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November 02, 2012Getting Rear-Ended, Making Tofu with Cooking Light, Visiting Birmingham
I just got home from an eventful week of travel. I firstheaded to Santa Monica to lead a farmer’s market tour and do a tofu cookingdemo with the Gourmandise School;I also taped a radio segment with Evan Kleinman of KCRW’s Good Food and visited with Bee Yinn Low to prepare her family's laksa noodle soup.
The night that Iarrived in Los Angeles, I got rear-ended coming home from dinner with my friend Victor Fong.No one was hurt but ironically, right before I realized that the carapproaching me was not going to stop, Victor was saying how my 2001 HondaAccord was in such great shape. Then I realized that the vehicle behind us was notslowing down. I took my foot off the brake to absorb the shock of whatever thatwas coming.
Anna, the young woman driving the Nissan Sentra that hit my carfell apart crying, having had a flashback to a fatal accident involving her littlebrother. She didn’t have her license with her, was driving a borrowed vehicle, didn’thave the car insurance information, AND had just moved to Los Angeles. Shecalled her father in North Carolina and handed me the cell phone to talk tohim. Oye, I felt bad for her fragile state. What an LA story.
Remembering what a kind woman had told me a few weeks earlier when, in aWhole Foods parking lot, my shopping cart rolled away and dinged her car hood,I said to Anna, “Everything will be okay. It’s just a car.”
The next day, I went to a body shop for an estimate and to makesure I could still safely drive the car; eventually, I had to drive back toSanta Cruz. Figuring that I’d get an honest answer, I asked the estimator,“What would you advise me to do if I were your sister or mother?”
He responded with these memorable takeaways:
A car’s actual bumper is an unattractive pieceof rebar (metal). That’s what protects you. What we think of as a bumper isjust decor. Mine looked sad but not bad.There can be hidden/unseen damage so don’trely on a cursory visual estimate. He refused to give me an estimate. However,he did me the favor of looking underneath my car and saw that there was awrinkle in the rail/frame (a costly thing, sign of hidden damage). When you’re far from home, check to make sureyou can drive your damaged vehicle home to get it repaired there. At a stop, look in your rear view mirror.The car accident has been a minor inconvenience, mostly because Ihave to deal with folks in another time zone and a rattling muffler that lovesto make noise in slow traffic. But I just reminded myself that it’s just a car.A week after the accident, I am home and the insurance process has inchedforward.
DIY Tofu @ Cooking Light Headquarters
Part of the week’s travel led me to Birmingham, Alabama, where CookingLight magazine headquarters are located. I’d never been to Alabama andfound it to be lovely and low-key; they like to keep it that way, I was told. Theleaves were showing their fall colors.
Executive food editor Ann Pittman invited me to demoand teach her and the staff a few Asian cooking techniques. We came up with alist of things to cover, including homemade tofu. I brought my favorite soybeans andsoaked them overnight in an ice bucket in my hotel room; the next day, Idrained and transported the plump beans in the plastic bag that I found in the ice bucket.
At the Cooking Light testkitchen, I set up 4 stations and had people make soy milk and tofu fromscratch. As editor Phoebe Wu suggested, I had the grouptaste plain soy milk because most of them had never unadulterated, fresh soymilk; they assumed that it was like Silk, the stuff sold in boxes. They drankup nearly all the medium soy milk that was made, deeming it delicious.
When people unmolded their tofu, recipe tester and developerRobin Bashinsky marveled, “I never thought you could make tofu. I assumed itjust came in a tub!” I left a mold and some coagulant and beans for him and Phoebe to tinker with. They both said they wanted to make tofu again.
Ann posted a recap of the DIY tofu session on the magazine’sblog. I loved that she wrote this: “From start tofinish (well, after soaking dried soybeans overnight), it only took about anhour and a half. And it was So. Much. Fun.”
It was. We were like a bunch of kids in thekitchen, exchanging knowledge and trying new things. Their virginal reaction to making tofu was like mine a few years back:It seemed like such a miracle to derive a delicious food from a little bean.
Birmingham Eats, Drinks, and Museum
Cooking Light staffers were new to making tofu as much as I was new to Birmingham. They hosted me with generous southern hospitality. We had tart-sweet Alabama barbecue at Dreamland because their other favorite spot, Saw's was closed on Sundays. The unassuming John's City Diner downtown had well-prepared sandwiches and southern sides; Ann and I went there for lunch.
Birmingham's vibrant food scene is partly led by chef/restaurateurFrank Stitt, and we went to Bottega for dinner one night. Beverage-wise, Good People makes a refreshing cannedIPA. My hotel was fortuitously across from the Red Lion Lounge, the epitome of a cheap dive bar, I was told. Indeed, it was an interesting scene. A Costco-size bottleof Tums sat on the bar for customer’s convenience and my draft Bud Lite was $2 athappy hour.
Birmingham played a pivotal role in the 1960s Civil RightsMovement, and Ann accompanied me to the Civil Rights Institute. It was locatedacross from the historic 16th Street Baptist church that was bombed in 1963. Goif you’re ever nearby or in Birmingham.
I flew back to Southern California on Tuesday night, and my momhad dinner waiting. On Wednesday, I drove seven hours home. The mufflerrattling wasn’t bad on the highway. I also cranked up the stereo.
Got tips on dealing with car accidents or good eats/drinks in Alabama? Let us all know.
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Comments Getting Rear-Ended, Making Tofu with Cooking Light, Visiting Birmingham
I just got home from an eventful week of travel. I firstheaded to Santa Monica to lead a farmer’s market tour and do a tofu cookingdemo with the Gourmandise School;I also taped a radio segment with Evan Kleinman of KCRW’s Good Food and visited with Bee Yinn Low to prepare her family's laksa noodle soup.
The night that Iarrived in Los Angeles, I got rear-ended coming home from dinner with my friend Victor Fong.No one was hurt but ironically, right before I realized that the carapproaching me was not going to stop, Victor was saying how my 2001 HondaAccord was in such great shape. Then I realized that the vehicle behind us was notslowing down. I took my foot off the brake to absorb the shock of whatever thatwas coming.
Anna, the young woman driving the Nissan Sentra that hit my carfell apart crying, having had a flashback to a fatal accident involving her littlebrother. She didn’t have her license with her, was driving a borrowed vehicle, didn’thave the car insurance information, AND had just moved to Los Angeles. Shecalled her father in North Carolina and handed me the cell phone to talk tohim. Oye, I felt bad for her fragile state. What an LA story.
Remembering what a kind woman had told me a few weeks earlier when, in aWhole Foods parking lot, my shopping cart rolled away and dinged her car hood,I said to Anna, “Everything will be okay. It’s just a car.”
The next day, I went to a body shop for an estimate and to makesure I could still safely drive the car; eventually, I had to drive back toSanta Cruz. Figuring that I’d get an honest answer, I asked the estimator,“What would you advise me to do if I were your sister or mother?”
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Asian Tofu in the News"Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)"— Michael Rulhman on his tofu conversion
"This book should be a priority for anyone with the slightest interest in Asian cuisines."
— Anne Mendelson, Taste & Travel
"The most gratifying part about cooking from Asian Tofu is that all the recipes work the way they’re written."
— T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe
Book info, reviews, radio & TV . . .Events: Demo & classesSat., Nov 10, 2-5pm, @GourmandiseLA, Santa Monica
Asian Tofu, hands-on {SOLD OUT}
Sun., Nov 11, 2-5pm, @GourmandiseLA, Santa Monica
Asian Dumplings, hands-on {SOLD OUT}
More soon on 2013 classes...
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