“
Chili dogs, funnel cakes, fried bread, majorly greasy pizza, candy apples, ye gods. Evil food smells amazing -- which is either proof that there is a Satan or some equivalent out there, or that the Almighty doesn't actually want everyone to eat organic tofu all the time. I can't decide.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Side Jobs (The Dresden Files, #12.5))
“
Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.
”
”
Rex Stout
“
falling in love with Isaiah wasn’t a big, planned event. It was buying toothbrushes and providing food when I was too busy to eat. It was his mother’s ring and eating dinner together in a booth at Chili’s. It was his patience and unwavering commitment to show me my importance in his life. How lucky am I that I get to love and be loved so effortlessly?
”
”
Liz Tomforde (Play Along (Windy City, #4))
“
Chilli dawgs always bark at night.
”
”
Lewis Grizzard (Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night)
“
Out of that kitchen came food not only that I had never tasted, but that I hadn’t even dreamed of tasting. Gumbo, corn jacks and blackened fish was just the start of many dishes. It was like finding all the exotic scents in the world and wrapping as many of them as you can into a dish. Cumin and coriander, paprika, red peppers, anise and fennel, burnt orange peel and chili. It felt like the sailors from every port in the world from Morocco and Madagascar to the coast of Malabar had each brought a spice with them to throw into the cooking pot.
”
”
Harry F. MacDonald (Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll)
“
Mámá was fond of saying that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels—an aphorism I was pretty sure she'd cribbed from the thinspiration sites she subscribed to online—but I believed that anyone who said such things had never tasted chili-cheese fries with melted cheddar, fresh ground beef, and Tapatio sauce.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Locked and Loaded (The IMA, #3))
“
Every cuisine has its characteristic 'flavor principle,' Rozin contends, whether it is tomato-lemon-oregano in Greece; lime-chili in Mexico; onion-lard-paprika in Hungary, or, in Samin's Moroccan dish, cumin-coriander-cinnamon-ginger-onion-fruit. (And in America? Well, we do have Heinz ketchup, a flavor principle in a bottle that kids, or their parents, use to domesticate every imaginable kind of food. We also now have the familiar salty-umami taste of fast food, which I would guess is based on salt, soy oil, and MSG.
”
”
Michael Pollan (Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation)
“
This is my heart, says the warm sugar on my lips and the salt and spice on his. This is my heart, says the warm sugar of the vanilla. This is the inside of me, murmurs the cinnamon. This is everything that hurts, confesses the bright edge of chili powder, and everything I miss and everything I hope for. This is everything I do not say but that I hold in me whispers that breath of salt at the end. This is my hidden heart of color and sugar the things you might miss if I did not show you they were there.
”
”
Anna-Marie McLemore (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
Some very common foods and drinks are aversive. Few people enjoy, at first, coffee, beer, tobacco, or chili pepper. Pleasure from pain is uniquely human. No other animal willingly eats such foods when there are alternatives. Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans—language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.
”
”
Paul Bloom (How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like)
“
If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak ’n Shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice was up to me, it would be Steak ’n Shake. If the pope was to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, “Your Holiness, have you tried the Chili Mac or the Chili 3-Ways?” A downstate Illinois boy loves the Steak ’n Shake as a Puerto Rican loves rice and beans, an Egyptian loves falafel, a Brit loves bangers and mash, a Finn loves reindeer jerky, and a Canadian loves doughnuts. This doesn’t involve taste. It involves a deep-seated conviction that a food is right, has always been right, and always will be.
”
”
Roger Ebert (Life Itself)
“
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a great song about a bridge. And I can relate, because I love spicy food.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (The Lewis and Clark of The Ozarks)
“
Sichuan food would not be Sichuanese without the hot chilies that arrived before 1700 from South America.
”
”
Raymond Sokolov (Why We Eat What We Eat: How Columbus Changed the Way the World Eats)
“
Everyone knew..., like they knew the Earth circled the sun and never to order the chili dog from Dirty Doug's unless you were ready to butt-trumpet your way through the following twenty-four hours.
”
”
Stephanie Wrobel (Darling Rose Gold)
“
In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as though dipped in hot broths and roasted dry and good enough to eat too. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I’d eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. There were places where they specialized in thick and red roast beef au jus, or roast chicken basted in wine. There were places where hamburgs sizzled on grills and the coffee was only a nickel. And oh, that pan-fried chow mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman’s Wharf — nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits! Throw in the Market Street chili beans, redhot, and french-fried potatoes of the Embarcadero wino night, and steamed clams from Sausalito across the bay, and that’s my ah-dream of San Francisco…
”
”
Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
“
He kisses me, the taste of sugar on my lips, and salt and spice on his.
This is my heart, says the warm sugar of the vanilla.
This is the inside of me, murmurs the cinnamon.
This is everything that hurts, confesses the bright edge of chili powder, and everything I miss and everything I hope for.
This is everything I do not say but that I hold in me, whispers that breath of salt at the end. This is my hidden heart of color and sugar, the things you might miss if I did not show you they were there.
”
”
Anna-Marie McLemore (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
Margo missed cooking for people- really cooking. Here family, her friends, even her husband. Her greatest pleasure had come when they rolled their eyes with the ecstasy of a bite of her chicken spiedini, oozing with melted cheese under a crisp crust of buttery fried panko. Or her Cincinnati chili, aromatic with cinnamon and cocoa, which she served on homemade corn spaghetti. Topped with aged cheddar and sharp, fresh-chopped onion, it had been one of Calvin's favorites, and he always had her make it for Redskins games on Sundays.
”
”
Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
“
HERE IS A LIST of foods we discovered in America: Peanut butter. Marshmallows. Barbecue sauce. (You can say, “Can I have BBQ?” to a kid’s mom at potlucks and they’ll know what you mean.) Puppy chow. (Chex cereal covered in melted chocolate and peanut butter and tossed in powdered sugar. They only give it if you win a Valentine friend.) Corn-chip pie (not a pie). (Chili on top of corn chips with cheese and sour cream (not sour).) Some mores. (They say it super fast like s’mores.) Banana puddin. (They don’t say the g. Sometimes they don’t even say the b.) Here is a list of the foods from Iran that they have never heard of here: All of it. All the food. Jared Rhodes didn’t even know what a date was.
”
”
Daniel Nayeri (Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story))
“
But falling in love with Isaiah wasn’t a big, planned event. It was buying toothbrushes and providing food when I was too busy to eat. It was his mother’s ring and eating dinner together in a booth at Chili’s. It was his patience and unwavering commitment to show me my importance in his life. How lucky am I that I get to love and be loved so effortlessly?
”
”
Liz Tomforde (Play Along (Windy City, #4))
“
The torta, Mexico’s version of the sandwich, is the quintessential comida capitalina – urban fast food that is both European and truly Mexican. According to legend, they were invented at the turn of the 20th century by one Sr. Armando, an Italian immigrant, as his riff on the Italian pannino, adapting it to available ingredients and the locals’ penchant for avocado and chili.
”
”
Nicholas Gilman (Good Food in Mexico City: Food Stalls, Fondas and Fine Dining)
“
Annie’s forehead creases into a frown. “I’m alright, thank you. So you carry around a bottle of chili sauce with you?” “Oh yes, of course. Otherwise I not so enjoy the food.” This is why I can never take my family to nice restaurants. I’ve tried explaining countless times why it’s rude to bring your own chili sauce to restaurants or other people’s homes, but they just don’t get it.
”
”
Jesse Q. Sutanto (Four Aunties and a Wedding (Aunties, #2))
“
Her mother sounded angrily amused, a combination that made Jessie’s head spin. It seemed to her that only adults could combine emotions in so many daffy ways - if feelings were food, adult feelings would be things like chocolate-covered steak, mashed potatoes with pineapple bits, Special K with chili powder sprinkled on it instead of sugar. Jessie thought that being an adult seemed more like a punishment than a reward.
”
”
Stephen King (Gerald's Game)
“
My food, they generously agreed, was fantastic.
I opened a midpriced restaurant in Paris that served the kind of cuisine that would become commonplace, Italianish and Chinese Americanish for a new age. Chili oil and ricotta shared space with mung flour, dandelion greens, ash. As the first of its kind, my restaurant was a minor success. It expanded to half a dozen locations before young and hungry chefs came flooding back into Paris.
”
”
C Pam Zhang (Land of Milk and Honey)
“
Memories fill my mind, as though they are my own, of not just events from Gideon's life, but of various flavors and textures: breast milk running easily down into my stomach, chicken cooked with butter and parsley, split peas and runner beans and butter beans, and oranges and peaches, strawberries freshly picked from the plant; hot, strong coffees each morning; pasta and walnuts and bread and brie; then something sweet: a pan cotta, with rose and saffron, and a white wine: tannin, soil, stone fruits, white blossom; and---oh my god---ramen, soba, udon, topped with nori and sesame seeds; miso with tofu and spring onions, fugu and tuna sashimi dipped in soy sauce, onigiri with a soured plum stuffed in the middle; and then something I don't know, something unfamiliar but at the same time deeply familiar, something I didn't realize I craved: crispy ground lamb, thick, broken noodles, chili oil, fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk, tamarind... and then a bright green dessert---the sweet, floral flavor of pandan fills my mouth.
”
”
Claire Kohda (Woman, Eating)
“
Margo missed cooking for people- really cooking. Her family, her friends, even her husband. Her greatest pleasure had come when they rolled their eyes with the ecstasy of a bite of her chicken spiedini, oozing with melted cheese under a crisp crust of buttery fried panko. Or her Cincinnati chili, aromatic with cinnamon and cocoa, which she served on homemade corn spaghetti. Topped with aged cheddar and sharp, fresh-chopped onion, it had been one of Calvin's favorites, and he always had her make it for Redskins games on Sundays.
”
”
Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
“
SHRIMP LOUIE SPREAD Hannah’s Note: This is best served well chilled with a basket of crackers on the side. 8 ounces softened cream cheese ½ cup mayonnaise ¼ cup chili sauce (I used Heinz) 1 Tablespoon horseradish (I used Silver Springs) 1/8 teaspoon pepper 6 green onions 2 cups finely chopped cooked salad shrimp*** (measure AFTER chopping) Salt to taste Mix the cream cheese with the mayonnaise. Add the chili sauce, horseradish, and pepper. Mix it up into a smooth sauce. Clean the green onions and cut off the bottoms. Use all of the white part and up to an inch of the green part. Throw the tops away. Mince the onions as finely as you can and add them to the sauce. Stir them in well. Chop the salad shrimp into fine bits. You can do this with a sharp knife, or in the food processor using the steel blade and an on-and-off motion. Mix in the shrimp and check to see how salty the spread is. Add salt if needed. Chill the spread in a covered bowl in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. You can make it in the morning if you plan to serve it that night. Yield: Makes approximately 3 cups.
”
”
Joanne Fluke (Plum Pudding Murder (Hannah Swensen, #12))
“
In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco. There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as though dipped in hot broths and roasted dry and good enough to eat too. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I’d eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws. There were places where they specialized in thick red roast beef au jus, or roast chicken basted in wine. There were places where hamburgs sizzled on grills and the coffee was only a nickel. And oh, that pan-fried chow mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman’s Wharf—nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits! Throw in the Market Street chili beans, redhot, and french-fried potatoes of the Embarcadero wino night, and steamed clams from Sausalito across the bay, and that’s my ah-dream of San Francisco. Add fog, hunger-making raw fog, and the throb of neons in the soft night, the clack of high-heeled beauties, white doves in a Chinese grocery window . . .
