I eat yogurt for breakfast most mornings. It’s not glamorous but it’s healthy and easy to assemble a bowl of muesli, fruit, yogurt, and honey. I add a heaping spoonful of flaxseed meal (my dad got me into flax years ago). My husband has his yogurt with just fruit. Together we eat about half a gallon of yogurt every ten days. For years, that meant we were amassing a collection of yogurt tubs. My mom loved those tubs for freezing food and I took to gifting her frozen pho broth in recycled yogurt tubs. She got so many tubs that she re-gifted empty tubs to her friend, Mrs. Nha. Earlier this year, I investigated buying a yogurt maker. Why keep going to Costco for half-gallon... Continue reading

I was a skeptic about the Instant Pot a while back, writing a post to compare it to a stovetop pressure cookers, like the Fagor Duo. Which should you buy? It all depends! I’m still on the fence about it but now I own an Instant Pot. I have been using it along with the Fagor Duo for about six months. It all started when Hunter Lewis, the editor in chief of Cooking Light, asked me to review the Instant Pot for my column in the magazine. They bought me one from Amazon and after it arrived, I set it aside in my kitchen for a few days, not wanting it to take up space on my counter. Then I opened it and took it... Continue reading

I’m never one to say that you have to be Asian to cook Asian food well. A friend of mine, Andrea Slonecker, is a food stylist, recipe developer, researcher, and writer. She tested the recipes for Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok cookbook I cooked with Andrea earlier this year at an event for the International Association Culinary Professionals, a guild that we both belong to. She’s smart and funny. She’s also a thoughtful cook. That’s why I was intrigued by a new little book she’s authored about pears. I love pears -- raw and poached. At Christmas time, I gift my parents Harry and David pears. My mom sets them aside to eat with us after my siblings and their families have departed, when she and... Continue reading

The supermarket ads this week scream “Grill, grill, grill!” It’s our American way of saying farewell to summer, and there are many options for doing so. Even in California, where we can cook outdoors practically all year round, Labor Day weekend still calls for grilling up a storm. At my house, much of what we grill up is Asian-inflected. I’ve written lots of grilling recipes in my cookbooks and there are more at Viet World Kitchen. Here’s a collection of Vietnamese and Thai ideas to get you going, either now or later, to savor or extend summer. Viet Restaurant-Style Lemongrass Pork – I never tire of this recipe. It’s sweet, salty, and delicious. You can use the marinade on chicken, too. Grilled Goat Chops with... Continue reading

I’ve been thinking about a vegetarian pate and fried egg banh mi since I had a liver pate and fried egg banh mi in Saigon back in 2014. It was my second breakfast that day. The banh mi vendor, Mai Thi Hoang, situated herself outside the gate where my apartment hotel was located. As it turned out, she lived nearby and operated her banh mi stall for extra pocket money, she told me. Her husband had an office job and her son was in college. I liked her spirit. We were both born in 1969. Hers was one of the best banh mi sandwiches I had in Saigon on that trip. So I’ve been mentally chewing on her sandwich for a couple of years now... Continue reading