To Cook - Part 7: Turkey

I don’t know if I will ever completely understand the tradition of Thanksgiving turkey. As a child of Taiwanese immigrants, Thanksgiving, like many American holidays, was confusing for my family. 

Even in the 1980s, the mythology around Thanksgiving felt off to my family. Maybe it was because we were an immigrant family, but it never really made sense to us. Then there was the turkey itself.  

Growing up, turkey wasn’t in our regular rotation of protein that we ate. When I was around eight years old, I remember thinking that the main meat we ate was beef, pork, chicken, duck, and fish. So turkey wasn’t something I even thought about as something to eat. However, my mom did make a great turkey leg soup once in a while.  

Like other American traditions, my parents gave the Thanksgiving turkey thing a good go. Like people in the 1980s, they got a turkey, put it in a pan, probably with stuffing (which we now know is not a good idea), trusted it up, and cooked it whole. I remember one year, our oven broke, and my dad finished it on the grill. We did this for a couple of years, and then mom decided we weren’t going to do a turkey. She decided to do a fish dish or a prime rib roast for Thanksgiving dinner.  

My mom didn’t like turkey all that much, and the the traditional Thanksgiving turkey preparation didn’t work all that well. For the turkey to be cooked, it had to be in the oven for a long time, resulting in dry breast meat. The other thing that bugged her was the patriarchal idea of the man of the house carving a whole turkey that the women prepared.  

Flash forward to college. I helped a turkey for the first time in a friend’s sorority house. A group of us were around for Thanksgiving break, and we tried to make a Thanksgiving dinner happen. I was responsible for Turkey with a friend for a couple of hours. The pan broke, the turkey grease hit the bottom of over, and smoke filled the basement floor. I ran outside to get help, got locked out, and had to sneak back in by squeezing in through an open window. It was a thing, but somehow we made it work. This was a self-basting, turkey-in-a-bag method, which did work. The meat was moist, but the trade-off was that the skin wasn’t crispy.  

Over the past ten years, I’ve hosted Thanksgiving at least seven or eight times and made a turkey. I went with cooking the whole turkey once, and I was like, “NOPE, there has got to be a better way.” It took too long, and the results were not that good. After some research, I went with the spatchcock method:  

 

This method solves a lot of the problems with cooking a turkey whole. For example, the breast and thigh meat cooking more evenly, the skin can crisp up because you can cook it at a higher temperature, and the cooking time was WAY less than cooking the turkey whole.  

I did this method a bunch of times, and I was happy with the results. The one issue I had with this was the gravy prep. You do not have adequate time to make a stock from the turkey carcass for gravy after it’s done before people expect to eat. So, this year, I went with the most logical and easiest to manage method of cooking a turkey: just cut it up into smaller pieces.  

 

I loved doing this method this year. Cutting it up the day before meant I had to plenty of time to make an outstanding turkey stock and gravy. Dry brining, which is way better than wet brine, is very effective with smaller pieces. The key thing I love about this is that the breast pieces are separate from the thigh pieces. If one piece is done sooner, you can take it out of the oven. Going from cooked pieces to presenting on a plate was much easier than carving meat off a whole cooked turkey, and it tasted great because it had minimal cook time at a relatively high temperature. My fifteen-pound turkey cooked in less than an hour.  

Is there something lost when you don’t present a whole turkey to the table and carve it up? Yes. Is it important? Not to me. Yes, cooking is about tradition, but more importantly it's about values,. Cooking a turkey in separate pieces puts less of a burden on the cook, so they can be less stressed and more present and place a priority on the quality of the preparation. Cooking a turkey whole puts value on an image, which may be impressive to some, puts an unnecessary burden on the cook.  

Thanksgiving survives as a holiday because we have changed what it means. For most Americans, it’s not about the racist mythology of the “first Thanksgiving.” It’s about family. We have changed this holiday’s meaning, which is a good thing. So let’s consider changing how we cook turkeys. If the point of Thanksgiving is cooking a whole turkey, then it’s not a holiday worth preserving. 

And if you don't want to cook a turkey. Don’t. If cooking is not your love language, don't try to speak it on Thanksgiving. Cater it in or go out to eat. Order pizza, or do whatever makes you happy. If you don’t like cooking, don’t cook on Thanksgiving. However, if you want to have fun cooking a turkey, go for it. Buy one that is in the smaller size and just cut it up into pieces. It’s the easiest and most effective way to go. And if anyone misses the carving ceremony by the man of the house, they can sit in the corner and have a sad while you enjoy moist turkey meat with wonderfully crispy skin.

