Viet World Kitchen

Asian Tofu Gets an “A” from SF Mag

The February issue of San Francisco magazine gave Asian Tofu a big, loveable hug with a terrific review by Emily Kaiser Thelin. If you read Food and Wine magazine, you may be familiar with Emily’s work. She was a food editor at the magazine from 2006 to 2010 and has since relocated to the Bay Area. Emily knows cookbooks and thoroughly evaluates them.

Truth be told, I started reading her review with a certain amount of trepidation. By the time I got to the end, I was relieved and delighted by the appraisal.

You'd have to have "Six Million Dollar Man" bionic eyes to read Emily's review in the image above. Here it is in a more convenient display:

Bringing New Year Dumplings to Busy Families

This is Henry. He’s about 3 1/2 years old and experiencing his first Asian dumpling. Many of my friends started families not long ago and consequently, it’s been difficult for us to schedule normal adult activities. For this Year of the Dragon, I decided to bring the ‘adult’ activity of making and eating dumplings to a couple of friends and their kids.

I made a big batch of filling, some of which I used on Monday and Tuesday. There was plenty leftover by Wednesday, when we had a 5pm cocktail hour date with Diane and John (Henry’s parents). We typically bring over a bottle of wine along with nuts or cheese and bread to nibble on. This time, my husband and I walked in with:

Asian Souper Bowls (my Wall Street Journal article)

Last week was kind of a neat media week. Along with the Asian tofu story coming out in Martha Stewart Living magazine, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece I wrote on Asian soups. Why is the Wall Street Journal doing food? It’s been doing it for years. In fact, the Journal regularly published great food stories. Some are reportorial and business-y while others are practical with recipes.  

I was assigned to write about wintry Asian soups so I came up with a concept built on a master chicken stock recipe and four (4) soup recipes based on that stock. The pan-Asian collection of soups included Chinese hot-and-sour soup; Thai tofu, pork, and seaweed soup; Vietnamese chicken and cellophane noodle soup; and Japanese gyoza dumplings in smoky chicken soup.  The Chinese and Thai recipes are from the upcoming Asian Tofu cookbook so if you're inclined, give them a try!