#but hey. it's just chicken. you can cook it in like. soy sauce eat it with some rice and sesame seeds and it tastes fine

[ms-demeanor]

Hey also you know that post about getting better at cooking and handling meat and stuff?

Meat is really expensive and it goes bad pretty quickly.

If you're a new cook and you're trying to figure out how to pan-fry something so that it tastes good, might I recommend tofu?

I'm not saying "treat tofu like meat and try to replace all your favorite meat dishes with tofu" (though, I mean, if that sounds good - go for it), I'm saying "it's a lot easier to practice heating a pan and flipping objects in a pan for a meal and seasoning objects in a pan when the objects in the pan cost two dollars instead of ten dollars."

Tofu lasts a lot longer in the fridge than meat does, is easy to season, and you can easily learn how to pan-fry it into a tasty snack (or main course) and only requires a little extra prep. You can also pretend that the tofu is raw meat (the texture isn't dissimilar) and start practicing for things like how to take it out of a package or cut it on a sanitizable surface, etc.

My favorite way to cook tofu is to press extra firm tofu for at least half an hour (you can get a cheap tofu press for around ten dollars, or you can put it between two plates with some books on the top plate - this is that extra prep i was talking about - tofu cooks best if you press the excess water out), then slice a 14oz cake of it into 8 slices. I lay these flat and sprinkle cayenne pepper, mushroom powder, and smoked paprika on all of the slices, then I rub it in and flip the slices and season the other side the same way. I cook it in a frying pan with a thin layer of avocado or olive oil over medium heat, flipping every two minutes until the flat sides start to crisp up a little. Just before the last flip I add about a tablespoon of tamari sauce (you can use soy sauce, I've just got allergies) to the pan, sprinkling it over the tofu so that both sides get a little bit of sauce on them.

I have that with steamed vegetables and with jasmine rice (with two teaspoons of rice wine vinegar per 3 cups of dry rice and 4.5 cups of water). I also make a honey-siracha-mayo sauce that I dip the tofu in.

It's really good. And now I end up eating leftover rice and sauce with fried eggs for lunch at least two days a week and that's also really good.

This has become one of my go-to low spoon foods because it's so easy to make, it's filling, it tastes good to me, and it has become extremely easy for me to keep a stock of tofu in the fridge compared to the effort of keeping un-expired meat in the fridge.

I find that a 14oz pack of tofu feeds two adults for one meal, though I can stretch that to three meals if I'm the only one eating.

It makes a very cheap, filling, easy dinner that I can keep the ingredients around for without too much concern for food waste or anything going bad (the tofu that I get lasts about a month in the fridge and these days I just buy three packs every time I'm at aldi and cycle in new stock - it costs $1.50 per pack)

If you're interested in becoming a better cook, rather than worrying about actual high-risk products like raw chicken that can be seriously dangerous and also cost a fair amount, tofu has a pretty low barrier to entry while also being a good way to learn on a new ingredient that has some similar properties to raw meat.

[noorpersona]

Pregnancy: Yaku

It was supposed to be one of your favorites.

Yaku stood proudly in front of the stove, dishing up a steaming plate of oyakodon—fluffy egg, juicy chicken, perfectly seasoned rice. You’d been craving something warm and comforting, and he’d been more than happy to oblige. He even made miso soup on the side, garnished just the way you liked it, with the little tofu cubes floating lazily in the bowl. The apartment smelled like soy sauce and dashi, rich and nostalgic.

You waddled into the kitchen with one hand on your lower back, the other absentmindedly tracing the edge of your growing bump, already smiling at the scent you knew so well.

But then—

It hit you.

The smell.

Hard.

You stopped short. The smile slipped from your face. Your nose crinkled, your eyes went wide, and your stomach lurched.

You gagged once, loud and sudden.

Yaku turned from the stove instantly, eyes narrowing with alarm. “Hey—are you okay?”

You waved him off, trying to speak, trying to play it off like you could power through it.

“Yeah, I just—” You gagged again, louder this time, one hand flying to your mouth. “It’s fine, I think I just need a second—”

Then your stomach gave up entirely.

The rich scent of simmered egg and soy sauce suddenly turned rancid in your senses, and before you could say a word, both hands flew to your mouth. You staggered toward the sink, breathing hard through your nose.

Yaku turned just in time to watch you sprint the rest of the way.

You barely made it. Gripping the edges of the basin, you gagged violently, doubling over as your body heaved with no warning. Your knees buckled slightly from the effort, and tears sprang to your eyes as you fought to keep control.

“Oh—oh my god,” Yaku choked out, dropping the plate onto the counter with a sharp clatter. His hand hovered midair, frozen, like he wasn’t sure if he should run toward you or flee entirely.

He chose you.

“Hey, hey—it’s okay,” he said, voice slightly high-pitched, his mouth tugging awkwardly to one side as he fought against his visible discomfort. His nose wrinkled despite himself, but he pressed a hand to your back, rubbing slow, shaky circles. “It’s okay. Just breathe. You got it.”

You were sobbing before you even lifted your head.

“I loved that dish,” you wailed, tears streaming freely now. “You made it perfectly and I—I threw up in front of you, and I can’t even eat it now, and I’m so sorry—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said quickly, helping you upright and handing you a cool cloth from the fridge. “None of that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

You wiped your mouth, sniffling. “But I ruined dinner.”

He glanced warily at the plate, now abandoned and beginning to cool. “Yeah, well, it’s not my best memory of oyakodon anymore, but that’s fine. It’ll survive.”

You hiccupped a wet laugh. “You’re grossed out.”

“I’m... challenged,” he admitted with a strained smile. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll gag quietly in the corner if I have to.”

You buried your face in his shoulder. “I hate that my body’s doing this. I hate that I wanted something so badly and then just—rejected it like that.”

He stroked your back, gentler now. “It’s not rejection. It’s just... a rebranding.”

You pulled back slightly, puffy-eyed. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” he said, tipping your chin up, “that we’re finding new favorites now. So tell me what you can stomach, and I’ll make it happen.”

You hesitated.

“…You’re not gonna like it.”

“I just watched you throw up mid-step and I stayed. Try me.”

“…Pickles.”

He nodded. “Alright.”

“With peanut butter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And crushed ice.”

He blinked. “Separate or…?”

“Side dish.”

“Of course.”

“And I want a plain bagel. But I want to dip it in cream cheese and ketchup.”

He exhaled. “Naturally.”

“And maybe some frozen corn niblets? Not cooked. Just... straight from the freezer.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Making a list.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” he interrupted, already walking to the counter. “Because you’re growing a whole human, and apparently that human is very specific.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Even if I hate this list.”

And with that, he kissed your temple, grabbed his keys, and set off to hunt down every absurd craving you’d dreamed up—with only a faint grimace and a stomach made of steel.

--

It took him two corner stores and a specialty deli, but Yaku returned triumphant, arms full of grocery bags and a look of determination on his face. He laid everything out on the coffee table like it was a five-star buffet: pickles, peanut butter, crushed ice in a big bowl, a plain bagel, cream cheese, ketchup, and a bag of frozen corn.

You were already curled up on the couch in one of his hoodies, and your face lit up like the sun when you saw it all. “Oh my god,” you gasped, reaching for the pickles first and dipping one straight into the peanut butter without hesitation. “This is perfect.”

Yaku sat on the edge of the couch, watching with a blend of horror and awe as you crunched down on your Frankenstein meal with pure, genuine joy.

You munched happily, cheeks puffed out, eyes dreamy as you chewed. “Oh my god, I love you so much.”

He smiled, soft and full of affection. “I love you too.”

Then, quieter, barely a mumble as he stared at the bagel going into the ketchup-cream cheese dip: “This kid is gonna be weird.”

[sea-salted-wolverine]

No spoons for cooking or dishes? That's okay, find yourself a ricecooker. it will love you more than your own mother.

Put rice in pot. Put water in pot. Rinse rice. Put as much water as rice in pot. Add sauce. What kind of sauce? What are you a cop? Add a good sauce, soy sauce, BBQ sauce, worschester sauce, enchilada sauce, whatever you please. Add veggies, diced veggies, frozen veggies, fresh veggies, whatever veggies you got on hand. Yes, you need to add veggies, or die of scurvy. Add protein, fish, chicken, red meat, tofu, whatever, beans maybe. Just stick it in there on top of the rice and veggies. Didn't take the meat out of the freezer? It works with frozen meat. You're welcome. Toss some spices in there maybe? Idk, you know what you like.

Put pot in rice cooker. Set to cook. Do whatever it is you do with a spare 20 minutes. Chores. Sex. Floor time. Homework. Post about one pot meals on Tumblr. I'm not your mom. Oh hey. The rice cooker beeped.

Eat it out of the pot. You have a fork and a nonstick pot to rinse. But also, sustenance and nutrition. That you could feasibly feed to other people without feeling like you're feeding them depression meals. AND most importantly, frozen veggies and frozen meat and rice are all things that you can stash and stock in your house for relatively cheap.

Of all the appliances you could possibly have in a modern kitchen a rice cooker/ pressure cooker is the one you can get the most mileage out of. Congratulations on your infinitely customizable balanced and nutritional meal.

[is-the-fire-real]

So, I'm in a place right now where I cannot consume any alcohol, even in food. (Alcohol does not actually cook out of food, in case you have a similar restriction for health or religious reasons.)

