It’s Chinese Wonton Noodle Soup time! A great dish to make for the Beijing 2008 Olympics! This is recipe 5 in the series (see links at the end for the other recipes)

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Wrapping Wontons Videos

I’ve got two for you - I was on CBS on Tuesday - this was a BLAST! A 4 minute cooking segment in not in a kitchen…here’s the video:
(link is right above photo when you get to CBS site)

And my regular segment on ABC7  Chinese Wonton Noodle Soup  just click on the “featured video” right below the recipe name. And yes, I flubbed saying the number eight in Mandarin! It’s “baa” not “baat” (which is how I say it in Cantonese).

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Cooking Chinese for the Olympics!
This is Recipe 3 in the series and another home-style Chinese dish for you to try (see below for the rest)

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My friend, Lynne, is an assistant at The Rolling Pin, the cooking school where I teach in Florida. She’s often free in the evenings to work at the school, since her husband, Kevin, has been serving in Kuwait for the past 11 months. Assisting in the classes are fun for Lynne and it keeps her busy during the otherwise lonely evenings.

Normally, for my classes, I have 15 students, as that is just the right number of students that can fit into the studio kitchen. With hands-on classes, it can get pretty intense for me, as I need to totally be on top of everything from working with each student individually, demonstrating new techniques, explaining how to use Asian ingredients, ensuring that students don’t hurt themselves with the 22 or so super-sharp knives in the kitchen, and of course keeping an eye on the food so that we can all enjoy a wonderful meal! I would probably call myself an orchestrator of sorts, some evenings wishing that I had another set of eyes mounted to the back of my head to coordinate and keep track of it all.
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My editor, Jeff Houck, sent over a picture of pan-fried Scrapple slice and my heart fluttered like crazy. “Scrapple? Scrapple! What’s Scrapple? I asked him,” and within 30 minutes was off to the supermarket to find Scrapple, a distant cousin to Spam.

Yes, I have an odd fascination with meat that comes in it’s own coffin.

“hmmm…I wonder if I could showcase the otherwise disgusting “meat” in a edgy, fashion-y, Bon Appetit-esque yet appetizinng way. I mean, when was the last time you saw a photo of canned ham and said, “DAMN…that’s a mighty fine piece of ass?!”

While I was there, I went bezerk and ended up with a basketful of “meat” products along with a variety of ingredients to concoct four different recipes. And really. That’s how my “meat” adventure began.

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I just read an article about a man in India who created a tree that grows 300 varieties of mangoes.

Although the original tree is more than 80 years old, this man has grafted different mango saplings onto it. It’s kind of neat and strange at the same time.

But, it got me thinking: If I could have one tree in my backyard that could grow 300 varieties of something, what would I want? Three hundred is a big number, and I’d probably get tired of that one thing - even if it were chocolate: dark, milk, semisweet, truffle, bittersweet, cordial-filled, pistachio-topped, caramel-injected, syrup, frosting, nibs, bacon-flavored, powdered, and on and on.

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from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune

It never fails that at least twice a day, I’m asked, “so when are you gonna start your own restaurant?” My reply is always the same, “only when I have an extra million in the bank and I don’t have to worry about making money.”

I know a restaurant is just too much for to handle for my delicate psyche. How would I ever explain to the IRS why “weekly psychotherapy” is part of operating expenses? And the only way I’d be able to handle the long hours and hard work is with back to back shots of double espressos followed by a Red Bull chaser. But really, with that regimen, I’d scare off innocent, unsuspecting people with, “DUDE! YOU! NEED! TO! TRY! MY! SESAME! SHRIMP!” leaping out of the doorway and shoving a sample in any open mouth passing by. Yeah, maybe hyperactive, assertive marketing wouldn’t work well.

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from my column in Tampa Tribune

Tat-tat-taaaat-tat-tat-taaaat-tat! That, my friends, is the beautiful sing-song sound of Chef Martin Yan’s cleaver as he chops bok choy. In fact, everything about Martin is musical, from the lyrical harmony of his Chinese accent (yes, it’s real - I asked) to the way he rhythmically pulses the food processor. Brrrrrr…brr.brr…brrrrr.

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(click photo above for the series of photos - there are about a dozen photos that didn’t make the cut, leading up to the money shot)

I eat most anything, and especially take a liking to items of food that normally cause a crinkly nosed “eeewwww” from most, as evidenced by this post. Slimy snails, cod fish sperm sac and regurgitated bird spit, it’s all good. And…you know you’ve got strange food when none of your normal food blog categories fit. It’s not chicken. It’s not seafood. And I certainly don’t want to create a whole ‘nother category called “slug.”

I hope I haven’t grossed you all out.

