Behold, caramel apples. Last week I saw this recipe at 101 Cookbooks, and since there were only three ingredients on it, I gave it a try. It's super easy, but the one catch is that the caramel needs to be heated to just the right temperature. Since I don't have a candy thermometer, it turned out kinda soupy, so I will have to keep trying. In the meantime there is nothing wrong with scooping up melted caramel and eating it off the silpat. Yum.
Which reminds me: I have a new blog. Well, semi-new. It's at Fortune's Feast, and describes my attempts to teach myself Chinese cooking. As some of you know, I've long been conflicted about how "Chinese" I am, if identity even is something quantifiable. I speak Chinese, I lived in Taipei, but I have very few Chinese friends. I had all sorts of friends as a child, but somewhere around middle school is when all the Asian kids started hanging out with each other - and nobody else. This bothered me. It bothered me because I thought the practice exclusive and discriminatory. Maybe they weren't actively segregating themselves, but at one point one of my Chinese American classmates came over to my lunch table and asked, "Why don't you sit with the Asian kids?"
That bothered me. I didn't want to be exclusionary, but it seemed to be the only way to be "Asian" where I grew up.[FN1] So my response was to be not "Asian" and to befriend people of all ethnicities. Somewhere along the line, though, I think I overcompensated, because soon I had no Asian friends. That also bothered me. So I was conflicted.
Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that I have a new food blog, where I try to reconnect with a heritage I once dismissed because I didn't want to be exclusive. I write about recipes, challenges, identity, and family. Mostly it's an excuse to eat more.
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FN1. Looking back I realize the absurdity of this all, even the very idea of "Asian." It's a wholly American concept - nobody in China actually wants to hang out with anybody in Korea. So really the attempt to be more "Asian" was something inauthentic to begin with.
Which reminds me: I have a new blog. Well, semi-new. It's at Fortune's Feast, and describes my attempts to teach myself Chinese cooking. As some of you know, I've long been conflicted about how "Chinese" I am, if identity even is something quantifiable. I speak Chinese, I lived in Taipei, but I have very few Chinese friends. I had all sorts of friends as a child, but somewhere around middle school is when all the Asian kids started hanging out with each other - and nobody else. This bothered me. It bothered me because I thought the practice exclusive and discriminatory. Maybe they weren't actively segregating themselves, but at one point one of my Chinese American classmates came over to my lunch table and asked, "Why don't you sit with the Asian kids?"
That bothered me. I didn't want to be exclusionary, but it seemed to be the only way to be "Asian" where I grew up.[FN1] So my response was to be not "Asian" and to befriend people of all ethnicities. Somewhere along the line, though, I think I overcompensated, because soon I had no Asian friends. That also bothered me. So I was conflicted.
Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that I have a new food blog, where I try to reconnect with a heritage I once dismissed because I didn't want to be exclusive. I write about recipes, challenges, identity, and family. Mostly it's an excuse to eat more.
----
FN1. Looking back I realize the absurdity of this all, even the very idea of "Asian." It's a wholly American concept - nobody in China actually wants to hang out with anybody in Korea. So really the attempt to be more "Asian" was something inauthentic to begin with.
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