”
”
Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
“
You did your best to be a good student. You chopped and cooked and measured and served according to her wishes. But sometimes you wondered if the stall could stand to be upgraded with modern comfort food. With pandan ensaymada instead of the increasingly popular but also growingly common ube, the fresh bread from the oven and the cheese still melting, sweetly fragrant from the infusion of those steeped leaves and as simple as a summer morning. Or chopped watermelons in bulalo soup to replace tomatoes, for that extra tang. Or even pork adobo, but with chili and sweet pineapples. You had so many ideas.
”
”
Rin Chupeco (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
Chikako and Ben's lives are inexorably linked linked to an ever-expanding list of seasonal tasks. In summer, they work through the garden bounty, drying and pickling the fruits and vegetables at peak ripeness. Fall brings chestnuts to pick, chili paste to make, mushrooms to hunt. Come winter, Noto's seas are flush with the finest sea creatures, which means pickling fish for hinezushi and salting squid guts for ishiri. In the spring, after picking mountain vegetables and harvesting seaweed, they plant the garden and begin the cycle that will feed them, their family, and their guests in the year ahead.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
There were, inevitably, children’s clothing stores, furniture shops still offering bedroom sets by layaway, and dollar stores whose awnings teemed with suspended inflatable dolls, beach chairs, laundry carts, and other impulse purchases a mom might make on a Saturday afternoon, exhausted by errand running with her kids. There was the sneaker store where Olga used to buy her cute kicks, the fruit store Prieto had worked at in high school, the little storefront that sold the kind of old-lady bras Abuelita used to wear. On the sidewalks, the Mexican women began to set up their snack stands. Mango with lime and chili on this corner, tamales on that. Until the Mexicans had come to Sunset Park, Olga had never tried any of this food, and now she always tried to leave a little room to grab a snack on her way home. Despite the relatively early hour, most of the shops were open, music blasting into the streets, granting the avenue the aura of a party. In a few more hours, cars with their stereos pumping, teens with boom boxes en route to the neighborhood’s public pool, and laughing children darting in front of their mothers would add to the cacophony that Olga had grown to think of as the sound of a Saturday.
”
”
Xóchitl González (Olga Dies Dreaming)
“
It starts with chicken thigh meat cut into big, thick chunks. They're then set to marinate for the morning in a Nikumi- Original Marinade featuring soy sauce and cayenne pepper.
"Breading done."
"Thanks!"
"Man, the smell of this chicken deep-frying is so good, it's making me hungry!"
"Is it done yet? I wanna eat!"
After the chicken breast has been fried not once but twice...
... it, along with lettuce leaves and other leafy herbs...
... is all wrapped up in our special, freshly cooked wrap!
Some of our "Secret Chili Sauce" (which has a dash of Thai Nam Pla in it for flavor)...
... and a sprinkling of fresh cracked black pepper top it all off!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 5 [Shokugeki no Souma 5] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #5))
“
They walked quickly through the kitchen. A woman in a blue salwar kameez skewered bright orange pieces of chicken to go into the tandoor. An older woman was peeling and slicing a bag of onions. Two cooks in white aprons stirred pots full of spicy potatoes, braised lamb, and chunks of paneer swimming in creamy spinach. At the back of the kitchen, the cook who had glared at him when he had come to talk to Nasir used a giant paddle to stir a vat of what appeared to be goat curry.
Sam breathed in the sweet mixed aroma of cardamom, turmeric, garam masala, and fresh chilies as Daisy led him past the stainless steel counters. It was the smell of his mother's kitchen last night when they'd had dinner together. The scent of home.
”
”
Sara Desai (The Marriage Game (Marriage Game, #1))
“
The pan dulce was perfect, and it gave Anna an idea. Talking to Lila about her favorite memories of her mother had shaken loose parts of the past she had either forgotten or overlooked. Like the songs her mother would sing as she cooked the one and only thing she ever cooked; like that time they visited the family coffee estate and Mum shot a rampaging wild boar and then they cooked and ate it later that night; like the smell of rain in the forest; like the fat, sour gooseberries they would pick off the trees; like fresh peppercorns straight off the vine; like countless other jumbled memories and smells and tastes and sounds that had been tucked away in some corner of her mind gathering dust for so long.
Mum's favorite dish, the one and only thing she ever cooked.
I'm going to make it.
Anna had never learned how to make it, because she had always arrogantly assumed her mother would be around forever, but she had eaten it so many times that she was sure she could recreate it by memory and taste alone. This is it. Her favorite food. She would have to thank Lila for the inspiration later. This was the connection she had been afraid she would never find. It was a way to hold on to everything she had lost.
"Can I borrow your wallet, Dad?"
Excited for the first time in what felt like months, Anna rushed out to the neighborhood grocery store and picked out the ingredients she hoped would work. Curry leaves, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, garlic, green chilies, red chilies, limes, honey, and, finally, a fresh shoulder of pork.
”
”
Sangu Mandanna (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
Then I stared at Arnold's bánh mì. The oil had yellowed the bread. Cartoonishly red hot sauce crisscrossed juicy chunks of chicken. It was topped with shredded coriander, chopped chilies, and translucent slivers of onion. I lifted my spoon, and then I heard myself speak.
"Can I have that?" I put down my spoon and pointed at Arnold's sandwich.
"What?" Arnold replied.
"Your sandwich? Can we switch, please? I don't want this soup. I don't know why I asked for it."
I lifted up my bowl and handed it over. Arnold received it because he had no choice and watched as I lifted up his bánh mì and deposited it in front of myself. I wrapped both hands around it and took a large bite before he could protest. I felt the tiny slices of chili deliciously tingle my lips. I made a full-bodied sound to demonstrate my pleasure.
”
”
Lara Williams (Supper Club)
“
Lobster tomalley fish innards! The richness of all the ingredients have melded into one powerful whole! What a robust, almost wild flavor!
Next, let's try the broth together with the noodles... here I go!
Ye gods! I have to hold myself together or I'll black out! As it is, that was nearly a knockout punch! Who knew umami flavor could be this powerfully violent!
How about the toppings? I see three varieties of shredded cheese. Rouille... *Rouille is a type of aioli, usually consisting of olive oil, breadcrumbs and various spices like garlic and chili flakes. It, along with croutons and cheese, is a standard garnish to Soupe de Poisson.* And are those tempura flakes? Aha! He must have added those as a crouton analogue!
And finally the rusk! It looks like it's been spread with Échiré butter and well toasted. Perhaps it was added as a palate cleanser for after that strong, rich broth.
WHAT?! What an intense, aromatic flavor! But where is all of this coming from?!
Hm? What are these pink flakes in the butter? Wait, now I see! Those shells he crushed! He had them dried to increase their umami flavor!"
"It's about time you noticed. I added those powdered shells to everything in this dish, from the soup stock to the butter on the rusk."
"See, the umami flavor in lobsters and shrimp comes from three elements: glycine, arginine and proline. Of all seafood, crustaceans carry the highest concentration of umami components, y'know.
Since Ryo took that powdered lobster shell- chock full of those three umami components- and added it to every element of the dish...
... it's, like, only natural that it's flavor is going to have a strong umami punch.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 9 [Shokugeki no Souma 9] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #9))
“
Irie serves me three ramens, including a bowl made with a rich dashi and head-on shrimp and another studded with spicy ground pork and wilted spinach and lashed with chili oil. Both are exceptionally delicious, sophisticated creations, but it's his interpretation of tonkotsu that leaves me muttering softly to myself. The noodles are firm and chewy, the roast pork is striped with soft deposits of warm fat, and the toppings- white curls of shredded spring onion, chewy strips of bamboo, a perfect square of toasted seaweed- are skillfully applied. Here it is the combination of tare, the culmination of years of careful tinkering, and broth, made from whole pig heads and knots of ginger, that defies the laws of tonkotsu: a soup with the savory, meaty intensity of a broth made from a thousand pigs that's light enough to leave you wanting more. And more. And more.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
The two palm worms are brought in separate bowls, still alive, wriggling fiercely in a bath of turpentine-colored fish sauce with a few slivers of chili. The glossy brown heads of the grubs, the larvae of a weevil that infests palm trees, glisten like popcorn seeds; the wriggling abdomens have pale rubbery ridges. The owner of the restaurant, chubby and affable, comes out to instruct Nhat and me: we are to grasp the heads, pull off the fat white bodies with our teeth, and discard the heads, taking care that the larvae do not nip our tongues with their formidable pincers in the process. Biting down on squirming larvae seems barbaric, but my brain is starting to swim due to hunger, and the fish sauce is muskily aromatic. How bad could their fat glistening bodies taste? And am I not a direct descendant of insectivores, albeit roughly 100 million years removed? I
”
”
Stephen Le (100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today)
“
Elijah had roasted duck confit legs in toasted, ground coriander, cumin, and chili; he'd paired it with a strawberry and pink peppercorn gastrique sauce drizzled overtop and dotted on the platter. He'd baked walnut, ramp, and queso fresco financiers in small round molds and topped each of them with a strawberry flower. He'd colored more of his homemade queso fresco---one of Penelope's recipes---with beet powder, which he'd molded into spheres, dotted with nigella seeds, and topped with strawberry stems to approximate the look of strawberries while adding a creamy element to the dish. To punctuate the strawberry-patch appearance further and add another contrast, he'd scattered pickled half-ripe strawberry cubes, more strawberry blossoms, and tiny, fragrant yellow and red alpine strawberries across the plate. Shards of sumptuous, crispy duck skin finished the plate.
”
”
Jennieke Cohen (My Fine Fellow)
“
But your lolas took offense at being called witches. That is an Amerikano term, they scoff, and that they live in the boroughs of an American city makes no difference to their biases. Mangkukulam was what they styled themselves as, a title still spoken of with fear in their motherland, with its suggestions of strange healing and old-world sorcery.
Nobody calls their place along Pepper Street Old Manila, either, save for the women and their frequent customers. It was a carinderia, a simple eatery folded into three food stalls; each manned by a mangkukulam, each offering unusual specialties:
Lola Teodora served kare-kare, a healthy medley of eggplant, okra, winged beans, chili peppers, oxtail, and tripe, all simmered in a rich peanut sauce and sprinkled generously with chopped crackling pork rinds. Lola Teodora was made of cumin, and her clients tiptoed into her stall, meek as mice and trembling besides, only to stride out half an hour later bursting at the seams with confidence.
But bagoong- the fermented-shrimp sauce served alongside the dish- was the real secret; for every pound of sardines you packed into the glass jars you added over three times that weight in salt and magic. In six months, the collected brine would turn reddish and pungent, the proper scent for courage.
unlike the other mangkukulam, Lola Teodora's meal had only one regular serving, no specials. No harm in encouraging a little bravery in everyone, she said, and with her careful preparations it would cause little harm, even if clients ate it all day long.
Lola Florabel was made of paprika and sold sisig: garlic, onions, chili peppers, and finely chopped vinegar-marinated pork and chicken liver, all served on a sizzling plate with a fried egg on top and calamansi for garnish. Sisig regular was one of the more popular dishes, though a few had blanched upon learning the meat was made from boiled pigs' cheeks and head.
”
”
Rin Chupeco (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a must-stop is Fort Wayne Coney Island Weiner Stand, where you get the hot dog with way too many fresh-cut onions and a dollop of chili on top. How dogs that are prepared this way in the Midwest are known as "Coney Island hot dogs" but have really nothing to do with Coney Island, New York. The only thing that I can figure out about the origin of the name is that a hundred years ago when someone from Fort Wayne, Indiana, decided to open a hot dog place, they named it after Coney Island, because that seemed like a faraway place where people ate hot dogs and they would probably sell more "Coney Island hot dogs" than "chili dogs" (as everyone else called them) because Coney Island sounded more romantic. Yes, to people in Fort Wayne in 1914, Coney Island seemed romantic. Fort Wayne Coney Island Weiner Stand has been serving their hot dogs that way since, well, since people wanted a pound of fresh onions and chili on their hot dog.
