Category: We recommend!

Put This Chinatown Food Tour on Your Calendar and Shopping List

Back in September I received an email from one of my favorite social media friends, Jacqueline Church. She wrote:

"I'm inviting you to experience my "Chinatown Experience" tour, which is the full tour including a bit of history about Chinatown's founding, its immigrant origins, Chinese/American food, and more.

We'll walk through Chinatown sampling some favorites, both traditional and modern; visit a traditional Chinese herbalist shop, taste fantastic barbecued pork and more. Finally, we'll enjoy dim sum at Hei La Moon."

As the guests for her tour group gathered at our designated meeting spot, I realized I would be touring with one new friend and a three men who have supported people and programs I care about over the past few years. Adam Castiglioni from Boston Hospitalilty and Tourism Industry Blog, Max Grinnell from The Urbanologist, Richard Auffrey from The Passionate Foodie, and Chanie from Life By Zen made up a fun group to enjoy this tour that proved to be very true to its title Food, Fun and Fables.

We gathered as a group of food lovers but, as anyone who reads BostonZest or our newspaper columns knows, I'm also an architecture, history, and Boston details fan. I'll never look at the Chinatown Gate again without thinking about all the little tidbits that Jackie fed our minds as she described its background and details to us.

I'll never visit this neighborhood again without appreciating my better understanding of its foundation, evolution, and continuing cultural traditions.

As we walked we learned about these tiles in the sidewalk as Jackie pointed a toe and translated some for us.

Why do some gamers in the park play alone, while others have a crowd of coaches? Jackie knows and she shares.

Now I know exactly where to go when I want fabulous Chinese barbeque pork, a whole roast pig with crackling skin, or a roasted duck that may be from the same batch that was delivered to area restaurants.

Don't worry about sticky fingers, Jackie has this magic bag of goodies that assures her guests have what they need when they need it. From toothpicks to snag a piece of pork, to wipes to clean your hands before eating pastries with them, to smaller cups to share a bubble tea – she has you covered! And, you don't have to take notes. She'll provide handouts with the highlights and some extra tips.

As bakery samples are passed around, they are followed by stories. You'll learn how each item is made, how authentic this example happens to be, how seasonal, and where it fits into this culture.

As a Tai Chi student, I realize how important Traditional Chinese Medicine is in this culture. I had been to Jackie's favorite herbalist before. She had taken me there when we met for lunch one day. I think she knew I was having problems with asthma and the shop owner, Patrick, recognized it right away and suggested a ready-made tea that would help.

On the tour Jackie explained how you would consult Patrick and his staff of traditional Chinese herbalists and how your prescription would be filled by the experts in front of their drawers of healing products.

Jackie is a fun person and our visit to a Chinatown grocery shop was filled with laughter as she tried to convince one member of our tour he might even like those lovely green things, if he would only give them a chance.

Along the way all of us learned that she chose this shop because there was more likely to be someone on staff who spoke English should we have questions. And, as we walked the aisles, she pointed out a few of her favorite items among the brands on offer.

Then came dim sum with our expert guide explaining the etiquette of using our chopsticks or pouring tea in a communal setting, ordering from the carts as they passed, explaining how the bill is tallied and how to pay it.

Jackie also divided large portions, gave details of the dishes selected, and made sure everyone was offered a taste of everything. (She even made sure a plate of greens was available for our reluctant produce eater, just in case…)

As you may have noticed, I didn't give you the details of the shops or the answers to the questions that you might have from the photos posted here. Those tales are Jackie's to tell and she tells them far better than I would.

If you have always wanted to learn more about Boston's Chinatown, I highly recommend you gather a few friends, click over to Jacqueline Church Central, and schedule a tour.

Or, if you find yourself in Boston for a day or two by yourself or with a friend, join a tour that she has already scheduled. This is something you can enjoy on your own or with a group. I asked Jackie about a shorter tour with dim sum that would accommodate a friend with limited mobility and she was happy to work with me to figure out what we could include.

As it turned out, that friend was so interested in the tour I had, we are planning to gather a group and enjoy the full three hour Chinatown Experience! She'll take her cane and her friends will help out as needed.

With the holidays ahead, you might consider giving a gift certificate for a tour as a holiday gift. It has been said that many of us today would rather have a great shared experience to remember than something that will add to the things in our lives.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny Cherubino ( I was Jackie's guest on this tour here is a link to our disclosure policy.)

October 11, 2017
Building Your Cultural Food Shopping Skills

Do you hesitate to explore markets specializing in specific cultures because of a language barrier? Do you find it frustrating when you can’t read the labels on packages of food? I’ve recently added a new tool to enhance my international shopping skills.

