Avocado (Photo credit: djwtwo) In the U.S., avocados are most often eaten in savory dishes, sliced to adorn salads or made into guacamole. As a little girl, my mum would make us a very simple snack--she'd halve an avocado, drizzle some palm sugar syrup (made by melting gula...
My parents aren’t natural storytellers (perhaps I should ask more often?) but every once in awhile a gem from their childhood pops up. Like this one story my mum recently told me: Ma remembers always waking up from her afternoon naps to the intoxicating aroma...
Have you ever been struck by an incessant food craving that just won’t go away? (No, this has nothing to do with pregnancy.) It’s kinda like an earworm (click here for more info about this wonderful new word I just learned about on NPR), a...
The snake may not be my favorite animal but I just learned a very interesting factoid about the Year of the Snake which starts this Sunday, February 10, 2013. Just as a snake sheds its skin, this is a good year for making dramatic transformations,...
Almond tofu or almond jelly is one of the most popular desserts to come out of the Chinese restaurant. It’s almost always served at the end of a Chinese banquet, usually with canned longans in syrup and/or fruit cocktail. As a little girl in swishy pigtails,...
There’s rice pudding and then there’s rice pudding. Or more precisely, my rice pudding: “my” being yours, mine, or Uncle Bob’s. Ask just about anyone and you’ll probably get an earful about a “secret” ingredient, or a tale inextricably linked to the memory of their childhood (or perhaps...
It's amazing what you discover just by plugging words into Google. Do you know what manju is? Well, in my books, it's a Japanese confection that has myriad guises. It can be baked or steamed and filled with anything from azuki beans, lima beans to kabocha. According...
Sunshine kabocha from Johnny's Selected Seeds (Picture courtesy of Johnny's Selected Seeds) I can't believe it's already October 1st. Fall is upon us and Halloween is just around the corner...
The "Dead End" sign next to Mary de Veer's house aptly reflected the mood right after hurricane Katrina struck. (Photo: Chris de Veer) With the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina coming up on August 29, 2008, let us remember the people who survived (and those who didn't) the horrific...
Cardamom-studded Flan One wouldn't necessarily think of flan as an Indian dessert but this fusion recipe comes from someone with a fascinating provenance. Mumtaz Rahemtulla is of Indian origin (from the Western-most state of Gujarat) and a fourth generation Kenyan. Both she and her husband were...