”
”
Jim Gaffigan (Food: A Love Story)
“
When the crab arrives, I realize I've barely given any thought to Ann and her ministrations. To my surprise she has added a few finishing touches of her own. The crab sits snugly in its pink shell, beside a neat mound of delicately green mayonnaise. How has she colored it green?
"This could be made into a curry," pronounces Mr. Arnott. "In Madras, curried sea oysters are considered the pinnacle of fine food. Anything can be curried... fish, fowl, even eggs."
"Eggs?" Again, he has intrigued me.
"Indeed eggs," he says. "Hard-boiled and placed in a hot curried gravy, they are quite delicious."
I taste the mayonnaise, trying to fathom how Ann has greened it. Simultaneously I try to commit Mr. Arnott's recipe for curried eggs to memory, while also checking the seasoning in the crab.
"Do you think the crab would benefit from a little more lemon juice?" I ask. "Or perhaps chili vinegar should have been used."
"It is certainly fresh." He slowly savors the crab upon his tongue. "It tastes of the sea.
”
”
Annabel Abbs (Miss Eliza's English Kitchen)
“
I found Chinatown both impossibly sophisticated and unbearably out of vogue. Chinese restaurants were a guilty pleasure of mine. I loved how they evoked the living world- either the Walden-like sense of individualism of the Ocean or Happy Garden, or something more candid ("Yummies!"). Back home they had been a preserve of birthdays and special celebrations: a lazy Susan packed with ribs and Peking duck, rhapsodically spun to the sound of Fleetwood Mac or the Police, with banana fritters drenched in syrup and a round of flowering tea to finish. It felt as cosmopolitan a dining experience as I would ever encounter. Contextualized amid the big-city landscape of politicized microbreweries and sushi, a hearty table of MSG and marinated pork felt at best crass, at worst obscurely racist. But there was something about the gloop and the sugar that I couldn't resist. And Chinatown was peculiarly untouched by my contemporaries, so I could happily nibble at plates of salt and chili squid or crispy Szechuan beef while leafing through pages of a magazine in peace.
”
”
Lara Williams (Supper Club)
“
Chef Kishen dazzled the table. I, on the other hand, transport people to dazzling places. But I have never been able to cook like him. His touch was precise. As if music. He appraised fruits, vegetables, meats, with astonishment, and grasped them with humility, with reverence, very carefully as if they were the most fragile objects in the world. Before cooking he would ask: Fish, what would you like to become? Basil, where did you lose your heart? Lemon: It is not who you touch, but how you touch. Learn from big elaichi. There, there. Karayla, meri jaan, why are you so prudish? ... Cinnamon was 'hot', cumin 'cold', nutmeg caused good erections. Exactly: 32 kinds of tarkas. 'Garlic is a woman, Kip. Avocado, a man. Coconut, a hijra... Chilies are South American. Coffee, Arabian. "Curry powder" is a British invention. There is no such thing as Indian food, Kip. But there are Indian methods (Punjabi-Kashmiri-Tamil-Goan-Bengali-Hyderabadi). Allow a dialogue between our methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world. Japan, Italy, Afghanistan. Make something new. Channa goes well with artichokes. Rajmah with brie and parsley. Don't get stuck inside nationalities.
”
”
Jaspreet Singh (Chef)
“
He had in his head a scrapbook of the tastes that had impacted him the most during his travels: goat cheese and olive oil in California, the tropical fruits and chilies of South America, everything that had touched his lips in Japan. When Angelo and Paolo talk about their travels, they turn to the memories- the parties, the people, the crazy times had, always with the metronome of mozzarella beating in the background. But what followed Vito were the flavors- the dishes, the ingredients, and techniques unknown to most of Italy.
"When I came back from Japan, there were six kilos of matcha, two kilos of coconut powder, and twelve bottles of Nikka whiskey in my bag. In Rome they stopped me and opened the bag. They thought they had caught me with cocaine. I told the guy to open up the bag and taste."
Vito didn't drink Nikka (he and his brothers rarely drink alcohol); instead, he emptied all twelve bottles into a wooden bucket, where he now soaks blue cheese made from sheep's milk to make what he calls formaggio clandestino. He stirs up a spoon of high-grade matcha powder into Dicecca's fresh goat yogurt and sells it in clear plastic tubs, anxious for anyone- a loyal client, a stranger, a disheveled writer- to taste something new.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
“
Everyone jumps to their stations and I meet Richard and Amanda at ours. We're in charge of assembling spoonfuls of sweet-potato casserole but with a Spanish twist. That was my idea, a Southern holiday meal meets a twist of southern Spain. Most of the hors d'oeuvres were prepared beforehand so we just need to get them in the oven and put on the finishing garnishes. I begin scooping sweet-potato casserole onto ceramic serving spoons while Richard garnishes them with sugared walnuts and Spanish sausage. Three months ago, most of us had never even tried Spanish cuisine, and today we're hosting a semi-Spanish-themed banquet.
We work like machines. I spoon and pass the bite to my left. Richard adds walnuts and sausage, and passes the plate. Amanda adds parsley and cleans the plate. Chili aioli would make this bomb. A sweet and savory bite. I almost walk to the spice cabinet, then stop myself.
That's not the recipe.
We make trays and trays of food; some are set forward for the students who will begin serving. These are the skewers of winter veggies and single-serve portions of herbed stuffing with jamón ibérico- the less hearty bites. While the first course is being distributed the rest of us begin wiping down our stations. Our mini bites of sweet potato and mac and cheese will be going out next.
”
”
Elizabeth Acevedo (With the Fire on High)
“
Today I've prepared roasted quail spiced with sumac, coriander, and chili, atop sweet corn cachapas, which, as you see, are griddle cakes made from corn. I've also battered and fried fresh courgette blossoms stuffed with farmer's cheese." Elijah swallowed again. It was a deceptively simple dish. The cachapas were perhaps the least complicated, and possibly something royalty might find rather humble, but his uncle Jonathan had gotten the recipe on a voyage that had put in at a port in Venezuela long ago, and Elijah had perfected it over the years whenever he could get enough sweet corn.
Princess Adelaide eyed the dish, as though surprised it didn't look more elaborate. She looked up at him with a quizzical expression.
He kept his gaze steady. He'd always thought that food was a great equalizer, for whatever someone's creed or race or religion, every person had to eat to survive. This exhibition seemed to confirm his belief. The Royal Exhibition was showcasing the different cultures and cuisines of over thirty countries, and from what Elijah had seen, everyone was welcome, no matter where they hailed from in the world. Elijah's first instinct had been to make something from his food culture, something that would subtly---or perhaps, not so subtly---say, I'm Jewish and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
”
”
Jennieke Cohen (My Fine Fellow)
“
She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?"
Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?"
"I like food."
"You don't say."
"And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly.
"Sit," he said.
And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket.
Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her.
Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend."
"It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper.
"It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek.
Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken."
Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous."
"It is!"
He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer.
”
”
Jeffrey Stepakoff (The Orchard)
“
When you buy from an independent, locally owned business, as opposed to nationally owned businesses, you strengthen the economic base of our city. And of course there’s no doubt that you’ll receive a better quality product or service. I share John Roeser’s amazement that people today tend to prefer saving a dollar or too two on a birthday cake, for example, by purchasing a sub-par cake made with artificial, cheap ingredients from a mass retailer, when Roeser’s Bakery offers some of the most delectable, housemade cakes in the world. How could anyone step into a fast food joint when we live in a city that has Lem’s barbecque rib tips, Kurowski’s kielbasa, Manny’s matzo ball soup, and Lindy’s chili within reach? You can’t even compare the products and services of the businesses featured in this book with those of mass retailers, either: Jjust try putting an Optimo hat on your head—you’ll ooze with elegance. Burn a beeswax lambathe from Athenian Candle and watch it glow longer than any candle you’ve ever lit. Bite into an Andersonville coffeecake from the Swedish Bakery—and you’ll have a hard time returning to the artificial ingredient– laden cakes found at most grocers.
Equally important, local, family- owned businesses keep our city unique. In our increasingly homogenized and globalized world, cities that hold on tightly to their family-owned, distinctive businesses are more likely to attract visitors, entrepreneurs, and new investment.
Chicago just wouldn’t be Chicago without these historic, one-of-a-kind places, and the people that run them from behind the scenes with nothing but love, hard work, and pride.
”
”
Amy Bizzarri (Discovering Vintage Chicago: A Guide to the City's Timeless Shops, Bars, Delis & More)
“
The broth... it's made with a mix of soy milk and charred miso. But how could you get a flavor this robust with just those?"
"I mixed in grated ebi taro root. It's a strongly flavored tuber that mashes easily into a smooth, thick paste. Adding that to the broth gave it a creamy texture and a richer flavor."
"Weird. All of a sudden I'm starting to feel warm."
"That's the chili oil and grated raw garlic and ginger taking effect. The soy milk took the edge off of the spicy bite... so now it just gently warms the body without burning the tongue."
"The rest of the ingredients are also a parade of detailed work. Thin slices of lotus root and burdock deep-fried to a crispy golden brown. Chunky strips of carrot and turnip grilled over an open flame until lightly charred and then seasoned with just a little rock salt to bring out their natural sweetness. Like a French buffet, each side ingredient is cooked in exactly the best way to bring out its full flavor!
But the keystone to it all...
... is the TEMPEH!"
TEMPEH
Originating in Indonesia, tempeh is made of soybeans fermented into a cake form. Soybeans are lightly cooked and then wrapped in either banana or hibiscus leaves. When stored, the naturally occurring bacteria in the leaves causes the soybeans to ferment into tempeh. Traditional food with a history over four hundred years long, tempeh is well-known and often used in Indonesian cuisine.
"Mm! Wow! It's really light, yet really filling too! Like fried rice."
"It has a texture a lot like that of a burger patty, so vegetarians and people on macrobiotic diets use it a lot as a meat substitute.
I broiled these teriyaki style in a mix of soy sauce and sake.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 6 [Shokugeki no Souma 6] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #6))
“
Fukuoka, more than any other city in Japan, is responsible for ramen's rocket-ship trajectory, and the ensuing shift in Japan's cultural identity abroad. Between Hide-Chan, Ichiran, and Ippudo- three of the biggest ramen chains in the world- they've brought the soup to corners of the globe that still thought ramen meant a bag of dried noodles and a dehydrated spice packet. But while Ichiran and Ippudo are purveyors of classic tonkotsu, undoubtedly the defining ramen of the modern era, Hideto has a decidedly different belief about ramen and its mutability.
"There are no boundaries for ramen, no rules," he says. "It's all freestyle."
As we talk at his original Hide-Chan location in the Kego area of Fukuoka, a new bowl arrives on the table, a prototype for his borderless ramen philosophy. A coffee filter is filled with katsuobushi, smoked skipjack tuna flakes, and balanced over a bowl with a pair of chopsticks. Hideto pours chicken stock through the filter, which soaks up the katsuobushi and emerges into the bowl as clear as a consommé. He adds rice noodles and sawtooth coriander then slides it over to me.
