Sky Ice, Brooklyn NY

There is something beautiful about reading newspapers. These days the only places I seem to read newspapers (not on a screen) are when I am on a plane. There is something about that moment of being asked if one wants a newspaper that marks the inauguration of an international flight. I never seem to get asked if I want newspapers when I fly domestically, hence this association. This May, on my way to Bangalore, I was offered a newspaper by the grumpy Delta attendant. Stating my preference for the New York Times, I was given the last copy and instructed to share it with the lady behind me. I desperately needed the paper, the physical newspaper, to separate me from the passenger seated next to me who had begun to establish herself as an over-sharer even before we left CVG. But lost in the folds of the pages of the newspaper that took up every last inch of space in my cramped coach seat seemed like a good place to be while flying over the Atlantic.

I love newspapers for the same reason I love library stacks. And bookstores. I love the serendipitous encounters with knowledge to be exhilarating. I spend so much time seeking out particular knowledges that it is so nice to happen on stories as one does in a newspaper. I also have a peculiar habit of reading from back to front (it feels easier for a south paw like myself to do that) so I usually read the dining and style sections attentively and am skimming the "news" section. So this is how I found out about Sky Ice. I was reading backwards and drawn to the food section where my eyes (and perhaps anticipation of horrendous food aboard Delta) drew me to the customary description of cool treats that usually appear in magazines, newspapers, blogs etc in May. My eye was drawn to a short paragraph about a place in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood that served mixed vegetable ice cream:

"Along with black sesame-seaweed, Thai coffee, coconut and the ubiquitous caramel sea salt, at Sky Ice in Park Slope, Brooklyn, there is even a mixed vegetable flavor and sorbets that include mangosteen and durian. The Chujit family, from Chiang Mai, Thailand, makes the ice cream and shave ice in this shop and cafe, and whips up curries, salads, crepes and desserts."

Nothing much more to go on, just an unlikely pairing that was deemed delicious. Since I couldn't tear the page out of the paper ( I had to SHARE the paper), I forgot about Sky Ice somewhere during the 18 hours of my trip. The subsequent weeks didn't remind me of Sky Ice either, and it was only when planning a trip to Brooklyn, for a friend's wedding that I remembered mixed vegetable ice cream.

Fast forward a few weeks to early August, and M and I decided (or rather I decided and dragged M along) to Sky Ice. I had feared long lines and interminable waiting, but pleasantly surprised to be among the first to arrive when the restaurant opened for business. The menu has two sides--savory and sweet--and has minimal description. Telling indeed, is the fact that the website lists the SWEET side first. (See here if you don't believe me!) And here.



And obviously, all with good reason. The SWEET side is absolutely amazing. In advance of going I had studied the menu and decided I would only eat sweets. And while I am a fan of other foods masquerading as other foods--candy shaped like sushi for example--I was wholly unprepared for the awesome of the kinds of innovation at Sky Ice.

Among the things I ordered were the mixed vegetable ice cream and the sushi platter. The sushi platter, was one such Baudrillardian food--one thing simulating another--that masterfully reinvented sushi to be all carbs and all deliciousness.
Fruit was placed inside of fresh spring roll wrappers, sliced to resemble sushi, served on sushi plates alongside a green tea sauce to mimic wasabi and a chocolate sauce to take the place of soy sauce. And all this for only $6.50!

Some of the most lauded restaurants such as WD-50 which I would visit later that night, are known for their playfulness with food. One of the items on their tasting menu was "everything bagel, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese"--the bagel was made of ice cream and tasted like a bagel. It was truly wondrous. But at $12.00 it pretty much had to be. Plus, the waitress at Sky Ice was super nice while WD-40's choice was wait-staff started the tasting menu with an amuse bouche of snooty sarcasm. Still the food was so delicious, I forgive the idiot waiter for explaining to me what shiso was and defining a pilsner for M. But back to Sky Ice. This is a place that got only a paragraph in the New York Times within a larger article about ice cream in the city. WD-50 will get so much more press, and deservedly so, but it is a pity that one associates culinary innovation with celebrity in most cases. Apart from the beautiful presentation, the home made ice cream was delicious and original.

