Taiwanese popcorn chicken “oven fried” at home

At the beginning of this year, I started reading more about Taiwanese cooking. Taiwan has a complicated identity, not just because of its connection to (and arguably, ownership by) China, but also because of its history of colonization by multiple countries. While a lot in Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine overlap, some argue that Taiwanese cuisine is a completely distinct cuisine all in itself because of its native people, plus previous colonizers. Whatever you believe is certainly debatable, but what I think is most definitely true and not debatable is that the cuisine of Taiwan is extremely tasty. And that in itself is enough to appreciate Taiwan and its food.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed various iterations of Taiwanese fried chicken. Sometimes, they were deep fried cutlets, while other times, they were in the form of bite-sized, “popcorn” pieces that were fried to perfection. The chicken always had a hint of five-spice mix, but it also had an interesting “je ne sais quoi” umami flavor to it that I couldn’t pin down. I’d never had it in all the other variations of fried chicken I’d had previously, whether it was American, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or Southern American. I just couldn’t figure out what gave it that distinct Taiwanese flavor that popped.

And then I stumbled across the journalist Clarissa Wei, an American with Taiwanese heritage who now lives in Taiwan. She has co-written a Taiwanese cookbook called Made in Taiwan and also wrote several food pieces for Serious Eats, including a Taiwanese popcorn chicken recipe with a description that explained that umami pop that was distinct to Taiwan’s version of fried chicken. The secret ingredient was furu, or Chinese/Taiwanese fermented bean curd! I never would have guessed it, but after reading her article, it completely made sense. Furu, for those who are not familiar, is a fermented bean curd that has a very, very distinct smell/taste that some might call stinky or funky. It is usually found stir-fried in vegetable dishes like water spinach or Buddha’s Delight / luo han zhai. It gives a strong umami flavor, like a more peculiar version of miso. I used this in the chicken marinade and marinated overnight. Then, I coated the chicken in a flour-baking powder mixture, then in a sweet potato flour mixture, which is supposed to give a lighter “crust” to the fried chicken.

Clarissa’s recipe calls for deep frying, which is traditional for Taiwanese popcorn chicken, but I didn’t want to do this given the mess and oil waste. Instead, I used an “oven fry” method I learned from Amanda Hesser of Food 52, who published her mom’s recipe for oven fried chicken. Instead of deep frying, she would add two tablespoons of butter/oil to a bake pan, put it in the oven at 400 F until it was fully melted and coated on the pan. Then, she would add her coated chicken, skin-faced-down, onto the super hot pan, put it back in the oven, “oven fry” (time depends on your chicken cut type, whether it’s bone-in, size of pieces), then flip over once that face-down side was super brown and crispy. She’d put it back in the oven, roast until fully cooked and the second side was brown. Finally, it would be pulled out of the oven and ready to serve. This merging of two recipes/methods really worked! I was so impressed by the results and kept marveling over how tasty the chicken was. It really did have that nice underlying “funk” to it, and the crispiness was very, very satisfying. While enjoying this chicken, I couldn’t remember the last time I was more impressed with something new I had made. This recipe was most definitely a keeper, and so was the oven frying method for pieces this small!

I guess this just means I’m going to have to read more of her book and maybe even buy it. I’ve always loved Taiwanese food, just never really explored it in depth.

Tang yuan – a sweet labor of love for Lantern Festival

Well, Lunar New Year has come and gone. Although my tang yuan were late, at least I had made them close to the end of Chinese New Year, which is tradition. Tang yuan 湯圓 are small glutinous rice balls usually filled with a sweet, crushed black sesame, peanut, peanut coconut, or red bean paste mixture. They are served steaming hot, usually in a sweet milky broth or brown-sugar ginger soup. They are typically eaten at the end of Lunar New Year during what is called Lantern Festival to symbolize the unity of family and loved ones. The round shape of tang yuan is associated with the full moon, which symbolizes the wholeness of family and a brighter future.

