Category Archives: Culture

Rediscovering the glory of cooking with fresh lemongrass — all because of a very sharp knife

Posted on by
Reply

At most, I cook with fresh lemongrass two to three times a year. You can’t buy it at a regular grocery store; if I need it, I pick it up from Hong Kong Supermarket or my Vietnamese market in Chinatown. There’s really no substitute for fresh lemongrass: it is bright, fresh, almost sweet, with very floral, minty, almost gingery and herbaceous notes. When you eat something with lemongrass, it stares at you in the face; subtlety is not a characteristic of this herb. Although I love this herb, I’ve historically found it really annoying to deal with. The edible part of the stalk is very hard, which means it can be difficult to cut, even with a sharp knife. If you look at guides for how to cut lemongrass, some of them even say that you should consider resharpening your knife after cutting lemongrass because the damn stalk can dull your blade!

But alas, with my fancy Shun knife that was gifted for my birthday, I have a super, duper sharp knife now. So when I picked up two lemongrass stalks to make some grilled Vietnamese lemongrass beef patties, I wondered how much easier it would be to cut these with this new knife. And lo and behold, this crazy sharp knife made a massive difference: not only did the knife slide through the tough stalk quicker and smoother, but every cut felt so easy! Who would have thought that the knife would truly make all the difference when it came to cutting this delicious herb?

So I finely minced the lemongrass and threw in some other aromatics, fish sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper, and some sugar. I added the minced beef, mixed it up, created meatballs, then flattened them for quicker cooking on the pan. And once I was done cooking, I took a bite of one of the meatballs: Yum. The lemongrass flavor was just singing! Few things beat this flavor for me. My new mental note to self is that I will definitely be cooking with lemongrass more often now that I have this knife, which has greatly improved my handling of literally tough ingredients like this herb. It really is true: oftentimes, your equipment makes all the difference when cooking!

Pupusas and sourdough conchas in Woodside, Queens

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t have any external meetings today, so I decided to meet up with a friend who is currently not working for lunch. Given she lives in Port Washington, we usually like to meet “halfway” in Queens somewhere. This time, we chose Woodside, which is getting more and more exciting from a food perspective by the minute. When I open my Google Maps and zoom in on Woodside, the first things I see are a modern Mexican bakery, a Salvadoran made-to-order pupusa shop, a Bolivian restaurant, and a Filipino bakery-cafe. Who could possibly not want this level of variety in a single neighborhood?!

We met up at a nondescript pupusa shop called Ricas Pupusas & Mas with just a few tables. When I arrived at 12:15, no one else was there, and no one else came until the time my friend and I were leaving at around 2:30. Our pupusas were made to order: super soft and oozy on the inside, with a really nice slightly crunchy griddle texture on the outside. With a nice tangy curtido (sour, fermented cabbage slaw), these were perfect little bites. Every time I have pupusas, I wonder how anyone could possibly not like them — they’re so perfect and satisfying. And even if you don’t eat meat, you would definitely be deeply satisfied by the ones with the refried beans, cheese, or the loroco (edible green/white flowers native to Central America).

Afterwards, we stopped by Masa Madre, which I’ve had on my list for a while. They’re known for their sourdough conchas pastries, which are Mexican pan dulce (sweet breads) that are soft and fluffy on the inside, with a crunchy, shell-patterned sugar crust on the outside. Frankly, conchas can be hit or miss: the worst ones have zero crunch on the outside and are too dry on the inside (especially without a coffee or tea in hand!). The best ones are airy and light on the inside, with a faintly sweet sugary crust on the outside. The vanilla and chocolate conchas at Masa Madre are unique because they are actually made of sourdough, so naturally leavened, which is not the norm. And when you bite into it, you can totally tell the difference with the crumb: it’s a lot fluffier and more pillowy. Now that I’ve had this sourdough concha, I am not sure that I can go back to any old commercially leavened concha anymore. They may be ruined forever for me by Masa Madre’s cloud-like sourdough conchas.