Well, if you enjoy escargot at fancy schmancy restaurants, I’m here to show you that it only takes 10 minutes to make them at home. The escargots come in a convenient can - even the restaurants get them from a can! Well, did you really expect that when you order escargot from the restaurant, the chef heads out the back door, scouring on his hands and knees for a few juicy buggers to cook?

A fancy recipe name for Snails in a Can.Just a few ingredients and you’ll be on your way to a fancy horse-doovies (what Andrew calls hors d’oeuvres)You can find cans of escargot at most major supermarkets (look in the same isle as other canned seafood, usually top shelf) for about $7 a can. 18 escargots per can.

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I’ve never been interested in cooking traditional American BBQ, mainly because I do not like what I cannot control, and in this particular case, the BBQ grill is outside of my domain with a fat “trespassing renders marriage contract null and void“ sticker on the front. But to give my husband control over a hunk of brisket roasting away for over 6 hours in a pad-locked container with a 3 inch crusty, scratched plastic window is just way too much stress for my Type-A personality to handle. Is it done? Is it done? What does it look like? Is it ok? Do I need to baste? What if it fell over? Can I take its temperature? CAN I TOUCH??? PULEEEEZZZZE!?

I’d just rather not subject myself to that kind of torture.

So, when I was asked to cook alongside Ray Lampe, the famous “Dr. BBQ” for a charity event to benefit The Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans, it was no big deal. So what if he’s a BBQ Grand Champion with a couple hundred awards under his belt, can he pleat perfect dumplings one handed, fold laundry with the other and fend off 2 whining kids? Think not.

We met last week to shoot a few pics to market the event and at first glance, the razor-sharp spiky blonde hair, trophy belly, baggy black shorts, flavor-savor beard and a killer watch tattoo where time stops at 5:01pm was everything I had expected from a man who carried a name, Dr. BBQ, with swaggering authority.

While grilling skewered shrimp for the recipe below, Dr. BBQ casually mentions that he’s the new Executive Chef of Southern Hospitality Restaurant in New York owned by Justin Timberlake.

Holy hickory! I’m only ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION from “Dick in a Box”!!!

How can I not embrace this larger than life chef who’s on a first name basis with a celebrity that I’d throw my lusty, naked body at? Apparently, the mere thought of SexyBack caused immediate brain damage and I ended up saying stupid things like, “do you ever get mistaken for Guy Fieri’s dad?” Ouch. I think I just insulted my one degree.

Can I CTRL-Z that comment?

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Opportunity Cost…Revised…

I’ve written about opportunity cost of eating out last year, and re-wrote the post with a brand new recipe for my newspaper food column this week…

Before we had children, my husband and I used to eat out no fewer than 3 times a week. Our evenings wouldn’t even start until Seinfeld ended, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for us to have dinner reservations at 10pm. We’d easily spend $300 in an evening for just the two of us, because that’s just the kind of thing that irresponsible yuppies living large during the dot-com boom did. I’m not ashamed of the thousands of dollars that we threw in the entertainment bucket, because short of stumbling upon a long lost millionaire father, this kind of lavishness won’t come around for another 15 years, 4 months and 27 days. And that’s only if my youngest graduates high school on time.

I love my 2 chubby-cheeked dumplings very much, but the truth is, the financial responsibilities of parenthood suck. Date night with husband is now a very different reality. It’s the expense of dinner plus gas plus cost of babysitter. Cha-ching! $190 is easily spent in just a few hours, and really, was the trio of fancy flatbreads, gelato, so-so service and 2 glasses of house wine really worth it?

In case you recall high school economics, let’s calculate my opportunity cost: For $190 I could have bought: each kid a pair of new sneakers, 2 killer shredded pork burritos from the Burrito Stand, a frozen CPK barbeque chicken pizza, a pair of summer flip flops for each of us, a quart of pistachio gelato, fresh roasted coffee beans shipped from Caffe Roma in SF, a trip to the library, giant bottle of Bariani olive oil, a week’s supply of organic vegetables from the farmer’s market, gummy bear vitamins, 2 McDonald’s Happy Meals, a day pass to Sarasota’s Jungle Gardens and a bucket of worms. These are all favorite things that we cherish, make us giggle with delight and gladly fork over hard-earned money for.

As for the fancy flatbreads that I had ordered at the restaurant, it was easily duplicated at home. Sure, I didn’t have an inattentive waiter at my beck and call, but the joy of a spontaneous pizza dough sling-fest in the middle of the kitchen with the kids was definitely priceless.

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I made Oishii Eats Vietnamese Summer Rolls (Goi Cuon) with Cashew Nut Dipping Sauce this morning on television! They came out fantastic and the crew devoured them seconds after the camera shut off. In the video I show you how to roll ‘em tight!

Wanna watch?

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