Pre-July 4th Grilling + Ice Cream Party

Summer's in full swing here in Boston.

Bryan and I have a real special treat this week. Bryan's parents are visiting Boston (all the way from sunny California). As a result, we've been enjoying some great eats around Boston with them, with plans to show them other favorites we think they would like.

This past weekend, we kicked off the festivities by hosting a dinner party at our house. We invited all of the local relatives. It was awesome - we'd never had all of them under our roof before (frankly, in the old tiny urban condo, it would have been kind of difficult to fit so many people).

We whipped out the grill and took full advantage of the warm summer nights.

Yes, we set off the fire alarm twice, but we had a fantastic time enjoying lots and lots of grilled food as well as several homemade salads.

And how best to prep to entertain so many people with only a few hours to prepare?

1) Buy quality ingredients
2) Call Mom
3) Go back to the basics - make what you know!

1. Buy Quality Ingredients

One of the easiest ways to make a really good starter (with virtually no effort) is to serve a nice antipasto plate.

I was lucky - I had happened to visit the North End less than a week ago with Bryan (patronizing one of our favorite casual pasta restaurants) and had picked up some gorgeous locally-made salumi and imported Italian cheese from Monica's Salumeria (down the street from one of their restaurants, Monica's Trattoria).

We paired these beauties with some marinated mozzarella we had bought at Costco (a great place to buy food when entertaining large parties), as well as Castelvetrano whole green olives from Mezzetta and jalapeno stuffed olives from Saucy Mama (both of which I had received in the past through the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program).

2. Call Mom

My mom makes the most amazing grilled corn. It's based off of a popular Taiwanese street version of the dish. Even though my mom was grocery shopping when I called her in desperation (about three hour before my guests were to arrive), she patiently explained to me, step-by-step, exactly how to make this mouthwatering dish.

It turned out amazing (thanks to Bryan's dad's help in grilling it!). I can't wait to share it with you in a future (soon!) blog post (update! Recipe for Taiwanese Grilled Corn!).

3. Go Back to the Basics - Make What You Know

Caprese salad is easy to assemble, beautiful to look at, and always popular. I've made it a million times, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide to put this on the menu. I like to keep the sizes of the tomatoes and the cheese relatively similar, so depending on how big your cheese is, you can choose the appropriate tomatoes to match.

In this case, I bought the smaller cocktail tomatoes and  marinated mozzarella balls from Costco. Chop the tomatoes into fourths and the mozzarella balls in half, and just toss them together. Frankly, if your tomatoes are really sweet, you don't need to add much else. To tie the whole thing together, I threw on some basil leaves from my mini-basil plant.

Similarly, I've made this Corn, Avocado, and Pepper Salad several times in the past as well. This is one of those dishes where you think "a salad with all these ingredients is bound to taste pretty good." I love this salad because it's easy to make, super colorful, healthy, and is definitely a crowd-pleaser.

I'm a huge fan of Copper River salmon, and I was thrilled to find entire half fillets at Costco last week. We just simply grilled the entire filet on the grill, skin-side down, until the skin was gorgeously crispy. It presents beautifully as a full filet, and honestly, it doesn't need much else. The fish is so good that just a simple dash of salt is sufficient.

We (or I should say, Bryan and his dad), grilled an entire rack of St. Louis-style chili-rubbed ribs (pre-marinated), slowly cooked on the grill for about 25 minutes.

Although not pictured, we also grilled some prime ribeye steaks, something Bryan and I probably have at home on a monthly basis. Again, something familiar that we could execute quickly if needed.

Desserts!

We had another special treat for dessert. As part of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program, I had the opportunity to sample Skinny Cow Slimited Edition lowfat ice cream products. Skinny Cow is currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of the movie Dirty Dancing by hosting a bunch of events, including movie screenings across the US and contests with various prizes (check out their facebook page for more details). 

For fun, Skinny Cow sent us a copy of the Dirty Dancing DVD, which we watched at the dinner party with my relatives.

While cleaning up after the party, we listened to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I had forgotten how many top forty hits came out of that one movie. I found myself humming along, still remembering the words to a lot of those songs. Man, I can't believe it's been 25 years.

