Month: September 2024

Take a Bao (#376)

Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. I should probably be writing about mooncakes, which are traditionally gifted during this week. But let’s face it–mooncakes just aren’t that tasty.  You know what Chinese food is tasty? Dim sum.

At dim sum, where servers push around carts of food, the fried sesame balls known as jian dui are my personal favorite. Andy, Dalton, and even my Lawyer Sis all prefer nai wong bao.

Nai wong bao is also known as a pineapple bun, although no restaurant actually puts pineapple in them. (Except for this one chain called Lunasia, which serves the closest dim sum to us but which Andy has deemed “a travesty.”) White people nicknamed nai wong bao “pineapple buns” because of the roughly hexagonal scale pattern cut into the dough and because nai wong bao is “so hard” to say (especially compared to words like “onomatopoeia” and “Worcestershire”).

Inside the soft bun (bao) with a cookie like topping is yellow (wong) steamed milk (nai) custard.

Nai wong bao is the reason our family is at the dim sum restaurants before the doors open. I don’t think I’ve even been to a place where they didn’t run out of nai wong bao…except for Lunasia, of course. Dalton alone can eat three of them AFTER stuffing his face with three entire orders of har gow (shrimp dumplings).

I’m not sure why there’s never enough nai wong bao. You’d think restaurants would make more of them, especially when the ingredients are simple and inexpensive, especially compared to har gow. Maybe it’s the proofing time? Or the space they take when proofing?

Maybe it’s all a ploy to get customers in early.

Andy was recently in Hawaii, visiting his mom. But Andy and his mom, unlike his East Coast wife, do not always have their eyes on the clock. They went to dim sum almost daily, but not when the doors opened. And each time, the nai wong bao was all gone.

Sad.

By the time Andy got back to LA, he had decided he would make his own damned nai wong bao. He consulted his bread baking book and YouTube. Then he got to work:

Nai wong bao prior to baking

They turned out pretty well.

The finish nai wong bao cooling

I posted pictures on Instagram. Midwest Mark immediately demanded the recipe. Betsy of Motherhood and Martial Arts mocked Mark, rolling her emoji eyes and implying he was dreaming if he thought he could actually make them. Mark then insisted that the gauntlet had been thrown and called for a “Blogger Bakeoff.” He’s been hounding me for the recipe on his blog and on Instagram.

I suspect Mark’s envy of our neighborhood cooking contest is the driving force behind his desire to show off for a bakeoff.

Betsy is having none of this. She has done entire posts about how baking is her Waterloo and refuses to pick up Mark’s gauntlet.

But here’s the recipe Andy used, should any of you choose to accept it!

I look forward to hearing about Mark’s adventures in the kitchen.

The Final Contest (#375)

Yesterday was the last neighborhood cooking contest. The last chance for all the bragging rights.

My husband Andy, amateur chef extraordinaire, was going to make orange peel chicken in his wok. (And also make a huge mess of the stove.)

Our son Dalton announced his plan to make crème brûlée lemon bars—hoping to torch my dreams of dessert domination.

Those crème brûlée lemon bars were formidable. But I wasn’t worried. Dalton is not a patient child.

Last week, when he trash-talked about how he was going to beat me, I laughed and said, “You’re gonna TRY. Those bars are a long, multistep process. First you have to make shortbread, then the custard. Then you have to refrigerate them for a day, then you cut them, and only then does the blow torch come out.”

I was more worried about my own recipe choice than Dalton’s. I usually plan a dessert that’s tasty as well as pretty. Piped frosting on a crystal display plate had helped me always win in the appearance category if I didn’t win for taste.

I might have switched from my original plan of lemon cookies to lemon cupcakes or a cake with lemon buttercream frosting, but:

  • We all got COVID & flu booster shots on Friday
  • Andy’s coworker was also having a party that weekend
  • My knee was still a mess

Booster shots wipe me out—especially the COVID one. Getting the vaccination is still way better than having COVID, but I always spend the following day with aches, fatigue, and extreme irritability. I also get a lemon-sized lump in the lymph node in my right armpit.

Which, given the citrus theme of this year’s cooking contest, seemed appropriate.

Since we had two events to go to and I felt miserable on Saturday, I opted to make one giant batch of lemon cookies instead of two smaller, prettier desserts. I debated waiting until Sunday, when I knew I would feel better, but Andy needed the kitchen then.

If we’re both in the kitchen at the same time? Disaster.

There’s not enough counter space, one of us uses up all the dish towels (ANDY), one of us (me) inputs a new time on the microwave timer without realizing it was already in use, and of course we get in each other’s way. Once, before a dinner party, Andy set the oven to broil while I had loaves of bread baking.

I reacted…poorly.

I now make sure we work in shifts. I usually do the desserts first, since those keep better, before yielding the kitchen to Andy.

My rolling station

So I dragged my aching self (and the inevitable lemon under my armpit) into the kitchen on Saturday afternoon. It was the first time I’d spent hours in the kitchen since my knee injury. I wound up sitting at the dining table to roll the balls of cookie dough in sugar, rather than standing at the counter.

But I successfully made 72 cookies (and successfully defended about 65 of them from a marauding teenager).

