Fun and Dumplings With 7D’s Alice

Alice says "Ah!" to dumplings...

Last week, Seven Days food writer, Alice Levitt paid a visit to my kitchen to learn how to make homemade xiaolongbao (little dragon dumplings).

It was a chilly, rainy day. The perfect weather for dumplings making. We jumped right into dough making with lots of flour flying everywhere. Soon the ice was broken and we had a lively discussion about Kogi Korean BBQ and our favorite Japanese and Chinese dishes.

I sent her back to the office with all the dumplings we made, some spiced-up dipping sauce, and a package of my Yum Dragon Veggie Dumplings.

The dumpling article will come out in the September 31st issue. Check it out!

Figs and Shelburne Museum Cooking Class

I don’t know if it’s because the sunlight has shifted lately or if the cooler weather strikes a memory cord, but it happens practically every start of fall. I begin pining for my beloved San Francisco.

Fresh Mission figs aren’t localvore fare, but when I see the dark, pudgy, beautiful gems in the Shelburne Supermarket produce aisle, I instantly recall the tiny produce shop on Union Street near Larkin in San Fran where I bought my veggies. I use to walk up the hill to the store after a Bay swim at The Dolphin Club. An Italian guy with a thick mustache turned me on to the swim club and arugula salad topped with crumbled Gorgonzola, quartered mission figs, and balsamic vinaigrette. The last five years I’ve lived in Vermont, I eat this salad until the figs disappear from the market.

Recently, Paul, the produce guy at Shelburne Supermarket and I were reminiscing about our Bay Area days. I talked about living there in the 90s and he during the 70s. When it turned to Mission figs, which was why I was in the store in the first place, he gave me a new way of enjoying figs. Take about four or five ripe figs remove the stems. Mash the figs and stir in some cultured butter to make a paste. Add about a tablespoon of honey. Spread this mixture on a toasted baguette from Shelburne Farm’s O Bakery. Oh my, delicious!

So, until my pining passes I’ll be eating lots of fresh figs and listening to lots of Journey.

Also, last week I taught a Japanese cooking class at Shelburne Museum’s 40-guest room Brickhouse for a group staying at the gorgeous historic manor nestled on the Shelburne Farm property.

Cookin' at the Brickhouse!

The guests from all over the nation were here to spend the entire week painting whatever struck their fancy on the picturesque property. With views of the Lake and rolling hills as far as the eye can see, I’m sure there was inspiration in every direction. The evening they turned their attention towards the culinary arts, the group created okonomiyaki (Japanese pizza), gyoza (Japanese dumplings), wakame and cucumber seaweed salad, and kyuri-manju (Japanese pastry).

My homemade Japanese pastries....

Thank you Kitty Gerry, Stephan Jost, Sam Anderson, and Bonnie for inviting me!

Late Summer Trip to Hoosierland

My summer would be incomplete without visiting my parents. They still live in the tiny little house where I grew up in southeastern Indiana. Upstairs in the second floor storage area where my brother and I use to play are the Nancy Drew and Little House On The Prairie books still lining up on the shelves. In the linen closet and kitchen cupboards, I find hotel ashtrays and ice buckets from our 1970s family road trips to Florida now used to hold twist-ties and curlers. There’s a deja-vous quality to having all these items from my childhood still in use, but also a deep comforting aspect that continually lures me home.

I love walking down to the covered bridge or taking the same jogging route I did when I was a junior in high school. The sights, smells, and sounds sending flashes of old memories and feelings, both wonderful and poignant. Sometimes, former schoolmates pass me in their cars, stop and gab as if we can catch-up on the last twenty-five years in ten minutes.

Nothing compares to going home and as a single mother, especially the part of being cooked for.  And my mother is the greatest.  As soon as my 6-year old son and I set foot in the house, food is served constantly. It’s almost like going on a cruise. Here are some photos of the scrumptious Japanese meals she prepared.

Cold hayashi soba is the perfect hot weather lunch

Yaki-niku or thin slices of sirloin cooked on griddle with veggies

My mother also cooks great western food and her blueberry pie is my summertime favorite dessert.

A visit to the Indiana State Fair was one of the highlights of my visit home. As a former 4-H Club member, attending the county fair and state fair were a big deal when I was growing up. The area of my focus was cooking, of course. Most of my girlfriends lived on farms and were entered in the agriculture area. I remember driving up to Indianapolis with these families as they were showing cattle, pigs, or crops during fair week.

The Tomato Pavillion

This summer’s State Fair theme was tomatoes. I love fair food and after the mandatory cotton candy, corndog, and elephants ear, I have to try something new, like fried Twinkies or fried Oreos. This year it was Pigs In The Mud or bacon with chocolate and heavy dusting of powdered sugar.

The combination fascinated me. In the end, great concept, but poor execution.  The bacon appeared and tasted uncooked and the quality of the chocolate…well, put simply it wasn’t Valhrona French Chocolates. The first bit was overwhelmed with Hershey chocolate syrup-like chocolate and the chewy texture of fatty meat. Not good. At the very, very end I tasted the salt and smokiness of the bacon. My version of this would be bacon cooked crisp, then drizzled with good quality dark chocolate, so you have the thin crispiness of the bacon and an equal balance of rich chocolate with the salty, smoky bacon. That actually sounds delicious!

My trip home to Hoosierland was a great way to cap the summer and herald the start of fall.

Living a Wabi-Sabi Life

In the book Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designer, Poets and Philosophers (a thin, austere book that made strong impression me during a difficult time in my life), author Leonard Koren defines wabi-sabi as “a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It’s the beauty of things unconventional.”

Wabi-sabi is one of those vague Japanese words that is easily and often lost in translation. This philosophy came into my life five years ago when I found myself a single divorced mother of one. You can read about this in my second food memoir How to Cook A Dragon: Living, Loving, and Eating in China. For most of my life, I felt I was living the antithesis of wabi-sabi,  living in a self-imprisoned life tof creating perfection —the perfect dinner party, the perfectly decorated home, the perfect wife. 

The austere, beautifully simple little book  Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designer, Poets and Philosophers beckoned me to pick it up at the Kinokunya bookstore in San Francisco’s Japantown.  I found a stool in a corner and read the entire book before buying it, it’s that short. That was more than four years ago and philosophically and aesthetically, I have embraced wabi-sabi and made it my mission to lead an uncomplete, unsettled life savoring the bumps and blemishes in the Green Mountain State of Vermont. I always keep several books on hand to give to a new or old friend and on my writing table where I skim it every so often. I usually read something new or have a fresh insight on something previously read.

In this blog, I hope to share some lessons I’ve learned and am learning, discuss what I’m into and why, and reveal some of my personal insight on writing, food, singledom, kids,  and lifestyle.