It was a fantastic evening spent relaxing with friends and family. For years (all throughout college and beyond), Bryan and I have been the ones going to our parent's and aunt & uncle's houses and having them cook loads and loads of food for us.

It was nice to finally be able to host them for a change.

Here's to many, many more family gatherings over lots and lots of great food.


Disclaimer
As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a stipend, DVD, and coupons for free Skinny Cow® product. I also received the olives for free from the respective companies.

Foodbuzz Festival Part 2: Tasting Pavillion

This is part II of an extended post about Foodbuzz Festival 2011.

I've been going to the Foodbuzz Festival since its inception in 2009. The Tasting Pavilion has always been the focus of Saturday afternoon and is a super fun part of the festival. You basically walk around this huge room at the top of the Metreon and sample all sorts of delicious food from an wide assortment of vendors.

This year, for the first time, they allowed us to bring a guest! I was so excited to finally be able to bring one of my best friends from college, who has graciously hosted me the last several years whenever I visit San Francisco.

There's no way I could describe every single thing I tried or saw in those three (!) hours of sampling. However, here are some that stood out to me.

This actually isn't part of the Tasting Pavillion (they were serving it for breakfast during the workshops). However, I liked the Clover Yogurt that I tried so much that I had to include it in this line up. Have you ever had cream on top yogurt? Oh man . . . sooo good. I'm a purist when it comes to yogurt (no fruit please), so I actually enjoyed it by just eating it plain.

TCHO chocolates are also local to California (they claim to be San Francisco's only artisanal chocolate maker). We tried several flavors (Plain, "Fruity", "Serious Milk", etc), which were all excellent.

These pears from Frog Hollow Farms were really, really good! Sweet, crispy, excellent flavor . .  I can imagine that they would pair super well with cheese.

We learned so much about how Belgian endives grow. Did you know they do not exist in nature? Belgian endives come from the chicory root, and only "bloom" as these young, tender, white leaves when they are left in the dark. Otherwise, chicory root usually grows tougher, green leaves.

Fantastic artisanally flavored nuts from Oren's Kitchen - these cashews, made with an interesting Indian spice, were my favorite.

Alexia, who sponsored large portions of the conference, had cooking demonstrations for how to use their frozen products. Here they have a beautiful cheese crisp that you can fill with many types of products.
Grass fed beef tastes delicious and is better for you too! This beef was fantastic - perfectly medium rare and quite juicy.

There was quite a bit of Alaskan seafood, including cod potato cakes (yum!) and crab and avocado salad.

We tried the most delicious butter cookies made with Wineforest's candy cap sugar. It's odd to think that a dried mushroom would work so well in a cookie, but these cookies were fabulous.
I totally fell in love with the fig and cherry jam from The Girl and the Fig. I came back from several "seconds" because it tasted so good with just a cracker and some cheese.

I was curious about kefir and finally had a chance to try it. It tastes like liquid yogurt, except that (according to the vendor) this particular version has many more probiotic live and active cultures - ten different kinds, to be exact.

It was a fun, fun tasting and I definitely wanted to check out some of these products once I got home. Funny thing is, while hanging out at SFO, I stumbled upon a cute little market inside the terminal at American Airlines. Lo and behold, the store was just like the Tasting Pavilion!  I saw The Girl and the Fig jam, Tyler Florence products, 479 popcorn, TCHO chocolate, and jams from Frog Hollow Farms!

I guess you don't even have to leave the airport to enjoy a bit of some of the best artisanal products that San Francisco has to offer!

Foodbuzz Festival Part I

What a whirlwind weekend it's been!

 Have you ever taken a weekend trip across the country before?

Man, let me tell you, it feels way too short. Due to all the other trips I've taken this year, I was basically out of vacation days by the time the Foodbuzz Festival rolled around. Alas, my trip to San Francisco ended up being me spending 2 days in airplanes and airports, and 1 1/2 precious days in gorgeous San Francisco.

Nevertheless, I had a fantastic time meeting old friends, making old ones, and meeting bloggers I felt like I knew but had never met in person.

I also had a chance to give a short speech to the Foodbuzz community about what I've been up to since winning Project Food Blog. I met some amazing people who share my passion for community service and reaching out to the poor. I was so encouraged, inspired, and excited to meet so many of you.