I grew up eating both the sweet and savory versions of tang yuan. Though with my sweet tooth growing up, the black sesame or crushed peanut dessert version was always what I got excited about; this is the version that most people eat and are aware of. You can even find them premade and frozen in most Asian supermarkets; they are easy to prepare, as all you have to do is plop the frozen balls in boiling water, and they’ll be done once they float up to the top. The downside of these, though, is there is often artificial flavors and ingredients in them, and who really wants that?

But what I have more vivid memories of is the savory version of tang yuan, either eaten during Lantern Festival or during the winter solstice. The Cantonese savory tang yuan version is plain glutinous rice balls dunked and cooked in a chicken, pork, and daikon fragrant broth, along with dried shrimp, sliced Chinese sausages, daikon, and sliced Napa cabbage. It was a comforting, soothing bowl of soup, and the umami-rich scent is unmistakable. It always reminded me of home every time my grandma or mom would make it; it’s a very home-style dish, one that you would never see on a restaurant menu. In my adult years, I’ve found out there’s an even more complex version of the savory tang yuan where the savory glutinous rice balls are stuffed with a meat filling – this sounds like even more intense work!

I think the sweet version of tang yuan is easier for those who don’t understand tang yuan or its meaning to get used to. And I love making them, even though they are a total pain given that manipulating glutinous rice flour dough is very challenging. It takes some practice to get the dough just right. Using cold water won’t do; you actually need a mix of boiling hot water and cold water to make the dough workable and pliable enough to form into a firm dough. I remember this from the days when I would make them with my grandma. She would always use boiling hot water to mix the glutinous rice flour dough, and somehow, her hands, which were very tough, could always handle the steaming heat. Once the dough cooled down enough, she’d let me help and cut small pieces of dough and roll them into nice, round balls. Once you have that part right, the next part is not allowing the dough to dry up too much to get crackly. And after THAT part has cleared, you need to make sure that the filling, whether it’s crushed peanut or black sesame, will be solid enough to not fly all over the place and actually properly get inserted into each dough ball, then seal them firmly shut. It’s a lot of finicky steps and finesse that’s required to get these things just right. But when you do get it right, it’s so satisfying: to take a bite into a sweet tang yuan is very luxurious. You know it’s right when you take your first bite into the ball, and the black sesame sugar filling oozes out like hot lava. It’s creamy, buttery, and nutty lusciousness. I made a second batch of tang yuan two days ago given my first dough batch from a couple weeks ago was a total mess, and I would say that the second time was a charm. I hadn’t made this in a few years, so I had gotten a bit rusty.

Tang yuan is a treasured dish, one that I hope Kaia will be able to appreciate soon. I tried to give her one I made the other day, and she kind of pushed the ball around her dinner tray and just thought the texture was fun and squishy. Only time will tell!

Leftover ingredients never go to waste in our house

After our Lunar New Year lunch, while we certainly had far more leftover food than I initially imagined, we also had some leftover raw ingredients that I needed to use up soon. Some of these things included an extra king oyster mushroom, chives, sweetened condensed milk, and six egg yolks. In the past when I used egg whites in different desserts or soups, I usually used the remaining egg yolks to make a chocolate mousse or something related. But I didn’t have any chocolate or cocoa powder this time, which led me to look at what else I had on hand: brown sugar that was hardening, plus several lemons. I decided to make something I’d always wanted to try out, but never did: lemon curd! Lemon curd is one of those indulgent spreads that is used on scones and muffins, but people rarely think to make at home, though it’s actually quite simple. Lemon curd only requires four ingredients (sugar, fresh lemon juice, egg yolks, and butter), some stirring on the stove, and then straining. The straining will take the longest if you want to be very careful about straining out any egg bits that may have curdled, but once that is done, you will have a decadent spread for toast, muffins, scones, or just to eat straight from a spoon. When I was done making this yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t stop marveling over how delicious and fancy it tasted, yet it took very little time or effort (other than the straining).

