Keep cool and delicious.

The mercury is rising, and the rain is falling. It is getting both hot and humid around here.

And though the nightlife in Taichung isn't what it used to be a few years ago, the food forecast is sunny.

Taichung Munchies, The Cake Library, Mum n' Pops, The Bread Guy, The NEW Salut, are all fairly recent foreign-run endeavors that are just getting under way, and from what I've tried of each of them, they should have a bright future. I think that it's no coincidence that they are all run very, very sincere and kind people who are really passionate about bringing honest, delicious western food to Taichung. Nothing fancy. Yet.

The Compass Taichung International Food & Music Festival. I was really excited for this event last year. It was lots of fun and a great chance to sample food from all over the city in one small area. I remember having really good barbecued lamb last time 'round. And there's beer. Just cross you fingers that the weather is nice.

Of note, for the last Kooks in the Kitchen video I made with Britt, I did a quick take on a recipe, or a technique, or a formula, for a no-cream, eggless chocolate 'mousse' that worked really well and was super easy. Just melt chocolate in a bowl and then whip it hard and fast in a chilled bowl. The result is a satiny, light-ish chocolate mousse that has a really nice texture. Had some Grand Marnier. Threw so of that in, too.

The recipe/technique is up at Cafe Fernando, my new favorite blog.

It's really easy, and hey, in this weather, the chocolate practically melts itself...You're halfway there!

Now whip it!

See you at the food fest!

Finding inspiration

I haven't had a guest into my kitchen for months now, and had almost given up on the idea of inviting others in completely. I've just been in that all too familiar grind. On those rare occasions that I have time to bake I just wanted to do it alone. Also, I haven't been too social lately, and I haven't run into many people who would be into cooking with an almost stranger in their apartment. It's weird, too because there are actually some exciting food-realted goings on here in Taichung.

I met Rachel a month or so ago, had no idea she liked to cook. Her neighbor is my colleague,so it wasn't long before I found out  that not only does she feel most at home in the kitchen, but also that she is part of a new food venture just recently under way here in Taichung: https://www.facebook.com/TaichungMunchies . Having heard this, I was quite excited to get her to share her time, and to hear about what makes her cook, when doing so isn't always so convenient, and  to share some of her satisfying food.

We took our time stuffing the perogies with Rachels mix of mashies, cheese and bacon. She's Canadian, but her family traces its heritage to the Netherlands. She is a fan of simple, savory deliciousness: meat and potatoes and veg.

She first told me she was going make some that was like perogies, but not perogies. Interesting.
'Stew-gies,' were born when Rachel experimented with making Perogies with the wonderful and cheap prepared dumpling wrappers you can find in the local markets in Taiwan.

Really time savers. I was surprised by how supple these wrappers were.

I've used them before for dumplings, and Britt for ravioli, and they are great. But, Rachel found the wrappers were either too thin, or the filling to much, causing more than a few to spill their insides into the pot of boiling water.

When they were cooked, Rachel was left with perogies swimming in potatoey cheesy water. Not very appetizing. So, she improvised. After sauteeing some onion in a wok, she strained the perogies along with a generous portion of the liquid into the onions and let it reduce until something like a stew came together. Hence, 'stew'gies. Different...Interesting..I'm in. 

We took our time stuffing the perogies with Rachel's mix of mashies, cheese and bacon. We got to know eachother. She's Canadian, but her family traces its heritage to the Netherlands. She is a fan of simple, savory deliciousness: meat and potatoes and veg. I shared with her the strange fact that until about age 18 I was recalcitrant in my hatred for any kind of vegetable other than potatoes, so, meat and potatoes sounded good to me. It doesn't have to be haute cuisine to get me hungry.

Bacon: check. Cheese: check. Mashed potatoes: Check.

 When she showed me the bacon, and told me she'd fried it up straight from the butcher at the market, I knew were going to be friends. 

I found Rachel to much better than I was at wrapping these little packages, but she was quite encouraging: "We want a few of them to burst, right?"

"Right..."

So into the pot they went, and sure enough, a few burst quite readily. All going according to plan so far.

We chatted about Taichung Munchies. She and her friend Jessica didn't just start Taichung Munchies on a whim. They built their reputation for good food after hosting big meals at their place. When they always got good feedback about the food, and they knew the next logical step. After all, not many foreigners have full kitchens, and let's face it, we are as a whole, a transient bunch, so most of us don't have much in the line of cookware. So, Rachel and Jessica do the cooking and baking for you. And they don't skimp on ingredients.

In just its early phases, Taichung Munchies has  Dutch Apple Crisp, and something called Lost Boys Lasagna.

Jessica and Rachel, the brains behind Taichung Munchies. It's fair to say they aren't your average business partners.

The Pero Stewgies made their way to the pan fried onions, along with some of the pot water, and now the difficult part began. The wait. The fried onions smelled really good.

I found myself kind of glancing back to the pan every now and then, wondering whether this 'perogie stew' would really come together. The smell was also making me really hungry.

