When I do something for the first time, I usually do a bit of research to make sure I’m doing it right. My first foray in pie-making – hell, baking in general – was great because I realized that baking isn’t some scary, landmine-ridden challenge. Somehow, people build it up to be a lot more intimidating than it actually is.

Making a pie is fairly involved (a lot of letting things chill in the fridge), but if you follow a few basic tricks and rules of thumb, the end product ends up totally agreeable. The most important is to keep the butter and/or shortening cold, and to not overwork the dough. This is to preserve those little lumps of fat streaked throughout, which will melt in the oven and result in that coveted tender/flaky pie crust.

I left California earlier this week, and am cooking in my friend’s mom’s kitchen out in the ‘burbs of Buffalo, NY. It is a somewhat improbable place to go on my year off, but has done wonders for skills cooking American classics (my friend Nick is wary of Asian dishes) and maintaining my San Francisco time difference. I just took a pie out of the oven at 2:30am and am blogging this at 3:15 am.

I had dinner at Nick’s friend’s house tonight. She served us a lovely California Cabernet and beef bourguignon over egg white noodles with freshly baked popovers. Her mother was a whippersnapper of an 81 year old who still ran her own business and gave many tips on baking the perfect pie.

I used a vodka pie crust recipe from America’s Test Kitchen, using a pastry cutter rather than a food processor. (Check out their new blog, America’s Test Kitchen Feed!) I precooked the filling (recipe) based on the pie expert’s advice, since the apples were a bit tart, but wished I had cooked them a few minutes less. I threw in brown sugar and extra cinnamon, just because. The filling ended up very soft while the crust browned too fast on top and remained a tad undercooked.

Still, I’m pretty proud of the finished product. The kitchen smells delicious, my friend Jason gave it his programmer’s grunt of approval from behind his setup of monitors, and it’s not bad for Pie Numero Uno.

Related posts:

1. The Best Pizza in New York?
2. Lingbo cooks: General Tso’s Chicken
3. How to read a recipe

I never saw myself as a Harvard type. “You have a duty to go to art school,” my high school art teacher told me sophomore year, holding my pen and watercolor sketches in one hand. It was delivered with the same weight as “thou shalt not kill.”

The shock from his comment warmed me. I went home that day and started researching art schools: FIT, Parsons, Pratt, RISD. What bothered me was their breezy academic requirements. After all, I’d been getting straight A’s since elementary school – would they even care?

I was really trying to ask: am I too smart to be an artist?

*

Then, I saw my future as a dichotomy. Either I’d end up fingerpainting in a rented cardboard box, or weeping myself to sleep as a doctor-banker-lawyer. Even worse, this mental prison was entirely self-imposed.

I’m a first generation immigrant, but my parents are not the Amy Chua type. I told my father recently that I was foregoing full-time employment in favor of traveling for a year. He was cool with it. Similarly, when I agonized over the stray A-, my mother told me I was being too hard on myself. Their endless support and forgiveness is, in many cases, unwarranted.

External judgement came instead from a classmate. I find it hilarious that TV shows show jocks and cheerleaders as the tormentors. A ditzy cheerleader would never lean over and comment to a classmate that my Physics midterm grade “wasn’t very good,” or that my hard-won 85 on a brutal AP Chemistry test was unacceptable. The worst were the arguments in front of mutual friends, where I had to fend for myself. High school breeds peculiar bullies: so perfect they seem self-manifested.

*

My parents never issued a curfew. This was because I rarely left my room. Sometimes I wondered if I was mildly autistic during my teen years. Social interactions were confusing and infrequent; while other people trolled the local mall on Friday nights, I would design websites, write novels, or update my Livejournal.

Being totally clueless had its advantages. I was free to whatever I wanted, after all, no one cared. Somehow, I ended up writing articles for the local paper. I had never conducted an interview before, but it was in journalism that I lost my fear of cold calling strangers with no idea what to say.

It was an exciting but lonely endeavor. I liked talking to drug dealers, doctors, and marginalized teens. I was writing a piece about local teens using drugs when an English teacher pressured me to not make the school look bad. I continued reporting in college, where prominent academics berated me, a movie star flirted with me, and the House of Blues kicked me out after a tense conversation.

It can be isolating to believe that no one cares, but I found it be my most useful piece of rhetoric. It’s how I conquered my fear of talking to strangers, of entering a beauty pageant, of a million social failures. No one cares. Your real friends get over it. When I become too deeply engrained in something that I lose that naivete, I’ll make some major change to bring it back.

I love the stories and experiences I’ve collected as a result. The ex-con in a New Haven bus stop who opined on racism in jail. Walden Pond in the dark. Eating dinner with locals in Pudong, and the stew of beef bones that made my stomach churn later.