To Cook - Part 6: Rice

I've never been good with the "what's your favorite…" questions. 

I don't gravitate towards singular things being my favorite. I've learned that I need to fake an answer sometimes because it's expected that we have a "favorite." If I want to be authentic, I'm honest that I don't feel for favorites in my life. I never have. If I don't want to deal with that confused look, I just answer so we can move along.  

If someone asks me who my favorite rock/pop artist is, I'll usually be Brandi Carlile, but I feel weird because Springsteen, Elton John, The Four Tops, The Spinners, and so many other artists I hold close to my heart.  

What is my favorite food to cook and eat?  

I love eating sushi and fried chicken, but I don't cook either of those things. I like cooking pasta sauce and salmon, but those are not my favorite foods to eat. It's interesting because when I think about this question, unlike most questions about favorites, there is a single answer that comes to mind: rice. 

Let's start with the magic and wonder of cooking rice. This video by Adam Liaw lays out how to cook rice the best way. 

 

There are two ways to cook rice, the rice cooker, and the stovetop method. I prefer doing it the stovetop way. However, there's nothing against using a rice cooker. Millions of Asian people worldwide use rice cookers for cooking steamed rice. Whichever method you choose, cooking rice starts with washing off the excess starch. I love doing this. 

I remember the sound of the water falling out of the rice pot as my dad washed the rice, reaching in as a young child feeling the rice between my fingers, and seeing the water transform from cloudy to clear. Cleaning rice is like holding a baby. You need to do it with care, but there also needs to be some strength and purpose as you work. The sound of the water, the feeling of the rice, the water is becoming clear. It hits almost all of the senses. 

Putting the rice in a rice cooker, walking away, and having the house filled with the smell of rice is all good. I prefer the stovetop. Why? Because it's magical. You don't have to use exact measurements, and the rice tells you what it needs. There's no measuring cup to determine how much water you put in the rice. Instead, you use the joint method, one of the most ubiquitous but seemingly magical Chinese secrets. As you let the evaporate, you see little holes and geysers form, which tell it's time to turn down the heat and cover the pot. Turn it down to low for thirteen minutes, and then five minutes with the heat off, fluff the rice gently, cover for another minute, and then you have the most perfect food.  

I throw in a pinch of salt for seasoning, a tablespoon of coconut oil to lighten up the flavor of the rice, and a splash of vinegar to make the rice more fluffy. Sometimes I put in different kinds of seasoning like garlic powder or other types of fat like sesame oil. However, I don't want to add anything that will mask the flavor of the rice.  

Cooking rice on the stove takes a careful eye, so you know when to turn it down to cover it, and it asks you to let go as it steams when it's covered. I love how cooking rice this way is not about precise measurements or times but about feelings, instincts, and experience.  

Well-cooked steamed rice is magical. It's light but has body. It's sticky but is defined, and it has a beautiful flavor but also can take on and enhance other flavors.  

Rice connects us to people worldwide as it is the most eaten food on the planet.  

A bowl of steamed rice is the ultimate comfort food, and the process of cooking rice well reminds me of home, who I am, and where I come from.

To Cook - Part 5: Cooking For Children

I wish I could say that cooking for my children was a wonderful, meaningful experience that always brings me joy and great meaning. But I can't.

Along with keeping your children clean and warm, providing food for your children is an animalistic instinct. Most parents care deeply about feeding their children well and want to provide the best food possible for their children. Also, for people like myself, cooking and food are culture and tradition. The problem is that children are not always willing and interested recipients of the food we cook. This can be disheartening, frustrating, and annoying.  

I've cooked meals for my children that they have a track record of liking that they decide on that night they don't like for some reason. So they don't eat much and end up eating cereal hours later. This rejection doesn't feel good, and while we are teaching our children to be polite and appreciative about food even if they don't like it, it's tough to deal with.  

I remember cooking for Ollie when he was a baby. I'd steam him pears and make him rice porridge. I'd cook him scrambled eggs in butter and toast points as he learned to pick up food and feed himself. As he entered toddlerhood, Ollie seemed to eat anything. I was so proud as he ate mouthfuls of salmon, chicken, and almost anything I put in front of him. I thought I was the master parent, and those parents who talked about their children only eating dino-nuggets didn't teach their children how to appreciate food. Before I knew it, Ollie pushed away much of the food he used to eat and entered dino-nugget land.  

