Before we get to the treats, let’s spend a moment to talk about girls. No, I’m not talking about the HBO series, which I admit I do watch. (To read the best commentary about that show, you really should be reading Eddie Huang’s recaps.) Rather, I want to spend a moment to recognize some awesome gals I know.

Last Friday I threw the aforementioned party on my rooftop in Long Island City, inviting some of the bloggers visiting from out of town whom I’ve gotten to know through Gojee.  What started off as informal plans to grab drinks evolved into a bigger potluck gathering with both visiting and local bloggers at my apartment.

It was so nice to catch up with friends and meet new ones whom I’ve only been in touch with online and was meeting for the first time in person. Without too much planning, everything came together pretty seamlessly, with the exception of the ominous overcast. Food was served, libations were shared and heartfelt conversations were had.  Though some of us had only met that day, by the end of the night it felt like we were all old friends.

One of the more openly honest and poignant topics of conversation that evening touched on the struggles of grappling with the increasingly aspirational culture of blogging and the fact that sometimes reality isn’t particularly aspirational.  Kasey more eloquently sums up the conversation here.  I suppose it also helped that I was liquoring everyone up with shots of beet sugar vodka throughout the night.

Party people: Kimberley, Kathryne, Laura, Barb, Diana, Kristin, Kasey, Yossy, Elizabeth, Sarah. Not pictured, since we took this photo later in the evening: Nicole, Cathy, Sarah, and Chitra.

Ignoring the wind and drizzle, we persevered and made our way through the impressive spread. Unfortunately, I was only able to squeeze a few Instagrams on my phone in between playing hostess for the evening, so the following is by no means a complete representation of the offerings on the potluck table. Check it out -

Cathy’s Roasted Hakurei Turnips with Israeli Couscous

Sarah’s Chocolate Dipped Farmer’s Market Strawberries

Elizabeth’s Roasted Beet Salad

Yossy’s Strawberry Rhubarb Hand Pies

Acme Smoked Salmon with Creme Fraiche and Buckwheat Crepes made by yours truly (crepes adapted from Kate’s recipe; I used all buckwheat flour instead of a buckwheat + spelt flour combo)

A special thanks to Bruce Cost’s Fresh Ginger Ale and Industry City Distillery for providing drinks to keep us refreshingly hydrated and liquored up.

While I’m still on the topic of girls, I wanted to give two more shout outs to a couple more awesome girls that I know -

First, to my NYU homegirls Talisa Chang and Juliet Linderman, who along with Aldona Watts and Diana Diroy started Her Girl Friday and recently hosted a panel of veteran editors from the New York Times and New York Magazine titled How to Pitch Like a Girl. The premise of the panel was to provide encouragement and insights from established journalism veterans on how to effectively pitch stories in order to level the gender playing field in journalism and storytelling. And oh hey, they also just made it onto the cover page of the New York Observer!

Last but not least, a shout out goes to my co-organizers of the recently revived Girls in Tech NYC Chapter - Kara Rota of Cookstr, Jamie Eun Lee of Tipping Point Partners and Amanda Moritz of Brainscape.  After we hacked the mailing list for Girls in Tech to throw a mixer a couple months back, we were caught red-handed by the organizers of the official Girls in Tech organization. Don’t worry, we officially now have their blessings to proceed. Kara, Jamie, Amanda and I are aiming to achieve something similar to that of Her Girl Friday but in the equally male-dominated world of tech, starting with our Start-up Equity 101 Primer on June 13th. The primer is designed to educate more women about equity in start-up companies in order to negotiate for equity more effectively. Wish us luck!

