Last Saturday, I had two cooking demos at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in downtown D.C. as part of their Lunar New Year family day celebrations. The weather forecast predicted snow (they were actually right!) and I was expecting maybe 5 people to show up at...
On February 19, 2015, we will welcome the Year of the Sheep. And so begins another round of eating because a new year celebration isn't a celebration without lots of food! I’ve written many posts on Lunar New Year foods: from a Singapore favorite, raw fish...
Instead of celebrating Lunar New Year like the Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese, the Japanese celebrate the Western New Year on January 1st. This wasn’t always the case. It was only in 1873, five years after the Meiji Restoration (the revolution that transferred power from the Tokugawa shogunate to...
I’ve consumed my fair share of herbal/curative/restorative soups and drinks. My mom is an occasional believer of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and as a child I was subjected to hocus pocus potions sporadically. Many were bitter, even revolting, concoctions prescribed for persistent coughs, colds, and other ailments...
As immigrants, our Thanksgiving tables are likely to be vastly different from the garden variety spread of roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Two months ago, I was talking to people about their melting-pot Thanksgiving food traditions for an article that just came...
A couple of years ago, my friends Philip and June Lee invited me to a kimchi-making party. (An aside: Philip and June helm Readers to Eaters, a cool organization that’s part indie publisher, part pop-up bookstore and part food literacy educator.) Traditionally, kimchi is made during...
When I first met Shulie Madnick, I was confused. With straight, black tresses skimming her shoulders, an olive-brown complexion, and pretty almond eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled, Shulie looked South Asian. Yet she had an indistinguishable (to me!) lilt to her...
We all know about Lunar New Year, celebrated most notably by Chinese and Vietnamese in January or February every year. However, under-the-radar new year festivities take place at the start of spring. Lao New Year is celebrated as a three-day-long festival from April 13-15 (it can...
Growing up, my family didn't have a tradition of baking Christmas cookies. My mom would place several orders of Bûche de Noël (Christmas log cake) for our family dinner on Christmas eve and to give away to friends but nary a sugar cookie was in sight. I never...
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...
