Food on not quite an expert

Le Diplomate experience

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Based on these recommendations, I followed procuring Lost Sock and Small Planes coffee beans into Logan Circle. Then I followed the recommendation of my coworker friend into Le Diplomate, a French restaurant and neighborhood staple. I found each part of the meal interesting to discuss.

They seated me at a corner table near where the servers close out checks and gossip, less glamorous and more entertaining. Then they brought out their signature bread basket. I initially felt a base concern about the high carbs in the bread and the high fat in the butter; American nutritionism currently fixates on protein so much I can buy “protein water” at Target. However, recognizing the shortcomings of American nutritionism, I tried to enjoy the bread basket as a French person would, rather than as an American person wouldn’t.

Untetheredly deep thoughts about pizza strategy

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In business strategy, we frame a business as maximizing profit, derived from revenues - expenses. It can increase revenues with product differentiation, or decrease expenses with cost leadership. My strategy professor framed product differentiation and cost leadership as opposite ends of a spectrum of business strategy. However, I would unfold them as separate related features, with some frontier of how a business can allocate and trade off product differentiation and cost leadership.

Schlumped!

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, your old friend, the Monterey Jack chicken taquito from 7-Eleven.

You think you’re hot shit, then the week of annual performance reviews your Senior Director DMs you you need to “step up” and the Head of Product blows up your project.

So you work to pick up the pieces, and you find yourself near midnight unable to find a bag, holding your oily old friend in your bare hand, schlumped!

Korean slop bowl

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On 42nd St next to Bryant Park, you can find the “slop bowl corridor”, a row of fast casual restaurants serving bowls you can customize with base, protein, toppings, and sauce. Often you rush your “slop bowl” back to your office desk to scarf down before your next meeting.

My precious pile of quail eggs

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A related story I enjoyed

At any hotpot I look for one thing: quail eggs. Their small size yields a wonderful texture - inside the al dente egg white, a generous core of silky egg yolk!

The last 2 times I got all-you-can-eat hotpot, I shocked and awed both groups of friends with my voracious quail egg consumption. By the time I lost count of my orders of quail eggs, the servers knew my every request would include quail eggs.

Knowing good and bad coffee

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My dad unintentionally tested me in coffee again - this time with a bulk bag of coffee beans from Costco, from the dreaded Starbucks.

In tea‑drinking communities, people tell variations of this story that you must know bad tea to know good tea. From r/tea:

A lot of this reminds me of a weird story that I can’t remember the origin of. It comes down to a master tea farmer and his apprentice, and to start off his apprentice on training for tea tasting, he gives him the worse, most bitter tea. The apprentice is confused as to why he would do this, since they have access to the best tea they could think of. The master says “you cannot learn to appreciate the best of teas until you can appreciate the worst teas”

Water for coffee III: druggie

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

To measure ingredients for this Barista Hustle recipe, I needed a scale with 0.01g precision.

Through this Ultimate Guide to Milligram Scales, I found the AWS¹ Gemini-20. One helpful Redditor even validated the accuracy of the AWS Gemini-20, in r/drugs!

When I brought my 3-inch mini spoon for measuring additives (baking soda [sodium bicarbonate] and epsom salts [magnesium sulfate]), my coworker called it a “coke spoon”. I really started to feel like a druggie for coffee water.

Water for coffee II: scientist

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When the special filter jug arrived, I noticed the packaging touted how pure the jug would filter water. I suspect this product would appeal most to those who glorify pure water. However, pure water doesn’t mean better water.

Not only does pure water taste “off” without minerals, purified water lacks beneficial additives like fluoride, which reduces tooth decay.

I lean more scientific than woo-woo, so I’m using the special filter jug for a specific alternative purpose: achieving a precise level of hardness and alkalinity specified by this Barista Hustle recipe.

Water for coffee I: environmentalist

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by this video from James Hoffman:

I wanted to optimize water for brewing my coffee.

However, as Hoffman notes, buying bottles of water optimized for coffee leads to plastic waste. Since I actively try to reduce waste (e.g. buying used from eBay), I researched a “practical water setup” minimizing plastic waste: purifying water with a special filter jug, then remineralizing that purified water with a precise recipe. I bought the special filter jug used from eBay.

Overthinking coffee servers

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As I’ve been AeroPress-ing coffee for my teammates in the office, I’ve found pouring between mugs awkward, with much spillage of good good coffee.

So one night, post-midnight (la madrugada), I over-thought through 5 iterations of coffee servers.

I started with Hario’s glass coffee server. However, I’d be pressing into the glass, which another person reported had shattered with their AeroPress

Then I considered “heavy-duty” use cases. However, looking into a borosilicate Pyrex beakers, I found they would also shatter with the AeroPress.

Stale bean guilt

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I like to try a lot of whole-bean coffees. However, I don’t want to buy too much just to throw some away. So when visiting SF last year, upon discovering the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative sold whole-bean coffee from named roasters by weight rather than by bag, I made a day of it! I happily brought the haul (of mostly light-roast Ethiopian beans) all the way back to my office desk in NYC.

Crémant

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You could buy Champagne, or for like half the price you could buy Crémant, made the same way from the same grapes grown just outside the Champagne region.

To almost anyone, they taste indistinguishable, and I’ve declared that subtlety bends toward classism. So why does Champagne command such a premium?

Branding, of course. In centuries past, Champagne became associated with royalty, a popular image for the emerging middle class. However, in the American spirit like early Webster promoting purpose over tradition, why would we pay more for association with such an anti-egalitarian concept as centuries-old royalty? Long live 22-buck Crémant!

Maloya

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Maloya in Bushwick serves the “French-Créole” cuisine of Réunion Island. Established by the French as a plantation economy in the 17th century, Réunion Island (east of Madagascar) incorporates influences from enslaved laborers from East Africa and indentured laborers from India, China, and other parts of Asia. Today the language (Réunion Creole) and the food mix those influences.

From Maloya I enjoyed the camarons coco-vanille, the coconut milk-poached shrimp drawing from South and Southeast Asia, and the vanilla drawing from the heavy production of vanilla in that region of Africa along the Indian Ocean. In fact, we call it “Bourbon vanilla” because we originally called Réunion Island “Île Bourbon” around when it became the world’s leading vanilla producer. I enjoyed the camarons coco-vanille on the level of flavor, and on the level of philosophy, challenging the notion of “authentic”.