I used the remaining king oyster mushroom in a quick and easy sugar snap pea stir fry that Kaia enjoyed as part of her dinner yesterday. And for the sweetened condensed milk, since it has a long refrigerated life, I decided to gradually use it up in some homemade Hong Kong style milk tea. Before yesterday, I actually had no idea how Hong Kong style milk tea was made. You boil water, add your tea leaves, boil again, then simmer/steep for 15-20 minutes, then strain. To finish and serve, you add whole/evaporated milk and a little sweetened condensed milk per cup. If you don’t like strong tea, you will NOT enjoy Hong Kong style milk tea! It uses an insane amount of tea, which is why you get such a caffeine jolt after having a cup, and the tea most typically used is Ceylon tea (that’s right: I used my DILMAH!). While the typical cup of black tea will use one teaspoon of tea to one cup (240ml) of liquid, Hong Kong style milk tea requires FIVE teaspoons per cup of hot water, with about 1/3 cup of milk added. I didn’t have evaporated milk (which is usually used, and far richer than whole milk since it’s literally evaporated down), so I used regular whole cow milk with a teaspoon per cup of sweetened condensed milk. I had just over a cup-size serving, and it’s evening time now, and I am still feeling the effects of this caffeine!

No waste in our house. 🙂

Taro sago dessert soup – a good gateway dessert for littles

For our Lunar New Year lunch on Saturday, I originally wanted to go *all* out and do two desserts: one would be the simple taro sago dessert soup (芋香椰汁西米露/Yù xiāng yē zhī xī mǐ lù), which would be easy to make; the second would be the more challenging tang yuan, or black sesame glutinous rice balls in brown sugar-ginger soup. After having several of my dough balls get completely crumply and destroyed a few nights ago (I hadn’t made this in ages, so I was out of practice with how to properly roll the glutinous rice flour dough), I decided to forgo the tang yuan finicky mess and go with the taro sago dessert soup, which even a young child could make.

Taro sago dessert soup was one of my favorite Chinese desserts growing up. When we used to have big family meals with my cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandma, the banquet-style table would always be filled with endless and sumptuous seafood, meat, and vegetable dishes. Looking back, I realize that I took it all for granted, as we never have meals with this much variety now at all. At the end of the huge meal, there was usually a complimentary dessert soup, usually in the form of red bean. While I did enjoy sweet red bean soup growing up, it was not my favorite. I was always pleasantly surprised when the massive bowl of dessert soup would come out, and the waiter would ladle out steaming hot bowls of taro sago soup. It was always this pale purple color with small chunks of taro and tiny translucent tapioca balls bobbing up and down. The soup had a hint of coconut milk flavor and just enough sweetness to let you know this was certainly dessert. I never realized then how easy it was to make this soup at home with just a handful of ingredients.

So I made it for Saturday, and it was very well received; several guests had a second helping. Yet we still have quite a bit left over since the recipe made a very, very large batch. So while eating it tonight, I offered Kaia some. She initially rejected it, but gradually grew envious the more she saw me spoon it into my mouth. So she came closer and asked to “try some.” I gave her a small spoonful; she ate some and made a face, ran away, then tentatively came back to me to ask for “more?” She proceeded to have about a quarter of my small bowl of taro sago soup and clearly loved it, constantly repeating “taro yummy, taro yummy.”

I thought more about (East) Asian desserts, and I also thought about Chris (and many people who think like him) and criticize them, saying that East Asian countries like China and Japan don’t know how to do dessert well, and “that’s why they put shit like red bean” in their desserts. But I actually think this thought is flawed. East Asians thought about putting legumes, seeds, and roots like red bean, black sesame, and taro in desserts; from a health perspective, this should be embraced, because you’re not only having a sweet and indulgent treat, but combining it with something that will nourish your body. Who is to say that something like sesame or beans should be used in only savory applications? Why put arbitrary limits on different types of raw ingredients? With these raw ingredients, East Asians pair them with just enough sweetness so that your teeth don’t ache after, but your belly still gets a sweet hit. And that’s actually a great way to introduce sweets to young children like Kaia, especially as we want to limit their sugar intake but still not feel like they’re being left out of sweet treats. Kaia can be indulged with a dessert with a small amount of sugar, yet still have something healthful that her parents can feel good about. And that all sounds good to me.

