GONG XI FA CAI!

Now that I am a quarter century old even according to the lunar calendar (actually I think I'm 26 says the moon), I am officially way too old to receive the little red envelopes stuffed with benjamins that I received from family members as a child. Gone are the blissful days of emptying my crisp new cash out in my bedroom and rolling around in it like Scrooge McPanda. As an adult, I have to look a little deeper and enjoy the new year in more profound ways, such as reflecting on the past year and thinking contemplatively of the next. For my friends and me, last year was all about "living life". And we did, maddeningly so. This year, just like like growing up, makes us think beyond: the year 4706 will be about MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE.



As part of this theme, I will be returning to the motherland. I will volunteer in microfinance in Cambodia through Kiva.org. The food genius will thereby be reporting live from a variety of "exotic" Southeast Asian locations. I will also be joining the entire Pei clan in Taiwan when we descend upon this country smaller than New Jersey to surprise Grandmama Pei for her 90th birthday (SHHH, don't spill the beans)!! While there I hope to record an oral history of my grandparents, who each have treasure troves of unbelievable WWII and revolution stories buried inside of them.

One other thing that I will embark on in 4706 is a book on the Chinese diaspora as seen through food. Even here in New York, this phenomenon presents itself in interesting ways. One of my favorite ways is Peruvian-Chinese at a restaurant called Flor de Mayo. I worked at this UWS establishment (at both the 83rd and 101st St. locations) one summer when I lived in Clinton Hill and also had around 4 other jobs. I did this primarily to learn Spanish and to eat their food, but the insanity factor should also not be discounted. But I digress. The point is, the combination of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine here makes for such a perfect outcome that you start understanding why mixed-race children are seemingly always the most beautiful out of all of us...


Ensalada de aguacate


I'm not a big fan of chicken unless it's Hainan Chicken or this here roasted chicken, which tastes more or less like the way I imagine chickens want to be tasted.


Chinese Broccoli (there are always, always greens at a Chinese meal. it's all about balance.)


Don't let the blurriness fool you. I was too euphoric from the flavors of my personal favorite of squid fried rice that I couldn't focus straight. Notice how it's black. That's squid ink. mmm mmmm!


Algunos platanos, maduros, y yucas.


Oh my god, I don't even know how to describe how good these pork chops are. Trust me. They are so good that you want to drink its juices.


Ribs a la onion. Notice all the garlic. The key to my heart.


Spaghetti pesto with shrimp. I'm confused, wouldn't this qualify as Italian? Very fusiony.


One of the best cafe con leches this side of the border...


And then you wash it all down with some delightfully non-Asian but Asian nonetheless sangria! My boss Dennis taught me how they make theirs so good. Maybe if you're lucky I'll show you.

And there you have it - that's Peruvian-Chinese folks. Ta-da!! Let the year 4706, and all it's dream-fulfilling powers, begin!

Izzy's Cafe

I haven't been able to post regularly for the past few months because I have been going through application infierno. Business schools are "special" in that many of them feel the need to require an inhumane amount of essays, with topics that are unique to each school. The questions tend to veer on the bizarrely personal, and if I have to do anymore self-reflecting I think my head might implode. I do think it's interesting that the topic of food has managed to make its way into quite a few essays (I think maybe 6 out of 25? not bad). As such, I thought I'd share one bizarrely personal aspect of myself with you! See the intro to one essay below.

The summer when I was six years old, my house was filled with relatives visiting from Taiwan. Although barely able to read (or speak English for that matter), I already had a passion for cooking. I noticed that more than anything, save perhaps mah jong, my family loved to eat. Identifying this excess (or, rather, unlimited) demand and restricted daytime supply, I started my first venture into the wild world of commerce: "Izzy's Cafe," a daytime deli on wheels, complete with a full menu of breakfast sandwiches, juices, and my personal culinary feat: rice, bananas, and soy sauce. Izzy's Cafe also proved to be my first magnificent flop -- my grandfather was my only paying customer, and my techniques of extortion on my poor-credit non-paying customers (mainly my brother and cousin Bang Bang) proved fruitless. Apparently, "I'm telling" is not really an effective business ploy. This failure, however, set the stage for a lifetime of nonprofit food sharing to come...