The friend who came with me also picked up two conchas to bring home. Before the day had ended, she said she had already eaten BOTH of them (and shared some bites with her two kids). That’s how good these babies are!

The elusive chai I keep chasing in NYC

Posted on by
Reply

Ever since I had my very first sip of chai as a high schooler, I was in love. There are many delicious hot drinks you can have, but I think chai — the Indian spiced milky tea, not just tea, is one of the most comforting ones. There was a period several years ago when I splurged a bit and would buy The Chai Box chai (their Punjaban Party blend is my all-time favorite!), but that ended up becoming very expensive. So, I decided to start trying to blend my own. It’s actually worked out pretty well: I’ve gotten to the point where I add just enough ginger, cardamom, fennel, and clove to my tea (mostly CTC, with a little Ceylon BOPF) and have been able to replicate the exact flavor I want. The chai is always double boiled; it’s not chai to me unless it’s double boiled. And I add about half a teaspoon of sugar per cup of liquid to help even out any bitterness that comes from the tea being so vigorously boiled.

Unfortunately for me, I have yet to identify a single place in New York City that makes chai the way I want it. I’ve found places in Melbourne that do it with the flavor I want, but not here. Kolkata Chai, which has expanded quite a bit, is good, but the flavor is still not the way I want it. The flavor I am chasing is like the one we had all over India, which definitely leans toward Punjabi style chai, like The Chai Box’s Punjaban Party blend. The biggest problem is that the chai made at shops all over here are just too strong on the cinnamon. Cinnamon is fine in chai, but I find it very overpowering to the point where I pretty much never add it to my own at home. I want a dominant ginger and cardamom flavor, first and foremost, with fennel and clove humming in the background. That’s my perfect cup of chai.

While I was at my friend’s house yesterday, she made all of us chai. She said it was mostly ginger, with a “hint” of cardamom. And it was absolutely delicious. I would personally prefer more cardamom, but I was just extremely thrilled and touched that anyone would take the time to double boil chai for me. In that moment of sipping it with the strong flavor of freshly grated ginger, it suddenly dawned on me that this was the very first time anyone has taken the time to double boil chai for me — ever . And I just felt so much gratitude in that moment.

Today, I took Kaia out on a play date to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum with our neighbor friend and her son. We had lunch together at an Indian-ish cafe nearby that I had been wanting to try. Even though I had that delicious homemade ginger chai yesterday, I still wanted more chai today (well, I want it every day, but that’s not realistic). So I ordered the signature masala chai at the cafe. It came out… and once again, it was too cinnamony. It was not as cinnamony as the last place I went to for chai in the Lower East Side, but it was just too much cinnamon. And then someone topped it with even more ground cinnamon just before it was handed to me! Can these places please stop doing this…?

I will keep trying and searching because I refuse to give up hope that my perfect cup exists out there in some shop in New York City. But in the meantime, I will also continue making my own perfect cup of chai at home about once a week. I deserve that little time for myself to indulge.

Khmeli suneli

Posted on by
Reply

One benefit of being on the east side for my mammogram appointment earlier this week was that I had an excuse to go to Kalustyan’s, a popular spice shop on Lexington in the east 20s. I took the 6 train down to 28th Street, along the route I was already planning to take to pick up Kaia from school later that afternoon. While there, I forgot how overwhelming all the different global spices can be. It’s two floors of spices, sauces, and treats from around the world! My goal was to pick up khmeli suneli, the Georgian spice blend I learned about during my Georgian cooking class last month. The earthy and fragrant flavor would absolutely be needed if I wanted to make any Georgian dishes in the near future. The spices that are included are usually blue fenugreek (not the same as Indian fenugreek!), coriander, marigold, savory, dill, amongst others. The blend I picked up, the only version Kalustyan’s had for khmeli suneli, had about 12 different spices in it. Since I was already there, I did some more browsing and also got a little packet of salted kombu, which I was inspired to get from a recent Japanese restaurant we ate at.

