I have a dark secret. The idea of "chili crisp" is one that I've always loved in my head, and wanted to love in practice, but every one that I have tried--while delicious--never quite lived up to what I imagined a chili crisp should taste like. There was always just a little something that I felt was missing--the crisp wasn't that crisp, or the ...
vegetarian
blistered sugar snaps with crispy quinoa, miso honey butter, and whipped feta
This post is in partnership with KitchenAid. You can find past posts here, here, and here. Around a year ago, in balmy fall-ish weather like this, I had the happy chance to have dinner outside at Manuela in downtown LA. Pretty much everything we had there was delicious, lots of familiar Southern staples, like tender, cloud-like cream biscuits ...
hush puppies
Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best balms. Spending more time at home over this last year, we've been cooking nonstop but mostly just the homey, five-ingredient type meals that come together pretty fast and last us for a few nights. Things like fried kimchi and an over-easy egg on rice for lunch (that's right, I'm even at "lazy man's ...
sriracha & roasted broccoli pesto
When we were considering whether to renovate, I remembered that Adrianna at A Cozy Kitchen had a great experience partnering with KitchenAid, and reached out with all fingers crossed to see if KitchenAid might be interested in collaborating here, too. Imagine my delight when the team said yes! It’s been one of my dream brands for such a long time, ...
stir-fried lettuce bowl with ginger fried rice and egg
We have had two big developments of our summer so far. One is that I went back to work (and we can skip discussing that) but the other is much more exciting: We moved! Somehow some people in the world thought that it was okay for this pair of silly babies to actually, honest-to-goodness own a home. Now that we're done screaming in terror over the ...
curried couscous with roasted cauliflower
As it turns out, one of the happier features of law school and, now, law firm life is the dependable occurrence of free lunches at least once a week--whether for a talk, or a deposition, or just inexplicably placed in a breakroom and abandoned for three hours (that's okay, I'll still eat it). As someone who will happily consume anything that's ...
pho noodle salad
We are in the midst of a thoroughly January state of affairs: We got home on New Year's Eve from our trip to see B2's parents in Honolulu, where I was lazier, more relaxed, and more rested than a parent with a toddler has any right to be (God bless grandmas), and in the midst of our post-Hawaii gloom, were all promptly felled by the Great ...
crispy goat cheese rounds with shallot vinaigrette
With work picking up again after a slow start coming back from maternity leave, this project, and our ever-growing obsession, I haven't had nearly as much time as I would like to make or share recipes from the wealth of stellar cookbooks that have come out this spring. There are so many! But I'll get there. For now, I'm starting with an impossibly ...
potatoes with sugar snaps, pickled shallots, & dill
Judging from the calendar, we are in the thick of picnic season, or for me, toss-everything-with-mayonnaise-and-maybe-eat-it-at-a-picnic-but-probably-just-straight-from-the-fridge season. My last post notwithstanding, I almost didn't realize it; after years in New York, where I spent the first third-to-half of each year in an intense and unceasing ...
creamy broccoli salad with almonds & raisins
Last weekend we took our first big trip with B3 in tow, up to Berkeley for my brother's graduation. It wasn't until we were on our way back, winding our way through the mountains on the last stretch of the I-5, that I realized how much Los Angeles has started to feel like home. This little ham can probably take most of the credit for that (isn't ...
![The incomparable @hettymckinnon first sent me a jar of her homemade chili oat crisp nearly a year ago, at the start of the pandemic, and it was so life-alteringly delicious that I have been itching to share it with you here and on my blog ever since. Well, it has been a long wait, but the book that it is in, “To Asia, With Love,” is finally coming out stateside in a few weeks, and so I wrote up Hetty’s recipe earlier this week in anticipation. I did not know at that time what would happen in Atlanta this week, but have felt in my heart how necessary a book like Hetty’s, and voices like Hetty’s, were already—and even more so now.
Hetty writes poignantly in “To Asia, With Love” about a “third culture”–a struggle for her identity growing up as a Chinese immigrant in Australia, and the eventual “cross-pollination of ideas and techniques that are grounded in [her] Chinese heritage, yet greatly influenced by growing up in the Western world.” As immigrants, our cultural identities, and the fabric of society into which we weave, are so complicated. It can be beautiful, but it can also be messy, and events like these show how devastatingly far we still have to go. I don’t have anything more insightful to add than has already been said by so many, but I am glad more than ever for the brilliant, thoughtful voices around me to whom I can look for guidance and inspiration. Some resources posted to my profile, and if you’re looking for a spicy balm to take your mind off things, recipe for Hetty’s chili crisp (which is, all else aside, truly one of the best things I’ve ever made) is on my blog. ❤️ #stopasianhate #stopaapihate](https://tworedbowls.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)