It was a month that was, and nearly wasn’t. After a few years of back and forthing with a Taiwanese-American friend, we finally set a date to meet up in Taiwan along with two other friends. I’ve been to other countries in Asia but not to Taiwan, so was anxious to see it. We started off in the south of the island, in Kaohshiung. I stayed at the Hotel Nikko there, which was terrific, but was glad I’d booked a few months in advance as the price rose substantially, which my friend found out when he tried to book a last-minute room there.

We didn’t spend too much time in the city as we were invited to family meals and events, but got to see everything from making rice noodles and tofu skins, to eating shaved ice with various jellies and candied squash and beans.

After three days in the south, I was looking forward to seeing Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Thankfully a few friends who knew Taiwan (and a few readers, too) pointed me toward some especially delicious places in the city.

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I’m not one for “viral” pastries. I’m not inclined to get up at 7am and wait an hour for a cupcake or a “life-changing” cookie — no offense to Butter & Crumble, which indeed looks delicious — but was intrigued by Crispy Milk Donuts and thought I’d brave it.

There was a short line but it moved quickly. I snagged two donuts, but only got one bite of the just-out-of-the-oven donut before being whisked away. At the urging of the friendly doorman at my hotel, who said it was “crack,” which I know is a term we’re not supposed to use anymore (I’m just quoting him), I went back to get the full-on crispy milk donut experience.

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Donuts can be heavy, cakey affairs, but this one was sleek, relatively thin, and lighter than a traditional donut. They dust the donuts heavily with coarsely ground powdered sugar before handing them over while still warm. You really need to eat it right away and it was something I quickly polished off. By the time I was done, my black shirt was covered with sugar.

Knowing I like ice cream, two friends in the pastry world recommended Snow King. I’m not sure why it’s not Snow Queen(s) since it was staffed by three super-nice women, but this is the place to try ice cream that features Taiwanese ingredients and flavors, such as basil, mango, peanut, passion fruit, longan, taro, pork floss, kidney bean, and my favorite, sticky rice (below, right), spiked with rice wine and candied lotus seeds.

When I ordered seven scoops for the three of us, I figured each bowl would be a grouping of two or three smaller scoops, but we ended up with seven separate, generous bowls, and scoops, of ice cream.

We’d just polished off three heaping plates of dumplings that I over-ordered at Takumi Dumplings, but somehow we made it through most of the ice cream.

Sunny Hills

Two other bakeries that I wanted to try were but we love butter and Sunny Hills, recommended by a reader (thx @ rmellorbessant) for their pineapple and apple cakes. They are a specialty of Taiwan, and you can find pineapple cakes in a lot of places, but these were especially good.

One thing that was interesting about both bakeries, which are a short walk from each other, is that they seat you for tea and a cookie, which are free, then (I guess) you buy something. I may have committed a gaffe at Sunny Hills because when I went to pay, they said, “No charge!” which was baffling.

But when I went to the next bakery, but we love butter, before I could buy anything, they sat me down at a table and gave me a cookie and tea. If you go, just be aware that the entrance is designed to look like a classic tailoring shop. Go ahead and step inside, then they’ll lead you to the sleek bakery space.

I don’t think giving away a pastry with a glass of tea is a custom that’s going to make it to Paris (or anywhere else), but I’d felt bad that I didn’t buy any cakes at Sunny Hills.

The cookie (above) was filled with candied longan and made with Échiré French butter. It was so good, I bought two boxes. Fortunately I could redeem myself with Sunny Hills (I was worried they might have posted my picture for the employees, to look out for the freeloader) when, a few days later, I found myself in the food court at 101 Taipei Tower and picked up (i.e., bought) two boxes of pineapple and apple cakes at the Sunny Hills kiosk there. So hopefully I’m off any “watch” list. 😅

And while some people think I eat sweets all day (if only!), I did make it to Din Tai Fung, famous for their Xiao long bao, soup dumplings, considered by many to be the best.

If you go, and it’s definitely worth it, avoid weekends. I did notice their branch at the 101 Taipei Tower had just a one-hour wait time, and I think you can browse in the mall while you wait (on their website, they list waiting times for each branch as well), but they also have a take-out, and I saw people eating their dumplings in the nearby park.

Once inside, it’s very calm and efficient. Din Tai Fung is known for treating its employees well, using high-quality ingredients, and having an exceptionally gracious staff. Their branches in the U.S. have become the top-grossing restaurants in America, and I’m crossing my fingers that one day, they’ll open a few branches in Paris. I jokingly* told a local who I was eating dumplings with at Din Tai Fung that the best raviolis asiatiques in Paris would be considered the lowest of dumplings in Taiwan.