Outgrown, not yet

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It feels like you’ve outgrown your childhood home. You have to bend down to use the sink. You almost hit your head on your bedroom ceiling fan. And you have to bend your knees to lie comfortably on your mattress.

The morning of your flight out, your coffee tastes bitter and sour - your dad should’ve used the hand grinder you bought him. Your 生煎包 taste dry - your mom should’ve gelatinized the broth before pan-frying them. And your green beans taste bland - your dad should’ve added salt, which happens often. Samin Nosrat is rolling in her bed.

A/B test of grinding method

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today my dad served me coffee that tasted simultaneously too bitter and too sour.

We had used the same Aeropress; we had used the same boiled water, from the same water boiler with one setting; and we had even used the same coffee beans, from the bag I gave him for Father’s Day.

I realized we had unintentionally conducted an A/B test of grinding method.¹ I had used a burr grinder while he had used a blade (spice) grinder.

Nostalgia for compromised flavors

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On top of taste, smell, and touch, memories and associations can influence of experience of flavor. This helps explain why some people have nostalgia or affection for flavors born out of compromise.

As I learned when I visited Driftaway Coffee, in the times of the British Raj, during the months of transport by sea from India to Europe, coffee absorbed the moisture and developed a musty flavor. When modern transportation reduced the time and humidity of transport, producers deliberately re-created those conditions, and thereby the musty flavor, along the Malabar coast of India during the monsoon months. And now we have Monsooned Malabar.

Senses of flavor

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

While reading How to Taste Coffee, I’ve learned that our experience of flavor comprises more than just the sense of taste. It also includes our sense of smell and touch!

For example, even though roasted coffee has almost no sugar, sweet-smelling aromatics, e.g. vanilla aromas, can create the perception of sweetness.

Also, temperature affects our sensitivity to sweet, savory (umami), and bitter tastes, hence ice cream tastes sweeter when melted.

Interestingly, certain “taste” sensations work through our touch receptors rather than our taste or smell receptors. The burning sensation of pungency (spiciness) and the drying sensation of astringency fall under “chemesthesis”.

Notes on tasting notes III: ambiguity

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In “How to Talk About Wine Like a Japanese Tea Master”, Ogasawara challenges:

[A]re you sure that when you say “It tastes like a peach” that every peach tastes the same, or everyone else tastes a peach the same way you do? Peaches are tough enough to pin down, but what about fuzzy figs and gushing oranges, candied cherries or Asian pears…

Instead of referring to categories of notes as I’ve suggested before, Ogasawara finds a high-minded alternative, emphasis on high:

Notes on tasting notes II: precision

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My coworker hosted a wine tasting with a group including me. For the first wine, we came up with specific notes like lychee and raspberry. Even though I wet the tip of my nose with the red wine, I couldn’t smell both lychee and raspberry, only lychee or raspberry. The hosting coworker wrote down many notes for their sommelier class.

For the second wine, the hosting coworker remarked, to controversy and my surprise, that once you discern a category of notes, you’re just selecting an instance for effect. For example, you discern stone fruit, so you could just select fresh peaches or baked apricots to evoke varying impressions.

Notes on tasting notes I: usefulness

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Drinking beverages with complex tastes brings me, and many others, great joy. Like wow, it tastes like this, and that, and a little like that?

However, making beverages with good complex tastes takes a lot of effort, so costs a lot of money. Before I pay the money,¹ I want to approximate the complex tastes. Tasting notes help that approximation.

Tasting notes matter more for categories of drinks² with complex and varied tastes. And they better approximate those tastes when referring to other consistent, well-known flavors. For example, I’d say this tea tastes like peach; I wouldn’t say this peach tastes like tea.

Fish blossom at the probably-not end of the world

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“What are you thinking about?” I ask my coworker.

“How everything will get more expensive, because of the tariffs.” My coworker smacks me with a big, genuine answer.

“Well, better save up.” We laugh it off, save it for later because we should work now.

When I meet my coworker, a self-professed Eeyore, over the weekend, they worry about the times. It doesn’t feel like the end of the world. Though it doesn’t feel certain the world will go on, or more particularly, go on well.

Mad as a cucumber

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I had a cucumber dish that made me mad.

To avoid the long line at Ichiran, I diverted to Bites of Xian, and ordered the garlic cucumber.

Some bites tasted so sweet, like nasty candy, that it made me mad.

Other bites tasted so weirdly spicy, in my nose and in the back of my head, that it made me mad.

And they served the cucumber in such big, unwieldy chunks that it made me mad.

Biquinho peppers

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Have you had “biquinho peppers”? Probably not under that name.

The first time I had them, I was eating at Birdbox, a quirky fried chicken place serving sandwiches with the chicken claw sticking out (apparently an indication of quality). I remember the sandwich as pretty good, more expensive. However, I remember more the delicious red pepper drops. Tangy, yet not spicy, aromatic? Thoroughly enamored, I asked the cooks where they got them.

Pickle Guys!

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I went to the last standing pickle store on Essex Street, The Pickle Guys. Upon entering the store, a crowd of barrels, then the eponymous Pickle Guys, greeted me.

The Pickle Guys don’t just sell pickles; they embody an ideal, reminiscent of the Village People (who sing the familiar YMCA song). Various flavors gather together. The Asian one! The black one! And the one whose slight lisp suggests he likes pickles (not just the ones they sell in the store)!

No-tip anarchist tea, Oprah approved

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I buy tea (or coffee) for the story, rather than for the taste. For example, when I visited Ann Arbor again, I bought Miss Kim x Zingerman’s Deli black tea.

Miss Kim stands out to me as one of the only no-tip (living wage) restaurants I’ve eaten at.¹ They actually belong to the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, started by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig (who studied anarchism and Russian history at the University of Michigan) and originally famous for their deli’s reuben sandwich. Today, you can see quotes on their wall from Obama, and more entertainingly, Oprah, who proclaimed “on a scale of 1 to 5…11”.