The reason I went to Sky Ice--mixed vegetable ice cream--was super yummy and worth every bit of the $3.00 I paid for one scoop. That day was a culinary life list kind of day. I had wanted to try WD-50 for ages and can cross that off my imaginary list of things to do, but inadvertently, my list stayed as long that day. Because I had to add a new item to that list. Eating ice cream at Sky Ice.

And to think that I would never have found out about this culinary wondrousness had it not been for taking refuge in a newspaper. Somewhere between Cincinnati and Paris, I tried to lose myself in prose. On the corner of Fifth Ave and a street name I don't remember in Brooklyn, I found poetry on a plate.

Pinoy Klasik, West Chester Ohio

The face of Asian America is changing. I don't mean that in some trite way but in a way that signals to the ways in which food powerfully reshapes our landscapes. In the Cincinnati area, the heart of 'flyover' country, one scarcely expects to see lots of brown folks, let alone spaces with good brown people food. But if one looks, one can find culinary gems of all kinds. One such place is Pinoy Klasik, a small place in an unmarked storefront in a relatively nondescript suburb of Cincinnati.

I went there with some friends today and immediately fell in love with the food, the owner and the ethos of the store. For those familiar with Filipino food, all of the usual specials were there--chicken adobo, fried fish, calderata etc. Food is served cafeteria style on simple plates, heaped high with rice and generous portions of (in my case) two dishes of my choice. My friends ordered the same with different dishes to complement the rice. And to go along with it, of course, what else, but kalamansi juice!


The food was so wonderful and during our late lunch we turned to the topic of why food, with such complex flavors, is so often described as simple, or better yet as my pal Lisa put it, "rustic". What is it about incredibly complex stews with multiple ingredients, cooked at the right temperature for precise amounts of time and in the correct order that lends it the label of simple food? Apart from the obviously classed dimensions of this kind of statement, it also has a racialized tint--it is poor people of color who make rustic and simple food; we leave the complex stuff to the French (this comes from Jason, not me!).



Pinoy Klasik's food was robust in flavor, filling and just delicious. It was made even better by the wonderful ambiance in the store. People at neighboring tables were incredibly kind to us--one lady insisted we share some of her dessert, and others reminded us to friend the store on Facebook. But the owner also came over and brought us dessert, free of charge. To call any of this simple is, frankly, an oversimplification.

But what I liked best about Pinoy Klasik, and to get back to the idea I began this piece with, is the way in which it imagines life for Filipinos in southwestern Ohio. In addition to the simple set of cafeteria style food, there is a section for groceries and a desk from which to send remittances to the Philippines. The Balikbayan boxes as they are known, line the walls of the store, waiting for the owner to take them to send to the Philippines. Under one roof then, Pinoy Klasik serves an important function within the Filipino American Ohio community. It is a place to be fed, but also to feed nostalgia and to feed loved ones in the Philippines. One comes to such a space for a sense of community, but also for the convivial conversations, friendly faces and to be in a space where Tagalog is the language to speak. What I love is that this is a space that welcomes outsiders but also seriously takes on an important role in the diaspora. It is a place for Filipinos in a largely un Filipino city to find home or to make it easier to connect with home. In a sense, it is a different kind of Asian American subject who is interpellated by this store--it is not the one insistent on claiming America alone (though the store's location in a non-descript strip mall, next to a McDonalds' is a certain kind of Americanness) but one that recognizes and sustains the transnational affiliations that under gird lives of so many Asian Americans today.



I'm always felt more at home with other Filipinos than South Asians, so for me, this place was the first step in making me feel at home in my new city. I've yet to find an Indian restaurant I like but I feel at home in this little restaurant. Besides, they get pan de coco on Mondays, so I have to go back! And I also did promise the owner I'd return for their halo halo.

