Here’s another recipe idea using the five spice powder. I promised more recipes and have had requests. I recently tried one where you just sprinkle it on duck legs and let them slow roast in the oven.  Super easy and super tasty. The chicken wings are easy too, despite the seemingly long list of ingredients.

I served this as finger food at a Chinese New Year Party. I like eating chicken wings, but not in public and I usually don’t order them unless I know they will be fried and crispy, or dry and crispy. The best ones are the Japanese ones that are salty and lemony and deep fried. I don’t want to deep fry for a party so these ginger honey wings will do just fine and can be made a couple days ahead and warmed up for the party. Wings have to be slow roasted so most of the fat has dripped off. The goopey, slimy ones that some places serve are kinda nasty. Let’s avoid that.

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This is a family style dish from the Northern region in China. Usually you can find these on a menu of a Chinese restaurant that serves dumplings. My mom always kept homemade ones in the freezer. If you like pan fried dumplings or gyoza, these taste like you are eating the outer fried dough of those. If you have had these before you will remember the flaky, layered texture of each bite. They are nothing like a pizza crust. That is from the the the flattening, the rolling, the twisting, then the flattening again.

It’s a great vegetarian alternative to dumplings and can be served with various soy dipping sauces. You can slice up slivers of ginger, douse it with some hot sauce, or keep it simple and just add sesame oil. 

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Chinese New Year, which is based on the lunar calendar, always sneaks up on me. It falls around the end of January or the beginning of February and is right around the time I have recovered from the holiday buzz. This year is the year of the Ox. For years, I have been saying I will host a party for Chinese New Year, but it usually falls too close to my birthday and I don’t want to do all the work of hosting. I’m finally doing it this year and have devised quite a food line-up, combining some traditional things, with some of my own, modern creations, and some family style dishes. I love introducing new tastes to friends and enjoying it in the home feels right for a holiday that is traditionally spent with family. 

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I came home from a long week at work to a surprise gift box of artisan cured salumi, from Salumi in Seattle, the specialty meats shop of the dad of the celebrity chef, Mario Batali. This mysterious box of meats was sitting on our kitchen counter. There was no gift card and no invoice. I first saw this shop on some Anthony Bourdain show. People were waiting in long lines for sandwiches and then the family had a specially prepared meal awaiting Bourdain. There was a tour of the room with hanging, curing meats. This is also the one place I know of to order guanciale from. Yes, that gamey, rich pig jowel I have grown so fond of. 

More and more these days, I had noticed that resturants were using the word ’salumi’. What is the difference between salami and salame? From what I can tell, salami is plural for salame but salumi refers to assorted other cured meats like prosciutto or bacon. So if you really want to sound like a proper foodie, saying ‘please pass the platter of salumi’ would be more appropriate then saying ‘please pass the platter of salame’ if it’s a platter of charcuterie that includes prosciutto, etc. A couple years ago when I was in Rome at we picked up some Abruzzo salame at the Campo di Fiori. That is the city it came from and is the same way other salame like, Genoa, got it’s name.

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A French-Moroccan friend of mine used to love talking about food so much that anytime I saw him or heard his name, my stomach would grumble. He was the person who first shaved whole, black truffles onto a salad for me, possibly about 12 years ago. Sadly, I have since lost touch with him but the memories of the food tales he used to tell are deeply ingrained in my memory and at this point, I am sure I have added in my own twist of what those stories really looked like.

One thing that he would cook was a roasted chicken with preserved lemons. Although, if my memory stands correct, I think his wife, the classically French trained chef, did all the cooking. He did all the talking. But, like many people who have left their homeland, there will always be a void or gap to fill that no restaurant will ever succeed at and that is home style cooking, aka, what mom used to make. This is when it’s time to roll up your sleeves.

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This may be the best kept secret in Glendale. I am so reluctant in letting this cat out of the bag. But as it goes, I was told the secret by Bob’s mom, Gloria, about this wonderful Sunday treat that has become my latest, neighborhood hangout and favorite Sunday activity.

Bob is a black lab that my dog, Guinness, has become buds with for the last several years. Bob’s parents are total foodies and travel to Italy to taste all the good stuff right from the source. One sunny day, shortly after all the holiday buzz was dying down, Bob and Guinness were having a play session on my front porch. During these play sessions, we humans interact as well and compared food notes. I was tipped off on a Sunday special at Palate in Glendale which was voted one of the best 10 places in LA for 2008. I forgot what magazine or poll that was from. Palate had been on my short list of places to try and since it’s only about 10 minutes away from me, not a huge commitment. I was waiting for the next special occasion, but the words ‘affordable’ and ‘delicious’ don’t need to be repeated.

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I made buns this weekend and I hope that title got your attention. I was inspired by these Taiwanese buns from a place I tried in SGV (San Gabriel Valley), Kingburg Kitchen. Anytime I want to try something new and tasty in that part of town, my go-to-resource for great photos and info about tiny,traditional places is the LA based blog, potatomato. These twins seem to eat every meal out, so I can bet that they are gonna know just where to go in SGV. I didn’t care much for the other items on the menu, like the beef noodle soup, meaning I have had much better elsewhere, but the buns were really good and seemed like something I could achieve in my home kitchen. 

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New York  Style Cheesecake is one of those foods that may truly be an American invention, or at least made famous by Americans. It’s also a sweet that is hard to mess up. I don’t consider myself a baker at all, but it seems to be something I dabble in more and more as my sweet tooth starts developing in tandem with my baking skills. Every year, I get stuck making the same cheesecake recipe for Christmas. I secretly don’t mind since it’s a leftover we like having around. Sliver after sliver, night after night, and poof - the entire 5lbs of cheesecake is gone. 

It has been a fallback desert of mine for years. Every year I make a New Year’s resolution to try baking different desserts. Maybe I can stick to it this year with the help of some new books I got, like Baked, which uses salty sweet methods for a few things. Coincidentally, their cheesecake recipe is the first I have seen that has a sour cream topping like the one my mom always made. Mine is a little different with the powdered sugar but it serves the same purpose.

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I dare say, I am all food’ed out from the holidays and am now nursing a bad cold. We had more social gatherings than usual to attend this year, which all included fabulous food spreads. One after another… I gave up feeling guilty about the eating during the festivities, but I really need to kick this cold so I can even attempt to work off all the calories I consumed.

I think we officially kicked off our holiday celebrating when we were invited to a group of friends’ wine club that has been going on for a couple years. This time they were doing a champagne tasting and a gift exchange a few days before Christmas. 

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