bear

... my Swedish Chef icon was based on a US stamp back when letter stamps cost $0.37, and this weekend they went up to $0.55, so hi, I'm old, how are you.

At some point, my Instagram crossposts failed, which was basically how I felt like being on the internet for a long while - pictures as a signal flare of "I'm still alive, here's a good thing I want to remember."

In the interim couple of years, I've:

* spent most holidays in LA soaking up warmth and fruit and Pacific Ocean zen to fortify myself through yet another New England winter (starting to get real tired of the latter part of that cycle); Park family gatherings annually uniting all of us scattered kids to hang out with each other and eat a lot of good Korean food. Making sure to get out to Santa Monica at least one Wednesday per trip for the farmers' market and dipping my toes in my beloved Pacific, frigid to everyone else but merely invigorating to me; that's what twenty-odd New England winters'll do for ya, I guess! Supplementing with my other favorite LA farmers market (the Sunday Hollywood one, though you do have to dodge the creepy slant-rhymes-with-gynecologists).

* ( milestone birth month: spent chasing the sun in California and Hawaii, sheer delight )

* managed to fly red-eyes in both directions for a Las Vegas work trip (again with that New England winter crap)

* went to Nashville for the first time (and recognized a LOT of LA and NYC brands setting up shop). They're in for iiinteresting times there; I used public transit for most of my getting around and had conversations about density and sudden growth and just how was everyone supposed to be getting around based on the population increasing by X but the roads only having so far to widen, which meant I got to evangelize about induced demand and transit to some very bemused locals).

* popped down to NYC on various day trips

* failed to Kondo my stuff except in dribs and drabs

* spent pretty much every other scrap of free time at the farmers' markets or the bookstores.

So, you know, me being me.

I still don't know if I have much to talk about on an ongoing basis, but it's nice to remember that this place exists. Catch up with people. Hello.

On the last day of NaNo, my friends list said to me, "UPDATE OR I'LL SHOVE YOU UP A TREE."

*twinkles* *preens* *counts the earwormed* Congrats to those finishing NaNo, and Hanukkah Sameach to those who celebrate! Tis the season for sufganiyot, fa la la la la, la la la la!

hyounpark has been celebrating NaMcRibMo. I'm kind of glad that's almost over, too, though I suspect he'll make it a national movement the next time it comes around. >_>

Hooray, lazy Thanksgiving. Slightly overcaramelized the veg and spilled twice as much fivespice as I meant to into the sweet potatoes, but the turkey came out perfectly, and Hyoun loved the cornbread even more. Win.

Thanksgiving Menu:

* Maple slow-cooked turkey breast - just the two of us, don't need to try to wrestle a gigantic bird into the miniature oven of our tiny kitchen in the eaves :)
* Cranberry-Asian pear chutney - a regular from Kay Chun that's been on almost every one of my Thanksgiving tables since 2001? 2000? Whenever I saw the Asian American Thanksgiving article in Real Simple.
* Cider-roasted root vegetables - beets, butternut squash because they were what we had, but this goes well with any and all root veg. Also a Kay Chun recipe.
* Custard-filled cornbread - Marion Cunningham via Molly Wizenberg; I also like Heidi Swanson's update with quinoa
* Fivespice mashed sweet potatoes - boil sweet potatoes, melt butter, add fivespice to the butter, mash sweet potatoes with the fivespice butter
* Beet greens with bacon - fry bacon, saute beet greens in rendered bacon fat, chop bacon and mix back into sauteed greens
* Lemon-ginger mousse - a Joanne Chang fave.

And a loaf of rosemary garlic sourdough bread for Friday's leftovers ;)

*

So way back in October, on our first night in Toronto, we hopped the Dundas streetcar out to The Black Hoof, a charcuterie restaurant in Trinity-Bellwoods (according to Flickr, at least). (Toronto, can I just say how much I love your grid of streetcars downtown? Though the whole "step off into traffic" thing was more than a bit terrifying the first time! Luckily, the "DON'T PASS A STOPPED STREETCAR OR OUR MOUNTIES WILL STOMP ON YOUR CAR" thing seems to be pretty well-ingrained into Toronto drivers' minds.)

I started things out with beef tongue on brioche:



( So I used to be vegetarian. Really. )

*

But at the Black Hoof, tongue wasn't the most unusual meat I ate that night.

I've eaten my share of raw beef in my time - the Ethiopian kitfo; the better-known-in-the-West steak tartare.

( Yeah, this would be the part where I ate a meat that would be considered controversial in the States. With a picture of the finished dish. Consider yourself warned. )

I'd forgotten that tartare included a raw egg, though, so hyounpark passed on that particular dish. Not to worry; there was marrow on toast and an excellent charcuterie plate and a simply divine ice cider that I need to figure out how to get a bottle of:



I'm not sure I have anything particularly insightful to say about a meat that is established as "normal food" in one culture while being considered taboo in another culture - but glass_icarus linked me to vi's Gross, Weird, Inedible and troisroyaumes' Seven Things, and I recommend both pieces heartily, even if you skipped what's behind the cuts for this post.

