Since getting more and more immersed in the foodie community of YouTube and Instagram, one fun thing I’ve been doing is learning more about small, locally owned businesses in New York City. Most of the ones I’ve learned about are so small that they’re still operating out of their home kitchens, including two Asian-American owned ice cream businesses in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The one that I just got a delivery from was Sundae Service NYC, which delivers pints of ice cream every Sunday across Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. They are two Asian American sisters who churn out pints of ice cream in a small selection of flavors ranging from Vietnamese coffee to coconut pandan sorbet (vegan!) to earl grey strawberry cheesecake. I got all three of these flavors, along with black sesame ginger, and had been waiting to order from them for a while (I was trying to eat the rest of our ice cream and also clear out our freezer of all the stuff I’ve been over stocking up on). We tried all of them after they were delivered yesterday, and I was blown away by all four of them; all of them have very strong, assertive flavors, and the flavor combinations are just so complementary. With the earl grey strawberry cheesecake, what I loved most about it was not only the earl grey tea base, but the fact that the cheesecake chunks were small — just enough so you could taste the cheese, but not too much so that it would overpower the earl grey or the fresh strawberry chunks.

This may be dangerous knowing they exist and can so easily deliver without a delivery fee if you get at least two pints because I’m pretty obsessed with them now.

I love autumn squash. Every year when fall rolls around, I get excited about all the butternut, buttercup, and kabocha squash I can easily get at markets everywhere here. The funny thing, though, is that I actually don’t really change up how I make it; I almost inevitably will roast it, puree it into soup, or toss it into salads. I do know that certain types of squash appear in dal recipes, even in Kerala sambar, but I’d never actually tried it myself. With the new food blogger/vlogger network I’ve been developing on YouTube and Instagram, I’ve come across way too many food inspirations to keep track of that I actually want to make (and have ingredients easily accessible to make!), and one of them is Tamil butternut squash (dal) stew. It’s so easy and simple to make, and other than cubing up the butternut squash, there’s very minimal cutting or chopping. It has just a small amount of shredded coconut that you blend into a paste before adding it into the Instant Pot, but that gives it an instant bit of sweetness that works super well with the overall stew.

The new foodie community I belong to now has really been inspiring. I have so many things I want to make and try out to increase my cooking knowledge all thanks to these new food-loving, creating friends.

With all the leftover Tom Yum Soup that I made a few days ago, I figured this would be a good broth to have with the Lotus Foods brand gluten-free rice ramen I picked up from Costco a few months ago during our quarterly haul. So no, I am not gluten-free, nor will I ever be, and I actually think leading a gluten-free lifestyle when you actually do NOT have a gluten allergy is just bad for your health and bad for society at large. The real reason I was attracted to this at Costco when I saw it was just the idea that the label said that the texture is just like regular ramen (which is made with wheat, and sometimes eggs), but it’s made from brown rice and millet only. It’s organic, gluten-free, and vegan naturally. Plus, it only takes about three minutes to cook!

Well, the label wasn’t lying: it was really quick cooking, and the texture really was just like regular ramen! I liked the bite as well as the texture and taste of the noodles. I didn’t even miss the wheat or eggs. I’d definitely buy this again, but since this is Costco sized, we still have ten servings left!

Even though Vietnamese food overall is pretty laborious, one of the most common things on a Vietnamese meal table is actually one of the quickest and easiest, and that’s nuoc cham, the ubiquitous, fish-based dipping sauce that is sweet, salty, sour, and umami. It comes together in less than 15 minutes, and when you have a mortar and pestle, you don’t even have to mince any garlic, and it could come together even quicker!

I used to pound the garlic and the chilies for this with a make-shift mortar and pestle the way my mom does it, which is pounding these two ingredients against sugar in a bowl with the back of the knife, but now that I have a real mortar and pestle, it’s so much more satisfying to mash in the mortar and so much quicker, too. I also think the flavors are also stronger and more pronounced with the fish sauce now, but I guess my opinion is biased since I obviously know the change I’ve made to my method.

I posted a video on TikTok and Instagram for my method, which is pretty much my mom’s method for making nuoc cham. And a former colleague who is Vietnamese said that his method was completely different, but he still “approved” of mine.

WHAT METHOD COULD BE BETTER THAN ONE THAT HAS POUNDED GARLIC AND CHILIES? 😀

Well, now that I’ve got this new job, I can’t slack off and cook during the weekdays anymore. Yep, I said it: when I was at my last job, pretty much since the pandemic began, I probably spend a good chunk of my work day working… on cooking and filming videos. Not like it really mattered since I knew that the company wasn’t going anywhere and that I’d still perform better than most of my colleagues on half the number of hours actually at my computer, but hey, who cares now?

What this means, though, is that now that I actually am working at a company that I care about, and I have to limit the time I spend doing any real cooking and filming to Sundays. Saturdays are the days we go out and explore a new neighborhood, while Sundays are the day when I can record and cook food for the videos and for the week. Today, I made and filmed videos for Tom Yum Soup and Vietnamese egg meatloaf. It was a tiring day, but at least I know that I not only have content to work with, but I also have delicious food for the week.

The next video that I am working on is for apple cider yeast donuts. I’d honestly liked the idea of apple cider donuts for as long as I’ve lived in the Northeast, but in reality, most of the donuts seemed a bit too dense and oily for me. I kept trying different ones, whether they were from colleagues or at farmers’ markets, and still, they were just okay — not anywhere near what I thought would be my favorite, ideal donut.