My in-laws decided to serve rabo del toro after the point when I could no longer consume alcohol. They have had the oxtail in the freezer for a month. But they waited until now to serve a recipe which features an entire bottle of drinking wine as part of the sauce.

I googled to make sure, and then told them, in writing, that I'd like if they could try to substitute something else for the wine, so I could also have some of the rabo del toro. They said nothing in reply. I assumed, at that point, that they would not be substituting anything, and I'd have to skip the whole dish.

Okay. They do this a lot. They know I don't eat any shellfish and have responded to this by repeatedly buying and serving it and then acting miffed that I won't eat it, so why would this be any different?

My MIL asked if she could make chicken wings instead. I, politely, said no. I have seen how she makes chicken wings.

She brought up making me chicken wings four more times in the next 24 hours. She was, in her way, sorry; she was also, in her way, trying to make sure that she could tell other people that she'd tried to feed me but I'm very unreasonable and stubborn. After the fourth no, she said: "I'm just worried you're not getting enough protein!"

To which @the-gazpacho-ger said that beans and soy all have a ton of protein, and so do eggs, and I'm getting all of these things so please stop trying to shovel meat into my husband.

So they decided they were going to Play Nice and serve me something I could eat. Fish. Hake, specifically. I'm kind of excited. It's a type of fish I can definitely eat. Wonderful.

I go down to their kitchen area, and see that they've set up the sauce they'll fry the fish in.

It's full of in-shell clams.

Then, after Gaz points it out, I see a now-half-full bottle of white wine by the stovetop.

"Hey, is there wine in this?" Gaz asks.

"It was in the recipe," FIL says, already defensive in his tone. "I had to add it."

"Okay, but Fire can't have it even if it's in the recipe," and that starts a whole new round of But The Alcohol Cooks Out and No It Doesn't The Flesh Retains It and I Thought It'd Be Okay and We've Already Been Over This Multiple Times and Okay Well Sorry. We don't even address the clams because why bother, we've been over that roughly a billion times and they'll never listen and they'll never stop.

I'm still not over how we explained to MIL the fish I can eat (which all also happen to be kashrut fish) and how I explicitly cannot have shellfish because they're filter feeders (no way we're safe in telling them about our conversion yet). She smirked and said "What about shrimp?" and then walked away without waiting for a response. She then bought shrimp, which I have literally never liked even before I resolved to eat kashrut, and had herself a pity party when I told her I couldn't eat it. And so it goes.

I sit down to my dinner of potatoes and green beans.

"You're being very good about your food," my MIL says. "I'm so impressed."

This is her way of saying I've gravely insulted her by refusing her food.

I know this because she follows up by listing everything she's going to make for Gaz's birthday meal and I think maybe I'll be able to eat the salad, but only if she doesn't put any dressing on it because there's booze in the dressing. And then she says she's invited people over without asking us first. So I will get to sit there with a bit of dry salad on my plate while she pointedly says I'm being very good (picky) and how impressed (furious) she is with me, while I get to smell all the good smells of special homecooked meals I cannot touch and watch everyone else enjoy themselves.

Is there a prayer for this situation, Jumblr?

[carcin0-8]

my magnum opus btw

By Pete Wells (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/https://www.nytimes.com/by/pete-wells)

        Nov. 13, 2012

GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? If you hadn’t come up with the recipe yourself, would you ever guess that the shiny tissue of breading that exudes grease onto the plate contains either pretzels or smoked almonds? Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?

Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/www.guyfieri.com/), would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?

At your five Johnny Garlic’s restaurants in California, if servers arrive with main courses and find that the appetizers haven’t been cleared yet, do they try to find space for the new plates next to the dirty ones? Or does that just happen in Times Square, where people are used to crowding?

If a customer shows up with a reservation at one of your two Tex Wasabi’s outlets, and the rest of the party has already been seated, does the host say, “Why don’t you have a look around and see if you can find them?” and point in the general direction of about 200 seats?

What is going on at this new restaurant of yours, really?

Has anyone ever told you that your high-wattage passion for no-collar American food makes you television’s answer to Calvin Trillin (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/www.thenation.com/authors/calvin-trillin), if Mr. Trillin bleached his hair, drove a Camaro and drank Boozy Creamsicles? When you cruise around the country for your show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it?

Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar?

How, for example, did Rhode Island’s supremely unhealthy and awesomely good fried calamari — dressed with garlic butter and pickled hot peppers — end up in your restaurant as a plate of pale, unsalted squid rings next to a dish of sweet mayonnaise with a distant rumor of spice?

How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?

How did nachos, one of the hardest dishes in the American canon to mess up, turn out so deeply unlovable? Why augment tortilla chips with fried lasagna noodles that taste like nothing except oil? Why not bury those chips under a properly hot and filling layer of melted cheese and jalapeños instead of dribbling them with thin needles of pepperoni and cold gray clots of ground turkey?

By the way, would you let our server know that when we asked for chai, he brought us a cup of hot water?

When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?

Does this make it sound as if everything at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar is inedible? I didn’t say that, did I?

Tell me, though, why does your kitchen sabotage even its more appealing main courses with ruinous sides and sauces? Why stifle a pretty good bison meatloaf in a sugary brown glaze with no undertow of acid or spice? Why send a serviceable herb-stuffed rotisserie chicken to the table in the company of your insipid Rice-a-Roni variant?

Why undermine a big fist of slow-roasted pork shank, which might fly in many downtown restaurants if the General Tso’s-style sauce were a notch less sweet, with randomly shaped scraps of carrot that combine a tough, nearly raw crunch with the deadened, overcooked taste of school cafeteria vegetables?

Is this how you roll in Flavor Town?

Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?

What accounts for the vast difference between the Donkey Sauce recipe you’ve published and the Donkey Sauce in your restaurant? Why has the hearty,

rustic appeal of roasted-garlic mayonnaise been replaced by something that tastes like Miracle Whip with minced raw garlic?

And when we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?

Is the entire restaurant a very expensive piece of conceptual art? Is the shapeless, structureless baked alaska that droops and slumps and collapses while you eat it, or don’t eat it, supposed to be a representation in sugar and eggs of the experience of going insane?

Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?

Did you finish that blue drink?

Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them?

Thanks

[flyingwargle]

sunaosa week day 5: bento

training is often split into morning and afternoon sessions, with conditioning in the first half, and practice in the second half. the athletes are given two hours in between for lunch, many opting to return home to cook, following the strict diet created for them by their nutritionist, with a few staying at the gym to eat in the lounge, using the microwave, toaster, or electric kettle to warm up homemade lunches, leftovers, or a haphazardly assembled combini meal from the 7-eleven across the street.

komori, washio, and suna often eat together, newbies of the team. komori is a decent cook, although he hasn’t graduated beyond burnt eggs, soggy rice, and using soy sauce to season everything. washio is better, often spending his weekends experimenting with new recipes, like barbecue-glazed ribs, butter shoyu chicken, and tonkatsu ramen.

suna, on the other hand, can’t cook to save his life, unless it’s reheating leftovers or adding noodles to boiling water. and yet, he brings a bento made with love every day – grilled fish, seaweed salad, pickled vegetables, and absolutely divine tamagoyaki that komori always steals whenever he isn’t looking.

“hey, guys!” nagito slides into the empty seat beside komori with his 7-eleven haul – three onigiri, two sandwiches, several energy bars, and a carton of juice. “what’s everyone eating?”

they show him their various bento boxes, but nagito only whistles at suna’s. “the boyfriend does it again! i thought the two of you are long-distance?”

“yeah, but he’s staying with me for a month as a break,” suna replies. “i tried telling him that he doesn’t have to cook for me, but i can’t keep him out of the kitchen. he’s been stressed out lately with the restaurant, and i want him to cook for fun while he’s here.”

“maybe he can give motoya a cooking lesson,” washio suggests. “pivoting your focus away from work to instructional might help him relax.”

“are you saying that my cooking sucks?” komori asks, showing off his poor bento of rice covered in furikake and soggy karaage that he picked up yesterday at the supermarket.

"yes. i could use a lesson, too. i want his expertise on how to grill fish.”

suna nods, taking his phone out. “sure, i can ask. you want in, nagito?”

“might as well,” he chirps. “it beats having combini food every day!”

the middle blocker sends a text to his boyfriend, and they continue their discussion about coach’s proposed rotational changes, and the exhibition match scheduled at the end of the month. when practice starts again, they pack their bento boxes and head for the locker room.

komori eats the same thing every day, so he makes a game with nagito to predict what protein their teammates will bring. washio is more of a red meat guy, but suna often has fish, until one day, he brings a huge container of pork gyoza to share. “’samu was experimenting with a new recipe,” he said as explanation.

“osamu should move in with you permanently,” komori says, plucking another gyoza from the tray.

“trust me, we want to. maybe in the future.”

it continues for the rest of the week. after the weekend, the group gathers for lunch, komori proudly revealing his soba noodles instead of soggy rice. “you upgraded,” washio remarks. today, he has sushi made from scratch.

“nagito and i split a huge pack of soba noodles! the supermarket sold bottles of sauce too, which helps.”

“oh, you went with boiled noodles!” nagito slides into his seat beside komori. “check out what i made!” he lifts his lid off, the irresistible scent of yakisoba filling the room.

komori is immediately envious. “i thought you didn’t know how to cook!”