Lunar New Year lunch at home: home-style banquet

When I decided to host a Lunar New Year lunch this year, it was the first time I’d done this in years, likely since 2018 or 2019, so pre-pandemic and pre-baby. We hadn’t hosted any meal here in ages, and I thought it would be fun to go all out and re-create a banquet experience of lots of different New Year’s foods for our small crowd of friends. With just 2.5 of us eating most of the time, it’s a bit overkill to make so many dishes for just a small number of people. It’s more fun when you have many, many mouths to feed. So these are my opportunities to really recreate that banquet dining experience. It took weeks of planning, three grocery shopping trips to Chinatowns, and over a week of food preparation, but it all turned out well from a taste perspective. This is what I served:

  1. West Lake beef soup – with minced beef and egg whites 
  2. Thit kho – Vietnamese caramelized braised pork ribs and eggs 
  3. Do chua – Vietnamese pickled julienned carrots and daikon 
  4. Steamed whole black sea bass with ginger and scallion
  5. Luo Han Jai / Buddha’s Delight: Stir-fried glass noodles with various vegetables, mushrooms, and tofu 
  6. Chinese sticky rice with Chinese sausage, cha siu, shiitake mushrooms, and dried scallops 
  7. Longevity noodles / yi mian, made with king oyster mushrooms, chives, and carrots 
  8. Blanched gai lan with oyster sauce 
  9. Dessert: hot taro sago dessert soup; pan fried slices of New Year’s cake (nian gao), homemade peanut sesame candy  

The thit kho and do chua were the two Vietnamese dishes I served and are meant to complement each other. The thit kho was a huge hit; everyone raved about how good it was. No one had eaten it before, which made sense: it’s usually a home-style dish that’s made by families during the Tet Lunar New Year. I’ve actually never seen it on any Vietnamese restaurant menu before. It’s amazing what magic happens when you pair the sweetness of young coconut water with the savories of pork ribs and a little fish sauce.

We had three kids in total: a near-6-year-old Ivy, an 18-month old Seneca, plus Kaia. I met my friend’s boyfriend for the first time. I handed out red Pepa Pig envelopes (hong bao) to the kiddos. Kaia got a new Chinese New Year book to add to her growing book collection. It was a fun afternoon of eating and conversation. But I would say that for me, the biggest highlight was when most people had left, and it was just us plus my friend, his wife, and their 18-month old. I was deboning the remaining fish, and both Kaia and Seneca wanted fish. So I took turns putting boneless fish in both of their mouths. Kaia got competitive and wanted more. Seneca tried to share with Kaia and hand her fish I had given Seneca; Kaia refused, saying, “No! No share!” The whole scene became like a bit of a fish-eating competition to see who could get and eat more fihs than the other. It was cute and sweet to see them not only enjoy my food, but act silly and toddler-like with each other. Kaia also proceeded to have an unprecedented amount of West Lake beef soup; her diaper was extremely, extremely wet after dinner that evening.

Peanut sesame candy

Around Chinese New Year every year, my grandma used to buy a big plastic tray of togetherness with all the traditional Chinese sweets and candies that would bring in an auspicious year. While I always thought most of them were chalky and sickly sweet, occasionally, I did enjoy the candied coconut meat strips, as well as the red-and-gold-foiled candies that had a homey sweet flavor. One thing that we also had around Chinese New Year was a store-bought peanut-sesame candy, similar to peanut brittle. I see it all the time being sold around Lunar New Year in Chinatown today: It was always cut into long, thin, flat rectangles and individually wrapped. This was one Lunar New Year sweet I remembered eating and loving. The nuttiness paired with the slight sweetness from the caramelized sugar base was really addictive. Sometimes, the candy was made of just sesame seeds, while other times, it had a combination of peanuts and sesame seeds. I’m sure it’s one reason I had so many cavities at my first dentist appointment.

