i am asian

Specifically, I am Chinese. Full Chinese despite what some people might guess every so often. But maybe that's a testament to how different and the same Asian to Asian within or between countries are. Whatever. I'm not here to think critically about social race issues. Even though I do whenever I get on Instagram now. Especially in this climate now. And then I inevitably get overwhelmed and frustrated and retreat back to the things that don't make me want to roll over and give up. Food things.

I used to get asked all the time if Jackie Chan was my dad. There weren't a lot of Asian kids in my class growing up. It was a stupid question, not because it was racially charged, though it was, but because I grew up in dinky Los Alamos. Now, why the fuck would a Hollywood actor be living full time in nowhere, New Mexico? Maybe my parents go divorced. I don't know. All I know is that at some point during my upbringing, with this simple repeated question echoing in my head to emphasize how I was different from my classmates, I learned to resent being Chinese. Oh my god, did I want to be white like all the other kids. White families were close. White families were homey. White families were big. White families ate pancakes and spaghetti. White families were not embarrassing.

But I don't resent it anymore. Mainly because Chinese food is the best food. It's comforting and bold, inventive and unapologetic. Asking for recipes is the only way I know how to bond with my family now, and if there's one parenting mistake my dad didn't make, it's how he fed me with an anecdote behind every special dish. It was when I took Chinese food for granted that I taught myself how to cook, but now I'm obsessed with it. I miss it, so I find ways to put it in everything. 

Like the time we made pasta, and I brought the sauces. One classic, one with a Asiany twist.

alfredo <> miso alfredo
pesto <> cilantro and preserved lemon pesto
puttanesca <> puttanesca with mushroom "soy" sauce

" 'Nothing is specifically either eatable or uneatable. You could begin munching a hat, or bite a mouthful out of a wall; equally you could build a hut with the food provided at lunch.' "
-Christopher Isherwood, from Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper

trial and mostly error

When you're poor, you kind of realize what you can live without. For me, that was avocado.
I know.
But you have to know that my parents used to get a plastic mesh bag of avocados every time we went to Costco, so I was quite spoiled with the finicky fruit that is the reason I can't afford a house. Except that I never order avocado on toast... still can't afford a house - what am I doing wrong?

There was one time since moving out that I caved and got a mesh of avos. And then the second time since moving out that I caved and got three avos was when they were cheaper than $1 ea on Imperfect. 

southern on the side

Haven't pinned down a spot to get a really great biscuit in Madison. I've already talked about the sporadic cravings and then attempts to alleviate them with sweet potato ones and cheddar kale ones and less than stellar beer ones.

So by the dim light of my living room one night, I tried them again.  This time with sour cream (obtained from sensory... so yeah, this was awhile ago) via here.

But instead of chive, I did rosemary. Plus walnuts. And cubes of Asian pear sandwiched between some and piled on top of others.

Yummy.

roots

"Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, it's not separate from your life.  It grows right up out of it."

"So you think we all just have animal dreams.  We can't think of anything to dream about except our ordinary lives."

"Only if you have an ordinary life.  If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life."

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

four parts

Potato zucchini waffles adapted from here.

Some time ago, Amy and I had talked a lot about values.  Well, kind of.  We took up a "project" to write down our core values.  And it's harder than you'd think...  There I was at 23, thinking I knew what I wanted, who I wanted, and how I wanted it all.
After many many many days of rumination and running through life events, I only came up with three and one of them was lifted from Mindy Kaling.  Realizing instead that good solid core values are hard to pinpoint and put into words when you're still trying to figure shit out.  So instead, I found myself inspired by the midseason finale of Jane the Virgin.  At a time when I most need to be CALM, cool, and collected. 

edible wreath

are you sick of this yet?

Never.
Talking about pumpkin.

dip off

When I dip, you dip, we dip champ.

pepper bread

This is not a rectangular pizza.

if bean bag chairs could be woven from bread

This little bun sits so unassuming.  All alone on this oversized plate.  Just a few seconds earlier, there were ten more of its identical buddies surrounding it like a wild mushroom patch or a collection of fat cells.  Puffy balls concealing a golden secret.

savory needs

I can't really say I don't have a sweet tooth anymore.  Undergrad primed it but grad turned sugar into a necessity.  But while I still look for something sweet to cleanse my palate after dinner or complement my morning coffee, sweetness is just not satisfying enough on its own.
So sometimes I need to turn what is classically sweet into something savoryy.

tomato bruschetta scones
 basic scones with basil, balsamic, diced tomato, mozzarella, and less sugar
made before I kept track of how I made things



mushroom chestnut bread pudding

baguette, broken up
bacon, 2 slices

onions, half

mushrooms, 16 oz
chestnuts, 8 oz

white wine

1/2 t thyme

1/4 t oregano

1/4 t coriander

1/4 t red pepper flakes

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

3/4 c frozen spinach
2 eggs
1 c almond milk
1/2 c parmesan, shredded
with mustard vinaigrette from here

Sautee filling things.  Mix liquid things and soak bread with cheese.  Wedge in filling things.  Bake 350F for 30 mins.  Eat out of pan with mustard vinaigrette.

