The Food of Your People

There is proof that chicken soup has medicinal properties so I made a large pot of it and have been eating it all week at work.  I am trying to fight off a bug because truth be told, I cannot miss a day of work.  Not right now, my new boss is bi-coastal and she's here this week and the next.  Not a good time to call in sick, even if you are....welcome to the corporate side of Fashion.  "It's a tough business" is what I tell the kids at school.  As an alumni I am currently involved in the mentoring program at Otis.  I look around at all the tired but eager faces of students in Fashion Design and think...I can't let them down by giving them a dose of reality, I need to put on a chirpy face and have a positive attitude!   I also think it's possible I might have bit off more than I can chew, which when it comes to food that never happens but in LIFE, it happens more often than I am comfortable with.  Hence, I've been trying to fight off this bug for the past two weeks...unfortunately it's as relentless as I am.

Home made chicken soup, a good one starts out with chicken stock from scratch, but really any chicken stock will suffice.

To add assortment to my comfort foods, sometimes curry is a tasty alternative to chicken soup when I'm 'beat down' (my husband's favorite term for fatigue), not sure about the 'healing' properties though.  This is a Vietnamese curry.  There are three popular curries in America:  Indian, Japanese/Korean, and Thai.  Indian and Japanese curry is thicker in consistency and served as a sauce or a ragu. Vietnamese and Thai curries are similar,  both are more of a soup base, and like most Asian soups you can add rice or noodles.  Because of the French influence in Vietnamese culture, I tend to serve chicken curry with rice AND a fresh baguette slathered with butter.

And....there's the classic won ton soup:  pork and shrimp filling.

Won ton soup with daikon radish, baby bok choi and carrots.  Reminds me of Mom's cooking.

Food Rookie Note:  For the chicken soup I bake or sear the chicken meat first to add depth of flavor to the chicken broth.  A trick my mother taught me is to add caramelized shallots at the end for richer color and finish.  It's a finish I tend to use on clear broth soups.

TGIF

What a week.  My new boss started on Wednesday and today was my first real work session with her.  My design team and I went over our Holiday '11 collection and at first glance, she wants us to redesign EVERYTHING.  The good news: my new boss seems nice and critiques the line with a general understanding we've all worked under a different direction for the last ten months....still there are more edits and revisions to come next week...

What a good husband, Peter made seafood pasta:  mussels, clams, shrimp, and crab legs in red sauce.  Served over linguine pasta with garlic bread and a simple mixed salad with balsamic vinegar and oil dressing.  What a way to end the week, coming home to a meal like this is like receiving a compensation hug for each hard moment I experienced these past five days. 

Food Rookie Note:  marry someone who loves to eat and cook as much as you do.

Short Cuts

I Am BEAT!

I met my new boss this week, my 4^th boss this year!  Fighting a bug and/or just plain RUN DOWN.   Peter's been working quite a bit (hooray!) which leaves me tired tending to Monkeys, morning, afternoon and night and lately without my partner-in-crime.  So this is a meal full of short cuts, I am beat down and it’s 90 degrees in Los Angeles.  The thought of cooking in this weather simultaneous to the way I feel  right now makes no sense.  Thank Jesus (!) Bean decided she would rather have pot stickers for dinner her first option was Teriyaki salmon, which would have required me to turn the oven on and cook the house as well as our meal.

Short cut:  store bought dumplings.

A potpourri of pot stickers: shumai, gyoza and dumplings served with spinach and shiitake mushroom salad, garnish with green onions.  For the dipping sauce I mix soy sauce, rice vinegar, and mirin for a touch of sweetness.

Food Rookie Note:  They don’t call them ‘pot stickers’ for nothing.  In my various attempts to not have a scorched pan that requires a brillo pad to scrape the metal off while I scrub the pot clean, I find copper pans work best for even heat distribution and it’s easy to clean.  Isn’t that what it's all about when you’re Married with Monkeys and work a full-time job?

They Colonized Us

Southeast Asians are mutts.  From Cambodia to the Philippines we as a race are a blended bunch.  My grandfather on my mother's side was a French professor before the French War.  He was born and raised in North Viet Nam and spoke/taught French with a Vietnamese accent.  Growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah (in the 80's) I never questioned the practicality of taking French as a 3rd language.   And after 4 years of French classes, I eventually dropped out once I stopped denying that I really was not that good at it, really it's not practical if no one around you speaks it fluently.  I can read french menus okay and can fake a good accent but conjugating verbs was not my forte.