I was doing some research for my upcoming Lunar New Year lunch when I went to the Woks of Life website, one of my go-to sites for authentic Chinese recipes, and the feature recipe was for this exact candy – peanut sesame candy! I was floored. People actually MAKE this regularly around Lunar New Year? It only takes THREE ingredients? I was sold!

But me being me, I tweaked the recipe a bit, and I ended up mashing three different ones into the one I ended up using yesterday. And… it was a bit of a disaster. The rock sugar took ages to melt fully. The recipe said it would take only five minutes. I was standing there, stirring the pan for at least 40 minutes. And by the time the rock candy fully did melt, it seemed like the sugar had burnt a little. When I finally poured the candy mixture onto my silicone mat to roll out, it was a huge, sticky mess. I barely had enough time to roll it flat and cut it before it started hardening. I was not happy with the result. While the toastiness of the sesame seeds and peanuts came through well, Chris admitted that the candy had a slightly burnt aftertaste. This was just take 1.

Maybe, just maybe I should use regular granulated sugar and forgo the traditional rock sugar. That was a huge blocker in getting this recipe correct, as I spent too much time trying to melt the “rocks.” I will try again in the next week and see if I can perfect it so that I can have a nice, sweet Lunar New Year bowl of sweets to share next Saturday.

Mummy and Pookster’s fun Sunday morning of cooking and eating

Yesterday morning, Chris had to go out for a dentist appointment, so Pookster and I would be home together. Sunday is usually my vegetable cooking day, so I made sure to get her involved in the cooking and prep. Plus, I had defrosted the shrimp stock I got through my local Buy-Nothing group, as well as kabocha squash I had roasted before we left for Australia, and I wanted to use that to make kabocha squash soup. Kaia was involved in the full process, as she watched me saute all the vegetables for the soup base and simmer the stock. She watched with intrigue as I poured the hot mixture into the blender to fully puree. And as I poured the pureed soup into my Instant Pot to reheat and simmer, while adding some frozen coconut milk cubes, she asked, “Want some? Want some?” So I gave her a spoonful of soup, which she happily grabbed and shoved into her mouth. She then took it out of her mouth and handed it to me and said, “Mummy have some soup?” But then, she took the spoon back, still with a little soup in it, and ate the rest. She handed the spoon back to me, asking “More?”

At that point, I decided that she could just eat lunch while standing on her little step stool at our kitchen counter. It would change up the context of eating, and she was already enjoying herself so much since I was involving her in the full cooking process. Pookster proceeded to have three decent-sized helpings of kabocha squash soup, a massive amount of freshly blanched and lightly seasoned yu choy (you cai) greens, as well as a handful of Cheerios, which she happened to see on the counter. She decided to use that as “croutons” to add to her soup. Interesting. As she ate the soup, she kept on saying “yummy soup, yummy soup.” And as she got closer to the end of her bowl twice, she asked for “more?” And once she was done with the soup and moved onto her greens, she always indicated she wanted me to cut the long strands of yu choy into smaller, bite sized pieces, and told me whether she wanted the stem part or the leaf part… or both. She finished her lunch with blueberries and strawberries.

While Kaia is obviously tiring at this two-year-old stage, with her demands and stubbornness, as well as her full out toddler tantrums that result in her body being splayed out all over the floor in a silent (or loud) rage, enjoying these moments with her always is a reminder to me how fleeting each stage is. It is so sweet to see her caring side, like when she wants to offer me a taste of something she thinks is delicious. I also love that she’s always curious about what’s going on at heights she cannot always see, whether it’s at the kitchen counter or above the stove. I do hope that she will love and embrace cooking, as well, and not just want to outsource it to someone else. Sometimes when I am cooking with her, I am reminded of all the delicious things my grandma used to make that no one can quite recreate anymore since she’s gone, and none of her recipes were ever documented. They are only a distant memory to those of us who were privileged enough to try her pro-level Cantonese cooking.