It wasn't until the pot had thickened considerably and Rachel gave a lift with a wooden spoon when a saw the genius in her idea. The starchy water was browning on the bottom, giving the otherwise soupy mass some crispy texture and a really satisfying oniony flavor. I tasted some of the liquid. It had great flavor.

Benita always seems to know what is cooking.

We waited another 20 minutes or so for the Stew-gies to really thicken before...

 Rachel finally heaped few spoonfuls onto my plate. The hour or so or waiting, all the while inhaling that oniony meaty aroma was almost too much to bear. Add sour cream, and ready to go!

Wow. They don't look like much at first glance, but don't be decieved this is, after a fashion, slow food. The flavors have plenty of time to develop.  Potatoes are strong in the first bite, onion is there too, and just when you think- hey this is too mushy..you get some of that crispy goodness from the bottom of the pan or a toothful of bacon. Very satisfying. Very Filling. Very Delicious.

Thanks Rachel. You got me excited about cooking again. Let's do it again sometime.

Where to find time?

This blog is the first thing to suffer when life gets busy. Work is busy, after-work work is busy. I haven't even written on the wonderful birthday gift I got last month from my lovely fiancee, Britt. She got me Baking, from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan, and boy is it big, and boy does those recipes look inviting. 

Despite the hassle of filling a taxi with our stuff, we really enjoy taking our show on the road. 

Oh yes, and I am engaged. Marriage plans have staked a big claim in my conscious mind, so Open kitchen is lagging behind.

Dorie's Rustic apple almond tart @ Soho 7

But, I am excited that I will have a guest chef in the kitchen this week, and also that Britt and I will be doing another guest chef event at Soho 7 in Taichung this summer, and that things have gotten slightly less crazy for the time being so posts here should be more frequent.  

Two of our most loyal customers (and friends)

Thanks for being patient.

DIY Suncakes and the International Pastry Festival that You Never Heard About

I did know about the 2012 International Pastry Festival of Taichung, but only because I live across the street from the park that was hosting it. Not because it was well-advertised, which it wasn't or because many foreigners seem to care- which they don't.  Still, you gotta give the local government points for the effort, it's just, as I am growing used to understanding, their execution was lacking.

Part of the 'festival' which seemed to me to be just another series of tents set up around Wenxin Park was a 'DIY baking event for foreigners.'

I heard this from my lovely colleague Liz. We signed up. We got no response. We showed up. We signed up again.

Signing up was easy enough

We got on a bus. It was 8:30 a.m. on a chilly Saturday.

Come on kids, get on the bus

Nevermind that the the DIY activity was only a small fraction of the day's itinerary. We'll look past that. Never mind that the other parts of this glorified tour were spent at places like the Taiwan Museum of Legal Documents.

Why are you taking me here? I just want to bake something!

Nevermind that it started at 8:30am on a Saturday. We'll look past all of that. My friends and I kept smiling, hoping that we'd get our hands into some dough sooner rather than later.

These bikes are much more fun than  prosecutorial documents

It was worth it to see the technique that goes into make suncakes. They were always kind of a mystery to me. I was never really bowled over by their flavor, but more by their texture. There is a thick, sugary filling inside, and flaky layers around the outside. I couldn't get my head around how they actually put them together.

Ah, a chocolate suncake

As it turns out, the flaky texture that makes suncakes so unique and so messy to eat, (there's usually a pile of flakes left behind) is nothing so mysterious: It is a laminated dough. The unique thing about the process is that it is actually three doughs folded and rolled together.

A Tale of Three Doughs

It's really a blending of traditions:

It is really part dumpling, part croissant.

It reminds me of something from Entenmann's that I used to eat as a kid...God only know what it was. A danish of some kind?

Can you spot the difference?

Ultimately, I couldn't score the recipes for the doughs. I don't think that there is any expectation from the bakery that people would actually try to do this by themselves at home. I think the idea is more "come to the bakery and get your hands dirty, take some pictures, then take something home in a pretty box." It wasn't very educational. The explanations were short; and my Mandarin is, well, less than good. All I got out of it was There are three doughs, one very buttery, one very dry and well kneaded, and one sugary dough.

Each dough was flattened, rolled up like a carpet, rolled again, then stuffed with the next dough. My hands were quite greasy, so I didn't get to take many pictures of the process, but I hope to recreate it.

Finished suncake, oven-ready

We were encouraged to make cute shapes. This is Taiwan, after all.

Can you guess my number?

The end result was better than I expected, though I think the baker left the batch in there a bit long to make sure the thicker ones were all cooked. Hey, they were fresh from the oven!

Everyone crowded the poor staff, really excited to  see the fruits of their 'labor'.

The small room did smell quite delicious.

The pastry chef approved of my technique. For real. I asked him when I can come and help in the kitchen. He said anytime!

Pao Chuan has a long history in Taiwan and Japan. This DIY event was at the Ziyou Road shop in Taichung.

Taipei Neihu Come Come Soybean Milk 台北 內 湖來來 豆 醬

The first visit I made to Taipei Neihu Lai Lai Dou Jiang was with the slowest driver in the world: My former landlady. In the back of her car, with her two kids, 8 and 10, moving at about 20km/h I sat eagerly awaiting our arrival.