*

Still considering art school, I went on a college tour junior year of high school. The Harvard student guide was a tall, spindly blond named Ben. As we walked through Memorial Hall’s yawning corridor – where I’d arrive late to Ec10 three years later – he complained that high schoolers were now on Facebook. Of course, I resolved to friend him. I listened to the admissions spiel, feeling chills course through my body. Maybe it was the steady drumbeat of sunshine outside, the stained glasses casting fractal rainbows, or the creme-de-la-creme culture. Suddenly, I had something to aspire to.

My family and I were staying at friend’s house in the suburbs. I drank cup after cup of tea at dinner and couldn’t fall asleep. My SAT scores raced through my brain.

For better or worse, when I want something, I pursue it with the ferocity and grace of a high-speed bulldozer.

My unvarnished ambition is not a particularly feminine trait, which I was reminded of when I heard through the grapevine that an acquaintance remarked, “I hear she gets what she wants.”

I was upset. “Would he say that if I were a guy?” I asked my friend, not sure what it meant.

*

I ended up getting into Harvard. It was December 15th, a data I had circled, then tore out in my calendar to represent a nuclear bomb crater. It was just in time, since my soul had already been tractored from reading too many posts on the College Confidential forum by neurotic overachieving applicants. After a week of joy, I promptly fell into a tailspin, decided I wanted to go to Brown instead, and passed through senior spring like a hospice patient. The bully delivered a quickly forgotten speech at graduation; I fidgeted with my robe and felt no nostalgia.

I ran into the art teacher again before I graduated. We chatted about college, and he said something offhand about remembering I was a decent artist.

Remembering his near-religious conviction two years prior – and how it’d nearly ended changed the course of my life – the remark felt like a blade revealing nothing in a balloon but stale air.

*

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine said something really interesting. “I realized,” he said over Thai food, “that it’s not about picking the most creative field. It’s about being the most creative one in your field.”

Related posts:

1. Young and female
2. Advice to Harvard freshman (the hardest part is getting in)
3. Hungry Mother, Kendall Square

Eggs Benedict with Hot Dogs. I’m not joking. (My photo, with a Canon Rebel XS + kit lens + PS)

I was cooking up breakfast one Saturday morning for my better half when the urge hit me. You know. The urge. That crazy little idea in your head.

Yeah, I thought. Yeah, I’m a cooking badass. I’m going to make EGGS BENEDICT.

You don’t understand how exciting this idea was. I had never successfully poached an egg, nor had I ever attempted a French sauce. This recipe also contained four simultaneous (sort of) components.

To my “lazy girl curry”-making self (instructions: chop up onion/garlic/ginger, fry and add curry paste + protein + veggies, dump in coconut milk, cook it ’til it tastes good) making eggs benedict seemed like nothing less than scaling a cooking Everest.

Ok. So a real cooking Everest for me would be doing something like brining and deep frying a Thanksgiving turkey, but regardless.

There was only one problem. No, two. No bacon. No lemon (for the Hollandaise).

Being like any other lazy human being, I didn’t want to put on clothes to run to the corner store. I preferred to let the oil splatter my bare skin, of course. (Don’t try this at home, and don’t try it in high heels.)

So I subbed in hot dogs from the freezer and figured out I might as well use up the chicken stock in a velouté sauce, a French sauce made by combining roux (flour and butter) with stock. It’s more often paired with poultry and seafood dishes, but hey, I was gonna try.

Click on the link to get my humorous (but totally serious!) recipe.

Trailer Trash Eggs Benedict

Serves 2 of questionable taste

Ingredients:
- Two English muffins, split
- Two hot dogs, halved and sliced lengthwise in 3-4 slices
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
- About 3/4 cup chicken stock, although you might want to add more
- Vinegar, for the poaching water (it’s been debated if this actually helps)
- Some oil. I used peanut.
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

1) I toasted the whole wheat English muffins lurking in the fridge.

2) Then I tackled the roux. After dropping in the last end bit of butter into the pan, melting it, and putting in a tablespoon of flour, I let it turn tan before slowly putting in the stock. It immediately turned semi-solid.

Cooking magic!

2) I tried to make the hot dog as bacon-y as possible by cutting them in half, then splitting them lengthwise into 3-4 slices. For some extra flavor and crispness, I sauteed them in some peanut oil on medium heat until they got some color, then set them aside.

3) After adding all the stock and whisking like the industrious, neurotic person I am, I let it keep warm by improvising with a rimmed bowl perched over a pot of simmering water, plus the occasional whisk.

4) Then it was onto the poached egg. This should be your last step. I’d never made this successfully before. Mark Bittman had me do this in a deep frying pan, which seemed to make it a lot less scary and easier to get the eggs out. You have to crack each egg in a shallow bowl, then slowly slide them into gently boiling water. After about two minutes, ladle them out in a slotted spoon. (I just used a flipper/spatula thingy with two slots in it. Ghetto.)

