Food that I cook, eat, and miss.

Pan bagnat: I found this recipe by America’s Test Kitchen while watching a video on how to make better sandwiches. Admittedly, two pieces of bread with a few things in the middle aren’t what I typically go for (there are a couple of exceptions of course: Vietnamese sandwich – or banh mi, and a simple but delicious sandwich back in my college days in Kansas City. The latter was from a coffee shop on Main street in Parkville, made with artichoke in olive oil and feta on toasted baguette. I would order this, along with a coffee, then spend an hour or so in the shop or in the nearby English Landing Park reading David Foster Wallace. I have never found this sandwich elsewhere. On my first return to KC during grad school, I learned that the shop had changed owners and its menu no longer carried my favorite item. It would be lovely to have it again someday. Though I suspect it’s not unlike my time in KC – long gone and can only be brought back through nostalgia). Anyway, I digress. I made the pan bagnat on a Sunday morning and quite enjoyed the process of it. For pressing, I placed the sandwich underneath a large chopping board then further weighed it down with a stack of books from my shelves. Among them was the almost 900-page Best American Short Stories of the Century edited by John Updike. I got to the (19)60s a few years ago. After a couple of particularly difficult accounts on southern slavery, I decided to take a break from the collection and have not touched it since. Anyway, if I make pan bagnat again, I will definitely get tuna in oil instead of water and pitted olives (both my mistakes). I should also dry out the tomatoes some more. And ciabatta for baguette perhaps? Fresh marjoram and not dry oregano? But rather than dwelling on the many ways I can do it over, what I really should do is to recreate my Parkville sandwich and maybe stop being so sentimental about it. And resume my reading of the short stories. Moving on to the 70s is a way of moving on too, of sorts. February, 2025.

Eggplant parm: This is Alison Roman’s A Little Eggplant Parm recipe, with corners trimmed, cut, or forgotten altogether. Not the proper parmigiana di melanzane that my friend Andrea, who was from Parma, taught me back in grad school (this method would take 5-6 hours as the eggplants have to be salted, left alone, then fried before assembly. The last time I made it, it was for my first grad school advisor Nancy. Both of us ran low on patience toward the end and Nancy probably wished I’d stick to science instead. The time before that, it was for Giulia, who was from Milan and whom I most definitely had a crush on for a while). Anyway, I cooked the simpler version for Jeff and his family. The eggplants were roasted in the oven before being incorporated in layers of mozzarella and tomato sauce. This first step is important as it removes most of the liquid in the eggplants. The liquid would otherwise make everything soggy, not unlike hiking trail after heavy rain or South Korean movie love stories. Unfortunately, cooking can be full of little unsuspecting mishaps – I mistimed my guests’ arrival and had to leave the final product in the oven a tad too long. This made the surface crispier than I would have liked. The toasted breadcrumbs gave it some texture which some may like though I prefer the smoothness of the cheese and melanzane. Tempted as I may have been, I also included much less anchovies than Ms. Roman does. Not that it changed Jeff’s daughter’s mind in any way. Perching on a chair next to us, she ate strawberries and my birthday chocolate instead. February, 2025.

Pate: Pate (or to be proper, pâté) is one of the few things that the French brought to Vietnamese cuisine in the mid 19th century. Since then, it has become a staple and can most often be found in our sandwich and on breakfast sticky rice. When I think of pate now, I often recall the excellent chicken liver pate made by the grandmother of my closest friend in high school. I actually had it only a couple of times. And while my memory can no longer tell me how the pate tasted or smelled, it has faithfully preserved the satisfaction of eating it. And that satisfaction is how all good pate should make one feel. Another event I might also recall is eating it with sticky rice one morning. I was in my freshman year in high school. The phone rang and there was a brief message from someone I really cared about. She said she was leaving the country the next day to continue high school overseas. It did not come as a surprise. I had known about her plans but asked not to be told of the timing until the last moment. It was devastating just the same. And it would be years until I could eat pate again… Anyway, my local grocery store carries chicken liver so I bought some. I mentioned to a co-worker who is French that I was contemplating making pate. He said if I did, he would make baguettes to trade. I held up my end of the deal. He eventually did, too. I’m not sure when he started baking but by the time he stopped by, it was almost 11pm. On the sidewalk outside my apartment, he gave me a brown paper bag containing two warm baguettes and I handed over a jar of frozen pate, the two of us barely lit under the street lights. I laughed at how suspicious the whole thing must have looked to another person. The next day, a friend came to visit. We talked past midnight. At some point during the evening, the pate and baguettes made their way to the dinner table and we shared. February, 2025.