My first use for khmeli suneli would be Georgian eggplant rolls with walnut paste, or nigvziani badrijani. The walnut paste is made with toasted, ground walnuts, khmeli suneli, lots of garlic, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Then, you take long, wide strips of roasted eggplant, add the walnut paste in, and then roll them up. They’re usually topped with pomegranate, as well, for a finishing touch. The interesting thing about this paste is that there’s no oil in it; it all comes together by combining hot water. The hot water makes all the ingredients come together, and it also does an added (or included) step of “cooking” the spices. I guess that’s the water way of “blooming” spices the way you do with Indian spices and oil. I love this technique! It’s so interesting how different cultures came up with their techniques for cooking and coaxing out as much flavor as possible from the ingredients they have. It comes together really quickly, and the only other thing you have to do is slice and roast the eggplants!

I’ve got 60 grams of khmeli suneli to use, so I definitely will be finding more ways to use it in the near future!

A hidden head spa sanctuary in the middle of Manhattan Koreatown

Posted on by
Reply

When my 40th birthday came around, Chris let me know that he was going to book me a “mega deluxe” spa treatment for a later date as my gift. “The Service,” as he calls it, ended being scheduled for this afternoon. He wouldn’t tell me what the service was or where it was, other than noting the approximate location, Koreatown, and the time (2pm). About 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave, he finally gave me the actual name and address of the place, and instructions for how to enter (e.g. you have to show ID to enter the building).

The thing about living in a concrete jungle is that lots of interesting things and places exist all around and above you if you know where to look and go. Koreatown seems like a very chaotic place with lots of restaurants, eateries, cafes, drink spots, and karaoke bars. But if you go up many of these buildings, there are hidden sanctuaries and places of respite, like this Mio Head Spa where Chris booked a “Japanese head spa” for me. I walked into the spa, and it was like I was in another world: there was quiet piano music playing. The decor was clean, sleek, and minimalistic, the lighting dimmed just enough to entice you into a mid-afternoon nap. There were several special chairs for head treatments, plus another room for blow drying and styling. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing there, so the head spa person explained the treatment to me.

Japanese head spa is considered a luxury treatment in Japan, one that is quite popular when you are feeling indulgent and want to spend some extra money on self-care. It focuses on scalp health and combines deep cleansing, steaming, and massage to detoxify the scalp and promote hair growth. It’s supposed to be a therapeutic experience that reduces stress and improves blood circulation. My spa person did a really nice job on my scalp and neck massage, and I loved the different layerings of heat, steam, and pressure on my head. I had a heated eye mask on the entire time that felt calming and luxurious. It ends with what they call a “signature waterfall,” which really does feel like what it sounds like: they put a huge, wide stream of water over your entire scalp for several minutes, like a seemingly endless waterfall going over your hair and scalp.

After we finished the cleansing and hair wash, my spa person delicately dried my hair, then ushered me into the hair drying and grooming room. She pulled out the sleekest, most beautiful little blow dryer I’d ever seen, and then proceeded to blow dry my hair. But the sound that came out of it even sounded really soothing. It wasn’t loud and obnoxious the way most blow dryers are; it actually sounded much softer, and in a weird way, calming. But the air was definitely blowing out of it rapidly, so you knew this contraption was very high powered.

At the end of the full session, almost two hours later, my scalp is feeling very massaged and clean, my hair is extremely soft and shiny, and it smells… expensive. It smells like the types of hair treatments I would never, ever splurge on, since I’ve generally always been very low maintenance with my hair. The treatment Chris got me came with four hair mask treatments for at-home use, to be used once every other week, she advised.