Compared with other Hide-Chan creations, though, this one shows remarkable restraint. While I sip the soup, Hideto pulls out his cell phone and plays a video of him layering hot pork cheeks and cold noodles into a hollowed-out porcelain skull, then dumping a cocktail shaker filled with chili oil, shrimp oil, truffle oil, and dashi over the top. Other creations include spicy arrabbiata ramen with pancetta and roasted tomatoes, foie gras ramen with orange jam and blueberry miso, and black ramen made with bamboo ash dipped into a mix of miso and onions caramelized for forty-five days.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
Every few months or so at home, Pops had to have Taiwanese ’Mian. Not the Dan-Dan Mian you get at Szechuan restaurants or in Fuchsia Dunlop’s book, but Taiwanese Dan-Dan. The trademark of ours is the use of clear pork bone stock, sesame paste, and crushed peanuts on top. You can add chili oil if you want, but I take it clean because when done right, you taste the essence of pork and the bitterness of sesame paste; the texture is somewhere between soup and ragout. Creamy, smooth, and still soupy. A little za cai (pickled radish) on top, chopped scallions, and you’re done. I realized that day, it’s the simple things in life. It’s not about a twelve-course tasting of unfamiliar ingredients or mass-produced water-added rib-chicken genetically modified monstrosity of meat that makes me feel alive. It’s getting a bowl of food that doesn’t have an agenda. The ingredients are the ingredients because they work and nothing more. These noodles were transcendent not because he used the best produce or protein or because it was locally sourced, but because he worked his dish. You can’t buy a championship.
Did this old man invent Dan-Dan Mian? No. But did he perfect it with techniques and standards never before seen? Absolutely. He took a dish people were making in homes, made it better than anyone else, put it on front street, and established a standard. That’s professional cooking. To take something that already speaks to us, do it at the highest level, and force everyone else to step up, too. Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard. That’s what that Dan-Dan Mian did. If I had the honor of cooking my father’s last meal, I wouldn’t think twice. Dan-Dan Mian with a bullet, no question.
”
”
Eddie Huang (Fresh Off the Boat)
“
We begin with an onion soup as smoky and fragrant as autumn leaves, with croutons and grated Gruyère and a sprinkle of paprika over the top. She serves and watches me throughout, waiting, perhaps, for me to produce from thin air an even more perfect confection that will cast her effort into the shade.
Instead I eat, and talk, and smile, and compliment the chef, and the chink of crockery goes through her head, and she feels slightly dazed, not quite herself. Well, pulque is a mysterious brew, and the punch is liberally spiked with it, courtesy of Yours Truly, of course, in honor of the joyful occasion. As comfort, perhaps, she serves more punch, and the scent of the cloves is like being buried alive, and the taste is like chilies spiced with fire, and she wonders, Will it ever end?
The second course is sweet foie gras, sliced on thin toast with quinces and figs. It's the snap that gives this dish its charm, like the snap of correctly tempered chocolate, and the foie gras melts so lingeringly in the mouth, as soft as praline truffle, and it is served with a glass of ice-cold Sauternes that Anouk disdains, but which Rosette sips in a tiny glass no larger than a thimble, and she gives her rare and sunny smile, and signs impatiently for more.
The third course is a salmon baked en papillote and served whole, with a béarnaise sauce. Alice complains she is nearly full, but Nico shares his plate with her, feeding her tidbits and laughing at her minuscule appetite.
Then comes the pièce de résistance: the goose, long roasted in a hot oven so that the fat has melted from the skin, leaving it crisp and almost caramelized, and the flesh so tender it slips off the bones like a silk stocking from a lady's leg. Around it there are chestnuts and roast potatoes, all cooked and crackling in the golden fat.
”
”
Joanne Harris (The Girl with No Shadow (Chocolat, #2))
“
Carbonara: The union of al dente noodles (traditionally spaghetti, but in this case rigatoni), crispy pork, and a cloak of lightly cooked egg and cheese is arguably the second most famous pasta in Italy, after Bologna's tagliatelle al ragù. The key to an excellent carbonara lies in the strategic incorporation of the egg, which is added raw to the hot pasta just before serving: add it when the pasta is too hot, and it will scramble and clump around the noodles; add it too late, and you'll have a viscous tide of raw egg dragging down your pasta.
Cacio e pepe: Said to have originated as a means of sustenance for shepherds on the road, who could bear to carry dried pasta, a hunk of cheese, and black pepper but little else. Cacio e pepe is the most magical and befuddling of all Italian dishes, something that reads like arithmetic on paper but plays out like calculus in the pan. With nothing more than these three ingredients (and perhaps a bit of oil or butter, depending on who's cooking), plus a splash of water and a lot of movement in the pan to emulsify the fat from the cheese with the H2O, you end up with a sauce that clings to the noodles and to your taste memories in equal measure.
Amatriciana: The only red pasta of the bunch. It doesn't come from Rome at all but from the town of Amatrice on the border of Lazio and Abruzzo (the influence of neighboring Abruzzo on Roman cuisine, especially in the pasta department, cannot be overstated). It's made predominantly with bucatini- thick, tubular spaghetti- dressed in tomato sauce revved up with crispy guanciale and a touch of chili. It's funky and sweet, with a mild bite- a rare study of opposing flavors in a cuisine that doesn't typically go for contrasts.
Gricia: The least known of the four kings, especially outside Rome, but according to Andrea, gricia is the bridge between them all: the rendered pork fat that gooses a carbonara or amatriciana, the funky cheese and pepper punch at the heart of cacio e pepe. "It all starts with gricia.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
“
A Mediterranean flatbread, the pita is baked at a high temperature so that puffy pockets form in the middle, which can then be stuffed with meat or beans.
He did the same thing that Secretary Girl did with her turtle burger bun...
... picking something that would keep the meat juices from dripping out the bottom!
Hmm. You used a handmade Tzatziki sauce to ameliorate the smelliness of the kebab meat and to create a mild base to make the spices stand out.
And the burger patty...
... is kofta!
A Middle Eastern meatloaf of ground beef and lamb mixed with onions and plentiful spices, its highly fragrant aroma hits the nose hard!
Its scent and umami flavor are powerful enough to bring tears to the eyes!"
W-what is going on here?! How could they eat all that greasy, heavy meat so quickly and easily?!
"Here. Let me give you a lesson.
Four things are required for a good burger. A bun, a patty, some kind of sauce and...
...pickles.
The sharp smell and tart flavor of pickles is what highlights the meaty umami of the patty.
Pickles are a hidden but key component of the best burgers!
From what I could tell, you used ginger sticks as your pickle analogue...
... but that was a weak choice."
"What?! Then what did you choose that's so much better?!"
"The pickle type that I picked for my burger...
...is achaar."
"Achaar?"
"What kind of pickle is that?"
ACHAAR
South Asian in origin, achaar consists of fruits or vegetables pickled in mustard oil or brine, and then mixed with a variety of spices.
Sometimes called Indian pickles, achaar is strongly tart and spicy.
This is achaar I made with onions.
The spicy scent of the mustard oil makes the meaty umami of the kofta patty really stands out. For the tartness, I used amchoor- also known as mango powder- a citrusy powder made from dried unripe mangoes. But that's just the base.
I added lemon juice to bolster the citrusy flavor of the amchoor...
... and then some garlic, ginger and chili peppers to give it an aroma that tickles the nose.
Cloves. Cumin seeds. Black pepper.
Paprika. I even added a dab of honey to give it a hint of sweetness.
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 10 [Shokugeki no Souma 10] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #10))
“
I have been all over the world cooking and eating and training under extraordinary chefs. And the two food guys I would most like to go on a road trip with are Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlmann, both of whom I have met, and who are genuinely awesome guys, hysterically funny and easy to be with. But as much as I want to be the Batgirl in that trio, I fear that I would be woefully unprepared. Because an essential part of the food experience that those two enjoy the most is stuff that, quite frankly, would make me ralph.
I don't feel overly bad about the offal thing. After all, variety meats seem to be the one area that people can get a pass on. With the possible exception of foie gras, which I wish like heckfire I liked, but I simply cannot get behind it, and nothing is worse than the look on a fellow foodie's face when you pass on the pate. I do love tongue, and off cuts like oxtails and cheeks, but please, no innards.
Blue or overly stinky cheeses, cannot do it. Not a fan of raw tomatoes or tomato juice- again I can eat them, but choose not to if I can help it. Ditto, raw onions of every variety (pickled is fine, and I cannot get enough of them cooked), but I bonded with Scott Conant at the James Beard Awards dinner, when we both went on a rant about the evils of raw onion. I know he is often sort of douchey on television, but he was nice to me, very funny, and the man makes the best freaking spaghetti in tomato sauce on the planet.
I have issues with bell peppers. Green, red, yellow, white, purple, orange. Roasted or raw. Idk. If I eat them raw I burp them up for days, and cooked they smell to me like old armpit. I have an appreciation for many of the other pepper varieties, and cook with them, but the bell pepper? Not my friend.
Spicy isn't so much a preference as a physical necessity. In addition to my chronic and severe gastric reflux, I also have no gallbladder. When my gallbladder and I divorced several years ago, it got custody of anything spicier than my own fairly mild chili, Emily's sesame noodles, and that plastic Velveeta-Ro-Tel dip that I probably shouldn't admit to liking. I'm allowed very occasional visitation rights, but only at my own risk. I like a gentle back-of-the-throat heat to things, but I'm never going to meet you for all-you-can-eat buffalo wings. Mayonnaise squicks me out, except as an ingredient in other things. Avocado's bland oiliness, okra's slickery slime, and don't even get me started on runny eggs.
I know. It's mortifying.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Off the Menu)
“
This rich pork flavor, which lands on the tongue with a thump...
It's Chinese
Dongpo Pork! He seasoned pork belly with a blend of spices and let it marinate thoroughly...
... before finely dicing it and mixing it into the fried rice!"
"What? Dongpo Pork prepared this fast?! No way! He didn't have nearly enough time to simmer the pork belly!"
"Heh heh. Actually, there's a little trick to that.
I simmered it in sparkling water instead of tap water. The carbon dioxide that gives sparkling water its carbonation helps break down the fibers in meat. Using this, you can tenderize a piece of meat in less than half the normal time!"
"That isn't the only protein in this dish. I can taste the seafood from an Acqua Pazza too!"
"And these green beans... it's the Indian dish Poriyal!
Diced green beans and shredded coconut fried in oil with chilies and mustard seeds... it has a wonderfully spicy kick!"
"He also used the distinctly French Mirepoix to gently accentuate the sweetness of the vegetables.
So many different delicious flavors...
... all clashing and sparking in my mouth!
But the biggest key to this dish, and the core of its amazing deliciousness...
... is the rice!"
"Hmph. Well, of course it is. The dish is fried rice. If the rice isn't the centerpiece, it isn't a..."
"I see. His dish is fried rice while simultaneously being something other than fried rice.
A rice lightly fried in butter before being steamed in some variety of soup stock...
In other words, it's actually closer to that famous staple from Turkish cuisine- a Pilaf!
In fact, it's believed the word "pilaf" actually comes from the Turkish word pilav.
To think he built the foundation of his dish on pilaf of all things!"
"Heh heh heh! Yep, that's right! Man, I've learned so much since I started going to Totsuki."
"Mm, I see! When you finished the dish, you didn't fry it in oil! That's why it still tastes so light, despite the large volume and variety of additional ingredients.
I could easily tuck away this entire plate!
Still... I'm surprised at how distinct each grain of rice is. If it was in fact steamed in stock, you'd think it'd be mushier."
"Ooh, you've got a discerning tongue, sir! See, when I steamed the rice...
... I did it in a Donabe ceramic pot instead of a rice cooker!"