Goat curry: Another recipe I found while watching a video, this time on a new Vietnamese restaurant in Miami. The chef and restaurant co-owner is this young second-generation Vietnamese with no formal culinary training. He thoughtfully walks through the steps of making Vietnamese goat curry (it must be a southern dish as I never had it growing up in the north). No measurements were given but I knew I could make it. The very first goat curry I had was actually on my trip to Boston with Marie, Chris, Vasiliy (?), and Shelly. We had just started grad school at Stony Brook and were drawn to one another almost immediately. The group had done a trip to the city where we walked the beautiful Williamsburg bridge together. On our second trip a few weeks later, we drove to Boston – my first ever visit to the city. Upon arrival, we stopped for dinner at this place where both New England and New York clam chowders were on the menu. Inexplicably, Marie ordered the New York version and only to be told by our visibly embarrassed waitress that the item was only “a joke”, and apologetically, “not a very funny one”. Only then did Marie realize the cheeky description of the NY chowder which basically asked the diner to get out and take a hike to New York City via the I-95 south. Later that night we ended up at a bar that served really good mac-and-cheese and goat curry. This goat curry was coconut-creamy and spicy. There were also fried plantains which balanced everything out with their subtle sweetness. The next day we went to the MIT campus where Chris enthusiastically told tales of freshman year pranks, and where I insisted with no less enthusiasm on visiting Noam Chomsky’s office. Fourteen years after that trip, our group has now scattered everywhere. Marie and Chris are in the Bay area, Shelly back in Canada, and Vasiliy in Portland teaching at his alma mater Reed College. Perhaps that’s why when I gather flavors from all these different places to cook this curry, it feels almost like I’m trying to put back something that has come irreparably apart. February, 2025.

Pasta alla puttanesca: This one came from a Jamie Oliver’s cookbook I bought during college. Jamie Oliver was all over the TV then after his Naked Chef series. I first made it for my college advisor Dr. Kerkman when he came over for dinner. He was (and still is) quite a colorful character so it was a bit of a shame that the dish turned out to be rather boring. I probably enjoyed Jamie’s explanation of the dish’s name more than the actual food itself. Several years later, I made it again for our March for Science in DC. I was a very poor grad student then. My friend Rachel and I had decided to bring food along so we wouldn’t have to spend money. On the morning of the march, Rachel somehow slept through her alarm and my frantic phone calls. I ended up on the bus to DC by myself with a container of pasta alla puttanesca on my lap. An hour into the bus ride, back on Long Island, Rachel woke up and immediately raced after us in her blue Mazda hatchback. She eventually caught up after I’d got off the bus and waited at a service station on the New Jersey turnpike. Upon spotting me, Rachel beamed, ran, and gave me a tight hug before making a beeline to the restroom. I don’t know why I thought the dish was a good idea for a road trip but there we were, eating pasta and listening to The Cardigans as Rachel later drove us back on I-95 in the rain. Anyway, for a long time I had this nagging suspicion that I didn’t do the dish justice. Then, during my postdoc, I gave it another try. This time, penne was replaced with spaghetti, and a lot more red pepper flakes were added. The chili flakes, along with garlic, were let to simmer in anchovies and olive oil for a while to extract and marry their flavors. The result was lovely and spaghetti alla puttanesca soon became my favorite of all Italian dishes. It’s not surprising why I like it so much. The sauce is rich in spiciness from the red pepper and tang from the tomatoes and capers. For as long as I can remember, my palate has always been partial to spicy and sour flavors. In Vietnam, coincidentally, we use the same two words to describe the hardships of life. February, 2025.

Vegan gyoza: I share my food with others and no other dishes have been shared more than gyoza and dumplings. I first learned how to make dumplings in grad school. For a couple of years I was a vegetarian (eggs were off the menu too, much to the dismay of my friend Meg, who liked to cook for me). In place of the usual ingredients, I used diced carrots, cabbage, tofu, and mushrooms. They were decent enough that I mentioned to my (second) grad school advisor who soon invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner with her family. Her mom, visiting from Hong Kong at the time, was curious about this vegan dumpling. So we made it together. The old lady insisted we make the dumpling wrappers from scratch, which I struggled to do, having almost no prior experience in handling dough. We did not talk much to each other due to the language barrier. But my seasoned cooking partner was animated in her movements and in her frequent and emphatic “no! no! no!” in response to my wrapper making. Years later, once again a vegetarian in my postdoc, I would come up with another version with impossible burger instead of tofu. The napa cabbage is still there but the carrot now has been replaced with chives. It is probably closer to Japanese gyoza than Chinese dumplings now. The dumplings are also pan fried instead of steamed. I’ve made them for my YPA friends, for Jeff and Thea (while their year-old daughter was learning to crawl on my carpet), for Milena when she was too busy to cook, for Martin, Fabian, and Matt for a Germany’s football match, for Renate and Oliver, whom I now miss dearly as they’ve returned to Germany… I once made them for Sophie’s birthday. It was the day before Halloween. Friends from her chamber music group came over. I glanced at the violin hickey on Sophie’s neck and wondered why I’d never run my fingers over it. A few days later, I dropped her off on campus. Before heading to her building, Sophie turned back and smiled her smile. I waved then started the car toward my own. And soon, our journey diverged. February, 2025.