Homemade chili oil, revisited

We finished the mason jar of chili oil I had made months ago, and for whatever reason, I decided to put off making a new batch until the new year. Even though I was decently satisfied with the recipe I was using (which was a mash of three different other recipes I had found), I still wasn’t fully satisfied. But I got reminded of the chili oil need when we had a number of different chili oils during our December travels in Australia, and I thought they were standouts. One of the hot chili oils I loved the most was at Shandong Mama, one of my favorite little restaurants in Melbourne CBD. We had ordered dumplings and noodles for takeaway to eat at home, and they gave us some small containers of their house made chili oil. Even though the chili oil containers were small, the chili oil packed a huge punch; it was not only extremely flavorful and clearly infused with multiple spices, but it was HOT. I still think about how fragrant and flavorful it was now. I needed to find a way to recreate this “wow” factor in my own version.

So I started looking up other techniques to infuse more flavor, and I came across a recipe that required you to steep and simmer whole spices (whole Sichuanese peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon stick) for a full hour. This seemed a bit scary to me because I was scared the oil would burn after such a long time over heat. Then, after the hour was done, you’d strain the whole spices from the hot oil directly into a heat-proof bowl with your choice of chili flakes. I used a combination of ground Sichuanese peppercorns for the “ma la” numbing heat, regular red pepper flakes for heat, and Korean gochugaru for color and smoky flavor. Because I was scared of the oil burning, I turned off the heat periodically after checking the temperature with an instant-read thermometer and just let the oil sit with the whole spices steeped. When I tasted it a couple hours later, it seemed like it had a slight burnt after taste — this is when I took a small spoonful and put it directly in my mouth (I love doing this, though it’s advised not to…). But when I drizzled the oil on top of vegetables and dumplings this evening, I didn’t get the burnt after taste at all, and Chris thinks I’m being overly critical.

My main goal is to recreate the multi-dimensional flavor of the Shandong Mama hot chili oil. So, after this jar is done, I will continue on the chili oil perfecting quest.

Shellfish cooking class with political commentary and a white gaze

Yesterday night, I attended a shellfish cooking class that Chris gifted me for Christmas in Little Italy. It’s funny for me to even say that it’s in “Little Italy” because it’s just about two blocks away from the main Chinatown area I always shop in. I came in a little early and was the only person who was carrying massive canvas bags that were clearly stuffed to the brim with groceries. The teacher looked excited to see that I went shopping.

“Oh, yes! It’s so great to get your shopping done down here! Did you check out Eataly and Despana?” she asked.

I told her that I actually was shopping in Chinatown, and she didn’t have much of a response to that. It was like she had zero awareness that the majority of this surrounding area is NOT actually Italian, but mostly Chinese.

That was the first hint of the “white gaze” that I got even before the class started. I’ve been in a class at this same cooking school with this instructor, and while she certainly is not my favorite teacher, I never knew her to be so political during her classes. She made a number of random jabs at former members of Trump’s cabinet while he was president, and while I got all of them and chuckled a few times, no one else really had much of a reaction. When she made a joke about how incompetent Betsy DeVos was and how it was clear no one was in public school in this class during her reign and I laughed, she looked at me, then around at the other students, and said, “Well, at least one person here has been paying attention to politics!” I didn’t really mind these comments, but I’d imagine other people who might not agree with her would be bothered and caught off guard by these words, especially since this was supposed to be a cooking class.

The annoying parts came when she was talking about the production and farming of some of these types of shellfish, and she made some very big assertions that for seafood like shrimp, we should be buying “only” American shrimp caught in the Gulf because “it’s the best,” and she also made comments about how all farmed shrimp is questionable and produced with the equivalent of slave labor. It seemed like such a pro-American, anti-everywhere else in the world comment, plus she occasionally knocked seafood farms in Asia. First of all, I don’t think that Gulf-caught shrimp would be the undisputed “best” shrimp option one can eat or buy; that sounds not only ignorant, but also just racist against other places that produce it. Secondly, if you really want to have a conversation about slave labor, does she honestly think that the people working in seafood farms and catching “the best” Gulf shrimp are all paid fair wages that would afford them comfortable lives…?