Alright, now that I’ve laced this post with enough hyperlinks to explode WordPress, onwards to the treats.  Have a great weekend, everyone -

Coconut, PB and Chocolate Rice Crispy Treats

Adapted from Spoon Fork Bacon
Makes a 10 inch circumference pan-full of Rice Crispy Treats

Ingredients:
3 cups rice puffs (I used rice puffs from the Indian store, but regular Rice Krispies cereal works too)
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
6 ounces dark chocolate chips, melted
Generous handful of shredded coconut and black sesame seeds

Directions:
1. Stir together the peanut butter and melted chocolate in a double boiler (I used a metal mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water) until smooth.
3. Fold in the peanut butter and chocolate mixture with the crispies in a mixing bowl.
4. Pour the mixture into a parchment lined baking sheet and top with shredded coconut and sesame seeds.
5. Place in the refrigerator for at least 1 to 2 hours to allow the treats to set quicker. (I put it in the fridge overnight)
6. Once everything has set, carefully peel the treat from the sheet of parchment, cut and serve.

Truly on the cusp of popularity in the United States, we saw that seaweed is not only an excellent and inexpensive source of nutrients, sustainable (it can grow several feet in a day!), but also helps in reversing the degradation of marine environment caused by coastal fish farming.  Myself, I’ve always known seaweed to be a good source of iodine, but never realized the amount of vitamins and proteins it contains. Even our moderator, Andrea Beaman, proclaimed a seaweed diet cured her goiter.

Among the culinary trendsetters attending the session were Hugue Dufour & Sarah Obraitis of M. Wells (and upcoming Dinette at PS1), and seafood enthusiasts, Kerry Heffernan of Southgate, Toni Robertson of Mandarin Oriental, Joe DiStefano of World’s Fare, Jamie Tiampo of Seefood Media and Kian Lam Kho of Redcook.net.

The host of the event, Korea Agro-Trade New York, announced their collaboration with the Culinary Institute of America on developing a recipe book using gim as an everyday ingredient – which will be published later this year. Chef Phillip Crispo, from the CIA, even provided us with a demo and tasting of delightful seaweed dishes. Ht truly took gim to a different direction – using it creatively in stuffed pork loin, spanokopita and tortellini. It made sense, since seaweed is a sea vegetable, which can easily substitute other ingredients such as spinach! My favorites were, surprisingly, the gim popcorn, gim ice cream and my goodness, the gim brittle in my goodie bag. I could not get enough of that!

And now, I leave you with one of the dishes served at the tasting, simple enough to make for yourself at home.

Gim-Dressed Popcorn
Courtesy of Fabulous and Flavorful Gim: A Collection of Korean Seaweed Recipes developed by Faculty Chefs from the Culinary Institute of America

Serves 6

Ingredients:

5 sheets gim (Korean dried seaweed)
4 oz / 113 g butter
2 Tbsp / 30 ml canola oil
2.8 oz / 79 g unpopped corn kernels

1. Place the gim in a spice grinder and grind until it is finely ground.

2. Place the ground gim and the butter in a small bowl or pot and melt, either in a microwave for 30 to 45 seconds or on the stovetop over low heat for 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed sautoir over medium-high heat. Add the corn kernels and cover the pan with a lid. Gently shake the pan on the burner for the duration of the cooking time and listening for popping kernels to cease popping. Once the kernels stop popping, after 4 to 5 minutes, remove the foil and transfer the popcorn to a large mixing bowl.

4. Combine the gim butter with the popcorn and cover the bowl tightly with foil. Shake the bowl well to evenly coat the popcorn with the butter. Remove the foil, and serve.

This post was guest-written by Wendy Chan.

4 days until Christmas Eve.

3 more tickets left for the Woks & Lox dinner.

If you can’t join us for dinner, come to the nosh party – we’ve got plenty party tickets still up for grabs.

Just check out our menu (sponsored by our friends at TMI):

Dinner

Shiitake Ginger Matzoh Ball Soup
Garlic Dill Asian Pickles
Potato and Scallion Wonton Pierogies
Matzoh Encrusted Pan-Fried Tofu with General Tso’s Sauce
Ginger Sriracha Wok-Fried Bagel Strips
Sichuan Peppercorn Latkes
Kasha Varnishkes tossed in Scallion Oil
Roasted Vegetables with Chili and Sesame Soy

Dessert

Spring Roll Blintzes filled with Schmear and Chinese Jujubes
Sweet Red Bean Rugelach

Nosh Party Noshes

Potato and Scallion Wonton Pierogies
Ginger Sriracha Wok-Fried Bagel Strips
Sichuan Peppercorn Latkes
Spring Roll Blintzes filled with Schmear and Chinese Jujubes

And if that doesn’t get you excited enough, check out these wallets I made. We’ll be Chinese auctioning off a pair on Saturday!

