Elmo Cupcakes for a Special Birthday

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

To me, a kid’s birthday cake is more about the decorations than the taste. As long as it’s chocolate and sweet, it passes muster. In more than three decades, I’ve made a number of birthday cakes for my boys—never apologizing for cake mix and canned frosting—during those busy, working mother years.

We’ve had Bert and Ernie cakes, a Cookie Monster cake and even a jail cake (decorated with gingerbread men prisoners in black stripes) the time we had Dave’s birthday party on Alcatraz.

Last year was my most ambitious birthday effort for my granddaughter: rubber ducky cupcakes from the book, What’s New, Cupcake?, by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.

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For the Grill: Vietnamese Pork and Lettuce Wraps

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

If you’ve followed Special Fork over the years, you know I’m not keen on Memorial Day being on the last Monday in May. Historically, it was observed on May 30, to honor our military war dead.

By giving us a convenient three-day weekend, Memorial Day has evolved into the kick-off to summer and a time for department store sales, instead of as a day to pay our respects to those who have given their lives in service to our country. As kids, our family always attended the solemn service at the Veteran’s Cemetery in Hilo, where each grave was honored with a small American flag and a fresh flower lei.

So today, we’ll visit the Golden Gate National Cemetery in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then we’ll fire up the grill.

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Cooking Fast: The Simple Joys of Ground Meat

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Special Fork is all about prepping a great meal fast, spending a maximum of 30 minutes prep time (cooking may be extra).

To get a quick meal to the table, we often turn to ground meats. No-prep, quick-cooking ground beef, pork and poultry (and occasionally lamb and bison) figure prominently in many of our Special Fork recipes.

Recently, some of our ground beef recipes were showcased in Ground Beef Cooking, a magazine by Harris Publications available at your supermarket checkout stand. The recipes, Dinner Baked Stuffed Potatoes by Lori Powell, Mexican Meatball Soup by Joy Liao and Andrew Hunter’s Moroccan Meatballs with Sautéed Carrots & Onions, were highlighted in a section on blogger contributions. We were thrilled to share in the national exposure.

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Adventures with Adobo

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

For the past 10 or so years, I’ve been tracking Filipino food, anticipating that it would get hot, as the numbers of people of Filipino heritage continued to grow in the U.S.

According to the Census Bureau, people from the Philippines now represent 4 percent of the overall U.S. foreign-born population, the fourth largest immigrant group behind Mexico (29 percent), China (5 percent), and India (5 percent).

In the past, I’ve queried Filipino chefs, curious to know why there weren’t more Filipino restaurants in this country, and they were hard pressed to determine why. One guess was that Filipino food was more about good home cooking than restaurant fare. Another theory was that it needed stronger support from the Filipino community. Whatever the reason, we’re finally starting to see Filipino food take the spotlight on the American culinary scene.

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A Healthy, Homemade Meal

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Last week when I was in Phoenix, I was excited to experience a healthy fast food restaurant concept from a local chain. The restaurant décor was bright, fresh and airy; the menu was inviting; and the service was warm and welcoming.

After such a promising start, the food turned out to be a disappointment. I ordered some mix-and-match small plates. The sesame soba noodles, the red chile-glazed sweet potatoes, and the quinoa and cauliflower tabbouleh all were drenched with sauces that competed with the natural flavors of the ingredients. In no time, my tongue was tingling from the sodium. Someone had used a heavy hand with seasonings in the kitchen that day. With less of everything, it might have been a fine meal.

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