Then, I had the ones at Terhune Orchards in Jersey during our day trip there in August, and I was blown away. These were light, fluffy, slightly sweet, with not even a hint of greasiness. These were the apple cider donuts I had missed out on for so long.

So today, I decided to make the Serious Eats recipe for apple cider donuts — they are yeast-raised and shallow-fried in coconut oil, which is supposed to keep the donuts light and prevent that “greasy fried food smell or taste” from lingering. I’d never made donuts before, so this was my very first time. And these donuts delivered: they were perfect (well, other than the shape of some) in flavor and lightness, and they turned out even better and fluffier the next day, with the flavor becoming even more pronounced! These are a donut lover’s DREAM!

I’ve always wanted to make Kheema Pulao in the Instant Pot – this is basically Indian-spiced rice with minced meat, but I didn’t finally get around to doing it until this week, and it’s really as easy as dumping a bunch of ingredients into the pot and allowing it to pressure cook. I overestimated the amount of water I needed, so the rice wasn’t as light and fluffy as I hoped, but this truly is a weekday, one-pot meal. The Instant Pot really has been a god-send for those who are short on time and still want a quick, healthy, delicious meal at home. These are the times I really relish my IP.

I spent several hours today filming one of my next videos, which will be on Malaysian chicken satay. These delicious grilled skewers, which originated in Indonesia, have a Malaysian spin and are quite ubiquitous everywhere in Malaysia. Malaysian Airlines even serves it as their signature dish in their premium cabin flights.

At first glance, the recipes for the satay marinade and the peanut sauce do not look that daunting. It’s not until you decide to prepare the dish the traditional way using a mortar and pestle for both the marinade and the peanut sauce that it becomes a bit of a grueling workout. If I wanted to take a shortcut, I could have expedited the process and used a food processor, but what fun would have been had in that?

The laborious nature of this dish doesn’t even take into consideration the lengths I had to go in order to find all the ingredients. Ingredients I don’t use very often but are necessary for this to to remain “authentic” include galangal, which I could only find at 3 Aunties Market in Woodside frozen in slices, and lemongrass, which 3 Aunties was out of stock of. One of the workers was really apologetic when she told me; she said her supplier had run out, and she wasn’t sure when they could get more of it. “It’s scarce and very expensive now!” she exclaimed with a sad face. I ended up attempting to go to three other Asian markets before I could finally find it, and it ended up being around $2.50 for 4 stalks. That’s kind of expensive when you find out that you can technically only use the last 3 inches of each stalk for cooking; the rest of this really long stalk is so woody and fibrous, not to mention it has less fragrance. It got even worse when I went to a fourth Chinese market, which was selling 4 stalks for $5!!

We’re letting the chicken marinade overnight, and then I’ll be cooking it tomorrow along with the peanut sauce. I hope this is all worth it.

So I don’t have a *ton* of data to support this based on all the work I’ve been doing to support YmF via social media, but what seems to be the resonating theme across what gets the most engagement and interaction is that the simpler something is, the more it seems to garner intrigue. When I first made my lavender syrup for coffee video, I never really imagined it being my most-watched video for the last year. And today, when I posted a couple short Instagram stories about making chai, or Indian spiced tea, I was surprised by the number of direct messages I received regarding how I make mine, what spices do I use, what proportion of milk to water do I use, what tea brand do I recommend?

To me, chai is one of the most basic preparations and something that, since the pandemic began, I’ve been making about once a week, if not more. It’s a delicious, soothing, rich (but not “bad” for you) treat that feels like an indulgence because of how all the flavors meld into a luxurious drink, but it’s insanely simple to prepare. My default and favorite version just has two spices: fresh smashed ginger and whole green cardamom pods, along with a 1:1 ratio of water to milk (usually cow or Oatly) along with some Dilmah Ceylon tea bags. After having many different kinds, I realized this was my very, very favorite while in India, and it’s also known as “Bombay chai.” Occasionally I’ll throw in a cinnamon stick, some fennel seeds, and a whole clove, but ginger and cardamom are my two loves in chai.

Chai time is like self-care time for so many. I hope that I can convey how easy it is to make so many things that people think are a reach for them, but just take a few ingredients and 10-15 minutes to make like this.

I was having a chat with one of my Instagram/blogger friends, and she marveled how fascinated she was by my mere existence, how “I’ve never met or known any non-Indian who is as interested in Indian food as you are. You know and cook more Indian food than many Indians!” She told me that she talked about me and my posts a lot with her Indian husband, who was also born and raised for most of his childhood in India. “She’s a non-desi, but she makes every Indian dish! I don’t think it’s possible for her to fail making anything Indian!” she exclaimed to him.

It’s like the e-mail thread I’ve been on with Chris’s mom’s cousin about how to make appam. I had repeatedly failed at getting the right texture and look, and so what originally started as an appam recipe exchange morphed into a “what is your favorite Jasmine rice brand?” to “do you want the all-time best Kerala chicken stew recipe from a Syrian Christian”? discussion. I love, love these conversations so much.

These conversations generally only happen with people who are super food obsessed down to the last grain of rice or the last gram of spice. Chris’s aunt also marveled over my attention to detail at making idlis from scratch: “I just buy the ready-made batter!” she said. I could even hear her voice through the email. Yep, I am a perfectionist. If you’re going to do something, you better do it all the way, otherwise just stop altogether.