Woks and Lox

Saturday, Dec 24th, Christmas Eve
Dinner: 5-7pm, ticket includes Nosh party
Nosh Party: 7-9pm
at The Queens Kickshaw (40-17 Broadway  Astoria)

You must buy tickets in advance through:
http://www.indiegogo.com/WoksandLox

Tickets to Dinner ($59), include Chichi Wang’s Jewish-Asian dinner mash-up from 5-7pm, 2 free drink tickets, and admission to the Nosh Party from 7-9pm.

Tickets to the Nosh Party ($28), include the Nosh Party from 7-9pm and 1 free drink ticket.

Tickets must be claimed by Friday, 12/23 @ midnight on IndieGoGo: http://www.indiegogo.com/WoksandLox
Official site: http://woksandlox.com/

I won’t lie, being a new kid in 7th grade was a trying time, and at times it really sucked a lot.  It took a while for me to adjust, but looking back at my childhood, I don’t regret it at all.  If anything, I’m grateful that I’ve had a chance to have grown up in a Jewish community and be immersed in Jewish culture, which I’ve found to have many similarities and connections to my Chinese upbringing.

Even in Los Angeles, we never had a Christmas tree at my house, and I probably never will. This Christmas Eve, I won’t be crying about my treeless apartment- the only tears I’ll be shedding will be tears of joy.  I’ll be celebrating the bond between Jews and Asians by co-hosting Woks and Lox at the Queens Kickshaw with my Jewish co-producer, Jeff Orlick, and we’d love for you to come too.

Of course any celebration, Jewish or Asian, can’t be without food and drink. So, our good friend and talented chef Chichi Wang will be preparing a sit-down dinner for 20 followed by a party of 40 more, complete with Sino-semitic noshes.

The fun doesn’t end there. Aside from dinner and noshes, we’ll have entertainment ranging from adaptations of Chinese wedding games to barmitzvah festivities and mah jong, as well as a Chinese auction with prizes donated by some of our favorite small businesses and companies.

Some of our prizes and giveaways include He’Brew, The Chosen Beer, Queens Historian Jack Eichenbaum‘s Tour along the 7 train, Fresh Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost, special Woks & Lox wallets from Hail the Right Brain made by yours truly, and Jeff will be giving away tickets to his infamous Midnight Street Food tour too.

That’s just the beginning – we’ll also have JoJu’s Modern Vietnamese, and many pizza giveaways from Louie’s Pizzeria in Elmhurst to Roebling Pizza in Williamsburg, in addition to tickets to Scott’s Pizza tour, and of course Jeff’s Real Pizza of New York iPhone app. More to come in a following post!

Last but not least, we’re doing it at one of our favorite places in our home borough of Queens,  The Queens Kickshaw.  We couldn’t do this without Kickshaw owners Ben Sandler and Jen Lim, two of our very first supporters of Woks & Lox and not-so-coincidentally also a Jewish and Asian duo, who have generously offered to host us and even be there personally to mix special drinks just for this special Christmas evening.

Christmas Eve is a tough date to make, but even if you can’t come, we don’t want you to feel left out – so we’re making holiday cards, money holders, and party t0-go packs from me and Jeff at Woks & Lox HQ (aka my apartment) – all for sale on IndieGoGo alongside the tickets to the event.  It’s going to be fun, and I hope you can be a part of it.  If you can’t, please help us to spread the word and make our Christmas wish come true.

WOKS & LOX
Saturday, Dec 24th, Christmas Eve
Dinner: 5-7pm (includes Nosh party)
Nosh Party: 7-9pm
at The Queens Kickshaw (40-17 Broadway, Astoria, Queens)

You must buy tickets in advance through:
http://www.indiegogo.com/WoksandLox

“My wife challenged me to cook, 5 mins later someone tweeted or blogged about [Gojee] and … BAM! I’ve done two dishes already, and I have never cooked in my life before :O Great job guys!”