Sometimes I cook for my children a meal that comes from my heritage and my soul, like Taiwanese beef noodle soups. The dinner table is quiet as my boys slurp up noodles, and I feel proud of my heritage and my family. They are eating a dish my mom taught me how to make and connect them to their ancestors and their culture.  

Sometimes I cook with my children, which can be a lot of fun, and other times it can be annoying. My children are good helpers in the kitchen, but when we don't have time to mess around and people are hungry, children in the kitchen is not a good idea.  

Sometimes I feel like I'm giving up and throwing whatever I know they will and eating like instant ramen over taking a chance and cooking something more wholesome that they may not enjoy. And sometimes I cook a different meal for my children than I do for myself because I don't want to eat what I cook that I know they will enjoy, but I will not.    

This is the reality of cooking for your children. There are wonderful moments, but there's a lot of frustration. And I am proud of my children. They eat many different foods and embrace many foods from their culture. 

I'm not giving up. I'm always going to cook for my kids. Cooking is my love language, even if it's something as simple as making toast or a bowl of cereal. However, I do feel a need to be realistic and not portray cooking for children as some magical, wonderful thing because it's not always that way, and that's okay.  

It's okay for parenting to be frustrating, and it's okay for cooking not to be fun. It's fine. I don't love every moment of parenting, and I don't love everything about cooking, and there are moments when I don't love cooking for my children. However, I do love parenting, I do love cooking, and I do love cooking for my children.  

My children will know that their father tried to make good food and teach them about their culture and other culture through food. I am proud of that fact, and I'm proud to cook for my children.

To Cook - Part 4: Without Recipes

Most of the time, I don't cook with recipes. 

Last night, I cooked steamed rice teriyaki salmon and stirred fried ginger celery with a sweet chili sauce.  

I've cooked rice my entire life. I have the process memorized. When you steam rice, the amount of water and rice is pretty forgiving, so you don't have to be too careful. The salmon was pretty straightforward. I seared both sides of the filet. I took it off the heat, put some teriyaki sauce on top, and covered it so it could finish cooking. The celery I chopped up, stir-fried with ginger. I ate a piece of celery while cooking and when it started having the texture of a pickle, I took it off the heat, put in a sweet chili sauce, and it was done. There didn't feel like any need to look up any directions.  

When I bake desserts or bread, I always use recipes. The chemistry is tricky, and too much one ingredient can mess up the dish. Also, you can't make adjustments when you bake. When you cook a soup, if you don't have enough salt, you can taste it while it's cooking and make adjustments. You can't do that when you make a cake. You don't find out until the end if everything was in balance.  

Here's the thing, I actually really like reading cookbooks and recipes. It's a great way to get ideas and learn about the process of cooking. However, I find that cooking with a recipe in front of you distracts from cooking. There's the anxiety of getting a recipe right, which is very real and not always productive. The best recipes cannot account for all variations in ingredients and kitchen tools. So yes, following the recipes help, but it's reacting to what is happening that makes cooking most successful.  

How do I know how to cook a dish with recipes?  

Some of it is practice. If you cook the same dish enough times, you will memorize it. Even something like banana bread that needs precise measurement, I've cooked it enough times to have the recipe memorized. Most things don't really have that many ingredients. A good marinara sauce, or a meatball, only has three or four ingredients. So it's not a lot to memorize.  

Part of it is getting comfortable with techniques and then using them with different variations. For example, if you know how to cook a chicken in a pan, searing both sides, turning the heat down, and covering it to finish, then you know how to cook a piece of fish or a steak. If you know how to saute string beans, you can saute broccoli. Every time you acquire a technique, you have new possibilities to explore.  

The last thing that helps is knowing what you want to do and what you can do. Quiet your mind, let your imagination guide you, and then interact with the ingredients and tools in front of you. Taste often, try new things, and know what mistakes will happen, but they aren't that big deal. Give yourself time to learn. For example, I wanted to learn how to make gumbo. So I watched a bunch of videos and read a bunch of ingredients until I found one I liked:  

 

I watched this video twenty or thirty times over the course of a week, and then I went for it. His recipe isn't perfect, and there are things that I've changed. It's like listening to a song enough that you know all the lyrics by memory. Sometimes it happens without you thinking about it; other times, it takes effort to know the words. That's how learning recipes go, and only by really taking the time to learn and understand recipes do you learn how to cook something.  