“it wasn’t that hard! i just followed a recipe online and fried everything together. a lot of noodles got stuck to the pan, though. i had to toss it.”

washio chuckles, but it’s short-lived. “i guess suna isn’t joining us today.” he was late to conditioning too, haggard with dark circles around his eyes. komori lost track of him after they stopped for lunch.

it’s about an hour into their lunch that suna appears, sliding into the seat beside washio. “hey.”

“where did you go?” komori asks, in lieu of a greeting.

“had to go back home for a bit. i didn’t want to bother ‘samu, so i came here to eat.” instead of putting his usual bento box on the table, it’s a bag from 7-eleven. inside are sandwiches, a gyudon, several protein bars, and energy jelly. he drags his feet to the microwave to heat his gyudon.

“no bento today?” nagito ventures when he sits back down. suna simply shakes his head, leaving it at that.

komori doesn’t push, but then the same thing happens the next day, and then the next. by the fourth day, he just sleeps while they eat, until nagito pokes him with his chopstick. “hey, you need food. did you bring lunch?”

“no,” comes the muffled reply.

“did something happen between you and osamu?” komori asks. “like…like…a fight? or…”

suna turns his head until he’s facing them. “no. i mean, kind of. he was being…stubborn when i tried telling him to rest more. the next day, when i came home, i found him collapsed with a fever.”

“oh.”

“why aren’t you with him?” nagito asks.

“his stubborn ass won’t let me take care of him, said he doesn’t want to interfere with my training. i asked coach for time off, but ‘samu insisted.” suna’s eyes glitter with unshed tears. “i didn’t want to make him more upset, so…”

washio places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “i’m sorry to hear that.”

“let’s buy medicine and food for him after practice,” komori suggests. “you also need food. i’ll run out to 7-eleven and grab something.”

“i’m not hungry–“

“too bad,” nagito says, snapping his bento lid shut. “you need to stay healthy if you want to take care of miya. we’ll be right back.”

after practice, they split between the supermarket and pharmacy, reconvening at a nearby restaurant to pick up takeout. they follow suna home, stepping inside the darkened apartment. “’samu?”

coughing answers him. suna doesn’t hesitate to drop his bag and kick his shoes off, hurrying to the bedroom. komori, washio, and nagito linger in the kitchen, putting takeout containers in the fridge, heating congee in a small pot, and getting a glass of water ready with medicine. washio transfers the warm congee into a bowl, nagito finding a tray to put everything on. komori carries it to the bedroom, where he hears hushed voices.

“ya don’t hafta worry ‘bout me,” is osamu’s rasp. “i can care fer myself.”

“’samu, your fever is over 37 degrees,” suna says softly. “i know you can care for yourself, but you aren’t alone. i’m here. and…” he glances over his shoulder at the trio. “there are others that want to help, too.”

komori enters, putting the tray on the desk. osamu is under the covers, cold compress on his forehead that’s slick with sweat. washio and nagito step into view, as well. “suna is right,” washio says. “we all need a helping hand once in a while.”

“just let your boyfriend coddle you,” nagito adds.

“exactly. thank you, nagito.” suna turns back to osamu. “we have food for you, too. can you sit up?”

he helps him upright, then feeds him small spoonfuls of congee at a time. the trio slip outside, lingering a moment more to observe. the couple’s voices are quiet, osamu’s resistance melting with every spoonful. the tension in suna’s shoulders lessens, replaced with a soft smile full of affection. komori guides his teammates out, putting their shoes on and collecting their bags.

osamu will be in good hands.

[saggieballz]

vaguely reminded me of u here u go father 💗💗

By Pete Wells (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/https://www.nytimes.com/by/pete-wells)

        Nov. 13, 2012

GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? If you hadn’t come up with the recipe yourself, would you ever guess that the shiny tissue of breading that exudes grease onto the plate contains either pretzels or smoked almonds? Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?

Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/www.guyfieri.com/), would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?

At your five Johnny Garlic’s restaurants in California, if servers arrive with main courses and find that the appetizers haven’t been cleared yet, do they try to find space for the new plates next to the dirty ones? Or does that just happen in Times Square, where people are used to crowding?

If a customer shows up with a reservation at one of your two Tex Wasabi’s outlets, and the rest of the party has already been seated, does the host say, “Why don’t you have a look around and see if you can find them?” and point in the general direction of about 200 seats?

What is going on at this new restaurant of yours, really?

Has anyone ever told you that your high-wattage passion for no-collar American food makes you television’s answer to Calvin Trillin (https://archive.ph/o/yQet8/www.thenation.com/authors/calvin-trillin), if Mr. Trillin bleached his hair, drove a Camaro and drank Boozy Creamsicles? When you cruise around the country for your show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it?

Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar?

How, for example, did Rhode Island’s supremely unhealthy and awesomely good fried calamari — dressed with garlic butter and pickled hot peppers — end up in your restaurant as a plate of pale, unsalted squid rings next to a dish of sweet mayonnaise with a distant rumor of spice?

How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?

How did nachos, one of the hardest dishes in the American canon to mess up, turn out so deeply unlovable? Why augment tortilla chips with fried lasagna noodles that taste like nothing except oil? Why not bury those chips under a properly hot and filling layer of melted cheese and jalapeños instead of dribbling them with thin needles of pepperoni and cold gray clots of ground turkey?

By the way, would you let our server know that when we asked for chai, he brought us a cup of hot water?

When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?

Does this make it sound as if everything at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar is inedible? I didn’t say that, did I?

Tell me, though, why does your kitchen sabotage even its more appealing main courses with ruinous sides and sauces? Why stifle a pretty good bison meatloaf in a sugary brown glaze with no undertow of acid or spice? Why send a serviceable herb-stuffed rotisserie chicken to the table in the company of your insipid Rice-a-Roni variant?

Why undermine a big fist of slow-roasted pork shank, which might fly in many downtown restaurants if the General Tso’s-style sauce were a notch less sweet, with randomly shaped scraps of carrot that combine a tough, nearly raw crunch with the deadened, overcooked taste of school cafeteria vegetables?

Is this how you roll in Flavor Town?

Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?

What accounts for the vast difference between the Donkey Sauce recipe you’ve published and the Donkey Sauce in your restaurant? Why has the hearty, rustic appeal of roasted-garlic mayonnaise been replaced by something that tastes like Miracle Whip with minced raw garlic?

And when we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?

Is the entire restaurant a very expensive piece of conceptual art? Is the shapeless, structureless baked alaska that droops and slumps and collapses while you eat it, or don’t eat it, supposed to be a representation in sugar and eggs of the experience of going insane?

Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?

Did you finish that blue drink?

Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them?

Thanks

something very beautiful and magical about this i cant fib.

[spooniechef]

The Dinner Diaries, Day 1 (fried rice, 1 spoon)

My eating habits are not the most orderly things in the world. I thought it might be a good idea to actually try documenting what I eat for a month or so, just so that I've got some kind of record. Also means that I've got a bit more scope for throwing out recipes, even if they are simple, basic, "Everyone must know how to do this" recipes. Because who knows? Maybe people don't, or maybe I do it in a way that people might find easier.

I'm not generally a breakfast person so I had coffee and a couple of gluten-free chocolate digestive biscuits. For those not of the British persuasion - digestives are sort of the plainest cookies in existence, sommetimes elevated by dipping one side in chocolate. So it kind of feels like ready-made oat-bread toast spread with Nutella. I guess that counts as breakfast, more or less.

Skipped lunch because my so-called 'breakfast' was too close to the lunching hour for me to be very hungry, but around 3:30, I had one last slice of my Admiral's Gingerbread (recipe in last post - oh, hey, I have a hand mixer now! Making that monstrosity inspired me to get one). Not because I ran out, precisely, but because my stepfather was in the neighbourhood and he likes baked treats, and since I couldn't eat all of the rest on my own before it got stale, I gave him the last two slices so that they'd have a good home.

Dinner, though - that was my triumph. See, I did a pork roast last week, and a roast chicken the other day, so I had a little bit of roast pork and a lot of roast chicken, the former needing to be eaten basically now. But I had plans in that direction. Nothing says "use up the last bits of cooked meat before they go manky" like fried rice. The recipe that follows is going to be a little vague, but I'll leave notes.

Here's what you'll need:

Rice

1 onion, quartered and sliced

4-6 cloves garlic or 1-2 tablespoons garlic puree

Whatever meat you happen to have handy, cut into chunks (about 1" or so)

Various vegetables (for the purpose of this, we'll say frozen mixed veg)

0.5 thumb-length fresh ginger, grated (or 1.5 tablespoons ground ginger, separated)

Approximately 1/3 cup soy sauce (or tamari, if you're gluten-free)

Other spices to taste (I like a dash of ground coriander, personally)

Like I said, this is so vague because so much is according to taste. Fried rice the way I do it is basically the Hoover Stew of rice dishes, so it's basically "throw stuff into the pot according to taste, heat, FEAST". So take just about everything with a grain of metaphorical salt, okay?

Here's what you do (or here's what I do):

Boil the rice however you would normally (I generally use a pot even though I have a rice cooker because I can just throw in a cup or so of frozen mixed veg just before the rice is cooked and let them finish off together); set aside

Ditto vegetables, unless you've cooked them with the rice

Heat some oil in a pan; sautee the onions with half the garlic until the onions are transparent

Add your meat, the half-tablespoon of ginger, and about a third of your soy sauce (and other spices to taste); heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the meat is warmed through

Add the rice and vegetables, dump in the rest of the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and all other spices and heat on low for maybe five minutes, stirring regularly so that the soy sauce mixes evenly into the rice

I find this way works because it's not a lot of effort, but still layers the flavour better than just dumping everything in all at once.