It’s emails like these that makes me feel like we’re making big changes with Gojee. We’re converting people into home cooks, one recipe at a time.

While garlic scapes closely resemble beans or scallions, they’re actually shoots of the garlic plant.  As for their taste, they have a milder, sweeter garlic flavor than garlic itself.  If you eat it raw, you may get a minor case of garlic breath that lasts until the next morning, but it’s a small price to pay for a unique taste that is only in season for a short time.

Inspired by an episode of the Kimchi Chronicles in which Jean-Georges and Hugh Jackman prepared a delectable kimchi compound butter to slather onto a Wagyu steak, I decided to attempt a compound butter of my own with garlic scapes and lemon thyme to pair with the rib-eye steak my dad was planning to grill on the barbecue.

So how do you make Garlic Scape and Lemon Thyme Compound Butter?  Well, lucky for you, I snapped all the steps on Instagram.  Here it goes..

Yield: 2 sticks of compound butter

Ingredients:
3 Garlic Scapes
2 Sticks of Butter
1 Handful of Lemon Thyme (or Thyme)
Wax Paper

Method:

Take 3 garlic scapes

Chop them into 1 inch sections and throw into the food processor. Meanwhile, place your two sticks of butter out on the counter to warm up to room temperature.

Blend garlic scapes until finely chopped.

Grab a handful of thyme or lemon thyme and run your fingers through each step to take off the leaves.

Slice your room temperature butter into 1/2 inch slices and throw them in a mixing bowl with your chopped scapes and thyme leaves.

Using a fork and/or spatula, incorporate the ingredients together.

Split the butter into two portions and roll it up with a piece of wax or parchment paper, like you would a sushi roll, and twist the ends so it looks like a piece of candy.  Stick one into the fridge and let it set for a few hours, and throw the second into the freezer to use in the future.

This is what it should look like, when it’s all set and unwrapped.

Take a few slices and eat it with your steak (like I did, above), slather it on toasted bread, or mix it in with a warm potato salad.  As we made our way through dinner, each bite was complimented by a burst of garlic scape nibs and thyme – it was awesome!

And I think everyone agreed too.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

“Technology is knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room”

Left to Right: Mike Lee (Studio Feast), Amanda Hesser (Food 52), Mike LaValle (Gojee), Sarah Maine (RecipeRelay), Will Turnage (Ratio Bread App & R/GA)

I never really thought about it before, but in some ways it’s true — while the act of eating together and breaking bread has always been an inherently social activity, cooking has conventionally been more of a solitary act confined to the kitchen. If you think about it, a traditional kitchen has almost always been walled off from the dining room, and in a way, that separation also dictates our interactions in both spaces.

Whether it’s at home or at the restaurant, there has long been a schism between eating and cooking – in the case of the home it’s the divide between the kitchen and the dining room, and at the restaurant, the back of the house and the front of the house.  But with the gaining popularity of culinary curiosity, the rise of open kitchens and collaborative cooking, coupled by the social sharing abilities of food and cooking technology, the walls between the two have begun to come down.

While Ruby on Rails and Gems still completely perplex me, what draws me most to technology is not so much the 1′s and 0′s  but the ability to facilitate real life, offline behavior.  With the emergence of cooking websites, applications, and blogs, learning how to cook and sharing experiences in the kitchen has never been so easily accessible before, empowering the home cook and enabling the emergence of the social cooking and eating experience.

Just last week, I was invited over for a dinner party at my friend Josh‘s apartment along with Cathy and a bunch of their friends.  I had never cooked with either Josh or Cathy before, but just having read their blogs and literally browsing through all of their recipes, cooking together almost seemed second-nature to me.  In the four person apartment, where Josh and his brother Mike both live with two other roommates and also run their catering business Brothers Green, the kitchen is fully stocked, the island provides ample counter space for chopping and prepping, and the whole space opens up into the living / dining area.  For dinner, we were asked to either bring beverages or ingredients to cook with.  As friends trickled in and brought varying ingredients, ideas were shared, consensus was made, everyone fell into line, and somehow dinner fell into place.  Between all the dumpling wrapping, vegetable chopping, and beer sipping we all became fast, new friends.