I wonder if this treatment will actually promote hair growth. Given I am in my forties now, I guess that is something women in my age range are concerned about — hair thinning and even falling out. I guess it’s another reason to spend even more money, isn’t it…?! Now, if only we had all the money in the world…

Flattery with food

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone loves it when people take their suggestions. It’s an unspoken compliment or flattery, to do or take up something that someone has suggested. In the past, I’ve always gotten annoyed when i’ve spent time putting together travel lists for people who ask for my suggestions about a given city or country, and then they barely look at my list and say they did other things. Now, I don’t do a single thing custom for anyone because of that since that takes time, which is a valuable commodity. If they want to see my travel suggestions, I will just give them my OneNote dump for the location, and they can sift through it themselves.

But in the last 10-15 years, I’ve had people take my suggestions on endless things, whether it’s restaurants, cities/countries to visit, or specific lesser known places or dishes to eat. I always get excited about this every single time, and I love hearing about their thoughts after they’ve experienced said thing. But now, it seems like I’ve been influencing friends to cook things, and that makes me super thrilled.

In the last year, I’ve had friends and colleagues make toddler baked goods I’ve made for Kaia. They’ve made chilis and soups I’ve made. One friend made the almond cookies I made for my last two Lunar New Year parties. Just last week, I was raving to a friend about a high protein peanut noodle (there’s a whole block of silken tofu in it!) dish I made, and then the next day, she went ahead and made it, agreeing that it was delicious. This same friend is saving the black sesame swirled pumpkin nian gao recipe for a future family gathering. And she was asking me for tips on how to best steam fish, and what my steaming setup was like. She said she usually roasts or bakes, but because of my steamed fish dish from the Lunar New Year party, she wants to start incorporating more steamed fish into her diet.

This was like music to my ears. I told her about my steamer setup and how I steam different things. She told me that she actually broke her little metal steamer rack, so I offered to go to Chinatown and pick one up for her (after all, I am there five days a week to pick up Kaia). I think with food, the best compliment is not necessarily the compliment of the food itself, but it’s when people liked your dish so much that they not only asked for the recipe/how to make it, but also went ahead and made plans to make it, and made it. That is the kind of flattery I love.

The little klepto friend at our Lunar New Year party

Posted on by
Reply

Giving hong bao/li xi/red envelopes/pockets/packets is a Lunar New Year tradition, one that I don’t really practice as an adult outside of my Lunar New Year party, if I had to be honest. My parents and our wider family are further away, so it’s not like my cousins’ kids are close by (or close in relationship) where I’d see them often enough and give them hong bao. I remember receiving lots of hong bao very frequently as a young child, especially by my grandma’s friends and our very extended older relatives who would stop by during Chinese New Year, bearing lots of gifts and eating all the traditional foods. I stopped receiving hong bao regularly once my mom converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses. But traditionally, the way it works is that children receive hong bao from the older generations. Then once you become an adult, you can continue receiving them until you get married. As an adult, you’re expected to give to the younger generation. But once you get married, you are expected to give to younger friends/relatives who are not married, as well as the younger generation. In some families, once you start working, you’re expected to give a hong bao to your parents, but alas, my parents don’t celebrate, so…

I prepared a hong bao for all three kids who came to our Lunar New Year party. As a child, I remember until I was old/mature enough to be “trusted” with money, my mom would allow me to first receive the hong bao in my hand, then after I thanked the giver, she’d quickly snatch it away for safe keeping until we got home, fearing I’d lose the money. Unfortunately, when I handed out the hong bao to the kids at the party, the parents did not always follow this (smart) practice my mom did, and they let the kids play with the hong bao. Well, one child called S took H’s hong bao, opened it, and then took the money for herself. When H and his mom left our place, she told me that H had two hong bao originally, but one of them disappeared. After we finished cleaning the place after all our guests left, I found H’s hong bao, but it was empty. I asked Kaia if she knew where H’s money went. She very matter-of-factly responded that S had taken the money out of H’s hong bao. I still couldn’t find any loose cash after looking everywhere in the house.