Karavalli, Bangalore India

It has been a long time since I've written about restaurants and that really is not a good thing. I've had so many good eating adventures in the last few years and just neglected to blog about them. This post itself is long overdue. I ate at Karavalli in early June, 2010, and it has taken me until February to write about it. That is a bit FAIL.

I stumbled on Karavalli quite by accident and had it not been for some winning smiles, I may have missed my opportunity altogether. I arrived there with my friend Eric who had come to visit me in Bangalore for the day (from Delhi) the day before I left for the States. I had a day and a half to spare and it was really wonderful to get a chance to see an old friend in a new setting, far away from the staid lives of our former selves. Eric was only in town for a few hours so I wanted to avoid Bangalore's nightmarish traffic and stick close to the area I was staying while getting to eat something delicious that would brace me for the trip back to Ohio, and the 24 hour period of airplane and airport food.

My family is from Mangalore (or rather my mother is!) and I was hoping to try and introduce Eric to some good South Indian food that wasn't just idlis and sambar. Karavalli sells itself as a Mangalorean space. From its website, Karavalli is "inspired by a traditional Mangalorean house, featuring a wooden ceiling, furniture, antique seafarers maps, and a variety of antiques from times of the French and English occupation of India. For alfresco dining, the restaurant offers an open-air courtyard, a verandah and, garden." Make no mistake, Karavalli is also part of that famous group of hotels, The Taj, so there's some serious upscaling of the regional-rural experience at play in their culinary homage to this once sleepy town on the coast of Karnataka.



When we arrived, it was late even by Indian lunch standards: 2:45, a mere 15 minutes shy of their closing time. The restaurant very kindly accommodated us, but asked that we dine outdoors on the patio (Okay, easy enough--see pic above to see why this was not an imposition) and also that we order our food all in one go so that the chef could go on break (also perfectly reasonable!). Unfortunately, I don't recall the names of everything we ate, but I do remember the tastes, a wonderful array of complementary tastes--sweet, sour, hot, salty.



I do remember that we ordered veal which was probably beef, mostly because we were both delighted with the idea of beef in India. There were a range of other local specialties including a perfectly spiced rasam served in tiny little glasses covered in copper, fluffy appam and a wonderful spicy pineapple curry and an allepey fish curry. The rasam that we had is pictured to the left.




Though a far cry from the usual ways in which I've encountered banana leafs--usually at weddings or celebrations, rows of banana leaves arranged on the floor as we sit and eat food. At Karavalli, they maintain the tradition of the banana leaf but it is sanitized to the level that would not offend the foreign palate or sensibility. All of this was served on a banana leaf shaped copper plate on top of which a banana leaf had been placed. It was all very lovely, and the upscale version of food served on a banana leaf was so completely endearing, especially since the food itself was delicious. Banana leaves are such a wonderful template upon which to create culinary masterpieces, both because the striking green makes a visually appealing backdrop but also because the flavors of the banana leaf meld into the food, imparting just the gentlest hint of that raw banana flavor. It is also a wonderfully sustainable alternative--the only kind of plate that I know about that is biodegradable.

In the last few years, I've had a chance to explore India more on my terms. I love what my parents and family have showed me, but there is something limiting about that, and I've enjoyed getting to be host to my friends who have been kind enough to visit me while I've been in India and even more so to hosting M and getting to see India in a new way. I don't discount that I get a better experience and am treated better when I am traveling with white Americans, but when it comes to food, I'm so happy to get good food, I don't always pay enough attention to the classed implications of these racial hierarchies that allow me to enter and enjoy these spaces. I mean, I do, but there is a part of me that enjoys this a little too much.

Unlike in the US, India has a strong tradition of having good restaurants in hotels, at least in the places I've been. Karavalli is no exception and quite possibly one of the most thoughtful and innovative restaurants serving Mangalorean and Malabar coast food that I've had the pleasure to consume.