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[*We actually have some good dumpling/wonton places in Paris. A few favorites are Taverne de Zhao, Chen Chen, Jixio’s Buns, Foodi Jia-Ba-Buay, and 21 Dumplings.]

It was a fun trip, and I did a lot in ten days but am happy to be home and getting back to focusing on fresh fruits and vegetables, where strawberries and asparagus are showing up at the markets. When you’re traveling, you’re often eating in restaurants, which is fun, but it’s always nice to cook for yourself, and eat at home, even if I can’t make Crispy milk donuts. (Although some can.)

My friend, travel blogger Matt, says one should travel like you live. But I didn’t have a kitchen in my hotel room in Taiwan, so glad to be back in my own kitchen.

I’ve also been busily preparing for the release of my next book, a full-on revision of The Great Book of Chocolate. So much in the world of chocolate has changed since I originally wrote the book that my publisher prompted me to completely redo it, adding and updating information, recasting some of the recipes for what’s now available in the chocolate aisle at the supermarket, and creating brand-new recipes.

I loved doing this book so much!

Preorder The Great Book of Chocolate

The same dream team that worked on Ready for Dessert added their talents to The Great Book of Chocolate: award-winning photographer Ed Anderson, brilliant food stylists Elisabet der Nederlanden (that cake on the cover😍) and George Dolese, as well as book designer Betsy Stromberg. It’s now available for preorder from your favorite local bookstore or online bookseller now:

There’s a chance that I may be doing some events in the U.S. for it, although the global situation changed the economics and viability of international and domestic travel, so we are working on that, to see what’s feasible. I’ll mention any updates here in the newsletter, as well as on my Schedule page.

But if I don’t make it out-and-about, I’ll be creating some videos for the newsletter, inviting friends into my kitchen in Paris, to make recipes from the book to share with you. I’ll also visit one of my favorite shops in Paris, where the owner will tell us what makes French chocolate so good, and how to buy the best vanilla, which is a natural pairing with chocolate, bien sûr…

-David

A Visit to Staub Cookware Factory in France

I love going to factories, especially ones that make cookware. In the past I’ve visited All-Clad, Le Creuset, and Mauviel, and was the first “outsider” to be allowed inside the KitchenAid factory. So I was thrilled when I was invited with some friends, which included Deb of , , and Irene Wong, to visit Staub, one of my favorite French brands, makers of the iconic enameled cast-iron pots and casseroles.

Located in the north of France, the foundry turns out nearly 1,500,000 pots and pans per year. Almost all of it is made by hand, by three hundred skilled employees.

It was really something to see how the cookware was made, beginning from being molten metal, to emerging as shiny new casseroles, ready to send to cooks and bakers around the world…

I had a great time at the factory and made some new friends as well there, and also picked up a few new pieces to add to my collection. I even got to use the smitten kitchen braiser to make Paris Gnocchi, a favorite recipe of mine from My Paris Kitchen.

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Links I’m Liking

I spoke with Decoder Ring podcast about prunes, and the ill-fated move to rebrand them as “dried plums.” (Slate)

Tesla Diner in LA on the “struggle bus.” (SFGate)

German tourist sues NY taqueria over too-spicy salsa. (The Gothamist)

Candymakers phasing out chocolate in chocolate bars. (The Guardian)

After French tacos, the “Krousty poulet” (chicken and rice) becomes a viral sensation in France…

What lunch is like at the Noma LA pop-up. (Tom Sietsema)

E-book of Ready for Dessert on sale for $2.99 on Amazon, Google Play, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. (Offer may be limited to U.S./for a limited time)

I’m generally not necessarily in agreement with Michelin’s ratings but here they are for 2026 in Paris. (Michelin)

Preach!…someone who feels the same way about soup in restaurants as I do…

…although I give Asian meal-in-a-bowl type of soups a pass, like the beef noodles I had in Taiwan, above, especially if they have lots of noodles or dumplings in them. (Gotofood/Instagram)

We’ve had a spate of hot weather here in California and it instantly turned my attention to lighter eating. In Vietnam, people enjoy noodle soup year round because it comforts and satisfies without weighing you down. Chicken pho is tonic like and speaks to spring more than beef pho. You can make it from a whole chicken using my Instant Pot chicken pho recipe to feed four, or brew a more traditional pho ga in a big stockpot to serve eight.

But if you just want a quick pho for one or two, use my recipe for fast chicken pho (phở gà nhanh). I made it this week it’s splendid — chickeny, fresh tasting, and soulful in less than 45 minutes. It’s so much better than the “instant pho” sold at supermarkets, which you have to doctor up big time for it to be meaningful.