My worst rice bowl

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My order of 1 chicken rice bowl went wrong beyond my imagination!

They didn’t have chicken, so substituted falafel
and they didn’t have yellow rice, so substituted white rice
and they threw in a complimentary reparatory sweet, though I wanted to avoid sweets
and they added a giant pickle, though I dislike pickles
and they packed it in a bag, though I asked for no bag to avoid waste
and the rice tasted blander than rice
and the hummus tasted bitter
and I lightly choked on the falafel

Despite this “fuck-ass” rice bowl, I still left a 15% tip - the service staff didn’t do anything wrong, or at least they didn’t do anything malicious. Then I left just a little mad.

Taste right or eat right

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I didn’t want to go to the ceviche restaurant that my mom suggested, because I wanted to have good taste, and it looked like a tourist trap. How does the restaurant have such a high average rating? Did they game reviews? And why does their online menu read like an advertisement?

However, tapas cost a lot for not that much food, so we go to the ceviche restaurant. Having eaten at so many restaurants, I can read a menu more deeply:

Comparative tasting of protein bars

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You wanted to eat more vegetables.

So you researched green powders - not the overpriced podcast one, the Hueligan one.

So you checked for BFCM sales - Huel doesn’t have one though GNC has BOGO-50% mix and match.

So you perused Barebells protein bar flavors - you must sample the local supply lest you get stuck with unsavory protein!

And so you end up at the airport Margaritaville, tolerated by the server who doesn’t need the table just yet, comparatively tasting bites of 5 protein bars:

Momofuku

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Over 300 restaurants into New York City, I’ve finally eaten at Momofuku Noodle Bar. I wanted it to taste good, because Momofuku Ko (now closed) introduced me to fine Asian food when I first visited the city, and because we could do with more focused, elevated Asian American food.

It did taste good, and disappointing. Perhaps the food couldn’t’ve lived up to the hype it’s built over the years. And perhaps I wanted to align with my Asian peers who found it over-hyped.

Fruits IV: tangerine

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In my workplace, I’ve adopted the tangerine as my symbol.¹ For example, I react to Slack messages with :shrugging-tangerine:, :thinking-tangerine:, and :approving-tangerine: generated from Google’s Emoji Kitchen. I’ve even presented to all hands with slides featuring tangerines!

Coworkers often wonder why tangerines. Well, I have a few reasons:

Accessible

Tangerines, like chocolates, represent the bounties of the global food trade. For a price nearly anyone can afford, I can enjoy the tangy and sweet juice of this orange treasure!

Pun III: unreal tea

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been wanting to read briefly about the foundations of philosophy, including metaphysics (what exists), epistemics (what we know), and ethics (what we consider right).

At this point, I’ve become comfortable with eating alone. So today I, by myself with a book in hand, headed over to the Vietnamese restaurant near my apartment.

Mmm, mmm, mmm, some good eatin':

On my table, phở with bone marrow
On the table to my left, my stranger’s friend’s dad wouldn’t let the friend become a bartender like him
On the table to my right, my stranger’s friend is going through a physiosocial dry spell, in incredible detail

I had put down my very short introduction to metaphysics to tune into the un-real tea.

Pun II: fluke

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In my bardo between Google and Glean, I received a payout from Google for my unredeemed paid time off - literally thousands of dollars all at once. I saw it as a sign that I should vacation more,¹ and that I should treat myself.

So I went to the fanciest restaurant recommended to me, in New York City no less, which cost over $300 for the prix fixe menu. My grad student friends couldn’t afford the money, and my finance friends couldn’t afford the time (on a weekday), so I went as a party of one² to lightly menace the fine dining service staff.

The restaurants I'd make if I could

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lately, I’ve eaten at a few restaurants, including Milu and Chiko, which feel like restaurants I’d make if I could. I’ve drawn out some common personally attractive features:

Elevated, not pretentious - someone (actually probably many people) put in the effort, and you can actually taste the difference (rather than politely claim to taste a difference)
Chinese American - the variety and history of the first and the abundance and experimentation of the latter (also close to home)
Focused (specialized) menu - I do love (and mostly prefer) when someone does a few products super well

On “if I could” - I’d want exit money before pursuing an industry with infamously low margins.

You're climbing up the wrong hill

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You can imagine an optimization problem as a landscape, where higher elevation represents a better result, such as higher enjoyment. You often face so many possibilities that you can’t see much of the landscape. So as a simple heuristic, you might just keep heading higher until you reach a peak.

Obviously though, some peaks rise higher than others. Perhaps you’re climbing up the wrong hill, such as with:

Competition plain water - you (too) serious?
Tinned seafood - we have fresh seafood now!
“Healthier” “natural” sweeteners - probably better to get fewer sweets and more vegetables

Like gradient ascent/descent in machine learning practice, you should consider big changes over incremental improvements every once in a while.

Mediocre small business ambivalence

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

While I characterized the first tea shop as woo-woo, I’d characterize the second as “mediocre small business”.

The shop had more types of tea than the number I think a shop can do well, given my penchant for hyperspecialization. When I asked to buy samples, the shopkeeper clarified that they sell minimum 2oz each type. I guessed that they wanted to force larger orders, and kept to myself that a larger tea purveyor would probably sell samples (at a premium per weight) to persuade new customers.

Magical space corn!

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I visited two tea shops today. Let me tell you about them!

The first, a seller of herbs and roots (I guess tea counts?), had real woo-woo energy. One patron asked if sage clears impurities, to bring to a wedding. In my head, I noted that if someone brought an herb to clear impurities to the celebration of my marriage, I’d feel insulted.

The jars of herbs and roots looked a bit stale, assuming dried goods get stale. So I looked in the back, where they were selling “magical space spray” derived from various plants. You know, like chamomile, chrysanthemum, or corn - magical space corn!

The only good supplements

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As Harvard Health Publishing clearly states:

Despite their iconic status, there is no evidence that multivitamins enhance health and well-being or prevent illness. … Supplements for prevention? It’s a disappointing scorecard.

In an area filled with snake oil, I require a higher threshold for belief. I need to understand how something works. The same article summarizes:

Most people stand to benefit from vitamin D, many from fiber, and some from fish oil.