Ah! No wonder!
A Donabe warms slowly, but once it's hot, it can hold high temperatures for a long time!
It heats the rice evenly, holding a steady temperature throughout the steaming process to steam off all excess water. To think he'd apply a technique for sticky rice to a pilaf instead!
With Turkish pilaf as his cornerstone...
... he added super-savory Dongpo pork, a Chinese dish...
... whitefish and clams from an Italian Acqua Pazza...
... spicy Indian green bean and red chili Poriyal...
... and for the French component, Mirepoix and Oeuf Mayonnaise as a topping!
*Ouef is the French word for "egg."*
By combining those five dishes into one, he has created an extremely unique take on fried rice!
"
"Hold it! Wait one dang minute! After listening to your entire spiel...
... it sounds to me like all he did was mix a bunch of dishes together and call it a day!
There's no way that mishmash of a dish could meet the lofty standards of the BLUE! It can't nearly be gourmet enough!"
"Oh, but it is.
For one, he steamed the pilaf in the broth from the Acqua Pazza...
... creating a solid foundation that ties together the savory elements of all the disparate ingredients!
The spiciness of the Poriyal could have destabilized the entire flavor structure...
... but by balancing it out with the mellow body of butter and soy sauce, he turned the Poriyal's sharp bite into a pleasing tingle!
”
”
Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 36 [Shokugeki no Souma 36] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #36))
“
Serves 2 Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 15 minutes Total time: 25 minutes 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets (about 4 cups) 2 cloves garlic, minced ½ cup coconut cream 2 tablespoons ghee or clarified butter 1 teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper ½ cup chicken broth 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley This may be the most versatile recipe ever. It’s a lighter substitute for mashed potatoes, and has dozens of variations to match nearly any style of cuisine. Add more chicken broth if you like it extra creamy, or keep the chicken broth to just a tablespoon or so if you prefer it really thick. Try topping with crumbled Whole30-compliant bacon or crispy prosciutto; add a blend of fresh herbs like rosemary, oregano, and thyme; kick it up a notch with 2 tablespoons of grated, peeled fresh horseradish root or 1 teaspoon chili powder; add a dollop of whole grain mustard (perfect alongside pork); or stir in shredded cabbage and kale sautéed in clarified butter or ghee. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower florets and garlic and simmer until the florets are fork-tender, about 15 minutes. Drain the cauliflower and transfer to a food processor. Add the coconut cream, ghee, salt, and pepper and pulse until the cauliflower begins to turn smooth in consistency. Add the chicken broth one tablespoon at a time, pulsing to mix, until the desired consistency is achieved. Add the parsley and continue blending until completely smooth. Serve warm. Make It a Meal: This dish goes well with anything. Seriously, anything. But if you made us pick a few favorites, we’d say Braised Beef Brisket, Chicken Meatballs, Halibut with Citrus-Ginger Glaze, and Walnut-Crusted Pork Tenderloin. ✪Mashing You can use a variety of tools for this dish, depending on how you prefer the texture of your mash. If you prefer a silky smooth mash, the food processor is a must. If you like it really chunky, use a hand tool (like a potato masher or large kitchen fork) instead. If you like your mash somewhere in between, try using an immersion blender.
”
”
Melissa Urban (The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom)
“
Serves 2 Prep Time: 10 minutes 1 avocado, pitted and peeled 2 cans (5 ounces each) tuna, drained 3 green onions, thinly sliced Juice of 1½ limes ½ jalapeño, minced 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro ½ teaspoon chili powder ½ teaspoon salt ⅛ teaspoon black pepper 1 head endive, separated into leaves This dish makes for the perfect lunch—just pack up your tuna in a glass container and wrap your leaves in a slightly damp paper towel inside a resealable bag to keep them crisp. Or, stuff the tuna salad inside a romaine lettuce leaf, hollowed-out bell pepper, tomato, or cucumber cups. This dish would also work with canned chicken or salmon and would taste amazing with a drizzle of cool Ranch Dressing or Avocado Mayo. In a medium sized bowl, mash the avocado with a fork, leaving it slightly chunky. Add the tuna to the bowl, flaking it apart with a fork, and mix to combine with the avocado. Add the onions, juice of 1 lime, jalapeño, cilantro, chili powder, salt, and pepper and mix well.
”
”
Melissa Urban (The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom)
“
Zucchini Pumpkins Squashes (any kind) Melons (any kind) Eggplant Tomatoes Bell peppers Chili peppers Goji berries Non-Southern European Cow’s Milk Products (these contain casein A-1) Yogurt (including Greek yogurt) Ice cream Frozen yogurt Cheese Ricotta Cottage cheese KefirGrains, Sprouted Grains, Pseudo-Grains, and Grasses Wheat (pressure cooking does not remove lectins from any form of wheat) Einkorn wheat Kamut Oats (cannot pressure cook) Quinoa Rye (cannot pressure cook) Bulgur White rice Brown rice Wild rice Barley (cannot pressure cook) Buckwheat Kashi Spelt
”
”
Steven R. Gundry (The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain)
“
Eggs and Nightshades You may improve your results by restricting eggs and nightshades, too. Egg whites contain proteins that can indirectly increase immune activity—a contributing factor in immune-mediated diseases. Nightshades are a group of plants that contain compounds that promote gut irritability, inflammation, joint pain and/or stiffness in sensitive individuals. Nightshades include potatoes (all varieties except sweet potatoes or yams), tomatoes, all sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, tamarios, pepinos, and spices like cayenne, chili powder, curry powder, paprika, pimento, and red pepper flakes. These two groups are the most commonly problematic in those with autoimmune conditions, chronic pain, and other immune-mediated medical conditions, so consider leaving these off your Whole30 if this is your context.
”
”
Melissa Urban (The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom)
“
Slushy spiked lemonade/beer
Boiled peanuts/homemade pickles/kettle corn
Mini corn dogs with chili ketchup, curried mustard,
and cheese sauce
Turkey leg confit
Deep-fried Brussels sprouts
Poker-chip potatoes
Ginger-pear sno-cones and cotton candy
Pumpkin funnel cake
"What the hell are poker-chip potatoes?"
"I'm going to slice the potatoes paper thin- like poker chips or carnival tokens- and line them up in a baking dish, accordion-style, with thyme, shallots, and garlic, and bake them until they're crispy around the edges but tender in the middle.
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Dana Bate (The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs)
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She had already tied on her apron and started tapping notes into her phone as Daisy laid out the ingredients: a whole kosher chicken; a bottle of olive oil, a pound of butter, a lemon. Onions, garlic, shallots, shiitake mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, and a container of arborio rice; fresh rosemary and thyme, a bag of carrots, a half-pound of asparagus, and a half-pound of sugar snap peas. That was for dinner. For pantry staples, she'd gotten flour, white and brown sugar, kosher salt and Maldon salt, pepper, chili, and paprika; for the refrigerator: milk, eggs, and half-and-half, and, for a housewarming gift, a copy of Ruth Reichl's My Kitchen Year and two quarts of her own homemade chicken stock.
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Jennifer Weiner (That Summer)
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When we first started dating, he introduced me to all his friends and colleagues as his little firecracker. That's what he started calling me after our third date, when he brought me to a Redskins party at his friend Eric's place. Eric had decided to make buffalo chili, but, in what became clear to both me and everyone else at the party, he had no idea what he was doing. Two hours into the party, after all of us had blown through the bags of tortilla chips and pretzels, Eric was still chopping red peppers. Determined not to let a room of fifteen people go hungry, I rolled up my sleeves, marched into the kitchen, and grabbed my knife. "Okay, Bobby Flay," I said as I wielded my knife. "Time to get this show on the road." I chopped and minced and crushed at rapid-fire speed, and in no time, dinner was served. "Get a load of this firecracker," Eric said as he watched me work my magic. After that, the name sort of stuck.
For a while, the nickname seemed like a good thing. Every time I would rail against fad diets or champion the importance of sustainable agriculture or lament the lack of food options in inner cities, Adam would laugh and say, "That's my little firecracker." He made me feel special, as if I were a vital part of his life. His parents were the only people from whom he seemed to hide me, and though it bothered me a little, I understood. I was the anti-Sandy. That's what made me attractive. But he hasn't called me his little firecracker in what feels like months now, and lately I feel as if he's hiding me from everyone. When did this little firecracker become a grenade?
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Dana Bate (The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs)
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Chili dogs, funnel cakes, fried bread, majorly greasy pizza, candy apples, ye gods. Evil food smells amazing—which is proof either that there is a Satan or some equivalent out there, or that the Almighty doesn’t actually want everyone to eat organic tofu all the time. I can’t decide.
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George R.R. Martin (Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love ( The Dresden Files, #11.5, Outlander, #8.5, Kushiel's Legacy, #1.5, Phèdre's Trilogy, #1.5))
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Embrace Efficiency, Elevate Flavor: Smart Kitchen Tools for Culinary Adventurers
The kitchen, once a realm of necessity, has morphed into a playground of possibility. Gone are the days of clunky appliances and tedious prep work. Enter the age of the smart kitchen tool, a revolution that whispers efficiency and shouts culinary liberation. For the modern gastronome, these tech-infused gadgets are not mere conveniences, but allies in crafting delectable adventures, freeing us to savor the journey as much as the destination.
Imagine mornings when your smart coffee maker greets you with the perfect brew, prepped by the whispers of your phone while you dream. Your fridge, stocked like a digital oracle, suggests recipes based on its ever-evolving inventory, and even automatically orders groceries you've run low on. The multi-cooker, your multitasking superhero, whips up a gourmet chili while you conquer emails, and by dinnertime, your smart oven roasts a succulent chicken to golden perfection, its progress monitored remotely as you sip a glass of wine.
But efficiency is merely the prologue. Smart kitchen tools unlock a pandora's box of culinary precision. Smart scales, meticulous to the milligram, banish recipe guesswork and ensure perfect balance in every dish. Food processors and blenders, armed with pre-programmed settings and self-cleaning prowess, transform tedious chopping into a mere blip on the culinary radar. And for the aspiring chef, a sous vide machine becomes a magic wand, coaxing impossible tenderness from the toughest cuts of meat.
Yet, technology alone is not the recipe for culinary bliss. For those who yearn to paint with flavors, smart kitchen tools are the brushes on their canvas. A connected recipe platform becomes your digital sous chef, guiding you through each step with expert instructions and voice-activated ease. Spice racks, infused with artificial intelligence, suggest unexpected pairings, urging you to venture beyond the familiar. And for the ultimate expression of your inner master chef, a custom knife, forged from heirloom steel and lovingly honed, becomes an extension of your hand, slicing through ingredients with laser focus and lyrical grace.
But amidst the symphony of gadgets and apps, let us not forget the heart of the kitchen: the human touch. Smart tools are not meant to replace our intuition but to augment it. They free us from the drudgery, allowing us to focus on the artistry, the love, the joy of creation. Imagine kneading dough, the rhythm of your hands mirroring the gentle whirring of a smart bread machine, then shaping a loaf that holds the warmth of both technology and your own spirit. Or picture yourself plating a dish, using smart portion scales for precision but garnishing with edible flowers chosen simply because they spark joy. This, my friends, is the symphony of the smart kitchen: a harmonious blend of tech and humanity, where efficiency becomes the brushstroke that illuminates the vibrant canvas of culinary passion.
Of course, every adventure, even one fueled by smart tools, has its caveats. Interoperability between gadgets can be a tangled web, and data privacy concerns linger like unwanted guests. But these challenges are mere bumps on the culinary road, hurdles to be overcome by informed choices and responsible data management. After all, we wouldn't embark on a mountain trek without checking the weather, would we?