I originally published the recipe in The Pho Cookbook and this week, shared it at my website with lots of bonus tips. Go pho the fast chicken pho recipe and you won’t regret it! 😆

I adore last week’s classic bún chả for how the pork develops a smoky umami and lends those savors to the nuoc cham sauce. That’s the brilliance of the classic Hanoi rice noodle dish. But after spending a week thinking about and developing the recipe for the newsletter, I realized that the meat was simply a conveyor for the distinctive marinade. How could I make a plant-based version that tastes đặc biệt (special)? How could I craft a version that rivaled the meaty original? Do you need meat to make great bún chả?

Substituting an alt-meat such as Impossible Meat for the pork is not good enough. It has a strong flavor that’s not copacetic with bún chả flavors.

For an exciting, wholesome bún chả chay (“chay” means vegetarian in Vietnamese), I turned to tofu and springtime vegetables. I also rejiggered the marinade formula to be naturally vegan and to make the vegetables taste extra good and look very sexy.

At the end of a week of ruminating and recipe testing, I have a great recipe for you! Rory remarked how it perfumes the kitchen with wonderful aromas of caramelization, just like the meaty bún chả does. When we ate the tofu and grilled veggies, they had an uncanny meaty quality. A big veggie win!

Full of sensory razzmatazz, my bún chả chay is remarkably tasty and satisfying without being heavy. Meat does not have to define the dish’s appeal.

It’s also fun to eat because the various vegetables offered distinctive flavors and textures; go ahead and fish around the sauce bowl for different things! The best plant-based dishes fire on all cylinders to hit all your food pleasure points.

I’m so happy to present you with this recipe and all the accompanying elements so you can craft your own head-turning bún chả chay. This successful vegetarian riff underscores a culinary truth: Foundational Viet cooking lends itself to creativity so long as you understand the parameters of a dish.

For instance, with the recipe and insights below, you can:

• Vary the vegetables, depending on what’s on sale or growing in your garden and what you enjoy grilling!

• Serve this version alongside traditional pork bún chả to create an extra special, festive low-meat meal. You’ll thrill vegetarians and vegans while impressing jaded omnivores.

• If you’re calling the classic pork version the “Obama Special”, then nickname this one the “Michelle Obama Special” as an ode to the former First Lady’s health initiative for kids and White House vegetable garden.

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Supermarket ingredients go into this bún chả chay (pronounced “boon chahh chay”) to make it very accessible. If you want to use Asian market ingredients, by all means do. Here’s all you need for your vegetarian bún chả adventure:

• Bún Chả Chay recipe in full text and as a downloadable PDF

• Scalable Vegan Bún Chả Marinade formula and recipe for you to serve 2 or 10!

• Pointers on prep and vegetable butchering to help you succeed

• The same noodle prep video that’s in the meat version so you don’t have to click back (you’re welcome!)

• Ingredient swaps and advance prep ideas to save time

Make bún chả to enjoy Vietnam in your own kitchen, on your own terms!

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This sausage broccoli pasta recipe shows up on my dinner table every few weeks. It comes together in under 30 minutes, my toddler happily eats it, and it’s protein, veg, and carb all in one one-pot meal!  A Simple Version of a Pasta Favorite Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe has always been one of […]

Brighten up your table with these delicious veggie side dishes! Whether you’re searching for the perfect holiday side dish or a fun recipe to inspire your family to eat more vegetables, you’ll find a great option here. We all know it’s true—the more vegetables, the better!

To create this collection, I looked through my side dish recipes and pulled 45 of the most flavorful and popular vegetable-based options. These colorful recipes feature vegetables prepared to bring out their best qualities. You’ll find crisp roasted broccoli, tender sautéed green beans, vibrant raw tomato, and much more.

These healthy recipes will make you fall in love with vegetables. You’ll find springtime options for Easter all the way through summer, fall, and the colder months, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. Enjoy!

Continue to the recipe...

The post 45 Vegetable Side Dishes appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Ham Sui Gok (咸水角) are Cantonese fried dumplings made with a chewy glutinous rice dough and a savory pork filling. You may recognize them from dim sum carts or your favorite Chinese bakery! A Classic Dim Sum Item  The term “glutinous rice dumpling” is one that we’ve used before to describe sticky rice zongzi (粽子), […]

This Pork and Onion Stir Fry is the kind of Chinese home cooking my dad Bill grew up with. It’s a marriage of Chinese techniques and American staples like ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. The result is downright tasty and comforting with a bowl of rice!  A Simple Pork Stir-Fry  This stir-fry has minimal chopping and […]

I've been confabbing with a friend from San Francisco, whose family is Hakka, from the south of Taiwan, to visit the country. And after a couple of years of talking about it, two friends of mine and I finally did it, and joined him there.