Hillbilly salmon pasta: Another from my KC days. Danny cooked this dish for me and then taught me how to make it. First, you simmer garlic and castelvetrano olives in olive oil for an unreasonably long time. The idea is to infuse garlic into the oil – that’s obvious. Why you would want to (or whether it is even possible to) infuse olive into olive oil is less easy to see. But like most of Danny’s cooking during this period (college and a couple of years after), it’s best to enjoy without asking too many questions. Anyway, after a while you add in canned salmon and heavy cream (?) then stir until everything is thoroughly mixed. Cooked pasta, preferably spaghetti, and a lot of black ground pepper subsequently go in. The dish is served immediately with a sprinkle of banjo music as a garnish. It was sort of my go-to dish for a time. I even made it for Sarah. We sat and ate outside the French doors. I looked at her while she smoked silently, looking away at the trees in my yard. Not long after, Sarah left for Seattle. I left us behind too, for the other side of the country. On Long Island, something of a new chapter began for me. During the first month, I stayed at this house and waited for my rental place in Sound Beach to become available. John, the 40-something-year old house owner, occupied one room and rented the other three out to various characters, usually for no more than a few months at a time. At this point, unbeknown to his tenants, John had stopped paying his mortgage and in a year would lose the house to foreclosure. The other two renters were Regina and Robin. Regina had a cat and a heroin habit which soon became the reason why we all locked our bedroom doors while out. Robin had just separated from her husband who was a cop and who apparently drove by the house a few times out of jealousy (John admitted to/boasted about a relationship with Robin). John, who had quite a sense of humor, and I got along well. One night I cooked the pasta and invited everyone to try. The food was so magical that Robin wept. Regina quit heroin on the spot as life was worth living once more. John went back to his room and sat fire to himself as he knew he’d never experience anything that beautiful again… But of course, none of this happened. In truth, I ate by myself and the entire house smelled of cooked salmon for hours after. The next morning, I came in the kitchen and was cheerily greeted by a couple notes on the fridge written in John’s chicken scratch. One said, “Robin, teach Le how to cook”, the other, “Keep Le’s black ass out of kitchen!!”. It never occurred to me till I wrote this very sentence that John may have been colorblind. In any case, I took a picture of the notes and have kept it to this day. March, 2025.

Roast chicken: I’ve roasted chicken a few times – my preferred method would be water-brining the chicken overnight with herbs and spices beforehand. But this is not the roast chicken I’m thinking of. Rather, it was the roast chicken Tanya, Scott, and I would treat ourselves to almost every Sunday morning while living in Springvale South. There was a chip shop near our flat – this (the chip shop, not our flat) was where I experienced the proper Aussie chips-salt-vinegar-in-newspaper for the first time. After a while the shop started cooking and selling roast chicken. We would get an entire bird and “a shit load of chips” (I can still hear Tan saying this in her chirpy and slightly amused voice). That was our breakfast and lunch, sometimes even dinner. For a time before that, Scott and Tan did not have stable jobs and I was just starting to save up during my time at Monash. We couldn’t afford anything decent so Maggie, Scott’s mom, would stock our fridge with bags of frozen chips, fish sticks, and chicken schnitzel. These three were our formidable foes which I soon came to dread. For a few nights a week, Tan would chuck a handful of each on a tray, stick everything in the oven for half an hour, then leave them out on the kitchen counter for us to grab (or ignore). We were nevertheless grateful for the free food. Things began to look up though. Tan found a job at a video store in Noble Park, Scott became a regular courier driver, and I quit Parisien Bakery, where I’d met Tan, to work 3rd shift at 5-Way Foods which paid an incredible $16.75 an hour. We also moved from Cheltenham, after our neighbor threatened to kill us, to Terry’s (Scott’s dad) former flat on Athol road in the significantly less sketchy Springvale South. Our dinner similarly got upgraded from free food to KFC, sometimes even Nando’s. Then the local chip shop began selling roast chicken. For the two and a half years living together, not once did the three of us ever visit a proper restaurant. Yet, I don’t think we missed out on anything. And with enough time gone, even the fish sticks and chicken schnitzel don’t seem so disagreeable now as they may have once upon a time. March, 2025.