Recipes are great, but try to get away from them. They are only a framework to build off of, not a cage to hold you in. The knowledge you learn from recipes will give you more freedom to be creative.  

Most of all, when you cook, trust yourself. Let cooking be an adventure, and don't forget sometimes it's fun to get lost.

To Cook - Part 3: Eggs

Eggs are one of my favorite things to cook.

Eggs are relatively cheap as an ingredient, very versatile, and healthy. They also are great way to learn and improve cooking skills, and are pretty forgiving. If you mess up making an omelet, you can easily turn it into scrambled eggs. If you crack open an egg for fried eggs and break the yolk, you can easily turn it into scrambled eggs. If you flip eggs to make them over-easy and mess up the flip, you can quickly turn them into scrambled eggs. In short when you learn how to cook eggs, you will likely make a lot of scrambled eggs. 

Put a little salt and pepper and your favorite hot sauce in those eggs and put it over toast—all good. Or if you want to get a little fancy, add some caviar and crème fraîche (I've never actually done this, but it sounds like a good idea).

Some chefs have very strong opinions about eggs. Some people think an omelet is overcooked if it has any brown and the inside isn't soft and runny. Others think scramble eggs must be cooked over low heat and have tiny soft curds, almost like porridge. I get that there is a level of cooking mastery in getting a perfect French-style omelet or this liquidy scrambled eggs, but it doesn't have to be that way. I love cooking eggs because you can do whatever you want, and more likely than not, it will be edible. It's not about doing it right, it's about cooking the kind of eggs that you like.

So let's get into some specifics.  

Fried eggs/Over easy eggs 

Warm your pan, put a little oil, crack an egg in a small bowl, and pour the eggs into the pan. Cover it for fried eggs so the water in the egg can create steam to cook the top of the egg. For over easy, flip the egg when the egg is cooked on the bottom and release it from the pan. If you shake your pan and the egg moves, it's ready to flip; if it's not, wait.  

If you want to get fancy, cook your fried eggs in butter and baste (spoon the butter) onto the top of the eggs to cook the top. When you put your egg in the pan, if it splatters, it's okay. It's just the water in the egg fighting against the hot oil. Turn down the heat in the pan, or wait. The splattering will lessen over time.  

Both types of eggs are lovely with a piece of buttered toast. Dipping the toast in the yolk and using the egg white as topping for the toast. Wonderful. My favorite way to enjoy a fried egg is to put it on top of a warm bowl of Chinese steamed rice (easily one of the greatest foods of all time). Mix a spoonful of soy sauce into the yolk and stir it up to create a wonderful sauce. There is one of my favorite dishes of all time.  

Scrambled eggs

Crack some eggs into a bowl, beat them with a fork until it's smooth and looks even. Pour them into the pan with some kind of fat. Olive oil works, lard works, and so does butter. Stir it a lot to make little curds, or fold it gently to make sheets of scrambled eggs. Do it over high heat to cook more solid pieces of eggs, or cook it slowly over low heat to make for a more even texture. You can add milk or water the egg while you beat them, but it doesn't really make a difference. Add more oil or butter if the eggs stick to the pan too much, or turn up the heat up on the pan.  

There are endless possibilities and variations with scrambled eggs, so experiment and try different things and see what you like. Mix in some cheese or bacon bits to the eggs. Try different seasonings. The nature of eggs and the relationship between heat, fat, and protein start becoming very clear when you begin cooking scrambled eggs and really pay attention to what is happening in your pan.  

My favorite way to cook scrambled eggs is with butter over medium heat. Eggs love being cooked in butter. First, I let the better melt but not brown, I pull in the sides as they are firm and end up pieces of eggs about the size of cheese curds. Then, I pull the eggs out of the pan while the egg is firm but not browned. Then I season with salt and pepper and hot sauce. 

Omelet 

The ultimate in cooking eggs is the omelet. It's one of the hardest eggs dishes to figure out, but it's a lot of fun and very rewarding. Pepin teaches it well in this video, so I'm not going to try to describe the process:  

 

Some tips:   

• Get the pan hot. Wait and be patient. You need the heat to get things rolling and moving like they do in Pepin's pan.   
• Have everything ready to go. Ensure you have toppings, seasonings, and the serving plate reading to go. The cooking of an omelet requires your complete attention, and things can move fast, so do your prep so you don't have to leave your pan.   
• Get a good pan. If you can't remember the last time you got a new non-stick pan, you probably need a new one. Also, get a new one if there are scratches on the pan or visible wear. I get mid-priced non-sticks and replace them every 6-8 months.   
• Practice. Every night after I put my children to be for about two months one summer, I made an omelet. I messed up a lot and made a lot of scrambled eggs. However, it was a lot of fun and I got really good at making omelets.

