Welcome to beautiful Orcas Island, WA
This weekend, my husband and I slipped away to Orcas Island to celebrate our friends’ Jamie and Chelsea’s wedding. We arrived just before 9pm on Friday, after a stressful six hours on the road and the ferry. (Traffic from Seattle to Anacortes during the summer season is as bad as [...]

Vegetarian Yuba Rolls stuffed with Shiitake mushrooms and Bamboo
Yesterday marked the end of Day 3 of Meatless Week–a one-week challenge to lessen my carbon footprint by going vegetarian. I felt a little more energetic yesterday, and managed to do a training run despite the heat. The temperature here in Seattle climbed up to 83 degrees [...]

Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies from Food52
It’s Day 2 of Meatless Week on The Cookbook Chronicles. I felt extremely fatigued today, and had to take a nap after work. Also, I didn’t have the energy to go on a run, despite some serious carbo-loading. I felt similarly tired during my last Meatless Week back in [...]

flaky daikon pastries for Meatless Week
It’s Day 1 of Meatless Week here on The Cookbook Chronicles. Despite a rather heavy Monday workload, I managed to get into the kitchen and recreate one of my favorite Shanghainese dim sum items: daikon pastries.  These golden brown parcels of goodness consist of soft, sweet, shredded daikon, folded into [...]

Ohagi (red bean in pounded sticky rice)
Good morning, dear readers! Today marks Day 1 of Meatless Week here on the Cookbook Chronicles, where I’ll be eschewing my favorite food group for a full seven days in an effort to decrease my carbon footprint. (You may recall I did a Meatless Week on the blog a [...]

crisp-crusted Margarita pizza on the grill
This past weekend was a full of incredible eating: I judged a burger contest (photos to come), attended a fun wine event in Bellevue hosted by El Gaucho, had dinner at How to Cook a Wolf with my neighbor, and went to a pizza grilling party at a friend’s house. [...]

Country-Style terrine, pg. 80
(all photos in this post were taken by the talented Jackie Baisa)
Way back in January of this year, a group of friends and I formed a cookbook club, the premise of which was simple: the host chooses an interesting cookbook, and we all select one dish to prepare and share at a [...]

Gluten-free banana cakes
With more and more friends eliminating wheat from their diets, I’ve taken to baking more gluten-free items for parties. It is nice to be able to serve a birthday cake without fear that someone might fall severely ill, or suffer any discomfort after sharing in a special moment for a friend’s big day.

moist, [...]

Happy Anniversary

to the love of my life.

(Taken in Chicago on our first anniversary…)

(We had five lunches, and a dinner that night. What a way to celebrate!)

Taken a week ago. Photo by Jackie Baisa.
Looking forward to a lifetime of meals with you.

the flakiest egg tarts at Empire Seafood
One of the fondest memories I have growing up in Richmond B.C. is sitting around the dim sum table with my family every week. The noise and excitement of it all was enough to make any child dizzy. My siblings and I would watch wide-eyed as the ladies in [...]