Mac-and-cheese: It was not a surprise when one day Meg, who loved cheese among other things like bacon, stickers, and poop jokes, took me to S’mac in East Village. S’mac was (and still is) a place that offered really creative baked mac-and-cheese. You could build your own or pick from a menu of different offerings with supposedly French (brie, roasted figs, and rosemary), Spanish (manchego, fennel, and onion), Italian (mozzarella, roasted tomatoes, and basil), or the personally untested American South (pepper jack, andouille sausage, and celery) inspirations… Each topped with toasted breadcrumbs and served in a cast iron skillet. Depending on your culinary persuasion, you may shudder at the idea of something so simple and comforting being made needlessly complicated or, worse, pretentious. I did not. Having recently gone to school in the Midwest, the only mac-and-cheese I’d known then was the college students’ edition, often made with just elbow/shell pasta, butter, milk, and the Agent Orange-looking-and-only-slightly-less-lethal Velveeta. All in equal measure of course. So S’mac, like most of my early days of exploring the city, was a bit of a revelation. And it was inevitable that I would try to recreate some of its menu at home. It’s proved a fun event for a group of diverse eaters. I’ll always start with a base of milk, butter, flour, and an excellent cheddar. To this base, people are invited to add any combinations of cheese, herbs, spices, and once an option of lobster and crab meat. This way, each guest will create their own, based on their preference (and bravery). I also use muffin trays which let everyone have variations of the dish if they so choose to be creative. The trays then go into the oven until the cheese is golden and bubbly on top. I don’t remember how many of my friends have done this – there must be more than a few. It’s somewhat an irony that Meg isn’t one of them. If she were, I imagine she would definitely want bacon, though I don’t know what else she would pick. Or whether she would like her own version more than those at S’mac. Or whether she still remembers that place and how she took me there one distant winter afternoon in New York City. March, 2025.

Lamington: I made my share of lamington while living in Australia. It was part of a job at a bakery, the first of the two (bakery, not job) I’ve ever worked at. This would have been towards the end of my first year at Monash University. After an ill-fated stint as a waiter for a Vietnamese restaurant, I found another part-time job at Parisien Bakery in Richmond. It was a family-run business which supplied local shops pastries and a few savory items, most notably sausage rolls and meat pies, the latter of which I very much loved. The bakery was in this old building, roughly divided into sections for making, baking, decorating, and cleaning. Head bakers were in charge of the mixers, ovens, and machines like the one for making croissants. The rest of us were given various tasks that required any two of the following: fine motor skills, willingness to follow basic instructions, and showing up on time for your shift. And like our tasks, we were a motley group of people. There was the 60-something-year old Pat(rick), your standard wise-and-dignified grandfather. There was Mel, perpetually pissed off and therefore only tolerated by everyone because she’d been there a long time (i.e., more than a year) and quite decent at her job. There was an Israeli who once asked me about my dreams and aspirations (I had none). There was this stereotypical handsome and gregarious Aussie guy who drove a shitty hatchback with the doors permanently unlocked and windows permanently down, and who was always on the verge of quitting to do something with his life. And of course, there were Nick, the party pusher, and little Tan(ya), who always wore stripy baker trousers and a white apron smudged with fresh dough (Tan would shortly become my flatmate for the rest of my time in Melbourne). Anyway, to make lamington, you start with sponge cake, often in the form of large cubes. You then coat these cubes in a layer of warm chocolate and finally roll them in desiccated coconut. If this sounds simple, that’s because it is. As was my life then. I wasn’t doing great in school but my scholarship was not grade dependent. And because of the generous scholarship, I didn’t really need this job either. It was just something I did to avoid being bored or isolated in a new country where I found friendships much more easily formed among the high school-educated workers who hopped from job to job. In short, nothing was crossing my unworried mind. And unlike the lamington in desiccated coconut, I was impervious to most things thrown at me, be it from my fellow workers or the bosses. Nothing seemed to stick. This somehow gained me Mel’s approval after a while. One day Tan found out that Michael, one of the bakery co-owners, had attended Led Zeppelin concerts at least three times in his 20s. We were in disbelief for none of us could reconcile the image of a fun concert-going young Michael with the now-older-uptight-and-decidedly-not-fun manager who would make contemptuous remarks about Tan’s smoking habit and our collective work ethics. “I hope I won’t turn into someone like him. What a wanker!”, Nick once said behind Michael’s back. “Bloody oath!”, replied Tan as she put her stained apron back on and returned from another unsanctioned ciggie break. April, 2025.

Kimchi jjigae: Quite possibly my favorite dish from my second favorite cuisine (Korean). What you need is well fermented kimchi (the sourer the better), a fatty cut of pork, tofu, onion, daikon, gochujang, and a good broth made ahead of time with dried anchovies and kombu. You more or less put everything in the pot at the same time (the tofu can go in later especially if it is of the soft variety which I personally prefer) and cook for 15-20 minutes. The cooking process is relatively simple, which belies the complex flavors of the dish. Kimchi jjigae is served hot, boiling hot, with a side of white rice. Since pork is no longer part of my diet, I now use mackerel or saury instead, which of course makes it mackerel kimchi stew, a dish in its own right. These are strong ingredients but they work wonderfully together. And whether it’s pork or mackerel, the best thing about kimchi jjigae remains the broth. It’s sour, spicy, and earthy; the combination of which wakes you up and at once comforts you. However, the best kimchi jjigae is likely not the one from your kitchen (or mine). It may occasionally be found at 2 in the morning in K Town. A weary traveler gets off a late flight at JFK. The backpack is heavy. It’s been a long journey but instead of heading straight for home, you make a detour in the night to Penn Station. From here, you walk a couple of blocks to West 32nd and Fifth where several restaurants (Kunjip, New Wonjo to name a couple) are still open. Table for one. You pick at the side dishes while waiting. A glance at the next table where someone is trying to sober up with hot food before the morning comes. Then the kimchi jjigae arrives on a small stove lit by a little yellow flame, all bubbles and steam. Was the late flight caused by a missed connection, a lengthy delay, or lack of earlier options? I like to think it was by design after all. April, 2025.

