Snacks

In All recipes, Snacks, Sweets, Travel

POST-HAWAII BLUE & COFFEE CRUSTED NUTS

The danger is real. There’s a paradise out there.

You can’t move two steps without hearing old-time tales of unsuspecting wanderers who passed by and never left, got sucked in by that boundless flickering of Pacific blues so wicked that they dared plunging into the terrifying anxiety of a slowed down life. Made home, even a family, grew roots. Their next generation, born-and-raised, has fascinating stories to tell about their unwavering connections to being the children of these captivating islands, seeding ideas inside visitors with a less affirmative mind such as myself who all, at one point or another, fondled the unthinkable… could I live here? Oh you’ll see. Just a split second of carelessness and you too would find yourself romancing the same idea.

Hawaii is that kind of hazard and I barely made it out in one piece.

10.11.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Seafood, Snacks, updated recipe

insights to your shrimp dumplings

There are days, you know, not everyday, but days when I really… hate this. I mean, what is this anyways? A self-published “web-blog” about me making dinner. Talk about being a loving sponge when it comes to self-absorbing not to mention a shameless evasion from unemployment. Oops, did I not mention that? As many more dignified others who might do this as a hobby aside, I on my other sorry hand, just do this. No other self-sustaining professions at day, heck or even a non-profit charity to excuse myself of, it’s a testimony of prolonged immaturity and chronic, explicit laziness, hardly anything to be carved on my tombstone. So yeah, as this self-absorbing continues, sometimes I really hate this.

09.09.2013

In All recipes, Snacks, Vegatables

corn and seaweed tempura popper

Before talking corny, you know how sometimes when parents, despite their best intentions no doubt, can suffocate us with all their unnecessary concerns followed by… uh… understandably agitating gestures? God don’t you just hate that? So freaking un-cool is what it is! And just to make it perfectly clear before I confess anything, I am still with you. You know, “Team Kids”. But yesterday… I think I may have done exactly that… ok and then some.

08.21.2013

In All recipes, Dairy, Snacks, Vegatables

cherry tomato vinaigrette and gorgonzola bruschetta

Dear shrink, I’m… wondering if I can now be qualified for that zoloft + xanax prescription we talked about last time, you know, and let’s throw in a couple of diazepam for good measure while we’re at it? I assure you that I have no previous record of substance abuse, in fact, I hardly drink alcohol for God sake, oh why because I’m naturally fun. But you see, it’s my kids… my kids who are competing in a race to my emotional hell by turning rotten-sick on me one after the other. Oh HELL, it’s even making me babble uncontrollably about it on my food-blog, right, a FOOD-blog that’s supposed to be about escaping to gastronomic neverland, not… Anderson Pooper on real world shit… Damn it! What the hell am I talking about, you see? I need meds!

08.08.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Condiments, Meat, Snacks

2:1 sliders

I am sitting at my parent’s dinning room table in Taiwan, clicking anxiously on my mother’s laptop… scrambling to get this new post out. I’m gonna quickly leave you with these little suckers I made before leaving Beijing, what I consider to be the ideal ratio of meat and cheese when it comes to cheese burgers (in this case mini-sized), as I call them, the 2:1 sliders.

07.21.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks, Vegatables

pork belly shiso yaki

Before I met Beijing, there was another affair I had a brief, bitter-ending engagement with and his name was I believe, Hong Kong. We spent an abusive 18 months together right after New York… ah New York. It was such a transcendent love, great love, Mr. BIG-GREAT that anyone else who followed was predetermined to never live up. Without the enlightenment of other perspectives, I couldn’t love a city with EVEN SMALLER living-square footage than New York… EVEN MORE CROWDED streets than ant-hills, EVEN UGLIER buildings than Taipei and many many EVEN-MORE-NESS to feel sorry for myself about. Like I said, I had no perspective. I had no idea that Hong Kong was already Aidan.