Comparative tasting

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

People generally have better relative judgement than absolute judgement.

For example, I could confidently tell you one island looks farther than the other, though could not confidently tell you the distance between any of the islands and me.

In fine beverages (coffee, tea, wine, etc.), you can use your relative judgement in comparative tasting to highlight tasting notes. For instance, this coffee tastes more fruity than the other; this tea tastes sweeter than the other.

Italian beef

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You enter Al’s #1 Italian Beef to order Chicago’s third-most famous food, after deep dish pizza and that hot dog with the neon green relish and not ketchup.

You order a “combo”, which comes with a sausage below the thinly sliced beef, because you want to retort. To the annoying people who ask “does a hot dog count as a sandwich?”, you reverse “does this sandwich count as a hot dog?”.

Passionate for passion fruit: a surprise melancholic sequel!

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I did it. I found another case of the passion fruit-flavored Spindrift. Rather, I found 2 cases of it.

I had schemed for passion fruit-flavored Spindrift. I had signed up for a free trial of a grocery delivery service to get it delivered from Flushing. When I found out they wouldn’t deliver from Flushing, I offered a hefty 100% delivery fee to a friend stopping by Flushing.

I ended up making my own passion fruit syrup. However, seeing 2 whole cases of passion fruit Spindrift in front of me provoked an impulse to hoard. Surely, no one would appreciate this passion fruit Spindrift as much as me!

Passionate for passion fruit!

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I go through fruit phases. Previously, I had a real lychee moment; now I find myself passionate for passion fruit!

Besides the fun name, passion fruit epitomizes tart citrus flavor. In the office I down cans of passion fruit-flavored LaCroix; in the apartment I down cans of passion fruit-flavored Spindrift.

Or at least, I was downing Spindrift when I could find it! Their new passion fruit flavor now sells out before I can get my hands on it. Now I have to turn to alternative avenues for sour, sour passion fruit flavor.

Rose absolute III: juice

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After soaking the rose petals in ethanol, and filtering out the petals, I now have a jar of what looks like pee. I gotta concentrate the good good stuff in the pee jar to get a sufficiently potent rose adulterate.

In sufficient concentration, next to an open flame, ethanol will EXPLODE. A lil quirky, I know, I don’t like to EXPLODE. So I need to evaporate the ethanol without an open flame; I pull out my instant pot for the first time in weeks.

Rose absolute II: adulterate

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I ended up buying 200-proof “food-grade” ethanol. “Food-grade” doesn’t mean you should drink it; it means un-denatured - typically alcohol comes denatured with bad-tasting mixins to discourage young children from consuming.

My friend and I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and with the amount of rose petals I’m using, I could expect a drop of rose absolute. With “mechanical losses” like some getting stuck to the side of the jar, a drop basically comes out to nothing! My ego can’t take that!

Rose absolute I: solvent extraction

Sat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s say you really want to smell the roses, like a concentrated BLAST of roses. Only a small portion of roses creates its smell, which you can extract into rose absolute.

You create rose absolute through a process known as solvent extraction. The solvent extracts the desired compounds, and after separating the solvent, you have the desired compounds.

To make solvent extraction more effective, we prefer a solvent that:

extracts more of the desired compounds
extracts less of the undesired compounds
separates easily from the desired compounds

For roses, I am using ethanol, in which the desired rose fragrance compounds easily dissolve,¹ and which evaporates at an easily achieved temperature (above room temperature).

Chili butter VI: recipe

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to write a perfect number of posts about chili butter, so I’ll complete the series of 6 (a perfect number!) posts with my recipe for chili butter:

replace oil with butter in this recipe, idk

Nice!

Chili butter V: Eurocentricity

Sat, 23 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Do I feel guilty about praising French stuff like everyone else? Well, I’m writing a fifth post, so you bet I do.

In How the World Really Works, Vaclav Smil writes:

Think of what you might be missing: those paper thin slices of jamón ibérico; that well-roasted pig …; that well-cooked polpo gallego …. If we were to stake longevity (accompanied by healthy and active life) solely on the prevailing diet … then Japanese eating has a slight edge, but an only slightly inferior outcome can be had by eating as they do in Valencia.

Chili butter IV: French butterfat

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Now that we’ve totally completely settled the topic of authenticity, what butter do I use for chili butter?

I bought these fancy Sichuanese chilies, I need fancy butter to match!

Well, French butter of course! As French cuisine personality Julia Child famously said, “With enough butter, anything is good”. French butter has a higher butterfat percentage by law. And the private label Wegmans French butter doesn’t cost too much.

Chili butter III: East Asian dairy

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

My friend questioned the authenticity of chili butter made with Sichuanese chili.

In Japan, you can top takoyaki with loads of cheese. In Korea, you can stuff a corn dog with fish cake and cheese. In China, Pizza Hut did so well it spun off from the parent company.

The inauthentic ingredient of cheese, despite more upsetting to the Asian stomach, finds popularity altered for East Asia.

Chili butter II: against "authenticity"

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

People laud food as “authentic”. I do not.

To clarify, I do not condemn “authentic” foods; I just don’t consider “authenticity” a merit in itself.

Of course, we can point out the fraught boundaries of “authenticity”. However, let’s just assume we have a pretty-shared notion of “authenticity”.

Whatever merits lie behind authenticity we can consider over authenticity. For example, we may seek authentic foods to support the people who make them. We may also avoid inauthentic foods to express our distaste for one particular group taking from another. Then the merit lies in supporting those people, and the de-merit lies in that group taking from the other.

Chili butter I: importance

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Before I write about food yet again, I wanted to emphasize the importance of food.

We have to eat food, so food reflects the realities and eccentricities of our lives.

Folding Ideas provides a great example (4:05):

We can say a lot about food, and some of it matters. What I, not quite an expert, say, of course, does not.

Brown croissants

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do you know the story of croissants? One story goes:

[A] baker of the 17th century, working through the night at a time when his city (either Vienna in 1683 or Budapest in 1686) was under siege by the Turks, heard faint underground rumbling sounds which, on investigation, proved to be caused by a Turkish attempt to invade the city by tunneling under the walls. The tunnel was blown up. The baker asked no reward other than the exclusive right to bake crescent-shaped pastries commemorating the incident, the crescent being the symbol of Islam.

