Stepping Out of My Comfort (Food) Zone

Many of our family photographs catch someone, somewhere, chewing. Much family energy was spent arguing the merits of this vegetable or that fish. Food offered a way for my parents to communicate their love for us when words failed. It became a passion we could all share and we took our family's preoccupation with food for granted. What a surprise to find out as an adult that not everyone shared our outlook. One way I know I'm still Chinese is because of my attitude toward food.

~ Ellen Blonder, second generation Chinese American, in her book Every Grain of Rice

When I first read the wonderful cookbook-memoir, Every Grain of Rice in 1998, I felt like I could have written about my childhood memories of food in a very similar way. I know I am still a Filipino-Chinese-American because of my own perspective on food. To be Asian is to know, appreciate and love food.

Food brings people together; it also sets us apart. Food means so many different things to so many different people. It's not simply food that's on your plate: it's individual or collective memories from your past; trying something completely new; dietary restrictions for medical or religious or personal reasons; flavors that provide emotional warmth and comfort; it's sampling an entirely different culture from your own; it can signify social prestige; it's the taste of national pride.

A whiff of Filipino barbecue on a stick is enough to bring a flood of memories of countless backyard parties and birthday celebrations from my youth. The smell of canned beets transports me to my pre-school's lunchroom in the Chicago suburbs. Just a tiny cloud of freshly spun cotton candy on my tongue reminds me of how much I loved it when I was a tween, and how it made too many trips to Showtime Pizza (one of my brother's favorites) bearable.

What's great about certain foods as comfort is also what makes them boring after a while. I realized not very long ago that I basically cook the same dozen or so meals over and over again and have been doing so for at least a dozen years. Why? Everyone in the family likes them and will eat them, I have all the ingredients all the time, and I know how to prepare them quickly and easily. And not only that, I also realized that some of these foods weren't exactly the healthiest things we could be eating, although certainly not the junkiest either.

Moreover, I felt like I needed a complete and total body do-over. "Baby weight" from two pregnancies and middle-age spread slowly but surely crept up on me in the past 10 years. I was feeling tired more frequently than I should. When I looked in the mirror, I was often shocked at the face and body that stared back at me--who was this person and where did the real me go?!

So I said a firm but wistful goodbye to my comfort foods, those of my childhood as well as my current favorites, and decided to try the Clean program by Dr. Junger. I've blogged about this on our family blog recently, but I was hooked after reading his book. I liked the whole philosophy behind the program, that it's not just a diet but a new way of life and thinking about food and health. And not just our personal health but the collective health of our planet and everyone on it.

I'm almost all the way through the 3-week program, and I can honestly say that it's changed the way I think and feel about food and eating forever. I'm not an immediate candidate for the raw food movement quite yet, but there are foods I used to love and crave that I may never want to eat again. During Clean, you pare everything down to a minimum and then have time to really think about and savor the foods you eat. You appreciate the flavors and textures of your one solid meal per day. You try new foods you've never even heard of before, and love some of them immediately. You miss some of your old favorites, but not so much that you can't live without them. Even cooking, and this time from scratch for each meal, has become enjoyable and fun again. Total irony since I've cooked more in the past 3 weeks than I ever have before!

I now know that I love kale, steamed with garlic. (I don't love kale smoothies. Yet.) I also love kale chips made by a high school classmate who I serendipitously reconnected with during this diet. Carrot-Pineapple Juice is wonderful. So is my homemade hummus, which I hadn't tried to make in probably a decade. Buckwheat noodles, which I had never bought before, reminds me of the texture of Asian noodles I ate as a child. Tuna steaks are amazingly versatile; I thought I disliked them before, but I was wrong. I drink quite a bit of water now, and I've never liked just water before.

I've really, really stepped way from my comfort zone during this program, but strangely enough, some aspects of it have also reminded me of my food beginnings. Many of the Clean recipes rely on the flavor of wheat-free tamari, which is basically like soy sauce, sesame oil and quickly cooked fresh veggies, by stir-frying or grilling. I grew up with stir-fry meals and soy sauce, of course, so I've often felt like a kid again when I eat these meals. Perhaps I was fated to find my way back to some of the tastes of my Asian childhood. I confess that when I grew up and lived on my own, Asian cooking was never a priority for me. I was too eager to try all the foods I didn't eat growing up--Indian, Mexican, Texan, etc.! Asian cooking also intimidated me; I couldn't do it as efficiently and easily as my Mom and Aunts because I didn't know the recipes or have all the ingredients (or couldn't even pronounce them.) Now I feel like I have a new comfort level in preparing dishes with Asian flavors, ones that are healthy versions of things I've tasted before, if not completely traditional ones.

Food is not just food, just as this diet I'm finishing is not simply a diet. The food we eat, or don't eat, says volumes about us. I choose now to eat purposefully and thoughtfully, for the betterment of my own self and hopefully even beyond that.

FoodieLicious: Tyler Florence's Galumpkis

I did not grow up eating stuffed cabbage rolls. Distinctly non-Asian and not "American" enough either. Our meals were either uber-Filipino or really mediocre American kiddie foods. Like Pancit or Hot Dogs. Kare-Kare or Hamburger Helper. Cabbage rolls were too "ethnic."