I had a bit of trepidation about the trip there since the itinerary was a bit complicated. Fortunately, though, I didn’t book on one of the flights that went through the Middle East, instead booking a KLM flight from Paris through Amsterdam, where there were only two of us going through immigration, and I made it through in record time, so making my connection was my first sense of relief.

Then I flew from Amsterdam to Taipei which, speaking of “relief,” — we were told as we were taking off that three of the bathrooms on our plane, which was filled to capacity, were out of service. So I didn’t drink much on the plane and arrived rather parched, to put it mildly. Shout-out to the flight attendants on KLM who were super lovely and very friendly. I watched two very good movies, Rental Family and Bugonia, which was wild, and had a good meal of what I think was Indonesian food.

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My arrival in Taipei was pretty easy as well; unlike the airport in Paris, there are tons of bathrooms at the Taipei airport — you didn't have to hike twenty minutes and take two flights of stairs to find one. After hydrating myself back to normal, I took a train from the airport in Taipei to the high-speed train station, then another train to Kaohsiung. I arrived at my hotel about 23 hours after I left home. I rehydrated some more, then went to bed, relieved that I had made it.

I don’t know much (or anything, really) about Taiwan or Hakka food, except that in San Francisco, I frequently ate at a Hakka restaurant, which was legendary — except I just read that it closed. But our friend is from this part of Taiwan and told me that because the Hakka were displaced, their food was on the simpler side. And because at one point the Japanese had colonized Taiwan, there remains a moderate Japanese influence.

The next day, I went to a funeral.

It wasn’t actually a funeral but “Tomb Sweeping Day,” when people visit cemeteries and columbariums to clean the tombstones of those who have passed. The columbarium that we visited was packed with friends and families bringing offerings of food. It was touching to be invited and to see how people celebrate and honor their ancestors. Afterward, of course, there was food.

(And don’t worry, all that food that’s brought for offerings gets taken home and eaten. I was also wondering about that…)

My friend’s cousin made lunch for us back at her house. And what a meal it was! There were probably ten or twelve dishes, put together in their humble kitchen, but with great finesse.

We had heaping bowls of fish cakes, and then a cascade of other platters and plates arrived. Braised pork trotters, Taiwanese sausages with fragrant and flavorful garlic greens piled in the middle, fresh shrimp and cuttlefish in the back — and my friend Cal showed me a locally grown star fruit. They are usually green, hard, and unripe, and this ripened one was a treat.

We finished the meal with an alluring soup…

…served from a big pot with cubes of blood-rice sausage and pieces of locally raised chicken (which was “sacrificed” that morning on the farm), spiked with a lot of millet “wine” — which was actually millet eau-de-vie, at 40% (or more) alcohol. It was so strong that my friends and I had a little trouble finishing a whole bowl, but the elders in the room didn’t have any trouble.

Desserts aren’t usually served after Hakka meals, but that didn’t stop us from heading over to the local shaved ice shop.

I fell hard for my bowl of shaved ice, which had layers of candied red and mung beans, as well as chunks of starchy taro root and grass jelly under a layer of snowy, airy wisps of ice.

My absolute favorite part of the 剉冰 were the chunks of candied winter melon the owner spooned on top, with a drizzle of raw cane sugar syrup. The dessert was barely sweet and completely refreshing. We'd ordered three bowls to share amongst the five of us, but our Taiwanese friends didn't want to share, and each ended up ordering their own — and finished them, as did I.

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Well fed, and (finally) well-hydrated (no thanks to that soup!), the next day we visited a rice noodle factory where the layers of rice batter were rolled out by machines, then cut.

Taiwanese people are known for their love of noodles, and we also visited a famous tofu skin "factory" (although it was more like an outdoor workshop) where the soy milk is heated by fire, then poured into trays while it's warm. As soon as a skin forms on top, the women expertly run a long metal cutter to separate the skin from the edges, slip a wooden dowel underneath, and lift off the skin.

Then the skins are left to dry out in the sun until crisp. Even though they're dried, their shelf life is short — just a few weeks — so I didn't bring any home. But the tofu skins from this particular place are very sought after.

I asked if I could give it a try, after a bit of reassurance that I was a baker (so they'd know I wouldn't completely screw up their whole production) — and I got a little lesson:

It took me a few tries to get the hang of it. I was pleating them starting from the wrong end, and the woman who was showing me how to do it told me I needed to speed things up. 😂 I'm sure if I'd spent a little more time with them, which I would have been happy to do, I would have gotten faster and better at it. Watching rice noodles and tofu skins being made made me hungry for noodles. Fortunately, that was our next stop.

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Tofu skins can be cooked and eaten like noodles, presoaked and tossed in stir-fries, or used to wrap dumplings. They're one of my favorite things, and when I was in Osaka, we ate at a restaurant that specialized in yuba, or tofu skins.

