Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts

Friday, October 3, 2008

Natsukashii: Retroactive Post

I've forgotten what leaving school at 2:15 feels like. It's been years since I've had a dismissal at such a time: college classes and work usually begin on the hour or the half, and even when I take time off, it's usually right after lunch, not for just a couple of hours. Today, I didn't really have a choice. I had to use up my hours of daikyu from summer business trips.

Maybe some of that high school exuberance filtered through to me. Maybe it was reading Pin and Bob's blogs all day that reminded me of how much I love people who love food. Especially ones that share my Asian-American immigrant experience. I point that out because I feel like our cultural past is so much more present, so much more tangible in our food memories. Maybe I'm making that out to be more than it is. For now, I'm making the most of these extra daylight hours.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

We are what we eat?: Retroactive Post

So, maybe it's not as world-altering as the US declaring independence from British rule, but it's altering my world. Albert came across a really good Time (the Asian version) issue last month and wanted me to read it. As I was busy taking care of lots of other things at the time, I stubbornly told him I'd read it later, so he stubbornly refused to read it before me and instead just passed it on. However, he managed to find it again, and since it's testing week, all I have to do at work is be here, help answer grading questions and help mark tests, so I decided that today would be a good time to read it.

The reason he wanted me to read it was because it was all about food and its connections with the world we live in now, and what it might signify for our future. I was in the midst of reading the fourth article, when I had an epiphanic moment as to what my trip to Hong Kong would be like, which soon extended into how I want to spend the rest of my time in Japan. The article was discussing Mark Brownstein, aka The Food Hunter, and how his knowledge of Asia ingredients is sparking a growth of interest among German and French chefs. Reading the sentence, "The big French chefs, too, are just getting their heads around Asia," made me realize that if I want to go to France and study French cuisine, it is to my advantange to exploit my personal experience with Asian culture and cuisines.

Thus, I've decided to change my itinerary in Hong Kong from eating at posh fusion restaurants like M at the Fringe and Pierre Gagnaire's Pierre, to eating the local Cantonese and Macanese specialties, like the egg tarts and dim sum that I've heard so much about from Albert. I want to get the true taste of Hong Kong, to understand it's cooking as much as I can in the three days I have there.

This further led me to apply this to my time in Japan, and instead of spending my money eating out at expensive Western restaurants or cooking it at home, I want to learn what I can about Japanese cooking, and save my money to take trips to other Asian countries and learn about their cuisines in that way. I hope that developing a strong foundation in Japanese cooking, as well as a broader knowledge of Asian cooking, in addition to my personal knowknowledge of Filipino cooking will help differentiate me as a culinary arts student and later on as a chef. Now, I've got to see if I can curb my hedonistic tendencies to achieve my goals. Wish me luck, ne?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Plans: Retroactive Post

Ever since Albert got back from Canada, he's been on this food kick, I think in good part fueled by my own interests in cooking. He's been trying to perfect this Uighur recipe, and is compulsively watching episodes of Chef. As a result, and aided by my renewing dinner parties at my house, I've found just how important it is to me to cook for other people. I feel like I'm just biding my time until I give in and go to culinary arts school like I've been dreaming about in the back of my head.

I really want to open up a dimsum restaurant in Japan. I have no idea how to make any of it, but I think that it'd be really profitable and I could use that profit to open up a restaurant of my own cooking. I need to find a business partner, someone that would be good at handling the money and legal side of things, because god knows I could care less about that. Ha, it's funny to think of myself as an artist, but that's just the type of attitude I would expect from one about anything other than their chosen art form.

An example of one of my dinner party meals: