SuzySushi

Thanks for straightening out that confusion! (To add to it, here in Hawaii they call jicama "chop suey yam"!)

LOL! Yes, I know exactly what a suribachi is (my screenname should be a clue!). I'd been thinking more along the lines of "food processor" and worrying that it would turn into an oily mass/mess! About carrot halva, the best I've ever tasted was made by a Japanese friend from a recipe she'd gotten from a Japanese chef who apprenticed in fine restaurants in France. (I've long forgotten his name & wonder if he's famous now!) Once upon a time I had the recipe, but that disappeared long ago in my transition from hand-written notebooks of recipes to computer after computer. Wonder if she still has it... I'll have to email her.

Just noticed this thread. Some seriously beautiful food here! I'm not a paella traditionalist... I cook it in my (gasp!) wok, using high-quality Japanese sushi rice. What goes into it depends on what's available in my market at the time. Usually some combination of chicken or rabbit, seafood (shrimp, clams, mussels), ad chorizo, but I've also made vegetarian paella for vegetarian guests. The best paella I've ever had was at a party at someone's home in Paris. I swear that paella pan must've been 24" across. Impressive!

Anzu, Do you use hulled or unhulled sesame seeds? What do you use to grind them after they've been toasted?

Not clear from the layout & pic... do you need to use the back door? could the refrigerator (temporarily) be placed in front of it, facing the living room?

Great topic, Chris!.... and Welcome, Oggi! I think how successful this method is depends in great part on how receptive the other party is to new ideas/tastes. Two examples: As I described in the Dinner! thread, last night I threw a do-it-yourself sushi party for my 8 year old daughter and her best friend (who's leaving to move back to a part of the mainland that's pretty unsophisticated foodwise). I taught the girls how to make temaki (the cone-shaped sushi hand rolls). Each plate was set with a portion of seasoned sushi rice and sliced maguro (raw tuna). I showed the girls how to take a rectangular half-sheet of nori, hold it in their hand (glossy side down) spread some rice in a square on half the sheet, add a slice of tuna (and other ingredients if they so pleased), and roll it into a neat cone. A neat, fun, "finger-food" dinner for all of us. Tasty, too! And my daughter's friend, who'd never eaten sushi or nori before, asked for seconds. At the other side of the spectrum, some years ago when Haagen-Dazs was a relatively new and trendy brand, I served my parents Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream for dessert. My mother commented that she didn't see why everyone was making a fuss over it, because it was "just like Breyer's." Now, I know there are people who don't like Haagen-Dazs, but that was not what she was saying. She actually couldn't tell the difference between a rich, heavy butterfat ice cream and a "regular" ice cream of the same flavor. Taste-testing freshly shaved Parmesan cheese vs. the green can would've been equally pointless to her, no matter how gently phrased the "lesson."

My daughter's best friend is moving to the mainland, so tonight we had a do-it-yourself sushi party where I taught the girls how to make temaki (the cone-shaped sushi hand rolls). Each plate was set with a portion of seasoned sushi rice and sliced maguro (raw tuna). My husband and I also had shiso leaves and several types of Japanese pickles. I showed the girls how to take a rectangular half-sheet of nori, hold it in their hand (glossy side down) spread some rice in a square on half the sheet, add a slice of tuna (and other ingredients if they so pleased), and roll it into a neat cone. A neat, fun, "finger-food" dinner for all of us. Tasty, too!

The most popular Banh Mi chain in Honolulu is Ba-Le (said to be the Vietnamese pronunciation of Paris/Par-ee). They bake all their own bread for their stores and franchises, and also supply bread to wholesale accounts including other restaurants, hotels, and airlines. I remember reading that their secret to their crisp, light baguettes is the use of rice flour along with wheat flour. Their baguettes are exceptionally light, with a very thin crust that "shatters" when warm. (They heat each baguette in a toaster-oven before making a sandwich.) We sometimes buy their baguettes -- actually demi-baguettes -- plain to take home and store in the freezer! A lot of what purports to be "French" bread in the USA is mushy (the Wonder Bread of French bread!). At the other extreme, the artisan-style French breads (pain a l''ancienne) made with a natural starter are chewy and doughy by comparison.

I've been enjoying cooking from several of the promotional magazine-format (full-color, heavy, glossy paper, but stapled binding) books published by Bay Books, aMurdoch Magazines imprint. I've found them at my local Borders bookstore FOR - $2.99 - APIECE! My favorites so far are Tastes of the Mediterranean and Thai Cooking. I also bought Tasty Low-Fat Recipes, Quick Short Recipes, and one on savory tarts and pies.

Here, ube is the word for purple sweet potato. It's not a form of taro. It's very similar to the purple Okinawan sweet potato. Both are sold in supermarkets here. Imported ube jam (for desserts) is also readily available. Edited to add: Pan, you might be thinking of a Filipino dessert that uses ube and taro. I'm not sure of its name... It's a lavender-colored coconut tapioca pudding that also contains cubes or ube, taro, and chewy mochi (sweet rice) dumplings. Kinda' strange to Western tastes, but I love it and would eat it frequently if it weren't for the cholesterol count!

They use jicama in the sandwiches in NYC? Here, it's a carrot-and-daikon slaw.

There's a large Filipino community in Hawaii (roughly 15% of the total population, according to the 2000 Census -- and about 85% of the Filipinos here are Ilocano). Plenty of Filipino restaurants, most serving home-style food. I don't know of any upscale Filipino restaurant. Filipino food -- especially popular dishes like pancit, lumpia, and adobo -- has made it into the general local culture. Same with baked goods like ensaimada. Every supermarket has a section for Filipino foods in its "Oriental" aisle. One of the local ice cream chains has an ube (purple sweet potato) flavor. There used to be a Filipino bakery (sadly out of business, though there are several others around) where my husband once ordered an ube roll cake as my birthday cake: lavender cake with purple filling and lavender buttercream frosting! (That really wowed our guests!) The most recent Filipino foods I've had were puto (bought at a local supermarket -- I ate one, put the rest in the refrigerator, and when I looked again, the whole package was gone!), pancit, and pinacbet (a real favorite of mine -- I pluck out the bittermelon, though, and give that to my husband, who adores it). I also tasted squid guisado, but decided against ordering a whole portion (it tasted much too "fishy").

Actually, the purple spikes -- at least seen from afar -- look like a variety of mountain lupine!

Darn, where is gautam? I think gautam can answer this question. Ive grown korean mint (anise hyssop here) and it is not kkaennip. leaves look and smells pretty similar tho. But plant habit very different, as you can see in the pics. Also taste is actually sort of...not good, kind of bitter and harsh in a way. Hard to say since I haven't had it in a while. Beautiful plants. For a while, I was so confused as to whether kaetnip was perilla or not. I thought it was the leaf of the sesame plant because that's what everyone says, but you know "dulkkae" basically means "wild sesame", right so this is what they meant by sesame I guess. I think I read that both dulkkae and chamkkae are used for oil so maybe this is why they get so mixed up, because even Korean people say it is the leaf of the chamkkae that you use, but I'm just guessing. But have you ever seen a sesame plant? The leaves are kind of skinny, at least the ones I could locate on the internet. Looks similar to kkaenip but not similar enough. Then again, I've never grown sesame, so maybe there is a variety I don't know about (gautam?). Anyway, I guess I am in the minority (big surprise) because I think kkaenip is perilla bred to have large flat mildish tasting leaves. I suppose the resident Korean experts can answer this question once in for all. --maybe a little too off topic but in case someone goes out and tries to get "anise hyssop" for some reason, bear in mind that for some reason anise hyssop is used to denote the korean mint and also another plant whose latin name I forget and too tired to look up. So make sure the latin name is correct or packet says "Korean Mint" somewhere. Not that anyone is crazy enough to do this, I'm sure. ← According to Gernot Katzer's Spice Dictionary, perilla/Japanese shiso/Korean tul-kkae/wild sesame are one and the same. The plant is not closely related to real sesame. Perilla Fruitescens The Korean sesame leaves I've eaten and seen in stores are much larger than what's sold as Japanese shiso leaves, and also, as you say, mildish tasting. I wonder if they are a different variety of perilla. I found a picture link to Korean Mint (bot. agastache rugosa). It doesn't look like perilla at all, and has small mint-like leaves. (Never tasted it, though.)

The funny thing is, recipes for couscous (using instant, of course) and "Moroccan-style ______" have already made it into mainstream women's magazines such as Woman's Day and Family Circle. I hate to say it, but I think Divalasvegas is correct in saying that the word "African" has negative connotations for a lot of Americans. In addition, I remember back when there were more Middle Eastern restaurants in Manhattan. Several of the Lebanese restaurants went out of business after the American hostage situation in Lebanon. A Persian restaurant closed when the Ayatollahs took over Iran. And the aftermath of 9/11 has not been kind to Middle Eastern restaurants and grocery stores. Here in Hawaii, an Egyptian family owns a Greek restaurant near the University. It's "Greek" because they said that when they opened it (15+ years ago), "Middle Eastern" food would have been too foreign and unacceptable to people here. The same family owns an Egyptian restaurant opened about 10 years ago that, yes, features belly dancing at night. Moroccan restaurants have come and gone; there's now one left in Kailua (the other side of Oahu from Honolulu, where rents are presumably lower and they draw a mostly neighborhood crowd). So, while North African food has the potential to become popular -- especially when it comes to tagines and couscous -- I think a lot of marketing is needed to raise the awareness of American consumers.

Stop it... you're making me cry!!! The three foods I miss from NYC: NY pizza Tongue sandwiches Cheese danish

A barista once told me that low-fat (semi-skim?) = 2% fat milk froths best. I've always heated it before frothing. Before the advent of hand frothers, my Italian teacher used to froth hot milk for cappuccino by running the blender at highest speed.

It's Pho Banh Cuon 14, 129 avenue de Choisy, around the corner from rue de Tolbiac. The second best pho soup in the area and certainly the best-known. Just next door there is the Le Kok, which is very fine too. ← Glad you know it and have a high opinion of it! We didn't get as far as "next door" -- we were drawn in by the herb-and-broth fragrance and the menu (which we could decipher because the Vietnamese names of the various dishes are the same here as in France!).

Paul, Kaitenzushi might no be so popular in Philadelphia, but try coming to Honolulu sometime, where there are at least half a dozen kaitenzushi chains. (Largest is probably Genki Sushi.) And, the first time I had kaitenzushi was in the early 1980s in NYC! I presume it's still available there.

Now that's what I call camping in style! You may have more room and a larger kitchen than my first (studio) apartment in NYC!

Beautiful, thoughtful post. Bravo!

Hmmmn... I have no idea what the name of the restaurant is, but we enjoyed very good pho (as good as we can get in Honolulu, plus we learned the French word for chopsticks!) a few years ago at a fairly large Vietnamese place on a corner of (I think) Ave. de Choisy. A Parisian friend lives a block or two away, and we stopped off there for dinner after visiting her for lunch! All the other customers were Vietnamese.

Yes, but if this were to support ALL the people who lived in Hawaii, we wouldn't be able to produce enough to feed the populace. Think of the poi shortages, or the problem getting milk during the last West Coast shipping strike, and how people stock up on rice, shoyu, Spam, batteries, and toilet paper whenever a hurricane or shipping strike is threatened!

Yesterday was very inspiring foodwise: first, I scored some great cookbooks at the State Library's annual booksale (100,000+ books!!!). Then, we stopped at the main Daiei store in Honolulu. It's a Japanese-owned supermarket, and its stock is heavily Japanese, but the main store has been remodeling recently and putting in more "other Asian" ethnic foods. For instance, I was pleasantly surprised to find Thai eggplants (somewhat larger than the typical pea-sized, but green-striped round ones), fresh galangal, Kaffir lime leaves, and pea sprouts (which I'd never tried before) in the produce department, along with a beautiful atemoya (aka cherimoya or custard apple) for dessert. Those groceries produced tonight's Thai dinner: Thai Green Curry, made with pork and the Thai eggplants, along with a heavy dosing of fresh basil and cilantro. Stir-Fried Pea Sprouts, seasoned simply with lots of garlic, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar. Fragrant brown rice. (I ladled more curry sauce over my rice after the photo was taken.) And the lovely atemoya for dessert.

Add two (or is it four?) more for me... so far! Our State library is having its humongous annual book sale (100,000+ books -- some people even fly in from the mainland, planning their vacations around it). First day of the sale (yesterday) I scored Culinaria: European Specialties brand new 2 volume set for $10, and a boxed 2-volume set of The Pasta Bible and The Chinese and Asian Kitchen Bible for another $10. The book sale continues all this week, with them putting out fresh additions every day. I'm salivating!!!