新年快樂! Last night I:
- watched Pink (the Bollywood film) with roommate and honorary roommate, which involved some shouting at the screen and also lots of cackling about Batman!Amitabh Bachchan;
- went to an awesome Szechuan restaurant in Chinatown with them and a couple of former housemates for New Year's Eve dinner, where I enthusiastically over-ordered things, including 水煮魚* (I confused people by saying to leave some for the next day, which they interpreted as "you want to leave it at the restaurant?!"), spicy cumin chicken, and a sizzling platter of... potatoes;
- ended the night with some beer with two classmates, which is always fun for the conversational sidetracks we manage to get into. Yesterday's included anarchists, inappropriate Tinder profiles, awkward loud street conversations, and old ladies who shout back when shouted at.

Small-group socialization is so much less draining; definitely a good way to go this year. Also, it amuses me- when it doesn't kind of sadden me- that I celebrated new year with not a single other Chinese person.

Lunar new year time = foodporn time, haha, hence the photospamming everywhere. #sorrynotsorry Happy new year to everyone celebrating! :)

( om nom nom )

Catch-up post #2: kaberett asked me about my favorite winterfood!

In my comfort food post I mentioned a bunch of things that I also associate with winter (in the sense of disease/cold weather), but when I think of winter food I think of holidays as well, and I didn't so much touch on that part. So! My current top three holiday-ish winterfoods:

1. HOTPOT. ♥ My family usually does hotpot somewhere around the December/January mark, occasionally (though not always) on Gregorian New Year's or Christmas. Usually it's just my parents, my sister, and me, so the logistics are simpler than they would be if we had a bigger group. Personally, I feel hotpot gets unwieldy if you have more than 6-8 people at the table, but that's more because I get a little bored of the constant cooking after a while. *g*

2. Gingerbread/gingersnaps! I'm not as enthused by the pumpkin-spiced or chocolate-laden or pepperminty or otherwise super-sweet things that tend to come out around year's end, but I am allll over the ginger flavor. Unfortunately my mom and I have yet to bake any gingerbread or gingersnaps that I would call an unqualified success, but I live in hope! Until that day comes, there's always the gingersnaps you can get from Trader Joe's or Ikea hereabouts. If any of you have recipe recs, I am ALL EARS.

3. Cranberry sauce! Okay, so really we make this for Thanksgiving, but that's what kicks off the holiday season for me and starts the slide into actual winter. I can and have eaten this stuff for days, lol. My mom has this AMAZING raw cranberry sauce recipe from a friend that we made again this year, which involves putting a bag of fresh cranberries in a blender with some fresh-squeezed orange juice, sugar (or honey or, in the case of this year's version, maple syrup), and a dash of Grand Marnier. We added in some peeled orange slices in before serving for extra flavor. :9

1. Came home from Canada last night and am currently EXHAUSTED, but since today's meme topic is very simple I'll do it anyway. :) inkstone asked about my top 5 comfort foods, so in no particular order:
- xi fan/congee
- steamed eggs
- scrambled eggs with soy sauce
- corn soup (I don't actually make this a lot, being lazy- my preferred version involves various other ingredients that include ham, which I rarely buy- but I do find it very comforting!)
- chicken soup, which by other people's standards is more or less homemade broth

2. A few random things I haven't the brain to make coherent:
a) I finally watched Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame! JING'ER/EMPRESS FTW.
ii) Board/card games I have played in the last 5 days: Dominion, Taboo, Hanabi, Ligretto, Star Trek Catan. (I'm not counting the construction of a homemade-gingerbread house that was overrun by gummy candies and invaded by bears of cracker/gummy origin.)
» I appear to have begun to learn to crochet while being delayed at an airport yesterday? At least, there is a ball of squishy gray yarn not-very-slowly being turned into an attempt at a beanie, and so far it doesn't actually look that terrible! The first 30 minutes or so were an exercise in frustrated confusion, though, and I had to unravel most of my initial work and redo it on the plane home. This is a new and exciting revelation: apparently one way to force me to pick up a new skillset is to give me a diagram, directions, and materials, and put me in a situation so boring that the only preferred alternative is to start learning it? WHO KNEW.

1. I dare you to look at these photos and NOT smile, homg. Jason Lee is BRILLIANT; these are the best family photos ever!!

2. We went apple-picking this afternoon! Today's haul: ( ~17lbs of Macoun, Liberty, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, and Empire apples )

1. I remember linking Miyoko Ihara's adorable grandma & cat pictures ages ago, but now they're apparently available in photo book format! *_____*

2. Sriracha lip balm! Who thinks up this stuff. Also, I totally said I'd get this for a friend but forgot until just now, oops.

3. You know it's finals season when you get into conversations like this:
"What's the most popular risk factor for death, you guys? LIFE!!"
"But... that's 100% exposure and no non-exposure, doesn't that make it a necessary pre-condition?"

4. I made the mistake of buying an entire head of cabbage something like 3 weeks ago. I've been trying and failing to finish it since I bought it, and now have to finish it before I go home (in 3 days), enforced pre-holiday detox style. WHAT DO I DO WITH CABBAGE, GUYS, TELL ME.

Via angry asian man: Francis Lam & Eddie Huang: Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures' Foods?