Breakfast and dinner for a week.

pretender

Dough is incredibly therapeutic.  Making it exactly what I need right now.
Only the smell of yeast and feel of an elastic ball of flour and water can alleviate the tense state I'm almost constantly in.  It's like a stress ball you can eventually bake and eat.  Which means I have to keep putting together new stress balls.
My resolution to avoid buying bread is still going strong with this loaf of simple sandwich bread.  Concealing a secret sesame scallion swirl.

Egg white gochujang sandwich.

Hazelnut romanesco toast with scallion and almost sunny side up egg.

These are the sorts of small motions that pull me through the few hours I have to spend at home.  These are the lost and rarely found weekend mornings.  I can feel my nerves slowly degenerate, and if there were only a couch I could sleep on at work, it'd be more preferred to my apartment.  Is there anything worse than when you are no longer calm and comfortable in your own home?

pieced away

I've been told I need to take more risks.  Get out of my comfort zone.  Throw caution to the wind.  And overall live a little.  (Gross, could I be more cliche?)
So I thought I'd mix things up by not roasting my bag of mini cabbages in bacon fat.
Went with a raw salad preparation instead.

try try again

It's funny the things we end up getting invested in.

The superfan lifestyle is one I'm not so familiar with.  My intense investment in things usually comes and goes pretty sporadically.  I think part of it is because I get so wrapped up in that one thing that I eventually tire of it.  And then sometimes I find myself getting worked up over things I don't normally care about.  Like a certain game of a sport I know nothing about or a certain contestant on some show I never usually watch or maybe the outcome of some event that will affect my life in no way at all.  But the concept of being so invested in something that you feel a physical reaction or the fact that some superfans forge bonds with stranger superfans in the moment is kind of incredible.  Like what is it about this or that that can have such a strong impact on your life?  And how do stumble upon the things we love?

Things I'm enough invested in that failure causes tears:

my research

my dinner

in a word - food.

why is bacon a thing?

Bacon really isn't my favorite thing.  I promise.  It's my brother's favorite thing, so I'm used to having it at home but not so used to actually eating it.  If I'm going to consume pork belly, there are far more delicious, beautiful, and satisfying ways of doing so.  But I find myself constantly with a pack of bacon in my fridge, and I have to ask myself "Why?"  I mean, it's not exactly the cheapest meat staple (that would be chicken drumsticks for 0.99/lb).  It's not a versatile centerpiece meat (that's still chicken drumsticks, which can be made any way with any marinade and any side dish/carb).  And it's definitely not the healthiest choice (I'd argue chicken drumsticks aren't bad in this department either - and then you can use the bones to make a broth, which is so totally in as of 2015...or birth if you were raised in my home).  (Can we just agree that drumsticks are the greatest grad student meat staple?)

greener pastures

Construction over*, winter over, rainstorm over**.  Capitol looking as beautiful as ever on my walk home.

*Construction is actually never over.  It's just over in this one frame.
**Also never really over.

gr8

I'm not sure what possessed me to purchase a 10lb bag of potatoes for just myself, but it happened and contrary to what I always like to think, they do not last forever.  And the only way to reasonably consume pounds of potatoes at a time before the sprouts get out of hand and the flesh turns green, is to grate 'em.

Grate them raw.  For bacon, avocado, and egg hash brown slider as inspired by here.   Except mine were too browned, and I only made one at a time, sort of a made to order kind of thing for myself on a Saturday afternoon after dealing with my flat tire (sometimes often I don't think I'm fit to drive...).  It was an ordeal of soaking and rinsing and draining and squeezing and frying and having patience and setting off the smoke detector 3-4 times... and so much eating.  And napping in the cloud of potato smoke I created.

Grate them cooked.  Boiled to be exact.  For gnocchi the next day.  Not the most common summer BBQ food, I suppose, but I needed a shareable dish and to get rid of much potatoes.  And I've been wanting to attempt gnocchi one more time.