5) Assemble like so, bottom up: muffin slice, hot dogs, egg, sauce. I shaved some extra sharp cheddar over there for extra trashy flavor. Season liberally with kosher salt and pepper. Serve to confused but supportive better half.

TIPS

• Don’t worry about over toasting the English muffins. I tried to resuscitate somewhat dried out bread, a big mistake. The toppings are moist enough to hold up against crunchy carbs.

• Don’t feel like you should stick with my veloute. I actually would probably attempt a real Hollandaise next time. The veloute added a nice, velvety texture, but definitely needs some salt.

• Poaching eggs is actually not that hard. Just try not to show fear, slide the eggs in gently, and use something more spoon-shaped to retrieve them. Unlike me.

• Actually, ignore my tips. What do I know?

Related posts:

1. A love letter to poached eggs – brunch at Zaftig’s Delicatessen
2. How to read a recipe
3. How to make and eat biscotti

A souless yuppie in American Psycho

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with an American expat.

We happened to be at a  faux-exclusive club in Shanghai with shark tanks and a glittering, ghostly clientele. It was a clear night, save for the fuzz of smog that filtered the 24th floor view through the violet gauze of pollution.

He asked where I went to school. I was a rising junior at Harvard at the time; he had graduated from Georgetown a few years back. Then he asked what I was studying.

“Social anthropology,” I said.

“That’s nice,” he said, eyes widening. He paused to collect his words. “But that’s not like, something you could build a house with.”

He settled into his velvet seat with a cigarette and a shit-eating grin, looking pleased with his metaphor.

I forget how I replied.

The truth is – and I’ve learned this from those smarter than myself – that what you study in undergrad probably won’t be directly applicable to a job. And if you’re a humanities/social science major like myself, you’ll occasionally have to converse at length with douchebags in suits (DBIS). Disclaimer: not all corporate dudes in suits are like this. But a few are. They’re probably rather young, and high on their own importance.

If it’s a short conversation, it’s better just to nod, smile, and escape. But if you’re stuck across a dinner table from a DBIS, you might want to build a convincing argument that you’re an intelligent life form, too.

Here’s how.

1) Be confident.

Smile, but don’t bend. Show no fear. Angle your argument as a friendly, thoughtful meditation, not a personal attack. Only insecure English majors sulk in the face of DBIS-ery.

2) Ask about your DBIS

“It’s interesting you say that! I was actually thinking about this topic,” you’ll begin before asking for their occupation and college major. It’s easiest to make a DBIS understand your argument if you craft it around his/her own self-centered DBIS existence. Chances are they majored in something “practical” like business, accounting, or finance. In a pinch, they might be an econ major.

3) Flatter them.

Say something like, “I can tell you’re great at what you do, so….”

3) Have them dig their own grave.

Ask the DBIS what makes someone in their industry good at their job. They’ll likely cite a bunch of soft skills – networking, being comfortable with numbers, analysis, working in a team, knowing about the industry, etc. If they name more specific skills, you’ll easily be able to reduce them to similar components.

4) Point out that they’re mistaken.

They’ll admit their soft skills were probably learned doing something like bartending or playing on the sports team. And they’ll probably allow that you can pick up industry lingo by reading a trade paper and attending a lot of mixers. As for analysis, doesn’t reading 30 research papers and writing a 20 page report account for the same thing? When it comes to numbers, point out more number-heavy majors that aren’t topically related to your DBIS’s job. I would probably BS a bit and claim that social anthro involves numbers, too. (Well, it could. If I wanted it to.) If they claim they’re an Excel ninja, just roll your eyes.

4) Kill them off with some stats and anecdotes.

Like that one about people switching jobs 8 times. Then cite some anecdotes: the History major who works for Goldman Sachs, the molecular biology major who’s now a cookbook author, etc. (All true.)

5) Bask in your liberal arts glory.

Done! If they have any more objections, use your analytical and argument-building skills developed from reading Beowulf to slash any objections.

Unfortunately, my DBIS was a lost cause. Later, he went on to say that he saw no point in befriending women and that women shouldn’t be in positions of power.

He did allow, however, that I had a good grasp of the English language.

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1. The Five People You Meet in the Food World
2. No Twitter in China :(

My readers really know a lot more about food and cooking than I do. They prove this again and again with invaluable advice on what to cook, where to eat, what to order, and where to grocery shop. There’s an enormous amount of humbling that goes into being a food blogger, and I’m the first to admit that I’m a novice in many ways. Which is why I’m starting to collecting the wisdom of the Tweetosphere and share it here.

Today: what to do with leftover stale cake.

I made Mark Bittman‘s golden layer cake last week and poured the batter into a silicone mini cupcake tin. Many tins later, I still had some leftover, so I baked it in a mini loaf pan. This chunk of cake is still in the fridge. It is hard. It is cold.