At the noodle shop, there was a platter of pig’s trotters, braised eggs, pressed tofu, kombu (seaweed), and some spicy condiments on the table, including jars of fermented pineapple.

Before the noodles, out came a platter of pork intestines covered with slivered fresh ginger. The intestines were a little chewy, but the copious amount of ginger was a welcome treat.

Once all the accompaniments were sliced and presented to our table, I was ready for noodles.

I'm sure some of you may be hovering over the "Leave a comment" button regarding the greenish outer yolks of the braised eggs, but there's a pot of them in every convenience store, bubbling away for who-knows-how-long, and they go fast. So it doesn't seem to bother anybody, including me, since they're pretty tasty.

Then, out came the individual bowls of fresh rice noodles for us, which were topped with caramelized shallots — a popular condiment here — and then you add other condiments such as black vinegar, miso-based soy paste, and chili pastes. (I have this miso soy paste at home, which my Taiwanese-American friend sitting next to me on the train right now, tells me is thicker than what we had here.)

And the White Rabbit black vinegar we used was also a bit of a revelation to me as it was much better than the regular black vinegar I get at the Asian markets back home. It had a tangy, fruity flavor and my friend's cousin poured a little over my noodles, then a little of the miso soy sauce over them, and told me to mix everything up and eat. I added some of the chile sauce and paste as well.

Finally there was dessert (again), and at my request, we went for ice cream.

The menus were all in Chinese (or maybe they were in Hakkanese, the local language?) and while I used Google Camera to do some translating, my friend's cousin took control of the order, and I was glad that she did. She obviously knew what she was doing, and while I suggested we get a few to share, everyone wanted one of their own, customized the way they liked it, with various jellies and candied beans spooned on top and around the rainbow scoops.

I also asked if we could add an almond jelly, which I like a lot. It came served with dragon fruit, papaya, and whole guava (the green chunk, whose skin you eat), with an extra dollop of candied red beans (which I also like a lot) under the ice cream.

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The morning we left Kaohsiung, I planned to stop at Xing Long Ju for Taiwanese breakfast. In France, breakfast isn’t a big thing, and going “out” for breakfast means a café express and perhaps a croissant, standing at the bar in a café. Taiwanese people seem to love to eat, which they do at all hours of the day. Meal times here aren’t strictly defined as they are in France, and if you’re hungry and feel like eating, you eat.

Taiwanese breakfasts include things like cha siu bao (warm steamed BBQ pork buns), eggy pancakes, fan tuan (sticky rice rolls wrapped around crispy crullers, sometimes with meat), and dumplings. Almost over my jet lag, I woke up at 5am and was ready to head over there. Xing Long Ju opens at 4:30am, and just as I was about to head out, I did a quick search to confirm the address and saw they were closed on Tuesday. Zut!

Oh, well. You can’t do and see, and eat, everything — but when I get to Taipei, I hope to have a Taiwanese breakfast, no matter what time it is. Just as long as they’re open.

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A while back, I made some videos of my friend Trigg Brown making Taiwanese-style breakfast items in his kitchen. You can watch them in this post here…

Vietnamese food doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the greatest dishes are ones that taste fantastic but feature minimal ingredients. There’s technique involved but not too much as to make the dish undoable by mere mortal cooks. Bún chả, the Hanoi-style rice noodle dish served with grilled pork that’s cooked two ways, to be among those great dishes. It’s simple and brilliant.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve eaten Vietnamese grilled pork rice noodles bowls labeled “bún thịt nướng” on restaurant menus. You’ve doused it with plenty of nuoc cham. Maybe you’ve also made the salad-y rice noodle dish at home. What’s different about bún chả?

Compared to southern-Vietnamese (Saigon) bún thịt nướng, bún chả uses similar but fewer ingredients but it tastes more luxe and extra umami. Two cuts of pork are used – sliced fatty pork and pork patties, for you to experience different textures and flavors. The meat is juicy and seasoned by a savory sweet marinade, reflecting northern (Hanoi) flavor preferences. Sweet-savory flavors are what you typically taste in southern-style bún bowls.

Northern cooks cleverly craft bún chả’s sauce as an extra umami, delicious veil of flavor on everything that it touches. Despite similar ingredients as a southern bowl of bún thịt nướng, a meal of northern bún chả offers more nuance and depth.

Bún chả also has class. It’s eaten in a languid manner. When traditionally served, the components are served separately for diners to compose smallish bowls of greens, noodles, and grilled pork. Because there’s a certain formality involved, bún chả can be a celebratory one-dish meal or main feature of a complex party menu. In contrast, Saigon-style bún bowls are considered a casual one-and-done dish that you can eat on the run.

