Category Archives: Food

Getting enough fluids in the body on a daily basis seems to be a challenge for most people. (I’m decidedly not in this camp, as I luckily love water and get in at least 8 glasses a day.) For everyone else, making sure to receive enough of the wet stuff is a burden, and the only way others seem to make it happen is through soda and juice and other questionably-healthy alternatives. To ensure that we get as much as possible during these arid and dry air months, soup is a lovely option, doubling as a source of heat and coziness. Like a cup of hot tea, a bowl of soup seems to warm everything, from the heart to the mind to the body. Cradled in one’s hands, it is a comfort on the cold days at hand, and can be assembled in as simple or complex fashion as one deems worthy. 

For the soup pictured here, I just put together a basic broth and added a hefty dose of greens (kale and spinach and boy choy) to get some of the vitamins we need. From there, the options are without limit – for some protein I used a seven-minute egg. If you’re looking for something slightly heartier, the addition of rice or noodles would work wonders, as would chicken or other poultry (turkey soup is an unheralded joy). And all the while you are getting some of that essential liquid to keep the body running well in the winter. Sip well. 

It’s been a week of comfort food, starting with this bruschetta, moving on with a chicken curry and a bowl of pho, and now we complete a meal with this chocolate chip cookie plate. Winter is made for cooking like this, with the oven doubling as a pricey space heater, and the results warming the stomach and the heart. 

This chocolate chip cookie was my standard go-to version as seen here. After making my wy through the yeast and dough process for ensaymada, returning to this simple recipe was a quick and easy joy. I made enough for Andy and myself, our parents, and even Suzie’s family. Sharing is caring. 

Feeling slightly whimsical and crazy, a condition brought about by the unexpected absence of the full two cups of nuts the original recipe calls for, I added shredded coconut and white chocolate chips in their place – a switch that tastes just as decently as walnuts would have. Sometimes a substitute is the best way to try new things. 

Not so long ago, the main deterrence from me trying a recipe was the amount of chopping and cutting involved, along with the amount of bowls and utensils used. I’ve since come to find the simple enjoyment in the process – and in every step of the process – a component of mindfulness, and a way of clearing the head form distraction and worry. That’s not an easy feat with everything going on, and so I keep busy with something like bruschetta.

This version is an easy one – just some garlic and olive oil heated to the point where the rawness is gone, but no browning is happening, then the diced fresh tomatoes, finely cut ribbons of fresh basil, and some sliced scallions. A healthy dose of salt and pepper, and a few chili flakes complete the flavor index. 

Andy found these toast rounds at The Fresh Market, which makes this so much easier to assemble. As much as I just claimed to be embracing every step of something like this, if there’s an easy fix, why not go for it? It allows for more serious meditation time later on. 

These are just a little too crunchy at the start for my liking, but the time it takes to put the tomato mix on the toast and drive them over to Amsterdam for dinner with the family is just long enough to soften them up. Tutti a tavola a mangiare!

Acknowledging that the correct pronunciation of ‘pho’ does not work as well in this blog post title, not enough people know that to take offense. On the day that the big blizzard hit the Northeast coast, bypassing us for the most part, I took time to make a batch of pho from scratch, broiling the bones and onions, then boiling them with the aromatics for a few long hours – long because I was eager to devour the broth and its accompanying noodles. 

Just as important as the bones and aromatics are the fresh accompaniments – basil and cilantro and scallions and bean sprouts. I can’t find Thai basil anywhere, which is the only shame about this situation.  A drizzle of sriracha added to the heat, a buffer against the descending temperatures. While the storm skirted us this time, winter remains. A dish like this almost makes winter worth the while. 

The kitchen day started in decidedly inauspicious fashion. After loosely reading of some online hoax of hard-boiling an egg in the microwave, I decided to try it, figuring that it couldn’t explode in thirty or forty seconds, the prescribed length to make it happen. And for that first attempt, it did not explode. In fact, as I peeled it open, it hadn’t even cooked anything other than the shell, and the raw egg spilled into the garbage, where it belonged. Undaunted – an attitude that I made a promise to hold throughout whatever happened in the kitchen that day – I tried again, popping another egg into a bowl and covering it with a paper towel. Yes, a paper towel. And just a paper towel. Since thirty seconds didn’t do anything the first time, I let it whirl for a full minute. 

And in the event that anyone was contemplating this, don’t: an egg will explode in the microwave in less than sixty seconds. Somewhere around the 45 second mark, a muted explosion startled me from my motions by the oven. I knew what had happened instantly and was afraid to look. Andy, somehow, hadn’t been signaled by the noise, as I peeked in to see him watching television, unaffected. Once I got most of the mess cleaned up, I yelled in to him that it wasn’t possible to hardball an egg in the microwave, just so he knew. 

“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked. 

“No, you really can’t. It doesn’t work. It exploded.”

And then Andy exploded in laughter.