When you cook eggs a lot, you begin to understand the possibilities in cooking. A hard-boiled egg is a very different dish than a poached egg, and the fact that they come from the same ingredient speaks to the imagination of cooking and the diversity of techniques in cooking. In addition, so much you learn from cooking eggs applies to other foods. For example, the thing where fried eggs are release from a pan when they're ready to flip, this applies to all meats when searing them.  

Buy some eggs, get a good non-stick pan, stick, and butter, and have fun.  

The worst thing that happens is that you end up with scrambled eggs.

To Cook - Part 2: My Influences

When I think about my biggest influences as a cook, I think about watching cooking shows with my mother. We would sit and watch various shows on public television stations. Cooking shows in the 1980s became popular leading up to the Food Network, founded in 1990. 

In this shows is where most I found the strong influences that inspired my love of cooking. Here’s who got me on the path of loving cooking:

Martin Yan

   

Mirrors are important, and Martin Yan showed me that Asian men could cook, have fun in the process, and do it with style and flair. His tagline was inclusive, and he demystified Chinese cuisine masterfully.  

Yan’s shows featured visits to restaurants, factories, and neighborhoods that expanded my idea of Chinese cuisine and helped me understand the culture, history, and pride that went into Chinese cooking. Yan showed me that not only could cooking be part of my life, but that cooking was part of my heritage and who I am.  

One more thing that Yan taught me: you could be a success in America with an Asian accent. This was a powerful message for a young child who got the message early on that having an accent made you less than. If Martin Yan could be successful and be on television, then all of the people in my life who talked with an Asian accent could also be successful. 

Jacque Pepin  

Pepin has been teaching me to cook my entire life. Out of all of the television chefs, he is the one who has most effectively taught me how to cook. 

Pepin teaches in a very calm and understanding way. It’s never about doing things perfectly but doing things more effectively the way you want. It’s not about making an omelet the “right” way; it’s about learning to make an omelet the way you like it.  

   

For Pepin, cooking was a job, and while he talks about his work as a cook with fondness, he loves cooking for his friends and his family. This comes through in his teaching with warmth. He wants to be able to help all of us cook for ourselves and the ones we care about with love.  

One of the most beautiful expressions of love was when Pepin gave tribute to his wife after she passed away. Pepin taught us all how to make her favorite sandwich.  

   

You can hear the sadness in his voice, but you also see him find meaning in the simple act of showing what it means to take care of the ones you love through cooking. Like Pepin, I want my cooking to be about love.  

 

Julia Child  

It all started with Julia Child. It was her cookbook, cooking shows, and all of her appearance, but that wouldn’t have been as powerful, influential, and important if it wasn’t for the way she saw cooking. For Child, cooking was an adventure full of wonder and joy. It was an activity in which mistakes were a feature, were meant to laugh off, and embraced.  

When I watched her cooking shows as a child, I didn’t initially understand her appeal. She sometimes seemed flustered or unsure of herself. However, now I realize in those moments, she was being all of us, uncertain of what to do next and not entirely confident in the kitchen. But that was okay because if Julia was like that in the kitchen and still could make a great meal, so could the rest of us.  

When Child and Pepin did shows together, I remember being so inspired by her. She was fascinated by the process of cooking. Child was both intellectual and spontaneous, and her interactions with Pepin were full of respect and love.  

   

 Julia Child taught me how to cook and, more importantly, how love cooking.  

All of these people helped me learn to cook and love cooking, but the most significant influence on my cooking is my mom, but that’s for another blog post...

To Cook - Part 1: Essential Tips

Here are the most important things to remember when cooking. 

Safety  

If there's a fire in your kitchen, don't water to put it out. Instead, cover the fire with a frying pan top or pot top and deprive it of oxygen to put it out. Many fires in kitchens involve grease, and water on hot grease makes the grease splatter and potentially spread the fire. So instead, cover it up.