A bún chả meal invites lingering and coaxes conversation too. It’s the dish that Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain shared in Hanoi in 2016.

If you venture to Bún Chả Hương Liên in Hanoi where they ate, you can’t sit at their table because it’s enshrined in plexiglass, I hear. However, you can order the “Obama Special”.

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But to be honest, the version Obama and Bourdain ate doesn’t look fabulous: the meat hasn’t gotten the caramelized bits of char that comes from careful cooking and a good marinade. And, in Hanoi there’s a modern convenient method of eating bún chả in a big bowl with lots of soupy sauce (there are fewer dishes to set and wash for the restaurant operator!) However, the sauce is diluted and strangely bland. It’s not what I grew up with or read about in old Vietnamese cookbooks. You can do better!

In fact, you can make bún chả (pronounced “boon chahh”) with supermarket ingredients, if you want! Today’s dispatch equips you with the following for a most excellent bún chả adventure:

• Explainer on how to achieve brilliant bún chả

• Bún chả recipe in full text and as a downloadable PDF

• Scalable marinade chart and recipe for you to serve 2 or 10!

• Swaps and advance prep suggestions to fit bún chả into your life

• Lots of prep tips and ingredient pointers

• Video for noodle prep that you can (and should) use elsewhere to make solid Viet food!

Time to get bún chả-ing.

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Forget canned biscuits. This monkey bread is made with fluffy milk bread dough—real ingredients, perfectly sweet, and the only version you need! What Is Monkey Bread? Monkey bread is a sweet, pull-apart bread made from small pieces of dough rolled in butter, sugar, and cinnamon, then baked together in a bundt pan. The result is […]

Since leaving Korea and living abroad for many years, I’ve come across a few fish that were unfamiliar to me when I lived in Korea. Two of them are whiting and branzino, and I found that they can be especially delicious when cooked with Korean flavors. In a previous recipe, I used whiting to make […]

I’ve yet to fully acclimate to daylight savings time. Have you? If anyone has tips for how to adjust smoothly, please share them! I haven’t gotten a decent good night’s sleep since the time change. I initially blamed it on post-menopause but Rory said that he also had not slept well since we had to move our clocks forward. We know it will pass.

Meantime, Vietnam does not adhere to daylight savings time. My brother, Dan, is vacationing there right now and this morning (his late night), he sent this video of a Hanoi bánh cuốn rice roll vendor:

That is the old school method. It’s tricky and you have to make the rice batter just right and have a special pot rigged up for steaming the batter. The egg is a novelty filling from northeastern Vietnam. Typically, the filling is pork and mushroom, or veggie. My workaround is a much easier rice paper hack published in my book, Ever-Green Vietnamese (see page 77); my mom hailed that bánh cuốn recipe as a game changer.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted Midweek Gems and I’ve been collecting some fun things for your consideration.

💎 Meet me at Viet Book Fest!

Twenty years ago when I wrote my first book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, no one organized Vietnamese American authors. That’s drastically changed, thanks to a younger crop of authors and events like the annual Viet Book Fest in Santa Ana, California. I’ll be speaking on this afternoon panel:

Knowing my fellow authors, it will be a spicy conversation. Join us if you’re nearby.

Check the Viet Book Fest’s full schedule for the full day’s run of show. Organized by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA), Viet Book Fest is FREE but please reserve a ticket through Eventbrite.

💎 Eng’s, a 2026 Beard Award Classic

Speaking of Asian American heritage, many of us were introduced to Chinese food through mom-and-pop restaurants serving up Cantonese dishes. Those spots fed us quickly, affordably, and deliciously yet they often are unnoticed and under appreciated.

This year, the James Beard Foundation announced that it is awarding an American Classic award to Eng’s, a 99-year-old Chinese American restaurant in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York.

What is a Beard Classic award about? It is given to longstanding, beloved restaurants that have enhanced their communities. The restaurant business is hard and longevity is rare. If you last for decades, you deserve a medal, at the least.

Operating since 1927, Eng’s was Kingtson’s first Chinese restaurant. Over the years, it has moved and expanded locations and is currently owned and operated by Tom and Faye Sit. They are the parents of a friend of mine, Jennifer Sit.

Jennifer is one of the best cookbook editors around. But she still has time now and then to put in a shift at Eng’s to help with the dinner rush for dine-in and takeout orders. Her parents are aged but they remain engaged with the business, she’s told me.

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What makes a Chinese American classic menu? So many things. For instance, Eng’s menu includes a pu pu platter and tropical chicken on skewers. There are also Cantonese sub gum stir-fries, which feature a main protein supported by a colorful melange of other ingredients. “Sub gum” is similar to the Vietnamese notion of thập cẩm (a well-curated assortment of flavors, textures and color). On modern Chinese restaurants menus, subgum has been replaced by phrasing like “chicken and mixed vegetable stir-fry'“ which lacks pizzazz.