Image from Google's information on this feature

Last winter a press release from Google announced a Japanese language expansion in their Google Translate app saying, “With Word Lens, you just need to fire up the Translate app, point your camera at the Japanese text, and the English translations will appear overlaid on your screen.”

My mind immediately saw this as a food shopper’s dream. I could see myself standing in a Japanese grocery store using my phone to read and compare the ingredients on packages. What’s more, since this app supports nearly 30 languages, you can point your phone at a package in any shop and it will do its best to figure out what language it is seeing and translate the information on that item.

Ask a Friend!

Far better than using a phone and app is exploring another culture with a friend who is part of that community, speaks the language, or who is far ahead of you in learning about that particular cuisine.

Ed and I enjoyed our first taste of Indian food with a couple who had lived in India. They not only explained the food, but also the dining etiquette.

Friends from Thailand wrote out, in Thai, a list of dishes we should try at a local restaurant that had a separate menu for anyone who wanted a meal made the way it would have been served in Thailand. We only had to point to a paragraph to order dishes prepared the way the customers with greater knowledge of Thai cuisine would prefer them.

Take a Tour

If you’ve spent much time in the North End shops, you may have seen one of the tour groups learning more about the Italian offerings available in this neighborhood. Many home cooks may feel they know Italian food and the ingredients needed to make it, but I know that I learn a bit more each time I interact with North End shopkeepers.

In this area you can find tours of other neighborhoods and cultures as well. Penny recently took one of Jacqueline Church's Boston Chinatown Tours – Food, Fun, Fables and loved it. Even after years of visiting the neighborhood, dining there, and shopping in area stores, she learned a lot. (She'll be writing a full report on that experience soon, so watch for it!)

For anyone trying to make Vietnamese food, the book Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors has both photos and detailed notes on the herbs you might want to add to your shopping list.

Photo Notes

Another way that I put my phone camera to work is by taking photos of ingredients I’m seeking from the pages of one of the many ethnic cookbooks that have glossaries of food and equipment used in the culture the book covers.

A visit to your library’s cookbook section is a great place to begin exploring a cuisine. Grab a few books on the topic that have reference sections and borrow one or two that seem to supply the information you want.

Pick a recipe and take a photo of the notes or glossary entry on that ingredient. Then you can pull out your phone and show it to the shopkeeper or read it as you explore the shelves in an ethnic market.

Dedicated Guide Books

Author Linda Bladholm’s wonderful “Take It With You” guides to three ethnic cuisines were recently released as ebooks. Now you can have a copy on your phone for impromptu visits to Indian, Asian, or Latin cuisine. “The Indian Grocery Store Demystified,” was her first guide. The others substitute the culture “Asian” and “Latin & Caribbean” in their titles. Food Writer Bladholm takes you on a walk through the aisles of each culture with clear insight on the items offered. I highly recommend all three.

What's on your Food Lover's shopping list?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

(Adapted for BostonZest from one of our Fresh & Local newspaper columns.)

September 27, 2017
Building Your Cultural Food Shopping Skills

Do you hesitate to explore markets specializing in specific cultures because of a language barrier? Do you find it frustrating when you can’t read the labels on packages of food? I’ve recently added a new tool to enhance my international shopping skills.

Image from Google's information on this feature

Last winter a press release from Google announced a Japanese language expansion in their Google Translate app saying, “With Word Lens, you just need to fire up the Translate app, point your camera at the Japanese text, and the English translations will appear overlaid on your screen.”

My mind immediately saw this as a food shopper’s dream. I could see myself standing in a Japanese grocery store using my phone to read and compare the ingredients on packages. What’s more, since this app supports nearly 30 languages, you can point your phone at a package in any shop and it will do its best to figure out what language it is seeing and translate the information on that item.

Ask a Friend!

Far better than using a phone and app is exploring another culture with a friend who is part of that community, speaks the language, or who is far ahead of you in learning about that particular cuisine.

Ed and I enjoyed our first taste of Indian food with a couple who had lived in India. They not only explained the food, but also the dining etiquette.

Friends from Thailand wrote out, in Thai, a list of dishes we should try at a local restaurant that had a separate menu for anyone who wanted a meal made the way it would have been served in Thailand. We only had to point to a paragraph to order dishes prepared the way the customers with greater knowledge of Thai cuisine would prefer them.

Take a Tour

If you’ve spent much time in the North End shops, you may have seen one of the tour groups learning more about the Italian offerings available in this neighborhood. Many home cooks may feel they know Italian food and the ingredients needed to make it, but I know that I learn a bit more each time I interact with North End shopkeepers.

