Candle tunneling – a very “adult” problem to have

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Years ago, Chris and I were watching a comedy special that featured Dilruk Jayasinha, a Sri Lankan Australian comedian and actor who did a standup bit on being an adult. Being an adult… means owning nice, high quality, expensive soy or coconut wax based candles with lead-free wicks. It also means understanding how to burn a candle properly to prevent tunneling.

What’s tunneling, you ask? There’s a strong chance that if you own large candles, this has already happened to you, but you didn’t even know what it was called, nor did you know how to fix it. Candle tunneling occurs on a candle, usually with a large diameter, when the candle burns for a short amount of time, too short to actually burn the top layer of wax properly (yes, there ARE actually rules about how long to burn a candle, and you really DO need to burn your candle long enough to ensure even burning!). This then results in uneven burning, which creates a “tunnel” around your wick. Eventually, this prevents you from burning all the wax in your super expensive candle and enjoying it far less. Seriously? Yes. This is a real problem.

Unfortunately, I encountered this with two candles already. One, which is peony scented, I was able to save with a method he mentioned that I also looked up, so this used both foil on the diameter of the candle, as well as a blow dryer. The second candle is still one I am struggling with. It’s one of my favorite candles, and one of the very few that I have purchased: a Tasmanian lavender candle I purchased at a lavender farm in Tasmania back in December 2015. I’m still working on fixing it, but it’s been quite frustrating to say the least. I love the pure lavender scent. I especially like to burn candles in the winter months because it gives a festive, cozy vibe at home. Plus, the ones we have just smell lovely. Lighting candles has become a winter time ritual of mine, and I don’t want my candles to get ruined because of some freakin’ tunneling!

Pandesal baking for when another dry active yeast packet is alive

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On Sunday afternoon, I tested another dry active yeast packet from two years ago to see if it was still alive, and I was in luck: it was the 3rd one that was alive out of four, so I have a 75% success rate so far (just two more packets to go!). I wanted to make something easy that would not yield too much, as we are really pushing it with the tiny bit of space still left in our freezer. So I decided on pandesal, a Filipino bread roll (literally meaning “salt bread,” though I have no idea why since there’s so little salt in it…) that is known for being like a round dinner roll. It’s characterized by being very soft, airy, and subtly sweet. Versions also exist other than the regular one with eggs, sugar, and oil that have ube or pandan, but I just wanted something quick and I didn’t want to buy any more ingredients, and so I stuck with the plain version to begin with. I was also disheartened to see that most versions of the ube pandesal recipe online called for artificial ube extract, which is exactly what I did not want. If I’m making it at home, I want it to be all natural with no artificial ingredients! Some versions use ube powder, which I assume to be dried, ground up ube, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I actually saw the ingredients on the packet. So I guess I can keep a lookout for it the next time I’m at a Filipino grocery store.

It was quick to put together the dough, though quite soft and sticky. I kneaded it well in the bowl on Sunday, then rolled it out on Monday and allowed it a second rise. Then, I baked it in the oven at 350 F for 20 minutes, and they came out perfectly: beautifully and evenly browned on top, with a nice, pillowy, airy inside. The dough is sweet, but not too sweet, so I was comfortable giving Pookster some as a treat at the end of dinner. And boy, did she gobble it up! I didn’t want her to have a full bun, so I ended up taking two generous bites out of hers when she offered me some, which of course caused her to wail nonstop (she believes sharing is caring… to a degree :D).

Few homemade things are more satisfying to me than the result of successful, tasty homemade bread. It always hits the spot and makes me feel really accomplished when it comes out right.

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.

Trader Joe’s chicken or vegetable stock: never again

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As long as I have been cooking for myself, I have always insisted on making stock from scratch. I usually keep freezer-safe gallon-sized ziplock bags in the freezer and keep filling them with meat bones/vegetable scraps until the bag is full, and then I throw them all into my Instant Pot for the best easy homemade stock. The problem with this, though, is when you don’t have many bones. I really haven’t made any whole chickens at home this year. A lot of the meat I’ve purchased has been boneless. So I haven’t made much homemade stock at all this year, sadly. And well, food just never tastes as good when you use a canned stock or broth. There are certainly ways to doctor up a canned stock where it isn’t obvious you are using something from a can or carton. I grew up knowing that my mom usually used Swanson’s brand when she didn’t have the time to make stock from scratch. But there are certain things that you would always, always use from-scratch stock for: jook/congee, any type of soup tonic meant for healing/rejuvenation/sickness, and Chinese sticky rice. You just cannot substitute canned/cartoned for these dishes. A trained palette will always know.

I didn’t have enough bones/vegetable scraps to make stock this time around for my planned soup. So I begrudgingly considered my options. Ages ago, I had sworn off Trader Joe’s chicken stock. I have no idea what they put in theirs, but it always tasted… artificial, as though their “natural flavor” additive really was quite fake, and so fake that I just couldn’t stand it. The mere smell of it grossed me out. But when I saw that they had a low-sodium vegetable stock that was quite inexpensive, I thought I’d at least give it a shot. It was a $1.99 investment for a full quart, so what could really go wrong?

Well, everything, apparently. I opened the carton, and similar to the bad memory I have of the TJs chicken stock in the carton, this smell was… not great. It smelled almost like tomatoes. And who the hell uses tomatoes in their vegetable stock? Vegetable stock should smell like… onions, carrots, and celery. NO TOMATOES. IS THERE ACTUALLY TOMATO IN THIS?

I ended up using this horrible stuff to make my second butternut squash soup of the season. And it did not taste as good as I hoped. Part of it was maybe due to the recipe. But the main reason it was not good… I strongly believe it’s because of this stock. And what’s worse is that when Chris took a first taste of the soup after I told him I wasn’t happy with it… He confirmed my annoyance and fear all along. He simply said, “It tastes… very tomato-y.”