I cut off a slice, heated up some peanut oil, and gave it an aggressive fry job, then sprinkled more sugar on it. The crumb had gone hard, but with some heat and oil, it had the appeal of a sponge cake – more structured, but who can hate the deadly one-two punch of refined carbs and fats? Or that new golden crust?

@MyCutsAndBurns had some interesting suggestions, including the deep fried ham cake sandwich idea.

What do you do with your stale cake?

Related posts:

1. Chocolate cake at Troquet
2. Food porn of the day: molten chocolate cake, coffee ice cream at Finale Harvard Square
3. Meet Felice, Creator of the World’s First Linux Birthday Cake

This afternoon, curled up on a chair at the Harvard COOP, I read through recipes calling for purple perilla and banana leaves. (Shaw’s would definitely not stock those.) I inhaled instructions on making chantilly cream and fig sauce, preparing risotto ahead of time, and the expensive, three-page-long process of replicating Barbara Lynch‘s signature prune-stuffed gnocchi with foie gras appetizer. How much would it cost me to make Jean-Georges‘ braised lamb shanks with green curry?

No wonder it was a little strange to read Giada‘s recipes, some of which were as simple as skewering halved plums and nectarines and setting them on the grill. But Giada is really pretty! When I saw “whole wheat pasta” in the ingredient list, I stared at it, puzzled. Shouldn’t there instead be a sub-recipe on making said whole wheat pasta? What was going on? Also, why did marscapone cheese and ricotta cheese show up in everything? Was risotto even supposed to have that much cheese in it? Wow, Giada is really photogenic.

Nonetheless, I ended up reading Giada’s recipe on pizza pot pie and wondering if my dining partner would enjoy that, served up in an elegant ramikin (yet to be acquired) with premade puff pastry topping spilling over the sides just so. In the midst of my fine dining cookbook binge, Giada, along with the author of “Easy Chinese Stir-Fries,” was a reminder that not all food is difficult. Some food, like a recipe for broccoli and beef, are meant to be embraced without aspiration or trepidation. And there’s something soothing about the act itself of reading an ingredient list where everything is waiting in the wings, ready to provide weeknight comfort, if not transcendence.

Books mentioned in this post:

Related posts:

1. This is the Pancake of Your Wet Dreams.
2. How To Make Trailer Trash Eggs Benedict (Recipe!)
3. Grocery shopping like it’s window shopping in Cambridge

Here is a template for an ideal morning:

Wake up early, exercise. Shower, put on a dress and heels. Apply lip gloss, even though it’ll come off on the coffee lid. Brush your hair by running your fingers through it. (You don’t own a comb.)

Stop at a coffee shop (it can be Starbucks, but better pastries are to be had elsewhere). Buy black drip coffee and biscotti – just one. Get your own table, and a magazine. Nothing too serious, a tabloid is best. Eat and drink very, very slowly. Write down the things you want to accomplish that day, but don’t feel bad if you only get around to half of them.

Linger, then leave.

When I confessed that I wanted to make biscotti, my friend Daniel admitted, “I don’t bake. Baking is not cooking. It’s science.”

He’s right. You can just substitute oil for butter and expect an equally delicious result. The issue is, I come from a culinary tradition of imprecision.

I remember watching my mother bake her cakes in the brown glass dish on Saturday mornings. She has two cakes my tummy knows well: apple and sticky rice. Whenever she comes to visit me at school, she’ll bring a slab of sticky rice cake, lined in red bean paste and presented in white Tupperware. It’s always presented along with a set of clean bed sheets, or admonitions to exercise (I do, every morning, I’ll protest).

Growing up, I’d watch my mother’s recipe-following methodology. She would usually quarter the sugar (Chinese people dislike very sweet desserts) and halve the fat. Recipes were more of a suggestion, and as a result, her baking was delicious in its own way. It was made with love, an ingredient that cannot be boxed, canned, or sold as a self-rising yeast.

But her cakes always had a denseness to them that never resembled the spun sugar confections you’d find in a grocery store. I found their airiness exotic; the desserts I ate were never frosted or made out of pastry flour.

Even with all of this, I wanted my first real baking attempt to maintain a degree of precision. I also wanted to hedge by bets by trying at least two different recipes.

So I picked biscotti, because there’s nothing more luxurious to me than biscotti and coffee.

halfway there!

I tried one recipe that called for butter, and another than only used a splash of oil. I couldn’t find white chocolate, so I subbed in Valrhona bittersweet. (Only the best for my toddler baking!) I used slivered almonds and dried cranberries from Trader Joe’s. I didn’t have orange zest, so I put in some lemon instead. And Shaw’s ran out of almond extract, so I subbed vanilla.

I was already running into precision issues.

I also didn’t have an electric mixer, which might explain why the buttery recipe didn’t seem to hold together. That batch of dough was incredibly sticky and hard to work with. The non-butter dough held together much better, sliced like a dream, and ultimately, proved victor.