In this area you can find tours of other neighborhoods and cultures as well. Penny recently took one of Jacqueline Church's Boston Chinatown Tours – Food, Fun, Fables and loved it. Even after years of visiting the neighborhood, dining there, and shopping in area stores, she learned a lot. (She'll be writing a full report on that experience soon, so watch for it!)

For anyone trying to make Vietnamese food, the book Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors has both photos and detailed notes on the herbs you might want to add to your shopping list.

Photo Notes

Another way that I put my phone camera to work is by taking photos of ingredients I’m seeking from the pages of one of the many ethnic cookbooks that have glossaries of food and equipment used in the culture the book covers.

A visit to your library’s cookbook section is a great place to begin exploring a cuisine. Grab a few books on the topic that have reference sections and borrow one or two that seem to supply the information you want.

Pick a recipe and take a photo of the notes or glossary entry on that ingredient. Then you can pull out your phone and show it to the shopkeeper or read it as you explore the shelves in an ethnic market.

Dedicated Guide Books

Author Linda Bladholm’s wonderful “Take It With You” guides to three ethnic cuisines were recently released as ebooks. Now you can have a copy on your phone for impromptu visits to Indian, Asian, or Latin cuisine. “The Indian Grocery Store Demystified,” was her first guide. The others substitute the culture “Asian” and “Latin & Caribbean” in their titles. Food Writer Bladholm takes you on a walk through the aisles of each culture with clear insight on the items offered. I highly recommend all three.

What's on your Food Lover's shopping list?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

(Adapted for BostonZest from one of our Fresh & Local newspaper columns.)

September 27, 2017
Cutting the Cheese! Our Favorite Cheese Accessories

We love our cheese plane so much that we just bought a second one, in case it breaks or they stop making them.

Here it is "posing," after shaving off curls of Pecorino Pepato. While many people grate this cheese, we love eating these paper thin slices as part of a cheese course.

Recently our friend Annie asked what we use to cut cheese and that sent us on a new search for a duplicate of our favorite cheese slicer. We found a few versions available:

The Norpro BS3A Stainless Steel Cheese Plane Slicer is just like the one we've had for years. We sent Annie the link but happily, when she saw it, she remembered having one of these stored away. We have had many guests ask about the one we use, so we ordered another. It will make a great gift or just serve as a second one for when we have a number of cheeses to serve.

If we need a pile of grated cheese, we have a many, many years old ZYLISS Classic Rotary Cheese Grater that does a great job.

If we only need a sprinkle of cheese, we use the microplane we reach for many times a week for zesting and grating tasks.

For us, these three cheese tools increase our enjoyment of the special cheeses we love. With our afternoon apples, we'll often use the cheese plane to add some shavings of cheddar to the plate. Cheddar and apples are a great match!

And, Penny has used it to pile cheese on bread to make grilled cheese. So, while this may be a uni-tasker, it is a busy one!

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 22, 2017
Cutting the Cheese! Our Favorite Cheese Accessories

We love our cheese plane so much that we just bought a second one, in case it breaks or they stop making them.

Here it is "posing," after shaving off curls of Pecorino Pepato. While many people grate this cheese, we love eating these paper thin slices as part of a cheese course.

Recently our friend Annie asked what we use to cut cheese and that sent us on a new search for a duplicate of our favorite cheese slicer. We found a few versions available:

The Norpro BS3A Stainless Steel Cheese Plane Slicer is just like the one we've had for years. We sent Annie the link but happily, when she saw it, she remembered having one of these stored away. We have had many guests ask about the one we use, so we ordered another. It will make a great gift or just serve as a second one for when we have a number of cheeses to serve.

If we need a pile of grated cheese, we have a many, many years old ZYLISS Classic Rotary Cheese Grater that does a great job.

If we only need a sprinkle of cheese, we use the microplane we reach for many times a week for zesting and grating tasks.

For us, these three cheese tools increase our enjoyment of the special cheeses we love. With our afternoon apples, we'll often use the cheese plane to add some shavings of cheddar to the plate. Cheddar and apples are a great match!

And, Penny has used it to pile cheese on bread to make grilled cheese. So, while this may be a uni-tasker, it is a busy one!

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 22, 2017
Portion Control: Small Dishes Are Healthy Eating Tools

For the past year, we have both been eating in a much healthier way. Today's "Friday Link" is to some reports on portion control and how important the concept is to our overall health.

First you have to understand that what we consider a "portion of food" today has changed over the years. Business insider gives a breakdown of the change in size of some popular items we eat.

Over on VegKitchen there is a breakdown of how the size of dinnerware has increased.

