Deep Freeze

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

If the temperature shoots up to 90 degrees in San Francisco, we melt – so rarely are we hit with sweltering weather here. But everywhere else, it’s turning into a red-hot summer and food must accommodate.

I understand why they say eating spicy, hot foods will make you sweat and cool you down. But I don’t care. When it’s hot, I want something cold.

So I was thinking about those frozen bananas we used to make as kids in Hawaii. You’ve probably made them, yourself. You put a stick through a peeled banana , pop it in the freezer, and you have a healthy banana “popsicle.” If you want it fancier, you dip it in melted chocolate and refreeze. That’s the recipe.

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A Quick Chinese Meal

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

One of the first Chinese dishes I learned to cook was Ma Po Tofu. I was introduced to this recipe by my sister Judy, newly married to a young scientist from Taiwan and living in Berkeley, California.

Through the years, I’ve stripped down the recipe so it doesn’t require a trip to Chinatown for any special ingredients, making this dish a good dinner choice when you’re time-pressed and don’t know what to cook. You should be able to bring this dish to the table in about 20 minutes.

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What’s Cooking for the Fourth?

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

We’re not having a big cookout for the Fourth of July this year because there’s too much going on in our life right now. It will just be our family – Steve and me, Dave, Lynn and baby Tara, who, at five weeks old, makes up in entertainment what we lack in party size.

Still, I wouldn’t dream of letting the day go by without grilling some ribs and corn, cutting wedges of ice-cold watermelon and making a few sides. I’ve been going through our more than 500 previous Special Fork blog posts, looking for menu ideas, and I pulled these to consider for Thursday – you might like to try them, too.

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The Hakka Cookbook: Linda Finds her Roots

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Growing up, I used to think that Chinese cuisine was one monolithic cuisine – the kind that we got at the local Chinese restaurant. If I had just considered the size of China, both geographically and by population, I would have realized what a myopic view that was. Since then, more restaurants have sprung up and more cookbooks have been written to familiarize us with the regional cuisines of China.

But when my friend Linda Lau Anusasananan first informed me that she was Hakka, and she was writing a Hakka cookbook, I had no frame of reference to digest this bit of news. I knew Linda was Chinese American and grew up in Paradise, California. So where did Hakka fit in?

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Quick and Tasty Tofu

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

My friend Mary doesn’t like tofu. And I can understand why. I didn’t like it much as a kid, either. It’s pretty bland and tasteless. If umami expresses the savory quality in foods, tofu is the exact opposite, representing almost the absence of taste.

But hey, I’m not knocking tofu because I’ve really learned to like it. I like the silky type, mashed up with soy sauce and mixed with hot rice and a healthy sprinkling of sliced green onion. I like diced tofu in salad bars. And I like Sun-Dried Tomato and Walnuts Tossed with Penne, which, by the way, completely disguises the tofu “taste.”

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