Seeing Eng’s get the national spotlight warmed my heart so much. There are countless restaurants like it all over the country. They make a difference in their communities by keeping flavors and traditions alive.

Read more about Tom Sit from the Beard Foundation’s awards page and check out Eng’s Restaurant if you’re in the area!

💎 What is a combi oven?

Many of you have expressed interest in multi-use compact kitchen appliances. I’ve been thinking about combi ovens because some of my chef friends adore how they cook with steam (wet) and conventional (dry) heat, or both. Professional combis are expensive but Ninja makes a good, affordable unit for home use. Last week, I purchased one and have been playing with it. There are fourteen (14!) functions so my evaluations will take time.

This combi oven is quirky but it shows promise. I’m impressed after a week, though Rory is on the fence. I like the baking and air-frying functions, thus far. I just wrote up my preliminary experiences and made a couple short videos to show you how the combi oven works. Learn more about the combi oven and weigh in at the website.

I hope you’ve been thinking about nước chấm since last weekend. Coming this Sunday is something to enjoy with your Viet dipping sauce!

These tiny homemade bread crumbs can make a big impact on your meal! They’re the perfect crisp finishing touch on casseroles, salads and more. Follow this recipe to make regular golden bread crumbs, or add the optional seasonings and your kitchen will smell like the best Italian restaurant.

This simple recipe is far more flavorful than store-bought options, and keeps well for months. Use your bread of choice, whether it’s your favorite crusty sourdough or whole wheat sandwich bread. If you have leftover bread that’s turning stale, turn it into bread crumbs to save it for later (or croutons or French toast)!

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I don’t always love blue cheese, but I love this blue cheese dressing. It’s a great introduction to blue cheese if you’ve been hesitant to try it, and a guaranteed winner if you love it. You can use mild cheese, as I prefer, or a more intense blue cheese for a bolder dressing.

This blue cheese dressing recipe is creamy but not too heavy, nicely tangy, and tastes like the best restaurant versions, thanks to the fresh chives and garlic. It’s similar to my Easy Blue Cheese Dip, but ready to drizzle over greens.

Salads are my specialty, and my collection of dressings was incomplete without this classic. It’s so much better than store-bought!

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The food world has been ablaze accusations made by former employees of Noma restaurant in Copenhagen against chef René Redzepi, who is “stepping away” from his position leading the restaurant. Many of us had heard about them for nearly a decade, and while some people have been saying that if the employees were so disgruntled, they should have said something, anyone who’s been bullied, or seen someone being bullied, knows that if you don’t keep your mouth shut, you may be next.

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Inspired by a recent trip to China, this recipe for Chinese eggs with soy bean sauce is a quick, easy midweek dinner that’s savory and super tasty!  Eggs for Dinner Eggs are a great, relatively low-cost source of protein that Chinese families often turn to for last-minute meals. Because they cook so quickly, you can […]

Phew! We sent Cooking Thai to print this week. Like I usually do, I kissed the last review copy and hit “send”; this time I was wearing red lipstick. It’ll be fabulous to soon have chef Pim’s brilliant recipes and techniques out for you all to use. The release date is August 25, 2026.

So, after what do I do after a lengthy stretch of nearly non-stop work? I spent time in my garden, then cooked and played in my kitchen to spark my brain to be extra curious and creative. I bought a new toy — the Ninja combi steam oven, and have been test driving it. The small appliance has 16 different functions! Yeah, it steams up when it cooks but for good reasons. As I progress in trying it out, I’ll report my experiences via the website.

I also made bún rice noodle salad bowls with grilled pork skewers and shrimp. It’s the cover recipe from Vietnamese Food Any Day (see page 197). It’s healthy, fresh, and versatile. I let the skewered meat marinate overnight and it got more tender. The shrimp were grilled shell-on for flavor; we peeled them at the table before diving in. Yes, those are Trader Joe’s fried shallots and roasted peanuts on top, excellent time savers.

Making the bún bowls got me thinking and then rethinking how to make nước chấm well. I’ve been making it for nearly forty-five years, since about the time I was in junior high school. Out of the blue one day my mom assigned me to do it. She likely said something like, “Mẹ cần con pha nước chấm,” which roughly means “I need you to make the dipping sauce”.

I knew the ingredients but there was little guidance. I don’t know if it was a rite of passage for a Viet girl or a test. But seeing as how my mom was put in charge of overseeing her family’s cooks when she was a tween, she likely looked at me and figured that the least that I could do is make rice and the dipping sauce — two fundamental Vietnamese foods that can make or break a meal. She’d already taught me to use the rice cooker so it was my time to pha nước chấm.

