Luffa squash lying elegantly on my dining table Our taste buds are the most effective memory keepers of all. Let me explain. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my favorite Hmong farmer, Moua, about the assortment of Asian vegetables he grows and sells. He drew...
Last Sunday, I conducted my very first cooking class/workshop in San Francisco. It was organized by Slow Food SF and held at La Cocina, an incubator kitchen for low income minority women. The series was aptly titled “Grandmother Workshops” and the goal was to teach people...
Chicken wings were one of my favorite childhood snacks: baked, grilled, or fried, it didn’t matter. I’d gnaw on the wing tips until all the flavor and what little meat and skin were on ‘em was sucked off! So when Monica Bhide asked me to cook her...
I love the crunch of a crisp, refreshing cucumber. And now that cucumbers are in season, I’ve been munching on them as often as I can. A member of the gourd family, the cucumber may seem an unremarkable vegetable. It comprises mostly water and tastes rather...
In this installment, Audrey Low contributes a little snippet that reflects on the kitchen chores she had as a child, plus a whimisical look at an old wives' tale . Of Malaysian-Chinese descent, Audrey is an anthropologist living in Australia. Her blog: papayatreelimited.blogspot.com combines her love of...
I just love the black and white photos on the cover! Grandmothers Nellie Wong (center) and the late Munni Khursheed Ashraf (right) are featured in the book. A couple of days ago, an unsuspecting me found a media mail package sitting on my front doorstep. Hmm ...
When I was a little girl, I hated mung bean sprouts, which we call “tauge” in Indonesian or "dou ya" (literally "bean sprout") in Mandarin. At the market, they’re often labeled simply bean sprouts. It had nothing to do with their bland flavor or the weird crunchy...
About four years ago, I met Shelly Krishnamurthy. An amazing woman, Shelly has Parkinson's disease but she is a fearless community activist, raising funds for Chaya, a non-profit organization serving South Asian women in times of crisis and need, and paying school visits to teach...
Paneer cut into cubes Everyone has their day dreams. Mine begins at dawn with me stirring a vat of creamy white milk. Sleep still heavy on my eyelids, my face is flushed from the delicate tendrils of warmth rising from the freshly-milked liquid which not so long ago...
