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« Asian Tofu Adventures on Canadian TV |Main| Local Tofu Gems in Seattle, Vancouver, Portland »
September 18, 2012Whirlwind Tofu Monday: Seattle TV, Radio and ClassI’ve been in Seattle since last Friday afternoonand had an Asian Tofu event everyday. On Monday, however, I had three thingsscheduled: a morning TV show on King 5 (NBC affiliate) in front of a live audience, a noontime radio interview at KPLU (NPR), and anevening class at Book Larder. Lucky for me, I didn’thave to be at the station until 9am (yay!) and it was located about 10 minutesfrom where I was staying. Even downtown Seattle road construction (full ofdetours) couldn’t make me late.
With a rental car, I figure that I didn’t need anassistant like I did in Vancouver. That said, I had to scramble fordishes, prep bowls and cooking equipment. Here’sa tip: Make sure you have some food friends or make some quickly when youare doing out-of-town gigs. I used VRBO to get a studio rental apartment, whichwas well equipped for basic cooking. I was supposed to demo a dish and thenshow two extra finished dishes. I’d pick straightforward recipes but still hadlots of prep to do and props to gather on Saturday and Sunday.
I needed a food processorto grind up the cashew and cardamom fudge and asked fellow cookbook author PatTanumihardja, who asked her mother. Her mom’s was old and not pretty, she said.So I borrowed one from Lara Hamilton at Book Larder bookstore, promising toreturn it when I taught the class. For prep bowls other small wares, I raidedthe VRBO rental and Eric Banh’s restaurants, Monsoon and Ba Bar. Eric and I arefriends so he happily obliged.
On Monday morning, I luggedmy gear to the New Day Northwest studioat the King 5 building. Producer Heidi Eng and I reviewed the minutesegment and then the director told me when I’d be on. They did a teaser at thebeginning and then I waitted quietly in the back. Finally, Heidi said, “You’reup next!”
I walked out to the setand saw the studio audience, which was prepped and perky. Show host Margaret Larson and I quickly ran through what we’d be doing. Then we wereon. Here’s the segment:
It was nice that some audience member laughed atmy jokes. Afterwards, I fielded questions off camera and then we portioned outthe food for everyone to taste. They liked it all! Jump to this page for the pressed tofu recipe.
Then it was just a few minutes of driving to KPLU near Seattle’s Space Needlestation. I’d written down the wrong address and paced up and down the sameblock four (4!) times before show host and Seattle Times columnist Nancy Lesoncame running out and screamed at me to come in. Someone had spotted an Asianwoman looking lost outside the building and asked Nancy if she was waiting forme.
Nancy and Dick Stein have cooked from my books foryears. Dick is super into Asian food. He is a curious aboutreplicating familiar and unfamiliar foods. We sat in the recording studio forabout 30 minutes chatting about Asian tofu, the cookbook and the subject. Therewas so much good content that Dick split it up into two segments. Here’s thefirst segment as a downloadable MP3 file
Dick is a sweetheart and gifted me these fruity hot chiles from his garden and a jar opener; Dick is really into jazz, can't you tell? I had to use his opener at my evening class to access a jar of chile bean sauce.
Later in the afternoon, I brought my soakedsoybeans and the food processor to BookLarder for the DIY tofu class. It was suppose to be a demo with medoing the work. But I decided that it would be more fun with some classparticipation.
I made soy milk from scratch and also had culinarycoordinator Rachael Coyle buy locally made soy milk. I wanted to do aside-by-side comparison. Also, I wanted to do a coagulant comparison betweengypsum and nigari crystals. The Book Larder classwas packed with 30 people and I set up ingredients and equipment for apre-class show and tell. There were various kinds of tofu that I had collected during the tour, as well as some stuff gifted to me.
After the soy milk was done, four volunteersstepped up to make the tofu. They were all careful and nervous but it workedout fine in the end. We made block tofu, some oboro tofu curds, and molded one ina colander too.
What was the verdict? All of the tofu made with DIY soy milk got eaten up. The storebought milk was fine but people were intrigued by the tofu produced from milk that I had made. No one seemed toside with gypsum or nigari.
What was really satisfying was that there were anumber of people who’d been cooking from my work and a handful, including Asian Tofu too. “Your recipes work andthey taste good!” one woman said. Music to an author’s ears.
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Comments Whirlwind Tofu Monday: Seattle TV, Radio and ClassI’ve been in Seattle since last Friday afternoonand had an Asian Tofu event everyday. On Monday, however, I had three thingsscheduled: a morning TV show on King 5 (NBC affiliate) in front of a live audience, a noontime radio interview at KPLU (NPR), and anevening class at Book Larder. Lucky for me, I didn’thave to be at the station until 9am (yay!) and it was located about 10 minutesfrom where I was staying. Even downtown Seattle road construction (full ofdetours) couldn’t make me late.
With a rental car, I figure that I didn’t need anassistant like I did in Vancouver. That said, I had to scramble fordishes, prep bowls and cooking equipment. Here’sa tip: Make sure you have some food friends or make some quickly when youare doing out-of-town gigs. I used VRBO to get a studio rental apartment, whichwas well equipped for basic cooking. I was supposed to demo a dish and thenshow two extra finished dishes. I’d pick straightforward recipes but still hadlots of prep to do and props to gather on Saturday and Sunday.
I needed a food processorto grind up the cashew and cardamom fudge and asked fellow cookbook author PatTanumihardja, who asked her mother. Her mom’s was old and not pretty, she said.So I borrowed one from Lara Hamilton at Book Larder bookstore, promising toreturn it when I taught the class. For prep bowls other small wares, I raidedthe VRBO rental and Eric Banh’s restaurants, Monsoon and Ba Bar. Eric and I arefriends so he happily obliged.
On Monday morning, I luggedmy gear to the New Day Northwest studioat the King 5 building. Producer Heidi Eng and I reviewed the minutesegment and then the director told me when I’d be on. They did a teaser at thebeginning and then I waitted quietly in the back. Finally, Heidi said, “You’reup next!”
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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., Sep 29, 12-4pm, @LoveAppleFarms, Santa Cruz
Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, hands-on {SOLD OUT}
Wed., Oct 24, 9am, @GourmandiseLA, Santa Monica
Follow that Chef, demo & tasting {SOLD OUT}
Sat., Oct 20, 12-4pm, @LoveAppleFarms, Santa Cruz
Asian Dumplings, hands-on {nearly sold out}
Sat., 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}
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