Perhaps you’ve perused the fridge at Kam Man or some other Chinatown grocery store and seen jars of this crazy awesome mushy liquid that looks like rotting rice in cloudy water. It’s sweet and boozy, a tasty precursor to more refined sakes. You can brew your own using Chinese wine balls (actually, yeast balls), but […]

When we catered the VIP suite at SalonCon in September, we tried to think of a fun and interesting way to make sure people got some protein in their diets during the day. Conferences and conventions are notorious for people taking poor care of themselves, and failing to eat real food or get enough sleep. […]

When Aki and Alex posted about making kimchi broth, I was inspired. It seemed like the perfect excuse to finally make some grits, which I’ve been meaning to do and yet not getting around to for a long time. These grits are spicy, brilliantly flavored, creamy, meaty from the pork stock, and just an all-around […]

Yes, that’s bacon sprinkled on top of an Arabic spiced New England fish chowder pictured in front of my tallis bag, which features a beautiful watercolor painting of Jerusalem. Sacrelicious, maybe, but it all makes sense – this chowder is made with Jerusalem artichokes instead of potatoes, after all. Sunchokes (a/k/a Jerusalem artichokes) are subtly […]

About two weeks ago, I received an email from Edelman Interactive, offering me a free promotional fish – a Kona Kampachi from Kona Blue. Given that I was under no obligation to blog about the fish at all, and I love fish, I accepted. I was offered my choice of fillets or a whole fish, […]

These latkes look kinda fishy to me. At least, that was was my first thought when I glanced upon the recipe in Mark Bittman’s Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking. I was on a mission to make salmon for dinner, since we don’t eat nearly enough seafood around here, and Dave complains when […]

As I’ve mentioned before, I love chowder. What you may not know is that I also love oysters. (In fact, I love all seafood, except perhaps jellyfish and sea cucumbers.) This leek and oyster chowder is scrumptious as only a simple dish can be. The broth is creamy and flavorful, and the oysters themselves are […]

My partner Dave and I spent a fun evening a few weeks ago making green curry paste over at a friend’s new apartment, a portion of which was ours to take home and freeze. It’s always fun trying to follow recipes with our fussy friends – does the recipe call for ginger? Pfeh, we have […]

When I first served this to two couples we had over for dinner, the women declared it too spicy, while the men dug in enthusiastically. I won’t try to interpret that data, but there it is. I’m not sure why any of them found it to be so spicy, though. I am sensitive to spicy […]

I keep seeing these tiny, adorable clams in the Chinatown fishmarkets whenever I’m out shopping around there. They live in vast bins, not far from the live frogs and periwinkles that I keep meaning to learn how to prepare. I have this thing about eating cute things. I like doing it. If I see something […]

This is my entry for The Spice is Right VIII: Frankenstein’s Monster, where we are creating culinary mash-ups using spices from one cuisine in recipes or with techniques from another. Here, I have used Sichuan peppercorns to add a tingle to a bowl of classically American shrimp chowder. The deadline to post your entries is […]

Ramps are here, ramps are there, stinky beautiful ramps are everywhere! If you’re not familiar with them, it’s about time for you to give them a try. They’re also called wild leeks, and they taste like very garlicky scallions to me. They won’t be in season for long, so find them and devour them while […]

Yes, I know, I know, even my savories tend to be sweet. To be honest, I made these a few weeks ago, and am only now getting around to posting about them. We finally unpacked the kitchen at the new apartment, though, but we got so caught up in making and eating our first meal […]