So dinner was Fried Rice A La Spoonie, and dessert was a can of peach slices. So there was one balanced meal out of today, anyway. I do have leftovers so maybe there'll even be lunch tomorrow! That would be a step in the right direction.

This is my week off after three weeks of nightmare at the office, which has left my spoons at an all-time low, but I do have plans for interesting meals this month. I have duck legs - a slight extravagance but they were on sale - and the fixings for a good bacon and eggs breakfast and plans in the direction of a Wacky Cake. But mostly, honestly, I hope you'll be patient with me as I mostly try to finally get my eating habits in some semblance of order. Whether or not I'm very active, pain does burn calories, and one meal per day is probably insufficient.

[cenizasdelaurel]

k, every time I try to explain my meal prep method to somebody I think I sound pretty normal when in reality I look like this:

But I'll share it anyway for the depressed besties out there for them to see that you can actually beat the what's for dinner demon once and for all, and the solution is, as usual, BE MEDIOCRE ABOUT IT.

You're gonna choose two protein sources ,could be some kinda meat, or some grains. I usually choose both so I cook let's say, chicken and black peas or chickpeas. Now, you're going to cook TRIPLE the ration you'd usually cook: if you eat a chicken thigh per meal you cook three, or a whole chicken. The same for the peas.

Then you're gonna choose two vegetables for the fibre, or maybe one. But I like variety so I always get carrots and cabbage, which last an eternity in the fridge without getting stale. You can choose some canned goods, if you're feeling fancy, like corn or whatever.

Lastly you will choose your carbohydrates. I usually pick rice. And you are going to cook a gross amount of rice, which is not difficult BC measuring rice is ridiculous you just do it by heart and then deal with the consequences.

Now you're left with everything needed for a whole meal: protein, carbs and fibre. Next step is to combine them however you like. Could be chicken with rice and peas with a carrot side salad. Carrots and cabbage are easy to season, you can use whatever you like: salt, vinegar, soy sauce, Cesar and mustard. And it's always good. Could be rice and peas and an egg on top. Chicken and cabbage salad with spicy black peas, throw some garlic at them and boom, magic. Leftover chicken salted with soy sauce and spicy cabbage, you already have this in your fridge, boom, meal!

This method usually lasts me at least three to four dinners. If I get bored I add something more, like canned corn, or pickled stuff which always go well in salads. Sometimes it won't be as yummy but hey, you're getting nutrients. That's the important thing I guess.

This method also helped me with my eating disorder. Sometimes it doesn't have to be a tasty meal, food is food and this helps me maintain a neutral attitude towards eating because it erases it from my daily thoughts. I'll eat whichever combination of things I already have prepared and bye. Also it keeps me away from ultra processed foods and it's extremely budgety. You can replace chicken with just peas, or some eggs or some tofu.

I know that finding time to cook it's very difficult. I usually do this one time and then it lasts, but this method has its limitations, without a fridge I'd be dead. Fuck the capitalist system for robbing us from our capacity to prepare decent meals.

I hope I helped!

What are you even supposed to eat for dinner

[unlesswedont]

5 FOODS I WOULD SELL MY SOUL FOR (if I could eat gluten)

Dear Future Me,

Hey!

Today, I’m writing to you about food, because let’s face it, not every day can come with a life-changing epiphany. Sometimes, you just need to fantasize about those gluten-packed delights that haunt your dreams. So, in a completely hypothetical, not-at-all-desperate kind of way looks around innocently), here are the five foods I’d totally (but not really) (yes I would) sell my soul for if I could eat gluten again. And I hope that you get to eat in the future.

1. A Full Asian Cuisine Feast

Imagine the crispy perfection of General Tso’s chicken, the delicate crunch of tempura, and the glorious umami punch of real soy sauce that doesn’t taste like vinegar. Sushi with those irresistible little tempura crunchies on top, egg rolls and spring rolls that are golden and flaky, and a mountain of fried rice that actually has flavor. Vietnamese pho…. Fresh and hot. Dropping the meat in and watching it cook in the broth. Mmmm. I’d sell my soul just to have one of those glorious, gluten-filled feasts again!

2. A Real Philly Cheesesteak

Picture this: a glorious Philly cheesesteak loaded with onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, provolone, and that iconic canned spray cheese. Nestled in the perfect bread—crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside—dripping with mayo. I’d give anything for one of those mouthwatering, gluten-filled beauties!

3. Malted Milkshakes

Imagine the bliss of a thick, creamy malted vanilla milkshake. Sweet, smooth, and absolute perfection in a glass. And why stop there? Let’s add a strawberry milkshake to the mix, and top it all off with a cookies and cream milkshake. If gluten weren’t an issue, I’d be living my best milkshake life!

4. A Perfect Carrot Cake

I used to be a baker, and carrot cake with walnuts was my masterpiece. That spicy, earthy flavor, the crunch of walnuts, all beneath a layer of sweet cream cheese icing—absolute chef’s kiss. Since celiac entered my life, stepping into a bakery or tasting a truly moist, heavenly carrot cake is just a dream. This disease took our career from us. One that we put so much love into. Gluten-free flour just doesn’t cut it. I’d sell my soul for one slice that takes me back to our baking days.

5. Authentic Southern Gumbo

Growing up in Mississippi a stone’s throw from Louisiana, we learned to make gumbo from a sweet little old Cajun woman, and it was more than just food—it was soul-warming tradition. You can’t make a proper roux for gumbo without flour, and gluten-free flour just doesn’t cut it. I miss that rich, savory gumbo with okra, sausage, shrimp, rice, corn, and that unmistakable buttery goodness. I’ve forgotten what a truly authentic gumbo tastes like, and I’d give anything to experience that soulful flavor again.

So, until that day comes when science decides to gift us with a cure for celiac, I’ll be here, dreaming of these glorious gluten-filled delights. And hoping that you are already getting to experience them.

From the version of me that has crumbs on er shirt,

Me

[hawks-supremacy]

Shibuya Honey Toast

a/n: finally updating, i ended up writing more then i thought i was going to. i just kept typing, it's not much longer than usual but i try to keep the written chapters a little short.

warnings: none

words: 1.9k

Masterlist

You turned off your phone and quickly got dressed, it was fifteen minutes before you had to meet the guys and it was a ten minute drive and even longer walk so you were hoping you could convince Shinsuke to give you a ride there so you wouldn’t be late. You made your way downstairs to where your grandma was in the kitchen cooking something. “Hey grandma, is it okay if I go out with some friends today?”

She stopped her actions of kneading dough to turn around, “Sure Boo, where are you going?” she asked as you walked around her to pick some of the fruit next to her off of the counter. “We were going to go to that new ramen place that opened up, I also need a ride. Do you know where Shin is?” She pushed the fruit and the cutting board towards you and motioned for you to start cutting the fruit, “Gran I told you I have to meet with my friends I don’t have time to help you today.”

She waved her hand dismissing your statement and motioned to the fruit, “Shinsuke is in the shower sweetheart. He just got back from being in the field he wanted to get the dirt off. You have time to kill, help a poor old lady out.” You rolled your eyes sending a text to the group chat that you were going to be late and had to help your grandma before you could leave. “You aren’t some helpless old lady, I’m pretty sure I saw you doing chin-ups in the garden the other day. What are we making anyway?”

She turned around and continued to knead the dough on the counter, “I decided to make Shibuya Honey Toast. That used to be our guys’ favorite so I thought I’d make you guys some.” You nodded and continued to chop up the strawberries in front of you. “You know it’s been a while maybe five years since I last helped you make this, but from what I remember of other people making this, they don’t usually make their own bread for this.”

She tutted at you as she shook her head, “You know my policy Boo, if it’s not made by hand it’s not made from the heart.” You both laughed and fell into silence while you finished doing your current tasks. About five minutes later Shin came downstairs asking how everything was going. “Well I just put the bread in the oven to bake and Boo here just got done cutting up all the ingredients we need after the bread is done baking. They need a ride into town to meet with some of their friends, do you think you could do that please?” He nodded and walked over to the fridge grabbing a bottle of water when someone knocked on the front door, “I’ll get it.” Shin said, running to the door. A few minutes later he came back into the room with three six foot rowdy teenage boys, two of which were too busy arguing.

“Osamu, Asumu, Suna? What are you guys doing here? You’re supposed to be eating ramen by now, not at my grandma’s house.” You laughed as you walked over to greet them, hugging Atsumu and Osamu, and giving Suna a crisp high-five. You ushered them over to the kitchen table asking if they wanted anything to drink. Atsumu was the one to answer your question as you got their drinks from the fridge, “We were on our way to the place when you texted so we turned around and came here instead.”

You nodded and turned your head to glance at your grandma who was leaning against the counter with a smirk and her arms crossed, “So which one of the twins is it Boo?” You groaned, covering your face with your hands. “Neither of them Gran.” You said at the same time as Kita said “Give her a break Gran.”