Cut slowly and carefully using knuckles as a guide. The only times I've cut myself with a knife were when I was trying to cut quickly for no good reason. Use knives carefully with good technique.  

Wash your hands before you cook and during the cooking process.  

Turn the pot and panhandle to the side. I've never knocked off a pan off the stove, but I've gotten close.   

Clean  

I've never understood the division of labor between cooking and cleaning. One person cooks, and their partner cleans? It's nice when people help each other out. Households where chores are a collaborative effort are optimal. But cleaning is part of cooking in many ways. You have to clean vegetables and fruits, you need to clean your hands often when cooking, and you have to clean surfaces, dishes, and utensils.  

I recommend cleaning utensils and dishes when you have time while you are cooking. It makes the pile of dishes after a meal less intimidating. For example, while waiting for water to the bowl, clean off the cutting board. Waiting for a steak to rest, clean off the stovetop. There's a fair amount of time when you need to wait while you cook, so use this time to tidy up.  

It's a wonderful feeling at the end of meal prep to have a clean kitchen. I really struggle to cook in a kitchen that isn't clean. Before you start cooking, having a clean space is sanitary, and safer. The process of cleaning clears the mind. Unfortunately, I'm not always able to clean up right after a meal. Especially with kids, the kitchen isn't sometimes thoroughly cleaned up until after they go to bed, but it's a great feeling when it is cleaned up. It's now a space ready for creation.  

Tip: dishwashing gloves make cleaning feel like less of a thing. I mind doing dishes far less when I have dishwashing gloves.  

The arc of cooking starts with a clean kitchen and ends with a clean kitchen. Embrace cleaning as part of your process, and take pride in your tools and space.  

Pay attention when you cook…with all of your senses.  

The most rewarding cooking moments have been when I have been entirely focused on cooking and not distracted. All five senses are involved in cooking, and it's a wonderful experience to be fully engaged. There is a sound when the water leaves vegetables as it hits a hot pan and when meat is done searing. The color at the edge of pancake zucchini fritter tells you it's time to flip. The smell of ginger in a pan lets you know it's time to add other ingredients into a stir fry. There is the feeling of a finger touching banana bread and it coming back like a soft pillow that lets you know it's done, and of course, there's taste. 

There are times when I cook when I play music or listen to a podcast, and it's not a bad thing to do this, but it's not the same as letting the sounds of cooking create a soundtrack of your process and helps you focus all of your senses.  

I've often cooked while being distracted, and it's inevitable with small children in the house. There's no shame in that, but try to take time to cook with all of your senses. It's a lot of fun.  

Cook when you're not hungry.  

Cooking when you are hungry can be stressful. It's hard to enjoy cooking when you are just trying to make a meal as soon as possible. Try to find moments to cook between meals. You don't have to eat what you cook. You can try cooking something and working on recipes and then save what you make for the next meal. 

Don't just cook to make food to eat.  

Sometimes cook for the sake of enjoying cooking.

To Cook - Introduction

I love cooking. It combines science, culture, creativity, traditions, innovation, and love. Cooking has the potential to transform what is essential and mundane into an artistic and cathartic experience. Great cooking can be simple or almost incomprehensibly complex. Through cooking, we connect to people worldwide and throughout history. 

Cooking has things to fear. Everyone who cooks will burn themselves. A gas flame on a stove can reach over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone who will eventually cut themselves doing prep with knives. If you don’t clean surfaces and utensils well, handle foods safely and cook proteins to safe temperatures, you can get sick from food as a consequence of cooking. And you can mess up and make things inedible when you cook.  

Mistakes are a feature of cooking. For example, eggshells fall into bowls when eggs are cracked; food gets undercooked; a dish tastes too salty, an omelet apart, or an ingredient gets burned. Cooking requires you to see mistakes as opportunities to be creative, to problem solves, and most importantly, to learn. A big piece of eggshell is a perfect tool to get eggshell out of a bowl. If a piece of chicken looks cooked on the outside and still isn’t done, let it in the oven. Sometimes all you need is a little sugar or water when a dish is too salty, and if an omelet falls apart, now you got scrambled eggs.  

Cooking is a language of love for others and oneself. When you cook for someone else, you are saying I care about your well-being on a primal level. You are contributing to their health, mood, and spirit, not just for that one meal. Food prepared one day affects how bodies develop over time, and the cooking for someone adds to a feeling of care and self-worth for those served that resonate throughout a whole life. 