Without any pre-planning, a bunch of home cooks managed to cook up an entire dinner on the fly, and we even created some awesome new recipes along the way, one of which I’m sharing with you below.  This all just comes to show that you don’t need extensive training or expensive tools to master the culinary domain.  The kitchen is now a welcoming place of experimentation and exploration for self taught home cooks – the new voice and authority on the internet.

Photo: Pete Lee

Beer battered Oyster Mushrooms with Pomegranate and Sake Reduction
This tasted like a new, improved vegetarian version of General Tso’s chicken.  The trick is to double-fry the mushrooms, so they stay crispy even after you drizzle a generous dose of pomegranate and sake sauce on top.

Serves: 15 people at a potluck

Ingredients

Mushrooms
Big pot of oil / deep fryer-ful of oil
3 dozen oyster mushrooms
4 eggs
6 cups of panko or breadcrumbs
splash of beer

Reduction
1 large bottle of Pom
1 lime
splash of sake
2 Tbsp sugar
A few tsp of potato starch with water

Method

1. Beat the eggs, pour a splash of beer and set aside in a bowl, then pour panko out into a shallow dish
2. Dip mushrooms in the egg batter, then roll them around in the panko.  Repeat until you have all your mushrooms battered up.
3. In a deep fryer or in a big post of oil, deep fry the mushrooms until golden brown.
4. After the first fry, lay the mushrooms out on a piece of paper towel to soak up the excess oil and cool for a bit.
5. Heat up a pan and pour in a bottle of Pom, the juice of a lime, a splash of sake, sugar, potato starch, and a splash of water, stir on low heat.
6. When the mushrooms have rested a few minutes, throw them back into the pot / fryer to fry them again.
7. Stir your pomegranate sake sauce and reduce until a syrupy texture, while keeping an eye on the mushrooms
8. Plate your double-fried mushrooms, then drizzle the sauce on top and sprinkle with chopped scallions (optional)

My first encounter with Laphet Thote, tea leaf salad, was at the Burmese restaurant Village Mingala in the East Village.  There’s something about the sharp zing and pronounced flavor of fermentation that really speaks to me.  While the namesake tea leaves were the star of the show, the roasted peanuts, along with a smattering of nuts and seeds stirred into the dish, played a strong supporting role, offering a rounded, nutty contrast to the sharp, pronounced flavor of fermented tea leaves.  But before I could return to Village Mingala for a second taste, I was sad to learn that the restaurant had closed down.

Eaten the authentic Burmese way, Laphet Thote challenges the conventional concept of salad. The first thing that comes to mind when you think “salad” is some sort of leafy green.  Well, in a Laphet Thote, there are none.  The laphet, the Burmese word for these fermented tea leaves, is served in the center of the a dish with other assorted ingredients, which differ according to your preference, encircle the star of the dish.

Typically, a telltale sign of a good salad is a balanced distribution of salad components and dressing in each bite, commonly mixed together in a larger portion then served.  On the other hand, tea leaf salad is served in a compartmentalized container, making it possible to adjust the proportion of the ingredients of each handful according to your taste.

I was able to recreate tea leaf salad at home thanks to my Burmese friend Sophie, who not only serves as my resource for all things Burmese related, but also kindly supplies me with laphet, which is apparently illegal to import and distribute here in the United States.  I didn’t have a cool compartmentalized platter handy, but here’s Laphet Thote, done my way: A scoop of laphet surrounded by roasted peanuts, fried yellow lentils, toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic, and some more nuts

The import of laphet has been banned because certain brands have been found to contain traces of Auramine O, a yellow dye used for coloring silk, cotton, paper and leather, was found.   I’m not sure if this is still the case, but I’m hoping that with a gradually growing Burmese community in New Jersey and Queens, there’ll be more chances for laphet thote to emerge on more menus and restaurants.

Just like there are plants blossoming in my garden right now (above), there are some equally exciting new developments figuratively in bloom here at World to Table that I thought I’d share with everyone.