Bánh chưng: There are few dishes as culturally significant as bánh chưng in Vietnamese cuisine. For most people here in the States, Vietnamese food means pho, spring rolls, or banh mi. They may not even have heard of bánh chưng. That is partly because bánh chưng are typically made and consumed only during the Lunar New Year celebration, the most important holiday in Vietnam. To make bánh chưng, you’d need sticky rice and mung beans, both of which must be soaked in water for 24 hours. Also required are thick strips of fatty pork, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper. The ingredients go in layers: the pork in the center, the bright yellow mung beans next, and then the milky-white sticky rice. Everything is finally wrapped in the lush green leaves of the stachyphrynium placentarium plant which impart a distinct but subtle flavor. As bánh chưng is square, the use of a mold is sometimes necessary. And to keep everything tightly in place prior to cooking, four bamboo strings are used. Making bánh chưng was an occasion for our entire family. Dad would be in charge of assembly and cooking whereas mom would certainly be the one preparing the ingredients. Sometime around noon, we would clear the floor of the living room and proceed to scoop, form, pack, and tie for the next several hours. The sweet smell of soaked rice and mung beans would permeate our house. After all said and done, we’d often end up with a stack of 15-20 bánh chưng, each about 2/3 the size of A4 paper and 3 lbs in weight. Half of these typically become New Year’s gifts to friends and relatives. Anyway, for cooking, these go in a pot large enough to be a wine barrel, submerged in water. As this pot would not fit in any typical kitchen, most families simply used bricks to make an outdoor wood-burning stove for the occasion. Right before the cooking started, my dad would sneakily place a couple of mini bánh chưng on top. As the cooking typically takes about 12 hours, this was a rare occasion when I was allowed to stay up all night and help with the fire. The mini bánh chưng, called “turtles”, presumably due to their shape, should finish cooking earlier and therefore would be my treat before the night ended. It’s hard to overstate my excitement and anticipation for the moment when dad finally announced the “turtles” were ready. In some places, kids may find their presents under the Christmas tree in their living room. Here, we find ours by the brilliant and crackling fire in the otherwise freezing cold of January. Sometime during my late teens, we stopped making bánh chưng. It was easier buying them, especially when my parents were getting less and less time off work to prepare for the holidays. And I, entering high school, was also seemingly outgrowing the occasion. But many years later, looking back on the unevenness of my childhood, this is what I think of. When dad flew halfway around the world to visit during my grad school, I hadn’t seen him in 10 years. His dyed hair couldn’t hide how much older he now looked. In the hotel room, he opened his suitcase. In it, carefully packed in a corner was a vacuum-sealed bag containing two bánh chưng. They weren’t turtles but I felt just as I once did as a kid by that roaring fire. May, 2025.

Pizza: October 2022, my new friend Milena and I canoed on Saranac Lake at the beginning of a 3-day camping trip. The lake was dotted with small islands where the trees had started to turn colors. It took the two of us an hour to paddle past them to our campsite. Threading through patches of blooming waterlilies, we marveled at how calm and beautiful everything was. Packed in our canoe were enough supplies to easily last us 5 days. Milena had prepared fresh pizza dough so that night we made pizza on our campfire. In the cooler, we had tomato sauce, along with mozzarella, olives, mushrooms, and bell peppers for toppings. Sitting by the water that perfectly mirrored streaks of the sugar-pink sunset, we agreed that from then on it would always be difficult to enjoy pizza more than this. Many years before the trip, I had a very similar thought upon having pizza for the first time in Melbourne. During this period, I was crashing with a couple of college students in this creaky old house in Murrumbeena. The house was marked by a distinct red moped, formerly used by postal workers, lying on its side in the front yard. On the way home some evenings, I would stop at one of the pizza shops in Carnegie, which was sort of an Italian neighborhood then, and bring home whatever I wanted to try that day. Later during college in KC, I even tried my hand at making pizza. The result led me to promptly decide it’s best left to the professionals, including Pizza Hut. I remember staying at Anna’s parents’ for Christmas break the year before and they ordered Pizza Hut often. I thought if Anna’s dad, a Sicilian American, was okay with pizza from a restaurant chain, who was I to complain?! And I most certainly did not complain about leftover pizza a few years later during my time as a struggling grad student. There was a small pizzeria near our house in Sound Beach. I learned that if I came just before closing time, Carlo, the gregarious Italian shop owner, would throw in on top of my order a few slices of whatever remained unsold from that day. This was also where I learned that a good pizza doesn’t need many toppings, that Long Island has its own version of the pie, and that a man’s distant motherland will never cease its pull on him. I regret not saying goodbye to Carlo when I finally moved away from Sound Beach four years later. Now living in a city that prides itself on pizza, I actually reserve my fondness for a very different kind. The fall before Renate and Oliver moved back to Germany, I would often have dinner at their place. They made pizza sometimes. And since their apartment was on the top floor, it’d get very warm on particularly sunny days. With the oven on, the heat became too much so we had our food in the backyard instead. There used to be grass and trees until the landlord concreted the whole thing over so he could sell parking spaces to tenants. Here, we sat next to cars, surrounded by old houses, powerlines, and weathered wooden fences. A far cry from the trees, the water, and the autumn sunset of Saranac Lake. Oliver would run up and down the stairs to bring freshly baked pizza and drinks to us while Renate tended to baby Lukas. Lukas wasn’t even a couple of months old then. Earlier this week, I got an email from Renate. In response to my previous message about a barbeque I had recently attended, she wrote, “Your BBQ with your friends in the beautiful backyard sounds great – I’m sure we would have liked it as well!! But honestly, I would be happy to just sit around with you even in a boring parking lot and just have dinner and chat – it doesn’t even have to be a beautiful garden space! This brings me back to our pizza dinner which I must admit I think about nearly every time I make pizza here in Germany. I have no idea why, even though we also did a lot of other things and also ate lots of other food, those moments are the ones that somehow stick in my mind”. June, 2025.