Bar joy

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I had an espresso flight at Starbucks. At risk (at certainty) of sounding like yet another coffee snob, I didn’t pick up any of the tasting notes. I only tasted “burnt”. People suggest tasting notes; some people suggest badly, or for mere marketing.

In Paris,¹ I dined at a wine bar. I watched as another patron sipped on a glass of wine, then brought home a bottle of it - the strong joy and sales tactic of trying before buying! I enjoy the same for coffee (beans roasted at a local coffee shop), and in rare cases, for tea!

Fruits III: persimmon

Sat, 16 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In high school, I played clarinet and listened primarily to classical music (and EDM). Then in my freshman internship I grew sick of it, and sought out new music.

The first album that spoke to me came from Japanese Breakfast. In her debut album Psychopomp, and later in her memoir Crying in H Mart, she details her mother’s death from cancer: the love, the loss, and the yearning. I re-listen and re-read in hard times.

Fruits II: (sucker for) passion fruit

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As I walked out of the store today, I found that I’ve become more than just a fan for passion fruit; I’ve become a sucker for passion fruit:

In fruit form, I buy
In water form, I buy
In pulp form, I buy
In chocolate form, I buy
In tea tasting notes, I buy
Even for $35, in coffee tasting notes, I buy!

While I enjoy seeing passion fruit become more mainstream, I no longer just buy every passion fruit variation I see!

Fruits I: (dry farmed) early girl tomato

Sat, 02 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have eaten (or drunk) at over 300 restaurants in San Francisco, and soon the same in New York City.¹ While NYC has more people so more variety at more times, SF has the freshness of California, which produces over half of the fruits and vegetables in the US.

The last 2 times I’ve visited SF, I’ve procured dry farmed early girl tomatoes to make a beautiful tomato sauce, based on this simple recipe by Marcella Hazan.

A curated selection of wall art from Za Pizza

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

ZABLAZZZKING

Our artist, anonymous perhaps to avoid the cops, has helpfully drawn a weed leaf. You can tell by the excessive enthusiasm that they have probably never actually smoked weed.

“The Daddy Special”

Yes, I can tell this refers to some pizza topping combination. No, it did not help to exclaim “Daddy’s full”.

Za 피자 (Pizza)

The artist clarifies “피자 means pizza. It’s Korean.” Hmph, very redundant. Almost like a young child with English as a second language. Almost.

老板 (Laoban), dumplings

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I 老板

My mother asserts in name.

My sister and I share the same middle name “Guo”, my mother’s maiden name, which she kept even after coming to the United States.

My father calls my mother “老板”, which he translates as “boss”, of the household.

II Laoban

In my corner store, I spotted Laoban Dumplings on sale. The brand translates Laoban as “boss”, of the dumpling shop.

I thought of the Chinatown restauranters who fed me when I wasn’t sleeping well, and got sick of Trader Joe’s frozen foods.

Hon Wasabi

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At Saru Sushi Bar, you can order the “Hon Wasabi”. Demonstrating that “food and menus are uniquely challenging to translate”, I find this translation both incompetent and functional.

If “Hon” just means “True”, you could just call it “True Wasabi”. It reminds me of “Just according to keikaku. (Translator’s note: keikaku means plan)

However, if you want to communicate that this “Hon Wasabi” won’t taste like other “wasabi” your customers have had before. And you don’t want to explain that “wasabi” in the US probably contains just horseradish powder and food dye, calling it “Hon Wasabi” does the trick!

San Francisco Bahn Mi

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Preparation

1 bottle of vinegar from the Safeway you only go to at night with the homeless people
1 cucumber from Gus’s Community Market, purveyor of fine and un-fine SF brands

Try to figure out how to use a mandoline slicer
Slice the entire cucumber super thin
Almost slice your finger
Mix with vinegar in one of your mason jars, of which you now have a menacing amount

Base

1 slice of milk bread from Breadbelly
1 glob of mayo from the cheapest brand, because you probably won’t use it all anyway
(Optional) 1 drop of sweat from biking to Breadbelly

Cover one side of the bread with mayo
Toast for 3 minutes - weirdly soft??
Toast for 3 more minutes - burnt black!!

Toppings

1 slab of country pâté from Maison Nico
A bunch of cilantro leaves
A few slices of pickled cucumber

Cover the burnt side of the bread with pâté, wondering how to pronounce French words
Top with cilantro leaves, recalling that time you put cilantro in boba tea in front of your coworkers - you no longer work there
Forget about your (now suspiciously old) pickled red onions and layer with pickled cucumber slices

Meat

1 or 2 or whatever slices of whatever meat you have laying around

Just finish up the sandwich and eat it, you over-the-top bih

Lunch and dinner faces

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I wear separate faces for lunch and dinner.

My lunch face orders “请来一磅鸡腿”

My dinner face inquires “which pâté would work well in a sandwich?”

My lunch face devours the fried chicken drumettes indiscriminately, lukewarm flesh and ligament altogether.

My dinner face requests to re-heat the tepid seasonal quiche, carefully sectioning with a fork and knife.

My lunch face roams the streets, crunching and tossing the bones in front of God and everyone.

7-Eleven taquitos

Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Tonight, for the first time in years, I ate another 7-Eleven taquito - monterey jack, the objectively superior flavor.

$1.50 - more expensive than I remember, though it tasted exactly the same.

I’ve eaten so much fancy - expensive, sometimes delicious, food since then. However, no matter how many omakases, or fusion burritos, or “celebrations of sungold tomatoes” I consume, I still come back to the 7-Eleven taquito. In fact, in time, in memory, after a late night, after a long flight, I embody the 7-Eleven taquito more than any fancy food. And that feels good. Actually, not good, right, except in my stomach.

Chinatown at the farmers market

Sat, 13 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend I went to the farmers market in the United Nations Plaza. I noticed something unexpected - almost all of the other customers came from Chinatown!

To understand why, you must understand Chinatown. As I learned in Cool Gray City of Love:

Chinatown serves as one of the last places poor people can afford to live in San Francisco.
Chinatown houses a lot of elderly people aging in place.