But who knows what might have happened if I had an electric mixer and another go at it.

My finished product

Although I can’t promise not to riff a bit on the recipe. It’s in my blood, after all.

Cranberry, almond, and chocolate biscotti
Adapted from Bon Appetit, December 2002 recipe

Ingredients
•    3 cups all purpose flour
•    2 teaspoons baking powder
•    1/2 teaspoon salt
•    1 cup sugar
•    3 large eggs
•    2 tablespoons canola oil
•    2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
•    3/4 cup slivered almonds
•    1 cup dried cranberries
•    1/2 cup chopped Valrhona bittersweet chocolate

•    8 ounces Valrhona bittersweet chocolate for dipping

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla extract in large bowl until well blended. Add flour mixture and beat until smooth. Stir in almonds, dried berries, and 1/2 cup chopped chocolate. Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls in two 12-inch-long strips on prepared baking sheet, spacing strips 3 inches apart. Using wet fingertips, shape each strip into 3-inch-wide log, pressing evenly (logs may look slightly lumpy).

Bake logs until lightly browned and almost firm to touch, about 30 minutes. Cool logs on sheet 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

Carefully transfer logs to cutting board. Line same baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut each log crosswise into generous 1/2-inch-thick slices. Stand biscotti upright, spacing about 1/4 inch apart, in 3 rows on prepared baking sheet. Bake until pale golden (biscotti may be soft but will firm as they cool), about 20 minutes. Cool completely on baking sheet.

Line another large baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place 8 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate in a medium glass bowl. Microwave separately on medium in 20-second intervals just until chocolate is soft to touch, about 40 seconds total (do not overheat or chocolate will burn or seize). Stir chocolate until smooth.

Dip 1 end or 1 side of each biscotti in chocolate; place on baking sheet. Chill until chocolate is set, about 30 minutes. (Can be made ahead. Arrange in single layer in airtight container and chill up to 5 days or freeze up to 2 weeks.)

Orange-Chocolate Biscotti
From Bon Appetit
Since my version of this recipe lacked an electric mixer, I’ll republish this without changes – I can’t say whether my crumbly biscotti was a result of my ineptitude or the recipe’s basic structural problems. For the record, I tried whisking the butter and eggs, subbed in almonds for the pecans, and lemon for orange zest.

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel
• 1 cup pecans, lightly toasted, coarsely chopped
• 6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) chocolate, chopped

Preparation

Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then Grand Marnier and orange peel. Add flour mixture and beat until blended. Stir in pecans and chocolate. Gather dough together; divide in half. Wrap in plastic and freeze 20 minutes to firm.

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Using floured hands, form each dough piece into 14-inch-long, 2 1/2-inch-wide log. Transfer logs to prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until light golden, about 30 minutes. Transfer parchment with logs to rack. Cool 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.

Place 1 log on cutting board. Using serrated knife, cut log on diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Stand slices upright on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining log.

Bake biscotti until dry to touch and pale golden, about 30 minutes. Cool completely on rack. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Store in airtight container.)

Related posts:

1. Razzleberry crunch biscotti at Wired Puppy on Newbury St
2. How to Make Apple Pie For the First Time
3. Lazy Girl Brownies

Little critters I caught on camera last year when I visited an apiary.

These micro-recipes I penned were originally published on GoodEater.org (which has since undergone a facelift).

They’re the kind of recipes that are most useful for kitchen-retarded, time-strapped people like me – minimal equipment, dining-hall-able ingredients – more conceptual starting points than formulas.

If you’re a Bostonian looking for a local variety of honey to try, I highly recommend Mike Graney’s Eat Local Honey. I went through an entire jar in a week. Once you taste this stuff, it’s like the difference between Megan Fox on a magazine page and Megan Fox across the dinner table.

On second thought, maybe keep her on the magazine page.

Sweet deal - Mike Graney's Eat Local Honey

Local honey boasts flavors unique to the region it was produced in. Complexity like this deserves the simplest of treatments. Here are a few options.

1.      Stir into yogurt. Add granola. Inhale.

2.      Peanut butter and banana, on toast. Drizzle with honey. Sprinkle with sea salt.

3.      From the bottom up: bread, sliced apples, paper-thin sweet potato, aged cheddar, drizzle of honey, bread. Put in sandwich press. Consume.