Hiking/camping food: I once surprised my friend Katya by how much attention and preparation I gave to my meals on our first hiking trip together. Back in Russia, Katya and her friends would go on long trips where apparently pasta, bread, and some freeze-dried meats were all the food they brought. In contrast, for a mere two-day hike in Vermont, I packed dehydrated rice, beans, salmon, shrimps, along with several vegetables and mushrooms. Katya silently looked with both awe and incomprehension at all the different little Ziplock bags I was pulling out of my bear cannister. For a while before this, I would rely on commercial freeze-dried meals but they were expensive, and at the time, and only slightly better than fasting. Then one year Rocky and Maria gave me a dehydrator for Christmas and immediately changed my life. From many experiments with food dehydration and rehydration since, I’ve learned that if I cook rice in chicken broth before dehydrating, the end product will be really tasty. Beans are also an excellent choice as they become amazingly light after dehydration and cook in minutes. Chicken, on the other hand, will take too long to rehydrate even if I pulverize it into almost a powder ahead of time. Green beans will similarly stay rather chewy – they never quite recover their snappiness of the fresh ones. And red lentils don’t even need precooking or dehydrating at all. Adding some to the rice and beans and you’ll have a quick soup/porridge that is both hearty and difficult to resist. After a day of hard hiking, it was quite satisfying sitting on a log, passing Katya’s flask of whiskey between the two of us while waiting for the food to cook, promised by the steam gently coming up from our bubbling pots. Camping food is drastically different, however. Danny, who introduced me to the outdoors during our sophomore year in college, made sure that whenever I go camping, either with or without him, then, now or 20 years from now, I will always bring fresh sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, butter, and a jug of sweet iced tea. As if this were constitutional law or my cultural heritage. And just to be reckless, he might also allow me to pick up some zucchinis or asparagus. Danny used to keep most of his camping gear in the trunk of his 2004 Impala at all times, seemingly in case he needed to go camping on a moment’s notice. For years, that poor car dragged along tents, sleeping bags, camp chairs, stoves, lanterns, firewood, and an axe everywhere he went, regardless it was a short drive to Walmart or a trip to his parents up in Lathrop. Poking fun at this, I also kept in my own trunk a few cans of peaches as “emergency food”. So on our camping trips, beside meat and potatoes, there would invariably be canned peaches too. For our road trip from KC to Seattle, those were exactly what we had in our cooler. After four days, we reached the coast on highway 101, a couple of hours south of Portland. There was supposed to be a state park for us to camp for the night. But after getting off the highway and losing GPS, we became badly lost. By the time we finally found the park, it was already past 10pm. Tired and in a lousy mood, Danny and I quickly pitched the tent then turned our attention to dinner. And to make the night even more miserable, it started to rain. So instead of firing up the camp stove, we each opened a can of corn and simply ate it in the unsteady glow of the lantern. I still remember tasting the rainwater and how startlingly cold it was. Soon we were in our tent. When the flashlight went out, everything was swallowed by the midnight darkness. I couldn’t sleep. After a while, I began to hear the crashing of the waves. In the dark, we had somehow set up camp with the vast Pacific Ocean just on the other side of the thin tree line. For hours, I listened to this restless and immense echo. Now looking back, I can’t escape the feeling that the restlessness was actually coming from somewhere inside me. My time in college was approaching the end. I had a stable job and a good group of friends. But as if peering into that darkness of the Oregon night, I couldn’t see my future. Only I sensed something was coming, a powerful storm. I didn’t know it then but the storm was merely brewing and would not arrive to sweep me up in its path until a year later. When it finally came, what a storm it was going to be… And Katya, quietly weathering her own rising tide of troubles and homesickness, went into the trees and wept the next day while we stopped for lunch just off a mountain top. July, 2025. 