Yep. This stock sucks, and I am never, ever buying it ever, ever again. And the next time I make butternut squash soup, it will not be “not good” like these last two times, and I am definitely going to use homemade stock.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

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Once upon a time, after visiting Ba Xuyen, my favorite banh mi spot in all of New York City, several times, I told my then roommate back in 2009-2010 that Sunset Park would be a good neighborhood to live in. It had a huge park nearby. It was in the heart of an area that has both a large Mexican/Latin community (like Little Mexico) AND a Chinese/Asian community (known as one of many Chinatowns in New York). The neighborhood had a really pleasant family friendly feel, which is basically code for “safe.” At that time, the rents were still quite cheap.

I still think Sunset Park would be a great place to live if you choose to live in New York. Since 2009, more fun, trendy restaurants, cafes, and bakeries have opened. I notice more White people frequenting the businesses we enjoy, especially Ba Xuyen. But every time we come back here for food, I am reminded of how I always want to eat literally everything here, but it would be pretty much impossible to do it given that we don’t live even remotely close by, and we come here maybe once or twice every YEAR.

In one afternoon’s visit, we had a black sesame iced latte from a trendy Malaysian owned cafe called Parlay; banh mi thit nguoi and jackfruit shake from Ba Xuyen; Hainese and roast chicken rice and laksa from Hainan Chicken House; picked up 40 pork and shrimp dumplings (frozen) and a hot sweetened soy milk from Kai Feng Dumpling House; got duck dumpling takeout from Orchid Dim Sum Cafe; snagged a guava/cheese flaky pastry and a vanilla concha from La Flor de Izucar Bakery; and split a beef tongue taco and horchata from Tacos El Bronco, the taco truck. That’s a pretty darn large variety of food right there.

So much good food in Sunset Park, but so little time! And that doesn’t even cover all the other places that I would have wanted to check out, both old and new for us!

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.

Tiny teacher Kaia

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With each passing day, Pookster’s vocabulary grows, and so does her sentence structure. She’s moved from one word verbs to multiple word sentences now depending on her mood. And apparently, her teachers have told me that she is quite the little boss/teacher in class. When it’s time for circle time, snack or meal time, or nap time, Kaia is the first to start ordering everyone to “sit down, Georgina!” or “lie down, Loic!” or “clap your hands, Kiara!” When a new kid has been introduced to the class, she is also one of the first to welcome them and get them acquainted, whether that’s by showing them the classroom toys or even holding their hand.

“Yep, that’s our Kaia: the tiny teacher Kaia!” one of the assistant teachers told me earlier this week. “She has to make sure everyone does what they’re supposed to be doing when they’re supposed to be doing it, otherwise she will go around and make sure they do it!”

Kaia is so verbal and friendly that it’s obvious all the teachers have taken a strong liking to her. This assistant teacher said she would be really sad once Kaia moves up into the 2s classroom, as she couldn’t make it a secret that Kaia was her favorite.

It’s been really sweet to see my sweet Pookster develop into this gregarious little leader. And she’s not even two years old yet! Who knows what she will be like next year!

Kaia usually hates holding hands… until she doesn’t

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My Kaia is most definitely like her dad. She is stubborn and always wants what she wants. This especially goes for having her hand held. She absolutely HATES it, especially while walking. Randomly, though, she will ask to hold our hand while she’s in her stroller, and it’s really cute. Other times, she will insist on walking and holding just Daddy’s hand. She is Daddy’s girl – no doubt about that.

The last couple of nights, she’s been unusually needy at bedtime. After reading, she will refuse to fall asleep unless she is on top of me or very close to one of us. It’s been very endearing, but also extremely inconvenient given I have things in the kitchen I needed to get done, plus some work emails I had to finish. But then tonight, she did the cutest thing: while I was singing her to sleep, suddenly out of nowhere, she said, “Hold my hand?” And then she grabbed my hand and held it as she drifted off to sleep.

The days can be long, but the weeks are always so short. I really do cherish these moments with my sweet Kaia Pookie. I still cannot believe she is almost 23 months old and turning 2 years old next month. Her mere existence has filled my heart with so much love and joy that I had never even previously fathomed. I do hope that I can continue to be good to her and treat her how I always wished I could have been treated as a growing child.

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.

Another holiday season arrives, and so does the English toffee!

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Once Halloween comes and goes, all the stores in sight will have their Christmas / holiday decorations up. And I always get excited when Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s get decked out for the holidays. I love seeing all the seasonal edible specials that pop up and what may be new and interesting to try.

One of my fondest memories growing up was always seeing the endless amount of chocolate, popcorn, and other treats my family was gifted during the holiday season. Although I was never a huge fan of the big popcorn tin, I always did enjoy having it in my presence and occasionally picking at it. And although I never verbalized it, the one candy I always loved were the tiny English toffee bricks coated in chocolate and covered in ground almonds. I think the brand was Almond Roca, always easily recognizable by its signature pink tin, and for whatever reason, we always, always had it. I still remember my grandma, who was a sweets fanatic (and obviously so since at the end of her life, she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes), was obsessed with the Almond Roca. I used to sneak one or two pieces whenever she wasn’t looking.

Well, Trader Joe’s has their version of this English-style toffee on their shelves every holiday season, and I’m no longer hiding the fact that I absolutely love this stuff. I never buy candy for myself pretty much ever unless I am traveling and see an interesting chocolate or something related. It will be my new personal tradition to purchase this one candy for myself at this time of year, every year as long as it’s available. It’s part nostalgia, but it’s also because this stuff is so freakin’ good. The indulgence is worth it. And Trader Joe’s makes it a relatively inexpensive indulgence!