She lived in New York while studying at Julliard and out of a sense of gratitude towards New Yorkers, to whom she owed a debt for their kindness, she wanted to take Britt and I to eat in "a real Taiwanese food place." It was her assertion that here you could find the kind of real food that Taiwanese eat, not the stuff geared towards western appetites. I was sure that Taiwanese eat all kinds of food, not just from this  one place, but I was encouraged nonetheless, eager to eat among the locals. I had been living here only a month or two by then and finding good food was becoming a problem. 

Scallions ready to go!

We put our stomachs in her hands, letting her order for us. 

We wound up with soup dumplings 小龍 湯 包, soybean soup  鹹 豆  醬 xian dou jiang that had been curdled in some way, very salty, along with some beef noodle soup 牛肉 麵.

Never worry about parking. Just pull right up to the kitchen

I won't lie. I didn't like it. The texture of the soup was bizarre, the stuff of Andrew Zimmernland and seemed too salty. The dumplings were okay, and the beef noodle soup was alright. I think it was just too much culture shock for my new-to-Taiwan self.

the steaming sidewalk

I never went back there for months, having been turned off by what I ordered, but the next time we went back, we resolved to try some different things.

They know their soybean milk

And we did, months later: The soybean milk. The soybean milk here is very unique. It has a kind of toasted flavor, and it is lightly sweetened, and it has a bit of thickness to it. Believe me when I tell you it is unlike the stuff you find in the States in cardboard cartons. It shouldn't surprise one though, the name of the place, dou jiang  豆 醬, means soybean milk. It is their specialty.

soup dumplings, beef and scallion roll, soybean milk

 You don't even need to speak a load of Mandarin to get what you want, you can usually just point and smile for most things. Scallions and egg omelettes, dan bings, taro cakes, pastries. Friendly smiling staff. When I leave Taiwan, it will be places like this I will miss most. 

an ever-changing pastry selection

Aside from the delicious soup dumplings, turnip cake 蘿 蔔 糕, onion cake 蔥 油 餅, there is also an interesting variety of baked  goods, almost all heavy on the sesame. I once had a kind of sesame doughnut there that was heavenly. They also fry longstrips of dough  (yo tiao) 油 條 made for dipping into soup and soymilk alike. good idea!

Everything out in the open.

Ready to serve

Brittany's dip for her dumplings: soy sauce, ginger, chili oil, rice vinegar, sesame oil,  chili paste

And my favorite of all, turnip cake

The joint has become our kind of hangover/comfort food place, great for a late breakfast on a weekend. They are open at all hours of the night, too. 

The ambiance is pleasantly chaotic.

But there is more to it than the food on the plate. The big open dining room, the families enjoying their snacks together, and the open prep area makes it a great place to just sit, eat and watch people. They are baking right on the sidewalk, after all.

Cookin' on the sidewalk.

If you never visited a place like this in Taichung, please do. You are missing out. This one is especially good though there are a great number of these kinds of snackhouses in Taichung and elsewhere. 

This particular one is at the intersection of Wenxin N. Rd and Xitun Rd. There is another on Xiangshang Rd near just east of Dongxing road, however, they are newly opened and still perfecting things. 

Here is another blog post about a visit to a similar place

墾丁 Ken Ting

Ready for fun, Where's the sun?

Britt and I decided to flee south to warmer climes and escape (with thousands of others) to KenTing, the southermost reach of Taiwanese civilization. Yes, we took the dog.

There is something  unique about Kenting. It truly is a mix of cultures.  The beach bum is alive and well and chillin' down there alongside families of Taiwanese and young adults with pimped-out Toyota Corollas, and then, there is the foreigner crowd as well. There are also the locals: They seem laid back and outwardly happy. They drive helmetless on motorcycles. Some are tanned to deep brown, even in February. They are the ones not wearing a camera.

I wanted to photograph the dog, but I think it says more about the man.

Aside from our own campside feasts, there was plenty of good food to eat from seafood to nightmarket snacks to gelato. Yes, Gelato.  真的! I am reminded of the saying "A Dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with one eye missing." Can you imagine a beach town with out an ice cream shop? I can't.  Someone in Ken Ting figured that one out it seems.

Jialishuei food vendor

And when I say seafood, I mean fresh seafood.

The seafood resto.

When I say gelato, I mean real delicious gelato. There is even an Gelato master from France behind the glass at Le Pelican.

Late night rush at Le Pelican. The staff is so friendly.

I admire his use of the abundance of local ingredients alongside some exotic ones like Nutella, Nougat, and Pistachio. You will not find Matcha gelato here. Banana Chocolate, Kiwi Banana, Papaya, Passion Fruit, Mango, Lemon.

Spooning

Until recently you could find a lot of things in Ken Ting, but you couldn't find good ice cream. Thanks to the folks at LePelican!

Who is cuter?

Sashimi was cheap and fresh

Isn't she gorgeous?

and Grilled Oysters!

So yes, go for the waves, the sun, the sand, the bikinis the laid back atomosphere, whatever, but don't forget the ice cream.