Beer: The first time I met Artem, it was quite a sight. He was sitting shirtless in our dining room. A laptop opened before him with a chess game on it. Next to the laptop sat a sizable mug of beer. Artem was a big guy – that was part of the striking image. But because of his large frame, he also made the mug look more or less normal. He gave me a sheepish smile when I came in and I instantly found the whole thing comical and yet endearing. Before my previous roommate Anar’s relocation to Boston, he’d sent an email introducing Artem – his replacement, friend, second-year Applied Maths grad student, and someone apparently in dire need of a place to live (I’d later find out Artem had been living out of his office and subsequently got in trouble for it. But that’s another story). Artem never responded to the email. A few months later, while I was at school, he simply showed up at the house, brought in a couple of suitcases, poured himself a beer and waited for me. Artem, who was from Siberia, appeared to have made it his personal mission to uphold the heavy-drinking Russian stereotype. So naturally, within a few months from that shirtless summer afternoon, he asked me if I would brew beer with him. I, who was not much of a drinker, naturally said yes. We ordered a kit online, bought bottles and caps, and procured a bucket along with other brewing contraptions from some mysterious Russian guy Artem knew. The two of us did the prep work then waited for the fermentation to do its job. A week or so later Artem decided it was ready. We filled about 40 bottles and really enjoyed ourselves doing it. There is a picture of me grinning like an idiot as I was using the capper. I don’t know why we never brewed again. Maybe it was just easier for Artem to buy and get buzzed on cheap beer. I even joined in sometimes. We would walk around campus late at night drinking PBR and generally being stupid. Or we would grab Shake Shack then come back to his office and drink Rolling Rock till I turned lobster red. I don’t think I ever became close to any friends quite as fast as I did with Artem. In the spring, we flew to LA and spent the next 10 days road tripping to Seattle. Outside of San Francisco, after a swim in the frigid mid-March Pacific ocean, Artem wanted alcohol before our stop for the night. To avoid getting caught with open containers in the car, we got a pail then poured three beers into it for him to drink on the road. Two days later in Oregon, we picked up a hitchhiker who ran a marijuana farm. He told us about his recent divorce but all Artem wanted to know was the legality of buying weeds in the state. After dropping off the hitchhiker, we headed for the closest dispensary. Artem bought a couple of joints while I waited in the parking lot. He started to light up as soon as he got back out to the car. Within 20 seconds, a dispensary employee was in front of us, telling the two out-of-state clowns that smoking on the premises was not allowed and we needed to get lost. We promptly left but didn’t get far. I soon stopped on the side of this quiet road. Artem got out, and with no small effort, climbed onto the retaining wall into the trees to smoke. But less than 5 minutes later, there he was, tumbling back down at great speed and in full panic. Then I spotted an angry dog in tow. I had never seen Artem move so fast. Apparently, he had wandered into someone’s yard and pissed off the said canine. For the second time, the joint was lit but Artem remained stone cold sober. I was reduced to tears at the unfolding comedy. Life back on Long Island was similarly hilarity inducing. I remember stealing sake from a sushi restaurant owner while Artem provided the distraction. Or the time we found premixed sangria at Stop and Shop for an incredible $3 a bottle. We knew it wouldn’t be any good but didn’t care – both of us were very poor grad students after all. With two bottles (and slightly less groceries than planned), we went back to the house. Our rented cottage sat on a piece of land straddling the side of a small hill. If you stand at the very end of the property, you’d be hidden in the trees but afforded a clear view of the road below. It just happened to be a snowy winter day. So we sat among the bushes, drinking cheap sangria, arguing, laughing, and soon throwing snowballs at unsuspecting cars until our fingers were frozen rigid. And like that, as we clowned our way through the end of grad school. Two winters later, I would be in New Haven starting my postdoc. Artem helped me move. He stayed at my new place for a few days before going off to see his cousin Alexei in Rhode Island then back to Russia for a month. He left all his possessions with me, few as they were. Among them was the plastic bucket we once brewed beer in. One evening I took it out from storage and opened the lid. I wanted to see if the smell of our beer from over two years before still lingered… I must have missed my friend. September, 2025.