When we cook for ourselves, it’s a moment of creation and self-care. When we create things, it reminds us that we are powerful, and there is a satisfaction that comes from creating beauty that enriches life and the human spirit. When the act of creation brings us the sustenance to thrive, it is self-care on a seemingly basic level, but it can transcend and makes us feel love for ourselves.  

So this summer I’m going to write about cooking and food. It’s an important part of my life that I haven’t written about on this blog. I’m going to get into some food memories, the fundamentals of cooking that I follow, and some of my favorite things to cook.  

Tonight, I’m going to braise some cabbage in butter, a magical dish. The cabbage steams with its moisture, and the butter enhances the flavor of the cabbage wonderfully. It takes time like forty-five minutes, but it’s worth the time. Next, I’m making steamed rice, cooked in a time-honored Chinese process. The ritual of washing the rice and measuring the amount of water in the pot makes me feel proud to be Asian. Finally, I have some chicken thighs to cook. I may fry them up to make chicken teriyaki, but if I have some broth, I might make some soup. We’ll see. 

Friday’s, cooking and me.

On Cooking

One of my favorite places to go with my mother is the grocery store. Ever since I was a child, I loved going grocery shopping with her. There was something magical about the grocery store to me as a child. There’s all of these different flavors, colors, and textures. There are some food that you can just pick off the shelf and eat immediately. Then there are the different ingredients that can combined through the chemistry and magic of cooking to become an almost infinite number of dishes.

I always got the sense my mom enjoyed grocery shopping. She gets excited about different fruits that were fresh, she engages people at the seafood and the meat counter. She has a passion for food, and an imagination for what food can be. What’s amazing about the grocery store is that within, even in a store that has a limited “ethnic” food section, the potential for diversity, and representation that can come out of the ingredients in a grocery store is beautiful, powerful, and inspiring.

We have a complicated relationship with food in our culture. Americans love food. They love talking about food, they love eating food. There’s some strange, about how a person in our country who may hold racist views about Mexican, still loves a great taco. We feel shame about our fast food cultures, and the harm many feel it is doing to the health, and the youth of our country, but we have no problem admiring these companies’ capitalistic success.

These complications are reflected in how we cook. Americans want to know how to cook. They watch cooking shows, and competitions on television, and online. People buy cook books, and the growth of the “ship stuff to your house, and have you cook your own meal at home” industry has shown that cooking is something we value. However, it’s hard to find time to cook. And for far many of us, the tradition of cooking with our parents and/or grandparents the primary way most people learn how to cook has been lost.

Cooking for me is one of the most important ways that I show love to the people in my life and have received love from my parents. And I wonder what we have lost. People receive and show love in different ways. These ways have to be taught, and maybe, there has been some love that hasn’t been shown, because some of us don’t know how to do this through food.

My mom taught me how to cook. More than that she taught me how to think about cooking. There’s only a couple recipes I have written down from my mom. Mostly what she taught me were concepts, and ideas about how ingredients work together, the idea that flavors can change, and be directed. She inspired me to look deeper and find joy in exploring the mystery of the creation of food.

Things that are important to us connect others in our lives. When I’m at the grocery store, by myself or with my son, I feel my mom with me. When I’m cooking, and I’m tasting food, I think about her, and my identity as a Taiwanese-American. It’s a way that connection to her is felt, and I’m trying to make that association with my sons. Because by knowing the culture of food in our family, my boys will feel pride in themselves.

Not everything I cook is great.  But there are the moments when something I cook transcends my own skills, and something truly magical happens in the kitchen.  When this happens and a dish I cook is truly amazing, I always whisper to myself “thanks mom.”

Parenthood: Week 108 – “Cooking” With Ollie

I’ve done a lot of stupid things as parent.

I’m not talking about actions that put Ollie in danger. I’m talking about doing things that no reasonable person should do because of the stress and potential trauma involved in the experience.

There is the over a dozen plane rides I’ve taken Ollie on, continuing to take Ollie on road trips of ever-increasing lengths, and attempting to have Ollie “help” me fold the laundry before he could crawl. One of the most challenging and stupid things that I continue to do with Ollie is cooking dinner while watching Ollie.

I freely admit that there are times that I plunk Ollie in front of the television so I can cook dinner, but I do my best to avoid this (in a future blog post, I’ll talk about screen time and parenting).

