Yeah, long time, blah blah…. Speaking of a long time ago, one of the first posts I made for this blog was for Chinese New Year 2008. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see a video of me steaming a whole fish. Featured in that video commenting on how delicious the fish is because it was made by her uncle (who was and is still a damn good cook – not to mention so much better looking 16 years ago) is my niece who was 7 years old at the time. Her name is Maia and she’s now a full on singer songwriter who goes by the name mxmtoon who’s been on multiple tours and performed for tens of thousands and has millions of followers on her various social media channels. So could it be that her appearance in my vid, her first foray into internet video content as it were, served as the inspiration for her to pursue her creative and artistic ambitions? In my mind, the answer is unequivocally yes. But don’t take my word for it. You can listen to a whole radio story that I produced about her rapid rise wherein she admits that indeed, if not for me, she would be nowhere. Okay that is completely not true but the point is, if there’s a grain of truth that watching her uncle make that fish video was in anyway inspirational, then my own kids, similarly inspired, might as well be accepting their future grammys, emmys and oscars (maybe they’ll be EGOTS) because they’ve been participating in my damn videos since they were both in diapers.

The point of all this meandering (as if there needs to be a point) is that my kids love these videos – watching them and being in them. They have been the ones to spur me on to make the last few food vids (well them and their mom who’s like “you’ve got to make videos while they’re still cute!”). And while I should have been doing more (frankly, I got a little jaded on the process – due to the fact that barely anybody watches these vids) I’m so glad to have done the ones we have because I realize, it’s not about the number of views (although more would be nice). It’s the fact that these videos are little time capsules of me and the kids during these last few years and the delicious foods and recipes that are their legacy. In fact I’ve come to realize that this whole blog, if anything is just a personal journal of my life as seen through food stories that just happens to exist on the internet for the world (an spam bots) to see. Looking at the various posts and pages is a reminder of who I was and where I was at different points in life and it’s great to have those touchstones. Of course I’m appreciating this now as I thought this whole blog had crashed a few days ago and I was trying to be all zen about the possibility that these years of posts were gone forever. Fortunately, it was just down for an hour AND I backed everything up. Phew! OK, so what was this post about again? Jesus, give me younger get to the point Clarence to meandering middle-aged Clarence any day. Let’s keep this moving!

Ok, task master! Alright, so, last week, Mona comes to me with this third grade homework assignment. It’s called a DYOH (Do Your Own Homework) project and she says, “Baba, I want to make a cooking video.” So I’m like, “Ok, go ahead.” She’s like, “No, I want you to help me make a cooking video.” I’m like, “Wait, who’s homework is this anyway?! Isn’t it enough that I contributed to giving you life?!” Listen, I’m trying my damndest to be a hard-ass old school Asian dad who teaches his kids the true meaning of self reliance by yelling at them to just do everything themselves (this works about half the time). But really, I’m kind of a softy and upon looking down at the sweet beseeching face of my second born, of course I relented and said, “OK, what should we make?” We settled on garlic noodles because they are a true Bay Area original, they’re easy to make, are damn delicious and we had all the ingredients. They are:

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb Noodles (any fresh noodles from an Asian Market or dried spaghetti)
4-6 tbsp butter
5-7 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
2-3 tbsp oyyster sauce
2-3 tbsp fish sauce
1-2 tbsp Maggie sauce
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

And this is how we do it:

What’s up people? Or spam bots? Or whomever/ whatever has had the unique pleasure of perusing/ scanning these words that I’ve just typed. Well, I had the unique pleasure of hanging out with my neighbor, Chi. She happens to be really funny and a really good cook. I met her through this social media app for old people (yeah, I’m trying to lean in to being old) called NextDoor. For the uninitiated (young people with lives), it’s this site that focuses on connecting people based on where they live, specifically their neighborhoods. So, people post news, alerts, items for sale or to give away or queries about house painters or electricians. A couple months back, in an effort to kick up a little more action on this here blog, meet some neighbors and get inspired by new recipes and home cooks, I put up a post asking neighbors if they would be so kind as to let me film them cooking something. The reaction was overwhelming. That is, overwhelmingly “meh”. But fortunately for you, my loyal fans / bots, for me and (I’m sure Chi would agree) for her, Chi was one neighbor who responded. We struck up a conversation et voila: last week I had the opportunity to hang out at her house as she prepared a really simple and delicious dish called mentaiko pasta that she had first tasted when she lived in NYC and ate it at place called Basta Pasta.

Where do I start with this dish? Did I already mention how simple and delicious it is? Oh yeah, that was just the paragraph before. I told you I was getting old. Okay, long story short, this is a Japanese take on pasta that uses seasoned pollock roe (fish eggs) as the basis of the sauce instead of a tomato base. If you like caviar of any sort, if briny, oceany salty flavors are your jam (“jam” not in the fruit preserve sense, but in the “one of my favorite things” sense) then. You. Will. Love. This. I guarantee it. If you don’t like those flavors, well then don’t bother. In the words of Chi “It’s a waste of good roe.” So, more for us. It’s one of those dishes that grows on you not only in the time you’re eating it – each bite is better than the last – but long after you’ve put your fork down and licked the last remnants from your plate. You’ll sit there, perhaps typing up a blog post that three people will read and your mouth will instantly begin to water as you conjure up the flavor. Have I whet your appetite enough? Well, here’s the recipe as written up by Chi.

mentaiko spaghetti

• 2 TBS butter (melted)
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 4 TBS Mentaiko (spicy pollock roe)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Spaghetti noodles
• roasted nori (seawead) – cut into fine slivers

Set spaghetti to boil.
While the spaghetti is cooking, mix melted butter with olive oil, set aside.Scrape pollak roe from the egg sacks, add to oil and butter mix.Add lemon juice to taste and mix thoroughly.Drain pasta, and add mentaiko paste wile warm.Plate sauced noodles, and sprinkle with cut nori. Serve to Clarence.

And here’s where Chi shows you how it’s done.

Adesha: ready to cook it up!

I’m going to make a bold statement. If you don’t like stew, then you basically don’t like food. Because stew is the quintessential comfort food. It’s a slow cooked melding of vegetables, a little liquid (and some sort of protein if you’re lucky) that combine into a thick, rich, flavorful – well, stew (for lack of a better word) that fills you up with savory goodness and warms you from the inside. Every country and every culture has it’s version of stew and it is my ambition in this life, to taste. Every. Single. One. Some people want to cure cancer. I want to eat stew.

Recently, I took step one step closer to realizing my dream when I filmed Adesha preparing her version of Nigerian Chicken Stew. As a native of Oakland, California she would be the first to tell you that her version of this stew might not be the most traditional or “authentic”, but like all great recipes, it’s got a great story. And Adesha is a great storyteller. As you’ll see, she’s a complete natural (way more than that dork who appears in most of the videos on this site – um, that would be me) in front of the camera. Oh yeah, maybe it’s because she’s a professional singer (www.adeshmusic.com) and so she has what many of us non professionals don’t:  stage presence. In any case, she makes an easy and delicious chicken stew and has a good time making it. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did filming it.

Here are the ingredients to make the chicken stew (serves about 4)

3 roma (plum) tomatoes
2 medium sized onions
1/2 bell pepper (green, red or yello)
sea salt (to taste)
Nigerian pepper (to taste) – can also use cayenne or any other hot chili powder
powdered iyan (pounded yam) – 1 cup = approx 4 servings.