Obviously it's impossible to sum up such a rich weekend in a post or two, but I'll try my best!

I flew in from Boston Friday afternoon and arrived just in time to make the cocktail hour. I had a few butterflies in my stomach about the speech I was supposed to make, so I actually didn't eat that much! There were a lot of interesting fun little snacks, such as pork belly (top left), cod cakes (top right), and fresh Vietnamese spring rolls.

After a brief introduction by the Foodbuzz CEO, I came up and spent about 5 minutes discussing what I had been doing since winning Project Food Blog.  There's more details in this post, but in summary, I shared about how I decided to donate my prize winnings to charity and what led up to that decision.

Growing up in the suburbs of Ohio, I was pretty sheltered. Moving to the city in Cambridge opened my eyes to the existence and plight of the homeless. I saw them during my commute day in and day out around the subway stations. I shared with the bloggers my internal struggles with wanting to help the poor, but not knowing whether giving them cash directly was the best way.

Fast forward to the time preceding Project Food Blog. I started serving at the Boston Rescue Mission, both cooking in the soup kitchen as well as singing during their Friday worship services. I was inspired by the work of the Mission, especially how they really invested in the lives of those with addiction problems. I was especially amazed at how they actually transformed lives. I saw living examples of those who had been changed, and I was both humbled and inspired.

After the talk, I was even more inspired when bloggers came up to me and told me they were doing similar things in their communities.  I was excited at the idea of partnering with bloggers all around the nation (or even the world!) -- each of us blogging about how we've served at local charities this holiday season (more on that soon!).

Following my speech, hosts Joy the Baker and Marc from No Recipes presented the annual Foodbuzz Blogger Awards. The evening went by like a blur, and before I knew it, it was really really late (I had been up for 20 hours since leaving Boston that morning), and I crashed.

Saturday: Workshops + Tasting Pavilion
tasting our way through San Francisco's local artisanal treats


The next day, we attended workshops in the morning and visited the Tasting Pavilion in the afternoon. The Tasting Pavilion has been an integral part of the Foodbuzz Festival ever since it started in 2009. It's super fun - essentially you walk around all these booths with various vendors (most of them local!), who pass out free samples of their delicious products.

Alas, this blog post would become way too long if I described all the delicious things I've tasted, so I've decided to write about them in a separate post here.

Cooking Lesson with Tyler Florence
Saturday evening - a dinner with a celebrity chef

On Saturday evening, we watched Tyler Florence teach us how to make beautiful pan-roasted pork chops. In order to get a good sear on the pork, he told us we had to make sure we started with a very hot pan and a very dry pork chop (use paper towels!). Your goal? To get a nice, golden brown crust. "Color Equals Flavor" was his mantra.

Tyler Florence was an engaging speaker and told us tons of behind-the-scene stories about The Great Food Truck Race, a show he hosts on the Food Network.

Since the evening was sponsored by Alexia Frozen Foods, we tried a bunch of their new test flavors for waffle fries.

After watching the mouthwatering presentation by Tyler (and smelling the aromas while he was cooking it!), we were just a bit bummed to find out that we would not be enjoying those beautiful pork chops for dinner. Instead, we had a nice but relatively ordinary meal.

The main course was a "Surf & Turf"of sorts: Brandt beef filet mignon, Meyer lemon prawns, mashed celeriac, boiled asparagus, and roasted carrots.

I met many cool bloggers. Above: Ben from You Fed A Baby Chili? (also a contestant last year for Project Food Blog who wrote some amazing posts for that contest), Irving from Eat the Love (a fellow Taiwanese blogger!), Sabrina from The Tomato Tart, and Kristin from The Cuisinerd. I also met other cool contestants from Project Food Blog last year, such as Julie from Willow Bird Baking, Greg from Sippity Sup, Mara from What's for Dinner, and Mariko from The Little Foodie.

Above, Lindsay from lindsay-meyer. I met Lindsay at the first Foodbuzz Festival ever back in 2009 and we've been friend ever since. I'm so bummed I can't find the card for the blogger on the right whom I also met. She was super sweet and encouraging to me about my speech on Friday night.

Melonoat - another Taiwanese blogger! (Well, Ellen is Taiwanese; Tao (pronounced "Dao"), is half Chinese, half Irish). Their blog also has some awesome authentic Taiwanese dishes which Ellen learned on a trip back to Taiwan from her grandmother! They were so kind to drive me back to my friend's house that evening.