This choice combined with the fact that I prioritize cooking “real food” for my family makes my life needlessly. I always have frozen pizza, frozen chicken tenders, and frozen vegetables in my freezer. Also I always have box mac and cheeses and instant ramen in my pantry. These staples come into use at least once a week. My wife and I both work, and we live modern lives, so cooking a home cook meal every day, simply doesn’t happen. However more often than not I manage to cook “real food” for my family.

I define real food as cooking meat from raw (not simply heating pre-cooked meat), preparing fresh veggies and eating some kind of starch that isn’t Stove Top stuffing (which I love btw).

This is something that I’ve made a priority in my life. Not everybody does and that’s fine, we all make different choices in how we take care of our family and ourselves. I hardly ever iron my clothing (sometimes after I clean a pair of khakis in my laundry machine, I send it to the dry cleaners so I don’t have to iron them). Forget, making or altering clothes for my family. Ollie had disposable diapers, partially because I would rather spend my time cooking than laundering dirty diapers.

Making cooking a priority in my life mostly has to do with the fact that I love cooking. One of the ways that my mom shows love is through cooking. She taught me how to cook and also how to teach myself to master recipes. I full credit her with my ability and interest to watch over thirty different youtube instructional videos on how to cook and omelet and figure out the techniques that work the best for my cooking style and my family.

Now once upon a time, I could put Ollie in a bouncer or in his Pack & Play and I could cook dinner. He grew out of his bouncer and he felt too constricted in his Pack & Play so I had to figure something else out. Our kitchen is a galley kitchen so I can’t really see much of the house from the stove or the sink (I don't have a big enough kitchen or enough counter space for a learning tower).  In order for Ollie to be safe, I need him in the kitchen while I cook.

There’s a gate at one end of the kitchen and the stove is at the other end, so I basically just need to keep Ollie to the left of me.

So how do I keep Ollie entertained while I cook?

There’s a variety of strategies that I utilize and cycle through. Sometimes I just feed him things that I’m prepping and cooking. This works if he’s interesting in the ingredients that I’m using but isn’t idea because this strategy has the potential to fill him up before dinner. I bring toys into the kitchen. This sometimes helps and we have some magnetic toddler toys on the refrigerator, but these toys never seem to occupy his attention for very long.

What I’ve found that work is having Ollie “cook.” For Ollie cooking is a variety of activities. There’s taking out all of the pots and pans and their lids and trying to match them up. Sometimes I take out all of the Tupperware for him to stack and organize. Ollie has learned how to prep string beans, (though for some reason he feels a need to bite every bean after he snaps them in two).

The most fun Ollie has is cooking pasta. I give him a small pot, a handful of uncooked pasta, a colander, a bowl with some water, tongs, a spatula and a ladle. Most days, this will keep Ollie occupied for twenty minutes, sometimes longer. When I first tried this with Ollie I had to teach him how to use the tongs. We went over how he could mix water in the pasta and use the colander to get the water out of the pasta.

Inevitably the kitchen floor gets covered with water, and Ollie needs a change of socks at the very least and an entire outfit change if he’s being really silly with the water.

Periodically I’ll show him what’s in the oven or what’s in the pan. I almost always let Ollie take a smell of whatever spices I’m using which he really  enjoys.  And with some of my favorite music always playing in the kitchen, impromptu dance parties often happen while we cook.

I’ve started teaching Ollie some knife skills and he’s doing well with that, and he’s getting the concepts of the different tools of the kitchen. The tools that make things smaller like graters and things we use to mix.  Also he's really good at figuring out what utensils make the loudest noises when hit against pans.

It’s really intense trying to cook when Ollie is in the kitchen. I’m trying to focus on the food, and the process, while also keeping Ollie safe and engaged. If you cook with toddler in your care, you have to be flexible. Maybe a dish that was supposed to be pan-fried is simply going to have to be baked in the oven and pasta will inevitably get overcooked.

Sometimes you just need to give up and stick frozen food in the over and the kid in front of the television. There’s no shame in that. Food is not always art, and after a long day at work with a kid in a bad mood, you got to make something work.

Sometimes, on the hard days, I find something left inside of me and I push myself to make a meal that expresses something about who I am. I bring Ollie into the kitchen and in his own way he’s part of this process. He’s trying ingredients, he’s hearing the sounds of the kitchen, and smelling the magic of aromas mixing and tasting flavors come together. While it’s more stressful for me, like other stupid things I do in my life with Ollie, I’d rather cook with Ollie than without him.