Category Archives: Food

Much in the same way that he refined and improved upon this chicken-curry-in-a-hurry recipe, Andy has added his own special touch to Mom’s classic beef stew recipe. In his version, it was the addition of cocktail onions that adds an elegant and potent twist to the stew, lending flavor and globular architecture to the dish. He also opted for those little red potatoes that echo the size and shape of the onions, left with their vitamin-rich skins on, reddish color intact even behind the bold color of the stew sauce. (Secret ingredient hint: ketchup.)

This was one of the first recipes I ever made for Andy, during our first winter together. I remember getting the recipe from my Mom – a favorite for a cozy winter night – and then doing my best to bring it to life. Over the years, we gradually shifted to Andy making this more than me, and in more creative ways than I thought to flesh out. It’s now a winter staple whenever we need some comfort food.

PS – When in doubt, add a couple of snowflake rolls slathered in room-temperature butter. 

Cold nights and chilly days call for a favorite comfort food: soup. Since so many of us don’t get enough fluids on an average day (drink that water!) soup is an easy way to up the liquid intake while warming the stomach. It’s also one of the easiest methods of crafting a meal that lasts for several days – for dinner or lunch depending on how you want to do it. 

At the end of a summer season, we are often left with oodles of green tomatoes that simply wouldn’t make it to red without being zapped by a hard frost, so Andy brought in the whole load and let them ripen for a few days. Most of these turned redder than I thought they would, but for this soup I like the green ones too. They added brightness and a tart accent that made this one a little different. To make the soup, I brought about six cups of water to a boil and reconstituted a dried guajillo chili pepper, which added the heat and earthy flavor to the base. For the tomatoes, I roasted them all with a sliced onion at 425 degrees for about 20 – 30 minutes, until they were just browned and splitting open. 

Adding the vegetables to the simmering water, I removed the pepper and used an immersion blender to puree it all into a consistency I liked (a few chunks are nice in a soup). A healthy sprinkling of sea salt and freshly-ground pepper was thrown in, along with some marjoram and oregano, and that was it. 

I fried up some corn tortillas (so much better than a bag of Tostitos) and sprinkled them with salt, then dropped a heaping dollop of sour cream into my bowl, christened it with some chopped cilantro, and called it dinner. 

This Japanese hot pot recipe ushers in the official fall soup season. On a recent rainy and gray day I prepared this simple but satisfying meal, which I like to serve with a couple of seven-minute eggs for protein. Fill it with any of the greens you like – I opted for bok choy this time around since that’s what Andy had stocked in the fridge. Kale and spinach work equally as well, though the latter will all but melt into the stock. I prefer the hardier stock of the kale, or the sturdy stems of the bok choy. 

The mushrooms give it an earthy richness, as done the miso hidden in the stock. A generous helping of sliced daikon gives a bright white half-moon accent to many of the spoonfuls. My favorite part is the skin-on buttercup squash, which I microwave for a few minutes before cutting and dumping into the pot. The skin softens to something edible and fine. 

Some Pacific seaweed gives it that essence of ocean that I so often desire, and a few teaspoons of mirin round out the flavors at hand. Simple and substantial, this one works on the coldest evenings, and will be a staple seeing us through the winter. I don’t want to think about that yet, so for now let’s just enjoy the sight, scent, and taste of soup on a fall night. 

Suzie sent me a recipe that was a disaster save for this curry lime yogurt sauce. I employed it here for some roasted butternut squash. The recipe is simple: about 1 cup Greek yogurt, the juice and zest of one lime, a tablespoon (or more depending on your taste) curry and a teaspoon or two of turmeric. Salt and pepper to taste, and mix well, then use on just about any roasted vegetable. This also makes a fine dip for something different on your charcuterie boards, or, even better, for some home-fried potatoes. The possibilities are endlessly delicious. 

‘Tis almost the season for cider doughnuts, and on certain Sundays when there’s already been a chill in the air, I’ve gone ahead and indulged at this early stage of fall glory. Sometimes a cider doughnut is the only thing that stands between me and the abyss. These bad boys are fried up fresh at George’s Landscaping, and on the particular morning I picked them up I happened to catch a batch just as they were coming out of their cinnamon-sugar bath. The scent instantly filled my car as I started the drive home, and it’s a testament to my discipline and strength that 11 out of 12 made it back fully intact. (There was decidedly less disciplined behavior as the day wore on…)

The cider doughnut, and its accompanying coziness in scent and taste, is definitely a hygge-inspired moment. The sweet crunch of the sugar coating, the warm dough still spongy beneath the slightly firm exterior, and the notion of apple cider working its magic in the batter all contribute to the heartwarming comfort of it all.

Some days simply require a piece of Mom’s zucchini bread.

The more chocolate chips, the better. 

A summer treat, before the summer ends. 

(Dish on loan from the collection of Suzanne E. Ko.)