It doesn't quite get into the areas/nuances that I'd like- I'm more interested in, frex, the chefs and cuisines that mix outside of the US/Europe- but diasporado foodies talking about food? YES PLEASE. This was, predictably, the part I liked best:

Eddie: Well, the crux of the issue for me is this... Immigrants, my parents and myself included, are exposed to years of ridicule. I was made fun of for my stinky lunch upwards of 10 years. Immigrants of our parents' generation have largely given up any hope that Americans will like their food.

Francis: Word.

Eddie: Then, to have these CIA grads come through, repackage the food, and sell it back to me at a premium is just ludicrous. You made fun of us until we were embarrassed about our food and changed our menus to appease your HORRIBLE taste in shrimp with lobster sauce, now your kid grows up and wants to tell ME what Chinese food is because Bear Stearns sent him to Shanghai for six months? Cue Jim Mora: “We talkin’ bout expats?!?!” F*** OUTTA HERE!

“The Man” may not outright turn countries into colonies anymore, but it’s only because it’s easier to commodify the goods. It relegates foreign people and countries to the role of factories whose sole purpose is to create culture that gets bought and amplified by someone else and they get left hanging. For people like me who have watched Americans cycle through Kung-Fu, The Art of War, Feng Shui, and Kung Pao Chicken (which done right is still a classic) like culture fit for a scenester’s email blasts… you’ll have to excuse my paranoia when an American chef tries to express sincerity about understanding our culture and cuisine. These cultural artifacts may be the butt of ironic jokes today, but they meant something to us.

it is late and i am tired but i would just like to say: any night that starts out with Caracas Arepa Bar and ends in ~16-18 FREE BUTTER LANE CUPCAKES (we walked by as they were closing) is made of win!

that is all. (and now i need a baked goods icon.) o/

1. We can almost map out our family history with food. Some of the first memories I have of Taiwan are of sitting at my 外婆's kitchen table, eating 絲瓜 and 番薯 and pan-fried fish, sharing cans of shu pao in front of the living room fans to cool down, and how it was so different to eat the same things in my ama's house in 鳳山 with my dad's family. My dad will reminisce at night about 宵夜 with ama, my mom still drools over the 牛肉麵 she used to eat with her college friends, my sister adores 鹹魚茄子煲 (which I think she first had with our cousin), I still remember the time I woke in the night at my 三姨媽's house and stumbled into the kitchen to find her and 二舅母 in front of the fridge with a just-opened box of creampuffs.

2. When I got sick when I was little, my mom used to stir glasses of Sprite until the carbonation disappeared and give me a couple of slightly crumbled Saltines at a time whenever I woke feverish and nauseous. If I could keep those down, I could have 稀飯 with a little bit of salt the next morning, or- if I was feeling even better than that- with 魚鬆. This led to some perplexity when my non-Asian school friends told me about BRAT diets years later, and also some relief; I have never been particularly fond of applesauce, though I'll eat it.

3. An incomplete list of things I've developed cravings for over the years: 玉米 (so NOT the same as stateside corn), 芭樂, 蓮霧, 蚵仔煎, 烏魚子 (which I didn't like at first, and can still only take about two slices of at a time). Those cravings can't be completely fulfilled even by going back to Taiwan, simply because three of my grandparents are no longer there to share them with.

4. Living in Manhattan during and after undergrad was a great way to expand my culinary horizons, but it also made me recognize just how integral food is to my concept of home. I didn't actually move very far, and I've had countless amazing food adventures with friends (late-night Chicken & Rice treks, bo ssam at Momofuku, Picnic Garden in Flushing, brunch at Popover Cafe, and my former roommate R's quest for the best sushi in Manhattan, just to name a few), but sometimes what I wanted the most was my mom's haphazard noodle soups or experimental casseroles thrown together from a random assortment of things in the fridge.

5. I've realized that I don't so much rely on specific foods for comfort as I do on cooking and eating with specific groups of people. 火鍋 with my immediate family is different from 火鍋 with my relatives in Taiwan is different from hotpot with all the different permutations of my "usual suspects," friends from ballroom/undergrad. Dim sum with my "American grandma" is different from dim sum with my Chinese family friends (where there's never any explanation involved but the check-grabbing fights remain the same). Making far too much frosting with R- and burning my fingers on his molten chocolate cupcakes- for a birthday party we threw for a friend was different from my current adventures in baking, now that I'm living alone. These days it's not that the easiest cake ever is fast becoming a comfort food for me; it's comforting to make it even when I'm the only person eating it because I know I share that experience with so many of you.

Oh, man, ( one of the best Christmases I've had in a while; )

I'm trying to keep myself off the AO3 today, but I did manage to read a couple of Yuletide stories, and they are glorious! I received The Sugarcane Drive, which is utterly delicious intriguing and politicking with Eugenie and Jessaline and HOMG YOU GUYS, I GOT EFFLUENT ENGINE FIC, HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!?!? I also managed to read Sincerely, Cindi, a Metropolis: The Chase Suite fic which is one of the best love letters to visionaries and revolutionaries that I have ever come across. I plan to hit up dark_agenda's Chromatic Yuletide masterlist and trawl through the Chromatic Yuletide Madness prompts next! :D

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating, and happy Yuletide/happy Saturday to the rest of us!