mandag den 7. oktober 2019

not-so-copehagen kitchen

True to the header, this blog is again about moving.

Although I was having a ball living alone in Copenhagen, it was in fact lonely sometimes. After much consideration I decided to move in with my new boyfriend in a small city in Michigan. Quite a change after living in a European capital for the past 8 years and the bustling, diverse suburbs of Orange County before that. It's quiet but I enjoy it after living in the heart of the city and all the noise (and smells) that come with it.

It was stressful to move with 3 suitcases and 2 cats in tow through three different flights. I may have cried a lot; both from anxiety about my whining cats and sadness over leaving my friends and my life in Denmark. Although living there was tough in the beginning I managed to jump through most of the hoops I needed to stay there, learn the language, get a job, and make friends. It was a hard decision to leave it all behind but I always knew I had to come back to the States.

It has been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened since then! My boyfriend is now my husband, we bought a house, and we acquired a third cat! Maybe the biggest change in relation to this blog is the fact that I went vegetarian a year and a half ago. I never thought it would be possible for me, but here we are. I want to start up writing here again to keep track of some of the new recipes I've created and some of the vegan dishes I have enjoyed. But I do need a new name and I need to clean up the blog a little.

tirsdag den 31. marts 2015

italian food



stupidly i never liked italian food. sure, i have always loved pizza (who doesn't?) and enjoyed the frozen lasagne my mom left for my brother and i to eat when she was working late. but whenever someone suggested to go out to an italian restaurant, i would quickly try to change the venue to a vietnamese, mexican, korean, or japanese restaurant. growing up, italian food to me was olive garden or (later on) buca di beppo. i came to associate eating italian food with enormous portions of pasta accompanied by garlic bread, followed by the feeling of being sickly full of empty carbs and cream.




so when my friend said we should go to parma, my expectations were pretty low. not that i thought i would starve, but i thought if i could figure out anything about italian cuisine then this would be the place. pictured above is the first thing we ate in parma; a spaccaballe and a 'ham and cheese sandwich.' i put it in quotes because it is nowhere near the bland ham and cheese single sandwiches that i've been subjected to in the past. i'd previously read some positive reviews about pepen, and we wandered in by chance. despite being 3pm, it was full of locals where other restaurants were closed for a break between lunch and dinner. and if there is anything i've learned from my travels, it's to get whatever the chef at a good restaurant recommends. these two were the result, and the PARMA ham and PARMesan cheese sandwich blew my mind. the bread isn't stellar but it fits well with the moreish prosciutto and the salty, intense parmesan cheese. we polished it off with a glass of white wine and left as happy tourists.




for me, parmesan used to be that powder in a shaker on tables in pizza places. eventually i learned to buy it in wedges or blocks and grate it freshly over pasta. but even the blocks you get in upscale grocery stores here usually can't compare to what you can get at a discount supermarket in parma for a fraction of the price. yes, of course i bought some and took it back with me. this plate was served to us at ombre rosse with a couple of glasses of decent red. the two cheeses on top are two types of parmesan, and the other three are obviously blues. with honey and walnuts, it was the perfect dish to whet the appetite.




in fact most of the meals i was pleasantly surprised by were the appetizers. parma ham, mortadella, and especially culatello. we had the privilege of tasting a batch from november 2012 at la greppia and were floored by the flavour. how can a paper-thin slice of meat have so many facets? again, the bread was not great but maybe it was intentional as to not overshadow the meat. not pictured is an amazing plate of bottarga tagliolini that i regrettably couldn't finish due to our excessive snacking. i still have nightmares about leaving that pasta behind!




speaking of pasta, we did make our way out to bologna, where we of course had some pasta bolognese. or, as it is known in bologna; ragu. there it is served with tagliatelle instead of spagetti as the rest of the world does. all the food we had in parma and bologna was delicious, but i was particularly surprised by the pasta dishes. though they were sparsely dressed, they were certainly not light on flavour. it made me realize that the pasta itself is the star of the dish when made properly. so i do love italian food now! my feelings for olive garden are the same as before; you won't catch me there.

søndag den 9. november 2014

changes

soooo... i haven't been posting for a while because of the usual reasons. lazy. uninspired. but also because between this post and the last i have become a divorcée and obviously moved out on my own. my ex-husband and i are still on good terms and we 'share custody' of our two cats, which i am grateful for.

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beet-pickled deviled eggs with kimchi
of course i have been cooking a lot; much more so now that i live alone. i was lucky enough to find an apartment to rent with a great location and nice kitchen with enough storage to keep all my appliances and knick knacks out of sight when not in use.

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(packaged) cod roe sauce on homemade noodles

one sizeable undertaking i tried in my new apartment was to make tofu. it was a lot of work that yielded a pock-marked block of bitter tofu; not sure if it was because i used epsom salt or didn't keep it at the right temperature. however, it did have a lot of okara/biji leftover for me to work with, which tasted a lot better than the tofu. i made patties with it and froze the rest. as you can see, i've also starting making bentos again but hardcore! i started using instagram and have been harvesting a wealth of inspiration from other people's lunches from all over the world.

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owl tofu! with terong balado, spicy indonesian eggplant

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kenchinjiru with okara instead of tofu

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slices of fried tofu and tofu patties
hopefully i can get back on the blogging horse instead of lazily posting on instagram. thanks to anyone who stuck around. ("

mandag den 29. juli 2013

mom was here

yeah so my mom came to visit in may and made us all sorts of nice things to eat. of course i had grand plans of taking her out on the town and treating her to the best restaurants copenhagen has to offer, but she had other ideas. she really just wanted to hang out and cook with me; how can i refuse?! my mom also (predictably) brought a whole second suitcase full of korean and mexican ingredients; including two packs each of bbq eel and soondae!! is that even legal..? i don't know how i managed to squirrel away all of it into the kitchen cabinets, but eventually i made it happen. don't open any of the cabinets. >_>




kimbap



pan-fried zucchini, meat patties, and peppers stuffed with meat


oxtail soup


bbq eel and avocado rolls, chobap/inarizushi


apparently it's a cool new thing to combine chapagetti and neoguri, or so my mom tells me. the result is noodles with a moreish, spicy sauce. it's worth a try! just be sure to drain away the same amount of water as if you were just making the chapagetti. it really was such a breath of fresh air to have her here. i've been living in denmark for 5 years now and i only get to see my family once a year; maybe twice if i'm lucky. though i like living here, i miss them very much.

lørdag den 16. februar 2013

homesick at home

i miss my mom.

samgyeopsal



kimchi chigae



pan-fried tofu



braised mackerel with radish



japchae



doenjang chigae



tteokbokki