Also an ordeal that involved slowly using up too much of Audrey's flour even though I had an unopened bag hidden in the cabinet (damn my forgetful nature).  Potato dough is not the easiest thing to deal with.  Especially in a hot and humid kitchen.  But evidently people liked the result and that's all that really matters.

With a tomato-y, fishy, Asian-y sauce inspired by here.  I would've been all over this particular marinara sauce had I had some anchovies in my possession, but after moping while opening/closing cabinet and fridge doors several times, I ended up with...
-onions and garlic, red pepper flakes
-a couple glugs of white wine
-can of tomato sauce
-spoon of shrimp paste
-drops of fish sauce
-splash of mirin
-handful of dried black beans
-salt and pepper all the way through
-lots of scallions over top

I had to resist eating all of it before indulging on Jared's delicious pulled pork and ribs.
Napping happened after this too.

fall into spring

If there's one thing I take away from Food Pres, it's that you can eat the entire beet plant.  How considerate of it to ensure that us humans do not waste a single part of it.  Okay, minus the skin.  But you were close, beet, you were very close.
So while I got beets for the sweet, maroon roots, I became obsessed with this dish featuring the greens.

I pretty closely followed the recipe, including the glass of red.  Substituting olives for capers, onions for shallots, and adding button mushrooms.
But seriously, mushrooms.  I mean, if you don't like them... that's fine, omit, you're crazy.  But something about mushrooms and bacon... mushrooms cooked in bacon fat... mushrooms cooked in bacon fat with cheese on top.  Trust me.

And in case you hadn't noticed them already, the beets and half the container of mushrooms went into beet/bean and mushroom/bean burgers that are currently taking residence in my freezer for those desperate times when I have too little food. 

Just gotta make some buns.

EZ PZ

I could drink coconut La Croix for the rest of my life.

It's frustratingly slow-going in lab these days.  Things aren't working.  Actually it's mainly one thing that's not working.  But it's a big thing.  It's one of the central things.  Well sometimes it seems to work.  And then I get excited for nothing.  And all my plans are thrown off again.  Like today.  Saturday at 8AM.  And I'm the least amused.

Taking comfort in the fact that at least one thing in my life is easy and dependable. 

Simple eats.

Attempted Pioneer Woman's potatoes.  Maybe don't put garlic on right away because burning happens.
This is the most boring color palette for a meal, but I just wanted to offer a visual representation of one of the ways that Vegemite can be delicious.  The large jar I brought home from Aussie about three years ago is alive and well and working as an excellent chicken marinade.  I might have mentioned three years ago that I think it tastes like soy sauce, so unless I'm eating it on toast, I use it as a solidified soy substitute.  Mixed with a bit of hot water, sesame oil, sugar, rice vinegar, and garlic.

Neither of my roommates like Brussels sprouts, which is great because it means I don't have to be nice and ask if they'd like to try some.  I'm a firm believer that you just can't make Brussels sprouts without bacon or some other kind of flavorful fat.  I'm also a firm believer that they should be fried at some point during the cooking process to get those crispy leaves on the outside.
I made these with bacon, naturally, and a dressing of fish sauce inspired by here.

I read somewhere that cabbage is up and coming in 2015.  New food trends for the new year.  Or is it cauliflower?  It's definitely cauliflower...and now I can't remember if I did read about cabbage.  Well either way, I can get on board with both.  When we have a head of cabbage at home, we always sautee it with peppercorns and dried chilies.  It's like a game of "how spicy is the cabbage tonight?"  So that and green beans are two of my favorite things to see on the dinner table.  I like to sautee a head with a couple Chinese sausages, which I definitely agree is like meat candy.  Too much on it's own, making cabbage the perfect vehicle.

And now it's two hours later, and completely confirmed that things aren't working yet again.  Time to go home and prepare for my belated nod to Chinese New Year.

potatoes

Today I learned that green potatoes are not safe to eat due to the glycoalkaloids solanine and chaconine.

A little while ago (specifically on Super Bowl Sunday), I learned that it is very important to check the weather before moving Sunny because I also learned that apparently I don't look like I need help when trying to dig my car out.  But most importantly, I learned that I shouldn't postpone getting an emergency kit and kitty litter any longer.  It was a very eye opening blizzard.

I almost bailed about three times over the course of the day - after making veggie potato skins (with whiskey caramelized onions, spinach sauteed with garlic, and red peppers) - but the number of people hauling food in the snow to Super Bowl parties was inspiring.  Also, if I hadn't run into Amy, I definitely would've quit after three minutes at the bus stop, inspiring or not.