Caffeine has never been a friend of mine. I’m a decaffeinated guy – always have been. When regular coffee or tea enters my system, my hands start shaking, my heart starts palpitating, and it’s a big hot mess. Words start pouring out of my mouth in rapid-fire fashion and suddenly no one around me can handle it. I almost had to leave work for the afternoon because a stupid Starbucks barista once made my coffee with caffeine. It’s just not a good feeling, and in four and a half decades I’ve largely avoided the stimulant at all costs. 

That said, I’m not naive to think that I can’t have any caffeine – it’s in far more places than some of us realize (hello chocolate) and even in the most decaffeinated products there is still some present. There have also been times when I’ve been given regular coffee or tea and managed to survive without extreme effects. So when I did some reading up on matcha, and how the caffeine is reportedly released slowly over time instead of in a massive jolt that one gets in coffee, I decided to give it a try. 

Having been a fan of matcha-flavored items for a while, I did some research and it seemed that the ceremonial grade matcha was the best for drinking straight – something I wanted to do rather than dilute or modify it with milk or honey. I’d already had the chasen from some decaf matcha experiences, and I found a recommended brand of regular matcha from Ippodo Tea. 

Following recommendations from various online sources, I sifted a small amount of matcha, then added a coupe of ounces of water that had been boiled and cold slightly. Using quick stirring motions in an ‘M’ or ‘Z’ pattern, I mixed in the matcha powder with the water until there were no discernible lumps (also why the sifting is an important part of the process). 

From there, I added the rest of the water and stirred it well. The color was a deep, earthy green, matching the taste. It wasn’t bitter, and it wasn’t sweet. There was very much an umami thing going on – hints of the sea were more prevalent than anticipated – and the earthiness was palpable. I can see why many don’t take to it right away, but I loved it. Definitely part of the fall repertoire going forward. 

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves–slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

These adorable little veggies – which at first glance look like miniature watermelons – are actually a micro cucumber, sometimes called a Mexican cucumber according to the internet – and they were gifted to us from our neighbor Ken. Despite its shape, I find it hard to get excited about a cucumber, so when Andy told me about them on the ride home from work, I largely let it go in one ear and out the other. 

When I got home and saw them, all of that apathy went out the window. Tiny and cute, and the very visual embodiment of little watermelons, they had me instantly smitten. Holding them in the palm of my hand gives you a slightly better perspective and rendering of their size. 

As for the taste, I was not sure what to expect beyond the usual, slightly-bland water-heavy non-remarkable dullness of a typical cucumber, but I was wrong: these are bright and crisp, with a slightly tart lemon-like zing that absolutely sings in the mouth. They may very well be my new favorite vegetable – I just can’t imagine the numbers needed and the amount of cutting required to make a dish. There’s an end-of-summer challenge in that – and I love a challenge. 

The San Marzano tomato plant I tried for the first time this year resulted in nothing but rotten fruit and the scariest caterpillars I’ve ever encountered, so that poor specimen has been dismantled. The cherry tomatoes, however, have done as well as they typically do – as has a Big Boy that snuck into the patch. All are coming into fruition this month, and it’s a scarlet celebration in our kitchen.

There’s a thrill to wandering about the patio, spying a ripe cherry tomato, and simply popping it into my mouth, where it explodes in a sweet and tart party on the tongue. 

The simple tomato and mayonnaise sandwich is new to my summer lunch repertoire, but it’s better to discover something this delicious and easy later in life than never at all. While I don’t have the same childhood memories that so many others seem to have of this combo, I’m all for making new ones.

Piggybacking off this tomato beginning, we will soon be harvesting some fresh fruit or vegetables (depending upon which side you side on for the argument) from our own backyard. Does food taste better when it comes from your own garden? Absolutely.

Vegans and vegetarians avert your eyes: this is a gratuitous hot dog post. A couple times in the year – usually in the summer – I get a hankering for a hot dog. It brought about this pretty phenomenal experiment of peanut butter and bacon that works better than it sounds to most people. This time around, the secret ingredient was a healthy bit of pickled red onions. They are magical. I’ll describe my simple preparation of them in a future post. For now, I have things to eat. 

The almond-tinged deliciousness known as the financier is traditionally made in the form of a small, rectangular cake form, like a tiny loaf of bite-size bread. For this initial attempt, I used a fancier form, which used twice the amount of batter, yielding only six financiers – and luckily that was just enough. That batch was for Suzie and her family in honor of her birthday, and they are amiable guinea pigs when it comes to trial desserts, and happily they seemed to enjoy them. The financier is easy to assemble. Its sweet almond goodness is made richer through the employment of brown butter (which is merely butter boiled to the point of turning brown, imbuing it with a caramelized-like decadence and depth). 

The end result, when I tipped them out of their molds, looked less like the mini-bundt cake I wanted and more like the ghosts from a childhood game of Pac-Man. I like ‘Pac-Man Ghost Goodie’ better as a name anyway, so I’ll see if I can add a new twist to make these more Pac-Man-like.