By that combination, you find a lot of Chinatown grandparents hungry for cheap produce. And they shop enthusiastically at the farmers market, just never at the trendy (i.e. more expensive) stands.

Sichuanese chili oil

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sichuanese chili oil, 红油, has a beautiful texture, fragrance, color, and flavor.

Traditional Sichuanese chili oil uses rapeseed oil, 菜籽油, as a base. With its high adhesive quality, the oil better clings to your food, making it easier to appreciate.

As the oil mixes with the chilis, Mala Market describes three distinct phases:

The first pour-over at the highest oil temperature extrudes or “forces out” the smoky-fragrant chili aroma (增香, zēng xiāng). The second pour at a middle temperature draws out the attractive red color of the oil (提色, tí sè). The third and last pour at the lowest temperature preserves the spice of the chilis.

Mocktails

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“Mocktails” refers to non-alcoholic drinks mocking alcoholic cocktail drinks. I don’t like the term “mocktails.”

“Mocktails” implies a natural, superior alcoholic and an imitation, inferior non-alcoholic. However, non-alcoholic drinks have some advantage of flavor and flexibility. Alcohol tastes bitter and burns your throat, because your body recognizes it as toxic; non-alcoholic drinks don’t have to “overcome” that taste hurdle. And most people aren’t trying to get sch-wasted on a workday; they could then drink something non-alcoholic without guilt.

Recipe for Airport Egg Salad Sandwiches

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Start with a uniquely textured bread.

You want a color between white and whole grain bread, so both people who prefer the taste of white and people who prefer the health of whole grain will feel slightly confused. You also want the texture of plastic, to scare your eater into thinking they forgot to remove a layer of packaging.

Take some egg, and mash it into an unrecognizable paste.

Most “chefs” and “cooks” and “normal people” would recommend leaving a bit of variance in texture. Those same idiots would also suggest diced celery or onion for crunch, or, you know salt. Clearly, they have not received the luxurious grace of Airport Egg Salad Sandwich God.

Stories from the community table

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Some busy restaurants employ a community table, an efficient setup for small parties and walk-ins who don’t mind sitting next to strangers to reduce wait times.

The first time I sat at a community table, I was trying to get a lobstah roll at Neptune Oyster in Bahston. After a short introduction, the guy next to me asked, without prompting, “have you heard of crypto?” He then told me his dad took out a couple thousand dollars on his mom’s credit card to “invest” in cryptocurrencies. That money disappeared in a flash, and his parents have separated. I changed the topic, silently thanking some divine force I wasn’t being sold cryptocurrencies at the community table.

Uncle Roger

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of Uncle Roger videos. The videos follow the Asian Uncle Roger character watching non-Asian people cook Asian dishes, bemoaning how incorrectly or badly the non-Asian person is cooking the Asian dish.

The videos stand out to me for their relatability. The character reminds me of the ups and downs of growing up with Asian parents, and more relevantly for this post, the flaccid attempts at Asian-ish dishes that peppered my growing up in suburban Michigan.

Just because you don't understand it ...

Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As I peruse the grocery store shelves, “health” foods bombard me: manuka honey, goji berries, kava, to name a few.

These “health” foods testify to America’s fraught relationship with food. Soda companies have lobbied a balanced diet can include regularly drinking tens of grams of sugar; now they sell sugar-free diet soda. Fad diets, often questionable or contradictory, now line our magazines and our un-skippable ads. Poverty now increases your chances of both hunger and obesity.

Chinese sushi

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Before starting my new job, I visited my sister in Michigan. The week before, her toilet had clogged, spewing ew water across her room’s floor. I brushed off the smell, happy to see my sister again for the first time in months.

The week after, I went to a fancy schmancy sushi restaurant in New York City. They accompanied one of the dishes with fancy schmancy custom kombucha. As I sipped, the scent reminded me of my sister’s room.

Oh no! I talk about my diet

Sat, 20 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The best regimen comprises what you can and will actually do sustainably. This applies to education, exercise, and diet.

My diet currently consists of 3 rules:

Only eat when hungry, rather than when strongly emotional or when encountering free food (in, say, the office microkitchen).
Eat with time and attention, instead of shoving food down my gullet while multitasking on my phone.
Avoid sugar, though don’t expect to completely remove it.

Meat culture

Sat, 06 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Our food system constitutes one of humanity’s greatest impacts on the earth. Consider a simple tomato: greenhouses, irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, pickers, processors, storers, shippers, merchandisers, stockers, and finally cookers. Revel in the effort it takes so you can make a mediocre spaghetti sauce.

Kitchen animosity aside, we observe that since animals spend so much energy unrelated to final human consumption, plant foods on average boast multiple times more energy-efficient production than animal meats.¹ Ignoring the energy initially created by photosynthesis in plants, overwhelmingly the energy spent in our food system comes from fossil fuels. We could, all else held equal, significantly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by consuming more plant foods instead of meat.

Lychee and lime

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I dream of lychee and lime. I dream of a floral sweet accentuated by a tangy sour.

Last week I biked to Japantown in search of lychees, leaving with only a consolation of lychee-flavored soda. Determined, I called a fruit store in the Mission, and to my joy, they had stocked lychees just the day before.

Lightly heaving from biking a few miles, I bought 24 little red gems. 12 I submerged in neutral vodka to make extract, and the other 12 in water and sugar to make syrup.

Rose extract

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today I bought roses from Trader Joe’s. The cashier probably thought I was buying them for my girlfriend.

I don’t have a girlfriend. I chopped the heads off the roses, and flayed the petals into a glass bottle, to drown in cheap vodka.

If that description doesn’t make it clear, I’m making rose extract. To mix with lychee in sparkling water.

Apples and moons

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

What type of apple do you like the most? When I visited Seattle, I took a bite of the semi-famous Cosmic Crisp. Sweet, tangy, crispy, until very recently the Cosmic Crisp represented my favorite apple. This week I journeyed to the Berkeley Bowl to continue my Apple Quest.

After getting off the BART, I biked over to The Cheese Board Collective, a semi-famous pizzeria lauded by a stranger I met drunk at a party. I ordered myself a whole pizza and a rose lemonade in a fancy glass bottle, and parked on the edge of the outdoor seating. Donning the semi-famous Chicago Lean to not dirty my white shirt, I faced the road to watch people zip by against the backdrop of California’s hills.