Cereal: It is difficult to overstate my disappointment when I tried cereal for the first time as a kid. Until then, I had only seen cereal on TV where happy American kids seemed to enjoy it greatly. It was part of this American life, so colorful, so fantastic, so far, and so foreign to me. In Vietnam, it was common to eat rice or noodle dishes for breakfast – a meal hearty enough to once prepare farmers for a hard day’s work out on the fields. Then Hanoi opened its first supermarket where amazingly cereal was on offer. Mom bought me a box which I could not wait to get home and try. I didn’t know what to expect but certainly not the mildly sweet, dry, and crunchy that Kellogg cornflakes are known for. It did not even taste like corn which I also happened to love. A few days later I attempted to eat it one more time, just in case. With the same result as the first, I wished I hadn’t found out. The rest of the cereal remained in the box and was never touched again. One morning ten years later in Melbourne, I was getting my breakfast ready when my flatmate Tanya expressed her astonishment at how I poured milk in the bowl first before adding cereal. Completely backward and outrageous. But that was how I thought cereal was eaten. Fast forward another decade, I was now sitting in Sarma’s living room. A poster of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake was on the wall. She had just come back from a trip home in London, Ontario. That morning I’d picked her up at JFK. It was such an early flight that I decided to sleep in my office the night before to save 30 minutes off the drive to the airport. I was happy to see Sarma. We had started hanging out more and then texted a bunch while she was away during spring break. Back at her place she offered cereal as “payment” for the ride. I declined and teased her mercilessly for the entire day. Sarma, as she had come to accept my rough humor, responded by being both embarrassed and amused. Later that night we smoked on her balcony overlooking the Long Island sound. The night air was crisp and still. Threads of smoke hung in the air for a few seconds then broke apart into the darkness that draped over the sleepy Port Jeff. She shushed me whenever I was being loud. Her old Japanese landlady downstairs was a light sleeper, she said. But that did not stop our giggles. I looked over at Sarma and started to feel maybe Long Island wasn’t such a terrible place after all. Several weeks later, we hung out again, this time at mine. Late in the evening, I offered to drive her home. She looked at me confused. And hurt. Fast forward again a few years, I was walking in Hell’s Kitchen one day when I got a glimpse of someone before they turned the corner and disappeared. My heart sank. It was Sarma. Maybe she was visiting New York City after moving down to DC for Patricio, another grad student whom she would start seeing during our second year in the program. But deep down I knew it was someone else, and that I only saw what I longed to see. Feeling out of sorts, I called Jimbo and told him. While on the phone, my mind drifted towards the cereal that Sarma offered, and that I never had. December, 2025.

Phở: I recently heard that one shouldn’t ask a Hungarian chef about paprika unless they’re prepared to spend the next few hours hearing about the many ways the spice is produced, graded, and used. If this is true, then I suppose that’s how particular (and quite possibly snobby) Hanoians are about phở. As phở isn’t something you typically serve at home, most people couldn’t even tell you how to make it. Yet, that doesn’t stop anyone from having an opinion about what bones must go in the broth, how chewy the noodles should be, which herbs are absolutely necessary, and which cut of beef counts as traditional. I once watched someone ask a vendor to ladle broth from a specific part of the big, bubbling pot – insisting it was the only section with the right temperature and clarity. In a sense, phở isn’t a national dish at all; it belongs to Hanoi alone. To many of its people, any variations offered elsewhere simply amount to bastardization, naturally deserving condescension and scorn. And like many foods steeped in a region’s history and culture, its relationship with the people is complex, sometimes even dubious. Local vendors have levelled accusations of recipe theft at one another. Families have broken up and fought over tradenames. In 1998, when the news that formaldehyde had been used in pursuit of the “perfect” noodle texture broke, the city was stunned. Many vendors were shuttered for a time, prompting as many calls for culinary soul-searching as for better food safety standards. Because of this pride and this fear of perverting something sacred, I often shy away from cooking phở no matter how much I miss it. Even if that means years passing before I get to taste it again during visits back to my home city. There have been exceptions of course. A couple of years ago, I made it for M. We had visited several Vietnamese restaurants in Connecticut but they all served southern versions of the dish, inevitably heavy with star anise and further deviating with Thai basil, bean sprouts, and thin noodles. It took me several hours to produce something that barely resembled what I wanted it to be. M had a headache and ended up napping until it was time to serve. Afterward, she said it ranked somewhere in the middle of what we recently tried. We cleaned up the kitchen, checked the bird nest on the fire escape to see if the chicks had left, then spent the rest of the evening watching The White Lotus. It was only the second time I’d made phở… The first time was summer 2011, right before I left Kansas City for grad school. KC had been my home for six years and my college friends had become closer to me than my own family. I wanted to cook for them. There was something final about my departure and phở felt like an appropriate choice. I used my friend Bekah’s kitchen as mine had been packed up before the drive to New York the next day. Bekah is the youngest in our group but also one of the strongest and most mature women I know. Certain life circumstances had forged her a stoic bearing – one that belied much tenderness underneath. Bekah, who just had her baby, was a vegetarian, but she ate it anyway. I don’t remember how my first attempt at phở turned out. In my memory, the dinner was blur until Bekah started crying. We hugged goodbye. “I’m not crying because you’re leaving. It’s the hormones. I know you’ll be back soon”, she said sternly to me. Then came a smile through the tears, and I left. February, 2026. 

Repeated ingredients: garlic (x 4), anchovies (x 4), olives (x 4), tomatoes (x 4), chilies (x 3), capers (x 3), parsley (x 2), basil (x 2), ginger (x 2)