This year I won’t be able to make it to Burning Man, and you’d think that after four years straight I’d be ready for a gap year…but no, I’m pretty bummed about it. I’ll miss the electricity in the air as we turn off Route 34 and hit the dirt road that means we are so close to Home it’s palpable. I’ll miss the bike rides out into Deep Playa with my love -- the best date nights ever, pretty much. I’ll miss the sunrises and the ultimate freedom, the pure delight, the creativity and humor, the extra long hugs, the dancing beneath the vast black night, the dust devils, the magic.

If you are headed to BRC, I’m so excited for you. If you’re still looking to do some meal prep before going, this Playa Jambalaya is a Burning Man Meal Plan favorite. It feeds a lot, freezes well, and is full of that meaty, salty, savory flavor you crave so much out there, not to mention the veggies (read: fiber) that your body needs. And like most jambalayas, this is a hefty meal. It will sustain you through your adventuring well into the night.

Burn bright, my friends!

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Life. Changing. Almond. Croissant.

The pictures don’t even come close to doing this beauty justice. Flaky, airy, and tender, with a vanilla bean-speckled almond filling that’s gooey and generous (and not overly sweet). A bit of the filling is spooned on top of the croissant so that it bakes up to form a bonus golden crust, and best of all, the bottom is deeply caramelized so you get that laminated brûléed sugar crunch reminiscent of a kouign amann.

This is the best almond croissant I’ve ever had, and I do not say that lightly. For real, this is the kind of pastry that will haunt your dreams. And it looks like Bon Appetit agrees with me because they just named Arsicault “Bakery of the Year.”

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Well…here’s a recipe I never thought I’d be posting here! I didn’t even know lactation cookies were a thing until I became a new mama. Before I lose the attention of the 99.9% of you to whom milk supply health is not a riveting and applicable topic, let me reassure you that this is a delicious recipe with AND without the active lactation supporting ingredient in it, so if you’re just looking for a healthy snacking cookie this is it! Gluten free, dairy free, and with no refined sugar added, it is nothing short of a miracle that these cookies actually taste great! The bulk of the cookie is made from oats, and it is bound together by mashed banana, peanut butter, coconut oil, and a generous handful of dark chocolate chunks. [READ FULL POST]

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Hello, old friends! So…I went dark for awhile, sorry about that! There have been so many times I wanted to tell you about some new dish or recipe or meal I had, but alas, life has been keeping me on my toes with a new business (ad)venture. Oh yes, and last month I had a baby (!!!), there’s that too. She already shares our love for eating, so she’s fitting in quite nicely.

My parents were recently here to help out and spend some QT with their new granddaughter. They were a Godsend – cooking, cleaning, taking the night shift with the baby, and, taking good care of me. My mom taught Hua and me how to make some of her signature dishes, which brings me back here.

As I took notes and wrote down her recipes for these dishes she’s made for me a hundred times, dishes I wish to commit to memory, it reminded me of why I first started Lick My Spoon long ago. I started writing about food and documenting recipes because I wanted to create a space to share with others the joy I derived from things I’ve eaten. I also wanted to create a place to remember. To keep safe these precious recipes.

As I watched my mom make her famous stir-fried vermicelli noodles -- an old Lee family recipe her grandmother (my great grandma) taught her -- I realized, this is important. I need to document this so I can recreate these flavors of home whenever I want, so I can make it for Hazel one day, and so I can share it with you.

So on this Mother’s Day, my Mom is the person who has pulled me back to this blog. (Thanks, Mom!) No, seriously, thank you Mom, for everything you’ve ever done for me. Motherhood is hard, yo.

Mother-daughter relationships in particular can be complicated. After this past month though, I have an entirely new appreciation for my momma. Her unconditional love, patience, selflessness, and overall super mom-ness. Thanks, Mom, for taking such good care of me. Thank you for feeding us, for vacuuming my apartment, for sitting with me while I pumped and massaging my wrists because they were sore from holding my baby. Thank you for doing all the sewing patch ups and fixes I’ve been piling up for you, for knowing I didn’t mean it when I got snippy, for teaching me how to put a shirt on a newborn (it’s scarier than you’d imagine), and how to bathe a baby (also potentially terrifying). Oh yeah, and thank you for everything else from the past 33 years. I can only hope to be as good a mom as you.

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The post In Gratitude of Mom + a Recipe for her Famous Toishan-Style Stir-Fried Vermicelli Glass Noodles (Chow Fun See) appeared first on Lick My Spoon.

On Thursday, July 9^th 2015, 37 celebrated chefs from around the globe swapped restaurants for one night in a dining experience dubbed The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle. In this worldwide musical chairs production, the chefs not only swapped restaurants, they swapped lives, residing in their colleagues’ homes, working with their staff, dining with their friends and families, and feeding their cats.

