For nearly the past year, our world has been flipped upside-down. At times, it’s hard to know if habits now are truly self-care, or upon guilty reflection, self-indulgence. For now, I’d take the slothful route of self-righteousness: it’s primarily self-care. Featured photo: Lovely gently liquor soaked cherry gourmet cake with passion fruit outer layer and…
Category: Food
Social Bonding Over Food
Before covid-19 hit the brakes hard globally on health and our social lives, the last social meal I had with several people was the last day in February. At lunch, I hung out over sizzling stone bowls of bimbap with egg, at a popular Korean restaurant with 3 other employees from another department. In fact,…
Six Courses for Over Six Decades
Wouldn’t it be lovely to see the decades of your life like grazing through a menu of lovely food dishes? If every decade could be so tasty and palatable. Certainly, each decade has been memorable. Jack brought some fresh seafood from Vancouver when flying in and preparing a 6-course birthday dinner for me. He was…
Food Art, Tofu Doughnuts and Octopus Kimchi Pancake: Japan and Seoul, South Korea
Before we flew off to Japan and Seoul, South Korea, I only had one Japanese cookbook which I haven’t even cooked anything from it. My tasting experience has been based on eating in restaurants in Canada –primarily Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. And I don’t even eat out as often as others, for dinner. After Internet…
Much Matcha Green Tea Desserts: Japan and Seoul, South Korea
Maybe we were a tad crazy during our two week trip, in Japan and Seoul: it was almost a matcha tea dessert every day. Yea –in addition to sipping sometimes a lovely cup of medium to high grade matcha or at least green tea. There is a sublime difference. Birthplace and Hub of Japan’s Centuries…
Different Flavours for Different Farmers’ Markets: Canada and Abroad
It’s de rigour for us to check out the local farmers’ market whenever we travel and visit a town, city or country. Squeezing in Happy Time– Local and Abroad In past blog posts, I’ve enjoyed showcasing a few in Toronto, Vancouver, Freiburg (Germany) and Hilo (Hawai’i) –wonderful local foods, sometimes crafts and ambience which puts…
Rhubarb Mow Down, Chow Down
Rhubarb started off on the wrong foot with my family. Not until I was 16 years old, it dawned upon our family, the monstrous red stalk and big leafy bushes in our backyard, were rhubarb. Alien Red Stalked Plant with Poisonous Leaves When I was 10 years old, we were excited to have our first…
My European Food Trip Shock: Meat, Poached Eggs, Wine and Pastries
During our latest fall trip to Europe this year, I became much more a carnivore and red wine sipper. I had meat and red wine nearly every dinner for over two weeks. Oh yes, we didn’t forget the pastries, especially in France and Germany. Normally, I only eat meat 3-4 times per month at home….
Taste Ticklers: Matcha Green Tea Desserts or Monster Squash Sprouts?
So far, I’ve prided myself in eating weird looking food. Anyone raised on predominantly traditional Asian cuisine for first 20 years of their life, tends to think so. As a kid, I ate rehydrated tiger lily buds steamed with meat, bitter melon. Heck, I’ve crunched on ugh, sea cucumber in a restaurant. It’s gelatinous AND…
Judge Not the Poor: Eating Healthy
There have been enough popular news media and academic articles about the unhealthy triangle of poverty, limited food choices, and higher risk of poor health. Such assumptions can sometimes be wrong: I am a living example or shall I say, my family has been a living example that poverty doesn’t always mean living in the black shadow of…
Salmon Art Leaps Into Pacific West Coast Imagination
Salmon is king in Vancouver –in local cuisine and in art. After a few days wandering in the city or anywhere along the coast of British Columbia, you are bound to stumble across salmon swishing through water or jumping up in sculpture, murals or mosaics. Salmon iconography is in Salish coastal Indian art, outdoor contemporary…
Cycling and Searching for Sublime Seafood Chowder
I had my first dreamy seafood chowder, when I was in a bad mood. It was a clam chowder that placated me, over twenty years ago near the start of my longest ever bike-camping trip over 1,000 km. long in the Canadian east coast Maritime provinces. I was fuming desperately after only cycling 40 km….
