Category Archives: Food

Eating savories in Central Europe

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When Chris booked our trip to Prague and Bratislava, while I was excited for the sights, Christmas markets, and the pastries/desserts, I will be honest and say that the day to day food that Central Europe is known for is not really up my alley. I love spices, heat, texture, and complexity in food. The simple meat and potatoes food culture has never really been on my top cravings list. In fact, Chris always makes fun of the other kids at Kaia’s school when we talk about the sheer variety of food we have exposed her to, from different cuisines to various spices to even chili peppers. He likes to say, “well, of course she likes / eats (insert food we feed her). She doesn’t just eat meat and potatoes like all those other kids.”

But you know what? When I’m in Prague or anywhere in Central Europe, I am happy to eat local food and try new things. I rarely have eaten potato “dumplings” made from a dumpling “loaf” sliced like bread slices and presented with goulash. Beef and pork are commonly eaten in rich stews in this part of the world, as are potatoes in many forms, whether it’s boiled or mashed and pressed into dumplings. Our first meal at a restaurant (canteen style, where you take a tray and a ticket, then go to each stall and choose what you want, then pay at the end) on our first night was beef goulash (Czech style, which is apparently different from Hungarian style according to the menu – always learning!) stew with sliced potato dumplings, along with the local favorite beer on tap, Pilsner Urquell. The goulash was pretty tasty, and the texture of the potato dumplings really surprised me. It looked dense when you peer over it, but when you cut into it with a fork and eat it, it’s actually quite fluffy and spongy.

For something sweet to end our meal, we also had knedliky for the first time, which are sweet dessert dumplings made with quark, a type of soft cheese, flour, egg, yeast, and some sugar. They are typically filled with a fruit — most commonly apricot or berries. Once you choose the fruit filling for your sweet dumplings, the server then ladles a big dollop of a warm, sweet cheese based sauce, along with a sprinkling of savory cheese. I was pleasantly surprised — it was quite satisfying! I could see how people could grow up eating knedliky and have them as a craving.

It was a hearty meal, and one that would fill us up and keep us warm at the beginning of this cold week.

My road to making good dal

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Anthony Bourdain once famously said that India is likely the only country he’s ever visited where he could imagine happily enjoying life as a vegetarian. And I completely understand what he means: so many Indian dishes across its many regions treat beans so well with endless spices and seasonings that oftentimes when you are enjoying them, you forget there isn’t any meat on the table. It doesn’t matter if it’s strong spices like cumin and hing or fresh curry leaves or cardamom — the cuisine is so rich that if you want to make something seemingly bland like the humble lentil delicious, it’s really easy to do so.

Living in a rich western country, I have always had easy and affordable access to animal protein. My mom, on the other hand, living in rural, poor, Central Vietnam as a growing child, did not, and so when she came to the U.S and had easy, cheap access to meat, she obviously wanted to take advantage of it. So growing up, when I would occasionally threaten to be vegetarian after learning of animal cruelty or factory farms, she would scoff at me and say that “being vegetarian is not allowed.” She just saw it as my being spoiled: only someone extremely privileged would give up meat.

She’s kind of right. But as the world moves forward, and climate change, global warming, and the environment are becoming far more of a concern, meat consumption really does need to decrease. And so in my mind, the only way to really get tasty protein into one’s diet is to eat more beans – the South Asian way. So I started experimenting a lot more with different Indian pulses and legumes. I’ve tried endless dal recipes and spice combinations for tadka. And I’ve realized that the most flavorful dal is definitely one with a dal tadka, or a spiced oil that is added towards the end that really gives dal quite the “pizzazz.” I made this today after a while of not doing it (doing full Instant Pot dal is honestly so much easier than dealing with tadka, as there’s no splatter on the stove to clean up!), and after having a spoonful, I’ve reminded myself why I need to do this more often to eat more dal.

Dal is the future. Dal is tasty. Dal is good for the environment (I just learned on the beans episode of Gastropod that growing beans and having that be a part of crop rotation enriches the soil and land! Another win!). So we should all eat more dal.

When inflation isn’t even the excuse anymore and it’s just plain robbery

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Everyone is constantly talking about inflation. You cannot have a conversation or read a news article about the price of things without inflation coming up as a topic. But what if, just if, some businesses are actually increasing their prices beyond what “inflation” actually is increasing their operating costs by, and they’re just gouging you for the sake of it and wanting to use inflation as an excuse to get as much money out of you as they can?

I felt that way after I left Ando Patisserie today. It was my day off, so after getting a cut and color at a nearby salon, I went around the East Village with Chris for a mini food crawl and to pick up some desserts from places I’d been wanting to try. When I went inside, I already felt a little weird: they didn’t have any desserts other than a handful of “models” on display. Their best-selling items were not photographed or on display, but the person at the counter told me that the oolong basque cheesecake was their best seller and was available today. He didn’t really give me much of a description at all. I looked at the price tag of $15 (before tax!) and thought it was steep, but when he said I was buying a cheesecake, I just (naively) assumed it would be a mini cheesecake that we might get multiple servings out of. That was a bad and very wrong assumption, as after I paid and got the bag, I took a peek inside and realized it was just a small SLICE of a cake that would barely be enough for both of us to share later that evening!

Prices of ingredients are obviously going up whether it’s for individual consumers or for businesses making food and buying wholesale ingredients. But this was just insane. Many other cake and pie shops that have premium items are selling cake slices for half of what this place is charging, and I’ve been fully satisfied with those purchases. Even though this cake does taste good, I’d never go back to buy it knowing how expensive it was, and I’ll always remember feeing robbed as a result of making a purchase here.

Oat milk chocolate bars at Trader Joe’s

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My thoughts on food and “the way it should be” has definitely evolved over the last couple decades. I used to be firmly in the “traditional flavors and methods” camp of dishes like dim sum or banh cuon… until it suddenly hit me one day that food, just like culture, is constantly evolving, and it changes with times. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The best chefs in Hong Kong are constantly experimenting with different yum cha dishes to “touch the heart,” and those experiments then eventually reach places like Australia and the U.S., where the dishes get replicated in dim sum houses for the Chinese diaspora and those who love Cantonese food. Vietnamese people did not always have access to ovens, but when they did, they started making dishes like ga roti, or Vietnamese-style roasted chicken with Vietnamese seasonings. And it’s absolutely delicious. Is it “traditional”? Maybe it wasn’t traditional a hundred years ago, but now it’s readily accepted as Vietnamese cuisine.

I also used to freak out a little inside when people would ask me about vegan baking. Frankly, it just didn’t sit well with me. Other than health or ethical reasons (because those things, clearly, were not always enough…), why would you forgo eggs and butter? The idea of having a croissant made with vegan butter or no milk in my “milk chocolate” made me feel very, very uncomfortable for a while. But then, I finally saw the light when I started trying delicious vegan cheeses and vegan baked goods from bakeries and farmers markets stands that I enjoy, and I realized that deliciousness was, in fact, a possibility in baked goods without butter or animal products.

So that’s what led me to the Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer, where I learned that they’d been selling oat milk chocolate bars for some time now. And their latest item is an oat milk chocolate bar with crispy rice and cocoa nibs. So I decided to pick up both to try. Old me never would have entertained this back in high school or college. But today’s me does and happily tossed it into my shopping cart. Are they as rich as milk chocolate? No. But they are both very tasty and and satisfying. They definitely can satiate a chocolate craving. And I’m happy these options exist for those who either are lactose-intolerant or who are just for whatever reason avoiding dairy. I don’t fit into either of those camps, but I am in the camp of trying and exploring new, potentially delicious things.