We also talked about the eating of things like mussels and clams. She said that it’s customary, when serving bivalves, to always give diners an empty bowl to put their shells in after they finish. She mentioned how if we were in a country like Vietnam, you could just throw your shells on the floor, and some worker would rush to sweep them all up for you. A number of people (my class was 70% white, with one Asian (me), one Latino guy, and one Black guy) were shocked when the teacher shared this.

“Why?” some of them asked, truly astonished.

“Well, it gives someone a job, so why not?” she said, with a bit of an eye roll. It sounded a bit judgmental, and also disparaging to the Vietnamese businesses in that country for doing this. She also did not give off the tone that she approved of this being a job.

In general, I dislike commentary like this because it is almost always said with a “white gaze” in mind, the notion that the Western or American way is better or “the best,” and it doesn’t factor in cultural nuances at all. Plenty of judgment could equally be made about what we consider suitable jobs here in this country, or how people in different service roles are paid: Why do we have “bus boys” when wait staff could easily clear and clean your table? Why the hell should “front of house staff” have higher wages than “back of house staff” or kitchen staff when the kitchen staff are actually the people preparing diners’ food — you know, the reason people are eating out?!

I highly doubt she would consider the idea that seafood farm practices in countries like New Zealand, Australia, or Finland would yield higher quality seafood than in U.S. surrounding waters, or pay higher wages. I also doubt this instructor has probably ever even visited Oceania to make the statement that Gulf-caught shrimp are the best, just as another point of comparison.

At some point of my life when I was younger, I’m sure I was one of those same smart asses who thought I knew a lot, or at least, way more than I actually did. I have since gradually relented, and now, I’m more eager to say that every day, I realize more and more how little I know as I learn more things (sounds ironic, but it isn’t). But I do try to be intentional about sharing what I know and caveating it, and I rarely will make a statement like, “gulf shrimp is the best in the world” unless I’m just being hyperbolic — the best, according to… her?

The sad story of the shared chicken drumstick

While I was away on my work trip last week, Chris decided to defrost some of the chicken drumsticks in our freezer and make a Malaysian-style curry. There weren’t a lot of drumsticks, so he decided to ration them out to make them last at least five days. So when I came back with Kaia after picking her up from daycare, he had prepared our dinner bowls, but only his bowl had a drumstick in it, and mine did not. Kaia had a drumstick with some chicken pieces torn off it on her dinner plate.

“How come there’s only one drum stick you warmed up?” I asked him.

“Well, I want to make the chicken last because there weren’t that many drumsticks and we don’t have that much (cooked) food left, so we can share one,” he responded.

I always thought that wherever we lived was always “food rich.” It doesn’t matter what point of time you are referring to: we usually have a freezer brimming with frozen meat, seafood, and vegetables, amongst other ingredients I use for cooking, whether it’s frozen cubes of stock, tomato onion masala, curry leaves, frozen shredded coconut or purple yam. I have from-scratch made sauces and pickled things in our fridge, plus plenty of fresh produce in the vegetable and fruit drawers. Some food in the freezer is ready to eat once you pop it into the oven for 25 minutes, while others (like my zongzi and banh chung from Chinatown) are ready after you steam them for 15-20 minutes. Our pantry is stocked well with plenty of dried noodles, pasta, mushrooms, and canned goods. But this chicken drumstick incident honestly seemed completely ridiculous and made me feel like we were extremely food poor. Where the hell had our life gone awry where two grown-ass adults living in a luxury apartment building in the middle of Manhattan were sharing a SINGLE chicken drumstick for dinner…?

I gave Chris some grief about this and shared my sentiments above. He proceeded to not get another drumstick. Instead, he simply took one small bite of the drumstick, then put it in my bowl. No, that did NOT make a difference with my sentiments.

This is what happens when I am not here to cook regularly. We end up with faux food rationing, and I cannot handle it. It’s a good thing I am back to take care of the food preparation in this house.