Comfort Food Requires No Recipe
Comfort food should not require a recipe. Especially if you make it for yourself. If comfort food is to nourish your soul and body, then it needs to be easy-peasy to make or buy when you want it, crave for it. Comfort food is what you instinctively turn to when you’re down, tired, alone or…
Part 2. Food for Canadian Soul and Fans – Shaped by Climate, Soil, Water and Culture
I’ve been spinning my journey as a Canadian who has lived in several contrasting regions –Ontario, Pacific British Columbia coast and Alberta. Last time, I blog-galloped across our vast geography and rattled on about living in a place with many time zones and weather tantrums. So let’s talk about food now –what Nature nutures in…
Sea Asparagus – a Touch of Green Ocean Saltiness
It wasn’t until I lived in Vancouver, BC, I knew of sea asparagus, another vegetable that grows like a thick wild green lawn, along the ocean intertidal shores. It is harvested by hand. Sea asparagus, sea beans, samphire or its biological name, salicorum virginica, bears no resemblance, to asparagus spears that grow in farmers’ fields. Sea asparagus…
Rising with Community Gardens: Three Cities
Vancouver’s Sole Foods: Bringing Back Dignity and Purpose to Emptiness Last year, a large dreary parking lot in downtown Vancouver was transformed with rows of bright green vegetables under the shadow of B.C. Stadium, elevated light rail viaduct and condo towers. It didn’t take long for rich green leaves to unfurl and cover part of the…
Dreams of Cycling Customers: Bicycle Pasta, Bike-Inspired Menus and Window Dressing
On winter deep freeze days, when -29 C degree temperatures plunges down to -40 C* with winter chill, it’s easier to hunker down indoors and think about cycling. To justify procrastination, but still feed our cycling enthusiasm, I discovered tri-coloured bicycle pasta in a local Italian grocery store and café. We found this wonderful store in an…
Blogging is Painting My Story Robe
The Blackfoot Indians in the prairies passed on their history and collective memory through storytelling and in pictographs. Painted images on tanned buffalo leather hide are called story robes. Occasionally they painted stories on tipi covers, blankets and rocks too. Blogging is our 21st century painting and wearing our story robe. When I began blogging,…
Whimsical Dreams of Christmas Gingerbread Magic
Whenever snow falls near Christmas, any serious thoughts vapourize into child-like dreams of fun, sugar plums, sleigh bells and lovely baked pastries with hot chocolate. I like soft Christmas cookies with different spices, less sugar but more delicate in taste . Gingerbread cookies are cute, but do not stoke my sweet tooth. To me, gingerbread houses and…
Stir Fried Laziness: Beet Greens in Chili-Garlic Soy Bean Sauce with Tomatoes, Ginger and Noodles
I don’t recall having red beets until I was in my early 20’s even though I’ve lived in Canada all my life. Even after sucking up delicious red borscht soup at a Hungarian restaurant several times in Toronto, I never prepared any red beets at home. Until less than 4 years ago. You won’t find…
Are You a Couch Foodie, Garden Foodie or Stove-Top Foodie?
Recently in a cycling forum, a question floated over the Internet: “Do you have a discerning palate?” That got me thinking about foodies, people who pride themselves as food connoisseurs, worldly arbitrators of food dishes from a dizzying array of cuisines. Just a Stove-Top Foodie: Homespun Knowledge I fancy myself as a foodie. Not a…
Easily Drunk on Cycle-Touring in Wine Regions
It’s annoying to have my health problem whenever we go cycle-touring in the wine regions of Canada, U.S. and Europe: I get easily drunk on alcohol. You could say I am afflicted by a common problem that isn’t just confined to some Asians (although there is that stereotyping). My ears become quite red: fast like a supremely…
Cycle Write Blog 