First of all, I have a new job!  Well, it’s semi-new, since I started back in January, but it still feels exciting and new to me.  I am the Director of Digital Strategy (to translate that for you, I’m in charge of Social Media, Content and a dash of Marketing) at Gojee.com, a start-up that recommends curated recipes based on food you buy at the store.  To fully comprehend the Gojee experience and try it firsthand, you’ll have to wait just a little longer as we do some code-tweaking before we launch.  But basically, I now spend my days scouting awesome recipes with beautiful photos from some of my favorite recipe bloggers – amongst other things. Stay tuned for more developments.

Since my new job requires more of a time and mind commitment, I’ve decided to try my hand at writing shorter posts and sticking to a more frequent posting schedule – say goodbye to flowery long posts that I dread editing and say hello to pure, unadulterated, conversational posts.  In addition to that, I’m also committing myself to cover more cooking topics, so I can get awesome at helping to build a website and community for home cooks.  (Whoa, I just mentioned commitment two times in one paragraph- this must be a sign that I’m finally becoming a woman or something.)

Part of my new role at Gojee is to build and manage a community of people who not only love food but love cooking food at home.  In this process, I want to explore new ingredients and new ways to make cooking more fun.  Coming from someone who naturally thrives on going out and exploring new cuisines at restaurants, this will be a difficult challenge, but I am finally ready to accept.  After years of school and academics, I still find that the best way for me to learn is through trial and error.  What better way to transition into this new role than to take the reins and do more cooking myself?  In the past, I brought people together physically, through food events and productions, but this is it – I’m crossing into the digital realm.  I will now be able to bring people together and facilitate these experiences in a way that transcends physical limitations!

Most of all, I’d really love to hear from you, since it does get lonely here and sometimes it seems like I’m just talking to myself, or into a black hole.  You can find me here on worldtotable.com or on twitter and facebook – say hi, be my friend, keep in touch, and keep me motivated!

I was excited to see that Chef Shirley Cheng, professor at the Culinary Institute of America, chose to use black cod skin and tails as her main ingredient for her winning recipe this past Saturday at the Japanese Ingredient Culinary Challenge at the Restaurant Show.

Shirley Cheng demoing her Black Cod Skin and Tails alongside emcees Ron Hsu and Jenna Zimmerman

Her plate was not conventionally elegant. It was a humble composition that possessed an unspoken familiarity, reminding me of a typical dish served at a traditional Chinese restaurant — lacquered with a glistening brown glaze and served over a bed of blanched vegetables. There was not a micro green in sight.

But while the other two competitors masterfully plated their dishes and leveraged advanced French culinary techniques, what they fell short in was Japanese flavors. Professor Cheng’s fish skin and tails were the perfect vehicle to showcase the mirin, sake, rice vinegar, and soy sauce, which melded together beautifully in every bite.

I hope that Professor Cheng’s victory is an indication that there is a growing appreciation for more versatile and undiscovered parts of the animal. After all, chicken breasts and fish fillets can get a bit boring.

Here is Professor Cheng’s winning recipe:

Black Cod Skin and Tails

Ingredients
12 cloves of garlic
10 scallions
1/2 inch ginger, sliced
8 dried Chinese chilies, whole
2 lb fish skin and tail
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
1/2 cup mirin
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup Japanese rice vinegar
1/2 cup spring water
1/2 lb napa cabbage heart

Method
1. Remove all scales and rinse fish skin well.  Dry with paper towel.
2. Cut fish skin into two inch wide and three inch long pieces.
3. Cut scallion into three inch long sections.
4. Put scallions, garlic, and ginger in the bottom of a one gallon sauce pot.  Add fish skin and tails on top then add soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, water, and chilies.
5. Cut napa cabbage into three inch strips then blanch in water.  Remove and place on the plate.
6. Serve fish skin on top of napa cabbage or on the side.

*Note: do not stir during cooking.

A big thank you goes out to Ron Hsu, a friend and sous chef at Le Bernardin who won last year’s competition, for getting us badges for the show!