So I texted S’s dad and asked how much money she came home with. I told him the context that Kaia had shared, though I wasn’t sure if I could fully believe her given her age/level of maturity. He went to go check. And lo and behold, he snapped a photo of not two bills S was supposed to have, but THREE, including the one I was supposed to give H.

I didn’t realize that we had a little klepto toddler friend among us.

Live and learn, parent friends: take your children’s hong bao before they start opening the envelopes and stealing the contents from each others’!

Lunar New Year gifts this year

Posted on by
Reply

Every year I throw my Lunar New Year party, I try to do things a little bit differently to make it better, different, or more special with the food. This year, I made some more intricate Vietnamese dishes. I also created food labels for everything, even marking the ones that were vegetarian or contained pork/mushrooms/shrimp (for people with allergies to those foods). That’s partly to make my life easier with questions on ingredients/what the dishes are, so I don’t have to re-explain myself a dozen times, and so that people know what they’re eating right away. But what I wasn’t quite expecting this year is that the gifts we got were extra special, nice, or fun!

Kaia received several generous hong bao from friends, as it’s a cultural tradition that the older generation should give hong bao/li xi to the younger generation. One of my friends gave me a small money tree several weeks in advance for Lunar New Year party hosting. A third friend drove all the way from New Jersey down to Manhattan Chinatown to a popular (and pricey!) Malaysian jerky shop to get us an entire pound of pork jerky. She also gave us a couple boxes of bean-based pastas, a single orange for good luck (haha), and some homemade lentil-based breads she’d just baked. Another friend brought beautifully boxed and individually wrapped Japanese Yoku Moku “cigare” biscuits, plus an entire box of sumo citrus! I love sumo citrus, but they are quite expensive, so we rarely buy them. Originating in Japan, Sumo citrus are actually not an orange, per se, but a cross between satsuma, mandarin, and navel oranges. We even got a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. A friend who recently came back from India brought us a framed Madhubani painting, which is a style of painting traditionally done by women from her dad’s old village in Bihar. And then there was the most bougie gift of all that Chris’s friend gave me, perfectly wrapped in glittery pink wrapping paper: a Williams Sonoma gold and white ceramic dragon candle, made especially for Lunar New Year. I placed the candle, alongside my 3D cherry blossom birthday card from a friend, in our dining area to display them both. That huge gold candle definitely is the most flashy, showy thing I own to date now…

Year of the Fire Horse Lunar New Year Party

Posted on by
Reply

Today, we had a Lunar New Year party of 17 friends who came to feast on 12 different dishes that I made! It was our largest group hosted yet. We had 16 people, but then a friend of Chris decided last minute he could come. Chris asked if I had enough food. I had a mini panic in my head last night, but I figured that I could always supplement with additional dumplings I had cooked and frozen that were originally meant for future use.

Well, there was way more than enough food; I was actually shocked by the amount of food we had left over, which just means that we’ll have more to eat (and less need for me to cook!) for this week. This year, in true form, I “upleveled” and tried out some new recipes, did my usual trusted staples, and also added more Vietnamese dishes (which were quite labor-intensive!) to the line-up. After prepping for two weeks and deciding on this menu about a month ago, this is what I made:

Starters:

Banh it tran – Vietnamese (Hue) sticky rice dumplings filled with mashed mung bean and minced pork, topped with scallion oil, fried shallots, and served with nuoc cham

Banh bot loc – Vietnamese (Hue) banana leaf steamed tapioca dumplings stuffed with shrimp , served with nuoc cham

[Do chua – pickled carrot and daikon (for both dumplings above, plus thit kho as a palate cleanser/much needed acidic hit)]

Luo bo gao – Chinese pan fried radish cake with Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, and shredded scallops

Mains:

Thit kho – Vietnamese coconut water braised pork ribs with eggs

Nuo mi fan – Chinese sticky rice with Chinese sausage, cha siu, shredded scallops, shiitake mushrooms