Atsumu raised his hand signaling that he had a question, “Y/n, why did she call ya Boo?” You groaned again, was it embarrassing Y/n day? “When they were a kid they were obsessed with trying to scare people so they would hide around corners all the time and yell “Boo!” all day. It was just the cutest thing. Not to mention that their first word was Boo.” After explaining the reasoning behind the nickname all three boys turned to look at you, “You guys want food? I think I’ll make us lunch since we ended up not going out to lunch. Why don’t you guys go watch Tv in the living room or something, what do you want?” You got up walking to the counter to start taking out ingredients. “Why don’t ya make Onigiri? And ya know what? ‘Samu can help ya with it, it is his specialty after all.”

You agreed and began to cook the rice, everyone except for Osamu went to the kitchen. On her way out your Grandma stopped by you and whispered, “So it’s the grey haired twin huh?” and went to the living room after winking at you. You turned to Osamu who was rolling up his sleeves to help you cook and walked over to the fridge, “Do you want to fill them with anything? We could do tuna mayo, umeboshi, I think we might have chicken. We could also do multiple so we have a variety and they could choose.” You looked up from glancing in the fridge and saw Osamu giving you the tiniest of smirks. “I’m rambling aren’t I?” You asked and he nodded, “Oops. So what do you want to do?”

He shrugged, “Let’s just do all three, ‘Tsumu is a pig and will eat anything we put in front of him.” You raised your eyebrow in an accusing manor, “Are you sure it’s Atsumu that’s the pig? I haven’t known you for long, but I’ve seen you eat.” He rolled his eyes and began to mince the chicken you handed to him while you got out the umeboshi and the ingredients needed for the tuna mayo. “Can you hand me the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and sake?” Osamu asked after he was done cooking the chicken. You brought over the needed ingredients and peered over his shoulder as he added all of them into a pan.

“What are you doing?” He asked looking over at you and nudging you with the arm he was using to stir the chicken with. “You look ridiculous standing on your toes like that.” You shrugged falling back onto the flat of your feet, “Sorry not everyone can be over six feet tall. I’m done making the tuna mayo so right now I’m just waiting on you. So I was watching you cook.” He gave a soft chuckle before telling you that that was a weird thing to do. “I don’t think it’s weird. I like watching people do what they’re passionate about. You see them get in this sort of zone where they don’t think about anything but that thing. I loved watching Toru play volleyball because it was his whole life, I can tell it’s the same thing with Atsumu and with you it’s cooking.” During your little speech you sat yourself on top of the counter.

Taking the chicken off the stove and setting it on the counter Osamu leaned into you, “So when do I get to watch you do something you’re passionate about?” You were about to respond when you heard a cough from the kitchen entrance and he quickly moved away from you and you slid off the counter. “Now Y/n what have I said about sitting on the counter?” Your grandma said walking in to take the fully cooked bread out of the oven to finish making her shibuya honey toast. “You told me not to.” You mumbled as she said “I told you not to. So what was that I walked in on.” You stopped forming the onigiri that was currently in your hands, “Gran can we not talk about it, please?” She waved you off with a “Yeah sure, just saying you guys would make a cute couple.” You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed.

Osamu looked between you and your smirking grandma and cleared his throat, “I agree with your grandma, I think we’d be a cute couple.” You whipped your head towards Osamu, he shrugged and mouthed ‘what?’. You gave a silent laugh and shook your head finishing the onigiri at the same time Gran finished the shibuya. Setting everything on the table you called to the boys in the living room to come eat lunch.

A few minutes after sitting down to eat Atsumu broke the silence, “What happened, why are we all quiet?” You and Osamu mde eye contact at the question and had a silent conversation before Osamu spoke, “We’re eating ‘Tsumu, some of us don’t like to talk with our mouths full, pig.” Atsumu scoffed in offense, “Excuse me, I’m not the one who eats constantly.” It wasn’t long before they started a full blown argument. Everyone watched for a few minutes before Gran broke it up and told them to sit down and eat or get out. After the argument was done Atsumu and Osamu sat back down, previously ready to jump across the table to attack each other. Everyone sat down and finished eating, making small talk here and there. You went to go do the dishes when your Grandma shooed you away insisting she had it. “Grandma Kita let us help, we made the mess.” Osamu tried to convince her to let you guys do it but if you know anything about your Gran it’s that she’s stubborn. “Hon go have fun, pick fruit in our field or something, and please call me Grandma Yumie, you’ll be family soon enough.” She replied, turning around and starting to clean.

You turned around, hand on your forehead walking out of the kitchen with Osamu following you, “I swear to god I’m actually going to put her in a home. I apologize for her behavior, Hajime has to go through this every time he visits or sees her.” He nodded as you guys exited the house to the back where Shin, Suna, and Atsumu were.

Shin was in the middle of trying to convince Atsumu to do something productive while he was here. While Shin did work in the field earlier this morning there were still a few things that could still be harvested. It didn't take long for him to convince Atsumu seeing as how he practically worshipped the ground Shin walked on, Suna however wasn't really jumping for joy at the idea of doing field work. After a bit of convincing and a lot of bribing and promises of chuupets he finally agreed to help for a few minutes.

The rest of the day was spent picking various fruits and vegetables while laughing and making fun of each other over old stories you told each other. After a few hours everyone had to go back to their respective homes and call it a night.

Tag List:

@officialfictionalwreck @uglystupidbxtch @chloji @mynscorner @halesandy @elianetsantana @kaleidoscopekai @browneyespinkhair @rinsangel @marvel-ing-at-it-all @writersandroses @lilith412426 @noodlenerd101 @bakugouswh0r3 @redheadedpineapple @chantalkate16 @confusedturtle @yqshirov @kazewo @kit-kat428

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 63 - Executing the food combo plan

Part 2 (To Part 1)

T: Yeh, yeh, yeh. Its like making yummy things with the type of stuff kids can usually buy. I used to love this so much as a kid, stuff like cucumber with honey and melon.

J, K: Ahh

T: So, today I've brought such a recipe from the   seinen magazine, 'Morning'. 

J: Oh!

T: Really!

K: We can eat it, yeah?

T: Of course. What do you think it is? What kind of thing? You probably can't guess.

K: I don't know.

J: I can see some vague ingrediants sitting off camera over there, but...

Kami: Uh, there was that thing a long time ago where putting soy sauce on tangerines makes them taste like salmon roe.

T: Oh yeh!

Kami: Is it that?

T: Ah, no. I'll give you a clue. The first thing is this ...Umaibo

K: Ahh, you could make something yummy with Umaibo.

J: Yeah, cause its umai (*umai = delicious*)

T: Next, marmalade.

J: Oh no, marmalade with umaibo? I can't see that working.

T: Next, cooked salad chicken that you can get in the convenience store.

J: Oh, that packaged stuff?

T: Yeah. Mix these three together.

J: Ehh? I wouldn't mix them.

T: So, the name of the dish is Salad chicken with Uma-jam.

J: Ehh?

T: Haha

K: It somehow doesn't sound that appetizing, haha.

J: Right. Those ones on the live broadcast did kind of sound delicious, but this...

T: Like this *holds up plate of ingrediants* , we've got chicken and marmalade here, and we'll sprinkle crushed umaibo on top of it to eat. If you do this, you'll be surprised what a good beer snack it makes.

J: Really??

T: Kamiya Takahiro says so!

K: Ok, lets do it.

J: Yeah.

T: So, I have three flavours of umaibo, so we can see what they each taste like with it. We can do rock, paper, scissors, or you can just choose with flavour you like..

K: What flavours are they?

T: We've got cod roe, cheese, or corn soup.

J: Ok, lets do rock, paper, scissors.

*They play RPS, Kaoru loses first, Joe eventually wins*

J: Ok, I'll go for corn soup. I bet this would taste nice as a salad ingredient.

T: Well, yeah. Ok (*To K*), you have this (*cod roe*).

K: Oh, I wanted this anyway.

J: Really?!

T: I wanted cheese too.

J: Ehh? Honestly, I would have thought cod roe would be the worst.

T: Now, there is a specific way to crush these. You have to exert the stress of daily life on them when you crush them. Aleviate your stress with it. Like this..

*comence crushing umaibos, Joe uses his elbow*

T: Haha

K: ???*3

J: Ahh, I wonder if this will taste good. This is my first meal of the day today.

T:???*4

K: Then just pour it on?

T: Well, yeah.

K: And mix it up?

J: Colour-wise, cod roe looks the most appetizing.

T: Yeah, it does. This does look quite nice.

K: Oh yeah! The cheese looks nice.

J: Do we put all of it on?

K: Joe, yours doesn't look that great.

J: Yeah, visually, mine's not good.

K: You said put it all in?

T: Yeah, then mix it up.

*mixing*

K: It doesn't really combine well though.

T: Well, you want a bit of the orange sauce on top.

K: Ok, Tasai, you go first.

T: Can I? Ok, here goes.

K: You have cheese, yeah?

T: Yeh, cheese. Cheese and orange. It looks good.*eats* Mmm!

J: Its good? Really??

T: Mmm. Its delicious.

J: Are you serious?

K: Really?

T: Yes

J: Are you just trying to please us?

T: Haha, no. Its not what you'd expect.

K: Ok, i'll go next. I'll get a decent mouthful.

T: Hey, look *points at K*

K: Hm?

J, T: Hahahaha

J: He's saying 'Hm'!

K: Its a bit sweet, its not that great.

T: Ah, maybe you put too much in.

J: Can I try mine?

T: Yeah.

J: Corn soup..

T: How is it?

J: Hmmm..

K: Haha

J: Ah, but..

T: How is it? Does it work?

J: Mm, its not disgusting...but...ah, but maybe its ok.

