throwdown/cookoff

recently, one of the funniest things happened to me. i was challenged to a food cook off. why is this funny? well the person who challenged me doesn't have a clue what type of food i cook, the range, the skill, the experience that i have with food and cooking. He thinks his skills out do mine, i find it very funny that someone would challenge, Me, to a cook off, without knowing anything about my cooking background.

this person is a class mate, a young man a little too confident and too cocky for his own good. lets not say confident. rather he is a bit crazy thinking to challenge me. more than a few people have asked me if he was crazy to challenge me to such a cook off. he has many restrictions on the way and what we should cook. he doesn't do dessert. he says he will blow me out of the water. he blogs about food as well, he takes some food porn and post up a few recipes up for the world to see, wanting to show his readers to cook their own food. I've read this blog of his. i' have seen what he considers good, he hasn't even seen what i can make and he is already talking up a storm. he says he's passionate about it but i don't think he knows what my extent of passion goes for food and cooking.

well i am not going to reveal what my plans are for the menu. but surely it will be great. no doubt. i have many many hours put away in studying food and the art of it. i've even written papers on food. o yes. a lucky professor had to deal with my horrible writing all about medieval cookery. but i had a blast going through hundred years old recipes. my bookshelves are out of room for cooking books/magazine. my recipe collection is growing. and with my culinary adventures in los angeles/new york/ las vegas and more to come will surely help with my challenge to come.

AND i'm pretty sure that my challenger has not even a clue who this man is. he happens to be one of my chef heroes.

this should be interesting. i shall post more up soon.

eat extraordinary everyday!

spam.

this word is just a bad sounding thing. and of course why not, it is used to describe the shit we get in our emails.. but spam is actually something a bit more strange. it comes in a strange square can. along with the odd shape of the sardine cans... i think the square rectangular form that the spam can takes is just odd. the way in which you pop the lid open with no need for a can opener, I'm sure they thought that a can opener would hate its existence if it had to open a square-ish tin can.

i find myself when in I'm the weird way i am with food, so i have to say that i do occasionally eat this odd stuff. there was a big 0o0o0 and ahhhh when a contestant on top chef made something great with spam. but spam if the ingredients are ignored, i think the taste of it is very interesting. its salty and sweet and its tangy. the texture is like a morphing type, it can be fried and made hard and crispy or it can be diced or stripped up into soup. I've had it many ways. not that i sit around thinking of ways to make food with spam. but rather i have gone to places where it was on the menu. a Hong Kong cafe in Los Angeles, has it in their daily soup of macaroni and peas/carrots with a light chicken broth with of course tiny cubes of spam in it. they also serve it along side with eggs as you would any breakfast dish. and of course in Hawaii they have the musubi, the spam is joined with rice and wrapped in seaweed. i find myself when in Hawaii getting one of these spam musubi and munching on it as i walk around the beach.

i guess i don't really have a problem with this spam product. but it is not on my normal list of foods that i crave and keep stocked in my pantry. although if you give me a can a spam. I'm sure i could make something quite interesting for a newbie to spam.

try it. it could change your boring life of Bologna or not. its fun regardless..

eat extraordinary everyday.

new year food...

one of my favorite things to do is cooking on new year's eve. last night my sister and i sat together and made 60 egg rolls. just as my mom makes it. if you ever go and have Chinese food with me you will notice that i rarely eat egg rolls and that's because of my taste. i like and adore the way my mom makes egg rolls. there is so much preparation in it that it is actually special to eat it. the way she makes it is not like anyone else I've seen. I've watched and listened to the many ways in which other people who claim to have the best egg rolls make theirs and i know for a fact that my mom was right, she does make the best. i wont be giving away her recipe any time soon or show people how to make theirs better. there are a few things that i will keep to myself and to our family. but that doesn't mean i wont invite my friends over for great food!

many new year's eves ago. my grandparents *dad side, my dad and my mom all sat together and they taught me how to wrap a traditional Asian recipe of goodies in banana leaves. it is called banh tet, traditionally given out for Chinese New Year to friends and family. It has many things in it to symbolize a prosperous year to come. it had a special short grain rice in it, beans, meat and a hard boiled quail egg. and you steam this little goodness packet and after wards you have something yummy to eat. most of the time you find these in the stores around Chinese New Year, and they are huge rolls or squares all very big and not very appetizing. the thing about the way i was taught to wrap them was as individual packets. we would then steam them and tie about 8 together to give to our family. we made a hundred or two hundred. i got really good at wrapping them towards the end. i guess its the Asian tamale. i really like that tradition. the whole making something for giving out to the family. it really keeps the tradition of family and good food alive.

i think that food is great, because everyone has to eat. you taste my vary from your upbringing but if you have an open mind and a brave stomach there are endless possibilities of learning other cultures through their foods. even regional foods are fun to learn and taste. the cuisine of north and south Vietnamese is very different, the variation of BBQ ribs from Memphis to Texas to Kansas city, even pizza from Brooklyn taste differently from the thick crust in Chicago. i love the adventure that food alone can take a person. so i urge everyone this new year to go out and try something new from a different region you wouldn't normally eat from. perhaps you might hate it, but better you might like it.

eat extraordinary everyday!