The next morning I didn't really have time to go to the last Foodbuzz Festival event since I had a long day of flying in front of me. Instead, I met a friend for breakfast at the Millbrae Pancake House (right next to SFO), and hopped right on a plane back to Boston.

This trip was way too short, and I've decided not to ever do these crazy weekend California trips anymore. Next time I come, I'm definitely staying longer!

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I always wait until the last minute to remember to bring my stack of business cards to events like this. By this point, I had run out of those cute Moo cards that Foodbuzz had given us a couple years back. Instead, I ended up running to the local printing shop and getting 100 cards printed (probably didn't get the best deal). Maybe next time, I'll consider other online options, such as UPrinting business cards.

Project Food Blog Round 11: Thank You SO MUCH . . .

I’m still in shock, I think.

Friday afternoon at 3PM EST Foodbuzz announced that Tiny Urban Kitchen had been crowned the winner of Project Food Blog.

????!!!!!

Yes, I won!!!!!!!

I can’t believe it. Both of the other finalists, Marc from No Recipes and Angela from Oh She Glows, are such incredibly talented bloggers and put forth thoughtful, well-composed, and beautiful entries. I certainly don't envy the difficult jobs that the judges had!

What a crazy, tiring, but SUPER FUN ride it’s been, these last four months. I have loved the challenge of being pushed and stretched as a blogger in so many directions. As a goal-oriented person, I know it takes contests like these to force me out of my comfort zone to learn new skills, techniques, and dishes. Yes, it takes a TON of energy, but the end result is super satisfying. The best part? I’ve gained skills that will stay with me for life.

Please join me as I take you on a short “behind the scenes” peek at what was happening in the Tiny Urban Kitchen during each round of the competition.

Round 1: Ready, Set, Blog!

Yikes! What horrible timing!

Why, oh why did this competition have to start right as I was about to leave for China? I finished this post on the airplane ride to Chicago. I hastily pressed “publish” in the airport lounge at O’Hare moments before hopping on my direct flight to Beijing. I had no idea whether I would be able to access Blogger from China (China blocks Blogger access), and thus no idea whether I would be able to continue in the competition.

Round 2: The Classics

Just to be safe, however, I churned out some Afghan kaddo bourani in the kitchen days before my trip to China and photographed it just in case I made it to round 2. I figured I could ask a friend to post it for me from the US if I made it to Round 2. While in China, I learned by accident that you can dial into Blogger via VPN!! Hallelujah! The kaddo bourani post went up while I was in China.

Round 3: Luxury Dinner Party

I arrived back in the States from China on Friday evening. Though extremely jetlagged and a bit dazed from my trip, I got together with some friends on Saturday and cooked up a crazy luxurious China-inspired meal.

I’m so amazed at how it came together. Seriously, I was so exhausted, but somehow we managed to cook an incredibly delicious and uniquely luxurious meal that night. Yes, we didn’t eat until 9PM that night, but overall I think the meal was a success. Thank you so much Peter and Chia Chi for your help in dreaming up and executing that fantastic meal.

Round 4: Picture Perfect

One of my favorite aspects of this competition is how it has challenged me to learn dishes I was afraid to try before. For this round, I really wanted to make something that would benefit greatly from a photo tutorial. After countless conversations with my mom over the phone, I managed to eek out some traditional Taiwanese rice dumplings, something that has been passed down in my family for generations.

Ha ha, my mom saw the photo of the one I made online and told me, “you put too much rice in it! You need more filling!”

Round 5: Recipe Remix

I’m really a last minute kind of gal. This was an anomaly in that I actually worked on it mid-week – seriously, probably the only time the entire competition! I made France, Italy, and Canada on Wednesday. They turned out great so I ended up making the rest on the weekend.

And then I was stuck with a ton of pizzas. I gave some away to a friend and ate the rest for days on end. By the end of the week, I was pretty sick of pizza, so I think I threw away the rest. :(

Round 6: Road Trip!

For the first time, I felt completely at a loss. I generally like trying to come up with a post that is unique and “outside the box,” yet in this case my mind was completely blank. It was Friday night, and I had no idea what to make.