TANG

As we successfully manage to just completely skip fall the way Foxy Brown manages to just completely skip court appearances, we begin to head into hibernation season, and my thoughts inevitably begin to drift to the warm, comforting, motherly aspects of Chinese cuisine. Particularly, I dream of soup, which also happens to be my last name in Mandarin (tang, but pronounced tong). Like all aspects of Chinese cuisine, tang is widely varied - from the ultimate decadence of the south, shark fin tang, to watery peasant tang; sweet dessert tang with tapioca and taro, to weirdly bitter herbal medicinal tang. Tang is so pivotal that the Cantonese serve it both at the start and end of a meal. Most Cantonese restaurants in Chinatown serve both complimentary house tang and dessert tang. If you are not getting it (probably because you are not Chinese) you are missing out, and should ask your waiter for it.

Fish Ball Tang, one of my favorites.


Chicken Curry Noodle Tang



There are also those lovely little delectable tang dumplings, which are really not considered tang at all, and actually literally translates into "little dragon buns (more or less accurate). But because i love them so much, be so kind as to entertain me and pretend that they too are tang. Since so many people seem to have difficulty mastering the art of eating these little devils, i provide here my very own Food Genius trademarked pictorial tutorial:

First, pick up your chosen darling with extra care (if you pierce the skin it's all over), preferably ones with crab meat inside:


Next, tenderly bathe chosen dumpling in the vinegar and ginger provided, and delicately place it on your spoon. Puncture the skin ever so slightly so that you can carefully slurp up the broth inside, like so:



Finally, gobble down the remainder of the dumpling, and hope that you haven't just burned off all your taste buds, because that would be a damn shame for the rest of the meal:


It's not easy to find little dragon buns here like the kind they have in Shanghai or Taiwan, but I am always relatively pleased at Joe's Shanghai on Pell Street. It's also always a fun kitschy stop in Chinatown, especially since you sit family style with random strangers. When I went last year with some friends, we were seated with some clueless tourists and some equally clueless hipster boys.


Even though these dudes (there were four of them) were hipsters and clearly from some part of Williamsburg, I was shocked at the fact that they only ordered two bins of dumplings and nothing else. I wonder what they thought of us four girls when we had our own two bins, plus:

Duck


Clams


Fried Noodles


And My favorite Chinese vegetable - kong qing cai


Plus we had way more Tsingtao then all of them.


SUCKAAAS!!

Visions of Vieques

Caribbean Crustacean


Plentiful Plantains


Carved Carne


Calle Conch


Succulent Starweapons


Patrolling Pigeon-hunter


Paradiso Perfecto

Red Hook Ball Fields: Never Fade Away

You know something better taste damn good if it motivates a fat kid to get off his/her fat ass and hop onto a bicycle (one of those manually powered ones?!?) and pedal all of his/her overeating weight to Red Hook in Brooklyn. After all, I've never thought expending calories and consuming them to be all that compatible. Yet oddly enough, for the abundant offering of authentic Central American street fare amid "ball fields"in this hard to reach part of Brooklyn, it seemed not only logical, but completely natural.

Fresh with hunger induced by my ride through Park Slope (turns out that Park Slope is, in fact, aptly named. who knew?), I arrived at the fields with the conviction that I would try everything this magical oasis had to offer me. I started off with an horchata that was the sweet rice drink equivalent of a "forty" in its sheer size and power. Together with some trusty fat kid companions, we pummeled through some delectable fried ribs, elotes and a pork taquito to start.

After these light appetizers, we moved on to the heavy hitters.

Taco de Chorizo
.
Why does fried lard taste so good?