It's just - I've been working myself up about this entry for a couple of weeks now, worried about harsh external reactions because the meat I ate in Canada comes from an animal that is idolized as a pet in mainstream American culture. Even in the course of *writing* this entry, I built up walls and provided warnings well beyond what I usually do when I blog about food, because I don't want to host a discussion consisting of "Ew, you ate $US_culturally_disapproved_meat? Nasty!" But at the same time, if I'm putting up these defenses, will the people voicing those opinions get far enough into reading to realize how rude they're being, and how classist or racist it makes them look?

*

I was talking with a newly-pregnant friend of mine last night, and we got onto the subject of what foods one can eat during pregnancy - and all I could think about afterwards wasn't the foods that I could (not) eat during those months of pregnancy and breastfeeding, but what could I best do to encourage my future offspring to be as open-minded about food as possible, and to give them as much experience with as many different food cultures as possible? (I don't have any magic answers. I'll let you know how I did in a couple of decades.)

When we were growing up, my mom was the primary cook of the family, and at home, we ate dishes like meatloaf and spaghetti and mac-and-cheese, with fishsticks on Friday - a very middle-America Catholic diet. Filipino food was what her mom cooked, and we would eat things like pancit and adobo "at Grandma's house" for holidays; when Grandma stopped being able to cook, holidays were spent at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, and instead of siopao, we learned to order bao. But it still wasn't "everyday" food for us, and sometimes, I envied my relatives for whom it was. I was already enough of an outsider at school - if I had "weird" enough food that I liked, maybe it would be enough so that I could be left alone to read my book at lunch.

On the other hand, because of my mom's choices in marrying Not-A-Filipino ("She married him because no good Filipino boy would have her" was the narrative spread around), our family was already ostracized from the San Francisco Filipino community. So for a long time, I was perfectly sanguine claiming nothing but blood from my Filipino heritage, especially after I ditched Catholicism - because at least my half-blood status made me "interesting" to white people rather than "untouchable" to Pilis. It's only been the last few years I've decided that even if I am "merely" hapa, that I still want to claim the parts of the culture that *do* resonate with me. Food is the obvious place for me to start. :)

It's interesting for me to compare with Hyoun - he came over to the States as an infant, and his mom cooked almost-exclusively Korean food growing up. They were in the middle of Tennessee, so they would order out pizza and go to steakhouses and eat at fast food chains. But the usual nightly meal was based on 밥 and 반찬. So when I make beans and franks for dinner, or some other American dish I grew up with, Hyoun finds it ... bemusing.

In the last couple of weeks, though, I was introduced to an American home-cooking dish similar to one I grew up with: elbow macaroni, ground beef, and tomato sauce all put together into a casserole with chopped-up green bell peppers. (My family's version omits the bell peppers.) We called it "Macaroni Casserole." The other Americans? Particularly the Midwesterners and Northeasterners? Call it "American Chop Suey." Which, amusingly enough, means something else entirely in India.

And now I really, really, really want an Asian Food Writing Carnival.

[A version of this will probably show up on Camberville Chow at some point, particularly because I never did write up the Filipino Night they did at Ole last spring. But this got looong. :) ]

i have so much i want to say about this weekend, but what really sums it up is that it was meant to be. it's like the universe wanted to smack me over the head and say "just buy the damn ticket already, wouldya hon?" andrew on work documents, andrew on bus signs, andrew in ice cream containers, and the realization that i haven't seen andrew in three weeks are compelling arguments for impulsivity. (also, the last-minute flight deal helped. :D )

and that all crystallizes when i walk onto the train at rosslyn, head full of the plans to meet up with my co-conspirators* at a thai restaurant near andrew's apartment in order to pull off this eleventh-hour surprise visit.

and he's sitting there, in a two-seater right by the door, looking somewhat bemused and confused and stunned and happy at the sight of me and barely able to form the word "... hello." of all the possible trains we could have been on, of all the doors i could have chosen to board that train, it worked out to be that one.

in the end, i think this actually made for a better surprise than just meeting up at sawatdee, because only serendipity could have made this train thing happen. :D

meant. to. be. :)

(and a public thank you to grace for encouraging my impulsive streak and the blessings of happenstance that breeds, even though, dammit, i didn't get to see her and peter this weekend ;P)

( PWXR: a nerdy timeline )

Update 4/17/22: FOR THE RECORD, I WOULD LIKE TO NOTE THAT I HAD ABSOLUTELY PERFECT TIMING ON THE METRO TRANSFER AT ROSLYN FROM THE BLUE LINE SCURRYING DOWNSTAIRS TO THE ORANGE LINE WITH THE TRAIN PULLING IN RIGHT AS I HIT THE ESCALATOR. If only more trains had such perfect schedule execution!