4.      Alternatively: bread, sliced pear, toasted pine nut, gorgonzola dolce, drizzle of honey, bread. Press.

5.      Or: bread, cream cheese, toasted walnut, sliced apple, drizzle of honey. Press.

6.      Stir a teaspoon into two tablespoons of good, softened butter. Spread on toast. Or muffin. Or pancakes.

7.      Thick slice of gruyere on crusty sourdough, under the broiler until melted. Drizzle with honey. Eat with napkins

8.      Straight up, with cut fruit and croutons.

9.      Mix with equal parts water and a good squeeze of lemon juice, freeze into ice cubes. Suck.

10.  Gratuitously on top of breakfast cereal.

11.  Equal parts with dijon mustard. Serve with everything grilled. Or fried.

12.  In your tea and lemonade (or margaritas).

13.  Sesame honey dressing: one part cider vinegar, one part honey, sesame seeds, slowly whisk in three parts oil. Add a touch of some sesame oil. Serve with spring greens.

What do you like to do with your honey?

Related posts:

1. Little insects make your honey. No, really.
2. Awesome egg sandwiches, tripe-laden bowls of pho, and Lingbo in a beesuit.
3. All Chinese [parties] look alike

One day, I hope to look this good.

Here’s one eater’s guidelines to making sure that you look as good as the food you are eating. Also, I don’t follow these all of the time. I mindlessly eat Cheetos like the best of them. Just, hopefully, less often.

If you have suggestions, feel free to add them in the comments. I tried to keep this list of insights lean. Har.

1) If someone hands you foie gras, eat it.

Never feel guilty about eating free foie gras. If someone treats you to an amazing meal, you have a duty to enjoy every last crumb – clear your mind, clean your plate, savor every calorie-rich mouthful. You will never live a full life you don’t occasionally eat some really fattening food.

2) Don’t eat bad bread.

Don’t eat cold, limp french fries. Don’t eat twenty Snickers bars. (Diminishing marginal returns on deliciousness.) If you’re eating what’s been deemed as Boston’s best donut ever, relish it. But the ill-catered leftovers from some forgettable event won’t edify you. Calories should be maximized for pleasure – sometimes, education. And if you go on a donut tour one day, eat salad the next.

3) Hot sauce can fix a lot of things.

A squirt of sriracha (or your favorite condiment that is not mayo) can act as a food bandaid for many healthful dishes. Like egg whites, with hot sauce. Stir fried veggies, with hot sauce. Soup, with hot sauce. You get the idea. Plus spicy stuff is rumored to give your metabolism a bit of a kick. And if you put in obscene amounts, it slows down how fast you can eat your food between anguished bites.

4) Fill up on water. (And try to keep booze to a minimum. Or something else.)

The first is self-explanatory. As for the second, see the next point.

I’ve never had a taste for alcohol. After drinking my first legal Tsing Tao beer (alcohol content: really low), my dad commented, “You look like a crab.” As in, bright red. Therefore, in the months leading up to Miss New York USA 2010, I pretty much cut out all alcohol consumption. And I really like soy milk, so dairy went out too. No big deal. Figure out what you’re willing to compromise on.

5) Shapewear is your friend.

My favorite item in my closet is a hyper-tight skirt with sleek, wide waistband that holds everything in and makes my skimpier dresses fit better. It also doubles as a really, really sexy skirt. But you don’t need to be overweight to benefit from the joys of shapewear, is all I’m saying. Bridget Jones had the right idea.

6) Your appearance [almost] entirely constructed.

This is a huge point, and really deserves a lengthy blog post/book. The reason why makeover shows work so well is because people don’t know how to style themselves.

What a lot of people don’t grasp is that appearance is a constructed thing – it’s a series of skill sets and resources. Celeb handlers know this. Beauty queens know this. That’s why I saw so many girls with clip on hair, bronzer, and padding. To some people, that means it’s “fake.” If you’re smart, you can use this to your advantage. (Or not – it’s a personal choice.) There’s no shame in being good at applying your makeup.

Dressing yourself comes down to one thing: knowing what looks good on you. Then knock ‘em dead.

7) And yeah… exercise.

It’s a great way to catch up on your favorite reality TV.

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2. What’s your food story?
3. Kickass Cupcakes: A Happy Hour

• My advice on this score includes: don’t pick someplace expensive (looks like you’re trying too hard), do pick a place that makes really good drinks if you plan to imbibe, avoid places that are punishingly loud (conversation is kind of important), and don’t be afraid to ask about food aversions/taboos: nothing will kill your prospects like bringing a vegan to a steakhouse or someone with a seafood allergy to a sushi joint.

If you’re interested in learning some more about the MC, see my interview with him here.

I’d like to add that if your date is a very attractive, but exceptionally dull, self-centered, or dim, try to pick a place with that punishingly loud atmosphere. When he/she opens her mouth, just pretend that something brilliant is coming out and enjoy the view.

Let’s get real: inner beauty is only one of the reasons why people go on dates.

Related posts:

1. How to pick a date restaurant
2. 9 Questions with Boston Food Critic MC Slim JB
3. How to photograph food in a restaurant

The question I get asked most often is: “Where should I take my romantic interest on a date?”

this cup runneth over with romance

When you ask me this, I secretly congratulate you on “dating.” The media often presents a rather skewed vision of college life, with claims of “rainbow parties” in middle school (I thought rainbows were the things that came after rainstorms) and incessant “hookup culture.”