T: Ah! You realised it!

K: Hm, Im not so sure.

T: Imagine having this with a highball or something, an adult snack.

K: I think it was a bit too sweet for me. Maybe its that this cod roe flavour was too sweet.

T: Cheese might be better.

J: Yeah, this..

K: You're eating a lot aren't you?

J: I was hungry, haha.

T: Have a try of mine where my chopsticks havn't touched yet.

K: (*Tries Tasai's*) Ah! This works!

J: Was it the cod roe making it taste bad?

K: It tastes a lot different.

T: It must be the cheese.

J: (*Tries Tasai's*) Ah, mm, this is really nice. This is nicer than mine.

T: It must be this one.

K: Its the cheese.

T: Its good, isn't it?　

K: Mm.

J: The amount of jam to use might also need a bit of research. What do you think?

T: Yeah, there are a lot of possibilities.

K: The cheese would probably be good with alcohol. Cod Roe is perhaps wrong for it.

J: Im finishing the whole thing like normal, haha.

T: Kami, this tastes really good. It really does.

Kami: Im not eating it, so I can't comment.

J: ???*5

K: Hm, yeh, but cheese definitely works.

T: Mm, this might be a thing, its the first time I've made it so...

K: It might work with Curls (カール) instead of Umaibo too.

J: Oh, yeah, it probably would.

T: Yes, they might go well with this.

J: But if using Umaibo..

K: Yeh, cheese, if you go with umaibo.

J: Uh, corn soup wasn't too bad.

T: Yeah.

J: Its similar to cheese. Kinda cream cheesy.

K: Yeh, cod roe wasn't right for it. It was too sweet.

T: The cod roe flavour umaibo is suprisingly sweet, isn't it?

J: Well, this was quite intriguing.

T: Should we do another one of these food combo plans?

K: Yeah, I kinda want to. The viewers could tell us their suggestions in the comments, and we could try some of them.

J: I wanna try them and decide on the best ones.

T: Yeah...What, so this is the preliminary best one?

J: Well, yeah, thats the best so far, out of these. And then when we find the final best, we could do a kind of dinner show.

T: Haha, can't you see this food?

J: I can.

K: It looks kinda messy. But it does taste good.

T: Yeah, the cheese.

J: We could eat the winning dish at a 'The Freedom of Expression Dinner Show', while listening to the other submissions. Like, 'This one?'

K: That would be good.

J: Haha

K: Well, anyway, I'd like to do another food combo show sometime, so please submit your   ideas. Uh, ok, whoever is chosen can get one of the stickers we made for the radio show.

J: Lets do that.

T: Its sounds good.

K: So, by all means, please apply. Thank you very much.

*On screen note: Next time on the 5th of May, we will show the Kami produced Avatar video for Dir en grey's new single 'Oboro'.*

*1,2,3,4,5 Couldn't catch.

To top page To Part 1

[shokudou-boogie]

Hi everyone!

There is no coincidence why I’ve decided to make chicken adobo today. Although I didn’t plan on doing this, I needed to clear my mind, and cooking was the only thing I felt that could help fix that.

October is Filipino American History Month. October was chosen to celebrate Filipino American History Month to commemorate when the first Filipinos arrived to America in October 18th, 1587.

Although Filipino American History Month is mostly focused on the the history of Filipino people, I’d like to use this month as an inspiration to gather inspiration and use it as a way to share my experiences growing up Filipino.

So yeah, this blog entry might turn a bit wordy, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.

Chicken adobo is a Filipino household staple. You can ask any Filipino person about adobo, and I guarantee you that they will immediately get hype and talk about the adobo they ate growing up. Almost every Filipino have their own variation of adobo that they call the best adobo that they’ve ever had. It only makes sense that they’d claim that their adobo is the best because it’s what they grew up eating. They’re familiar with it. It reminds them of home.

Adobo always reminds me of home too. Although my parents aren’t like culinary geniuses or whatever, some of the food that they’ve cooked for my family are dishes that I think any restaurant can replicate. I think a lot of other Filipino folks can say the same about the dishes they had growing up. I guess that goes without saying for a lot of home-cooked meals.

The adobo that I’ve made is based off of what my uncle taught me when he visited America for the first time. I went to visit my parents when my uncle was staying here, and I ate the adobo that he made. The biggest difference that stuck out to me was that he added a bit of calamansi juice, and some crushed red pepper flakes. I felt like those additions were next level.

So I asked my uncle, “hey, what goes into your adobo?”

He just looked at me, shrugged, laughed, and then said, “I just kind of guess!”

Alright, that’s good enough for me. Just means I have to do some research into what makes adobo, adobo.

But hold on just a second, adobo? Isn’t that a spicy pepper sauce marinade kidn of deal? Yes! But it is also a Filipino dish!

You lost me. I’m sure I did! So, the method of making adobo is actually an indigenous cooking process, but when the Spanish invaded the Philippines, they noted that the cooking method for what we call adobo today, is (hardly?) similar to Spanish adobo.

With that aside, I took a bunch of recipes and compared them to each other to get a better understanding of how to make adobo. The things that I’ve read, plus matching it with patches of memory of watching my parents make adobo, I was able to come up with a basic adobo recipe. Adding the calamansi juice and crushed red pepper flake is my uncle’s spin on it. Thanks Tito Jun for the inspiration.

Vinegar is a major component to adobo, and any kind of white distilled vinegar will do the trick just fine. However, I forgot I bought this giant bottle of Datu Puti white vinegar that had a bunch of peppers sitting in it. This vinegar in Tagalog is known as “sukang maasim” which “sukang” is vinegar, and “maasim” is sour. 

What’s special about this vinegar is that it’s made from sugar cane. It’s more mellow like malt vinegar with a hint of freshness. It’s less harsh-smelling and feeling that regular white vinegar.

There isn’t an actual reason why I decided to go with this particular type of vinegar. It’s more of, “oh yeah, I forgot I had this.” Looking at the picture now, I have no idea if this is the special cane sugar vinegar. Whatever, it still tastes good.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re all just dying for the recipe, so hit the link to read the recipe!

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken leg parts (thigh, drumstick), cut into serving pieces

3 dried bay leaves

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/2 of yellow onion, thinly sliced

7 garlic gloves, minced  or crushed

1 1/2 cups water

3 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp. whole peppercorns

1 tsp. lemon juice (or calamansi juice)

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

Optional tip: Some recipes I’ve read request that you marinate the chicken in the soy sauce and garlic in a large bowl, and let it marinate for an hour. Honestly, this is a really good idea and you should do this, but I’m gonna type out how I prepared the adobo.

Required tip: Cook a pot of rice before serving. You’re gonna need rice for this.

1. Season the raw chicken pieces with salt and pepper, making sure that you get both sides evenly.

2. In a heavy-bottom pot, heat up your vegetable oil on medium-high heat.

3. Gently place the chicken into the oil and cook both sides of the chicken, 2-3 minutes on each side. You may have to cook the chicken in batches, depending on the size of your pot. Remove the chicken and place on a plate, and put it aside for now.

4. Add the onions to the pot, sautéing them until they’re a bit translucent, then throw in the garlic for about a minute or until the garlic starts becoming really aromatic.

5. Put the chicken back into the pot, and then add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, peppercorns, bay leaf. Bring the pot to a boil, and then turn down the heat and reduce it to a simmer. Place the lid on the pot and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

6. After 15 minutes, add the red pepper flakes and lemon juice to the pot. Stir the contents a little bit to let the pieces flip over in the pot, making sure that it fully cooks and all of the chicken gets nice and tender. Once the chicken is tender, it’s pretty much ready to serve.

I bought some green onions and made long diagonal slices to garnish the adobo with. Just thought it would be a nice touch to hit it with some bright green colors.

But yeah, this is something that you’ve definitely gotta have a fresh pot of white rice for this. While the adobo I made was something I didn’t grow up with, like the recipe isn’t my parents, it’s something I’ve made my own that I hope that I can share with everyone else to bring into your home. I’m happy with how this turned out.

[kinsbin]

Cooking Lessons [SI/Canon - Platonic/Familial]

Title: Cooking Lessons Pairing: Xena[Batmom]/Damien Wayne [Platonic/Familial Self Insert/Canon] Rating: G Word Count: 1865

Summary: Damien and Xena have a relationship of mutual respect, and that’s usually about as good as it gets. A bonding moment between the two of them, however, leads to some surprising confessions from the youngest of the Bat Family. 

A/N: So anyways Damien Wayne is my son and this is literally just a pice where he calls me mom for the first tIME

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

The night at the Wayne Manor was quiet, the only sound a soft echo of a television set having been left on in a room somewhere further in the darkened halls of the ever-expanding home. Xena leaned on the granite counter of the kitchen island and took a long sip of her whiskey, exhaling through her nose as she tapped the edge of the fine crystal tumbler she had placed the beverage in. Bruce Wayne’s grandiose manor never failed to amaze her, no matter how long she had found herself a resident among its halls. 

Bruce was out on business. By business, of course, it was Batman stuff, as it always seemed to be this late into the night. The mission was a small one apparently, nothing he and Jason (with Dick as backup) could’t handle on their own. That left herself, Tim, and Damien to spend time in the manor together. The thought of being left alone with the two boys left Xena uneasy for most the night, causing her to seek solace in a small drink alone as the boys spared down in the batcave, as their normal routine seemed to place them into doing.