Golden Era

Sat, 28 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I claimed before that “Food and stories form the easiest and most common way to share culture.” For Buddhism and proximate ways of life, the first manifests in veganism.

In between Civic Center and Tenderloin in San Francisco lies Golden Era Vegan Restaurant. Followers of Supreme Master Ching Hai run the restaurant, so as Eater warns, “while the food is indeed delicious, folks uncomfortable with religious propaganda should probably steer clear.”

Raised Roman Catholic, Hai followed a Buddhist monk for a few years. Then denied entrance to his monastery on the basis of gender, she moved to India to study different religions. This explains why Hai’s “way of the Light and Sound through the Quan Yin Method” mixes Christian, Buddhist (from which it takes veganism), and Hindu ideas. Christians mad, Buddhists mad, Hindus not clear.

叫化鸡

Sat, 14 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The idea of “kaiserkrainer” reminds me of emperor’s chicken, more commonly known as 叫化鸡, beggar’s chicken. You cook this dish by wrapping the chicken in clay and lotus leaves. Various folktales explain this cooking method. In one version, the beggar stole the chicken from the emperor and used this method to avoid attracting attention. In another, the emperor, to stay in touch with the struggles of the people, dined with a beggar, and enjoyed the chicken so much he added it to the imperial menu. In yet another, the emperor, born a peasant, added his favorite childhood dish to the imperial menu.

Käsekrainer

Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In Germany, they have this famous hot dog called the “kaiserkrainer” - “kaiser” meaning emperor and “krainer” meaning sausage. Stuffed with cheese and decorated generously with ketchup and mustard, a bite will joyfully stain your shirt, leaving a messy reminder of your indulgence. I had a kaiserkrainer during my trip to Europe in college.

Or maybe I didn’t. Searching online, I don’t really see a “kaiserkrainer.” Google Search corrects me toward Kaiserslautern, a city in Germany. Did I hallucinate this royal sausage?

生煎包

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Two foods defined my year-plus social distancing: sriracha mayo and 生煎包.

Sriracha mayo

In sriracha mayo, I found simplicity and control. Sriracha mayo only has two ingredients; you guessed it: sriracha and mayo. On days defined by You haven’t done anything, I could reflect Well at least I made sriracha mayo. Plop a white glob into a bowl, squirt over it a layer of red, and BAM! Well at least I made sriracha mayo.

Reasons to cook

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Since moving to San Francisco, I’ve cooked fewer times than I can count with my left hand. This seems strange for someone who cares enough about cooking to write about it.

Realizing how little I’ve cooked recently, I wanted to briefly survey why people cook, why I haven’t, and why I’d cook more.

Reasons other people cook (and why I haven’t)

Economic necessity

The labor of cooking costs money, and if you can do it yourself, you can save that money.¹ Many people cannot afford to pay someone else to cook for them, because they need to save that money to cover the cost of necessities. Others may still find cooking worthwhile, because they can invest that saved money in a more financially prosperous future.

Lobster rolls

Sat, 13 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I: Lobster

I’ve spent the past 2 weeks in the Boston area. In my time around Boston, I’ve had 3 lobster rolls: one at James Hook & Co., one at Saltie Girl, and one at Neptune Oyster. 3 lobster rolls in, I sure feel like I ate lobster and butter and bread.¹

By which I mean I found the rolls good, not mind-blowing. In retrospect, I kind of regret how much I paid for the lobster rolls. I tried 3 times to change my perception of lobster, and I’ve ended up confirming I just don’t have the taste others have for it.

叉燒包

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

This week I’m staying near San Francisco’s Chinatown. I woke up with a craving for 叉燒包, so I headed to the closest Chinese bakery.

Translation

叉燒包 has pinyin chā shāo bāo. On menus, I often see it romanized “char siu bao.” However, most often I see it translated as “BBQ pork bun.”

I don’t like the name “BBQ pork bun.” I like 叉燒, and I don’t really like American barbeque. 叉燒 has a sweet flavor (from honey) and red color (red fermented bean curd, red food coloring) though, so for the benefit of people not familiar, e.g. non-Asian customers, “BBQ pork bun” provides an efficient approximation.

Serving tea

Sat, 04 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

In my last post, I ended up defining tea as:

Tea is a beverage made by steeping (a perceptible level of) the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant (possibly mixed with other ingredients, often other plants) in water.

Despite a fairly thorough process to arrive as this definition, I think this definition still doesn’t fully capture the significance of tea. Particularly with food and drink, significance can come from how we consume. To demonstrate this, let’s describe three ways to serve tea, from practical to ceremonial.

What is tea?

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Let’s start with a strict definition:

Tea is a beverage made by steeping the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant in hot water.

Like when I talked about meat, this definition bothers me. Let’s expand it.

Water temperature

Do we have to steep the leaves in hot water? Instinctually, you might say we have to use boiling water. However, people often advise using less-than-boiling water for high quality green tea, e.g. 80 degrees Celsius or lower for matcha. In fact, “a few tea masters in Japan [even] suggest that the optimal way to prepare matcha is with cool water” to maximize the umami.

Pizza puffs

Sat, 17 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Have you tried Chicago’s least iconic iconic food? I’m talking about the pizza puff.

Pizza puffs

What does a pizza puff entail? Well, imagine a hot pocket but better. This may seem blasphemous (as a former “hot pocket fiend” [my friends can attest], I understand). However, I personally could fulfill all my hot pocket hankerings with a pizza puff, while I could not fulfill all of my pizza puff hankerings with a hot pocket.

Cream tea

Sat, 26 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Have you ever had cream tea? Contrary to the name, you don’t put cream in the tea. Cream tea consists of tea, clotted cream,¹ scones, and jam; you actually eat the named cream with the scones.

Variation

Traditional servings of cream tea vary between counties of England.

In Cornwall, you:

1. Split the scone into halves.

2. Spread jam onto the halves.

3. Spread clotted cream onto the halves.

Small touches

Sat, 10 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I haven’t been cooking as much as I would like lately. To fill that gap, I’ve been watching videos from the emmymade channel:

Go to 6:04 and watch for 15 seconds. No really, I’ll wait. These words won’t disappear when you’re not looking.