Pupusas

Pu-pu-sa. A Salvadoran delight of thick, hand-made corn tortilla stuffed with lovely standard ingredientes such as cheese, pork, and the like, served with pickled cabbage and hot sauce.


Darin's pupusa was cheese + jalapeno.


Max's papusa was pork + cheese.


Huarache

Josh got an huarache - comparable to a giant taco with beans cooked into the tortilla. It was the size of Tejas.

For dessert, we had some fresh mango with salt, chili powder, and lime juice. Who knew fruit could be so sexy (besides M.I.A.)? We also had enough fresh watermelon juice to put out a small forest fire. And by "we" I mean Max.

And it wasn't just the food. Everything else about these ball fields were equally euphoric. It kind of captured so much of what is happy and wonderful about Brooklyn in the summer in that "oh come on, this type of corniness is actually really welcome and refreshing, and if you don't think so then you have no soul" sort of way.

The spectators.


The children with their water balloon and silly string fights.

Oh childhood. How I miss you.

The sky.


The lush greenness.


The company.


And this guy.

*bottom left. Have you ever seen anyone more comfortable in his own skin?

I'm not sure how I've carried on my not-so-secret love affair with high-caloric content food for this long without having come here before. Unfortunately, I didn't accomplish my mission - the ceviche, plantains, and tamales all managed to escape my hungry grasp. Hopefully, if the Parks Department and the health nazis don't have their way, I will have many more chances to revisit this wonderful phenomenon of a place to rectify the situation.

Live Free AND Die

This past Memorial Day Weekend, a few of my compadres and I decided to dust off Audrey's good old Scooby Doo Van for a getaway to luscious Grantham, New Hampshire, where my roommate Tyler's parents have a condo. I was particularly giddy because I had been given the glorious distinction of being named HEAD CHEF!! Our overwhelming and uncontrolled excitement perhaps rocked the 'ol missionary van a bit too hard, though, because before making it out of New York, she decided to break down. In the Bronx.


Ray and Mike are so handy!

Luckily for us, a would be disaster was averted and was instead turned into a pleasant 20 hour side-excursion to the Bronx, thanks to Darius and the hospitality of the Longarino clan.

Sal and Nico, holding down the fort.

We even got to try some pizza at one of New York's best, Louie and Ernie's .

This sausage slice was so mouthwateringly succulent and scrumptious - only DiFara's is better (aside: I will always love you Dominic and I don't care what the health nazis say!)

Next door we found this:


Being in a heavily Italian part of the Bronx, Teresa logically had this:

Spumoni! What's better for a post-pizza treat on a hot day than pistachio-chocolate-vanilla Italian ice? Ahhh.


Once in New Hampshire, we were confronted with the sad rural reality of restaurants closing before 9, and had to have dinner in McDonalds, aka McSuckhole. Aiming for the least worst of all possible outcomes, I ordered this "Southwestern" salad (I opted not to go for the "Asian Salad" after hearing the cashier's answer to my innocent inquiry on what was in it - "You know, Asian vegetables." Yeah...ok, sure. What are we talking about here, bok choy? Right, that's what I thought.)


Afterwards, I wanted to wring all the toxic chemicals out of my stomach. Gross.

Ray is checking out the nutrition facts. His moment of realization is colored with internal monologue, "I see. Oh yes, it is possible, after all, to both live free AND die in New Hampshire. Interesting."


To make up for it, the next two days, with the help from sous chefs Mike and Ryan and Tyler's parents dream kitchen, I performed some intense head chef duties:




(Mike made his deliciously famous Rice and Beans.)




Some serious Martha Stewart stuff going on here.




Tyler doesn't like fruits or vegetables, he preferred to top his waffle with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Look at that sugar sparkle! Brilliant!

So, besides the McDonalds part that no doubt killed us all just a little bit, we did a lot of free living, including fun summer camp activities like swimming in the lake, canoeing, and bballing. We left feeling refreshed and very free. Just look at all us shining happy smiling little monkeys with our opposable thumbs!