The Shuffle was sponsored by S. Pellegrino (you’ll notice that many of the participating chefs are also on the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna), and orchestrated by Gelinaz!, a collective made by chefs for chefs, whose mission is to explore the unknown by creating collaborations between chefs, artists, musicians, scientists, thinkers, and producers. As described by co-founder Andrea Petrini, “The line-up for this performance is a family of chefs, who take risk as a starting point, that are neither fearful of creativity, nor driven by ego, but are fueled by a desire to explore.”

Tickets for the event were sold based on what the usual tasting menu price would be at each restaurant (at the three participating Bay Area restaurants – Manresa, Coi, and Atelier Crenn – we’re talking upwards of $270 all in), which diners blindly paid for the chance of experiencing an 8-course menu crafted by the likes of Rene Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, Albert Adria, or Alain Ducasse, just to namedrop a few.

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The post The Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle: Worldwide Culinary Performance Comes to Manresa appeared first on Lick My Spoon.

Whoa. Where did June go?

These days have been go go go, so when my friends at Williams-Sonoma asked if I would be interested in checking out their new Recipe of the Day App, my eye landed on the simplest no-fuss recipe I could find, naturally. Luckily, it just so happened to be exactly what I needed. Something healthy, fast, and satisfying. Winner winner weeknight chicken dinner!

Normally, chicken breast is not something I’d say I crave. It’s just a little ho hum for me on the regular. But, pair it with this mint pesto situation and my tune could not have changed faster. Fresh mint, toasted almonds, a little shallot, a big squeeze of lemon juice, and good olive oil all get tossed into the food processor and the result is just magic. Seriously, mint pesto, where have you been all my life?

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Life is all about balance. So, while there are definite occasions for stick to your ribs ribs and phatty chocolate cake, and all the ice cream...there are also times to go a little lighter, a little cleaner.

I’ve been trying get more greens into my daily diet and making an effort to do a “paleo mindful” / “whole 30 weekday” thing (Oh gawd, have I become an SF foodie parody of myself? Maybe, but at least I'll be a parody that glows from the inside out from all my newfound phytonutrients). Limiting the dairy and upping the veggies have been challenging -- good thing I have friends who can make it easier.

Enter Thistle, purveyors of health and happiness in the form of juice and superfood-filled meals. Thistle specializes in plant-based meals using only fresh, organic ingredients sourced from local farms. Delicious and nutritious, and delivered right to my door! That’ll work for me.

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Pulled pork gets a Vietnamese makeover with an umami-rich marinade of hoisin, fish sauce, and a punch of sriracha, mixed together with caramelized onions, aromatic ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. Low and slow is the name of the game when it comes to transforming a humble cut of pork shoulder into something marvelously tender and juicy. You can achieve this in the slow cooker, as per the NYT (the inspiration behind this recipe), or you can break out the sous vide!

I tried both. Both were wonderful, but I did prefer the sous vide version. A 24-hour sous vide treatment renders the pork meltingly tender – it literally falls apart with the prod of a fork. It then gets sprinkled with brown sugar and blasted under the broiler to mimic that charred sweetness reminiscent of true Vietnamese street food eats. BYO little red stool.

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Last week I shared this recipe for Balsamic Roasted Strawberries, and promised you a special dessert making good use of them…well here she is! This Roasted Strawberry Pavlova Cake is the loveliest of lovelies.

You’ll typically see pavlovas as a single serving kind of dessert. Named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, probably because the cloud-like meringue shell resembles a poofy tutu, pavlovas are one of my favorite desserts. Light yet luxurious, and a textural delight.

While you can certainly adapt this recipe to make individual pavlovas, I decided to go big and made a cake version! This pavlova cake is constructed of four layers of crisp vanilla meringue that give way to a soft chew. In between you’ll find swoops of whipped coconut cream swirled with jammy balsamic roasted strawberries and a bright strawberries sauce. Piled on top are fresh plump strawberries and coconut chips...

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Strawberries are back!!!

Spring has sprung, and while the re-appearance of fava beans and asparagus is exciting, it doesn’t hold a candle to the sight of strawberries at the market again!

Juicy, sweet, and intoxicatingly fragrant, pick up a few baskets of these beauties this weekend and after you’ve popped enough of them into your mouth as is, roast them.

But first toss them in a touch of sugar, a splash of balsamic, vanilla, and a pinch of salt and pepper. I know it sounds weird. But trust. Especially on the pepper part. It adds just the slightest hint of something unexpected, and when you put it all together, it’s just lovely.

Roasting the strawberries concentrates all that sweet goodness into deep, jammy flavor.

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