Luckily, I didn’t need a hard-boiled egg for the ensaymada recipe I had planned on making. While Suzie has been nudging me to try baking some buns, such as the exquisite lemon cardamom buns she made for a brunch many moons ago, I’ve usually shied away from it (except in this one surprisingly successful instance). The idea of dough – and the rising and cutting and rolling out of said dough – frightened me. That was it – I was afraid. While Suzie didn’t trust the yeast part of the process, afraid it wouldn’t rise, I was afraid of the consistency and stickiness and stubbornness of the dough. When I can’t get something off my hands, I get easily annoyed. 

On this day, however, Suzie and I texted our new mantra when it came to being afraid: fuck it. (I think it was something we said in relation to something completely different, but it has become a catch-phrase we use for everything, including the hesitation of a yeast-based dough.) I went into the kitchen with an open mind and the intention to enjoy the process of making dough, no matter how challenging or disappointing it might be. Considering the planned recipe, I’m rather surprised I was able to keep that mindset.

Ever since visiting the Philippines in 1997, I’ve been a fan of ensaymada. It was what I had for breakfast most days there – a seemingly simple light and flaky roll, topped with a sweet butter topping and a layer of shredded cheese. Yes, cheese, which sounds weird, but ends up working better than I ever believed it could. When I returned home, I’d occasionally pick up some plastic-wrapped ensaymada rolls every few months to get my fix, and then they stopped being available at the local Asian markets. Looking online, I found a couple of recipes for how to make it, and with some brioche baking forms, a new packet of yeast, and an emboldened spirit of adventure and fun in the kitchen, I got to work with Suzie’s encouragement. 

For that first attempt, I used the recipe found here from Foxy Folksy. I liked the way the dough worked, but in my haste and enjoyment of the process, I was less careful than I usually am, forgetting the salt (oops!) and then neglecting the second rise (double oops!) and it turns out the second rise is key to the light and fluffy consistency that is essential to ensaymada. Those first rolls went into the oven uprisen and dense, and when they didn’t puff up to triple their size, I felt a tinge of disappointment, but went on undaunted. That was, after all, the theme of the day. And since I’d only put in half of the dough, I inadvertently gave time for the second half to rise a bit. When that batch went in, they were serviceable. Not great, but decent enough, and Suzie came by to try it out. The flavor was there, even if the consistency was not. We sat on the attic floor, surrounded by candles and light, and had a moment of hygge with this first try at ensaymada. Denmark and the Philippines were colliding in Loudonville, New York, while old friends met for a new experience 46 years into this life. 

The next day, fortified by a new confidence in dough, I tried a different ensaymada recipe from Riverten Kitchen. This time I added the salt, and did the second rise properly, and they turned out much better. I’m still going to experiment a bit more to get that chewy yet flakey consistency, but these are pretty good, and the fear of dough has been conquered.

A beautiful new practice to see us through the winter. 

My winter sauce is soup these days, and on such frigid days soup is the only sauce I need. Here are glimpses of the making of a Tom Yum soup, with a variation of chicken instead of the traditional prawns. (Prawns not being readily available in upstate New York’s tundra at the moment.) While substituting the chicken for the shellfish changes the flavors decidedly, the other ingredients remain true to the Tom Yum spirit, and its spicy origin. 

Fresh ginger, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves, along with a hefty dose of chilis and chili sauce and chili oil add the requisite heat – and that’s precisely what this winter needs. 

I made a batch for my parents to stave off the wintry weather and keep the cold at bay. It is said that this is one of those soups that aids any ailment. Not sure how true or scientific that is, but soup is good for the soul, especially if there’s chicken in it. Or noodles. Consider it my bastardization of the traditional Tom Yum soup. 

This colander of udon noodles added some heft to the soup I had left, and made for a cozy dinner. A seven-minute egg never hurt any bowl of soup either. 

When I was a kid, New Year’s Day was the one holiday our family hosted in our house, and with it came a few annual dishes that would come to signal the holidays for me. Mushroom knishes, crab and horse chestnut appetizers, and a sweet and sour meatball stew served in a fondue pot with a stereo glowing blue beneath it to keep it warm all day – these were the holiday classics that made up my childhood. As we grew up, we hung onto most of them, changing and modifying them, and for the past several years a traditional fondue has replaced the more complicated and tie-consuming meatball stew. 

The fondue Savoyarde seen here is a simple cheese fondue, served with bread and apples, and I cook it up every New Year’s Eve, even when it’s just Andy and myself, as it was this year. It’s silly and kitschy and all the things that a holiday like New Year’s Eve/Day merits. Some sparkle, some pizzazz, some cheesiness – just the way we like things around here. Dip in. 

When you find yourself with an abundance of ham, one of the best things to do aside from split pea soup is a batch of ham salad. Andy crafted this delicious bowl of it after a recent ham dinner, and since many will be left with the remnant of a Christmas ham, it’s an idea whose time is once again at hand. It also provides a punchier flavor palette when the Christmas staples – turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy – become monotonous. Thanks to its exquisitely-sharp accents of relish and a dash of vinegar that Andy claims is the secret to a perfect ham salad, this can be put on a sandwich or toast points or whatever cracker you have on hand. 

A simple snack for the come-down from Christmas.