07.04.2013

In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Seafood, Snacks

hypothetically wild salmon onigiri

I am not, by a screeching far cry, someone who could hypothetically reach a life with no regret. Contentment to me is an overrated product of philosophy, not of nature, and therefore more often than not, I find myself restlessly curating for a much-er life. I benched more tablewares in the cabinet than the actual number of guests I could ever gather to my hypothetically dinner party. My closet is for someone who apparently comes across great occurrences that call for more than one (ok, five) sequinned Flapper dress. I limited myself to only four vintage-designed bicycles (so far) which I imagine cruising so hipster-ly through Williamsburg where our hypothetical loft resides, just above the hypothetical farmer’s market, where I buy hypothetical hydrangeas on weekends. Hey, I could go Paris on you but I want to keep it real.

06.24.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Seafood, Snacks

poorman’s lobster roll

Right. I apologize for my “rare” unprofessionalism last time. Can we start over? I promise I’ll keep it together this time because oh boy this faux-lobster roll is too delicious to miss out on. But it’s strange to compose this post because the day I cooked it, my doggy-Armageddon-day had not been realized, and staring back on the make-funny-“when life gives you shrimp, make lobster roll”-line that I drew up then to mock my general cheap-ass style, it now seems to actually speak to me on a philosophical level… My words-in-past is making contact with my present inner-self. Wooh~ (believe it or not this is me keeping it together).

06.17.2013

In All recipes, Poultry, Snacks

gateway charcuterie – goose prosciutto

I have not gone mad I assure you. I think. This is not a slap on my own face regarding what I just said about people not keeping it realz, I assure you again. I think… Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I tell you why.

06.10.2013

In All recipes, Bakery/Pastry, Dairy, Meat, Snacks, Vegatables

the infinite kitchen sink hand pie

Sometimes I get a little personal when I take a stroll through the expansive, razzle-dazzling and star-crusted cosmic jungle that is food-blogosphere. I really don’t mean to compare I really don’t. Wise man once said that… “Go… just do your own things” or something… you know but put in a MUCH more profound and scholarly terms. But the thing is (and it’s a big thing) that I can’t help but feeling like Gimli the dwarf when self-put besides the others, whom I’d like to call the blogger-elves of the Woodland Realm (birds chirping pls) because I mean really, just REALLY, do people SERIOUSLY live like that? Prancing with in-season-only, tree-ripen fruits and vegetables galore by the farm-stands and POOF! an effortless display of fairy-salad and angel-tarts on a oh-my-granny-just-left-me-this antique table. Or picking WILD FLOWERS in pastel tea-dresses surrounded by rainbow and songs and THAT’S what she EATS on weekends!? For REALZ? I bet their body parts self-shave, too…

Yeah. I’m jealous.

06.06.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks

breakfast burger

Taiwanese like to fancy themselves as major eaters, extraordinaires among the yumness-community. “Taiwanese food is da bomb! Huh-huh-hah-hee!”. “Too spicy for who??! Huh-huh-hah-hee (…forget it, it’s an inside joke)!!”. But the truth is, relative to all the many other cultures surrounding us, Taiwanese cuisine is… blaaaaaaaaand… I don’t know what it was like 40 years ago if somebody wants to make that argument, but perhaps their mentality hasn’t caught up to reality that Taiwanese have grown quietly inside their small and cozy shell over recently years… into independent health-nuts. WAKE UP and smell the SALT guys! It isn’t for anti-bacterializing. It’s to season your food? so it tastes like SOMETHING? And WHAT THE HELL are you doing to that fat on top of your noodle soup?! It’s there for a REASON! Called YUMMO! I can go on and on…

04.26.2013

In All recipes, Meat, Snacks

Loser double fennel potstickers

Being competitive has never been part of my persona. It isn’t one of the virtues of being a quitter, which I like to use as the reason I was never good at sports and why until this very day, I still cannot technically swim (but I float professionally). It’s not that I’m not into winning but just that I don’t like to be proven losing. I’m a walking cliche. But recently I have been braving the turbulent water for the love of my new favorite website and the recipe contest they throw every two weeks.

04.10.2013