The boys had been suspicious of her, as they had a right to be. With their father’s history in women, to be regarded with such sharpness was nothing unexpected that was for certain. It was Dick who accepted her first, followed swiftly by Jason and then, lastly, by Tim. The three elder members of the bat family seemed to find her well suited to Bruce and sweet enough that they let their guard down around her long enough to confess that they appreciated the change she had made in the older man’s life. Xena could only smile with appreciation at the generosity they gave her when it came to the so called ‘power’ she had over Bruce Wayne.

But then, oh, but then... there was Damien. 

Considering what history she could gather from Bruce and the others, it was no surprise he was taking the longest. She didn’t feel like it was right to rush him in his ‘acceptance’ of her either, if she could call it that. It had gone from him detesting her to, at best now, tolerating her existence and behaving neatly around her when Bruce was in the same room. Alone was even more awkward, sure, but he maintained cordiality. 

Though he was young he was smart. Xena never felt the urge to look down at him when they talked, her words flowing natural as they would with any adult conversation. It was in one of those conversations, something about the development of multi-media industries and their basis on socioeconomic culture amongst Gotham elitists, that he had actually referred to her by her name and not simply ‘Miss Imperial’ or ‘woman’. The words were shocking enough to nearly send her fumbling with her statements as she tried ot hide a smile, which in turn brought a blush of annoyance to Damien’s cheeks.

It was small, she supposed, but it was progress. It was what she was grateful for.

Xena wondered now, though, if the situation in the night was going to be too much for them both. There was a mutual understanding now of treading carefully among one another, taking time to plan out situations and discussions as they met. Bruce insisted she didn’t have to be so careful with Damien, but Xena argued that it wasn’t ‘careful’ so much as it was ‘respectful’. She had known the annoyance of being a child and not being taken seriously by adults. She had seen the resulting trauma that could grow from such behaviors and vowed never to treat a child like something so delicate and breakable, or like a pet to be trained. They were human. Damien was human.

A very tiny, sometimes intimidating human.

Footsteps brought her from her thoughts and she could feel her back tense at the sight of the very boy she had been thinking of. 

Damien froze in the kitchen doorway as well, his eyes wide as he watched her back. Neither had been prepared to run into one another in the kitchen, clearly, and the suddenness of their proximity created an air about the both of them that wasn’t necessarily awkward as it was unsure. New and distinct in its presence as they were given time with one another and no on else.

It was... different.

“Hey,” Xena finally piped after another slow sip of her drink, “Did you and Tim wrap up training?”

“Yes,” Came Damien’s curt reply as he walked further into the kitchen, “I was just going to get something to eat before retiring for the evening.”

She smiled despite herself, his proper demeanor never ceasing to fascinate her as she put her beverage down and sighed, stretching a little.

“I can make you something.” She offered.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Miss Xena.”

“It’s no trouble,” She smiled, “I was about to make some food for myself anyways. No reason I can’t make a little extra. Chicken and rice sound okay to you?”

There was a hesitance in his form before slowly, surely, he gave a nod of approval. With a smile back at him, Xena turned to the kitchen to begin preparing the food she had planned on making anyways, taking out fresh jasmine rice alongside some herbs and digging through the kitchen for broccoli and chicken with a hum to her lips. As she gathered and prepared the food that was soon laid before her, Damien found himself sitting comfortably upon the bar stool of the island, leaning his chin in the palm of a hand as he watched the woman work in silence.

“Why are you so happy?” His question was sharp, even though it didn’t mean to be, but Xena was unphased.

“I like cooking. I’ve always have a bit more fun doing it for others.”

“It’s tedious.Having servants to do it for me was far more useful.”

“Which is why you don’t know how to cook anything.”

“I can cook!”

“Cereal and toasting things don’t count.”

Damien blushed and looked away with a frustrated huff and Xena laughed as she chopped up the chicken and set out pots to start boiling water for both the rice and broccoli, dipping the chicken in seasonings as the bite sized chunks formed on the plate before her. 

Xena finished chopping and set a few different food items aside as she looked over at Damien with a tilt of her head and a thoughtful pause. It ended as she finally spoke with a curious hesitance in her tone that made Damien perk upwards to listen to her more:

“Would you like to learn how to cook this? I can show you now.”

There was a long, thoughtful pause and, for a moment, Xena was afraid she had overstepped their boundaries. Her pushing may have been the sharp wedge that removed them both from their once comfortable spot in respecting one another. Perhaps she had put the relationship of her and the youngest wayne family member in jeopardy?  Her heart beat loud in her ears as she tried to swallow casually.

“... Very well, show me.”

When Damien spoke those words she couldn’t help the sight of relief alongside the twitch of a smile against her mouth as she gave a nod.

“Go wash your hands first before you touch any food.”

“My hands are perfectly-”

“Damien.”

“Okay, okay I’m going!”

---

Damien wasn’t as patient with cooking as he was with other things. He grew frustrated when he couldn’t cut the broccoli pieces evenly enough and nearly threw the knife across the room when a splash of boiling water hit his hand as he dumped half of the rice down in one swift movement. Xena could only stifle her laughs at his struggles and talk him through each movement with patience as she showed him the proper way to hold a knife and helped run his hand under cold water until the burning of the previous boil had ceased.

By the end of it, though, they had a meal. A real meal that looked edible and carefully crafted: piles of rice topped with broccoli and chunks of chicken, sprinkled with soy sauce and sesame seeds for added flavor. The dishes steamed with an enticing array of smells to them that had both members of the chef team drooling with anticipation.

“Now for the best part,” Xena grinned at Damien as she handed him a fork, “Eating what you make.”

Damien stared down at his food, wincing curiously at it before slowly bringing a portion to his mouth. He chewed with a careful cadence, judging both the meal and himself in the singular bite he had taken from it. Xena watched as she scooped a bite into her spoon and chewed carefully, her eyes widening and her smile spreading across her lips in delight as she chewed with renewed vigor. 

“It’s edible.” Damien observed in near disbelief in himself.

“Edible? It’s delicious!” Xena beamed with excitement, “You did really well Damien! I’m so proud of you!”

The words fell from her lips with delight and genuine pride. So much so that Damien felt a sense of his own pride welling deep in his chest. It bubbled fitfully under the surface as he bit back a smile through another bite of the food he made with her help. 

His words, though, fell without a filter. They fell without his permission:

“Thank-you, Mother.”

The silence now was thick as Xena stopped mid-bite of her food and stared down at the boy to her side with shock in her eyes. Damien, in return, felt his own eyes widen and a bright red streak of embarrassment coat his face in a vehement shade. He choked on what rice he did manage to keep in his mouth as he leaned forward and coughed.

Xena’s hand touched him hesitantly, rubbing his back to ease the rice out of his mouth. Damien’s shoulders tensed at the feeling and he sat up shortly after he stopped coughing. Grabbing his food, he made any and all effort to run from the kitchen. Xena watched him speed off with surprise.

“Damien, w-wait!” She called, reaching out for him, but by the time she stuttered out his name he was gone. Swiftly returning to his room and hiding away as the words of his mistakes echoed in the halls he ran through. 

He had... called her mother.

It was unintentional but so, so genuine that Xena felt her heart rise with an ecstatic delight that likes of which she had never felt before. Her lips curled into an excited smile as she rolled on the balls of her feet and tried not to giggle in delight as she sat on the bar stool Damien was previously occupying and ate the rest of her meal.

She would talk with him about it later. The poor boy, without a doubt, had a lot to think about in that moment.

All she could think about was how she couldn’t wait to tell Bruce when he got home. 

[dyns33]

My program

Hey @codyfernmorelikedaddyfern it’s a bit long, so I decided to just post what I’m doing since nine months to lose weight. You don’t have to follow everything, you will need to find recipes that you like with ingredients that you like (I tried apples and salad, and really I can’t...). I hope it will help you a bit, or other people ! But talk with a doctor before starting, cause I’m not a specialist. 

Some advices :

- No more alcohol (well, except to celebrate, but just a glass then)

- No more soda and add sugar

- No more fat, butter, oil... You can cook with a dry pan.

- Careful : fat and sugar are hidden everywhere, so read the stickers before buying a product.

- Avoid wheat flour, prefer whole-wheat flour

- Avoid chocolate (but you can eat some from time to time, the black one mostly, a life without chocolate would be awful)

- Eat less meat (but you don't need to become veggie or vegan. I would never be able to say goodbye forever to cheese...)

- Add lot of vegetables and fruits !!

- Drink at least 1,5 liter of water per day ! 

- Cook. Really, don't buy things that you just have to warm up. Try to avoid fast food.

- Organic food is the best. Yes, it's not cheap, I'm hurt everytime I have to buy my things, but it's better for you, not just to lose weight, but in general.

- Cook only what you will eat, not more, so you will be not tempted to eat again. You have what's in your plate.

- So that the dishes are not bland, you can make homemade sauces ! I use organic soy cream (not the Japanese one, the white one which can replace fresh cream) and I can make tomato, mushroom cream... and sometimes I use a little Japanese soy sauce, to make woks.

- You can have two "cheat days" per month when you can eat something special, like a pizza, French fries, go to a restaurant... But if you find the right recipes for you, the diet will bring you pleasure when you eat anyway.

