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,...
Since the launch of the paperback version of “The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook,” I’ve been doing book events and signings around town. Rather than just talking about the book and the process of putting it together, I’d like to encourage everyone to emulate it and start recording...
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...
New year cake and mandarin oranges are two standards eaten during Chinese New Year's My family doesn’t celebrate Chinese New Year in a big way. In fact, my dad has always insisted we are NOT Chinese. My siblings and I always took that statement with a...
A few weeks ago, I was in Seattle to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. That's my mom and dad. The peak of the nasi tumpeng is sliced off first, in the same tradition as slicing into a birthday cake (Photo courtesy of Ricky Raynaldi) My visit wasn’t...
In response to my previous post, Marisha asked, "What is the effect of washing rice (besides cleaning it from dust)?" and "Do you know something about it from Japanese tradition?" I have posed this question to several people from different ethnic backgrounds and it turns out...
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...
The beautiful table setting of a cha kaiseki meal The moment I arrive, Hiroko Sugiyama starts to make tea. She pours water into her cast-iron teapot and sets it over her center stove to boil. So begins our chakaiseki (tea kaiseki) class. Sugiyama has been teaching...
There is a popular Chinese saying: "There is nothing more delicious than jiaozi." Such an accolade no doubt points to the popularity of the simple Chinese dumpling. (Chinese dumplings come in many shapes and sizes but the most common are jiaozi and guotieh. They're essentially the...
Chefs are going ga ga over pork belly. Yes, this fatty, inexpensive cut is fast gaining favor and has risen on the trend-o-meter in the past couple of years. Here in Seattle, pork belly has top billing at fancy restaurants the likes of Tilth, Harvest Vine...