Bryan totally came to the rescue during this desperate time of need. I had mentioned off-hand the idea of packing butternut squash soup inside a butternut squash “shell”. He ran with that idea. “Why don’t you put everything in its own container?”

I really have to give him credit for this post. Yes, he absolutely can’t cook worth a dime, but he has a great creative mind and comes up with some crazy ideas. He was the brainchild behind the pumpkin shepherd’s pie, the apple cider apple cups, and the now famous inside-out apple pies. And unlike other parts of the nation that weekend, Boston was blessed with absolutely beautiful weather and breathtaking foliage.

Round 7: Video 411

I am the type of person who needs tons of encouragement to pursue anything. I guess I doubt myself too often, and will mentally kill ideas before they are able to come to fruition. Because of that, I am extremely thankful for friends who sometimes push me to go forward with crazy ideas that I have.

I mentioned briefly in a conversation the idea of hand-pulled noodles for the video post.

My friend Peter replied, “Now THAT would a really cool post if you could pull it off.”

It was two weeks before the post was due.

I didn’t know how to make hand-pulled noodles.

Crazy? Yes, but I decided to try to learn this skill and make a video of it all within two weeks.

The next week, I basically spent every waking moment (outside of work, church, and my other normal activities) with flour, water, and dough. I made batch after batch after batch, trying to learn how to make this elusive food. The internet was surprisingly devoid of information, save for a couple of Youtube videos here and there. Thankfully, by the grace of God, I was able to learn how to make these noodles and crank out a video in two weeks.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I didn’t know a thing about editing videos. Bryan ordered some basic video editing software for me after I found out I had advanced. Thankfully, the software is pretty easy to figure out!

I pulled an all-nighter in order to publish my video about 45 minutes before my flight out to San Francisco to attend the Foodbuzz Festival. Needless to say, I was sort of a zombie Friday night, which was the only night I was able to attend the Festival!

Round 8: Piece of Cake

The challenges just kept getting harder and harder and harder!! I am not a baker, so this challenge freaked me out. It didn’t help that I was going to Japan and China (again) for a week, and thus would only have Thanksgiving weekend to work on the post.

While in Japan, I tried to get inspired by the beautiful desserts that I saw there. Unfortunately, they all looked impossible to make, and I had no idea what to do.

Then I remembered the famous CHE family pumpkin cake. Of course! This was yet another dish that I have always wanted to learn how to make, but never challenged myself to do it. I e-mailed Bryan’s parents, who were more than happy to send me not only the recipe for the family dish, but also the cool background story about how Bryan’s great-grandmother used to make it from hand-ground rice flour and peeled pumpkin shreds.

I feared that the pumpkin cakes wouldn’t be complicated enough for this competition, so I decided to add in the thousand-layer spiral mooncakes and the pumpkin mochi to the mix. It took me the entire Thanksgiving break to figure out how to make everything.

I remember being almost a little sad at the end of Thanksgiving break thinking, “I just spent my entire Thanksgiving cooking for this post. I am so tired, and I now I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. Is this really worth it??? Was it worth losing my entire Thanksgiving break for this?”

Round 9: You’re the Critic:
"Everything I Learned About Sushi I Learned From My Mom...And Kyubey

Unlike many of the remaining 12 finalists in this round, I actually regularly write about restaurant experiences on my blog. Nevertheless, I had a hard time figuring out what restaurant I wanted to feature.

I finally decided on Kyubey, mostly because I had some neat video footage from that restaurant from our two visits there in the past two years. I also thought it would be interesting and unique to feature a restaurant from another country.

In some ways, it was really nice not having to learn how to cook something, cook it, and then photograph it all in a weekend ON TOP of writing up a post filed with fabulous pictures. It was nice to just spend the entire weekend writing and working on the post.

On the other hand, I struggle with writing a lot. I think of myself more as an artist than a writer. There were many frustrating moments that weekend as I struggled to find a way to write the post in an interesting, engaging, yet informative way.

Round 10: Final Reflections

It’s hard to be motivated to plan for a post when the odds of advancing are one in four, especially when that final post needs to be epic. So, of course, even though I spent time thinking about what I would write, I didn’t purchase a single ingredient nor did I spend a moment in the kitchen.