My cooking style is often 'blended".  Tonight's meal:  Braised pork chops with shiitake mushrooms. "This is exactly what it would have tasted like, the New World wanting to also capture tastes of the Old World that they just conquered... " Peter said about the flavor of this dish.  Franco-Vietnamese:  Vietnamese spices, prepared with European cooking tools techniques.

I start by searing the meat in a heavy pan, I like using an enamel cast iron pan for braising because it can go from stove top and into the oven.  Remove, then add the onions and mushrooms to caramelize.  Throw the meat back in, add some stock, and braise at low heat in the oven for a couple of hours. 



I use one of the chops for stock and any vegetable works, tonight it'sa chayote squash.  Garnish with scallions, cilantro, and fresh ground black pepper.


Vietnamese people tend to serve a simple, clear-broth soup at almost every meal. To cleanse the palate, help with digestion, and simply because it's an economical way to stretch out a meal when meat is scarce in the Old Country.  We honor the tradition because it tastes great, and sometimes when my pork chops comes out a little on the dry side, the soup is necessary.

Food Rookie Note:  To spoil my kids further, I slice the meat before serving.  Also, after dinner clean-up goes a lot faster.  You've never seen the way my Monkeys spread their food around when they cut their own meat...we are talking rice on the table, in their laps, in their hair, on the chair, and sticky on the ground.  No joke.  When that does happen, I wait until the next morning after the rice has dried and hardened over the night to wipe/sweep it up, otherwise you're making glue by smearing the rice around while it's wet.  I promise I was never this type of person, my Monkeys have modified me and I've become a little 'slobby', for practical reasons of survival.

About A Boy

We call him Biebs, my 11-year-old boy.  He weighs more than I do now and will soon surpass me in height.  My son is large and tall like his dad.  My husband is 6'5" I am a striking 5'1" (and 3/4", yes it counts!).  Long gone are the days I picked him up, now he gives me piggy-back rides to show off in front of friends and family members. 

Cooking started out as a chore for me around 8 years old. After a few years, it became an experiment and my siblings were happy to be my taste testers/guinea pigs.  We didn't have a lot of food in the house so most experiments started out with flour, sugar, and food coloring.  My motivation back then: satisfy a strong desire to sample what 'White American people' ate and to duplicate restaurant food that tasted really good for the few times we ate out.  We eventually called my experiments "Creations".  Some were bad and salty, some were edible, and some made our stool green for days (probably not Kosher to mention the two in one sentence).

So to circle back to Biebs, what started out as a chore from putting away the groceries, to washing the vegetables, and helping us chop ingredients for meals he actually enjoys cooking now.  Biebs comes from a long tradition of male role models who love to spend their time cooking so it's not a stretch for him, particularly because he loves to eat. 

Photos of sausages are one of the hardest to take if you want the food to look appealing....


After home work on a school night Biebs made this dish, mostly by himself with my supervision.  What a good son.  One of Bieb's favorites:  Sausages and bell peppers.  We caramelize the onions along with the red, yellow, and orange bell peppers.  The original recipe is from La Cucina Italiana, one of my favorite food magazines.  For a balanced meal I added succotash as a side, not the best to go with pasta but veggies are good for you, so there you have it.

Turkey Chili served over white rice, garnished with scallions and tomatoes...have I mentioned we serve almost every meal with white rice.

Biebs also inspired me to enter this dish for his school's Annual Queen Esther's Chili Cook Off.  We call it Bieb's Totally Rockin' Turkey Chili. This was an experimental recipe that I have modified throughout the last seven years.  I have a hard time with remembering to measure the ingredients but I have a rough idea of what goes in the chili.  I didn't grow up using measuring cups or other cooking tools ('ha! no need' my mom would say).  My mom didn't believe in spending money on a 'Measuring Cup' while measuring spoons were just plain spoons we used to eat with.  My mothers' cooking implement was usually a pair of chop sticks, yes even for soups!  However rare, I actually had to publish the ingredients in a Word document to legitimize my participation in the contest.  If you want the recipe, write me and I'll dig it up.

Not joking, my trophy is the stove back-splash...

I placed 3rd at the Chili Cook Off, the only turkey chili against all beef and brisket recipes.  This trophy sits above my stove and acts as a back splash.  People who first come over tend to think it's a joke.....until they taste my turkey chili and discover: YUM!

Food Rookie Note:  I make a large pot of chili the day before serving, which adds depth of flavor.  I also freeze extra portions to serve later in the month during school week, thermos lunches, and weekend chili dogs( Nathan's are the best!).