Dalton shocked no one by deciding that the lure of the blow torch was not strong enough to overcome two days slaving in the kitchen. He played video games unless called to wash dishes.

Andy took over the kitchen on Sunday…with so much swearing. Turns out, Andy accidentally bought chicken thighs WITH bones instead of boneless ones. Then he cut himself de-boning the chicken. Never a planner, Andy hadn’t allotted extra time for disasters. His orange peel chicken barely made it to the party in time for judging.

Andy’s orange peel chicken

The party was a lot smaller than in previous years. Andy’s main competition in the savory category was lemon chicken piccata (not bad), a lemon chicken salad (not good), and classic Fillipino pancit.

The competition

The dessert table had lemon bars and a lime coconut sheet cake that had no flavor (though it looked pretty).

My cookies and the cake, lemon bars off to the right.

Even though far more of my cookies disappeared than lemon bars or lime cake, mom and a daughter from a big family had brought the cake and bars.

I wasn’t surprised when the hostess came over and said, “I’m sorry, Autumn, you came in third this year.”

“Last,” I corrected. “There were only three dishes. So I came in LAST.”

I went to a dark corner and questioned my life choices (i.e., sulked) while the hostess awarded the prize for appearance to the cardboard coconut cake (no, I’m not bitter!) and gave the lemon bars first place for taste.

The pancit won for appearance in the savory category. Andy, of course, won for taste.

Andy’s winnings

His prize? A timer shaped like a lemon and dish towels.

“More dish towels!” Andy rejoiced. “And a second timer for our kitchen.”

“Yay,” I agreed. “I still refuse to be in the kitchen with you at the same time, though.”

“I didn’t burn your bread on PURPOSE!”

            ************************

While I hate losing (especially to cardboard cake), it was fitting that we closed out the final cooking contest the way we started it, more than a decade ago: Andy won it with the best food.

Or did he?

At the end of our second party last night, multiple guests asked to take home my remaining lemon cookies. And ONLY the lemon cookies.

Andy, meanwhile, had to persuade the host to keep the leftover orange chicken.

So there.

One Lemony Life (#374)

Every year, my neighborhood has a cooking contest on Labor Day weekend. Contestants are supposed to use a different ingredient or theme each year.

Someone from our household always wins. At first, it was my spouse, Andy. Then I dominated with desserts (yes, I got potato into a chocolate cake). In an effort to give other contestants hope, our hostess went from having a single winner to giving two awards: one for savory dishes and one for sweets. Andy rallied and crushed me in the sweets category. Point made, he returned to his own, savory lane. We kept winning, and the hostess decided to award two prizes in each category: one for taste and one for appearance (and no entry was allowed to win for both).

Last year, we took home a beautiful set of pasta bowls: Andy won for taste in the savory category with pork ragu and homemade noodles, while I won the sweets with haystacks made out of faux noodles.

Sadly, this year might be the last contest ever. The host’s health is failing and the hostess is uninspired. She called a few weeks ago and said, “Autumn, I am out of ideas for a theme or ingredient.”

I was outside, trying to catch our cat, who was hiding under the lemon tree. “How about lemon?” I suggested, diving for the cat. “Everybody in the neighborhood has a lemon tree.”

I missed the cat. The hostess responded with, “Great idea! Although, lemon is a little limiting isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you might just get a bunch of lemon bundt cakes,” I agreed, as the cat streaked over to our (even bushier) grapefruit tree. “Maybe you could make it more general and go with citrus?”

“That’s perfect!”

Eventually I wrangled the cat inside and got the party invitation:

I swear, my citrus suggestion had nothing to do with the fact that I had a kick ass lemon cookie recipe from my kick ass niece.

Andy’s crème brûlée lemon bars.

I was actually a little worried about suggesting lemon, because Andy, in an effort to use up all our lemons, had experimented with everything from lemon possets to lemon crepes. Worst of all, he made crème brûlée lemon bars on a shortbread crust. That dessert would be unbeatable. Steps would have to be taken.

Steps began at dinner that night.  I opened with, “So, honey, our neighbor called because she couldn’t think of a good theme for the cooking contest this year. I suggested citrus. Now you can crush everyone with your orange chicken.”

Andy nodded. “Sure. But the tree doesn’t have oranges anymore and we still have lemons.”

“Yes, but I’ll be using the lemons for lemon cookies.”

“How many lemons do you need?”

“Oh, a lot.” I only needed two of our giant lemons. Andy didn’t need to know that.

“But the tree still has a couple dozen lemons.”

“Well, some neighbors have asked for a few already.” This was technically true; one grandma needed two lemons for a lightbulb project she was doing with her grandchildren.

“I only need one for crème brûlée lemon bars, though—”

“Motherfucker, you stay in your lane!”

Andy laughed. “Okay, fine. Orange chicken it is.”

Our teen son Dalton smiled sweetly as he asked, “So Father, can I have your crème brûlée lemon bar recipe?”

I glowered at Dalton. “Traitor.”

Dalton grinned evilly.

“I’m gonna beat Mom AND I get to use the blow torch.”

Stay tuned: contest today, update tomorrow!