- There must be 1/4 of meat or veggie-vegan product, 1/4 of starch, 2/4 of vegetables on the plate

- Use a tiny plate and eat slowly  

- NEVER forget to eat or think it will be better to not eat, or to vomit what you just ate. NEVER. You need to eat to lose weight healthily, effectively and sustainably.

- Don't do too many sport either. Your body have limits. Listen to it and don't hurt yourself.

- Be sure that the diet is the right one for you. Depend on how tall you are, how many calories you need per day, and some others things. Like, are you ill, do you have a syndrome ? For example, I have a polycystic ovaries syndrome, with a treatment for it, so it's hard for me to lose weight and that's why the diet is a bit "strict". Maybe you will not have to do all this, maybe you will need to do more... We are all different.

- Never forget that it will be long and difficult... After nine months, I'm not done yet.

 The diet :

In the morning : a slice of rye bread, with a little (just a little, sorry I didn't listen to you here CF !!!) of butter, and a glass of water. Raw butter is good for your health, but you should avoid cooked butter. Sometimes, to change, once or twice a week, I take organic muesli with small pieces of dark chocolate.

 For lunch :

- Monday : chicken, 20 grams of whole wheat pasta, eggplant, home made tomato sauce

- Tuesday : veggie soy steak, 10 grams of whole wheat semolina, spinach

- Wednesday : chopped steak, 20 grams of whole wheat pasta, carrots

- Thursday : fish, 20 grams of whole wheat rise, zucchini, with soja sauce

- Friday : veggie soy steak, 20 grams of whole wheat pasta, eggplant

- Saturday : a poched egg, 10 grams of whole wheat semolina, mushrooms with soja sauce

- Sunday : veggie soy steak, 20 grams of whole wheat rise, green beans

 For dinner :

- In Summer / when it's hot: a slice whole wheat bread, white cheese, a fruit

- In Winter / when it's cold : a soup, a fruit, sometimes a piece of whole wheat bread

 Snacks : They are not always bad, especially if you do a lot of sports. When it's 16/17 p.m., you can take a fruit, or two biscuits. Try to choose some with not too many sugar inside. Personally, I like to eat them with a good hot tea. And it’s only if you are really hungry at that moment, or else you can wait for dinner. 

 The sport :

At first, depending of your weight, it's better to lose fat, before trying to gain muscles. So do not too violent exercises, like walking, swimming, biking...  Also do targeted exercises, such as abs, push-ups, flexes ... With small weights, exercises for the arms. When I lost 30 kilos, I signed up for a gym. The best, for me, is to go there three to four times a week (monday, wednesday, friday, and sometimes sunday), for a session of about 1:30. 20 minutes of cardio, 40/50 minutes of bodybuilding, 20 minutes of cardio. No need to run or lift huge weights. The important thing is the duration. You have to make repeated movements for the muscle to work. For cardio, the most effective way to lose weight is brisk walking and cycling. You can take a coach or go with someone. I hate going out alone, but strangely, for sport, I find it better, because it is I who organize my session like I want. On the other days, it is advisable to rest, so that the muscle has time to reform. I admit that I am a bad student here, and that since I have an exercise bike, I do small sessions at home, with targeted exercises.

[samisweetbean]

SEOUL FOOD #1 - My Top 10 Must-Try Korean Foods

#1 - Korean Fried Chicken 한국 치킨

(AKA the only good KFC)

You may be thinking, what’s so special about fried chicken? WELL. You’ve never had Korean fried chicken. Imagine the crunchiest, tenderest, most flavorful fried chicken you’ve ever had-- then times it by 100. That is what Korean fried chicken is like. Soft, juicy, tender on the inside. Crunchy, flavorful, and not overly greasy on the outside. 

In addition, there are so many delicious flavors to try! Honey, garlic, soy sauce, spicy, yangnyeom, and more. All of them wonderful and paired perfectly with some mekju 맥주 (chimek 치맥) or, for non beer drinkers like me, some cola (chicole 치콜). 

It’s the perfect food whether you’re having a late night out with some friends, going for a picnic, or ordering takeout to your room at 2am (Hey, we’ve all been there). 

#2 - Korean BBQ 

Okay, so I love Korean BBQ. The above photo was taken on my birthday at a very popular Korean BBQ place in Chicago’s Chinatown. It wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but it was still great. That’s one thing I really love about Korean BBQ: I’ve never been disappointed by it. It’s always good. 

It’s a really fun dinner to get with a large group of friends or for a celebration. There’s something so special about making delicious food and sharing it with friends. Korean BBQ is a great example of the communal nature that a lot of Korean food has. Eating is something that’s meant to be done together. I love that cultural aspect of getting Korean BBQ.

That, and the food itself is so. freaking. good. Samgyeopsal 삼겹살 , bulgogi 불고기 , marinated or no-- it’s all delicious. Plus you get pretty much unlimited banchan 반찬 (side dishes). You can also order soups, pajeon, dumplings, etc and stuff your face as much as your heart desires (and budget allows, it can unfortunately get pretty pricey).  Oh, and don’t forget the soju! 건배! 🥂

#3 - Budaejiggae (Army Stew) 부대찌개

Buddaejjiggae is a spicy, hot-pot style soup made with ingredients like hot dogs, spam, sausages, and sliced cheese brought over by American soldiers during the Korean war, combined with Korean ingredients like kimchi, spicy peppers, ramyeon, tteok, and more. Originally it was a cheap food, made with surplus foods found on American army bases in Korea. Now, however, it is a delicious dish that can be found in restaurants all over Korea. 

What I love about this dish is how comforting it is. It’s the perfect food for a rainy day. I can just picture it: sitting around a table with some friends, talking, laughing. Through the steamed up restaurant windows we can see the rain outside, dripping umbrellas rest in a stand by the door. The hot, spicy soup warms us up from the inside out. 

Ah, I miss Korea.

#4 - Soon Too Boo Jiggae 순두부찌개  

Another soup perfect for a rainy day. Soft Tofu Soup. Spicy, salty, and so filling. This is my personal favorite Korean food; no matter how many times I eat it I never get tired of it. 

It’s also pretty easy to find at Korean restaurants here in the States. If I’m ever craving Korean food, this is usually my go-to. 

#5 - Naengmyeon 냉면

Cold noodles. Wait, what? I know, it probably sounds weird, but this is a food I quickly fell in love with in Korea. Buckwheat noodles served in an icy beef broth, topped with cucumber and other chopped veggies. My favorite kind also comes with a spicy sauce. Spicy, cold noodles. Weird, but amazing. 

It’s the perfect food for a hot day. Now that it’s summer (and constantly hot) here in Chicago, I’ve found myself craving these noodles a lot. They’re just so unbelievably refreshing. 

#6 - Tteokkbokki 떡볶이

Spicy Rice Cakes. For lovers of street food and spicy food, this is one you can’t miss. The texture may be a little off-putting if you’re not used to it; it’s a similar gummy texture to mochi. 

You can often find this in street stalls or kimbap shops (the kind that sells everything). If you go to a restaurant that only sells tteokkbokki, they usually have non-spicy options. I once ate one that had a tomato based sauce and mozzarella cheese-- almost like pasta.  

#7 - Pajeon 파전  

Okay, I’m going to lump two things into this category, despite them being pretty different. Pajeon is a savory pancake, and the two most common ones are kimchi and haemul (seafood). Both are delicious-- a little greasy but very flavorful.

Kimchi pajeon 김치파전 and haemul pajeon 해물파전 are often served with makgeolli 막걸리, a Korean rice wine served in bowls. I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest makgeolli fan; it makes me bloated and the taste isn’t my favorite. However, I love pajeon enough that I would go to a makgeolli place just for that. That is how good pajeon is. 

(Also, even though it’s not my favorite, makgeolli is a must-try drink in Korea.)

#8 - Jjin Mandu 찐만두 

Steamed dumplings. I have a special place in my heart for dumplings, of all kinds. Korean steamed dumplings in particular are one of my all time favorites. 

While I was in Korea-- and low on cash-- I would often get 5 steamed dumplings for dinner for around $5 USD. They were giant and came with free rice, kimchi, pickled radish, and some other banchan. A perfect cheap meal: delicious, comforting, and not that unhealthy. 

#9 - Dak-galbi 닭갈비

Spicy stir fried chicken. This is another one of my favorite cook-in-front-of-you, meant-to-be-shared Korean dishes. Marinated diced chicken served in a spicy, gochujang-based sauce with other ingredients such as tteok, cabbage, scallions, ramyeon, and sometimes topped with melted cheese. 

You can usually get it in varying levels of spicy. If you choose to go the extra-spicy route, beware. You’ll need the cheese. 

#10 - Samgyetang 삼계탕

This is one of the most unique foods I had in Korea, because it has a whole chicken in it. Yes, you read that right. A whole chicken. 

Samgyetang is a chicken and ginseng soup. It’s traditionally eaten in summer and supposed to be really healthy and good for your body. I’ve only eaten it once; I ordered a half size and it was still so filling I could barely finish it. 

Compared with other Korean foods, the flavor of this soup is very mild. It isn’t spicy, or salty, or sweet. You get to really taste the chicken, ginseng, and other ingredients like garlic and jujube. 

It’s a very unique Korean food, so I had to put it on this list. 

That’s it-- my top 10 Korean foods I think everyone needs to try! Of course, there are many other Korean foods that I love. This was really fun to make, I hope to make some more posts like this in the future. In the meantime, I think I need to make a trip to my local Korean grocery store for some kimbap haha

Thanks for reading! :)