And then Friday afternoon I found out I had advanced.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. After heading to Chinatown to get some daikons, monster carrots, and winter melons, I spent about 3 hours carving daikons to make the Longfellow bridge “salt and pepper” shakers. At 9:30PM Bryan and I rushed to the grocery store to pick up some more veggies.

I made the rest of Boston alone through the night, accompanied only by the sound of the occasional car that drove by and the sounds of my own carving. I knew I had to finish it as soon as possible because the veggies wouldn’t last much longer than a day. At 4AM, I began filming the stop motion video. At 6AM, I plopped into bed, exhausted.

Somehow, within the next 36 hours, I recorded the song video (thanks singers for coming over on such short notice!), produced both videos, cooked up some octopus (thanks Peter & Chia Chi for your help!), made grape nut ice cream, and wrote up the final post.

Bryan had booked a celebratory dinner after post submission on Sunday night, but I was so tired that I told him “let’s just eat somewhere close by and simple.” So, where did we go? Basta Pasta, of course.


When Did You Find Out You Won?
I found out the results the same way as everyone else. Foodbuzz had contacted the finalists and asked us to participate in a tweet-up half an hour before the announcement. In all seriousness, the butterflies in my stomach tripled when I thought about being "in public" for the final announcement. Thankfully, everyone was so encouraging, kind, and positive during the tweet-up that it was actually reasonably exciting and fun (as fun as it can be when you are super nervous!).

I'll never forget that moment when Foodbuzz tweeted the link. For some reason it reminded me of when I took the patent bar exam on computer - you find out right there and then whether you pass or not. Those moments the server is churning are the most butterfly-inducing moments you can imagine.

And then I saw the little medal on my profile.

Shocked! Speechless! Relief??

And then the "congrats" started pouring in. It was really hard to keep up with the quick scroll of super kind and encouraging words that rolled up my screen at seemingly lightning speeds. I could hardly keep up. Marc and Angela were super gracious and positive. In fact, all of the people with whom I have been competing were so encouraging and supportive. I couldn't believe it. I was so touched.

So Now What?
Well, I'm still recovering from the shock (seriously!) but I'll find out more about the year-long feature next week! Right now, I know as much as you do about what happens next!

As for the prize money . . . starting around Round 8 or so (when it looked like I might actually have a shot at winning the entire contest), I started becoming more and more convinced that if I won the contest, I wanted to give away $10,000 to those in need. This came about mostly from studying the Bible and seeing Jesus's example on how he cared about the poor.

I still have to figure out all the logistics and everything, but I'll keep you updated!

A Super Huge Thank You
As you know, this contest was 50% vote-driven. I absolutely could not have done it without all of your support. I loved reading your comments and tweets throughout this entire contest. It was fun "talking" with some of you over twitter or through your blogs. This food community is AWESOME. All-in-all, I have been blown away by the love, encouragement, and graciousness of everyone in the community, especially my fellow competitors, who I feel I have gotten to know throughout this competition (and some of whom I got to MEET at the Foodbuzz Festival!).

Thanks so much to Foodbuzz for organizing this competition, and to the judges, Dana Cowin, Nancy Silverton, and Pim Techamuanvivit, who had the most difficult job of all!

Of course, I could not have done this without the support of my friends and family. Bryan stood by my side round after round after round, patiently coming with me on endless supermarket runs, encouraging me and pushing me when I was feeling discouraged or when I was ready to give up.

My extended family, especially my parents and Bryan's parents, have been crucial by sharing recipes with me and I've cooked through several family traditions this contest - not to mention the constant love and support they give.

My good friends Peter and Chia Chi have been with me this whole competition, everything from helping me cook the Luxury Meal in Round 3 to coming with me to Boston's Chinatown for the video shoot. Also a quick shoutout to my friend Beata who lent me a pizza stone, and her husband Loren who relieved me of the burden of eating all the pizza flags by taking some for lunch.

Thanks also to my super talented singing buddies Grace, Ele, and Daniel, who came over at a last minute's notice. These guys are super talented - they listened to a recording and figured out how to sing and perform the background in less than two hours! You all ROCK!

And most importantly, above all, I thank God, without whom none of this would be possible.

Thank you all! What a wonderful Christmas present. :)