Hey there!

A balanced lifestyle combines a little naughty with lots of nice and healthy. With that in mind this week, I have three (3!) recipes for you.

The first is a delicate, fluffy vegan whipped cream topping that’s remarkably sturdy. It keeps for days, if not for a good week in the fridge. It’s texturally lighter than the vegan frosting I developed for the vegan strawberry and cream cake because you want something ethereal when you’re aiming for a whipped cream topping. That said, you also do not want it to deflate!

Why would you make a vegan whipped cream topping? Because the commercial plant-based options for whipping cream are inconsistent and not widely distributed.

If you’re following a vegan diet, the recipe is for your dessert pleasure! Dip fresh fruit in for a simple treat. Spoon it onto a cake or pie for a rich garnish.

If you’re lactose challenged or a curious cook who likes to have a few tricks in your back pocket for emergencies -- the vegan whipped topping recipe is a great fallback for when you need a whipped topping but don’t have regular whipping cream handy.

Get and make the 🆓 vegan whipped cream topping recipe. It’s a knockout, trompe-l’œil.

Poke, a food rooted in versatility

To counterbalance my forays into the land of whipped cream topping, I made some light meals this week. I had a little poke festival. We’ve got our minds on Hawaii with hurricane Lowell bearing down on it. We hope all our friends there are safe.

At the same time, I’ve thought about our grocery trips to the Foodland at the Ala Moana shopping center in Honolulu. It’s one of the fanciest markets I’ve been to on the islands. The poke bar dazzles with so many freshly made, incredible options. And they’re not all made from ahi tuna, as we think poke is chiefly is.

The word “poke” means “section” or “to slice or cut”. Hawaiians have been poke-ing various kinds of fish for centuries — long before Captain Cook arrived in the 1700s to ‘discover’ the islands.

Using reef-caught fish, locals would cut or scrape the flesh from the fish bones (this scraping is a technique that’s common in Southeast Asia to make fresh fish pastes). The Hawaiians would flavor the fish with sea salt, umami-laden fresh seaweed (limu), and ‘inamona, a seasoning mixture of salt and pounded candlenuts (candlenuts are also used in Indonesian, Malaysian, and Peranakan (Nyonya) cuisines).

Think about the shared Asian Pacific cooking techniques and ingredients and you realize how seafaring people exchanged ideas across the oceans over time. The concepts are simple yet brilliant for putting fresh food on the table.

Obviously, poke evolved over time and purists love the Hawaiian-style poke prepared with seaweed and ‘inamona. But the prevailing poke nowadays, as chef Sheldon Simeon writes about in his book, Cook Real Hawai’i — is shoyu poke, poke seasoned with soy sauce and a myriad of other ingredients, depending on your taste and mood.

Learning to poke from a local

I learned to make poke from Kiki Aranita, a Hong Kong and Hawaii-raised chef who now lives in Philly. She’s known for smartly adapting island flavors on the mainland.

We chatted for a Food & Wine article years ago and she taught me her basic framework for making poke and shared her recipe for a delicious ponzu and ginger salmon poke seasoned with a bit of shiso. Vietnamese shiso (tia to) is totally fine, Kiki told me. It’s easy to find at Vietnamese markets and is affordable.

And, there are many ways to enjoy poke. For a casual wine and snacks get together, my friend Lori, a PTFS subscriber and Kauai native, served poke as a pupu (appetizer, small bite). She distributed chopsticks and we noshed on her poke selection, shelled and nibbled edamame, drank lots of wine and caught up! Or, you can have poke as a rice bowl. I like to make poke lettuce wraps too. How do you like to eat poke?

Leave a comment

This week’s poke exploration yielded three renditions — I’m not ready to premiere one of them quite yet. Look for my roasted vegetable recipe coming soon! The two quickies are:

1. Kiki’s Ginger Ponzu Salmon Poke

2. Andrea’s Tofu Poke

Poke is fresh tasting, healthful, and casual. When made with tofu or a cooked ingredient, it keeps well in the fridge too, for meal prep and snacks. Below you’ll find discussions on

• Basic parameters for making and serving poke

• The two recipes in full text and downloadable pdf

• Ingredient sourcing plus substitutions (Do you need Hawaiian seaweed and candlenuts? How to buy salmon that’s safe to eat raw?!)

• Variation suggestions

Let’s unleash your poke-mania!

Read more