can return the 8-inch she got me… and perhaps replace it with something else splurge-worthy I’d normally never get myself. Maybe it could be a Le Creuset bakeware set? I’m truly grateful for my gifts, especially these really pricey ones that no one ever needed to get me. And I know the way my friend thought about it: she specifically wanted to get me a gift that she knew I’d never buy for myself, but would really appreciate. I’m so grateful and genuinely touched.

Embracing middle-aged-dom by organizing all my Chinese herbs

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Yesterday, I spent about an hour labeling glass jars in Chinese and English, and then emptying all my Chinese herbs out of their plastic bags and into the glasses. My herb bag was becoming a total mess, especially once I started buying more around the time my best friend had a baby, and I wanted to make her a few tonics. So I promised myself that once we got back from our month away that I’d finally set aside time to get all these organized. I hated the feeling of disorganization and clutter: I feel like as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more annoyed and disgusted by clutter and dirtiness.

Once I got all the labeling done and the herbs into their appropriate jars, I felt this deep sense of satisfaction. This is what it means to get older: to feel satisfied about organization and cleanliness. In some way, it kind of reminded me of all the endless glass jars my grandma used to store in the cupboard at home. She had an even larger and more complex herb collection, which she used very frequently for soups and tonics for all of us. I never thought I’d ever be like her, but here we are with a growing Chinese dried herb collection that resembles hers!

I’ll be using some of these dried herbs for pork bone lotus root soup today — also a soup that she made fairly often when I was growing up. It’s a soup that reminds me of home — soothing, homey, and almost medicinal in a happy, nourishing way.