I’m not convinced that things are really any different. I hear about coffee dates all the time. If romance is dead, the need to mutually self-coffeinate is not. As you get older, coffee becomes booze.

But the principle remains.

There’s obviously no simple answer to the original question. A few relevant considerations: what’s the occasion? What’s your budget? Dietary restrictions? Willingness to travel? For the purposes of this post, I’ll discuss first date options here.

Let me make an aside to say that often, a cafe or restaurant might not be the ideal first date. If you feel like straying from straight-up conversation, try some of the following: ice skating, checking out a cool boutique, attending a street fair or other local happening, doing something horribly touristy, or exploring a new neighborhood (say, Chinatown or the North End). You’ll probably get a better sense of your date by seeing them in the wild.

Still, the tried-and-true coffee date a good option. My favorites in Harvard Square are Crema Cafe (try around 4-5pm on a weekday for your best chance at snagging a seat) and Algiers (sit upstairs, if you can get a corner table, all the better). Crema serves excellent sandwiches and pastries, and Algiers does a good Arabic coffee and some decent Middle Eastern dishes. If you feel uncreative, Starbucks works, too, smacks of generic coffee date-ness.

a 'wich from crema

If you want to do something more formal for a first date and are hunting for a restaurant, my major piece of advice is to keep your audience in mind. If you take a adventurous, food-loving person like myself to Bertucci’s, you are not going to score any points for clever locale. (Which is not to say that snobbery is ok.) While the gesture may be well-intentioned, it’s like handing a card in hideous “Papyrus” font to a typographer – it shows a lack of interest in the other party and/or deficiency in your moral character.

Similarly, if you’re picking a place for a vegetarian, don’t choose Brazilian barbecue. If your date has ridiculous dietary restrictions, figure this out BEFOREHAND so you don’t end trying to get Wendy’s to create a gluten-free, meat-free, fat-free, dairy-free, sugar-free entree. It ain’t gonna happen. Better yet, don’t take this kind of person on a date that requires eating. Or in my case, don’t date them!

Another thing to keep in mind is the mood you’re trying to create and how you want to present yourself. Pick a cafe if it’s meant to be quick and low stress, a restaurant with low lighting if you’re having a bad skin day, a place with booth seating if you’re looking to sit close to him/her/zyr.

With this kind of philosophical understanding of dating, you can ask me again for advice and I’ll be able to answer helpfully. “So, Lingbo, I’d like to take this girl who is a lacto-ovo vegetarian out somewhere nice and moderately priced, preferably in Harvard Square, Porter, or Inman. Somewhere romantic would be nice.”

To which I’d reply, try Elephant Walk?

And I’d smile inwardly that you’re making an effort. Because that counts. She’ll appreciate it.

Related posts:

1. How to pick a date restaurant: advice from food writer MC Slim JB
2. Sublime fried eggplant salad at Cafe Algiers
3. I answer all the important questions.

So your torched dover sole with a cola reduction and parsnip foam comes to the table, what do you do? Whip out your digital camera to prove the rest of the blogosphere how incredibly cultured you are for eating such a bizarre looking, sounding, and tasting dish, of course! (Bordieu, eat your heart out. Or you know, pigs tails are very popular too.)

I am not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve been photographing just about everything novel that I eat, from chocolate eclair ice cream bars to luxe sushi dinners, and I’ve picked up a few rules of thumb along to way to guide me into making sure the photographic proof ain’t too blurry. Or dark. Or just plain unappetizing.

To canonize your meals, give the following tips a try. A shoutout to Adam Sidman, Crimson photo chair, for teaching me some of these.

1) Use a tripod. This is essential in dimly lit restaurant settings. I have a miniature tripod for my digital camera, but the best way is to get a low drinking class or some other prop and hold your camera very very still. Incredibly still. Even the floor shaking a bit from a waiter walking by can throw off the perfect shot if there’s not enough light.

1a) Put your camera on two-second timer (non essential). Once you’ve located a tripod, put on the delayed shot so that the camera doesn’t wobble as you’re pushing the button. Then hold your breath to keep it very, very still.

2) Use natural light whenever possible. Don’t create obstacles for yourself – you’ll have better pictures and better memories if you sit by the window or if you sit a better lit bar. Lunchtime is obviously the best time to be snapping photos, but if you’re in a dark corner and feel particularly shameless, try getting up and taking the photo near a window if it’s a casual cafe. People might look at you funny, but hey, they just don’t take themselves seriously enough. Jk. Not really.