So, embrace the smart kitchen, dear foodies! Let technology be your sous chef, your precision tool, your culinary muse. But never forget the magic of your own hands, the wisdom of your palate, and the joy of a meal shared with loved ones. For in the end, it's not about the gadgets, but the memories we create around them, the stories whispered over simmering pots, and the laughter echoing through a kitchen filled with the aroma of possibility.
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Daniel Thomas
“
The government cheese…
The cheese of the government may be tempered with real cheese powders however it’s constantly not the best thing you should eat in the world. You can make a traditional grilled cheese sandwich. With American cheese which is just vegetable oil with food coloring as well as the skim of milk. However, that’s just government milk with government oil to make governments grilled cheese sandwich so be the nation can afford to eat. Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s humbling to know the value of a dollar. Compare it to the sales at every single store. You find government cheese made by companies that have been around since the 1900s. There are many cheeses of the world. Every single country makes cheese. Some really good ones and some that smell like someone cut the cheese. The government cheese can be put on a hamburger, which isn’t made of ham at all. The cheese can be melted to broccoli or put in macaroni and cheese as a quick meal with vegetables if any kind basically that is just homemade some sort of helper, then. As to the box of the content we all know as to all have eaten in our lifetime says so in really big letters. In directions anyone can understand. The government cheese can be put in that as well. For it will taste really good, nonetheless. All hail the government cheese. It’s affordable as well as delicious if you don’t like other cheeses. It can be melted to be slopped on chili cheese dogs. At every bbq in every household across the world. So don’t make fun of government cheese for there is also government bread as well as government water as well as many other governments benefits you can enjoy. Again, we can all hail at the government cheese. Now the people that can part between the sarcasm as to the appreciation of the government cheese. Successfully I have portrayed the explanation of government assistance to feed the population food that they can afford. Until they figure out that growing food your self is even more affordable as to it still giving respect to the government cheese. It’s also more rewarding when you have abundance of what you need right there fresh grown as you then know where it came from and that it wasn’t pumped full of high fructose corn syrup. That most of us are not even aware of this fun fact that they do to add weight to the money that they make per pound that you spend your money on. Wasteful don’t you think when you can eat one watermelon of 30lbs, and you know it’s right and the vitamins are real.
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Jennifer Breslin (The Poetry of Emotion)
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They continue going up and down the food aisles, collecting a wide variety of different ingredients. Alexander thinks of it as a puzzle. He sees the pieces that Eden's picking up, but for the life of him, he can't see the overall picture.
Gochujang, Japanese chili miso, chocolate chips, ketchup, garlic powder, graham crackers, sesame seed oil, and fresh shrimp straight from the tank.
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Katrina Kwan (Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love)
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Suddenly, I'm thinking about all I didn't know about Felix's life. What the ate at the Israeli restaurant, for example, the meal that made him want to come here.
"Endive salad with creamy yuzu dressing, followed by three-chili shrimp scampi," Felix cuts in. "For dessert: white chocolate gelato with fresh pomegranate and a passionfruit drizzle.
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Adi Alsaid (North of Happy)
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Suddenly, I'm thinking about all I didn't know about Felix's life. What he ate at the Israeli restaurant, for example, the meal that made him want to come here.
"Endive salad with creamy yuzu dressing, followed by three-chili shrimp scampi," Felix cuts in. "For dessert: white chocolate gelato with fresh pomegranate and a passionfruit drizzle.
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Adi Alsaid (North of Happy)
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We ordered way too much food, but Vietnamese is a cuisine I don't try often, and I wanted to absorb every taste and texture. We started with the signature Tamarind Tree Rolls---salad rolls with fresh herbs, fried tofu, peanuts, fresh coconut, and jicama. We then moved on to the Crispy Prawn Baguette---a lightly fried prawn and baguette served with hoisin and fresh chili sauce. I was impressed at how light and crisp the batter was----it was no more than a dusting.
For a main course Nick ordered a curry chicken braised with potato and served with fresh lime and chili sauce. I couldn't help myself---I ordered the beef stew. I do this almost anywhere I go, because the cultural permutations are infinite. This one was fresh and citrusy with a dash of carrot, lime, pepper, and salt. I mentally developed some changes for my next stew. We also ordered green beans stir fried with garlic, and Shrimp Patty Noodles---a frothy bowl of vermicelli noodles, tomatoes, fresh bean sprouts, shredded morning glory, and banana blossoms.
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Katherine Reay (Lizzy and Jane)
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Mom, I think you've done enough experimenting. All of these batches have been delicious."
I dip the other, unbitten end into a small dish of sweet chili sauce.
"You never know what people will want," she says. "Some like it with pork, some like it with chicken, some like it with shrimp."
Our post-work evening has been spent testing out different batches of lumpia for the upcoming Maui Food Festival. Ever since I told her we'd be competing to keep our spot on Makena Road, she's been in a food-prepping frenzy. Every night after work for the past week she's spent hours testing out new dishes, tweaking ingredients to get the flavors just right. Yesterday it was adjusting the level of fish sauce in the pansit, then attempting to perfect the ratio of rice noodle to meat and vegetables.
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Sarah Smith (Simmer Down)
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So for the first course, we have flounder sashimi served with green onions and momiji oroshi, or daikon radish with chili pepper."
The fish was delicate and subtle, with a nice, firm texture. What followed after this opening course was an onslaught of fantastic nigiri, small balls of pressed sushi rice with various toppings, served two at a time so I could fully appreciate each perfect morsel.
Sea bream was followed by sweet shrimp, tamago, yellowtail, salmon, soy sauce-braised octopus, crab, grilled eel, and the final two pieces were otoro, or tuna belly. The richest, fattest, most melt-in-your-mouth pieces of tuna I'd ever had.
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Mia P. Manansala (Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #1))
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The following are all foods you should feel welcome to eat freely (unless, of course, you know they bother your stomach): Alliums (Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Scallions): This category of foods, in particular, is an excellent source of prebiotics and can be extremely nourishing to our bugs. If you thought certain foods were lacking in flavor, try sautéing what you think of as that “boring” vegetable or tofu with any member of this family and witness the makeover. Good-quality olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil can all help with the transformation of taste. *Beans, Legumes, and Pulses: This family of foods is one of the easiest ways to get a high amount of fiber in a small amount of food. You know how beans make some folks a little gassy? That’s a by-product of our bacterial buddies chowing down on that chili you just consumed for dinner. Don’t get stuck in a bean rut. Seek out your bean aisle or peruse the bulk bin at your local grocery store and see if you can try for three different types of beans each week. Great northern, anyone? Brightly Colored Fruits and Vegetables: Not only do these gems provide fiber, but they are also filled with polyphenols that increase diversity in the gut and offer anti-inflammatory compounds that are essential for disease prevention and healing. Please note that white and brown are colors in this category—hello, cauliflower, daikon radish, and mushrooms! Good fungi are particularly anti-inflammatory, rich in beta-glucans, and a good source of the immune-supportive vitamin D. Remember that variety is key here. Just because broccoli gets a special place in the world of superfoods doesn’t mean that you should eat only broccoli. Branch out: How about trying bok choy, napa cabbage, or an orange pepper? Include a spectrum of color on your plate and make sure that some of these vegetables are periodically eaten raw or lightly steamed, which may have greater benefits to your microbiome. Herbs and Spices: Not only incredibly rich in those anti-inflammatory polyphenols, this category of foods also has natural digestive-aid properties that can help improve the digestibility of certain foods like beans. They can also stimulate the production of bile, an essential part of our body’s mode of breaking down fat. Plus, they add pizzazz to any meal. Nuts, Seeds, and Their Respective Butters: This family of foods provides fiber, and it is also a good source of healthy and anti-inflammatory fats that help keep the digestive tract balanced and nourished. It’s time to step out of that almond rut and seek out new nutty experiences. Walnuts have been shown to confer excellent benefits on the microbiome because of their high omega-3 and polyphenol content. And if you haven’t tasted a buttery hemp seed, also rich in omega-3s and fantastic atop oatmeal, here’s your opportunity. Starchy Vegetables: These hearty vegetables are a great source of fiber and beneficial plant chemicals. When slightly cooled, they are also a source of something called resistant starch, which feeds the bacteria and enables them to create those fantabulous short-chain fatty acids. These include foods like potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips, beets, and rutabaga. When was the last time you munched on rutabaga? This might be your chance! Teas: This can be green, white, or black tea, all of which contain healthy anti-inflammatory compounds that are beneficial for our microbes and overall gut health. It can also be herbal tea, which is an easy way to add overall health-supportive nutrients to our diet without a lot of additional burden on our digestive system. Unprocessed Whole Grains: These are wonderful complex carbohydrates (meaning fiber-filled), which both nourish those gut bugs and have numerous vitamins and minerals that support our health. Branch out and try some new ones like millet, buckwheat, and amaranth. FOODS TO EAT IN MODERATION
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Mary Purdy (The Microbiome Diet Reset: A Practical Guide to Restore and Protect a Healthy Microbiome)
“
They each contribute at least one dish to their new menu. It's not an extensive list, just a handful of favorites that are not only delicious and filling, but affordable as well.
Peter makes the most mouthwatering shucos on heavenly soft long bread buns, buttered and toasted to perfection before being topped with halved hotdogs, guacamole, cabbage, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, chili sauce, and mustard. It's both crispy and soft at the same time, a perfect combination of textures in one's mouth. It's honestly the perfect dish for anyone looking for a quick but hearty meal for lunch.
Freddie brings fish and chips to the table. Simple, delectable, but hardly anything to scoff at. He makes sure to use a beer batter to bring out the subtle flavors of the fresh halibut he uses. It's then fried to golden perfection. The fries are lovingly cut and seasoned by hand, optional Cajun spice in a small serving bowl to the side. He never skimps on the portion sizes, either. The fish is massive, and he makes sure to pile fries so high, a few always fall off the expo line.
Rina contemplated making a classic pho from scratch, but eventually decided on her and her sister's personal favorite gỏi cuõn--- savory braised pork, massive prawns, soft vermicelli, cucumbers, lettuce, and diced carrots all wrapped up in a pretty rice paper blanket. The way she plates everything makes the dish look like a masterpiece that's too good to eat. Most people do, however, eat it eventually, because it'd be a right shame to waste such an amazing meal.
Eden makes her mother's macaroni and cheese. The cheap, boxed shit from grocery stores doesn't even begin to compare. She comes in early to make the macaroni from scratch, rolling and kneading pasta dough with deft hands. The cheese sauce she uses is also made from scratch, generous helpings of butter and cream and sharp cheddar--- a sprinkle of salt and pepper and oregano, too--- melting into one cohesive concoction she then pours over her recently boiled pasta. She makes every bowl to order, placing everything in cute little ramekins they found on sale, popping it into the oven beneath the broiler so that the butter-coated bread crumb topping can turn a beautiful golden brown. With a bit of chopped bacon and fresh green onions sprinkled on top, it's arguably one of the most demanded dishes at The Lunchbox.
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Katrina Kwan (Knives, Seasoning, & A Dash of Love)
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Chilies, lemons, oranges, mangoes, garlic, ginger and onions are all food that contains many powerful antioxidants and nutrients that strengthen your immune system. When you are strong, your workouts will be better and you will burn fatter.