In Vietnamese, the word pha means to formulate, mix, prepare, or to make. I messed up so much at first because I was just randomly mixing stuff together — lime juice, sugar, water, and fish sauce. It did not always taste good but my family always kindly gave me a pass.

Nước chấm (pronounced “nook chahm”) defines the final flavors of countless Vietnamese snacks, salads, lettuce and rice paper wraps, noodle bowls, and rice plates. Even when the table sauce wasn’t officially part of dish, it’s an unspoken truth in Vietnamese cooking that the amber sauce is magical. It can transform mundane ingredients, making them say, “I’m Vietnamese!”

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Drizzle, dunk or toss simply fried, grilled, steamed, boiled, or raw foods in nước chấm and they instantly taste special in a Viet-ish way.

If nước chấm is so tricky to make, can’t you just buy it? It’s silly to buy bottled premade sauce, labeled as “nước mắm pha sẵn”, sold at hardcore Viet markets. Who knows how old that stuff is? Who knows what kind of ingredients were used? And, what if you want to make it low sugar, low sodium, or vegan? What if you don’t have citrus around? What if you wanted to keep it for days? Why let someone else determine how your food tastes? The bottle is likely worth more than its contents. Seriously.

A word on words — nước chấm vs. nước mắm

Though the official name of the sauce is nước chấm (literally dipping sauce), Viet speakers often use the shorthand, “nước mắm” to mean nước chấm. Nước mắm on its own means fish sauce but in the context of “nước mắm pha” or “pha nước mắm”, the phrase signals that fish sauce has been diluted, seasoned, and formulated to serve as a table sauce to accentuate other foods.

You’re safest to say nước chấm to a Viet speaker so they are clear that you’re talking about the dipping sauce; reserve nước mắm for discussing fish sauce. However, if you hear someone talking about nước mắm, they may be talking about the pure condiment or the dipping sauce.

Over the years, I’ve made nuoc cham (let’s omit diacritics from here on in so I can type faster 😄) many ways and talked to others how they finesse theirs. I’ve futzed and finessed it to make it on a whim and have written recipes for it. I’ve got tricks and tips to share with you in this dispatch, which includes:

• Three recipes in text plus downloadable PDF for:

  • Classic nuoc cham

  • Make-ahead nuoc cham

  • Vegan nuoc cham hack

• A thorough break down of ingredients so you understand how each functions, how to choose them wisely, how to troubleshoot, plus how to get creative!

To borrow from the Home Depot’s slogan: You can do it. I can help.

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I was in Paris* last week — no, I cannot believe I get to utter sentences like that so casually, either, pinch me — and it was really, truly, and surprisingly spring. The magnolia trees at the Jardin du Palais Royal supplied us with a lace curtain of fluttering pink shadows, the daffodils and hyacinth were popping up from the ground like they’d missed us, and everyone was outside and stayed out until after midnight and this energy climbed inside me, evicted all of the seasonal malaise (turned out I was just cold!), and I did my best to bring all of this warmth and joy back to NYC with me. And despite the fact that my grouchy (sorry, “weathered”) friends tried to warn me that we were experiencing a “false spring” and “don’t fall for it,” la la la, I said, it is spring in my heart now — and in my kitchen, and busted out a warm weather salad. Which is to say: I’m sorry, this sudden cold spell might be my fault.

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This turkey sausage recipe has the perfect balanced seasoning you want in a breakfast sausage—making it flavorful as well as healthy. Leaner than pork sausage and made with real ingredients, homemade turkey sausage is a great way to get healthy protein in the morning!  Making Homemade Turkey Sausage is Crazy Easy There are a handful […]

If you’ve enjoyed the egg bites at Starbucks, here’s how to make them at home! These egg bites have become a staple recipe in my kitchen. Sure, they’re not the prettiest egg recipe, but they’re wonderfully flavorful and silky tender. They’re a protein-rich snack or ready-made breakfast to keep in your refrigerator (they freeze and defrost well, too).

These egg bites are a fun cooking project with a few twists along the way. I was surprised to find cottage cheese in Starbucks’ ingredient list. It’s the secret ingredient that offers a lovely tang and extra protein. Once blended, the lumpy texture disappears, which explains why I’d never guess it was there.

Instead of Starbucks’ sous vide cooking method, we’ll bake the muffin tray on a rimmed baking sheet filled with a small amount of hot water. The steam from the water bath gives these bites a luscious, smooth texture. Without it, the eggs would brown at the bottom and taste more like frittata muffins. It’s a small detail that makes a big difference!

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