3) Set your white balance. This is not as technical as it seems, and your digital camera, no matter how crappy, will most likely have this color setting. Select the option that sounds something like “manual.” You’ll then aim the camera at a light-exposed white surface (not the shadow of a white thing), click (the button will vary according to camera), and the color will adjust so that the whites are true. The best place to aim, in the case of food photography, is your plate. Assuming it’s white, or slightly off white. Now, you can avoid photos with overwhelmingly orange casts… Hurrah! See an example below of what happens when you DON’T fix white balance:

Yeah, that beef isn’t sitting pretty.

4) Set your ISO setting low. I forget the technical explanation of this, but in the interest of making this a non-intellectual post, I’ll just say that I set it to about 200 in a dimly lit restaurant and it works just fine. Otherwise, if there’s a lot of natural light, auto is better bet.

5) Hit below the belt. Food, especially well plated food and food that comes in little mounds or nicely crafted pieces (i.e. sushi, peaky toe crab timbale, most desserts, drinks, etc.) will look better if you get it from nearly table height up close and personal. Which brings me to my next point…

6) Macro is your FRIEND. This will make a world of difference in any closeup shot. If you want to make beautiful, beautiful food porn, macro will focus in on a close object and capture all its happy little pores and sweat. It’ll make the parsley garnish pop.

7) Take many, many shots from many, many angles. Chances are, half of them will be crap. Do not waver – keep shooting away like a madmen. Use a lot of crooked angles for extra visual interest. Get up on your chair and shoot from above to appreciate the geometry of circles and squares. Find your molten chocolate cake’s best angle. Your blog readers will thank you later. Your friends will eventually get used to it and think its cute how obsessive you are. If they don’t think it’s cute, get new friends. This can be a liability when you go on dates, but it’s also a great way to weed out non-food-blogger-friendly guys. A dating litmus test, if you will.

8 ) There’s nothing wrong with plastic surgery. Once you have your crisp, clear, color-balanced photos, upload them and edit them in a basic image editor – I like to use Google’s Picasa as a photo manager. Fiddle with the fill light, highlight, and shadow sliders, or try hitting “I’m feeling lucky” to see what happens. Sharpen the photo if necessary. Boosting color saturation can also make a meal look livelier, although this may exaggerate the quality of your meal. We’re not exactly photographing political a war-torn country here – we’re going for the visceral.

You can probably tell by now that following all of these tips will make you a very particular kind of dining companion. You can allay this issue by becoming friends with other foodies armed with cameras and you can turn dinnertime into a kind of pseudo-paparazzi experience, fussing with the plates, craning your necks at weird angles to yeah, catch the plate of fried bull testicles in picture-perfect light. Shameless.

You’ll find that dining out with friends will first be an exercise in reminding them to restrain their primal urges so that you can catch a perfectly plated entree before it’s been ravaged with a fork. But it’s ok. Action shots are good too.

Friend Crystal Coser taking a photo of fried bull testicles at KO Prime.

Related posts:

1. How to pick a date restaurant: advice from food writer MC Slim JB
2. Why You Should Skip Boston Restaurant Week 2010
3. 9 Questions with Boston Food Critic MC Slim JB

not actually my stomach

I feel like this entry will be of interest to some people.

Basically:

1) Exercise everyday. Every. Single. Day. (Ok, so I actually exercise 5-6 times a week. 4, if it’s a really bad week.)

2) Be blessed with good genes.

3) See number 1 again.

If you’re curious, I usually run about 30-40 min on the treadmill at 6.5ish these days. The best motivation for me to keep going is a new episode of Millionaire Matchmaker, my favorite reality show. I also do some light strength training – squats, lunges, situps, bicep curls. Plus I’m young, my parents are both still in shape, and I drink maybe 2-3 times a month, if that, and even then, relatively little.

I eat dessert, I snack at night, I eat simple carbs. I eat stuff like fried oysters and calves brains and homemade bacon. But then I hit the gym. The catch, if there is one, is that I actually really like working out – I get depressed/tired/icky if I skip one too many workouts.

Sometimes, I wonder what I would look like if I kept up my fitness sched along with eating like normal paranoid girls, but then life would be so much emptier… so I’m happy, though I have similar hangups like everyone else.

I’m also not a very good gym guilt trip. I will not keep my promise to text you everytime I pull on my running shoes – or should I set up a Twitter account to send notices to peoples’ phones? That would be silly.

Related posts:

1. How not to date a foodie – A Valentine’s Day post
2. The Origins of a Foodie
3. Why is there a tranny in my underwear?

It was held in one of those uber-swanky House Masters' residences.

Martin Breslin, who hasn't remembered meeting me the past two times... Tsk tsk!

incredibly delicious, especially with out "peanut" sauce. (actually cashew sauce. because of the peanut scare.)

the filling for our spring rolls

pho!

Related posts:

1. Inside Harvard’s New Science of Cooking Class
2. Free Trip to Barcelona with Ferran Adrià for Winners of Harvard Science and Cooking Class
3. My mother’s cooking