I like. . . cream donuts

When I was in the 2nd grade in Moresby, my school had an assembly every week. Each week a class would do a performance of some kind--a play, songs, poetry etc. When it was time for 2J (my class with Mrs Crawford) to perform, one segment of our show included reciting poems that are sort of like haikus, but not really. They followed a rhythm of 2, 3, 3, 3. Each "poem" began with the line, "I like" and we would each list things we liked, as long as they fell into the correct syllabic rhythm. Ever the food obsessed, my poem (and perhaps one of the only poems I've ever written) was as follows:

I like--
cream dough-nuts
fresh but-ter
and hot toast

Accompanying this was the annoying sound of our clapping to keep the beat. I remember telling my mother about the poem and she was like, "Why, why must everything be about food?" Not exact words, but general sentiment. Truthfully I hated cream doughnuts that they sold at school in the tuck shop. I did not especially care for toast and having had fresh butter on dosas in India, I actually hated it. Clearly this was the assignment I phoned it in for, and maybe that is why I remember it so vividly.

Now the donuts that I really like were the ones with chocolate frosting. This might just be nostalgia and memory but only months before I had tasted what was probably my first donut. It was at Sydney's Taronga Zoo and was a chocolate glazed concoction with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on it (that would be sprinkles for my North American friends).That had become the benchmark for donuts for me at the age of (insert single digit number here). In PNG, donuts were not easy to come by and so when I was on my baking kick, I taught myself to make donuts.

I was never a big fan of the cream doughnuts at school, but I liked my donuts. When I moved to the US, I was enamored by all the donut places. When I moved to Massachusetts, I was amazed by the ubiquity of donuts. Now in Ohio, I see Krispy Kremes and think about going in; only once did we go, and of course the red sign was on. Tim Hortons persuades me less. But still, there is something about the donut that still feels like a treat to me. But they always feel so unredeemingly unhealthy. There is nothing really healthy in any way about the donut.

So imagine my delight when I found a recipe in Veganomicon for jelly donut CUPCAKES. This seemed like a gift from somewhere to imagine a healthy (okay only sort of) alternative to the evil donut. I made a batch yesterday and they turned out pretty good. Here is the recipe with my modifications:


Jelly Donut Cupcakes

1 cup milk (soy, rice, dairy---whichever you prefer)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsps cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all purpose (plain) flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg.
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp good vanilla extract
raspberry jam, strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 350F. Pour milk, vinegar and cornstarch into a cup and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients together and make a well for wet ingredients.
Make sure the milk mixture is well combined and add to flour along with oil, sugar and vanilla. Stir only till well combined. Do not overbeat!
Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full of batter. Place heaping tsp of jam on center of each cupcake. The jam will sink in, you don't need to press it in.
Bake 21-23 mins until tops are firm. The jam inside will make a toothpick test useless.
Cool and then store someplace cool and dry uncovered. if you can wait up to 24 hours or overnight that will dry the cake out and make it a little more donut like. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar and voila--you have jelly cupcake donuts!

Little India Article

An article I wrote for the Indian American publication, Little India, has just been published. Check it out!

An Ode to Ramen

A few weeks after I started my job at MU, a student of mine who occasionally reads this blog asked to interview me about food. I was happy to oblige but still remain a little embarrassed that the best response I could give her was about how college students should not shun ramen noodles.. I'm still a little embarrassed that this is what people will know me for, assuming they paid attention. But there is another part of me that must stand up in defense of this humble, misunderstood and oft-maligned noodle. I grew up eating ramen. I ate ramen before I knew it was ramen. I ate it when all I knew was that it was called Maggi Instant Noodles. I ate it because there was an awesome spokesperson for the product in Malaysia called the Mammee Monster.


The Mammee monster was blue. Like the cookie monster. My other favorite monster. What is not to love about a product associated with a blue furry monster? It stands to reason that if you love cookies because you love the Cookie Monster, you will also love ramen for similar reasons.