I first discovered a recipe for cabbage rolls in 1998 when I bought a slow cooker recipe book to go along with our recently received Crock-Pot. We registered for it ($10 at Target!) for our wedding. Stuffed Cabbage Rolls is one of those recipes that sounds gross when you say it out loud but seems more intriguing when you read the list of ingredients. And complicated too; you have to actually roll up the filling in leaves of cabbage. But I was up to the challenge! I made them at night, and slow-cooked them for hours. They were delish when they were finally done! And as with many slow-cooked foods, they looked kind of pale. I mean, the main ingredient was cabbage!

Fast forward about seven years, and I was watching my then-favorite Food Network show and caring for an infant at home. Tyler Florence's Food 911 featured an Eastern European version of stuffed cabbage rolls called galumpkis. The other recipe I had made was more of a German style with sauerkraut in it. Tyler's recipe had a sweet and sour tomato sauce. Also, his recipe is baked in the oven, not slow-cooked. Again, very intriguing. Again, lots of work. But totally worth it.

I am in the mood for Cabbage Rolls again, although the moment will probably pass before I get to HEB Central Market for the ingredients! Here is the recipe for anyone who wants to try it. It's comfort food that I never grew up with but wish that I had!

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Galumpkis)
From Tyler Florence's Food 911 on the Food Network

Yield: about 1 dozen

Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 1/2 quarts crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cabbage Rolls:
1 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Splash dry red wine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups steamed white rice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large heads green cabbage, about 3 pounds each


To make the sauce:
Coat a 3-quart saucepan with the oil and place over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the vinegar and sugar; simmer, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.
Place a skillet over medium heat and coat with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until soft. Stir in the tomato paste, a splash of wine, parsley, and 1/2 cup of the prepared sweet and sour tomato sauce, mix to incorporate and then take it off the heat. Combine the ground meat in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg, the cooked rice, and the sauteed onion mixture. Toss the filling together with your hands to combine, season with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Remove the large, damaged outer leaves from the cabbages and set aside. Cut out the cores of the cabbages with a sharp knife and carefully pull off all the rest of the leaves, keeping them whole and as undamaged as possible, (get rid of all the small leaves and use them for coleslaw or whatever.) Blanch the cabbage leaves in the pot of boiling water for 5 minutes, or until pliable. Run the leaves under cool water then lay them out so you can assess just how many blankets you have to wrap up the filling. Next, carefully cut out the center vein from the leaves so they will be easier to roll up. Take the reserved big outer leaves and lay them on the bottom of a casserole pan, let part of the leaves hang out the sides of the pan. This insulation will prevent the cabbage rolls from burning on the bottom when baked. Use all the good looking leaves to make the cabbage rolls. Put about 1/2 cup of the meat filling in the center of the cabbage and starting at what was the stem-end, fold the sides in and roll up the cabbage to enclose the filling. Place the cabbage rolls side by side in rows, seam-side down, in a casserole pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Pour the remaining sweet and sour tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls. Fold the hanging leaves over the top to enclose and keep the moisture in. Drizzle the top with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Bake for 1 hour until the meat is cooked.

My Notes: In the TV show, he uses a larger, leafy green cabbage that I think is called Savoy. Much easier to roll because they're so much bigger. Also, I think the 1 1/4 cup of EVOO might be a typo on the Food Network's website; I use however much oil I think I need, which is always much less.

FoodieLicious: Tyler Florence's Mac & Cheese

The blog schedule is doing me in already, only 2 days into the new blog year! I posted today's topic yesterday and forgot all about Monday's food bit. *sigh* Is this a bad sign?!

Anyway, here is yesterday's topic today:

Tyler Florence's Mamma's Mac and Cheese
from the Food Network's Food 911

1 pound elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups plus 1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar

Cook the macaroni in boiling water for about 10 minutes until tender but still firm. Drain well and set aside.
In a deep skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour to make a roux and cook, stirring, to remove any lumps. Pour in the milk and cook until the mixture is thick and smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in 2 cups Cheddar and continue to cook until melted. Add the cooked macaroni and stir. Transfer the mixture to a 2-quart casserole dish. Bake in a preheated 350-degree F oven for 20 minutes. Remove the casserole from oven, top with remaining 1/2-cup cheese. Bake for an additional 5 minutes until hot and bubbly.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

My notes: I like to use garlic salt in place of regular salt. I also add a squirt of yellow mustard for "color." For a twist, I sometimes substitute half of the cheddar with another good melting cheese.

Thalia's drawing of her favorite food

This is my kids' favorite comfort food that I make. It's a kid-friendly mac & cheese, unlike other recipes I have that call for cayenne pepper and other "exotic" ingredients. I have served it countless times ever since I got the recipe in 2004 at birthday parties, holiday celebrations and potlucks. Even the adults like it!

I also heart Tyler Florence! (Although I've noticed he's not as cute as he was in the Food 911 episodes due to the extra weight he's packed on since then. Occupational hazard, I'm sure.) Nevertheless, he's a great cook.

Hope someone else tries and loves this one too!