Food
I think about food. A lot.
Not just because I love to eat: I also think that food is politics, history, culture, and the best lens through which I can learn about the world.
I've been lucky to have eaten extensively across the world. I've also worked on several cookbooks. Now, I write an occasional food newsletter, obsessively review tacos, and develop recipes that are at once traditional and outright absurd.
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Kolkata Kalling
12 years ago I came to Kolkata for the same time. At the time it was still mostly referred to as Calcutta. Kolkata, where every return feels both familiar and new. The city doesn't change; but you do. Every picture I have of it from 12 years ago still looks like it could have been from December, when I last visited.…
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Mee Lay
When I was growing up, I thought all families had the same weekend lunches as mine: a giant cauldron of yellow noodles, simmered so long in an anchovy broth that they fell apart when you picked up your noodles with chopsticks. You had to use a spoon. Ah ma made them every Sunday, but ah gong made the chilli. Even…
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To the Mountain
Going to the mountain. In all of my 29 years, my grandparents had been such a big part of my life that I could have never conceived of a life without them. Like the 1128-episode TV serials they watched, Ah Gong and Ah Ma just went on and on. In the background, their voices blended in with the voices of the Chinese TV…
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The Belated Bangkok Diaries
In several status updates Admittedly I have posted very little on the everyday occurrences in my travel. Here are some snippets, culled from Facebook. Day 1: Two sleep-deprived people board a plane full of evangelical missionaries offering ‘free healing' in the plane (true story), dinner in the streets and accidental…
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Did you hear the one about the Swedish chocolate cake?
I'm home now of course, whatever home means, and I've been retelling a couple of stories. The same ones, but many of them, just because I've had such a crazy time in the Nordics. This one isn't very much of a story. Just a little tale that, once again, shows you how crazy we Asians are about our food. I spent the first…