But what I especially love about ramen was that it was flavorful. It was always a base upon which to build a dish not an end in and of itself. M sometimes eats ramen and he microwaves it in gobs of water. It seems so nasty that way. No wonder ramen has such a maligned reputation when prepared the way my beloved gringo husband does. The way I learned to prepare it was so much more (excuse the hyperbolic moment) sublime.

Eating ramen was almost a daily ritual for me. I would come home from school and my mom would always make me a snack-meal. The meals would vary from corn on the cob to cheese toast to bread pizza and then during my starvation phase, homemade coleslaw or salad. But ramen was always good. And I would never eat it plain. I would mix the flavor packets, which usually included flavoring plus chili powder plus a packet of sesame oil and then add extra chili sauce for good measure. When I would go to my friend Sharmila's house, we would fry up onions with mustard seeds and add the cooked noodles and mix in cheese. It was so versatile. Associated as it is with longing for my childhood/ adolescence, I can't fully separate the nostalgia out of this memory. But taste is 90% nostalgia and 10% flavor anyway, right?



When I first came to the US, I was appalled that they sold food in places like CVS and Walgreens. Even more surprised that ramen came in gringo flavors like 'roasted chicken.' And I was even more surprised that people did not know that there was a world of ramen out there and that no self-respecting Asian would eat just plain ramen. I mean, seriously. Look at the packaging and compare with the packaging from the Asian brands?The American ramen packets so BORING.

So now I've turned my love for ramen into something of an obsession. I don't eat it every day, or even every week. But after I teach, and come home for lunch, it still feels right to cook up some kimchee ramen and add a boiled egg for good measure. But my taste for ramen has actually taken me into the cultural representation of this humble noodle and has lead me to a few predictable places. The first is the classic film by Japanese director, Juzo Itami, Tampopo.. Tampopo, simply put is one of the smartest and most brilliant food films out there. It takes a very simple premise--what is a single mom who is the owner of a failing noodle shop to do--and makes ramen the star ingredient. One of my very favorite scenes in this movie full of sensual, sexual, repugnant and suggestive food scenes is one where a character explains how to eat ramen. When I watched it a few years ago, I immediately ran to the closest Japanese restaurant to partake in the ramen noodle soup they sold. Tampopo takes food seriously, and it also takes the craft of making ramen seriously.



It is fascinating to me that a food associated with speed and efficiency in the US is actually a labor intensive cuisine. Ramen is incredibly difficult to make from scratch and both Tampopo and the Oishinbo manga, Ramen and Gyoza, take this seriously.



In Ramen and Gyoza we learn numerous ways in which ramen titillates and its a remarkably smart and beautiful paean to this noodle.

So following my interest in ramen, I was delighted to come across a film, The Ramen Girl, . I watched it on Netflix instant viewing and from the beginning it just did not satisfy. First of all, it is a film that can best be described as Tampopo meets Lost in Translation. Since I did not like Lost in Translation it did not bode well that this film was about gringa alone in Tokyo who tries to find herself. The culture-clash narrative is trite and all of the humor comes from seeing how the Japanese sensei and the young Americaine can't communicate. Eventually of course, they become friends and she earns his respect and opens up her own noodlery in NYC, in the shadows of the Empire State Building. (Technically, the 34th street area south of Herald Square has more Korean eateries, not chi-chi ramen shops, but I’ll not quibble over that particular detail). What astounds me in the film is that ramen is all about her. She wants to learn how to make ramen because it makes her happy one evening. She is interested in becoming the perfect student, replicating her sensei's art. The reason the sensei teaches her is ostensibly because he has an estranged relationship with his son and wants her to take his place. Perhaps I'm just a cantankerous curmudgeon but details matter to me. Once Brittany Murphy learns how to perfect the art of ramen-making, she up and leaves for the US. Is this carrying on her sensei's legacy or has she merely appropriated another form of Asianness? Her restaurant is even called "The Ramen Girl" suggesting a kind of ownership that seems at odds with the film's supposed espousal of a cross-cultural ethos predicated on mutuality and respect. Just look at the stupid DVD cover of the film. Its as if ramen can't be interesting unless you can locate the white American girl dead in the center of the narrative, in this case the bowl of ramen.