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WILLOCK BEN (75 DAY MENTAL CHALLENGE: From flab to fab 100 weight loss ideas went from a probability to a possibility, and then to a reality)
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Eat whatever food is local to that city because it is your duty to do so. If you’re in Philly, you eat a cheesesteak; if you’re in Brooklyn, a cheesecake. If you’re in Cincinnati, Skyline Chili;
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Amy Schumer (The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo)
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But falling in love with Isaiah wasn’t a big, planned event. It was buying toothbrushes and providing food when I was too busy to eat. It was his mother’s ring and eating dinner together in a booth at Chili’s.
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Liz Tomforde (Play Along (Windy City, #4))
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When you live in Jersey a beach isn’t enough. People have energy in Jersey. They need things to do. They need a beach with a boardwalk. And the boardwalk has to be filled with rides and games and crappy food. Add some miniature golf. Throw in a bunch of stores selling T-shirts with offensive pictures. Life doesn’t get much better than this. And the best part is the smell. I’ve been told there are places where the ocean smells wild and briny. In Jersey the ocean smells of coconut-scented suntan lotion and Italian sausage smothered in fried onions and peppers. It smells like deep-fried zeppoles and chili hot dogs. The scent is intoxicating and exotic as it expands in the heat rising from crowds of sun-baked bodies strolling the boardwalk. Surf surges onto the beach and the sound is mingled with the rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the spinning game wheels and the highpitched Eeeeeeee of thrill seekers being hurtled down the log flume. Rock stars, pickpockets, homies, pimps, pushers, pregnant women in bikinis, future astronauts, politicians, geeks, ghouls, and droves of families who buy American and eat Italian all come to the Jersey shore.
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Janet Evanovich (Plum Boxed Set 2 (Stephanie Plum, #4-6))
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SWEET POTATO BISQUE WITH CRABMEAT
GRAPEFRUIT ICE IN A SWEET TORTILLA CRISP
LAMB SEARED IN ANCHO CHILI PASTE ON POLENTA
TWO CHUTNEYS: PEAR & MINT
ASPARAGUS FLAN
AMERICAN GOAT CHEESE, EAST & WEST, WITH RED-WINE BISCUITS
AVOCADO KEY LIME PIE
PINON TORTA DE CIELO & CHOCOLATE MOCHA SHERBET
She'd invented the cake just for tonight; the sherbet came from Julia Child, a remarkably simple confection made with sour cream. Torta de cielo was a traditional wedding cake from the Yucatan, slim and sublime, light but chewy, where pulverized almonds stood in for flour. This time, instead of almonds, Greenie used the fat, velvety pignoli she ordered from an importer on Grand Street, mincing them by hand to keep them from turning to paste. She did not know whether you could tell the best Italian pine nuts from those grown in New Mexico, but, she caught herself thinking, and not without a touch of spite, she might soon find out.
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Julia Glass (The Whole World Over)
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As is jalapeño—though according to psychologist Paul Rozin, Mexican dogs, unlike American dogs, enjoy a little heat. Rozin’s work suggests animals have cultural food preferences too. Rozin was not the first academic to feed ethnic cuisine to research animals. In “The Effect of a Native Mexican Diet on Learning and Reasoning in White Rats,” subjects were served chili con carne, boiled pinto beans, and black coffee. Their scores at maze-solving remained high, possibly because of an added impetus to find their way to a bathroom. In 1926, the Indian Research Fund Association compared rats who lived on chapatis and vegetables with rats fed a Western diet of tinned meat, white bread, jam, and tea. So repellent was the Western fare that the latter group preferred to eat their cage mates, three of them so completely that “little or nothing remained for post-mortem examination.
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Mary Roach (Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal)
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Hot Sauce54: Demonstrating that psychologists have a wonderful sense of humor, this paradigm consists in measuring how much hot chili sauce the participant pours into the confederate's drink. In the original study, the point of the experiment is that the victim of the hot sauce poisoning had somehow provoked or mocked the participant, and the latter is then informed that the annoying man doesn't like spicy food. I guess you could create all sort of variations from this basic template, like making your participant play an offensive and gory video game for twenty minutes, and then see if he tries to kill the other guy with a chilly overdose.
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Xavier Lastra (Dangerous Gamers: The Commentariat and its war against video games, imagination, and fun)
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Making dinner for Wayne is either the easiest thing or the hardest thing on the planet, depending on how you look at it. After all, Wayne's famous Eleven are neither difficult to procure nor annoying to prepare.
They are just.
So.
Boring.
Roasted chicken
Plain hamburgers
Steak cooked medium
Pork chops
Eggs scrambled dry
Potatoes, preferably fries, chips, baked, or mashed, and not with anything fancy mixed in
Chili, preferably Hormel canned
Green beans
Carrots
Corn
Iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing
That's it. The sum total of what Wayne will put into his maw. He doesn't even eat fricking PIZZA for chrissakes. Not including condiments, limited to ketchup and yellow mustard and Miracle Whip, and any and all forms of baked goods... when it comes to breads and pastries and desserts he has the palate of a gourmand, no loaf goes untouched, no sweet unexplored. It saves him, only slightly, from being a complete food wasteland. And he has no idea that it is strange to everyone that he will eat apple pie and apple cake and apple charlotte and apple brown Betty and apple dumplings and fritters and muffins and doughnuts and crisp and crumble and buckle, but will not eat AN APPLE.
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Stacey Ballis (Out to Lunch)
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Sunny Bean Burgers Serves: 2 ¼ cup sunflower seeds 2 cups cooked kidney or pinto beans, or canned no-salt-added or low-sodium kidney or pinto beans, drained ½ cup minced onion 2 tablespoons low-sodium ketchup 1 tablespoon old-fashioned rolled oats ½ teaspoon chili powder Preheat oven to 350 ° F. Lightly oil a baking sheet with a little olive oil on a paper towel. Chop sunflower seeds in a food processor or with a hand chopper. Mash beans in the food processor or with a potato masher and mix with the sunflower seeds. Mix in remaining ingredients and form into six patties. Place patties on the baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly, until you can pick up each patty and compress it firmly in your hands to reform the burger. Return the patties to the baking sheet, bottom side up, and bake for another 10 minutes.
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (Eat for Life))
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Sunny Bean Burgers Serves: 2 ¼ cup sunflower seeds 2 cups cooked kidney or pinto beans, or canned no-salt-added or low-sodium kidney or pinto beans, drained ½ cup minced onion 2 tablespoons low-sodium ketchup 1 tablespoon old-fashioned rolled oats ½ teaspoon chili powder Preheat oven to 350 ° F. Lightly oil a baking sheet with a little olive oil on a paper towel. Chop sunflower seeds in a food processor or with a hand chopper. Mash beans in the food processor or with a potato masher and mix with the sunflower seeds. Mix in remaining ingredients and form into six patties. Place patties on the baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly, until you can pick up each patty and compress it firmly in your hands to reform the burger. Return the patties to the baking sheet, bottom side up, and bake for another 10 minutes. Note: If desired, you can cook these on a grill.
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Joel Fuhrman (The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (Eat for Life))
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Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges Makes 8 wedges The trick to achieving tender oil-free roasted sweet potatoes is to steam them before you put them in the oven. This precooking prevents the sweet potatoes from becoming overly chewy, which can happen when you roast them from raw without any oil. —DS 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 11/2 pounds), peeled and quartered lengthwise 1 teaspoon granulated garlic 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. 2. Place a steamer insert in a saucepan and add about 2 inches of water (the water should not come above the level of the bottom of the steamer). Cover the pan and bring the water to a boil. Place the potato wedges in the steamer, cover, and steam the potatoes until just tender, about 7 minutes. 3. Transfer the potato wedges to a nonstick baking sheet or a regular baking sheet lined with a silicone mat, arranging them in a single layer. 4. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle the spice mixture evenly over the sweet potatoes. 5. Bake until brown and tender, 15 to 20 minutes, turning once during cooking. Serve hot.
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Alona Pulde (The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet)
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Buttermilk Fried Chicken PREP TIME: 7 MINUTES / COOK TIME: 20 TO 25 MINUTES / SERVES 4 370°F FRY FAMILY FAVORITE Fried chicken is perhaps the most decadent of fried foods. But many people don’t make it at home because oil splatters everywhere when you fry chicken. And it’s just not healthy to eat it too often. The air fryer comes to the rescue with this wonderful adaptation. 6 chicken pieces: drumsticks, breasts, and thighs 1 cup flour 2 teaspoons paprika Pinch salt Freshly ground black pepper ⅓ cup buttermilk 2 eggs 2 tablespoons olive oil 1½ cups bread crumbs 1. Pat the chicken dry. In a shallow bowl, combine the flour, paprika, salt, and pepper. 2. In another bowl, beat the buttermilk with the eggs until smooth. 3. In a third bowl, combine the olive oil and bread crumbs until mixed. 4. Dredge the chicken in the flour, then into the eggs to coat, and finally into the bread crumbs, patting the crumbs firmly onto the chicken skin. 5. Air-fry the chicken for 20 to 25 minutes, turning each piece over halfway during cooking, until the meat registers 165°F on a meat thermometer and the chicken is brown and crisp. Let cool for 5 minutes, then serve. Variation tip: You can marinate the chicken in buttermilk and spices such as cayenne pepper, chili powder, or garlic powder overnight before you cook it. This makes the chicken even more moist and tender and adds flavor. Per serving: Calories: 644; Total Fat: 17g; Saturated Fat: 4g; Cholesterol: 214mg; Sodium: 495mg; Carbohydrates: 55g;
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Linda Johnson Larsen (The Complete Air Fryer Cookbook: Amazingly Easy Recipes to Fry, Bake, Grill, and Roast with Your Air Fryer)
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Without a single one of those promised lessons from her grandmother, Portia began to see and taste food without having it in front of her, the images coming to her like instincts, automatic and without thought. She found that she knew things without having to be taught. Rich dark chocolate would calm a person who was hiding their anxiety. Hot red chili mixed with eggs first thing in the morning relieved symptoms of someone about to succumb to a terrible cold.
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Linda Francis Lee (The Glass Kitchen)
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In the world of grains, one grain stands apart, since it consists entirely of protein, fiber, and oils: flaxseed. Because it is essentially free of carbohydrates that increase blood sugar, ground flaxseed is the one grain that fits nicely into this approach (the unground grain is indigestible). Use ground flaxseed as a hot cereal (heated, for instance, with milk, unsweetened almond milk, coconut milk or coconut water, or soymilk, with added walnuts or blueberries) or add it to foods such as cottage cheese or chilis. You can also use it to make a breading for chicken and fish.
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William Davis (Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health)
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Foreword Reviews Magazine. Foreword Reviews. Summer 2014 issue.
"By way of introduction to Vivienne Kruger’s Balinese Food, bear in mind that eight degrees south of the equator, this modest-sized lava rich, emerald green island rests among the 17,508 remote, culturally distinct constellation of Indonesian islands. It is home to three million mortals who believe they are protected by an unfathomable number of Bali-Hindu goddesses and gods that inhabit the island’s sacred mountain peaks. The Balinese are unlike almost any other island people in that they are suspicious, even distrustful of the sea, believing mischievous spirits and negative powers dwell there—the underworld, as it were. Yes, they eat seafood, they just mostly let other Indonesians do the fetching. Fittingly, Kruger’s masterful use of language; dogged, on the ground conversations with thousands of Balinese cooks and farmers; and disarming humanity leads to a culinary-minded compendium unlike almost any other. Bali, you got the scribe you deserved.
