This year, Lunar New Year falls on February 8th. To welcome the Year of the Monkey, why not have a dumpling party? If you've thrown a dinner party, you know how complex it can be to feed an eclectic mix of guests in this day and...
Holiday traditions in the U.S. abound. From roasted goose to the Feast of Seven Fishes, many American immigrant communities bring a piece of their homeland to the Christmas table. The Filipino dish rellenong manok (rel-ye-nong ma-nok) must be one of the most intricate and elaborate, both...
When I was researching my first book, The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, several Chinese Americans I spoke to told me that their parents prepared steamed chicken or duck instead of roast turkey for Thanksgiving. I wasn't surprised because steaming is more traditional than roasting in many Asian...
Ask anyone of Chinese descent and they’ll most likely tell you stir-fried eggs and tomatoes was a staple dish on their when-I-was-growing-up table. Just like lola’s pancit or obachan’s niku jaga, each family has their own rendition of this homestyle, comforting dish. Yes to Shaoxing Chinese...
Nutella was the peanut butter of my childhood. I ate the rich, creamy chocolate-hazelnut spread slathered one-inch-thick in between slices of white bread. I scraped it out of matchbox-sized containers with an accompanying plastic spoon (they were sold in snack packs similar to these). And I...
One of my favorite snacks as a kid was spicy tapioca crisps, or chips as preferred in the U.S. These crisps are potato chips’ exotic, far-flung cousins made with tapioca (also called cassava, manioc, yuca) instead of potatoes and shellacked in a sweet, spicy, tangy...
I may only be slightly exaggerating when I say that instant noodles are synonymous with starving college students. I’m sure even you dear reader have recollections of huddling over steaming Styrofoam cups, shoveling curly noodles into mouths and slurping soup between cramming for midterms and/or a...
One morning last week, my husband came back inside the house after loading the car and declared," It feels like fall outside!" My heart sank, then rebounded. My mixed feelings were understandable: I was sad that the end of summer, as well as warm, sunny weather,...
I was a yogurt-making novice until my first year of marriage. That was 13 years ago. My impetus wasn’t being a Mrs. Nor was I inspired to become more of a homebody because we were living in the English countryside. The culprit was actually an insulated flask I...