But more than anything, I didn't love this film because the character has no 'authentic' relationship to ramen. She goes to the ramen shop to feel better. She wants to fill a void. She never enjoys the luxuriating flavors of the dish after her first time sampling the noodles. It could be ramen, but it could also be any other labor intensive culinary item.
Herein lies the difference. Ramen here, is merely the conceit to speak about cross-cultural exchanges whereas in Itami's film, ramen is the ingredient that drives the narrative forward. It is the star ingredient and is robust, multi-textured and complex.

I did enjoy the film, I won't lie. But its not as engaging as Tampopo. But even after all these years (I've been eating ramen for almost 30 years now), its still amazing to me that ramen can be such a powerful basis upon which to build narratives. In these films, ramen is that base and for me, my narratives were more culinary. But there was always a different story to tell, and with some good luck, there'll always be more stories to tell with ramen as the star ingredient.

Side note: After posting this, I noticed that said-student mentioned at beginning of this posting has also written about this film on her blog. Check it out!

Mango Ice Cream

I've recently starting experimenting with ice cream flavors using the ice cream maker that my friends Kirk and Brenda gave me for my wedding. For anyone who loves ice cream, an ice cream maker is well worth the investment! For anyone who likes flavors that get rendered as 'exotic' but are just everyday flavors for us (I'm thinking mango, lychee, pineapple), an ice cream maker is a good choice, because lets face it, los gringos don't get the nuance or luxurious qualities of the tastes native to India, Southeast Asia etc. Even when I read about this recipe, it presented mango and lemon grass as trendy ingredients. I wish I had known they were trendy when I was growing up. I just thought they were 'normal.' Speaking of this construction of xotic and non-exotic, there is a cool ice cream shop in Chinatown NYC called The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The menu is divided into exotic and regular. On the regular menu are things like red bean, mango, durian, lychee--you get the idea. On the exotic are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. I love the way the shop deconstructs the language of exotic vs non-exotic:



But back to mangoes. Anytime I buy mango ice cream in the US, its either too sweet or not sweet enough. Don't even get me started on how sad it makes me feel to cut into those red and green skinned mangoes only to have to confront some kind of pale yellowy whiteness. No, its really more simple. You need to get your mangoes from an Indian grocery store AND you need to use the canned mango pulp. Canned mangoes may seem a counter-intuitive choice, but the canned mango pulp which uses Alphonso mangoes is so divine and rich, the flavors of which cannot be found in your run-of-the-mill Kroger or Stop n' Shop mango. Don't be all fake gourmand and say, "I can't use canned food"--you're just going to have an inferior result.



So in honor of the divine mango, I made a mango ice cream. I modified a recipe from epicurious.com and reproduce it here for you.

Mango Ice Cream

1 cup milk (2% works fine)
1 cup cream
2 tsps lemongrass paste
1 cup mango pulp
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks

1. Combine milk, lemongrass and cream over low heat for about 5 mins. Do not allow to boil, just bring to a low simmer and remove from heat. Cool for 30 mins to allow lemongrass to steep, then strain the lemongrass out of the milk-cream infusion.

2. Combine yolks and sugar with a whisk until yellow, thick and creamy. Slowly mix into the cream mixture over a low heat. Stir over medium heat until custard thickens enough to leave path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across, about 5 minutes (do not boil). Cool custard 30 minutes.

3. Add mango pulp. Cool mixture for at least 2 hours. Pour mixture into your ice cream maker and proceed according to manufacturer's directions. Then place into container with lid and freeze until ready.