What made Kruger’s work even more impressive is the fact that almost nothing about Balinese food history has been written down over the years. She writes: “Like so many other traditions in Bali, cooking techniques and eating habits are passed down verbally by elders to their children and grandchildren who help in the kitchen. However, Indonesia has an old orally transmitted food culture because the pleasure of storytelling is entwined with the pleasure and effort of cooking and eating.” Balinese Food is framed around twenty-one chapters, including the all-important Sacred Ceremonial Cuisine, Traditional Village Foods, the Cult of Rice, Balinese Pig, Balinese Duck, and specialized cooking techniques like saté, banana leaf wrappers, and the use of bumbu, a sacred, powerful dry spice paste mixture. In the chapter Seafood in Bali, she lists a popular, fragrant accompaniment called Sambal Matah—chopped shallots, red chilies, coconut oil, and kaffir lime juice—that is always served raw and fresh, in this case, alongside a simple recipe for grilled tuna. An outstanding achievement in the realm of island cooking and Indonesian history, Balinese Food showcases the Balinese people in the most flattering of ways.
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Foreword Reviews Magazine
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Some plants may be particularly prostate friendly. Research has found that flaxseeds can be used to treat BPH. Men given the equivalent of about three tablespoons of flaxseeds a day experienced relief comparable to that provided by commonly prescribed such drugs as Flomax or Proscar81—without the drugs’ side effects, such as lightheadedness or sexual dysfunction. Is it possible to prevent BPH in the first place? Eating garlic and onions has been associated with significantly lower risk of BPH.82 In general, cooked vegetables may work better than raw ones, and legumes—beans, chickpeas, split peas, and lentils—have also been associated with lower risk.83 TVP, short for textured vegetable protein, is a soybean product often used in pasta sauces and veggie chili. I would recommend that type of TVP over the one used in urology, which stands for transurethral vaporization of the prostate.84
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Michael Greger (How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease)
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Right, I totally forgot. I can’t wait to taste the flummery.”
“I’m not sure if I want to know what that is,” Manning said.
“It’s a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a”—Debbie Mae wiggled one hand—“big wobbly thing. The ragout of veal will be a hit, I’m sure. And the Roman punch will have to be changed a little bit. It’s usually lemon water and hot syrup with a lot of rum.
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Mary Jane Hathaway (Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs (Jane Austen Takes the South, #2))
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Maybe I should have got some chili-slaw dogs from Shorty’s. Everybody loves those.”
“Buddy,” Lars said, dropping his shoes to the deck with a thump, “sit yourself down and stop fussing. You’re reminding me of my Aunt Glynna with all this temperature takin’ and foil tuckin’. This food is fine.
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Mary Jane Hathaway (Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread (Jane Austen Takes the South, #3))
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Getting the Most From The Chili Vegetarian Recipe
Chili has become an approved mainstay of vegetarian cooking. An actual chili vegetarian recipe cook yet, understands that there's more to just randomly adding any type of chili pepper. There are some matters which you should take into consideration with your recipe.
Understand Your Chili
Naturally, the number of chili in your chili recipe will obviously depend on your own natural ability to survive hotness. The question however is the best way to discover if there's an excessive amount of chili. One basic step would be to understand your chili peppers. It's a fact for example that bell peppers and pimiento supply no hot flavor in any way so you are able to essentially add just as much as you need in a dish. Habanero and santaka chilies yet are on the list of hottest so you'd do good to add reasonable numbers in your recipe. The well-known jalapenos are just around rather hot and are frequently the favourite fixings in a vegetarian cooking.
Rev Up on Fairly Hot
For those that can not manage habaneros that are overly hot, they can raise chili peppers to the middle or lower range of hotness.
In addition , they are natural pain killers that tend not to dull your entire critical perceptions.
Manage Chilies Correctly
Chilies can burn skin. Manage chilies just with your bare hands if you just have a modest amount to cut. Chili juice on your own eyes can be an extremely distressing experience.
Handle the Heat
Tomato sauce can also be considered successful in helping reduce the hotness of chili.
Beer and other drinks should be avoided if it's already too hot in your mouth.
Combination with Other Flavors
Your food would taste best with garlic, legumes, tofu, onions and tomatoes. Simply make sure you combine your ingredients nicely so the flavor will not stick in only some parts of the recipe but watch out for burnt fixings. Specialists guide though that fixings should not be combined all at once since this could kill the hot flavor. Saut the spices slowly to discharge the oil that holds the secret to its hot flavor. Determined by the dish, you'll be able to serve a chili dish 24 hours later to give time for flavors and tastes to mixture.
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Vegetarian Recipe
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What about 101 Noodle Express?" This was a favorite dumpling place in Arcadia. Their dumplings were rustic and burly---leek and pork, pumpkin and pork, shrimp and bok choy---and their signature dish, a beef roll, was another life-shifting taste experience: long-stewed beef rolled in a crisp and chewy savory pancake with sweet hoisin sauce and a green chili relish.
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Michelle Huneven (Search)
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What to remove? Dairy. From cows, goats, and sheep (including butter). Grains. For the more intensive version of this 30-day diet, eliminate all grains. This is important for those with digestive or autoimmune conditions. If this feels undoable for a full month, add in a small serving a day of gluten-free grains like white rice or quinoa. If that still feels undoable, consider a whole-foods diet rich in vegetables that is strictly gluten- and dairy-free. Legumes. Beans of all kinds (soy, black, kidney, pinto, etc.), lentils, and peanuts. Green peas and snap peas are okay. Sweeteners, real or artificial. Sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, honey, agave, Splenda, Equal, NutraSweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Processed or refined snack foods. Sodas and diet sodas. Alcohol in any form. White potatoes. Premade sauces and seasonings. How to avoid common pitfalls: Prepare well beforehand. Choose a time frame during which you will have limited or reduced travel, and that doesn’t include holidays or special occasions. Study the list of foods allowed on the diet and make a shopping list. Remove the foods from your pantry or refrigerator that aren’t allowed on the diet, if that makes it easier. Engage the whole family to try this together, or find a friend to join you. Success happens in community. Set up a calendar to mark your progress. Print out a free 30-day online calendar, tape it to the refrigerator door, and mark off each day. Pack snacks with you, pack your lunch, call ahead to restaurants to check their menu (or check online). Get enough vegetables and fats. If you feel jittery or lose too much weight, increase your carbohydrates (starchy vegetables like yams, taro, sweet potatoes). Don’t misread withdrawal-type symptoms as the diet “not working.” These symptoms usually resolve within a week’s time. Personalize it. Start with the basics above and: * If you’re having trouble with autoimmune conditions, eliminate eggs, too. * If you’re prone to weight gain, eat less meat and heavier foods (ex: stews, chili), more vegetables and raw foods. * If you’re prone to weight loss or having trouble gaining weight, eat more meats and heavier foods (ex: stews, chili), less raw foods like salads. * If you’re generally healthy and wanting a boost in energy, try short-term fasts of 12–16 hours. Due to the circadian rhythm of the digestive tract, skipping dinner is best (as opposed to skipping breakfast). Try this 1–2 times a week. (This fast also means no supplements or beverages other than tea or water during the fasting time.)
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Cynthia Li (Brave New Medicine: A Doctor's Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness)
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While the tamale dates to the foundation of civilizations in Meso-America, food historians will forever debate the origins of chili. Only
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Gustavo Arellano (Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America)
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The United States in the 1890s was in the midst of a tamale man invasion that strolled hand in hand with the chili con carne craze.
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Gustavo Arellano (Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America)
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So this is sweet. Some sort of fruit, right? Not just sugar."
She nodded. "Mango and peach."
He looked surprised. "No kidding." He tasted it again. "Got it. Now that you tell me, I can taste them. What kind of chilies?"
"Mostly fresno. A cherry pepper here, a poblano there. A little habanero." She hadn't gotten enough fresnos, so the truth was she just used everything she had. Fortunately she'd written it down. "Some honey too. Seasonings."
"But there's something I can't quite put my finger on." He tasted more than looked at his finger and said, "No pun intended."
She smiled. "Curry."
"Curry."
"Yup." She nodded. "I needed something to segue between the sweet and the savory and I thought of curry."
"It's incredible."
"Wow, you're actually selling me on my own sauce." She upended the bottle and put a few drops on her own finger. It was just as good as she'd remembered, exactly as he'd said, with the heat that snuck up and away. Suddenly her mind reeled with the possibilities. She could use it as the base for a barbecue sauce and start serving pulled pork on the menu. That, with the beer cheese, Aja's cheese soup, and the biscuits Margo had made, she had a theme developing suddenly.
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Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
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They hadn't had a real meal together in years. Those late, boozy nights with sloppy cheeseburgers and too many appetizers were long gone. No longer would they get pasta and wine by the bottle, telling their Sicilian server not to judge them for how much cheese they wanted ground over their gnocchi and carbonara. They would drink beer and share those plasticky nachos and watch awful bands cover extremely good bands.
Their indulgence might kill them one day, but wasn't it worth it? That had been her opinion. She'd never really considered what would happen once the indulgence was gone.
Margo, luckily, was always up for whatever challenge made her days more interesting. She was constantly trying to make dupes for whatever she- or he- was really in the mood for. Egg white huevos rancheros, turkey meat loaf, chicken chili, and on one disastrous Thanksgiving, Tofurkey. Nutritional yeast weakly filled the big shoes of good Parmesan. Lettuce did the minimum to live up to the utility purpose of a tortilla while textured vegetable protein tried pitifully to be taco meat.
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Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
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First I shell the oysters, then coat them with flour...
... and I deep-fry that. I make a sauce with soy sauce, ground sesame, sesame oil, chili pepper and some mirin. And I dip the oysters in the sauce.
Here you are. Give it a try. Deep fried oysters and kimchi over rice!"
"Ah, this smells
great!
"
"Let's eat!"
"Ooh! The oysters have been fried
perfectly!
They're soft and when you bite into them, the juice comes spurting out...
... and the flavor of the oyster combined with the sourness and spiciness of the kimchi creates a wonderfully complex taste!"
"Yeah! The deep-fried oysters go great with the kimchi!"
"It would have been a bit heavy with just the fried oysters...
... but the hot and sour flavor of the kimchi makes this very tasty!
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Tetsu Kariya (Izakaya: Pub Food)
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Hainanese Chicken Rice
An entire chicken is steeped in broth at sub-boiling temperatures and is then served with rice steamed in the same broth.
Originally a Chinese dish, it was spread across Southeast Asia by migrants from the Hainan Province. A well-loved staple, it is also known as
Khao Man Tai
or Singapore Chicken Rice.
*Many restaurants that serve it will also serve chicken soup on the side.
"That makes perfect sense! This dish is an excellent choice for emphasizing the unique deliciousness of the Jidori! I already know it can't help but be good!"
"That one's yours."
"Uh, thanks. I'll dig right in."
Delicious! It's too delicious!
The tender meat so perfectly steeped! Each bite is sheer decadence! The delicate yet bold umami flavors!
But that's not all...
Next comes the very best part!
As if that one bite wasn't enough, after it's swallowed...
... There's the subtle and sophisticated aftertaste!
"Mmm! That decadent flavor lingers in the mouth for so long! Exquisite! Simply exquisite! This dish is the pinnacle of Jidori cooking!"
"Don't stop yet. I've made three dipping sauces to go along with it.
Chili sauce, ginger sauce and some See Ew Dum."
*See Ew Dum is a dark, thick and sweet soy sauce commonly used in Thai cooking. Its viscosity is similar to tamari.
"I made the chili sauce by grinding red peppers and adding them to the broth from the steeped chicken. The ginger sauce is fresh ginger mixed with chicken fat I rendered out of the bird.
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Yūto Tsukuda (食戟のソーマ 17 [Shokugeki no Souma 17] (Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, #17))