The Mayo Clinic has a post on visual cues you can use to remember what a portion of various food groups should be. For example, your protein portion should be the size of a deck of cards and four dice-size cheese cubes = one portion.

Tips and Tricks

One of the tricks that Penny has used in her successful weight loss program is serving herself on smaller plates.

This light supper of avocado toast and vegetables looks like a full plate when it's served on a small bread & butter dish.

A little treat like ice cream is served in espresso cups. That way a treat does not become a threat to a healthier lifestyle.

Other nibbles, like almonds, are measured out in mini mason jars in the morning, assuring that she knows how many she's eaten that day.

In fact we have lots of mason jars in various sizes. These can hold about one portion of pretzels or grapes for snacking or pre-measured servings of soup or a casserole for a meal.

When Dining Out

Often Penny will order an appetizer as her main course or we'll share an entrée and appetizer or an entrée and dessert. She has also discovered that if she chooses a food that takes time and attention to eat – such as clams, mussels, chicken wings, or artichokes – she'll take her time and eat less. And a slice of grilled bread (like the one in the photo above) is always shared with Ed, the resident bread-a-holic.

When faced with an oversized portion, you can decide how much you can eat. Ask for a sharing plate. Put the portion you want on that plate and either offer the rest to your dining companions or ask the server to put that in a take-out container to have for another meal. While there are certain dishes we love ordering, the portions are often so large that we can enjoy two or sometimes three meals from them.

If you make yourself more aware of what a portion should be, you'll eat healthy quantities and perhaps decide that you would rather buy smaller portions of local, sustainable food instead of large portions of cheap food from big commercial producers.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 15, 2017
Portion Control: Small Dishes Are Healthy Eating Tools

For the past year, we have both been eating in a much healthier way. Today's "Friday Link" is to some reports on portion control and how important the concept is to our overall health.

First you have to understand that what we consider a "portion of food" today has changed over the years. Business insider gives a breakdown of the change in size of some popular items we eat.

Over on VegKitchen there is a breakdown of how the size of dinnerware has increased.

The Mayo Clinic has a post on visual cues you can use to remember what a portion of various food groups should be. For example, your protein portion should be the size of a deck of cards and four dice-size cheese cubes = one portion.

Tips and Tricks

One of the tricks that Penny has used in her successful weight loss program is serving herself on smaller plates.

This light supper of avocado toast and vegetables looks like a full plate when it's served on a small bread & butter dish.

A little treat like ice cream is served in espresso cups. That way a treat does not become a threat to a healthier lifestyle.

Other nibbles, like almonds, are measured out in mini mason jars in the morning, assuring that she knows how many she's eaten that day.

In fact we have lots of mason jars in various sizes. These can hold about one portion of pretzels or grapes for snacking or pre-measured servings of soup or a casserole for a meal.

When Dining Out

Often Penny will order an appetizer as her main course or we'll share an entrée and appetizer or an entrée and dessert. She has also discovered that if she chooses a food that takes time and attention to eat – such as clams, mussels, chicken wings, or artichokes – she'll take her time and eat less. And a slice of grilled bread (like the one in the photo above) is always shared with Ed, the resident bread-a-holic.

When faced with an oversized portion, you can decide how much you can eat. Ask for a sharing plate. Put the portion you want on that plate and either offer the rest to your dining companions or ask the server to put that in a take-out container to have for another meal. While there are certain dishes we love ordering, the portions are often so large that we can enjoy two or sometimes three meals from them.

If you make yourself more aware of what a portion should be, you'll eat healthy quantities and perhaps decide that you would rather buy smaller portions of local, sustainable food instead of large portions of cheap food from big commercial producers.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 15, 2017
Freeze Those Bones for Fabulous Chicken Soup!

This luscious bowl of chicken noodle soup was made from the remains of three rotisserie chickens, a few fresh vegetables, and some leftover noodles.

We're sure many of you have turned to one of these fully-cooked birds when faced with a busy week. They're great for a simple meal and, the second day, they can be added to a salad or sandwich for another quick supper.

But, do you save the bones, skin, and that wonderful gelatin in the bottom of the container for when you have time to create a great soup? Everyone from your Grandmother to the honorary Great Aunt of a generation for cooks, Julia Child, has told you to stow your cooking scraps in the freezer to make stocks.

In this age of wasted food, it really feels good to turn something that would have been trashed into a great meal.

The pot in the photo above contains the contents of a bag of chicken bones, skin, and gelatin that we had added to, over a month or so. Penny took it from the freezer on a rainy afternoon and turned it into a lick-smacking, rich, sticky-with-goodness chicken stock.

When she prepped the flavorings of carrot, onion, and celery to make the stock, she chopped up enough to create a soup when the stock was finished.

