Joy and inspiration in the dried fish aisle

My dream for you all is that you have an ethnic market conveniently located for weekly shopping.  I know.  Dream big.

But the cooking and eating opportunities available after a run to the Asian market down the street from me are truly impressive.  The produce section was the early draw for me.   Produce takes up at least a quarter of this suburban-supermarket-sized establishment, bins overflowing with the fruit and vegetable staples of Korea, China, India, Thailand, the Carribean, Central America, Mexico, and points further.  Juicy pineapples, fragrant herbs and exotic mushrooms are all available at prices well below those found at my local Giant.  A crisp head of cauliflower for $1.59.  Scallions, 10 bunches for a dollar.  Kubocha squash for 59 cents a pound.  I can load a cart with a generous week’s worth of 5-a-day for around 30 dollars.

Some of these items are imported from Costa Rica, Peru and where ever it is that durian grows.  The vast majority, though, comes from Pennsylvania, according to the twist ties on my broccoli rabe ($1 a bunch!) and the stickers on the spaghetti squash.  My family leans locavorian, so that feels good.  I wish for more organic items, but ultimately I have to weigh the benefits of the volumes and volumes of conventional produce that my family eats against the prohibitive cost of eating the same volume, organically grown.  In the winter, when the CSA is dormant and farmer’s markets are populated by Olive Ladies and Bread Guys, the Asian market produce wins out.

Once I’m there, having selected a few stalks of lemongrass and some fresh galanga to make tom yum soup, I get to delve deeper into the store.   The noodle aisle is spectacular, with every size, shape and millable grain represented.  I select from three widths of pad thai noodles in their crinkly wrappers, then reach for a sheaf of soba noodles in its delicate floral paper band.    Behind me is a wall of pan-Asian condiments, labels in Korean or Thai but with USDA-mandated translations overwrapped helpfully on top.  The back of the store houses a pretty decent fish counter.  I select a healthy-looking red snapper from the iced bins and hand it to the Salvadorean fishmonger, who expertly scales, guts, and filets it for me.    Seaweed is available in any permutation you like for broth or nori roll making.   Then comes a mind-boggling array of rice.  Rabbit.   Korean-cut short ribs.  Black chicken.   And a technicolor aisle of Asian snack foods that my kids find captivating.

Then, there’s the dreaded dried fish aisle…the source of the smell that permeates the market.  This post’s title is a bit far-reaching; I have yet to truly be inspired by the wall of silvery dried seafood.  I have gotten used to the smell over the years I have been shopping there, though, so there is some joy in that.  And just past the dried seafood is a killer selection of prepared foods.  Dumplings, marinated meats, salads, sashimi, all so much fresher and brighter than the pallid roasted chickens and mayonnaise-laden salads available at the Safeway.

I do cook a lot of Asian food, mostly because my family loves it, but also because of the amazing ingredients I can buy down the street.  But I find ingredients for a globe’s worth of cuisines there…green beans and shallots for a quick saute side dish, sweet potatoes to mash with chipotle chiles and serve with grilled lamb, fruits for my kids’ lunchboxes.   It really is a joyful place for me.

For NoVA readers:  H-Mart, with several locations including my beloved at Lee Highway and Gallows Road.

A Salad and a Walk

Bears emerge from hibernation lean and hungry.  Me?  Not so much.

Peeling off the layers of outwear in preparation for a week of crisp spring weather, the sourdough doughnuts and nachos that warmed me through the dregs of winter have settled onto my hips and into the space beneath my chin.  Right-o.

With the season of tank tops soon approaching, I’m recommitting to moderation in all things.  And so, more salads, more walks, and maybe a little hot yoga.  If you are feeling the same, consider my favorite non-summer salad of spinach, roasted beets, walnuts, chicken, and a buttermilk dressing.  Bursting with superfood nutrition and low in saturated fat, and full of sweet-salty, crunchy-chewy, soft-crisp contrast, I’m hoping it will remind me how good it tastes to eat wholesome, healthful food.

Menu for the first spring-like week in a long, long time:

Monday:  Clean out the fridge night

Tuesday:  Spinach salad with grilled chicken, beets, and toasted walnuts

Wednesday:  Chana masala, curry roasted cauliflower, raita, rice, and onion kulcha

Thursday:  Orange and avocado salad and black bean quesadillas

Friday:  Stir fried pork and mushrooms in garlic sauce, steamed bok choy, rice

Nacho love.

I come from a family of champion spectators…we know how to watch sports, with food and friends and yell-’til-it-hurts loyalties.  Growing up, the Olympics provided a much-anticipated opportunity to hone our skills over weeks of competition.  My family would gather around our TV and watch hours of Olympics, adopting athletes from around the world and cheering them on in pidgin phrases we picked up from the crowd (is is possible that France played Yugoslavia in hockey at Sarajevo?  I have a memory of my mother chanting “Yu-Go-Slav-ia!” with my dad fist-pumping “Vive la France!”).

So this weekend I gathered my own family to pass along some of these hard-won skills.  We had dinner in front of the TV-a rare occurrence-and watched speed skating, cheering on Orange Pants against Blue Pants, and Red Pants over Gold Pants.  We ate decadent nachos and drank margaritas poured into snow-packed pint glasses.   I’m not sure if it was the kids’ excitement or the jumbo margaritas, but even my sports-phobic husband got into the spirit and may have even teared up when Hannah Kearney brought it home for the U.S. in a rocket-hot moguls run.

But let us return to those nachos.  My word.  The cupboard was still a little bare from the infamous snowstorm, but I was able to cobble together a most delicious meal from the odds and ends lurking about.  I began by whirring up some black bean dip out of a drained, rinsed 32 ounce can of black beans, 4 ounces of cream cheese, a teaspoon of ground ancho chile, a few slivered scallions, a clove of garlic, and some salt.  Buzz food proccesor, done.  I dolloped the beans on tortilla chips and sprinkled with a mix of grated cheddar and monterey jack.  10 minutes in the oven at 375, while I used the food pro again (when watching Olympics in Canada, utilize Canadian terms for kitchen appliances…so goes the adage, right?) to make a fresh pico de gallo out of a pint of grape tomatoes, an onion, some cilantro, and a squeeze of lime.  I squished up a couple avocados with more lime, cilantro and salt, pulled the nachos out of the oven, and a new generation of Olympic rituals was born.

Snowbound

It takes a lot of snow for me to consider myself snowbound.  Growing up in New England and spending 5 or 6 years in Michigan, I learned how to deal with snow by dressing appropriately, shoveling each morning, and steering into the skid.  I tend to think that caterwauling of mid-Atlantic residents about their annual flurry is a little…weak.  But this week’s 30-inch snow dump, with another foot or so predicted for tonight, is the real deal.  The roads are really a mess, trucks are not getting through to restock stores and schools have been closed since last Friday.  I’m grateful for the uninterrupted power, for the well-stocked kitchen, and for the company of neighbors to help pass the time.

I’ve made lots of food to share: broccoli cheese soup, and Mimi’s Minestrone, sourdough bread and chocolate chip cookies.  And Sunday morning, to fuel the herd for a day of deep-powder sledding, I made sourdough doughnuts.  By far the best homemade doughnut attempt to date, these were crunchy on the outside, light in the inside, and complex in addition to sweet.  I made mine with an established wild yeast sourdough starter, but the original blog post includes a quick overnight sourdough sponge made with commercial yeast.

Yes, we are all a little twitchy about our regularly scheduled life falling to the wayside for a week or so.  But the doughnuts kind of make it all worth it.