dressing

SICHUAN DRESSING & BOUQUET OF FIRE

THIS IS WHAT I CALL, STUFFED ARTICHOKE”

I’ve never understood salad.

And by “salad”, I mean it in the most traditional sense of plant-based lifeforms being tossed in vinegar-based dressings. I’ve never understood the idea of it, or the taste of it. It seems that all salads are ever “dressed” with, are the nonstop BS campaign and PR efforts, the pretence of hippie-wholeness and “feel-good” sentiments designed to talk us into laying down our appetites and picking up that cucumber. Excluding vegetarianism which is a whole other subject, the only peace I find in salad, is if we could all just admit to the blunt and clear motives of why anybody eats it.

We only eat salad because we have to. Period.

We eat salad because we don’t want to be fat. We eat salad because we don’t want to die prematurely. We eat salad because what, you think you have a choice? Underneath whatever self-hypnosis, there’s only strictly medical purposes. And I think that if everyone could just quit dancing around it and just say that. People would actually eat more salad, because truth, is the most powerful persuasion.

However, after moving back to Asia, that view is slightly, or at least in the progress of, changing.

April 29, 2014

In All recipes, Seafood, Vegatables

RED HOT OYSTER+KIMCHI DRESSING

I thought I was going to forfeit the ticket to this year’s Thanksgiving recipe frenzy. I thought, for some strange reason, that this year’s Thanksgiving is sitting (impossibly…) on November 18th, and that by the time around November 12th when I start to entertain the idea of a Thanksgiving recipe, that it would already be too late… After all, I heard this is a holiday meal that people plan ahead for. I heard that even before the first leaf turned brown, the happy Californian designer-turkeys still obliviously eating their organic feeds, have no idea that someone in New York has already claimed the right to carve them apart and break their wishbones in two months-time. Better not tell them is what I think.

So the point is, a few days ago I suddenly realized I do have time this year, that it wasn’t too late. I could still do this! I could still… well, here’s where I ran into another problem.

November 19, 2013

In All recipes, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Vegatables

summer and couscous in istanbul

I’m never much of a person of faith and spirituality. Evidently since Jason and I started slowly leaving our footprints around the world, we left an obvious trail seeking gastronomic truth instead of spiritual babble, pinning destinations on the map not for the yearning to hear the echoes bouncing off the cold marbles of St. Peter’s, but to sink our teeth into the godliness of a cool, fresh Roman burrata. Not to hear the chanting of monks on ancient scriptures, but for the serene noise coming from the skin of a Balinese roasted pig cracking in between teeth. The antiquated pagoda from a time bygone can wait, my Vietnamese bún chả in the now is getting cold.

We go with our guts.

August 1, 2013

In All recipes, Meat, Noodle/Pasta/Rice, Quick Meals, Vegatables

power goddess pasta salad

There’s something you need to know before you sit me down with anyone you carry a sensitive relationship with. Your competitor/colleague, boss, lover to impress, ex-lover to instill remorse… people who may be concerned about you befriending a crazy bitch (raising my hand), parents, or worse, social bridges. Because you can be positively certain that I can and WILL almost ALWAYS say the wrongest thing on the wrongest subject before I even get to my appetizer… digging cheerfully into the bread-basket before my antenna picks up the dense air molecule… (…did I say something?). You should also know that Jason waited the entire three years to unfold me in front of his company event and it’s safe to say that he had seen better days.

April 17, 2013

In All recipes, Featured Attractions, Vegatables

Tofu and Warm Mushroom Salad

So. It only took me 10 months and an extra 5 pounds to finally squeeze a salad into this blog. Not too shabby if I may say so myself. But the truth is, every month I shout: “Who THE HELL’S GUT is this!?” for like 50 times, followed by: “It definitely ISN’T mine but it’s telling me to go on a diet” for about 30 times, followed by: “I SWEAR on whoever’s gut this is that I’m going on a diet!!” for another 20 times. And I TOTALLY SWEAR 99% of the time I actually mean it which leaves me just as lost as you are of why only 0.1% of the time it actually happens. This thing called “self-control”… it has a life of its own.

January 31, 2013

dressing Tag