After lifting out as many bones and bits as she could with a spider (like the one above), she strained the broth into a bowl through a fine sieve. After it sat and settled, she removed most of the fat with paper towels.

A quick wipe of the pan assured there were no bone bits remaining. That let her make the soup in the same pan – one of her favorites. She lightly sautéed the waiting veg in a bit of olive oil before returning enough stock to the pan to make a few servings of soup. Once the vegetables were cooked, she added some pieces of white meat from the last of the chickens that became the stock.

If you've never tried this method of making chicken stock, you are missing out on some big flavor. Remember to go easy on the salt because those chickens have already been seasoned and may have been brined.

Penny never added any salt to ours, but she did add a dribble of soy sauce for depth of flavor. This batch also had pieces of ginger, star anise, clove, and a touch of sherry vinegar right at the end.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 13, 2017
Freeze Those Bones for Fabulous Chicken Soup!

This luscious bowl of chicken noodle soup was made from the remains of three rotisserie chickens, a few fresh vegetables, and some leftover noodles.

We're sure many of you have turned to one of these fully-cooked birds when faced with a busy week. They're great for a simple meal and, the second day, they can be added to a salad or sandwich for another quick supper.

But, do you save the bones, skin, and that wonderful gelatin in the bottom of the container for when you have time to create a great soup? Everyone from your Grandmother to the honorary Great Aunt of a generation for cooks, Julia Child, has told you to stow your cooking scraps in the freezer to make stocks.

In this age of wasted food, it really feels good to turn something that would have been trashed into a great meal.

The pot in the photo above contains the contents of a bag of chicken bones, skin, and gelatin that we had added to, over a month or so. Penny took it from the freezer on a rainy afternoon and turned it into a lick-smacking, rich, sticky-with-goodness chicken stock.

When she prepped the flavorings of carrot, onion, and celery to make the stock, she chopped up enough to create a soup when the stock was finished.

After lifting out as many bones and bits as she could with a spider (like the one above), she strained the broth into a bowl through a fine sieve. After it sat and settled, she removed most of the fat with paper towels.

A quick wipe of the pan assured there were no bone bits remaining. That let her make the soup in the same pan – one of her favorites. She lightly sautéed the waiting veg in a bit of olive oil before returning enough stock to the pan to make a few servings of soup. Once the vegetables were cooked, she added some pieces of white meat from the last of the chickens that became the stock.

If you've never tried this method of making chicken stock, you are missing out on some big flavor. Remember to go easy on the salt because those chickens have already been seasoned and may have been brined.

Penny never added any salt to ours, but she did add a dribble of soy sauce for depth of flavor. This batch also had pieces of ginger, star anise, clove, and a touch of sherry vinegar right at the end.

What's on your Food Lover's Shopping List?

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

September 13, 2017
Judith Jones on Cooking for Her Dog
Penny is a longtime fan of food writer and editor of many of her favorite cookbooks, Judith Jones who died recently. One of her books Penny bought before it disappears from stock was "Love Me, Feed Me: Sharing with Your Dog the Everyday Good Food You Cook and Enjoy."

As you may know, from our newspaper columns and some posts here, we feed our dog Poppy homemade food. Her diet is raw because of the many issues a Westie can have with food. Judith Jones, on the other hand, cooked meals that she shared with her dog Mabon.

This book is a great place to begin a discussion about what we're feeding our dogs and if we have fallen for the marketing efforts of the dog food industry. Jones worked with her veterinarian who supported this alternative feeding style.

Here are a few quotes from reviews of this delightful book:
- “Delightful….This sensible book reminded us of food writers like Elizabeth David and M. F. K. Fisher: recipes plus a pinch of life itself.”
  – The Bark
- “Clever tips abound.”
  – BookPage
- “As much about the unconditional friendship pets offer as it is about braised beef shanks and omelets, kasha and corn cakes, and as much about the nutritional requirements of caninehood…as about the companionable requirements….A loving salute to the dogs [Jones] has known and to a life filled to the brim with what they brought to her.”
  – Booklist
- “An ingenious recipe collection…What’s fascinating about Love Me, Feed Me is that the recipes are relatively simple and good, prepared daily by Jones for herself and her dog Mabon, an adorable white curly-haired Havanese straight out of central casting.”
  – The Faith Middleton Show
We highly recommend "Love Me, Feed Me" for you and your Sunday Dog or as a great gift anytime you visit someone who loves their dog.

Get to know all of our Sunday Dogs at Boston Dogs.

Thanks to everyone who Hops over to Amazon from here to do their shopping. We appreciate your support.

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino

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