Snow boots

Did you see that? When Emmy walked out of the shot, the camera focused on the snow boots, helpfully labeled “snow boots.”

What is meat?

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Let’s start with a widely accepted definition:

Meat is animal flesh eaten as food.

Does that definition bother you? It bothers me.

Imprecise

I cook meat (as defined above) often; I eat meat even more often. Yet in neither case do I tend to think about meat as animal flesh. In fact, I would rather not think of the meat as animal flesh; that thought upsets me.

Unintuitive boundaries

This definition of meat includes fried spider and excludes Impossible Burger, a binary that very much contradicts my intuition. How can burgers and sashimi and the aforementioned fried spider fall under the same umbrella, yet Impossible Burger gets left in the rain?¹

Is seaweed a plant?

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I was eating seaweed salad and this question occured to me.

What is “seaweed”?

Seaweed refers to (many species of) multicellular marine algae, where according to me (not quite an expert), algae means “not necessarily plant.”¹

For simplicity, let’s focus on edible seaweed, which falls into 3 common groups:²

green algae, such as green caviar (a.k.a. sea grapes)
red algae, such as nori (of sushi fame)
brown algae, such as kombu (of miso soup fame)

What is “plant”?

You might’ve heard of the kingdom Plantae. Like I, you might’ve thought Plantae (“ooh, Latin, look at me”) had a precise, generally accepted definition. Well, you can take that thought, that temptation of a straightforward answer, and throw it in the trash.

JANK™

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The laws of nature dictate that whenever I, your beloved not-quite-an-expert, get a new computer JANK™ ensues.

As I mentioned recently, my previous laptop stopped charging. Before you ask, I would like to know why it stopped charging as well. I didn’t dunk it into a swimming pool; it just suddenly stopped charging.

To replace it, I bought an HP Envy x360. And within the first week, the Wi-Fi stopped working. Not as in it had trouble connecting from time to time. This new laptop straight up would not even scan for networks.

The smoking backup

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Story time, buckos.

Flashback to freshman year, a time when people could go out without weighing the risk toward public health. Remember outside?

I had entered the Nesbitt Room, a public study room where you pretended to get work done while listening to math students complain. On one hand, “my math classes have too much work!” On the other hand, “my non-math classes have too little math!”

Hoping to make progress on my EECS project, I busted out my trusty laptop and started to “work.” My laptop had been bothering me for the past week. The bottom case had came loose, and the resistance to pushing it back into place indicated something had bent or shifted inside. However, “don’t fix what ain’t broke,” I reasoned, since I could still use my laptop without issue. Oh how wrong, this excuse!

Four views on Microwave Cooking for One

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

From the Amazon listing:

Fast, easy, and economical, the recipes in Microwave Cooking for One are ideal for individuals, whether they live alone or share busy modern households. From breakfast through dinner, fresh, delicious meals can be prepared to satisfy personal tastes without wasted food, overheated kitchens, or messy clean-up.

View I

Microwave Cooking for One represents the height of laziness! You can’t bother yourself with preparing a proper meal; you can’t even bring yourself to talk to the delivery driver. You filth! You, utter, utter, filth! For once, get out of your bed or off of your couch. For once, stop binging your favorite show for the tenth time and do something! No, shoving three things into the microwave doesn’t count. Did you do the thing I asked you to do two days ago? No? Of course you didnt.

Let's go on a peppercorn adventure!

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I bought a (nice) pepper mill (because my last one broke)!

Green peppercorns

The unripe fruit of the black pepper plant, often sold brined.

In a few years, will look back on some of things they said recently and cringe.

Red peppercorns

The mature fruit of the plant, rarely sold as is.

Unironically enjoys fine wine.

Black peppercorns

The dried unripe fruit of the plant.

Your reliable, friendly coworker who’s going to get promoted before you.

I don't like polenta, and I miss my kitchen

Sat, 29 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

This week I’m back at my parents’¹ house. For dinner, I cooked some shrimp and vegetables with polenta.

Part 1: I don’t like polenta

The first comment my mom made as I scooped the polenta into a bowl was that it did not look very appetizing. To be honest, I don’t care much for polenta either.

The one thing I can remember from the first time I tried polenta was the woman who sat next to me. “I love polenta,” the woman declared, nostalgia glittering in her eyes. I could tell she had fond memories of polenta, because the polenta I tasted was flavorless mush. That, or the chef had a vendetta against my taste buds.

The onion saga continues

Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A continuation of this post

Caramelized shallots

Because you think you’re better than onions.

Step 1

Peel the shallots that you got from grocery delivery because you couldn’t be bothered, you capitalist.

Step 2

Cry in front of your roommate.

Step 3

Put 3/4 of a stick of butter in the pan. Pretend you didn’t see what you just did. Try to cover up your crime by covering it with shallots. The shallots absorb the butter. You will never be able to hide your shame.

Onions and lies

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Continued in this post

Introduction

I recently started cooking again. While my cooking schedule deserves its own post, this post was inspired by one particular recipe. From the recipe for Caprese burgers:

Caramelize Onion and Toast Buns

Place a large non-stick pan over medium heat and add 2 tsp. olive oil. Add onion to hot pan and stir occasionally until browned. 10-13 minutes. …

As much as I liked this recipe, this is a lie, a persistent one, at that. There’s no way an onion will properly caramelize in such short time.

A loose collection of thoughts on food

Sat, 04 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Happy New Year! To welcome in the new decade, I’ve decided to write about food. Apparently, the thing we need to live is somewhat important, so have a loose collection of thoughts on food.

Food isn’t accessible

Tens of millions of Americans live in “food deserts”: areas, particularly urban areas, which lack access to affordable and nutritious food. For these people, it is harder to follow a nutritious diet, especially since cheaper less nutritious options like fast food tend to be much more accessible to them. Food justice advocate Karen Washington prefers the term “food apartheid,” which highlights how the conversation and the consequences are often divided along racial lines. Not only do black people tend to live in these “deserts,” for decades, governmental farm subsidies have disproportionately flowed to white farmers.