Dan Dan noodles

Steamed wild black sea bass with ginger and scallion

Blanched yu choy greens with black vinegar sauce and crispy garlic

Buddha’s Delight / Luo han zhai: Stir fried (12!) vegetables with mung bean noodles

Desserts:

Black sesame swirled pumpkin nian gao

Chinese almond cookies

Black sesame tang yuan

Food is one of my love languages. I love feeding people I love. I love it when people discover new foods and enjoy them, and I love when they discover new foods they enjoy because of me. And I love it when people love the food I make them. One friend discovered she loved lotus root and the different tofu products in my zhai dish; she also loved the do chua/pickled carrot and daikon for my Vietnamese dishes. Another friend was obsessed over the savory-sweet flavor that the coconut water gave my thit kho/pork ribs. A friend who came for the first time said she couldn’t get enough of my steamed fish and how flavorful it was. A friend also was excited to have my black sesame tang yuan again — this is someone who is self-professed about being anti-dessert, but loves these sticky rice balls of “not too sweet” black sesame filling.

It’s definitely a lot of thought and work to put into this party, but I love every bit of it. I love the lead up, the food prep, the last minute bits that have to be cooked, the chaos that ensues with the kids coming in. And I always end the evening, after lots of cleaning and washing, with a happy and warm heart.

A Lunar New Year / anniversary dinner that felt wrong

Posted on by
Reply

I was on Instagram this morning, and I noticed that a (White) colleague of mine, along with her (White) husband had celebrated their 7th wedding anniversary. They decided that since their wedding anniversary coincided with the Lunar New Year period that they’d host a small dinner party at a Chinese restaurant nearby and call it a joint Lunar New Year/7th wedding anniversary celebration. This felt a bit weird to me since neither of them is from any culture that celebrates Lunar New Year, nor did it look like they had any Asian guests, but hey, to each their own. If they want to celebrate other cultures, all power to them! I’m all for inclusivity.

But then, I saw the menu for the party, and I immediately cringed… hard. They had stereotypical ha gow (shrimp dumplings) and vegetable potstickers as starters. It wasn’t terrible, but entirely predictable. Plus, dumplings are a traditional Lunar New Year food. But then when I saw the mains, I immediately felt annoyed: beef and broccoli, orange chicken, and vegetable fried rice. It couldn’t have gotten more White-washed/Americanized than this. I felt like an entire caricature had been made of my culture, that they didn’t know the first thing about what significant cultural foods are eaten during the Lunar New Year period by any Lunar New Year celebrating culture or why — and maybe they didn’t even care. They clearly didn’t do any research or put any true thought behind this. Instead, they chose stereotypical “Chinese” dishes to satisfy a White audience that would match whatever notion they had in their head of what Chinese people might eat for Chinese New Year. It was pretty upsetting to see this.

This colleague and I get along. We both travel a lot, and we both love food. She loves to bake her own sourdough and occasionally likes to cook. But I always knew we probably couldn’t be real friends… because I had a feeling this is probably how she saw my culture. And I guess the feeling was right. And if I were to ever bring this up to her, how her joint Lunar New Year/wedding anniversary meal was an insult to Chinese culture and Lunar New Year traditions, I doubt the conversation would end well. Because for many people, they want to believe what they want to believe about cultures they are superficially aware about. They want to believe that pho and banh mi are what make up Vietnamese food, and that’s it. They want to believe that General Tso’s chicken, in its sugar-laden, sticky, gooey form, is what Chinese people across the diaspora eat on the daily. And when they are told otherwise, they “other” it, ignore it, and compartmentalize it far, far away from them… and they stick with what they “know,” which are the White-washed versions of whatever that culture’s food is. They don’t want to believe that what they are doing or saying could potentially be offensive or wrong. They’re like the “nice, White parents” from the parenting podcast I previously listened to: well meaning, well intentioned, but with awful execution that they are a hundred percent blind and tone-deaf to.